Jack Frost Arrives

The weather quickly turned cold on us in Michigan.  Now we’re lucky to see the mid 30’s.  Mice seeking warmth have invaded our house and we anxiously await the moment they spring one of the traps we have set.  While it is much colder than Virginia, I’ve found that I’m starting to adjust.  It’s especially easy to stay warm by being active.  I set up my 1999 Blueberry iMac in the garage to play tunes while I refinish an old interior door that’s been sitting in the basement since before we moved in.  It has about 4 layers of paint on it and each application of stripper only takes off one layer. 

We’ve been sprucing up our house to get ready for our neighborhood’s progressive dinner party.  We volunteered to host dessert, since Julie has some mad dessert making skillz.  We replaced a ceiling light in the front entry and replaced the ceiling fan in the dining room with a chandelier.  Installing light fixtures is much more difficult in an older home!

I still can’t believe there’s only 4 weeks until Christmas.  We’ll be spending the holiday in Fisher and then New Year’s (and our anniversary) in Chicago.  I used to hate Chicago.  I used to think it was a bunch of warehouses in the suburbs and a few office buildings downtown.  But now that I’ve been around town a little, I have to say it is my favorite American city.  New York is cool and all, but Chicago isn’t so pretentious.  DC has history and some culture, but it’s comparatively bland outside of the downtown/Georgetown/Alexandria area.  Plus, the area is too car-oriented, which makes exploring the city prohibitive, especially if you live and work in the suburbs.  Anyway, I like being only 3.5-4 hours from Chicago (or 4.5 hours by train).  I like that Amtrak takes me directly from Lansing there, but I wish it would run more often than once a day. 

Speaking of trains, I’ve been thinking a lot about why they’re not so popular.  I would think spending 4.5 hours on a train that doesn’t require a security check, allows you to plug in and use your laptop, and costs half as much as flying would be better than flying.  Sure, you may get there a bit faster, but at a higher cost financially and psychologically.  I could see it replacing all of those short-haul hour-long flights, like the ones from Lansing to Detroit or Chicago.  Why not stick a train terminal right next to the airport?  I’d rather take a 4.5 hour train to Chicago than take a plane and spend 2 hours waiting for my connection.  Just think of the reduction of traffic that would result at airports if they could get rid of those short flights.  Think of the money the airlines could save by ditching their regional jets and only having to maintain the larger ones.

In other news, I’ve decided to spin off all my technical posts into a separate blog.

Fuβball

This fall I signed up for an amateur indoor soccer league with a couple of coworkers.  I am not a very athletic person, but I figured it’s a good way to get exercise and meat people.  Plus, we are a team of complete soccer newbs.  Our first game, played last friday was a shut out.  We lost 10-0.  Not a good start!  Now that I have a pair of real sports shorts, I should be able to really get my game on.   Any soccer tips? 

My Summer Vacation (2006)

For posterity’s sake, here’s a post I never finished from Fall 2006:

School is back in session, so it’s time to give a report on my summer!

Without intending to, I guess I went the entire summer without posting. Time to catch up!

For the 4th of July, the Derges’ came to visit - including Mom & Dad, Billy, and Aunt Betty. We saw some of the lesser-known sites, such as Theodore Roosevelt Island and the monuments at night. If you ever visit DC, seeing the monuments a night is really the only way to go. You avoid the 90 degree weather and the fearsome crowds and the monuments look really cool when they are lit up. I have some pics coming to Flickr soon.

The fireworks were great, as usual, but the crowds at the Metro after the show were bad, as usual. Imagine everyone in Des Moines trying to squeeze onto the Disney monorail…

In August 2006, Julie and I went on our Great Lakes Megatour. Our stops included Niagara Falls near Buffalo, New York, a visit to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, a stop to see friends in Chicago, IL, some great ice cream in Madison, WI, and more friends and family in Minneapolis and Sanborn, MN. We ended up visiting three of the five Great Lakes: Ontario, Erie, and Michigan. Together, that spells the ‘OME’ in ‘HOMES’. It also spells ‘EMO’. Combined, that’s 1,689 cubic miles of water!

