Schick Happens

Now with Virtual Nagging!

2009-10-23T18:10:00.005-04:00

Facebook seems to be content changing its layout and functionality every six months or so. I’m always amused the amount of uproar that users have every time one of these updates takes place. People rush to join groups denouncing the new layout, creating petitions demanding the return of the old layout, and vowing to quit Facebook if their demands are not met. The irony is the version people want reverted was equally hated six months prior.

Anyway, one of the new features is an addition to the recommendations section on the welcome page. I assume it looks at your friends list and encourages you to reach out to people you haven’t interacted with in awhile. At first, I thought it was a cool feature, until this started appearing:

I guess this is the 21st century digital equivalent of “call your mother.”

You Made Me Do This

2009-10-15T20:34:00.014-04:00

OK Internet, I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice. If you want someone to blame, I give you Sara Kiel.

I have posted a series of pictures I took in the Photo Gallery section of my website. Most of them are of me and my friends, but some of them are pictures of Ann Arbor and the Michigan campus. I posted both a thumbnail and a full-sized image, so people could view the detail and possibly save the file for themselves.

I was happy to do this, but one of the rules of the Internet is if you use someone else’s picture, you are supposed to ask. If you don’t ask, you should at least cite where the original picture is located. I have done this in the Assignment: America section of my site and haven’t received any complaints from those individuals so far.

Now this is where Sara comes in. I noticed the other day when searching for some Ann Arbor pictures that one of my pictures appeared on her site. It was the one I took of the “Welcome to Ann Arbor” sign a few years back. I immediately recognized it, and who else does that in town?

So I clicked on her page to see if I received any credit for the photo. Nope. In fact, she downloaded the file and uploaded it to her site, so it even appears that it is her picture. But she didn’t bother to resize the image on the page and it looks really amateurish sized down. So I sent her an e-mail asking her to credit me for the photo. No response.

I was really hoping she would reply back and claim it was her picture all along. I planned on asking where that specific sign was located and laugh when she guessed wrong (the answer is on Ann Arbor-Saline Road near the I-94 overpass). But Sara took the cowardly route and ignored my follow-up message as well. Since the Internet is pretty much the Wild West, that is as much as I could do without getting a lawyer, so I had to move on.

As a result of Sara stealing my picture, I have decided to take measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I have added SchickHappens.net watermarks to all my full-sized images that do not have me in them (example). This will ensure no one can hijack my photo and put it on her site in the future and if someone is too dumb to notice, I can call her on it.

I am also relinquishing control of that particular photo to Ms. Kiel, as I don’t want people thinking I stole it from her. I plan to take a new picture soon, add the watermark, and upload it in the old version’s place. I wanted to do this before Sara came along, as that sign now has a second component for another Pioneer High championship that was added since I took that picture. I haven’t decided if it’s necessary to add them on the A:A pages yet. I have yet to see those photos linked anywhere else, so I’ll hold off for now.

I’m sorry to all those of you who enjoyed the pictures without my obnoxious branding on it; Sara Kiel ruined it for everyone. This is why we can’t have nice things!

Right Before Your Eyes

2009-10-11T13:27:00.005-04:00

Tracy and I went to Benihana yesterday. I’m not exactly sure why we decided to go, but it sounded like a fun diversion from our usual destinations. Tracy had never experienced Benihana before and it had been at least 10 years since I had been, so it was essentially new for both of us.

Our cook did a fine job and did the requisite shrimp tail flip into his hat and created the volcano out of onions, but it got me thinking: what would dining out be like if all restaurants cooked your food in front of you? I think this would be a great idea.

First of all, the amount of food sent back to kitchens would go down significantly. It’s easy to be rude to a server, but I bet people would be less likely to say their food sucked to the person that just spent 10 minutes at your table cooking your meal. There is no chance some ingredient you wanted left out could ever find its way into the dish, unless you weren’t paying attention (and in that case, you shouldn’t be out to dinner in the first place). You also wouldn’t have to worry about kitchen pranksters spitting on your food, unless your chef did it between eye blinks.

It would also to be a lot harder justifying not tipping for those frugal losers out there. Not only is the chef cooking your meal, he is also trying to be entertaining at the same time. This would also eliminate tedious dinner conversations about the weather and such, as it would seem rude to have a side conversation as the guy is working. On the downside, people like me who hate small talk would probably have to talk about whatever the chef wanted to discuss. I’d be willing to tip extra to avoid all small talk with my chef.

But what about a dish where it had to bake for 30 minutes or so? Would the chef stay at the table while it baked to ensure it was cooked properly, or would he just set a timer and you pulled it out when it was ready? I would assume higher-end places would be the former and places like Olive Garden would be the latter, but maybe you pay more so the chef isn’t bugging you the entire time.

Maybe the compromise is to have robots cook for us. That way, you can still see your meal from beginning to end, yet avoid all the banter that would drive me crazy. I want the people who make the Roomba to start working on this next.

More disappointment ahead?

