Back in Ann Arbor

Last month I found myself back in Ann Arbor for a long weekend. Several college roommates and friends made it back to where we all met for a bit of golf and a few good times. We got an AirBnB right next to The Blind Pig/Circ/8-Ball. A great location to enjoy AA nightlife and relive some of our glory days.

We all arrived on Thursday. Some got in early enough to get hooked up with a tour of Schembechler Hall and Crisler Arena. I missed out on that. But once we all arrived, we proceeded around the corner from the AirBnB to Grizzly Peak for dinner. We all thought it wasn't as good as it seemed when we would pick it as the "fancy" place to have our parents take us when they visited us while we were in school. Afterwards, we drank at the AirBnB and then went to the 8-Ball for beer and darts.

The entrance to 8-ball saloon

I went to the 8-Ball a handful of times as a senior at Michigan. I didn't make it over to Main Street often while in school, but when I did, the 8-Ball was a place I liked to pop into. I always remembered it as a townie bar, and a little rougher one at that. Leather jackets and guys who had turned a wrench or two before. However, I didn't see too much of that this weekend. It was mostly college kids and no longer seemed like a bar for the working man anymore. Maybe those folks can't afford to live in AA anymore?

Friday morning we played the U of M Golf Course. We did a scramble, and the losing team had to pay for hibachi that evening. My team won, mostly because Zola decided to show up this trip, and it turns out he is an absolute stick, despite not having played for 2 years. I wasn't much of a golfer in college and had never played that course, but I really enjoyed it. It was so much more interesting than the other Alister MacKenzie course that I play regularly near my office in Sacramento.

Teeing off at the U of M Golf Course

After golfing we were going to go to a CIAYCELB (Cottage Inn All You Can Eat Lunch Buffet) but were dismayed to find out that Cottage Inn stopped doing their lunch buffet years ago. Instead, we decided to get some pepperoni styx from Charley's. On the way we decided to grab some sangria from Dominick's. We had the whole courtyard to ourselves. The place was pretty dead, which surprised me for 3 p.m. on a Friday.

We made it to Charley's for some snacks and a few pitchers of Labatt Blue. Charley's was also pretty quiet. From there we headed over to the Brown Jug for a Hairy Bitch. They were delicious as ever, but it was odd that there was nary a student in there, just a few older couples eating an early dinner. I know it was spring term, but even when I was a student there would usually be a bit of action at one of the campus bars on a Friday afternoon during the spring. And I know they weren't at the Blue Lep because that apparently had closed.

After leaving The Jug, I took stock of South U. All the small shops and little buildings had been replaced by mid-rises. From in front of the Raising Cane's at East U, all of South U looked like every other generic mid-sized American city. Middle Earth never stood a chance against the developers. We argued as we walked about where things used to be before it had all gotten bulldozed for fancy apartments catering to students who didn't want to have the college experience of living in a shit house with all their friends doing dumb shit and loving it.

Speaking of dumb shit - a polar bear fight

From there we went to the Garage Bar for a lively round of Polar Bear Fights, which I gladly refrained from. This led to one participant passing out at hibachi (the 2 sake bombs didn't help), which makes 2 golf trips in a row in which this person has passed out at a restaurant. After hibachi, we went to the Heidelberg for beer boots. The basement was basically empty, which is strange to me since the Heidelberg was always such a fun spot. Maybe it fell off once they stopped serving the free hot wings on Fridays.

Most everyone having a memorable time at Hibachi

From there we went to the Circ Bar, which everyone we talked to said was the place to be. I remember going into it once or twice when I was a student and it was called Circus Bar. I remember it being a kind of odd second-story circus-themed bar. I was a bit surprised it was still open. I was even more surprised that the place was packed. A few beers and games of pool later I was fading fast from 12+ hours of drinking, and things got a little fuzzy.

Saturday was the main event of the golf trip. My buddy Dan had worked a connection to get us onto Radrick Farms, which is the university-owned golf course that is just for regent and staff use. The course is a Pete Dye course set on the rolling hills just outside the city. It is a beautiful course and was an absolute gem to play. After sleeping in and a late breakfast at Fleetwood Diner, we headed over to the course for an early afternoon tee time. I didn't play my best golf, but I made 5 pars and broke 100. Not bad when going up against a Pete Dye course. I couldn't help but splurge a bit in the pro shop on some gear.

Radrick

By the time we got back to the AirBnB it was nearing time for dinner and we were all hungry. We had seen a Detroit pizza place on our way back from the course and headed over there. It was just us in the restaurant besides 1 guy at the bar in a bright red fishing vest. The bartender/server said he didn't even work there. He was an odd dude. But he got us drinks and our pizza, which was surprisingly good, although not good enough to attract a crowd on a Saturday night.

Then we headed over to Ashley's, which was pretty quiet. After a beer, everyone else headed back to Main Street. I decided to take a bit of a walk around campus. Maybe it was the alcohol, but it felt like a bit of a fever dream, where there were things I recognized but everything seemed wrong at the same time. South of Ashley's, where there should have been a Jimmy John's, was a Dunkin'. I walked down State Street towards my old house. I stopped to see what failing restaurant was at State & Packard and laughed when I saw the "Restaurant Space for Lease" sign in front of the business de jour which happened to be Pizza Cat Max. I continued down to my college house, but instead of it being there, there was a ginormous high-rise apartment building under construction in its place. Around the old neighborhood where there should have been house parties with beer pong in front yards, there was quiet. The houses were there, but the porches were devoid of life on a nice May Saturday night. Elbel Field had a dorm on it for some reason.

