The Seymour Militia

I brought Abby to dance class armed with my camera the other day. I quietly entered unlocked rooms and saw many familiar places. My camera died before I could really capture everything I saw, but I still brought home some good old janitorial memories. This will only be meaningful to a handful of people, but here goes...

Miss Holkeboer's old classroom, decked out for dance. I hid a message in drop ceiling there once that commented on Chris Buchholz working while sucking on a lollipop. It might still be there.

Down the "first grade wing" - the old paint job, above the more recent drop ceiling, with appropriate peeling paint, water leakage, and damaged plaster.


The south building boiler room deep sink. I fumbled around in the dark for the light switch hiding under the shelf. I didn't find it until later, but I KNEW it was there. It's still absurdly warm in there too.


Geoff's south building "office," completely empty. This is where we used sledgehammers on the grinder in the dark. I wasn't brave enough to enter "the hole" through the wooden door at the back, as I was fearful of alerting the people working for the church in their office right near the main door to this building. I did see the lower level of the hole, but the pictures were crummy.


The boiler room control panel down the stairs. Loud, damp, and warm down there.


On the wall: the boiler room bunny, which I wouldn't have actively remembered. It felt familiar when I saw it, though.


Finally, the electrical chair storage room, with an expansive coat of white paint, hiding all the ancient messages left by former janitors and those that came long before we did. However...


Peeking out from beneath one of the shelves: STAN IS GOOD!

There are plenty more dance classes to come, so I'll try for more. Remember,

"If I'm Ann-Speyered, I'll work asbestos I can."

Bailando con las Estrellas

The past few years Lisa and I have only made a point of watching two shows - The Office and Scrubs. We've added another to the list now: Dancing with the Stars. We actually find it entertaining and interesting. I think adding celebrities to the mix makes it initially more interesting, but then the hosts and the judges make it way, way better than any other competition. The judges (two of whom have English accents, which always helps) are witty and intelligent, making the morons from American Idol look mean and stupid.

We first got into it a little bit during the last season, and we've been on it from day one for this season. In addition, the girls really like it too, and it starts at 8pm so they can watch a little bit of it some weeks. Each week the couple eliminated (a celebrity and a pro) is determined by the judges' scores and popular voting, so it's not just a popularity contest. That said, we were witness to injustice last night, when one of the better contestants (Sabrina, a Cheetah girl (?)) was eliminated, while the likes of Jane Seymour and Marie Osmond, who are clearly a step below everyone else, didn't even make the "bottom two." Unfortunately, this means that we'll have to endure at least two more weeks of one of 'em. I'm sure they have an army of fans keeping them afloat (well, they must, since they get the lowest scores). Oh, the drama!

College Allegiances

In response to the comments on my last post:

Notre Dame is my school. Even though this is going to be a pathetic year, I can't abandon them. From my perspective, there's no way they're going to beat Michigan State this weekend, but from the MSU point of view, I'd be worried that everything will fall apart this weekend, when they should win, but won't, simply because things are rarely this good for the Spartans (3-0 so far, while U of M is 1-2).

Even though I work at Ferris, I don't identify with their athletic teams or with their student experience enough to care much about their football team.

I have no experience with the University of Kentucky, although since Dan and Rebecca became Wildcats, I notice them now when looking through scores. It was cool for them to take down Louisville last weekend.

And then there's Ohio State - I've been to three OSU football games, courtesy of brother Nick (Ph.D., class of 2007) and two of them were the Michigan game. That means that I've also experienced this: "We don't give a **** about the whole state of Michigan, cuz we're from O-HI-O!" sung with such sincerity by many scarlet-and-gray clad people, where **** represents a variety of four-letter words. It's pure, vile hatred that many Buckeye fans have, not just for U of M, but for THE WHOLE STATE OF MICHIGAN, like the entire place is one big toilet (but not Nick, right? Stay strong, brother!). That means you, fellow Michigander - they think you're scum! I don't necessarily dislike Jim Tressel (the head coach) or the individual players for OSU, but I hope that Michigan obliterates OSU this November, just to ruin the senior year for a bunch of moronic, Bud Light-swilling 22-year-old Buckeye fans.

On the other hand, for every Sunday Night Football game, they always run through the starting lineups (recorded earlier), and each player says their name and their college. The former Buckeyes always say THE Ohio State University. Sheesh.

Finally - Pumpkin Ales can be very good, but I'm never as thrilled as I hope to be. Fall is great, and measuring time by when the Oktoberfests hit the store is fun, but I often prefer quality India pale ales and stouts over the fall seasonals. And Nick, you do tend to have a strong affinity for pumpkin anything. Am I right?

We buy a house tomorrow!

My Team Stinks

There are 120 Division 1-A football teams, and there are four stats that characterize a team's offense: rushing yards, passing yards, total yards, and points scored. Looking at these quantities per game played, Notre Dame's ranks are 120th, 114th, 120th, and 120th. For the season, ND has amassed (-14) rushing yards: overall, they've gone backwards 14 yards when running the ball! Navy has fewer passing yards than ND, but they lead the nation in rushing to compensate. ND has scored 13 total points, and 7 of those were scored by their defense on an interception return! Can they beat anyone this year? (I was going to say Duke, but then I checked and they actually beat Northwestern last week for their first win since 2005). Blah.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are still alive, and if the Yankees could just disintegrate, they'd make the playoffs. It's still possible, but I'm not too confident.