2009-10-01T20:30:00.001-04:00

My beloved Sharks kick off the 2009-10 season in a couple of hours in Denver against the Avalanche, and it’s hard to get excited for the season opener. Don’t get me wrong- I’m glad hockey is back and look forward to watching San Jose on TV. But with the Sharks’ recent playoff embarrassments, I just want to skip right to the playoffs and see of this is the year they meet expectations.

The NHL regular season consists of 82 games across five and a half months. This is entirely too long. The Stanley Cup finals continue into June, when hockey should be long over. I think the regular season should be shortened to 60 games, as it would make the regular season less of a grind and finish in a reasonable timeframe. The NHL already insists that each team doesn’t play each other home and away with this ridiculous unbalanced scheduling, so what’s a little more schedule tweaking?

As for the team itself, I have mixed feelings about the offseason moves. I am excited to see how Dany Heatley fits into Todd McClellan’s system, as his skill set seems to be just what was lacking last year: a gritty forward with speed and sharpshooter potential and playoff experience. Paired with Joe Thornton, Heatley should see his numbers go up and hopefully ease his prima donna ego. Doug Wilson also picked up a couple of other grinders for the third and fourth lines, so hopefully these guys will be able to slow down opponent’s top talent.

On the flip side, I have to say I am extremely disappointed with the resigning of Rob Blake. I was surprised when he was brought in last year, as he is near the end of his career and Wilson believed he would add veteran playoff experience to the locker room. That’s all well and good, but he also has to log ice time as well. I thought he really showed his age (38) and took a lot of penalties he wouldn’t have if he were 10 years younger. It was only a one-year deal, so I was thinking it was a failed experiment, and Wilson would part ways with the old man and his absurdly high salary. Not only was he brought back, they named him captain of this year’s team. This really upset me, as he brought nothing to the table last year, and if anything, was part of the reason the Sharks had an early playoff departure. I thought the logical choice was Dan Boyle- the one guy who showed any sign of desire in last year’s playoffs. Sadly, he was only rewarded with an “A.”

So what is the outlook for this year’s team? It’s anyone’s guess. I’ve seen predictions from Stanley Cup champs to again losing in the first round. I’m going to assume the Sharks won’t try so hard in the regular season this time around, maybe not even wining the Pacific division and settling in around 4th or 5th in the playoffs. They will probably win a few rounds, but still lose before they should. My guess is losing to Chicago in the Western finals; a nice improvement, but still short of expectations.

Myspace: I Hardly Knew Ye

2009-09-26T15:15:00.003-04:00

Today, I officially closed my Myspace account. I’m sure you probably weren’t aware I even had a profile, as I was only friends with about 50 people there. I hadn’t logged in since February, and since everyone I was friends with on Myspace was already my friend on Facebook, I figured I wouldn’t be missing anything.

In the big social networking war, I was never drawn to Myspace. I started with Facebook back when it was only for college students, as it seemed a more natural fit. Myspace always seemed like a second-rate site, as it looked clunky and running on a single server in Tom’s basement. The only reason I joined was so my ex and I could be friends while we were still dating, and I kept it going because it was Tracy’s profile of choice until recently. Now Tracy is more into Facebook than me, and we both decided to close our Myspace accounts this weekend.

Now that Facebook is open to the world, I don’t see Myspace continuing to be a big player in the social networking arena much longer. I never liked the interface and found it hard to perform the most basic tasks. You always heard about passwords being stolen and profiles being hacked, and I had countless server timeouts and crashes that it’s a wonder people stuck with it for so long.

Battle of Washtenaw County

2009-09-21T20:58:00.003-04:00

On Saturday, Michigan squared off in another nonconference game against a hapless MAC opponent. This time, it was against Eastern. Any other year, I would have been glad to see such an easy opponent on the field, as the Wolverines still need to work out some kinks before the Big Ten season. But this year, I was a little torn, as now I have some allegiance to Eastern. At the end of the day, the win meant more to Michigan than Eastern, so I was pleased with the result.

Outside of the game itself, it provided a look at the two schools and how greatly they differ from each other. Having been to a few Eastern football games, it’s obvious that the school doesn’t place the same emphasis on athletics that Michigan does. The atmosphere at games in Ypsilanti feels more like a high school game than a college one, yet that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

With so much being said about NCAA teams being run like a business, Eastern’s atmosphere feels more like what a college game should be. The small, intimate crowds put you up close to the action and you can almost hear the players sideline conversations. Tickets are also reasonably priced (less than $10) and students get in for free, while Michigan thinks they are doing students a favor by offering tickets for “only” $30 per game. Players at Eastern probably realize that this is the highest level of football they will achieve, so they are pursuing degrees that are meaningful outside of athletics, while Michigan players are seeking a worthless “sports management” degree while hoping to make it to the NFL.

Eastern has run into trouble with the NCAA because they struggle to maintain the average required attendance to remain in Division 1-A. The school has tried any number of incentives to increase attendance, but only 15,000 spectators file into the stadium. But seeing how the darker side of college athletics can have negative influences on student’s lives, this may not be a bad thing.