Where my old house was

I went into Campus Corner to pay my respects to Joe and saw that they didn't sell 40s of malt liquor anymore. Joe's nephew behind the counter said that after COVID the kids stopped drinking it, and they stopped stocking it. I stumbled out to the street wondering if kids were going through their entire college careers without drinking a single 40 of malt liquor. As I walked I remembered how the first time I ever got drunk in Ann Arbor was off a 40 of Mickey's. About how we would make brass monkeys with Olde English "800" my sophomore year. About sitting on the porch my junior year drinking Colt 45s. About senior year participating in the CSI (Camo Silver Ice) Challenge and coming in second place. These kids would never have the joy of cracking a 40 of malt liquor with their homies.

Olde English "800"

I continued walking, stopping in at the Union for a hearty poop (I still remember all my favorite dumping grounds on campus). Then I went to spin the cube only to realize that the Fleming Administration Building is now a grass field. I walked back, past the Original Cottage Inn, only realizing that it's no longer Cottage Inn and now just another pizza place. I walked past Pinball Pete's only to realize it was in the wrong spot too, and had probably been pushed out by some developer on South U.

I found myself very relieved as I walked back into the friendly confines of the 8-Ball Saloon to find my friends playing darts and drinking beer. It felt like my friends were still the same, even if the town had changed, and the college students had changed, and Cottage Inn had changed. We were still the same dumb kids, just stuck in 38-year-old bodies.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

For the second time in 3 years, and for the second time in 29 years Michigan is National Champions in Football or Basketball.

The nature of basketball and football has changed the way championships are won, with rosters being constructed out of NIL money -  especially in basketball. But I still believe there is some underlying force between past program success, fan commitment, player interest, booster money, and ultimately program success.

When asked, Dusty May first said this championships is for the past players, which is very admirable for a coach who has only been at the school for two seasons. But I couldn't agree more. This is for the guys who came in and gave their all, with no real hope of getting to the top of the mountain, but paved the way for the guys who came after them to keep inching closer. Two championship game losses in 2013 and 2018 made me really feel for the guys who came so close but didn't make it.

To the guys who bled for this program.

This championship goes out to these guys.

To the guys who I watched as an underclassman under Tommy Amaker:

Daniel Horton
Courtney Sims
Dion Harris

To the early Beilein guys who made the first NCAA Tourney in a decade:

DeShawn Sims
Manny Harris
Zack Novak
Stu Douglass

My post on attending that NCAA Tourney.

To the 2013 team that got so close:

Trey Burke

Glenn Robinson III

Nik Stauskas

Tim Hardaway Jr

Jordan Morgan

Caris LeVert

Jon Horford

Mitch McGary

Spike Albrecht

Win the game.

To the in-between guys who missed both championship runs:

Zak Irvin
Derrick Walton

To the 2018 who again got the to the championship game:

Charles Matthews

Jordan Poole
Zavier Simpson

Isaiah Livers

MAAR
Moritz Wagner

Jon Teske

Duncan Robinson
Eli Brooks

To the Juwan Howard Era Guys:
Caleb Houstan
Franz Wagner

Hunter Dickinson

I loved the guys on that 2018 team. Besides my love for Zack Novack, Stu Douglass and Jourdan Morgan, I wish that team could have won it all. 

I'm happy for this team, but I don't feel the same way for these players in particular. Besides L.J. Cason, Trey McKinney and Will Tschetter, it's all transfers. Most of these players came to Michigan because the money was good, and they thought they could win a championship here. But I love the guys who came here because they loved the University of Michigan, and gave it all out of love for their school. I realize that is a antiquated belief, but that's what makes college sports special to me.

But this team was truly special and was one of the best college basketball teams ever assembled. It was a joy to get to watch them in person in DC this February, despite losing a close game to Duke.

Go blue!

Sorry for any typos, the champagne has been flowing.

Loris "Sunshine" Caplan (1927-2025)

My grandmother, Sunshine died this fall at the ripe old age of 98. She lived a pretty incredible life, and she lived through some very interesting times.

She was born in Detroit at the tail end of the roaring twenties as the second eldest of four and the only girl. The daughter of a foundry foreman she spent her youth on the east side before relocating to the west side. Her house on the west side at 5756 Hamilton Ave. would eventually be torn down as part of the expansion of the Lodge Freeway. She grew up in a Detroit that was booming. It's population would double between 1920 and 1950 as it became the 5th largest and the wealthiest city in the country.

Graduating high school at the end of WWII, she enrolled first in Alma College in Alma, MI, and eventually graduated from Michigan Normal College (now Eastern Michigan) in 1949 after training to be librarian with a minor in spanish, a language which I never heard her speak. She would often tell of hitchhiking between Ypsilanti and Detroit.

