From Simple Blogger to Published Essayist

For the first time since he wrote for the high school newspaper your humble correspondent has again been published. Sure, I've been the subjects of numerous crime notes, and even done my fair share of local news interviews; but to have your writing published by a respectable media outlet, and not some filthy self-published blog is the epitome of greatness. Especially when you're a third rate writer.

An excerpt of my 3,500 word essay on the history of the Navy Fleet Ballistic Missile was published by the United States Naval Institute Proceedings. They were more focused on the portion where I suggested how the successes of Fleet Ballistic Missile could be applied to the modern Navy. As a result they glossed over the other 2,000 words about the fascinating development of the weapon system. I originally submitted the essay into a Naval history essay contest where it finished 7th out of 170 entries.

If you're interested, you can read the excerpt here until the link breaks in a few years.

Burning Man

I recently did something cool. I went to Burning Man.

My wife and sister went last year, and after they came back they wanted to go again. I was on the fence for awhile about joining them since I didn't think it was my scene. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn't close my world off to potentially amazing experiences because they don't fit my preconceived notions I have about what I think I like to do. So I went, and I'm glad I did.

Looking good!

The past few months were spent gathering supplies, making costumes, and preparing for a week of radical self-reliance. Since nothing is sold at Burning Man (except coffee and ice), you have to bring everything with you and plan to take it back out with you (except pee and poo). After plenty of prep we began the long drive up to Sacramento to drop off the progeny with her grandparents. Then we drove through Reno and turned north towards the barren dry lake-bed that gets turned into the most creative city in the world for one week a year.

Our house for the week

We arrived during a brutal dust storm and after 6 hours of waiting made it to our camp. We camped with a group camp that my sister & wife had been a part of. It was a pretty eclectic group, but everything about burning man seems to be built upon eclecticity (and not electricity, since there is no power).

Out on the playa

The cool part of the event is that everyone does something unique and creative, and it's all done as a gift to the community. Some Canadians put up a street hockey rink for anyone to come play. Another camp brought trampolines to jump on. There was a bike repair camp, a camp that gave out poutine at midnight, a camp that would take glamour shots of your genitals and hundreds more. They pretty much had it all. And there was no shortage of camps that ran bars and were out in the dusty streets recruiting people to partake in all the booze you could guzzle.

Nighttime on the playa

While wandering the various camps was fun, the real joy was going out into the desert where the Man is and so are all the great art installations. At nighttime the the barren desert becomes awash with neon lights, thumping beats, bikes and art cars which are almost impossible to tell they were at one time vehicles.

One of the art cars

The amassing of so much culture and art, with an expectation of it being all temporary and there to be experienced made me really see why immediacy is such an important component of the event. I really tried to embrace as much of the event as I could, and try some things I've never done (I went rock climbing!), do some things that were right up my ally (the canned fish/meats symposium was terrific!), and still avoided other events (shoving guacamole ingredients up your butt and pooping out fresh guac - I'm not making that up). I guess I have a reason to go back.

4.5 Years in San Diego

I've now lived longer in San Diego than I did in either Ann Arbor or Washington State. I'm pretty well settled in here, with a house, family and job I enjoy. I now own enough stuff that moving to a new place doesn't sound fun, and I've spent so much time getting our house the way we want it. Plus, it's hard to think of a better place to live.

There is a map of the USA that hangs above our table at home. It's a map I used to look at for hours at a time as a kid. A few years ago my wife took it from my parents house and had it framed for me as a gift. Sometimes I look at it and think of all the interesting places there must be to live, and how that might change depending on the phase of your life.

Most of the people I work with are in the Navy and move around every 2-3 years. It would be fun to live in Hawaii, Key West, Guam, Japan or Italy for a few years, but maybe not a place I'd want to homestead.

Growing up in the Midwest I always wanted to live by mountains and water. I always envied the small town that my Dad grew up in but I wouldn't want to be more than a few hours from a major city. Having an decent sized airport close-by seems important. It would be nice to live in a town with some charm, or better yet, a college town. I don't want to live in a place that gets too hot and humid, or that has a long and cold winter. It can't be too expensive either.

San Diego does pretty well by those standards, although the traffic and cost-of-living aren't great. My former town of Poulsbo, WA also checks many of the boxes, as does Ann Arbor. Davis, CA and San Luis Obispo, CA where my wife has lived are both pretty good too. It's likely that the perfect place isn't one of the places my wife or I have ever lived.

My parents have spent the last 10 years halfheartedly looking for a place to retire to. Their criteria is quite different from mine, but I think they enjoy checking different places out in their quest to find the right one. I think it's a fun thing to think about, even if you like where you live. I like looking at the map and thinking about it.

The John Beilein Era

I remember when Michigan fired Tommy Amaker. I was very conflicted. I thought the program's best hope was with signee Manny Harris, and without Amaker I wasn't sure he would follow through with his commitment. It was dire times, as Michigan was still lost in the woods following the crippling self imposed sanctions that Amaker had to coach through.

I also really respected Tommy Amaker. I liked his demeanor and ability to sell Michigan to recruits given our performance at the time. My respect for Tommy grew even more after he showed up at the U of M bus depot after the 2006-2007 season - at a time when he knew he wasn't going to be around long - and handed out Michigan Basketball T-shirts to the bus drivers for helping support the program throughout the year. (we often drove charters for the team).