Back to eSchool

2009-09-12T19:19:00.003-04:00

Although classes began on Wednesday, today was the first day I started working on my online class at Eastern. I wasn’t exactly sure how this class was going to go, as it is my first online class at any level. I’m a little afraid that not having a regularly-schedule class every week will make it harder to stay on top of all the assignments; hopefully I have the focus for it.

So far, it seems like there won’t be any regularly scheduled times to be online together (for lectures or chats), but just deadlines for when assignments need to be posted on the class wiki. I find wikis in general very clumsy to use, as I prefer to code in HTML, but hopefully that will be another skill I will have by the end of the semester.

I think the key for me will closely monitor the blog for the class, as that is the location where the professor posts announcements and project updates. I am subscribed to the RSS feed in about three different places to make sure I don’t miss anything. I think my interest in the class material (writing computer documentation) will keep me focused on the relevant tasks, but the first few weeks could be a tough adjustment. Not only is it my first class in almost five years, but it’s a completely different method of content delivery. Yikes!

Requiem for the Michigan State Fair

2009-09-04T18:08:00.002-04:00

It’s no secret the state of Michigan is hurting in this recession. The auto industry that is the lifeblood of the Great Lakes State has seen devastating cutbacks, and therefore the state economy suffers as well. But not only do big programs like unemployment and schools have to cut back, the little ones do too. And it sounds like the Michigan State Fair is in its final year as Governor Granholm cut off state funding for the event.

Fairs a staple of Midwestern life, as it is a place that people from all walks of life can come together and have fun. It is also a place to enjoy some foods that can’t be found anywhere else, such as my personal favorite: elephant ears. Plus, you have an assortment of games you can’t win run by people who may or may not be convicted felons. If those don’t interest you, you can ride rides that were moved by flatbed truck from another city less than a week ago.

For me, I always like to check out the livestock. Growing up, I was lucky to visit the farm in Indiana almost every summer, and I loved to help out feeding the animals. As Nan and Pap got older, they had to get rid of the animals, but I always felt like if things were different, I could have raised a blue-ribbon animal.

I had never been to the Michigan State Fair before this year, but I have been to enough fairs to know what to expect. They seemed to have a pretty good crowd and several of the vendors kept saying, “Pray for us to be back next year.” Granholm said she wants to use the land for economic development. It may be true that the land could be used for more practical things than a state fair, but in an age where we are so isolated by technology and class, it’s nice to have a place where everyone can come together and have fun for a cheap price.

What's the deal with this reunion?

2009-08-31T21:53:00.004-04:00

Tracy’s copy of Entertainment Weekly arrived today, and the cover (below right) featured a "Seinfeld" reunion on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" this season. I read the article because I was intrigued, but after I was done, I wasn’t that interested in seeing the outcome. Being a huge “Seinfeld” fan, one would assume that this would be a can’t-miss event for me, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I guess the biggest reason is that “Seinfeld” reruns are on almost every day. And not only that, they are on multiple times a day. I really don’t have a feeling that the show went anywhere, since it is still on TV. In addition, I have all the episodes on DVD as well as my iPod, so even if one of my favorite episodes isn’t on TV, it’s on demand.

Another reason is its location: “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Another irony is that my favorite “Seinfeld” character is George, so you would think I would love a show by the guy the character is based on. Again, not the case. I find “Curb” to be really uneven- some shows are funny, yet others come off as uncomfortably mean-spirited. I tried several times to get into the show and it never resonated with me.

And I really don’t get the whole phenomenon of reunion shows anyway. EW also made a big deal about a “Saved by the Bell” reunion earlier this year. Why? We just wanted to see the cast together again? It’s not like they are going to do more episodes or make a spin-off movie. The show had a great nine-year run and left at about the right time. They have all moved on with their lives and careers, so why can’t everyone else?

I hope everyone enjoys the reunion this season on “Curb.” It sounded like the cast enjoyed being on set together again, but I’ll just catch them on syndication later tonight.

SchickHappens.net 2.0

2009-08-20T21:57:00.003-04:00

I’m sure some you are wondering why it has taken me so long to upload my pictures from my New England trip. I apologize for the delay, but as I hinted at earlier, I had something big planned for SchickHappens.net that I wanted to unveil at the same time. So if you haven’t been to my website lately, please stop by and check out my redesign!

To most people, it won’t look like a drastic change. I changed the color scheme on the front page, updated my headshot, switched fonts on the banner graphic and added a new side navigation. But the majority of the changes took place behind the scenes and unless you are in the web design business, you won’t appreciate how much effort it took.

For my fellow web designers/nerds: The biggest change I wanted to accomplish was to move from table-based to CSS-based layout. When I first built my site back in 2006, I didn’t have a good program to build a website from scratch, so I settled for FrontPage and used one of the pre-loaded templates (I know, I know, may the web gods strike me down!). Despite picking that template, I was never a fan, as it was the best of a lousy bunch. But it was such a pain to swap templates, I decided to stick with it.