Solution to the Problem of the Week mentioned in the last post: the North Pole is the obvious location, but then there's an infinite number of places to start near the South Pole. Lines of longitude stretch from the North Pole to the South Pole, so they're all the same length. Lines of latitude (like the equator, the Tropic of Cancer, and the Arctic Circle) have different lengths, though - they get shorter as you get closer to the poles. So, if you start one mile north of the line of latitude that is 1 mile around (you're near the South Pole) , you will go a mile south and then do a complete circle when you go one mile east. Going one mile north again brings you back to where you started. You could also start a mile north of the line of latitude that is 1/2 mile or 1/3 mile or 1/4 mile around and still end up where you started.

Finally: I've decided that I like the idea of Pumpkin Ales and Oktoberfest beers more than I actually like the beers. They're fine, and I like collecting their bottles, but there are plenty of other beers that I like better.

The end!

Problems of the Week

At Ferris I coordinate the math department's Problem of the Week series. I get some student solutions (although some of the response is based on the fact that I give my own students little bits of extra credit for solving them). Most of the problems are understandable to the non-math public (well, at least the questions are, but not necessarily the solutions). The latest one is this (the 64th problem since I started a few years ago):

64. You are somewhere on the Earth, which we'll assume is a perfect sphere. You travel 1 mile south, 1 mile east, and 1 mile north, and arrive exactly where you started. Where on Earth might you be? Surprisingly, there are lots of answers -- describe at least two of them.

If you want more, see the link at right.

Anyway - other professors notice the problems as well. One of my colleagues suggested I just post a picture of President Bush. Another professor, from a different department (and whose name I don't know), offered me this today:

How come a mirror reverses images left to right, but not up and down?

At first it may seem like an easy question, but I don't think a satisfying explanation is all that simple. I'm pretty sure I understand it, but it's more subtle than it felt at first. Or, I'm just dumb. Hmmm...

Great Days of Sports

One thing that's great about sports: you never know, at the beginning of any game, whether you're about to see a mundane, run-of-the-mill contest, or a few hours that will go down in history. Who goes to a baseball game expecting a no-hitter? No one, but it sure must be cool to have "been there" yesterday to see a kid with the last name Buchholz throw one for the Red Sox. Last January I almost went to bed, but decided to stay up for the entirety of the Boise State - Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl spectacular. I'm glad I did. Certainly, no one expected much out of the Appalachian State - Michigan game Saturday afternoon. If you somehow haven't heard, here:

Each year high-powered college football teams start their season by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to probable cream-puffs to come to their stadium and get killed (see Oklahoma 79, North Texas 10). Appalachian State was to be Michigan's victim Saturday, but instead U-M paid $400,000 to be the loser in one of the greatest upsets of all time, 34-32, when App State blocked a potential game-winning field goal on the last play, only seconds after they made a field goal to take the lead. We were busy watching Notre Dame get embarrassed by Georgia Tech, so we didn't see it, but then You Tube came roaring to the cause:

First, highlights from the last few minutes of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_LnLiv99Ys

Reaction from an Appalachian State family at the game. The kid's face is priceless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDFxzAp1Lf8

Following the game, some students and fans from App State back in Boone, N.C. went to the empty football stadium, climbed a fence, tore down the goal posts, carried them to the chancellor's house, and laid them in his driveway. College football is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-1MOFOYolw&NR=1

Rivalries what they are, many fans from other schools took joy in watching U-M go down. Here's the scene among a group of Ohio State and Penn State fans during the last few significant plays of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBjdka9uEw

Next week my Irish, who looked pathetic against Georgia Tech, get to go to Ann Arbor to play a certainly ticked off Michigan team. I'm not expecting much.

Here's one more that has nothing to do with the U-M game. It's the greatest football game prank I've ever heard of. The visiting crowd was told that they would spell out "Go Darby" all together. They didn't. Go look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtuLwWJGnn4

Mas Beisbol

While the Tigers continue their freefall out of the playoffs (leaving me to root for the Mariners to keep the Yankees out) other things happen:

Wednesday night the Rangers pummeled, mauled, destroyed, clobbered, etc the Orioles, 30-3. The Orioles were actually winning 3-0 after three innings, and then gave up 30 unanswered runs (16 of them in the 8th and 9th innings). It's really the worst loss of all time - teams scored more runs in the late 1800s, but baseball then is not like baseball now. In honor of the game, ESPN presented the Top 100 Beatdowns of All Time, complete with links to YouTube clips and game summaries. I especially liked watching Mike Tyson take 90 seconds to defeat Michael Spinks. First Tyson knocks Spinks down, and right after the announcer mentions that Spinks had never been knocked down in his entire career, Tyson just wallops him and finishes the fight. Oh, and you've never seen Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths? That's there too. It goes beyond single games and also encompasses movies, books, entire competitions and individual moments. Yay for sports!