Our first stop was Rochester, NY by way of Buffalo. Mapquest and Google Maps told me to go through Pittsburgh, but I thought that was too much backtracking. Instead, we took a zig-zag route up US 15, I-70W, I-76W, I-99N, PA 350, US 322, I-80W, US 219, and I-90E. It was one of the coolest road trips I’ve ever taken! US 219 through Northern Pennsylvania and Southwestern New York was especially scenic. We passed through some old towns in the Allegheny Plateau harkening back to Pennsylvania’s industrial past - railroads, coal mining, and oil extraction. We even passed right by a Weyerhauser paper mill. In Bradford, PA, we saw the Brad Pitt oil refinery and the Zippo lighter factory. Ironically, a house not too far from the factory had been recently burned.

Once we got out of Bradford and into Southern New York, we came into the land of the Senecas and crossed the Allegheny River. It was an amazing site as we drove along the Allegheny River flowing through the valley. We passed through Ellicottville, which sits in a broad, flattened valley suitable for farming. One of the city’s main attractions is a ski resort.

Soon we came to the town of Springville, NY. Along the highway I saw a sign for a restaurant with a familiar name - The Apple Dumplin’! For those of you not in the know, there is a restaurant near Urbana, IL with the same name that sells superb biscuits ‘n gravy and apple dumpling desserts. An Apple Dumpling is an apple baked with cinnamon and sugar inside a crispy dough shell. It can be served ala mode.

With visions of Apple Dumplings in our heads, we decided to take a break and have a mid-afternoon dessert. The dumpling we had was good, but not as good as the ones back in Illinois. It was definitely worth the stop, though.

Leaving the restaurant, we headed into Buffalo where Niagara Falls awaited us. We parked in a run-down and smelly parking ramp and walked over to the falls. I had never seen the falls before. Matt and I had attempted to see them back in college when we drove back from one of our road trips. However, the foggy winter weather and the early darkness kept us from seeing the falls.

This time I was successful. The falls are pretty cool. They’re even cooler when you go down to the base and climb the stairs that lead right up next to the cascading water. We took our pictures and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Remember when that was one of the coolest restaurants ever? It’s pretty crummy by today’s standards. It’s bascially an Applebee’s with music videos and autographed pop music paraphernalia. That’s why my sandwich costed $10.

We left Buffalo and headed East to Rochester via the Lake Ontario State Parkway. This road lined the lake shore and gave some decent views of the lake. However, I unkowingly took a wrong turn and ended up on a more inland road. Still, the countryside was beautiful. Because of Lake Ontario’s moderating effects, farmers along the shore can grow peaches and apples. There were many orchards in the area. (sidenote: you know you’ve got it bad when you always capitalize “Apple” when typing) We stayed at the Clarion Riverside hotel in downtown Rochester. While we were in Rochester, I liked to shorten the name to “The Roch.” Julie, however, didn’t like that nickname too well. Maybe the “The Rock” works better.

The next day, Julie had an appointment to take a tour of the Eastman campus. We grabbed some breakfast at the next-door “Java’s Cafe.” It must be where all of the Eastman professors hang out, because we spent the whole time listening in on conversations about classes.

The campus tour brought us through Eastman’s music library (supposedly the largest music library in the nation - and includes original scores dating back to the 17th century) and the Eastman theater. The theater is amazing. It dates back to the 20’s, is decorated in an art deco style, and has a massive chandelier.

After the tour, we ate at a mediterranian restaurant, aslo next door to the school. It was very tasty. I tried some Turkish coffee. It was…interesting. It tasted like stale coffee (coffee you leave in the pot for 5 hours, then microwave) and had a thick layer of powder-fine grounds at the bottom. I’ll stick to espresso.

William Howard Derges

Last week, on October 3rd, we said goodbye to Julie’s dad.  It was a bittersweet occasion.  On the one hand, we knew he was in heaven, partying with Jesus.  On the other hand, we’re not going to get to see him for a while.  He’s really going to be missed!

Not only was he a friendly, caring man, but he was a true servant.  He worked for 26 years as the Brown Township road commissioner - “digging ditches” as he liked to call it.  He was the guy behind the scenes who made sure a lot of the “little” things got done - like painting the high school football field, mowing a remote cemetery, landscaping a local park, managing the demolition derby track at the local fair, and providing meals for the football team.  He also counseled people as part of the Stephen’s Ministry.

