Mourning Studio 28

It was announced this past weekend that one of the original mega movie theaters, Studio 28, in Grand Rapids, will show it's last movies this coming weekend. It makes me a little sad, I suppose, although it's not surprising. Attendance there has declined significantly as of late - Lisa and I were there recently to see the new Indiana Jones, and it was startlingly empty. I don't know that this was my first movie theater ever, but it's certainly been the most visited one of my life. Among other things, I've seen a lot of Star Wars movies there: Empire Strikes Back there when I was little, the entire Star Wars Trilogy in a charity re-release during high school, the Special Editions during college, and even Episode III on opening night just a few years ago. I won't necessarily miss the location, as all the newer Celebration Cinemas are quite accessible, and we mostly go to the cheap theater if anything. However, Studio 28 has one thing that none of the other theaters have: Theater 1. It's fully THX-certified, and just plain huge (over 800 seats!) - so large, in fact, that when they converted the other 19 theaters at Studio 28 to stadium seating, they didn't do Theater 1, since it's simply too big for it! Theater 1 is where I saw most of those Star Wars movies, Waterworld, one of the Lord of the Rings movies with my brothers and their wives-at-the-time, Titanic, and Independence Day - for the last one I really recall entering the theater in the midst of a huge crush of people, and no one tore my ticket. There are probably many movies I saw at Studio 28 that I don't remember, either. I'm nearly sure that I saw Jurassic Park there, too, but I don't have a specific memory of it. Well, there'd be something cool about visiting one last time, but there isn't anything in particular that I want to see right now, and Theater 1 is showing Madagascar 2. I don't need that to be my final Studio 28 experience. Anyway, here's the official announcement too. Bye, Studio 28 - you were cool.

World Series Post

I'm watching the Phillies and the Rays play game 5 of the World Series. We're a double play away from the end right now, the hopeless Cubs a distant memory. I thought I might be done watching on Monday night, but this goofy suspended game didn't get continued until tonight. I'm enjoying it, though, since the game is almost done and it's not even 10pm, rather than midnight or later like it's been some years. One out to go. Someday they have to schedule a World Series game for a Saturday afternoon, even if they have to compete with college football. I'd like to think that my kids would appreciate a Tigers World Series someday, but the games would be on way too late for them to stay up for it. Game over, the Phillies are champions, and guys get crushed at the bottom of a pile at the pitching mound. Overall, I'm happy with it, since I'm not a fan of upstart franchises like Tampa Bay winning the World Series in only their 10th season, which we've seen quite recently with the Florida Marlins (twice) and the Arizona Diamondbacks. In other random notes, the special "World Champion" hats the Phillies are now wearing are quite gaudy, and the regular hats look dumb with those hugs World Series patches on the sides. So, yay for the Phillies. Maybe the Tigers can live up to expectations next year.

By the way, Obama is going to win the election. That's not an endorsement or a condemnation, but I think it's pretty much done. It's not very bold to make a prediction like that when there are only two outcomes, but I think it's going to go that way.

The World Series trophy just made its appearance, which ranks somewhere in the middle of all the sports trophies in terms of coolness. At the top: the Stanley Cup and the green jackets of the Masters. Toward the bottom: the fragile, sissy glass football that the college football champions get.

It's over!

Breakfast Stout Breakfast

Each fall the release of the latest batch of Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewing Company is highly anticipated, and the past few years Founders has hosted a Breakfast Stout Breakfast to celebrate. This year I went for the first time, with three friends. It was an exclusive event - only 200 tickets were sold. This year the food was catered by San Chez A Tapas Bistro, which was a change from previous years (I heard the food was so-so in the past).

We arrived right at 10am to join the long line outside, entered, received our special Breakfast Stout mugs, filled them with the delicious double chocolate coffee oatmeal stout, and got in line for our food. The large doors to the outdoor porch were open, as the weather was beautiful. Here's the view inside Founders (before 11am!):

After gathering a muffin, some scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, some potatoes, bread, and samples of three different kinds of hash (including "Bloody Mary"), my breakfast looked like this:

Note the cool mug, and the beginnings of the light brown lacing left on the inside of the mug by the beer as I drank it. Breakfast Stout is black as night, contains 8.3% alcohol, and went really well with the food. It wasn't weird to be drinking it before noon at all. We went back for seconds later, and even though the event was supposed to go until 1pm, they were running out of food by noon when we left. It was a pretty cool experience overall.

