The Championship Post That Wasn't

I spent the last few days thinking about what I would post if Michigan won the National Championship. By the time Michigan was up 1 at halftime I had a pretty good outline of what I was going to write.

I was planning to start with my own history with Michigan BBall during my college years and talk about how I suffered through the Amaker era. I wanted to touch on how during the 2007 season I could just show up to games, flash my MCard and walk down into Maize Rage without a ticket.

I'd tell some of the stories too. About how in 2008 I bet my best friend that we wouldn't be a top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament for the next two years (a bet which I won by the way). How in 2009 Penn State filed a formal complaint with the Big Ten regarding my behavior at one of the games. I wanted to write about how I went down to Crisler in 2009 to watch Michigan get a 10 seed in the selection show and then skipped two days of class to go watch the opening round of the tournament it Kansas City because "who knows the next time Michigan will make the tourney"? It wouldn't all be fun though, I wouldn't overlook having to watch Michigan get bounced out in the first round of the 2012 tourney in Nashville (which I didn't blog about because it was also a bachelor party).

I really wanted wax poetic about the journey the program made between 2008 and now. I wanted to write about Manny Harris, DeShawn Sims and how much hope we had for Zack Novak and Stu Douglass. Then I would transition into how Zack and Stu would have Vogrich type roles with the talent we had on this year's team.

My big gamble would be the centerpiece of the story. About how I was so sure this would be a special team with Trey Burke back that I bet $40 Michigan would win it all before the season began. Yeah, it would be hard not to brag about "calling it" and collecting my $1,000 at the 25:1 odds I got back in September. I'd probably also brag about how my Yahoo bracket of Michigan beating Louisville in the finals put me in the top tenth of the 99th percentile instead of sitting at 88th percentile. I'd ensure the reader that I was never off the bandwagon.

Instead I'm left thinking of all these things, but surprisingly not being that upset (except about all the stupid things I could have spent that grand on). I'm still really proud of how far this team has come since I started going to games in 2007, and I'm even more proud of where this team is going. I'm more excited for the future than nostalgic for the past which has become an ever increasing rarity for me.

Go Blue.

"Happy Bday Bruss"

In what has turned into a very sad yearly exercise for the blog I now present my annual gripe about the number of birthday Facebook posts I receive. I've updated the chart from the 2011 post to now reflect the last two years worth of data.

Birthday Facebook Wall Posts by Year

So I'm back up to my historical averages, and I've officially attributed 2011's pathetic haul to a fluke that hid my birthday on Facebook. But that does provide insightful data that only about 6 people remember my birthday without the help of Facebook  In addition to the wall posts, I got 3 emails, 1 Google chat status, 4 text messages, 2 phone calls and 1 card. The winner of best text message goes to my sister Laura who sent me "Birthday Boy!!" continually throughout the day at perfect 2 hour intervals.

Unfortunately there was no post from Mr. Ray.

This post title is from the hands-down most common facebook post I received  although a younger me would have gone with the exceptional "Happy Birthday Fart Face" from my friend Beth.

Moving Again

Last Thursday night I finished moving for the 9^th time in the last 8 years. My favorite move was when I moved from State and Arbor to State and Hoover in college. The entire move was only about 200 yards, and I took most of my stuff to the new house via my childhood wagon. An amusing aside, while moving my clothes a cop pulled over my wagon and searched it thinking I was hiding a keg underneath the clothes.

The new house with the Jeep

I lived in my last residence for 2 and a half years, the longest I’ve lived in the same place since I moved out of my parents house when I was 18. It was a perfect townhouse for someone coming out of college and wanting more space than an apartment, but not ready for a house.  My roommate on the other hand is 4 years older than me and ready for the house. After much procrastinating he bought a house a few miles away from where we lived. It has a lot more space, an acre of land and a garage. It's not the house I would have bought, but he seems happy with the purchase. It means that I can no longer walk downtown or to the post office. It also means that I had to move from a large bedroom with its own bathroom and walk-in closet to a much smaller room with a shared bathroom and no walk in closet.  But the rent I’ll be paying to my roommate is such a good deal, that it wasn’t worth it to move somewhere else or pay rent in the townhouse by myself.

I spent the last two weeks slowly moving things from one house to the other. I went up to Mt. Baker last weekend so I had to do most of the moving during the weeknights. It really made me think about the things I need vs. the things I have.  It went from things I needed for the next 2 weeks, to things I needed for the next few days, to the next night, to the next couple hours. I eventually went full opium den with just a mattress, computer, change of clothes and a towel.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be living in this house. It’s not exactly where I envisioned myself spending my middle 20s. I realized just how much stuff I have that I don’t need and I’m considering just keeping some of that stuff packed away unless I need it. On one hand, it’s nice accumulating the stuff that you always wanted but on the other it’s relieving being able to live with just what you need and little more. In college I only owned what I could fit into a bedroom and moving was easy. Those days are gone and every move I make from now on is going to be a pain in the buns.