We can learn a lot from Bill’s life, especially his desire for justice.  It’s easy to shrug our shoulders when something doesn’t go right, but Bill did everything he could to make sure things were fair.

Thank you to everyone who has sent messages, cards, and prayers.  It has meant a great deal!

Applelicious

This weekend has been an applelicious weekend! Today, Julie and I went to the Michigan Apple Festival to pick some apples, grab some donuts, guzzle cider, and savor an apple dumpling with ice cream. We then passed out on the couch/la-z boy. We picked some Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Macoum, and Jonagolds. I think if I were alive prior to the industrial revolution, I would have been an apple picker. I think it would be the funnest job ever - hunting for apples and reaching way up to get them.

What also made this an applelicious weekend is that Julie and I drove out to Grand Rapids last night. Grand Rapids is not only the home of Gerald Ford, but also the home of our closest Apple store. For my birthday, Julie bought me a 4GB iPhone! Best present evar!

I’m just amazed how Apple came into a pretty well-established industry and totally showed up the competition. The phone is so intuitive and feature-rich. It also worked out nicely because Julie had lost her cell phone a while ago. While I had bought a pay-as-you-go phone (and swapped out the SIM card with her AT&T card) as a cheap replacement, it just wasn’t doing the trick. So now she can use my old Samsung phone.

Studenting

I was starting to get a little disappointed this summer. Before we moved, we were excited that we were moving to a college town. We believed the smallness mixed with the coolness of a college community would offer us light traffic, kind locals, fab hangouts, and big-city culture.

Well, let’s pretend those are objectives for our “life surge,” and I’ll be General Petraeus and report our progress to you In all honesty, Lansing feels like a dying city, following the same path as Detroit. The economy has been shrinking, thanks to the idleness of the American auto industry, and people keep moving out into the surrounding suburbs, leaving the downtown area to rot. Some time in another post I’ll explore the issue of white flight. But for now, I’ll just say that life is peachy in the suburbs, but the area around our neighborhood is plagued with low incomes, dilapidated property, and a “for sale” sign in front of every other house. This summer, there weren’t any sort of great art events or lectures at MSU. I was ever longing more and more for life in the big city of DC or Chicago. I missed the culture.

But now that school’s back in session, things have picked up. Now that I’ve finished a long-running PHP project, I’ve decided to delve into the world of Ruby on Rails. Yeah, I’m 2 years behind, but now I have plenty of time to do it since I’m home alone 3 nights out of the week while Julie’s at class. Last weekend I attended the Grand Rapids Ruby Users Group. It was nice to get together with people interested in new and better ways of development. It was very refreshing and I learned quite a bit. For now, I’m working on a pet web application using Rails and the Google Maps API. I decided to throw an app together that would let you quickly plan trips - sort of like Dopplr or Yahoo!’s trip planner, but more focused on a precise Itinerary and less on the social aspect.

On Thursday I’m going to see Helvetica The Film. I’ve always been mildly interested in design and typography, so it should be really interesting. Later this fall, I’ll get to hear Julie perform Carmina Burana with the MSU choir and there are plenty of other performances going on in the music department.

So things are looking good in the culture department.  The locals are friendly and traffic is an absolute breeze.  There are some cool cafes as well, such as Espresso Royale and Beaner’s.  Lansing also seems to have the highest number of ice cream parlors per capita.

This summer has been nice, getting above 90 degrees only a few times.  But now it’s quickly changing to fall, and I don’t know if I can handle the cold weather again after living in Virginia for 4 years where temperatures in January stay around 30 degrees.

I think we need to give our “life surge,” just like the real “surge,” more time.   We’ve been meeting most of the benchmarks!

The More, the Merrier!