Yeah, More Sports

We've failed miserably to maintain the blogs lately (both of us have played a lot of Word Challenge on Facebook, plus school started) and I'm not even going to attempt some grand make-up-for-it blog entry, so I'll just talk about sports some more...

Cupcake update: a few years ago East Carolina was in the midst of a span where they went 3-20. During that time they agreed to be a cupcake on the 2008 schedule of both Virgina Tech and West Virginia. They've improved since then, and beat both teams to start this season. Awesome.

NFL head coaches punt way too much, even on 4th and 1 from the middle of the field. If they go for it and fail, they get blamed. If they punt and still lose, the players get blamed for playing poorly. I've seen thorough statistical studies that show that teams should pretty much go for it on 4th and 1 from almost anywhere on the field. Heck, the Lions were losing by three touchdowns on Sunday and punted from the other team's 40-yard line (that's straight from "How Not To Try But Still Look Like You Are"). Now I boo every time I see coaches do this - I saw good chunks of around 3 games this past week, and I had to boo at least 4 or 5 times. Some high school teams never punt, but even the TV announcers usually side with punting in almost every situation. Boo on them too.

Not to jump the gun, but the Yankees are now in 4th place in their division and could be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in less than a week. The Tigers have more hope than that, but really they don't so I need to be excited about something. It should be interesting to see how the Cubs manage not to win the World Series again too.

Saturday's lineup: Michigan - Notre Dame at 3:30 and then USC - Ohio State at 8:00. I don't say it often, but "Go Bucks!"

Michael Phelps is still not necessarily the greatest Olympian of all time.

Cupcake Alert!

Ha! You didn't think that this post would be about football, did you?

Happily, college football starts this week (although ND starts the next Saturday). In particular, this is the time of the year when powerhouse football programs shell out big bucks to "cupcake" schools so that the cupcake can come to the powerhouse's school and get trampled. Every school is obligated to play a number of games, usually 8 or 9, within it's conference, and these matchups are somewhat fairly determined, but the remaining 3 or 4 games are pretty much up to each individual school. The cupcake games usually go as planned, but we did have the Appalachian State - Michigan game last year. Notre Dame, on the other hand, is not part of any conference (for football). Thus they have full control of their schedule, but they still play a decent number of tough opponents. I'm still irked by the guy at the Michigan - Ohio State game two years ago that observed my ND attire and made some comment about the pansies ND was playing that year (like Navy, Army, etc). I compared ND's schedule to OSU's sometime later and decided that ND's was slightly tougher (but it was way too late to make a point).

Also, I'm going to tattle on some of the big schools that play 12 regular season games but have either 7 or 8 (!) games at home. Also, most of these teams play at least one cupcake team:

7: Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Texas, West Virginia, Texas Tech, and Kansas

8: LSU, Clemson, Florida State, Missouri, Louisville

As much as I hate USC (and I do), they are using their three non-conference games to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Virginia this year, which is pretty respectable. Still, I hope they go 0-12.

I didn't do the research for this, I got it from an ESPN writer who produces lengthy but somewhat interesting missives on football each week during the season.

Finally: I bought and was actually able to setup a wireless router today, so I got to type this while sitting on the couch. Hike!

Michael Phelps Burnout

OK, so Michael Phelps won 8 golds in Beijing, and if you want to call him the greatest Olympic swimmer of all-time, I'll probably agree with you. But all the claims about how he's the "greatest Olympian ever," or how his Beijing performance is the "greatest athletic achievement of all time" are starting to drive me crazy, and it's all based on the fact that he won 8 golds, which is more than winning 7 or 6.

Basically, I think he's benefited from two things:

1. Coming from a country that has a lot of good swimmers, so he could win gold in 3 relays

2. The fact that the Olympics recognizes four different ways to swim!

If each race was just about swimming as fast as possible and not based on what stroke was used, there wouldn't be nearly as many races. Take away everything but the freestyle, and Michael Phelps would have only won three (3!) gold medals, since there'd be no medley races or relays, and no butterfly events. Even if you allow him the butterfly races, he'd only have 5. For comparison's sake, if you throw out the medley races, Mark Spitz wins six golds in 1972, so I guess he'd still be "the greatest swimmer ever."