My 1984 CJ-7

I really enjoy my Camaro. It's a great car and is fun to drive. But it has a few drawbacks that doesn't make it the ideal vehicle for every situation. Firstly, it's quite enclosed so on nice days it is hard to enjoy the sun while driving. Secondly, it's a rear wheel drive vehicle that doesn't do so well in the snow. I found this out the hard way in December when we received a couple of inches and my Camaro got stuck in the lot at work for a few hours.

So I decided to purchase a second vehicle that would be fun to drive in the summer and could go places the Camaro couldn't. After looking around for awhile I bought a 1984 CJ-7 from a guy on Craigslist. He had just finished completely redoing the body and had done some work on the interior.

This is the only picture I have of her, since she has mostly been in the garage.

Part of the reason I chose to buy such an old jeep and not like a 90's Wrangler is that I wanted something I could work on. I was looking for a vehicle that I could also spend some time fixing up. Since body work is not my forte I was glad that this jeep was freshly painted.  Buying a 30 year old vehicle that has 113k miles on her means there will pretty much always be stuff to do.

I realized exactly how soon I would have to start working when I started driving it home from Olympia and she died on the way and couldn't get started again. Job-1: Purchase and install a new battery. From there she did fine on the highway home until I got to a red light where the engin would stall every time the vehicle came to a stop. I eventually got her home after a very long trip, but Job-2 was to disassemble and clean the venturi assembly in the carburetor and reset the mixture screws to the manufacturers specs.

Last week I attacked some of the electrical problems. The tach, fuel gauge and radio were all dead and a ground somewhere was constantly draining the battery. Job-3 was the fuel gauge where the fix was as simple as finding and connecting the right wires. Job-4 was the tach which was hard wired to the battery for some reason. Job-5 was the most important, finding a live wire to connect power to the radio which for some reason had been cut.

This week Job-6 was replacing a dried and leaking gasket on the 258 straight 6 valve cover which took the better part of two nights. It would have been an easier job if there wasn't a stupid bolt in the 3/4 of an inch between the valve cover and the firewall.

Right before putting the valve cover gasket on

I also had the enjoyment of registering the vehicle and paying the absurd WA state use tax, which requires people to pay sales tax on things they buy from other private citizens. So if I bought an Xbox on craigslist or scalped some concert tickets, I as supposed to pay the state 9.8% of the purchase price. Obviously no one does that but when it comes to vehicles the State actually has an effective way to collect the tax by not issuing a registration until you pay. I guess that's what we get for not having an income tax.

This weekend I took down Job-7 and Job-8; the first was flushing the radiator. I had to disconnect most of the hoses to get to the valve cover off, so why not put some new coolant in. Job-8 was a simple oil change and a new filter.

Since the guy I bought it from had only had it to do the body work, I really don't know the last time it's had any maintenance done so I'm pretty much assuming that everything needs to be checked or changed. It's been a good amount of work the past two weeks, but I've really enjoyed having something to do each night and it's gotten me off the couch. I think I've taken care most of the major stuff I'm aware of right now. My goal is to have it in good shape by the summer so I can take the top and doors off and go up into the mountains with her.

I think the next few jobs will be changing the air filter, tracing down a bad connection somewhere in the speaker wires and checking the brakes which seem a little iffy.

I'm looking excited to having another vehicle and especially one that I can work on. The other nice thing is that when I drive the Jeep onto the ferry I get a discount because she is so short.

Passive-Aggressive Notes

I'm not newcomer to the world of passive-aggressive notes. I've seen my fair share. For example, take this little gem from our Sophomore year house.

Now, I was only tangentially involved, but it does highlight the brilliance of a quality response to the passive-aggressive note. Yes, I've been to the website.

Anyways, I found myself holding a passive aggressive note from my neighbor just this week. Admittedly, it wasn't overly passive-aggressive, and she probably has a good point. But I still needed to respond to let her know three things, and didn't really feel like being a total dick, like I've done in the past..

1) I'm aware of her complaint. 

2) I do not intend to do anything about her complaint. 

3) If she waits a bit the problem may just solve itself.

So here is her note, and my riposte.

Not my greatest work, but still good enough to blog about.

NFL City Trips

I was sitting on a flight home from a Thanksgiving trip to San Diego and I started thinking about how many major cities I've been to in the past year. It's been quite a few, but I also started thinking about all the cities I haven't been to in a number of years. So I decided to see how long it's been since I've visited each city with an NFL team. I consider visiting the city as at least spending enough time in the city to enjoy a meal. An airport layover or driving by on the interstate doesn't count. I drive by Baltimore almost annually, but rarely actually visit Baltimore.

The results are presented here for your viewing pleasure:

It's pretty good that I've been to 11 of the 32 NFL cities within the past year, but it is disheartening that past that I haven't really been to many other NFL cities in the past few years. I'm a little embarrassed about San Francisco and Boston. I feel like I've been to each of these cities within the past 5 years, but I cannot recall when. They are high on my list of places to go again soon.

As a side note, it would also be an interesting list to do NBA teams, as I have been to Oklahoma City, Portland and LA recently, but have never visited Memphis, Toronto or San Antonio. 