When Beilein took over for the 2007-2008 season I was a Junior, and it was a rough season - most losses in Michigan history. When big-man Ekpe Udoh transferred after that first year, and other big-man Ron Coleman graduated, it looked like Michigan was in for years of rebuilding going into the 2008-2009 season. No one really thought much of the recruiting class of Ben Cronin, Stu Douglass and Zack Novak.

I didn't go to many basketball or hockey games my first two years at Michigan. I regret not finding Hockey sooner. The games at Yost were magical, and as a junior and senior I found out that I lived close enough to walk the half-block to my house and drink 3-5 beers during intermission and walk back in with the smokers. Basketball on the other hand wasn't as magical. Games my Sophomore and Junior year were dredges. Crisler Arena was a long walk, and the product was not fun. The one benefit was that unlike hockey, you could get into Basketball games with just your M-Card to some games and walk right down to the Maize Rage section. That's how little support there was.

The 2008-2009 basketball season was unforgettable. I remember when Michigan snuck into the tourney as a 10 seed for the first time in a decade. The sentiment from the students was "who knows when this will happen again?" The guys we would pre-game and go to the game with decided it we had to go to the tourney.

*I started to write about the unforgettable tourney experience, but then remembered that I had blogged about this 9 years ago. So I went back a read it, and it matched my recollection pretty well.

Hindsight is what it is, but a decade ago, I would never have imagined the heights that Michigan Basketball would reach over the next 10 years. I quickly came around enough this team that I was willing to put $40 on Michigan to in the National Championship in 2013 before the season started. That was still when Michigan wasn't expected to be a contender, and the odds reflected that. It'll be awhile before Michigan is back under 40:1 odds for a title.

I think it's about time I throw away that old Tommy Amaker shirt. I might need a new one.

Hello 31!

Yesterday I turned 31, and after a few calculations I realized that it's been 10 years since I turned 21. Then I went on a trip down memory lane, and remembered going out on my 21st birthday and people buying me terrible shots at Charley's. Then I remembered I blogged about it and I went back and re-read the blog about my 21st birthday, which was in my most prolific blogging era. Then I had to go to the Charley's website to look up what is in a Hairy Gorilla Fart.

But that aside, I've updated my annual birthday message chart.

- Overall my numbers aren't great this year. It's the lowest amount of FB happy birthday posts I've received since I've been keeping track (excluding the infamous 2011 birthday snafu). 27 posts is not good.
- I suspect part of the issue is that it was a Monday, and people are probably too busy being grump-a-dumps on Mondays to wish people happy birthday. Last year I teased adding the day of the week to the chart. It's here now!
- My total number of friends has dropped 5% form last year, but my total number of FB messages plummeted 25%. I don't think it's just the Monday effect. I anecdotally suspect people are using facebook less and less, and therefore my numbers will probably continue to decline in the future to the point where this post is just too sad to write.
- Keeping with the tradition of the past few years, I'll continue to tease a new feature for next year. Next year will be a TRENDLINE!!!!!! Will it me a moving average, linear, or logarithmic? Check back next year to find out!
- It was a good year for calls, I doubled my average of 2 per year. It was a bad year for Snapchat (0), Twitter (0 again), and other social media platforms (0).
- I have bittersweet news on the double Rachel Morgan front. I was very excited to get facebook posts from BOTH Rachel Morgans. BUT, in the past year both Rachel Morgans in my life have gotten married, so now neither one is a true Rachel Morgan, and the suspense of which Rachel Morgan wished me Happy Birthday is no more. But congrats to all the Rachel Morgans out there for finding your special someone.
- After five years of reliably being called a fartface, I was not called a fartface this year. It was a true birthday snub.
- In even more depressing news, after definitively calling out Ray Smith as a Happy Birthday fraudster and vowing not to mention him again, he doesn't wish me happy birthday. So has it been legit the whole time? Is he reading this? If so, I need to know the truth. It's killing me Ray!

Until next year!

More travelin'

Word up.

I'm back. Being blogger and rad dad at the same time is hard. So I had to give up being a blogger for a bit. 

Life's been swell. Got a new roof on the house, so that's good. Solid holidays and all that. 

In the meantime I did some more traveling. In December I went back down to the jungle of Peru for work. It was more magical the first time. 

People ride motorcycles through the flooded streets of Puerto Maldonado

Then last month I went to Singapore, Cambodia and Okinawa.

Singapore has cool beer, which is nice on a warm day.

Singapore totally lived up to the hype. Everything is pristine, no litter, amazing public transit. Even away from the touristy areas downtown it's still extremely clean and orderly. The food was really cheap, and it's nice that everything is in English. Unfortunately I missed meeting my sisters there by about a week. My buddy Ryan did a jaywalk!

Singapore also has cool architecture

Cambodia was a polar opposite. Anything goes, especially when it comes to traffic. Don't like traffic, just hop your motorcycle up on the sidewalk. Any place with $1 beers is an immediate like for me.

This guy in Cambodia really loves green onion

This guy was delivering ice from a big block in the back of his truck

New places are fun, but going back to Japan is nice since I feel like I've been there enough to know what to expect and how things work (except pachinko). I'm a bit of a pro at the sushi go-round. I even learned to skateboard while I was there!

On top of an old castle in Okinawa

Getting paid to travel is still awesome, but it's hard to be away from home for long. Until next time...