Quiet possibly Sunshine in the Bookmobile

After college she began working as a librarian for the Detroit Public Library. She soon began working on the city's bookmobile riding around the city distributing books. She then began working as a research librarian at the GM Research Laboratory where she met my grandfather. She had turned down two marriage proposals from other suitors before eventually accepting my grandfather's hand in marriage. 

She chose wisely. Living first in an apartment near the GM research lab, they eventually moved onto a modest home on Derby road in Birmingham where they would have their children. Sunshine would settle into life as a 1950's housewife. Eventually as my grandfather rose the ranks within the GM research laboratory they would move to a more stately home at 2515 Covington Place. During these years I have to imagine they lived the stereotypical suburban life with sunshine rearing three daughters while my grandfather went off to work each day.

As her children got older she was able to travel more with my grandfather who often traveled for his work as the executive director of the GM research laboratory and as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. 

The only known picture of Sunshine wielding a machete. Taken at my place in Poulsbo, WA.
In the background is a picture of us, and a wooden box she gave me.

After my grandfather's retirement from GM in 1987 they downsized to a condo in The Heathers, less than a mile from when I grew up. This meant they were always around for birthdays and school plays. When my grandfather died in 1998, Sunshine became my only grandparent left, an honor which she would hold for another 27 years.  It was around this time that me and my siblings were getting old enough for our mother to let us ride our bikes alone to her house. In the summer we would often ride over to her house to play rummy, drink Big K pop and eat Drumsticks ice cream cones which I think she always kept in supply just for us. Otherwise her fridge was mostly empty as she would boast about making a Wendy's salad last for two meals. Not that she particularly needed to pinch pennies as the wife of an auto industry executive, but I think as a child of the great depression she always valued frugality. Those are some of my greatest memories of Sunshine.

Sunshine was always a big believer in a quality education. That shows in all three of her children graduating college and two of them getting advanced degrees. I think she was extremely proud when my siblings and I were inducted into the National Honor Society, got accepted into the University of Michigan, and graduated from college. She helped pay for all of her grandchildren's college educations.

Sunshine and I the night I found out I got accepted at U of M

She was also quite the traveller. I remember asking her if she was excited about visiting Russia on an upcoming trip and her response was that she'd already been there twice! Even after my grandfather died she travelled extensively with friends through her seventies.

In 2012, after spending her entire 85 years in the state of Michigan she moved to Pacific Palisades in California, right on the beach to be near my aunt. When my aunt moved to Tampa Bay a few years later she followed as well, spending the rest of her life in Florida, near where she and my grandfather had vacationed every winter after his retirement. She lived in a condo looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. When COVID hit, she hunkered down being at higher risk due to her age and being in Florida. It was during this time that her memory began to decline, which was a surprise to me since even in her early nineties she could remember little details of my childhood that I had long forgotten. Whether her memory loss would have happened at that age anyways, or if the prolonged isolation of COVID had something to do with it... who knows. But she spent her last few years in memory care before dying peacefully in her sleep.

Sunshine was a bit particular in some ways. She hated surprises. She also had a strong sense of what was prudent, and if you strayed from that she would tell you. She cared deeply about how she, and by extension her family, presented themselves. In later years she would talk to me often about the legacy of my grandfather, and his work. I think she really wanted us to know what a great man he was. She deeply loved her family, although she could seem ambivalent to her children's and grandchildren's partners. She also loved to tell me how proud she was of me and the person I became. That always meant a lot to me. She was someone I was very close to growing up, and I'll miss her always.

Going Out on Top

Two years ago Michigan won their first National Championship since 1997. I was in 3rd grade when they won in 1997 and not yet a huge college football fan. The 2023 Natty was the culmination of years of ups and downs and a long journey back to the promised land.

It was also the last real national championship before the sport changed forever. The opening floodgates of player payments, unbridled commercialization of the sport, free agency via the transfer portal, NIL collectives, additional TV timeouts, playoff expansion and private equity all have changed the sport to the point where it is vastly different than the sport I fell in love with as a kid. The sport where amateur athletes played for the pride of their school. Some of these changes - player compensation - were needed, however they still changed the sport.

When Michigan won their National Championship two years ago I told friends that I could ride this high for a decade, and even if they were bad for a long time, I could hang my hat on that one special year. I had seen friends who were Alabama fans win the National Championship and immediately start talking about if they could win another one next year. I'm not that greedy, and with that Natty came a deep exhale.

No longer does every game seem of critical importance. I still cheer, I still go to at least 1 game each year, and I still really enjoy us winning, but being a casual fan is so much more enjoyable. I no longer worry each offseason if our coach will leave, or if a player will transfer/go pro.

This step-back timed with the degradation of the sport overall has caused me to care less about the college football. I still watch a ton of college football, but with less intensity.

Tomorrow Michigan will take on Ohio State. The best rivalry in sports. And one that Michigan has won 4 in a row. Each of those wins were special with their own storyline, but this edition is is essentially the same story as last season with Michigan playing a spoiler. It would be fun to upset them again, but if we get beat by the better team it's not going to ruin my day.

We got to the top of the mountain just before it started crumbling. I don't care who is at the top of the rubble. 

Go Blue!

20 Years Since I Went off to College

20 years ago this week I moved into the dorms to begin college. It made me wonder what the 18 year old version of me would think about how my life unfolded over the next 20 years. But I'm not sure I was looking that far ahead at 18. I think my focus was on college and what came immediately after over where I would be at in life at 38. 