In addition, I coded my pages to be validated against the XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype. With the exception of the Bond pages (I want sound to play on page load; compliance be damned!), they should all be compliant, which was a pain, as most of my code didn’t have end tags or alt descriptions for pictures.

I also set up subdomains for both Assignment: America and MI6: Home of James Bond, added includes for my footers, moved all the pages inside their own directories (for shorter URLs) and rearchitected my file structure. All this had to be done on my 85 or so pages, so I’ve been busy the last few months.

There are still a few tasks I want to complete over the next few months, such as convert all my transparent images from GIFs to PNGs and add image maps to my A:A maps, but those can wait.

So please send me an e-mail if you have feedback or especially if you find a broken link. I think the design looks a lot cleaner and slightly more professional, and I hope you think so too. Now I really don’t have any more excuses for allowing a year to lapse between updates...

New England Trip: Day 4

2009-08-11T12:06:00.003-04:00

Tracy and I just returned from a New England road trip where we saw seven states in four days. Here are some daily highlights:

So we’re back! Yesterday was quite the long day, so I didn’t feel like staying up to write a recap of basically our getaway day. We started out from Augusta and drove back to Boston and the trip was pretty uneventful. There was another “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” place on the route in Maine, but after looking at the menu online, we decided that the breakfast fare wasn’t anything special, so we skipped it. We hit the two places she wanted to hit, so she was pleased with the outcome.

We had to have the car back by noon but our flight didn’t leave until 5:00, so we had some time to explore Boston. We checked out bag but we didn’t have anywhere to store our carry-ons, so we had to lug them with us on the subway into downtown. Damn terrorists ruining it for everyone. Tracy was excited to ride the subway, as she said it was the first time she rode an underground transportation system.

After spending a summer in Boston back in college, I was pretty familiar with the sites and places to eat. I suggested we get some chowder from the food court at Prudential Center at Boston Chowda Co. I had the lobster bisque and Tracy had clam chowder in bread bowls. It was delicious as I remembered it, and it was a great final meal in New England.

We then went to the top of Prudential Center and looked around from the observation deck. It was a nice, clear day and we could see all the sites. We even posed for some pictures in one of those photo booths that takes a card of goofy pictures. After walking around the mall a little bit and Tracy bought a new purse, it was time to head back to the airport.

With the extra time at the airport, I thought it would be a good time to check e-mail. But just like Philly, wifi wasn’t free ($8!), so I had to try something else. Tracy tired to introduce me to Sudoku, and I can’t quite get the hang of it. I seem to paint myself into a corner where I can’t solve it because I have duplicate numbers in a row.

So thanks to everyone for reading about the trip and hope you enjoyed the journey as much as we did. I should have pictures posted by the end of the day, and individual state recaps by the end of the week.

Distance driven: 183 miles (988 total)
Capitols visited: 6 (RI, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Signs seen: 7 (RI, MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Michigan license plates seen: 0 (1 total)

New England Trip: Day 3

2009-08-09T21:17:00.006-04:00

Tracy and I are currently in the middle of a New England road trip where we are going to see seven states in four days. Here are some daily highlights:

AUGUSTA TOWNSHIP, Maine — Day Three comes to a close and I have all the pictures I need for Assignment: America. We wrapped up the trip with stops in the capitals of New Hampshire and Maine and now I have 33 states completed. Tracy also found postcards for her collection, which I was surprised to find out are harder to find than one would think. There really isn’t a great place to look for them on a consistent basis, although we seem to have found that Rite Aid might be the place to start, as we found cards in three different states.

Today we also traveled throughout the backroads of New Hampshire and passed a couple of awesome signs: “Moose Crossing” and “Bear Crossing.” Tracy was really excited, as she was hoping to get a chance to see one of these animals. I didn’t think moose were native to New England, but apparently they are common as deer in this part of the country. Alas, we didn’t see any moose or bears on the trip, so Tracy had to settle for a picture of a moose on one of her postcards.

Finding welcome signs today was also difficult to spot along the New Hampshire/Vermont border. We were driving down I-89 and while looking at the GPS, it indicated we crossed the border into New Hampshire and didn’t see a welcome sign. Convinced we made a mistake, we decided to loop back and try again. On the second attempt, we saw a marker on the bridge for the official state line, and saw the welcome sign located on a hill, but had already passed the exit ramp. So, we had to make a third pass to get the picture. While driving on the ramp, we noticed there wasn’t a shoulder, so we had to drive around behind a grocery store and climb the hill for the picture. It sounds like a lot of work, but there seems to be one sign per trip that causes a lot of hassle.

After picking up some Vermont maple syrup at a roadside store yesterday, Tracy wanted to stop at another roadside store and look for antiques. We had such good luck yesterday, we thought we had an eye for a good store today. Yeah, that wasn’t the case today. We stopped at a store outside Augusta and the lady running the store would not stop talking to us about our trip. We decided to duck out and give up on antiques for the rest of the trip.