Julie and I successfully hosted six, count ‘em, SIX guests in our new house this weekend - friends from Chi-town.  We had a merry time discussing deep philosophical issues, playing Croquet (which I believe is the next Kickball or Bocce), grilling, eating MSU Dairy Store ice cream, and touring The D.  One from our group of friends works with a guy from Iraq whose family moved to Dearborn, home of the largest concentration of Arabs in North America.  After seeing downtown Detroit (didn’t take long) we headed to Arab central.  An iPhone and my yesterday’s-tech cell phone guided us to Arab Kabob.  I felt a bit out of place being in a group of the only white people in the cozy diner where all of the signs were written in Arabic and an Arabic soccer channel played on the TV.  Our choices on the menu were chicken or “meat” kabob, tekka, and chicken hearts or livers.  I went with the “meat tekka” and enjoyed it thoroughly.  In Arabic, their word for “meat” is the same for “beef” so what I had was cubed beef served with salad, rice, pickled turnips, and plenty of bread.   I also realized that I’ve only bought one album printed in 2007.  I’m falling way behind!  Time to start exploring artists again, now that I have plenty of solitary downtime with Julie at class in the evenings :( 

Home Ownership

A lot has happened over the past month.

My cousin and her husband came to visit just after we got enough stuff put away to make our house seem livable. We had a great time catching up.

That weekend we flew back to Virginia for the Bender wedding. Since we were staying in Fredericksburg with my parents, we had a bit of a commute to get to the wedding. Julie was playing music so we had to get there a bit early. Unfortunately, we ran into the usual weekend traffic on I-95. For much of our trip in lighter traffic areas, I was driving well above 80mph. We were both freaking out and when I got out of the car at the church, I was shaking from the rush of adrenaline. But, we made it and the wedding was great. It was really nice to see everyone again, but we were in a kind of “limbo” where we’ve said goodbye so many times, but keep coming back every other week. It now finally feels like we’ve really left, since we haven’t been back for a few weeks. Now we miss everyone!

The next week (4th of July) my parents came to visit and we went on a home improvement blitzkrieg. Julie and my mom painted the dining room three times (they couldn’t find the right color) and we all painted the guest bedroom. My dad and I built new stairs to the basement (the old ones were uneven in every dimension and “not entirely stable”), fixed a leaky pipe, patched cracks in the driveway, and various other items. It was an exhausting weekend, but I got to play catch-up in learning all of those handyman things I should have learned growing up :p

I have some pictures posted on Flickr of the house before our fixes, and will take some pictures in about a week of everything updated.

The week following my parents’ visit was our first real week at “home”. We also began our search for a church. It’s kind of hard to find a church after going to one that has continually evolved and attached to so many friendships. It’s also hard to “compromise” on a church that may hold some doctrine that I don’t agree with. Although, it’s not like I agreed with everything IBC taught… But, Lansing has plenty of churches and our search has only begun. Last Wednesday I was looking at a church’s website and found that they had a group of strategy gamers who meet on Thursdays. I almost fell out of my chair, I was so surprised to see such a geeky gathering offered by a church. I emailed their contact and told them I was coming. Well, it wasn’t what I was expecting (I was expecting war games) but it makes sense to have a group that plays non-war games that appeal to a broad range of people. The games still involve plenty of strategy and it was a good time. We played Power Grid and I ended up in third out of fourth place. Not bad for a newbie! Plus I was playing against some hardcore gamers - you know, the kind who can calculate odds in their heads involving 20 variables. Well, that’s just an assumption, anyway. So, while I have gotten involved with a group, I haven’t actually gone to the church, but it sounds interesting. 60% of their congregation is under 30! We’ll see when we actually go there.

Last week, Julie went to Chicago (thus fostering conditions to attend gaming group above) to visit her friends. On Friday I took an Amtrak train from East Lansing to Chicago. The train from DC to New York/Boston is awesome, so I thought I’d try out the trains out here, especially since it was more economical to ride the train to Chicago instead of driving out separately and then driving two cars back. The train ride itself was great, but getting to the train was laborious.