What an exciting time that was, and I have many fond memories of living in the dorms. When I lived in the dorms (or anywhere for that matter), I've always wondered about the people who lived there before me. So I decided to write a letter to the current residents and share with them my memories of living in the same 10x11 room 20 years before them.

September 1st, 2025

Dear residents of 4320 Elliot,

Congratulations on your matriculation to the University of Michigan.

20 years ago, I found myself in the same spot you are in today, residing in 4320 Elliot. I had roomed blind, and while my roommate and I soon realized that we wouldn’t be best friends, we got along just fine.

The rooms still had a landline phone in them which was wild even for 2005 since by then everyone had a cell phone. In 2005 only some rooms had modular furniture, so we had a company build a loft, which is what most residents did. Under the loft we had a futon. On the weekends my roommate would typically sleep on the pulled out futon with his girlfriend, while his friend who lived on north campus would sleep in his bed. 4 people in a 10x11 room was a tight squeeze.

My roommate, his girlfriend, and his friend in our room

There were a few events that year that I vividly recall. I was playing NCAA ’05 on Playstation 2 in the room next door and won on a fluke play. My friend who lived in the room ran out and kicked an air vent leaving a big dent. I’ve always wondered if that dent is still there. If so, that dent is my legacy.

In March of that year our RA was unjustly fired. Despite the residents’ efforts to come together and overturn this, we spent the last month without an RA, which certainly led to some chaos amongst the men of the floor.

No amount of Save Forest posters can redeem an RA who gave out their master keycard to a resident

On the weekend of St. Paddy’s Day several us of snuck a keg into the hall lounge that had been converted to a triple due to overcrowding in the dorms. When the RA showed up, instead of shutting it down and writing us up, he joined in for a few beers. I think this is when the hall really started gelling together.

On that topic, winter semester is when friendships started to really solidify. Fall semester was such a blur with meeting so many new people, football season, and then thanksgiving and finals. When I went home for winter break, I remember thinking that I had met tons of people but didn’t really feel like I had made any great friends yet. That all changed during winter semester when the cold & dark days of January and February meant a lot more hanging around Markley. Most people I know tend to agree that friendships were really made during winter semester.

Friendships in progress at 4230 Elliot

Many of the friends I made in Markley I still consider amongst my closest friends. Next weekend I’ll be meeting up with a bunch of them at the Oklahoma game and we’ll reminisce about our days in that crappy dorm. While you should study and make sure you get a good education, don’t forget to enjoy the social aspects of college. The friendships are what I cherish most from my time at Michigan.

Please do not feel the need to respond to this letter. It was mostly a self-serving endeavor.

Go Blue!

Brian Russell

Diversity

I’ve benefited tremendously from diversity throughout my life. I grew up in one town, a relatively affluent suburb of a city that had seen its share of racial conflict. Most of the kids in my Kindergarten class ended up graduating high school with me, and 98% of us went on to college. While my school classes growing up were mostly white, I’d estimate that my classes in school were 80% white, 15% asian and 5% black. Regardless of race, all of my classmate grew up in the same subdivisions, had parents with corporate jobs and had roughly the same experiences that I did. When you're a kid you don't think about racial diversity as much. I remember thinking that the white kid who moved into my neighborhood from Alabama was way more different than me than the black kid who lived in the next subdivision over and also loved the Lions.

It wasn’t until 7th grade when I became friends with Sagar who had just immigrated from India that I really knew someone with a vastly different upbringing than myself. As most would kids do, I peppered him with questions about what life was like in India. I'm sure some of my questions were ignorant, but through that friendship I learned about him, India and Hinduism. I've carried the benefit of that throughout my life whenever I've met someone from India.

 

When I was 15, I decided that I wanted to get a job. Some of my friends had jobs and I wanted some extra money beyond my allowance. My friend Kyle worked at a Quiznos Sub shop and put in a good word for me and got me a job. The staff there was about half high-school kids and half the type of people who had a career in fast food. The assistant manager was from the indigent suburb next to mine. She drove a beater, chain smoked and lived in a trailer. The manager and franchisee was a gay man who was worldly, smart, funny, and I can't leave out handsome. He encouraged me to go out and experience the world and not end up like Ryan, who had graduated from my high school 8 years earlier and was still living at home and working at a sandwich shop. This was really my first foray into spending serious amounts of time with people from a vastly different background than my own, but again I took something away from this. Mostly an empathy for the assistant manager whose close mindedness I attributed to her lack of opportunities for education and a general frustration with her own place in life.

 

In college I got a job as a bus driver. Much like working at Quiznos, the staff was half students and half career bus drivers. But the other drivers now weren’t all people who grew up in the same few towns. My co-workers spanned ages, religions, races and sexual orientations. It wasn't uncommon for the conversations in the break rooms to be about race or sexuality, and I took much away from this as well.

But nothing expanded my worldview as much as the course I took my senior year  called Intergroup Dialog. The point of Intergroup Dialog was to split up into groups of 10-12 students and meet each week to have a very deep discussion – typically about race, gender, or sexuality. The groups were divided up to be as diverse as possible across many different areas like religion, race, urban/rural/suburban, poor/wealthy. It was eye-opening to hear kids who grew up 10 miles from me in Detroit talk about how many of their high school classmates ended up getting shot or joining street gangs.