Of everything I've seen of the Olympics so far, Usain Bolt's 100m final was the most amazing thing I've seen. If you haven't seen or heard, he basically quit running with 15 meters left, stopped pumping his arms, slapped his chest, and still set a world record, with the biggest margin of victory in the 100m in 40 years. Even if he wins the 200m and Jamaica wins the 4 x 100m relay, he'd only have 3 golds, and won't be nearly as celebrated as Michael Phelps, but there's only one kind of "stroke" when it comes to track and field - plain old running. Maybe they should four running formats too: forward, backward, gallop, and side-shuffle. Then there would be many more track races and medley races and maybe someone would have a chance to win 8 golds. Carl Lewis won 9 golds over his career, but I guess he can't be the greatest Olympian ever, based on the way Michael Phelps is being judged. Heck, those beach volleyball players, for example, play 7 matches or so throughout the two weeks, for one measly medal.

An ESPN online writer actually started calling Michael Phelps' Beijing performance the "greatest athletic achievement of all time" and gave readers the opportunity to rank it with 14 other performances, like Tiger Woods winning four consecutive major championships, Wayne Gretzky's amazing hockey season in the early 80's, a really good game Bill Walton had in the NCAA championship, and some woman swimming the English channel a long time ago. That feels like you're comparing something more than apples and oranges - more like apples and shrimp.

Anyway, Michael Phelps is a great swimmer. I'm sure I'll soon see him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, for the third time in about six weeks. But spare the ridiculous superlatives. They bother me.

26 Days Until School

Well, I utterly missed July, so here's my attempt to post something before Jake wakes up.

I went to MathFest 2008 in Madison, Wisconsin last week, which is a really cool city. I had never been there, but for four days the weather was great, my hotel was across from the state capital, and downtown was (and is) located between two huge lakes: Mendota and Monona. You immediately notice all the bikers when you hit the city, as well. If I was forced at gunpoint to pick a place to live other than Michigan, Madison might not be a bad choice. I'm sure the snow is no less than what we see here, however.

Lisa heads to San Antonio today, so I'll be a single parent until Monday morning. As a result, our current Netflix movies are Mike-oriented. On deck: Shaun of the Dead, and Grindhouse: Planet Terror. I'm sure the girls would love to watch them with me (of COURSE, I'm kidding).

The Tigers are fading from the playoff race, so I'll probably be reduced to hoping that the Yankees miss the playoffs, something interesting happens with the Cubs, and the playoffs in general are exciting. If all of that disappoints me, four days after school starts, Notre Dame football starts, so there are things to look forward to.

While I'll miss the summer, the thought of doing math and teaching does sound appealing, too. I could pass on the commuting, but with some well-planned carpooling, that should be OK too.

It's 9:15am, and Jake's still sleeping!

Beer Dorkery

First things first: the Belmost Stakes was a disappointing race. We had South Bend friends over and we were eating Chinese at the time and I think they were confused when I forgot what time is was and bolted for the TV, afraid that I missed it. Actually, the most exciting thing that I've seen come out of the race was the recently released zoomed in photo of one of Big Brown's shoes dangling off his hoof near the beginning of the race. Anyway...

While childcaring to my wit's end, I've managed to do some enjoyable things. Recently I finished updating my list of all the beer bottles I own, handily done on the pool table in the basement with my laptop. The official count is now 237 bottles, which comes after some paring down that was done before and after we moved. That number only includes empty bottles, and there are some full ones waiting to join the collection after their liquid has been enjoyed. Also, that doesn't count all the Kentucky Breakfast Stout bottles, as I've kept all of those - I have 5 empty and 7 full KBSers. Topping the list, I have 28 bottles from Bell's, 23 from Sam Adams, 17 from Founders, and 13 each from Leinenkugel and New Holland. I especially enjoy collecting seasonal bottles - I have lots of Octoberfest beers, for example - and I put those out on the ledge above the basement stairs at appropriate times (dork city, yes, I know). Currently I have my summer beers out, along with 9 from Victory. The Founders bottles and most of my bombers (big 22oz bottles) are on permanent display. In that vein, if you drink any summer, winter, pumpkin, Christmas, or Octoberfest beers, I'll happily take the empty bottle off your hands. Back to childcaring...