Dallas - Vegas

Last weekend I headed to Dallas, Texas to watch my beloved Michigan Wolverines face off against the Crimson Tide of Alabama.The game wasn't that great, but the trip was still a good time. We bought tickets when they first went on sale in February, and managed to get 14 seats together.

I left work on the Friday before labor day around noon, and drove to the airport. I had a direct flight to Dallas and there were a few other guys on the flight wearing Michigan gear but surprisingly no Alabama fans. I guess that the aerospace and software companies don't recruit much out of Tuscaloosa. I got into DFW around 7:30 and took a 30 minute cab ride into Dallas. We had secured lodging arrangements through Mark's wife's who had friends in Dallas who were going to be out of town that weekend. The amount of trust it must of taken for them to let 9 people stay in their 1 bedroom apartment for the weekend is unfathomable. I was the last to arrive and started sucking down a brewski and watching the MSU-Boise State game. We then left to eat some dinner at Qdoba where we all got Burritos and Beer. We then headed to a bar next door that looked very shady from the outside, but was supposed to make wicked strong cocktails.

After a few admittedly strong cocktails, we made our way down to the heart of Uptown Dallas. I had expected Dallas to be really spread out and suburban, but I was kinda surprised with how walk-able this neighborhood was. We headed to this bar called the Black Friar which had three floors and seemed like a congregation of Michigan fans who graduated around the same time as I did. I ended up meeting up with some old friends and kids who I grew up with. Twice I went up to the very crowded (and hot) bar and ordered 4 Bud Lights just for myself. We ended the night doing warm shots of nasty tequila. We then headed back home where I shared an air mattress with another dude. But we slept with out heads on different sides, so it was okay.

The next morning was gameday and that meant waking up at 7am. Sure, it was a night game, but the rule is 7am on gameday, so that's what we did. We picked up some Kolaches (sausages in a roll) and fought through some rough hangovers. We then loaded into some cars and went over to Albertsons (or as Alex called it "Albatross's") to pick up beer and supplies for our tailgate. We got to our tailgate lot around noon, but it was about 1pm before I felt well enough to start drinking. After a tough first beer, I got a little more loose and conversational.

One of the people we were most excited about being there was Mordor Troy. Troy went to Colorado, but is a Michigan fan and came up to Ann Arbor for the Notre Dame game last year. He had taught us this game called Mordor (this his nickname), which is like speed quarters with solo cups and ping-pong balls and is pure insanity. We played a few rounds of that, and then taught it to the Bama fans tailgaiting next to us. Later we would win $40 from them betting of games of Flip-Cup.

I came away very impressed with Cowboy Stadium. It was pure class through and through. It was a shame that the game results forced me to buy a few more $9 beers than  I wanted. But enough about that.

On Sunday we got up and went out to breakfast as a big group. After that I took off for the airport to start the second half of my weekend.

Since it was labor day weekend, and I didn't have anything to do in Dallas for another day, I figured why not go over to Vegas before heading home. So I jetted over there for the night. I decided to skip getting a hotel room and I would just stay up drinking and gambling all night and catch my flight the next morning. This would have been a better plan if I hadn't spent the last two nights getting hammered and barely sleeping on an air mattress. But with free red-bull and coffee at the casinos I wasn't too worried.

I started out at Caesars where I dropped my bag off at the bell desk. I then went right to the sportbook to watch some of the Sunday games and to see what bets were on the board. I ended up betting on the Baylor-SMU game and the Tigers game. I then went across the street to the Flamingo and then made my way south stopping at Wild Bills, Paris and finally Planet Hollywood where I found my ideal blackjack table that had views of both games. I gambled there and watched the games, which I won both my bets. I then headed back to Caesars to claim my tickets. I talked to the sportsbook manager to see if anyone had a line available on the Michigan-Air Force game. He looked it up and told me that only the Wynn had the line out. So I started making my way up to the Wynn. After that I decided why not head all the way north to the dystopia that is the Riveria and Circus Circus. It was a pleasant reminder as to why I never go past Encore.

The entire time my goal was to get down to The Tropacana to see the renovations. I was now at the far north end of the strip and was looking at an hour walk down to The Trop. So I hopped in a cab and $14 later was there. I ended up spending the next 4 hours playing blackjack at the Trop. I was surprised to find $5 blackjack on the strip that paid 3:2. I was also at a really fun table where we were all entertained by this Russian guy in his twenty who was obviously high on coke. He was betting black chips, losing, and pulling out more Benjamins from his huge wad of bills. He kept disappearing and coming back. He also would turn around and tell the girl in the dress behind us to bet on number 2 in roulette so he could look up her dress as she placed her bet. He was a good time.

At about 3:30am I was back to even, so I decided to start heading back to Ceasars. I took a beer for the road and walked up the strip. I got back to caesars and killed some time drinking and playing video poker. After that I got my bag back from the bell desk and hopped in a cab to the airport. I was drunk and exhausted. The plane could have crashed and I wouldn't have woken up. I slept just long enough to be able to drive myself home, crawl into bed and sleep for the next 9 hours. It was a good trip.