I think everyone in my group grew as a person during class, but none more so than a freshman who I'm pretty sure was named Kelly. Kelly had grown up in a tiny town in west Michigan. She was a petite blond girl, and in the cold months at the beginning of the winter semester she always wore her little silver cross necklace outside of her sweater. She was one of just a few kids from her graduating class to go to college. During conversations on race she was usually pretty quiet but eventually opened up near the end of the term.

 

She said that before taking this course she had never had a real conversation with a black person. Her only interaction with black people in her 19 years of life were as cashiers or as wait staff at restaurants. There were no black kids at her high school, and everyone she knew told her that she should be wary of black people and that they were dangerous. But as she had listened to the 4 black students in the group talk about their lives and experiences and as she got to know them she said that she realized that the things she had been told were wrong. She realized that the people back home who told her those things had probably never had a real conversation with a black person either. It was amazing to watch the fear that she had been conditioned with disappear over the course of the semester. All it took for her to change her views was getting forced to have a real conversation with someone different.

 

I was left wondering about all of her peers back home who didn’t go to college, and were likely going to spend their whole life on the same path she was on before taking this course. Those people will probably spend their whole life fearing people who are different and never getting the chance to have a conversation that could change that. And if that is the "liberal indoctrination" that some people accuse colleges of doing, I couldn't endorse it enough. I often think back to that course and I hope Kelly kept growing as a person.

 

I think being open to others and their life experiences has helped me tremendously throughout my career. When I worked for the Navy I worked with people from all sorts of backgrounds. The military really draws from a cross section of America, and even beyond. There are a surprising number of foreign born individuals in the Military, and working for the DoD. At one point my 7-person team had people born on 4 different continents. Being able to work successfully with people from different backgrounds and cultures is key, and the diversity of ideas and approaches to problems is a huge boon to the US Military. 

 

One of the best bosses I ever had was a Commander who was a black man from Tennessee. His Naval career had taken him all over the world. I asked him what he thought he would be doing if he hadn't joined the Navy. He said that he assumed that like his siblings he would have stayed in his hometown and probably would have never left the country. If we had each decided to stay within our safety nets or where we grew up, we would have never met.

I sometimes reflect on how common it must be to miss out on that diversity, like Kelly almost did. I think it’s very easy to grow up in a homogenous town, go to a local college made up of kids mostly from similar towns, and then move to the nearest big city and work with people who all went to universities in the surrounding states and all look, talk, think and act just like them. 

I also often think about Daryl Davis, and how through just befriending someone, he was able to convince them that their hate for him was misguided. All it takes is having a good conversation with someone different from you to grow into a more welcoming, better person. If it's that easy, shouldn't we all be doing it?

Different Mindsets I Suppose

My last post was an ode to my college house, and my college years still occupy a significant portion of my thoughts.

Earlier this week I met up with a college acquaintance for a drink and to catch up on life. we were talking a bit about Ann Arbor and what a great town it is. I asked him if he ever gets back to campus. He said he visited once a few years after graduation and hasn't been back in 15 years. I then asked him if he kept in touch with any of our mutual college friends. He said he hasn't talked to anyone from Michigan since he graduated. I was flabbergasted.

For me, college was such a formative and important time in my life that I'll cherish forever. For him, it was just 4 years of something he had to go through and walked away after graduation and never really looked back. Sometimes I wish i could be like him and not carry around this nagging nostalgia for those years, but then I shudder at the thought of just moving through life without the shared experiences to relive with life-long friends until we can't remember them anymore. What a pity that would be.

933 S. State Street

933 South State Street in Ann Arbor was the center of my college experience. This is the story of that house and my time there.
 
The house was built around 1910. For the first few decades of its existence, it looked right over the entrance to Ferry Field. Sitting on the front porch it would have been possible to hear the crowd cheer as Jesse Owens broke 4 world records in the span of 45 minutes in 1935.

This picture would have been from the driveway

1940 Census shows the house was occupied by the famed artist Carleton Angell who created many sculptures on campus and around Ann Arbor, including the famous Pumas flanking the entrance to the Ruthven Museum. He lived in the house with his wife Gladys and their three children.

A parade during WWI turning in front of the house

1950 Census lists Reuben Hartman, a bricklayer tender and his wife Gertrude, a waitress, as the occupants, along with 8 lodgers.
 
Sometime in the decades that followed the house began being rented exclusively to students. One time some guys from the class of 1982 came by and said they had lived there.
 
In 2001 a group of friends who lived there began the infamous BOX house along with some friends in nearby houses. The BOX house was founded on the principals of friendship and novelty. Very soon after the house earned a reputation on campus, which lead to ESPN the magazine including a write-up of the BOX house's famous keg rolling across State St. during football tailgates. The house was then passed down to new generations of BOX house inhabitants along with the traditions, stories and lore.

By the time I encountered the house it had been student-proofed. The original hardwood floors were replaced by white tile on the first floor and berber carpet upstairs. The kitchen had been renovated with builder-grade finishes. What originally was likely a single bathroom on the second floor was split in two and several vanities (pee sinks) added to bedrooms. The siding was white vinyl and the doors were hollow. Any trace of craftmanship was eliminated. The house itself was a dump, but the things that occurred there were the stuff of legend.