Yay for the Red Wings

Once the Red Wings made the Stanley Cup Finals, I decided to watch all the games. I had to go to Mom & Dad's for the first two, since they were on the goofy cable channel Versus. The first two games were blowouts by the Wings, Pittsburgh took the third game, and Detroit won the fourth (barely), so the Stanley Cup (the coolest trophy in all of sports) was on hand for game 5 in Detroit. Jake, who refused to go to sleep, watched some of it with me, pleasantly cuddled in my lap, and was clearly the inspiration for the beginning of the Wings' comeback from down 2-0. After Jake was asleep they took a 3-2 lead, and the excitement was building as they held Pittsburgh off. Eventually the Penguins pulled their goalie, and a couple nice bounces could have given Detroit an easier empty-net goal, but instead the Penguins scored with 34 seconds left to tie it. It was incredibly frustrating to watch. The game finally ended in TRIPLE overtime, after they had played almost 50 extra minutes (a non-overtime game is 60), with the Penguins winning, despite many near-goals by Detroit. Overtime hockey is very tense, because the first team to score wins, and if Detroit had scored it would have been a Stanley-Cup-winning-goal. I was drained, and instead of going to bed at 11, it was nearly 1am, so I was whipped the next day. At least they start the games reasonably on time, just after 8pm, unlike the NBA - they aren't starting their finals games for another hour. Fortunately, the Wings won game 6, but in Pittsburgh, so they did get to skate around with the 35-pound trophy. It would have been more fun to watch if they had won in Detroit, but a game 7 would have been even more nerve-wracking.

And I'm sort of excited for the Belmont Stakes this Saturday - thanks, Kentucky relatives!

Coolest Field Trip Ever

This morning Abby's preschool went on a field trip, as they frequently do. It was also the official celebration of Abby's birthday, since school won't be in session during her birthday in July. Anyway, I joined them and drove a few kids to the airport to visit the hangar where the Alticor (formerly Amway) Corporation keeps their planes. The kids might enjoy the pumpkin patch or the Critter Barn more, but for me it was the greatest ever. We got to see the gigantic hangar complex, which can hold around 10 jets (and a helicopter) and then toured the interior of some super-fancy jets, a gazillion times nicer than anything I've ever flown in. The kids got to sit in the pilot's seat and test out the leather seats in back. These are the jets that the Alticor bigwigs and their families (Devos's and Van Andel's, I presume) use to fly all over the world. Very, very, very cool.

Schooooooools...OUT...FOR...SUMMER!

Ack! A month went by. Well, another year ended at Ferris, and I was too far down on the rotation list to get any summer teaching assignments. That's a good chunk of change that we won't get, but with the depressing gas prices I don't really mind NOT driving up to Big Rapids. So, I'll just be in GR for the most part, trying not to spend too much money, mowing the lawn, teaching Annika to ride a bike, and doing a few mathematical things that I've been hoping to do.

At the end of April I attended the math meeting that the Michigan section of the Mathematical Association of America holds each year. This year I contributed a 20-minute talk on dividing squares and rectangles with into smaller squares, and the highlight was showing off the quilt Mom made using one particular pattern that divides a square into 21 smaller squares, no two of which are the same size. The quilt was a big hit. We had talked about showing it at the Tulip Time quilt show in Holland, but I needed it for my talk during the show. Maybe next year. Amazingly, I don't have a picture of the quilt.

Until next month...(hopefully not)...

A Roaring Start

The official prediction by Sports Illustrated is that the Tigers will beat the Cubs in the World Series next fall. The Tigers have indeed put together an incredible lineup, something I never could have imagined a few years ago, and they have some pretty decent pitching. ESPN amassed separate predictions from around 20 of its writers, and nearly all of them have the Tigers in the playoffs, and either the Yankees or the Red Sox out (that hasn't happened in awhile). So, the season started Monday, and the Tigers went and got swept by the Royals this week in a three-game series in Detroit. The Kansas City Royals! Yuck.

Adventures in Minor Car Repair

I am not gifted at car repair. I mostly prefer cars to do their job and then sit in the garage (and only speak when spoken to). As a result, Lisa's dad is usually involved when things go wrong with our car. On Friday my car started to make a loud rattle underneath, and this weekend we stopped by Lisa's folks to take a peek at it. I actually found the rattling part after a quick inspection, and after Lisa's dad found a hose clamp in the basement, we managed to tighten up a loose piece of the exhaust and essentially fix the problem. In between those steps is where I "helped."

To get under the car Lisa's dad got out his ramps and we went to drive the front wheels up them. In the past Lisa's dad has usually done this, but I decided to just do it, since I was at the wheel already. So, as I've tried in the past, I used both the brakes and the engine simultaneously, crept up the ramp, reached the top, and then proceeded to shoot completely over the ramps. When you do this, the car drops over the far edge of the ramps, lands loudly upon them, and with the wheels still spinning some, keeps going. For a moment I had visions of plowing into all sorts of things at the back of the garage. During this time, the ramps, which are being crushed by the car into the cement of the garage floor, were dragged along with a deafening grating sound.