One last thing about driving on backroads: I continue to be impressed that every small town and every rural gas station seems to have a Dunkin Donuts store. I remembered that Boston had a ton of locations and seemed to have one on every corner, but it seems even more amazing that these areas can support so many stores (and even a periodic Tim Hortons!). Guess New Englanders need donuts to balance out their seafood.

With all the capitols done, we’re headed back home tomorrow. We’re driving down from Maine to Boston to drop off the car at the airport and take in a few sights before our flight leaves in the evening.

Distance driven: 281 miles (805 total)
Capitols visited: 6 (RI, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Signs seen: 7 (RI, MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Michigan license plates seen: 1

New England Trip: Day 2

2009-08-08T21:22:00.009-04:00

Tracy and I are currently in the middle of a New England road trip where we are going to see seven states in four days. Here are some daily highlights:

BARRE, Vt. — Today might have been the toughest day of driving on the whole trip, and it wasn’t just because a tailgater followed me for half a mile this morning. We covered around 350 miles, and most of it was through the mountains of Vermont. Add in the fact that the route from Albany to Montpelier was mostly backroads and one-lane highways, poor Karen had quite a workout. I can’t imagine how much more difficult and stressful would have been if she hadn’t been there every step of the way.

The two capitols we saw today were pretty cool, albeit on massively different scales. In Albany, the capitol was massive and appeared to look like a medieval castle more than a traditional building. It was located in an impressive, sprawling plaza, with a tall office building on the other end. Here in nearby Montpelier, the Vermont capitol was pretty small, fitting for a state that has the smallest population of any capital city in the country.

One thing we found interesting about Vermont has the ridiculous number of motorcycle riders we saw today. I’m not sure if it is the mountain roads or lax licensing restrictions, but we must have seen about 75 riders cruising around today. In fact, we passed a motel that said they had “biker friendly” rooms. We wracked our brains trying to guess what the means; the best idea being rooms that would allow bikers to park their bikes inside.

This morning, we went to another “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” place south of Hartford. Tracy was really looking forward to Bananas Fosters French Toast, but they were out of the Fosters, so she had to settle for an omelet with ham and bacon. We also were too early for their signature dish, a steamed hamburger. So we were 0-for-2 at O’Rouke’s Diner, but the food was still good.

When we were looking for hotels a few weeks back, there weren’t many options in the Montpelier area. They were either really expensive or really sleazy. So we settled for a smoking room at a Days Inn here in Barre (which we learned is pronounced “berry”) for the night. I wanted to publish some pictures, but the internet connection has been slow and spotty, so I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sorry, I know you are crushed.

Distance driven: 343 miles (524 total)
Capitols visited: 4 (RI, CT, NY, VT)
Signs seen: 5 (RI, MA, CT, NY, VT)

New England Trip: Day 1

2009-08-07T22:28:00.002-04:00

Tracy and I are currently in the middle of a New England road trip where we are going to see seven states in four days. Here are some daily highlights:

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — Greetings from just outside Hartford, where we wrapped up day one with some ice cream at Friendly’s. It’s been a really long day and I’m sure we’re going to turn in not long after I finish this post. Starting a day of driving at 5 a.m. probably isn’t a great idea, but it needed to be done to fit in stops in Providence and Hartford before nightfall. We were successful, but we almost ran out of sunlight tonight at the Connecticut capitol.

By choosing the cheapest flight, we had the unfortunate pleasure of flying U.S. Air and had to connect in Philadelphia, two awful things I would have preferred to avoid. But due to waiting too long to book, we missed out on a direct flight on Northwest and had to settle for this. As it turns out, the airport was its usual hot and stinky self, and I was almost run over by one of those carts that shuttles old ladies around the terminal.

My luck didn’t change much outside of the terminals either, as it seems most people in New England don’t know how to drive. Without exaggeration, I think we were close to being involved in five accidents if both of us had a lapse in attention. Defensive driving was definitely the theme of the day, yet we seemed to be on the receiving end of dirty looks and verbal insults (seriously, some guy yelled out, “How you doin’, buddy?” in a sarcastic tone when I stopped from T-boning him when he pulled out in front of me). Driving seemed to be exhausting, as I felt I was constantly on edge and worried some idiot would cut me off. It also doesn’t help Rhode Island has the shortest onramp merging lanes I’ve ever seen.

On the positive side, we did stop at a “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” restaurant in Rhode Island for some awesome seafood. It was located right along the water and it made for a great backdrop for lunch. I was surprised at how busy it was for 2:30 in the afternoon, but our waitress said they are constantly busy since they appeared on the show.

Both capitols we hit today had some logistical issues that made getting a good picture tricky. Rhode Island’s capitol was located on top of a hill and had a grove of trees at the base. We ended up walking down the hill and across a bridge a block away to get a shot I found acceptable, as a shot from behind didn’t work as the Transportation Department offices was across the street. Connecticut had a similar issue with sight lines, but this time was a traffic light post. We went across the street to the Supreme Court building and climbed every possible step to get a good angle. I think both turned out well, but it was quite the production.