My first encounter with the house was at a party during my Freshmen orientation when I got so drunk on the front porch on a warm June night that I slept on a bathroom floor and missed signing up for classes the next day. When I came back to Ann Arbor in the fall I knew exactly where I would tailgate. While my dorm roommate spent his freshmen year football Saturdays as a servant to fraternity brothers that he was desperate to impress, I was immediately accepted in a wide friend circle, no doubt thanks to my older sister who was friends with everyone there.
 

Freshmen Orientation

During my sophomore year I lived in a house 2 blocks away from the BOX house. We would always tailgate at the BOX house, and during that fall the guys living in the house told me I should put together a group to rent the house since they were planning to graduate in the spring. So a few of my roommates and I put together a bit of a ragtag group to rent the house for my Junior year.
 

Tailgates are better with live music

In August 2007 I moved into 933 S. State Street and became part of the next generation to carry on the BOX house tradition. I lived in the back room on the third floor, and upgraded the futon I had my sophomore year for an actual bed. We had 6 guys and 2 girls in the house. Halfway through the year we picked up two more roommates when Brick and Andy were thrown out of their frat and moved into tents in the unfinished basement.

6 of 8 of the 2007 crew before Brick and Andy moved in

The following year was my senior year and the two girls and two of the guys moved out. The two basement dwellers moved into rooms and Paul, Matt and Zola moved in. Zola did a "pledge semester" in the basement, and then moved into a room for winter semester. Matt dropped out of college in the fall and for most of the year we had 9 guys and one hamster inhabiting the house. It was a raucous environment where people would just show up to hang out at any given time. The tailgates that fall were some of the most fun days of my life.

The house oozed patriotism

Living at the BOX House carried with it a certain cachet on campus. Most of the student body was aware of the house and our tailgates. I’d say that more than once I told a girl that I live in the BOX House and she suddenly found me more interesting and/or disgusting. It seemed like everyone had a story about the house.

We may have made this one up

If they hadn’t been there personally they may read about the house as we were mentioned on MGoBlog, College Humor, and a write-up in the Michigan Daily. After I moved out in the summer of 2009 the City Attorney for Ann Arbor sent us a Cease and Desist letter to the house to try and stop the tailgating that they said had gotten out of hand. This lead to some bemoaning in the media and student led protests of the city’s attempts to limit tailgating.
 
While my time in the house had ended, several of the underclassmen roommates continued to live at 933 and then next door at 1001. The BOX house carried on until eventually there was no one left to carry on the tradition and the house reverted back to a regular student house. With that, the BOX house was no more, but the physical house remained.

The house in 2018

When would think about the things I would do if I won the lottery, I always liked to daydream about buying the BOX house and turning it into the most incredible student house. I’d open up the first floor to a big open space with couches and TVs, I’d build bigger porch and 2^nd story deck above, install a great sound system and generally nicer finishes. I’d then rent it out way below market value on the condition that they always host a great tailgate that me and my friends could join in at. That was my dream, but it will never happen.

The house is now fenced off and slated for demolition along with the houses to the north up to Packard. The city has approved a 14-story high-rise between State and Packard and these houses are all being demolished. The front porch where I spent so many hours will be gone, the living room where I watched countless hours of Gettysburg will be no more, the bedroom where I studied and had other significant life experiences will also disappear. In its place only the memories will remain until they too will be forgotten.

The house prior to demolition

 
But I’ll cherish the memories, and wanted to write down some of my favorites since that will leave this on a happier note:
 
Favorite Tailgate Traditions:
Du Hast
We would always start a tailgate Saturday by setting the house sound system (my childhood Gateway computer with WinAmp connected to speakers) to play Du Hast at 5:30 in the morning to wake up the residents, any overnight female guests and half the neighborhood.

Tailgate

Thunderstruck
I think this has gained in popularity in the past 15 years, but the BOX house was well known for circling up when Thunderstruck came on to take turns drinking at each mention of the word “Thunder”.
 
Keg Laps
Typically the Keg was on the porch, so a common game was to drink directly from the key and then run across State St., then across Hoover Ave., and then back across State St before running up the steps and kicking the keg. Miraculously I never saw anyone get hit by a car, but there were some very close calls.

Ann Arbor's finest multi-level tailgate

The Field Goal
Another fun tradition was going out in the street during a tailgate and trying to kick a field over the metal arm holding up the traffic lights. I usually was the holder, and then a few students would be on the other side of the light to return the kick. If it went over the metal arm the whole street would cheer the successful kick. An important thing to note is that we did this in traffic, usually before the cops would come and start directing traffic around 10am.
 
Keg Rolling
Only the most skilled could logroll their keg across State Street, turn it around and roll it back without falling off. I could never do it, but damn if I didn’t try. By the end of tailgate season we would have 20ish empty kegs in the basement so there were plenty of opportunities.
 

Keg Rolling

Favorite non-tailgate traditions:
Fall Foliage Month
During the fall, I think usually in September someone would declare that it was Fall Foliage Month and then we would go out and collect leaves and branches and in one case an entire tree and drag them into the living room. It really spruced up the place for a few weeks.