Every day, a train leaves from East Lansing directly to Chicago at 7:45am. There are other trains that run every few hours from Detroit to Chicago via Kalamazoo/Battle Creek, but the one that goes through Lansing is only scheduled for that 7:45am slot. However, Amtrak offers a bus to take you from the Lansing station to Battle Creek in the afternoon. I signed up for it, thinking, “how bad could it be?” Well, for one, the bus was an HOUR late. Also, the bus was completely full and the driver had to spend 20 minutes trying to fix a seat in the back because it was positioned too close to the seat behind it to let anyone sit in the seat. When I got to Battle Creek, I still had an hour and a half to kill. I knew I would have some time between the bus and train, so I packed my stuff in my suitcase I got for our trip to Europe. It is carry-on sized and doubles as a rolling suitcase and a backpack. Nice for when you need to walk long distances. I ate at a Mexican restaurant (which was very tasty, just cant remember the name) and toured the downtown area. What’s awesome about Battle Creek is that the train station is right next to the Post factory. It smelled like cereal! The rest of the town wasn’t that exciting. The train/bus station itself was pretty janky. However, the train to Chicago was very nice. Not much different than the regional trains out east. I was able to plug my laptop in and play video games. I got off at Chicago’s Union Station and Julie, with her friends, picked me up. We stayed with friends who live sort of North and West of downtown Chicago. It was pretty easy to get to the “cooler” neighborhoods, like Lincoln Square and Wicker Park. On Saturday, the girls got their hari cut while Stephen and I had a copule of Stiegels at an authentic German pub. I guess the area we were in was settled by a ton of Germans. A lot of people at the pub spoke German, so I started talking to a guy (in German) who was a magician from Silesia. Good times. That was the highlight of my weekend.

I also played Gears of War, which is the new Halo. Now I can say I’m hip and “with it.” But I’ll be a crotchety old man and say that, even after all these years, first person shooters are still basically the same. Extremely muscular men killing Nazis or aliens with big guns and chainsaws. Oh, and the obligatory blood splatter. There was the innovative element of having to use cover and flanking maneuvers but it’s funny that these sort of features come out iteratively. Game 1: kill aliens. Game 2: kill aliens with your friends. Game 3: kill aliens with your friends, but with better graphics. Game 4: kill aliens with your friends using cover. Game 5: kill aliens that are smarter, etc.

One thing I did get to do while waiting for buses and trains was to listen to some Rob Bell. I listened to a Mars Hill podcast episode that was one of those “paradigm shifting” moments. He talked about wine and heaven and how our current view of heaven (living in a completely different, spiritual dimension called “heaven” just sitting there and singing songs) isn’t really based on what the bible says. He goes into how the typical Christian sees “saving our souls” as the priority and leaving the world to rot is completely missing the point of Jesus’ message. It’s really good and you can (and should) listen to it here.

This week, our plans of sitting around changed to “having guests” mode as Julie’s parents decided it would be better to come this week instead of next week. This is yet another home improvement blitzkrieg. This time, we are wiring the garage with power and building a deck/railing on the balcony at the back of the house. It’s been off to a slow start, however, as her parents’ Explorer needs fixing and Julie pinched a nerve in her back.

We’re In!

I am officially a tax paying resident of Michigan!

On Friday I flew one-way to Reagan National Airport where Julie picked me up. My parents were already at our house helping us pack. I helped them pack for a bit and then we drove down to Fredericksburg to stay the night with my parents. That night, I got an email from U-Haul about where to pick up our moving van — in Louisa, Virginia. Hmmm…I had never heard of Louisa.

I looked up directions to Louisa and realized they were practically sending me to Charlottesville! Not good! The next morning, my dad and I drove out to Louisa and picked up the van from a small hunting store in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. The owner of the store understood our woes and told us that U-Haul just looks for the closest rental agency to your address for the best available truck. The kicker, however, was that we had also reserved a car dolly to tow our car to Michigan with. We were told that it was waiting for us in Lorton. Yikes! I called the Lorton UHaul and told them I would pick up the dolly on Sunday.

We drove up to Reston and continued to pack and filled the truck with items we wanted to get rid of. My parents were super helpful and packed madly while Julie and I went to Eric and Katie’s wedding. It was cool to see them get married and it was fun to be an usher again. The cake was really good, too! It was nice to see a lot of my good friends before we officially moved to Michigan. I think the most moving part about the wedding was when we all sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” It was so spirited - you could tell that everyone there meant what they were singing. What was funny was that the wedding was held at Centreville Baptist Church, where Julie has accompanied her friend’s students’ singing recitals every year since she moved here.