I’ll try to get some of the pictures posted tomorrow, since it’s been a long day and I’m ready for bed. I hope tomorrow is a better day and I better hear at least one person strong New England accent before I leave.

Total distance driven: 181 miles
Capitols visited: 2 (RI, CT)
Signs seen: 3 (RI, MA, CT)

Wicked Awesome Road Trip

2009-08-03T21:24:00.000-04:00

This Friday, Tracy and I are off to New England for another Assignment: America road trip. This will be my first in over a year and our first A:A together. I’m a little worried that she will be freaked out while I am in “capitol mode,” but I think she’s interested to see that side of me. Plus, she gets to visit a few restaurants from her favorite Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives."

Because of the number of states we will visit and this is our first trip together, I thought I would blog at the conclusion of every day to let everyone know how it went. I had a good time writing recaps the last time I blogged from the road on my trip to San Antonio, so I hope it’s enjoyable to all my readers as well. Check back Friday night for my first post from the road, and stay tuned for a bigger announcement about SchickHappens.net coming in the next few weeks.

M-Den in Trouble

2009-07-30T20:24:00.002-04:00

Recently, it was announced that the U-M athletic department was switching its official retail shop from the M-Den, its long-time partner, to a newly created store called MGoBlue Shop. This caused a little bit of consternation around Ann Arbor, as the new owners are not based locally as the M-Den is.

This was the second blow for Wolverine retailers, as Steve & Barry’s lost its license to sell U-M apparel in January and closed its State Street location about a month later. I was sorry to see it go, as I bought most of my apparel there, and their prices couldn’t be beat. I mean, $7.50 for a T-shirt? So M-Den leased the location and it opened its door a few months back.

Now it appears M-Den is going to be in for a tough road the next year or so. It doesn’t appear any of the stores are going to be closing despite losing the “official” tag, as there are several other Michigan stores around Ann Arbor. But it certainly will hurt missing out on the sales from game days and from online. In fact, some stores may already be taking steps to cut their losses.

Tracy and I were at Twelve Oaks mall in Novi tonight, my first visit there in a long time. I noticed they had a M-Den store, and I thought we would stop in to see if they had any different stuff from the Briarwood location. As a matter of fact, they did – they had a section of Michigan State gear.

I was pretty annoyed at this discovery and immediately walked out. I guess because it wasn’t in Ann Arbor they don’t have to worry about psycho fans like me giving them crap. But if you are going to sell both U-M and MSU apparel, don’t use the M-Den name for your store.

Kitchen Classroom

2009-07-21T22:49:00.005-04:00

As a kid, Mom always made sure I helped out in the kitchen with minor tasks like measuring ingredients or stirring a bowl. I even prepared a few meals once in a great while, but I never considered myself a good cook. I’m not helpless in the kitchen like my Dad, but it still intimidated me a little.

When I was living by myself, I usually only cooked one meal a week for myself. It always seemed like such a hassle for just one person to waste so many dishes and cook large portions, so I usually did it on Sunday evening, and then I had leftovers for the next few days. After meeting Tracy, we started staying at home once in awhile on weekends and cooked a meal at my apartment. Needless to say, I didn’t cook very often and my culinary skills weren’t that sharp.

Now that Tracy and are living together, we trade off cooking every night. Typically we only go out to eat twice a week, so we’ve really started cooking a lot more and trying out new recipes. Some nights we do something simple like grilled chicken or pasta, but about once a week, we cook something more elaborate. I guess the extra practice has been paying off: tonight was my night for something elaborate, and I just wanted to brag a little at how well it turned out. But it could also be that the TV in our apartment is constantly tuned to Food Network...

One of my favorite dishes to order at seafood restaurants is blackened swordfish, and I thought I would try it at home. I had never grilled swordfish before, but I thought I would give it a shot. Besides, if it was awful, we are going to Real Seafood next week for our anniversary. I found a recipe online for blackening mix that included ingredients we already had in our spice rack. I added the rub to some frozen swordfish steaks before pan grilling it in olive oil. As I’ve said, I have low expectations for my food, but holy crap was it amazing. The rub was spicy without being overpowering and the fish was cooked perfectly.

With a side of mashed potatoes, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked. So if you want reservations at Chez Schick, better call soon, as the guest list is filling up quickly.

Not-so-happy birthday

2009-07-16T22:08:00.002-04:00

Not to post another “old man” rant, but I can’t help myself. I have nothing against birthday parties (who doesn’t love cake?), but I am so tired of the song, “Happy Birthday.” No one likes singing it and no one likes having it sung to them, so why do we keep this stupid tradition going? I guess I’m calling on someone to write a better song for birthdays.

We were downriver tonight for Tracy’s dad’s birthday party, and of course we had to sing as her mom brought the cake out. I don’t have a problem with her dad (although he still scares the crap out of me after knowing him nearly two years), but it felt really weird to sing to him. And I could tell he wasn’t excited about the being the recipient of the performance either. After you hit the age of 16, the song really doesn’t seem appropriate anymore.