Fruit in the Street
This was one of the best activities in the house. We would take all the rotten, uneaten fruit from the kitchen/fridge and put it in the middle of State Street. Then we’d sit on the porch and wait for cars to hit it. It was truly joyful game. Eventually the game branched out and the definition of fruit expanded to any food or destroyable items. When the question of “wanna play fruit in the street?” was raised, I never recall anyone ever saying no.
 
Gettysburg
The movie Gettysburg played on constant repeat in the house on a TV dedicated to playing Gettysburg.

Your intrepid author

Hey Ya!
Anytime the song Hey Ya! came on during a party or tailgate everyone in the house would run out to the street for an impromptu street dance party.

Drunkest Man in America
At any given time, someone holds the title of Drunkest Man in America, there was a good chance that man resided in the BOX house, so after a trip to Goodwill there was always someone in possession or challenging for the title of Drunkest Man in America. When the trophy would inevitably get destroyed, we would take another trip to Goodwill.

A typical representation of earning the DMIA title

The Masters/Old Crow Challenge
During the Masters the house would hold an annual beer can golf tournament and try to drink as much Old Crow as possible. There was probably more to it than that, but I was pretty drunk for the whole thing on account of the Old Crow.
 
Friendsgiving
Each fall before departing Ann Arbor to return to our families for Thanksgiving we would host a Thanksgiving dinner for all our friends. We would dress up, and people actually worked hard to prepare a legitimate Thanksgiving feast. It might have been the most “real-life” think we did. But it was always fun and probably the classiest think that we would do.

Christmas Party
The BOX House Christmas Party was always a great way to end the Fall Semester. Besides tailgates, it was probably the most packed the house would get. When Zola lived in the basement he reported that the floor joists would bend and creek with the weight of 100 people on the first floor.
 

All dressed up

Christmas Party

Etcetera
So many little memories. Playing drinking games, Paul’s feud with the street sweeper, watching girls come down the stairs on a Sunday morning looking very confused, Paul’s eating challenges, the house hamster, drinking challenges, and playing through. Many of those small memories are documented by the BOX House blog at https://boxhouse933.blogspot.com/

I'll miss this shithole deeply

A Theory on on Gen Z fashion

Fans of the blog will know I think much of the UC Davis student body is extremely lame. In my first post on UC Davis I declared that the student body were total nerds. In my second post, I posited that perhaps they are lame because their generation as a whole don't know how to party.

The past week I was riding my bike through campus and it was freshmen orientation, so large groups of freshmen were being toured around in groups. It made me remember being a college freshmen and how going to college was a chance at a fresh start with all new people, and wanting to fit in and make friends. I knew that my first impression with my college peers was important in doing so.

However, as I rode past these kids I was a bit amazed that the outfits they were wearing were just all over the place. Like there was no overarching style or even a hipsteresque ironic approach to fashion. It was like they were given a random grab-bag from the thrift store and said "yeah, this looks good on me".

Given how disparate the apparel choices were it made me realize that there doesn't seem to be any style trends that exist in Gen Z. When I was young I think we realized the trends that were in place, and I'd say most people in school generally tried to follow the conventional wisdom of what was stylish at the time, or had defined alternate styles like the goths and hipsters. Gen Z seems to be all over the map, or simply doesn't care about following any trends in fashion. Billie Eilish is probably one of the most famous Gen Zers and her style is so extremely broad that it's almost impossible to define or even mimic.

As I rode I wondered why this might be. When I was a kid we got our style cues from a very homogenized media ecosystem where MTV and The OC told us what was cool. Now media is much more disjointed with a myriad of TV shows, Twitch streamers, indie movies, Tik-Toc trends and influencers. So it makes sense that kids may dress like their favorite influencers or base their fashion choices on an esoteric TV show that very few other people follow. 

I also wonder how much Covid had to do with things. These kids would have missed out on chunks of their freshmen and sophomore years of High School. After a year and a half of virtual learning maybe they came back and what you wore didn't matter anymore.

Every decade seems to have some defined styles associated with it. You can look at a picture of a group of high schoolers and easily tell if it's from the 70s, 80s, 90s or aughts (shoutout to cargo shorts, polo with a popped collar, puka shell necklace and upside down visor). But I wonder if it will still be that obvious for gen Z. It seems like it's not specific trends coming back en masse ala Ugg Boots, but rather every trend ever coming back in a fraction of Gen Z all at the same time. Which honestly must really take the pressure off these kids since everything is cool and everyone looks so uncool.

Things to Consider when Picking a President of the United States

My initial foray into writing about politics occurred when I was 17 and I wrote an opinion piece in my high school newspaper before the 2004 election. In that piece I opined that the election didn't seem as dire as people were making it out to be and that "both candidates would essentially do the same thing if elected". By which I meant that it did not seem like a clash of ideologies, and that neither of the old white guys running seemed markedly different. Kerry made the election about how we shouldn't have gotten into the Iraq War (which he voted for), but didn't say that he would immediately stop the war if elected. Both candidates opposed same sex marriage. It didn't really seem like either one would take the country on a significantly different course.

While I took a lot of flak for it at the time - mostly from teachers - looking back 20 years later I stand by it. Bush vs. Kerry was not a fight for the soul of the country, and the ideological divide of that election seems so small compared to today.