Fortunately, the car stopped relatively quickly, we easily jacked it up to release the ramps, and I successfully made it up on a second try. The ramps do have some dents on top where the frame of my car landed on them, but they appear to still be entirely functional (phew!). So, anyway, yay for incompetency in car repair.

KBS Day

Of course, KBS stands for Kentucky Breakfast Stout. Friday night, as planned, Nick, Dad, Kevin and I went to Founders, but only after we fed ourselves at Yesterdog (Kevin's first time). It was busy, but we got a table, each had a couple delicious beers, and munched on some peanuts. Later that night, after rejoining the ladies, some of us watched Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (on VHS!) to get ready for the fourth Indy movie in May.

On Saturday, Nick and I headed back, after the 11am start time for the sale of this year's batch of KBS, the beer currently rated as the 6th best beer in the world by BeerAdvocate.com (Nick and I are both members). It wasn't very busy and we both ordered some KBS and sat down to enjoy it. We each got the official KBS goblet to take home, too. In the end, we bought a case (24 bottles) of it to split:



I have yet to try one of my bottles, but the sampling we had at Founders was as glorious as ever. At $4.75 a bottle, it's expensive (I'll let you do the math for a case of it), but that's equivalent to a $20 bottle of wine, which some people don't blink an eye at. Either way, it'll be a while before I spend big money on beer again.

The Boss

My latest favorite song lyric:

"Mister as I bent and kissed her, she was picked up by a twister;
My Oklahoma woman blowed away."

-Bruce Springsteen, singing "My Oklahoma Home" on We Shall Overcome

Coming Attractions...

It'd been a month, but here's some coming excitement:

• Founders on Friday night with Kevin (and maybe Nick)
• Founders on Saturday with Nick to buy some Kentucky Breakfast Stout on the day that it's released, and then time spent at some other cool GR beer locale
• Determination of the March Madness brackets for college basketball on Sunday, and then all the ensuing hullabaloo

Now that's a weekend to look forward to...

Football Eulogy

Farewell, oh 2007 football season - you were very good to us. You had upsets, suspense, scandal, and you even made history, both good and bad. Thank you for giving us a splendid Super Bowl. It went perfectly with my India Pale Ale and homemade hot wings (thank you, Kevin). I was disappointed not to see a perfect season by the Patriots, but in the end it seemed fitting and just, since they might be big old cheaters. Even my typical disdain for the success of New York sports teams waned a little. Maybe it's because Eli Manning seems like a nice guy (although he and Peyton will probably be in ever commercial during football '08). So, thanks again, football, for being there for me on the weekends. Maybe I'll even see you in HD next year (I can dream). But Notre Dame football 2007 - I'm glad you're gone.

Now, we will just try to survive the next 6 weeks, until March Madness sets in and baseball finally starts.

See you next year, oh noble, glorious football.

LEGOs on eBay

Years ago I bought a large Star Wars LEGO set on clearance - at half price, it was $45. I never even opened it, and I checked eBay to see what they were selling for. Lisa and her sister had been selling a bunch of stamping sets recently, so we added my set to their stuff. As of today (Wednesday around noon), the current bid is $177.50, and there's still more than 4 days to go! If you want, you can see the auction here. Too bad I didn't buy more of them. I wonder what I could get for some of my other stuff...

Music on the Desert Island

The other day I was looking through my ancient webpage and decided that my music page needed to be redone. I was also hungering for some new music. I satisfied the latter urge my checking out the nearby library and getting some CDs. For the former, I went ahead and redid my top ten albums list while watching the NFL playoff games after the kids were in bed. If you're interested, you can go check out my music page, but otherwise here's Mike's Desert Island Albums, in alphabetical order:

• The White Album - The Beatles
• Kerosene Hat - Cracker
• Welcome Interstate Managers - Fountains of Wayne
• Fumbling Toward Ecstasy - Sarah McLachlan
• Bang Masters - Van Morrison
• Monster - R.E.M.
• Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens
• Girlfriend - Matthew Sweet
• Rattle and Hum - U2
• The Blue Album - Weezer

I kind of like the fact that the list is bookended by albums that don't have a name and are simply known by their colors. Also, some of the albums on the list are high-quality musical masterpieces (especially Sufjan), while a few of them (like Cracker) are almost guilty pleasures, but simply full of rock 'n roll that I always enjoy. There were lots of honorable mentions, too, and they're all listed on the webpage.