I don’t usually make a big deal out of birthdays for myself, and maybe this is the reason. As much as I love cake, I usually ask for one of those big cookies, as people usually won’t put candles on it. I know the old joke goes, “It took two people to write ‘Happy Birthday?’ “ but it seems to have made it’s mark.

Farm on the Forth

2009-07-05T20:38:00.008-04:00

We just got back from Colfax for the weekend, and this was Tracy’s first time meeting Mom’s side of the family. We drove down Friday afternoon and we were surprised that there wasn’t a lot of holiday traffic. I thought it would be fun to have Tracy meet Nan and see the farm, where I spent so many summers growing up. I’ve always told Tracy that Nan is a riot and tells great stories, but you have to experience her in person. She thought I was making up a voice for her, but after meeting her, she agreed that I have her accent down pat.

We had a cookout yesterday with Mom’s sister and her husband, although rain put a damper on the holiday. But it was nice to spend time with everyone underneath the covered porch. Tracy also got to see all the sights and even got to feed the horses on the farm. Life in Indiana is a lot slower than Ann Arbor, so we made a trip to Lafayette to hang out at the mall for a couple of hours, which also gave Tracy a chance to be away from my family for awhile.

I was glad I got to see Nan and I’m grateful that Tracy was willing to tag along. I guess it’s my turn to visit Tracy’s relatives in Tennessee next time before we head out to Chicago to see Grandma Schick. Now hopefully she has a better idea of all my lame Indiana jokes...

Irony is Forming

2009-06-25T20:22:00.006-04:00

After all the confusion about whether or not I was accepted to grad school behind me, I thought all my bureaucratic problems would be over, at least until graduation anyway. You would think working at a public university would have prepared me for what was to follow.

I met with my program advisor and we went over the classes offered for the fall term. I looked at the list and decided to take a class that would be within my area of expertise, as I figured the transition back to a school routine with reading assignments and homework could be an initial tough adjustment. So this one sounded perfect: English 428- Writing Computer Documentation. Plus, it’It’s what I do on a daily basis at work, so if I can’t ease back into school with this class, I’m in for a long road ahead. Plus, it’s offered online!

The only catch about this class is it is offered at undergraduate level. No big deal; my program allows students to take up to three classes that are 400-level, provided you have the professor’s permission. My advisor promised me it wouldn’t be an issue once I filled out a form with the professor, so I didn’t think much about it.

Last week, I went over to Eastern on my lunch break to pick up and fill out the necessary form. I picked it up from the English department office and started to fill it out. The only problem was I didn’t know my student ID number. So I had to go home that night to look it up. The next day I dropped it off in the professor’s mailbox the next day. My advisor told me that most profs would sign it and get it back to her at some point, so I thought I was done.

Alas, that wasn’t the case. My professor e-mailed me saying he signed the form and it was in his outbox. He didn’t offer to get the form signed for the advisor for me. Her office is across the hall from his. So I had take another lunch break to drive over to Eastern to literally move a form across the hallway from one mailbox to another. For a class that is taken entirely online.

Since I am new to the program, I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and complain about this process. My advisor failed to mention that her signature was necessary and my professor was too lazy/important to move a form for me. All in all, I had to make three trips to Eastern to process a form for an online class.

Soupy Comedy

2009-06-21T16:21:00.012-04:00

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on here before, but Tracy and I are big fans of the TV show, “The Soup.” It’s a weekly show on E! hosted by comedian Joel McHale that reviews the previous week in pop culture and offers biting commentary on the clips. It’s really the only way I keep tabs on celebrity gossip and the like, but not like I really care what Paris Hilton is up to anyway. Hell, if I didn’t watch The Soup, I would have had no idea who Jon and Kate are, but still am not sure why their divorce is a big deal (I think I would be more annoyed seeing them on the cover of every tabloid if I didn’t know they had their own reality show).

At the end of a recent show, Joel mentioned that he was performing his stand-up routine in Cleveland and we decided it would be fun to drive down for a mini vacation and see him in person. As an added bonus, Tracy would also get to visit Mike Symon’s other restaurant, Lolita (the first being Roast in downtown Detroit).

All in all, it was a pretty disappointing weekend. First of all, the hotel we booked was overrun with little kids, as it was the site for some local soccer tournament. We were awaken this morning to a prank phone call at 7:30 a.m. Secondly, we should have went Lolita before Roast, as the food just wasn’t as good. It was more of a bistro than a high-end restaurant. We could only get reservations for 5:00 p.m. and I’m convinced we would have been lost as missed it if not for Karen.

When we got to the theater, it was located inside a high school with no air conditioning. That should have been the sign to leave. We sat in cramped seats in complete blackness as the warmup comedian came out. He was decent, but he kept constantly plugging his Soup spin-off on G4.

Then Joel came out and the crowd went nuts. The first half of his set was almost like an episode of The Soup: ripping celebrities, mocking bad TV shows and of course, taking shots at Ryan Seacrest. While all that works on the show, it just felt tired and forced live. The people around us didn’t seem to mind, as they were practically rolling in the aisles. Tracy and I looked at each other and thought we had heard all these jokes before. And if you had never seen an episode of The Soup, you would have been complexly clueless.