As we gear up for another election it seems that the economy may be at the forefront of this matchup.  Recent high inflation, high interest rates, and high housing costs have most voters focused on which candidate will be better for the economy. This is incredibly stupid.

The economy is the thing the President has the least control over. It's not like the President walks into the Oval Office on Monday morning and sets the price of gas, the value of the stock market and the cost of rent. The President can't issue an executive order to create 200,000 jobs. The economy goes in natural cycles, and if you think politicians are responsible for when economic bubbles burst or deserve to take credit for boom periods, that ain't how it works. 

Oil is a global commodity, so if you think the President can significantly change the price you pay at the pump, you're a moron. Sure there are some levers the president can pull, like adjusting gas taxes and energy policy, but that pales in significance to things like global demand for oil and OPEC production. 

Here's the other thing about the economy... there is no debate about the direction we should take the economy, everyone wants low unemployment, cheap food, good jobs, low inflation, so then it's about which politician's plan is the best way to go about achieving those things, but even economists disagree about how effective those plans are, so nobody really knows who has the better plan. Even if those plans work, they oftentimes take years to have an impact, so by the time they do, that President has probably left office. I suspect the previous President has more impact on the economy than the current President does.

I think people should spend more time weighing their vote on things the President actually does control. The area the president has the most control in is Foreign Policy. That is almost entirely under the purview of the president as head of the executive branch. The issue is that foreign policy seems to have the least impact on people's daily lives. Unless the president is starting WWIII, most people don't seem worry much about foreign policy. But a Presidential Candidate should be judged on their understanding of the nuances of diplomacy and how well they would work with other world leaders.

The second area to consider is domestic policies. The president has more control in this area than the economy, but since most domestic policies require congress to enact there is less power here unless the president's party also controls congress. However, these also impact American's daily lives more than foreign policy. A candidates approach to healthcare, education, benefit programs, etc. should probably be the driving factor for most people.

The last area that I think is useful to consider is how the candidate would perform leading a large and complex organization. The president is essentially the CEO of the country and needs to do many of the things a CEO does, like hire subordinates, budget, set strategic vision, improve government operations. This one might matter to me more because I work for the executive branch, but I think running the government is an often overlooked aspect of picking a President. This is one of the reasons that I thought Mitt Romney would have been an effective president. His career as a management consultant and then CEO of Bain & CO, followed by essentially saving the 2002 winter Olympics, then as a Governor leading a state seemed like a great resume if you're looking for someone who would be a competent executive in large complex organizations. 

This area would probably also cover how they would respond to an unforeseen crises. No one voted in 2000 based on who would be better at responding to a terrorist attack, and no one voted in 2016 on who would better handle a global pandemic. But invariably these crises come up, so I try to think about which candidate would better handle a true nationwide emergency.

So to sum it up, in my opinion you shouldn't vote based on "who is better for the economy", but vote based on domestic policy positions, understanding of foreign policy and diplomatic relationships, and lastly on how they would be as an executive running a vast and complex organization.

New Orleans - An American City Unlike Any Other

I just returned from a some-expenses paid work trip to New Orleans, a city I hadn't been to since my bachelor party in 2015, but a city that I really enjoy visiting.

The main thing I love about New Orleans is that it holds a uniqueness that is sadly missing in many American cities. Most American cities are everchanging landscapes following the latest in value-engineered building trends. Most big cities start to look generally the same. But not New Orleans. 

I've always posited that if I fell asleep and work up in New Orleans that I would instantly know exactly what city I was in (San Francisco would also fare well in this exercise). It has held onto its history better than nearly every other city I've visited, and that historic architecture is generally unique for American cities. The number of pre-revolutionary war buildings and pre-civil war buildings in New Orleans must be unmatched in the USA.

This trip I was able to spend some time in the Garden District and it was such a delight to walk around that neighborhood. From the mansions to the shotgun shacks, some beautifully restored some in a more dilapidated state, but all held beauty and charm, with nary a modern McMansion in sight. I also quite enjoyed hanging out in Igor's on St. Charles street drinking $2 Miller High Life and watching the Olympics on a steamy Louisiana afternoon.

A house in the garden district

That leads to the other reason I like New Orleans, it's a great drinking town. Of course things get skewed with Bourbon St. which is a fun time unto itself, but there are many great bars all around the town. Most of those bars are in old buildings, which I love. I spent a long time chatting with the owner of one of my favorite Bourbon St. Bars, Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, and he told me about the history of the building going back to the 1720s - and they still don't have lights!

I'm not sure the next time I'll be making it back to New Orleans. I'd still really like to go to the WWII museum, and explore a few other areas outside of downtown/garden district. Unfortunately nearly every local I talked to said unsolicitedly that the city seems to be going in the wrong direction. This was confirmed for me when I looked up the population losses and crime rate. I felt that a little bit from the last few times I visited, but chalked some of that up to being there midweek during the summer. It felt a little dirtier, and a little rougher around the edges, and the sidewalks were atrocious. I'm amazed the city isn't getting sued every day by people being injured on the sidewalks. Hopefully the city will continue to attract visitors to enjoy one of my favorite places to walk around with a beer in the US.