After about half an hour, he switched over to jokes about his wife and kids, and that didn’t seem to work either. Maybe I was already turned off or that wasn’t what I expected as his original material, but I didn’t find it that funny either. I mean, if I wanted marriage jokes, I would have went to see Ray Romano. While walking back to our car, we decided he must have some good writers on the show, as he wasn’t as funny off-camera. We’re not sure how we’ll feel watching the show on Friday, as most of his luster has been removed in our eyes.

Wait, the Red Wings... lost?

2009-06-13T15:32:00.003-04:00

This isn’t intended to be a “bash the Wings” post (although it could turn out that way), but I just wanted to relay my shock and share in the disbelief that my coworkers have that Detroit couldn’t win the Stanley Cup this year. It always seems that when the Wings have their backs against the wall, they always pull it together and come through in a big way. I figured game 7 would be no different, but from the way my work friends have been cursing the officials throughout this series, maybe it wasn’t meant to be this year.

I get a lot of crap from co-workers for not supporting the local team, but I always tell them that while I don’t like the Red Wings, I do respect them. The franchise is the model for all other NHL teams, from both commitment to winning to supporting the community. Hell, the Sharks hired their assistant coach in an attempt to implement their offensive system.

So sorry, Wings fans. Here’s hoping we’ll eventually get that San Jose-Detroit series in the Western finals that would make everyone happy next year.

Best Part of Moving

2009-06-08T20:05:00.011-04:00

I know I’ve written quite extensively about our apartment search and moving recently and the majority of it has been negative, but I have found a few things about moving to be rewarding. Going through all my stuff has been a lot of fun, seeing things in storage I haven’t seen in years and all the great memories associated with them. It also made me feel thankful for the life I have been able to lead so far.

And then there is the uncontrollable laughter that comes from finding something from your past that is beyond embarrassing, and the subsequent amazement that you kept it for so long.

Photo: Circa 1987

Another New Roommate

2009-05-31T15:24:00.008-04:00

I’m not sure if this was a promise I made to Tracy after agreeing to move in or a bribe to get her to say yes, but I said we could get a second cat once we were settled in our new place. We picked up our kitten from a relative of one of Tracy’s students earlier today and our newest member of the family is adjusting to her new surroundings.

We had a little bit of trouble coming up with a name for our little girl. Naturally, our first thought was to go back to Seinfeld names to complement Cosmo. But Tracy didn’t like Babs (although it was a perfect fit, I had to concede it didn’t feel right either) and after looking at some other prominent names in the series (Elaine, Helen, Estelle, Sue Ellen), none of them sounded right. We then went with other female names before settling on Zoey.

I was a little worried that Cosmo wouldn’t respond well to a buddy, but I think he was secretly lonely. Tracy’s parents gave her a stuffed cat plush that she brought with her and Cosmo found it and was cuddling with it earlier this week. He could have been seeking company after a stressful move, but we like to think he was telling us he wanted a friend. He seems to be willing to accept her into his house, but it will take time. She is currently living in the spare bathroom until they get used to each other, which we think will take about a week.

I’m curious to see how this will all shake out. I liked the setup we had with Cosmo, as we could come and go as we pleased, as his autofeeder took care of his meals and his water jug could go a month without changing. Now we have two different sets of food, litter, toys, etc., and trying to keep them separate will be a challenge. Tracy says I need to let it go, as they will never learn human-type boundaries, but my OCD and stubbornness will make sure I die trying.

Photo: “I’m too cute to be locked in this bathroom!”

Home Sweet (New) Home

2009-05-24T20:59:00.008-04:00

After finally finding a place willing to call us back, Tracy and I signed a lease at our new Ann Arbor apartment and began moving in this weekend. After finally finding a place willing to call us back, Tracy and I signed a lease at our new Ann Arbor apartment and began moving in this weekend.

Once Dad and I were done moving me into my old apartment and practically killing ourselves and each other in the process, I decided the next time I moved I would hire movers. I thought I could handle moving all the little stuff myself and leave the furniture to the movers, but I think I’ll have to make myself another promise to let them do everything next time. I took Friday off from work and have been moving stuff all weekend, and I’m still not done yet. Maybe I just need to get rid of some crap and I’ll be in better shape next time.

After looking at the combined amount of stuff she and I have, I think we made the right choice of apartments. I don’t think we could have fit all our crap into the Ypsi apartment, as this place has an outdoor storage unit, as well as bigger closets and more space for furniture. Tracy brought her bedroom set out of storage and vowed her days of renting a storage unit were over, so we had to fit it and my desk into the spare bedroom. All our furniture seems to be in place, but we have a long way to go before all the junk finds a place in the various closets and cabinets, but I’m proud of the progress we’ve made. Below is a set of pictures we took after signing the lease on Thursday, and I’ll try to post another set once everything is clean again (might be awhile).

Photo: Living/dining room

Photo: Master bedroom

Photo: Kitchen