After the wedding we headed back home and continued to pack. It was a very exhausting day. On Sunday, Julie played her last set with the Venture band - a set for which she chose the music. The rest of the day was spent packing and cleaning the house - we were finished! My parents did have to get an extra trailer for the U-Haul because we realized we had way too much crap for a 19-foot van to hold. So instead of the car dolly, we got a trailer. Our plan is to leave Julie’s car in Virginia and drive it back after we visit for the Bender wedding on the 30th.

On Monday Julie had her last day of school while I waited around the house to have the carpets cleaned and had a walk-through with the landlord. Our carpets were littered with stains from 2 years of 3 girls’ food spilling and 2 years of our own food spilling. I was amazed to see all of it cleaned out. If you ever need your carpets cleaned in Northern Virginia, Hew’s Carpet Cleaning is the way to go! After I got checked out of the house, I drove over to Julie’s post-school teacher party in the U-Haul. They all waved goodbye as we drove off towards Michigan.

Driving the U-Haul wasn’t too bad - not too different than driving a normal utility van (think Ford Econoline). We could only go 45/55 up some hills and passing anyone was a fruitless endeavor. We made it to Michigan in 11 hours. At the end of the trip I was running on pure adrenaline.

On Tuesday we began unpacking and were accompanied by Julie’s dad and brother. It was really nice to have their help. Unloading was much easier than loading the truck. At the end of the day we had all the boxes and furniture in the house and a brand new patio set to chill out on with a few beers.

The next day I had to work. It was tough going back to work as I was very tired. I am still recovering. It doesn’t help that I’ve stayed up until 12am to write this post…

West to Holland

In my last post, I was praising the wonderful Michigan Flyer bus for its offerings of great comfort while taking me to the Detroit Airport. Getting to the airport was a breeze. However, getting home proved to be a bit difficult. My plane was scheduled to arrive in Detroit at 7:30pm on Sunday and I was to catch the last bus back to Lansing at 9:20. However, with the edge of a hurricane over Virginia and a storm system over Detroit, my plane didn’t leave Washington DC until 7:30. At that point, I figured I’d have just enough time to get off the plane and run to the bus. When the plane landed and we were approaching the gate at 9:15, I had high hopes. I called the bus company and had them wait an extra 5 minutes for me. But then, as we were nearing the terminal, the plane turned around and parked a few hundred feet away. The pilot told us that because lightning had been sighted, the ground crews weren’t allowed to get to our plane and let us off! We waited until 9:20 and finally got into the gate. By then it was too late. The bus company refused to wait any longer and I was left to find my own way home.

I started asking all kinds of people at the airport if they were headed for Lansing so I could hitch a ride. Unfortunately, either nobody ever goes to Lansing, or no one was willing to give a strange guy at the airport a ride home. I got online and looked at how much a rental car was ($90) and headed for the rental agency. A taxi driver approached me and asked if I needed a ride. I said, “yeah, how much to get to Lansing?” He said it would be $230. I kindly refused and he said, “well how much would you be willing to pay,” and I said, “well, I can rent a car for $90,” and the driver quickly motioned to the rental bus stop and moved on to another potential customer. I ended up renting a Saturn Ion and began the long drive home. The next day after work, I dropped the rental car off at the Lansing airport and took a couple of buses back to East Lansing to get my car. What an ordeal! I still can’t believe that the bus wouldn’t wait maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

Next weekend I will take my last flight out of the Detroit airport, for at least a while. I’ll take the bus because I won’t have to worry about flying back into Detroit. I’m flying into Reagan and we will pack up and drive a U-Haul back to Lansing! This Sunday, Julie is flying into Detroit and on Monday we are closing on the house! I’m so ready to move out of my smelly, dirty bachelor pad. I’m still convinced it was worth the cheap rent, though

Today was my first Saturday spent in Lansing. Every other weekend I’ve spent in Illinois or back in Virginia. This was the first weekend in a long time, too, where I’ve been able to sleep in and not do anything when I wake up. It was refreshing. Every other weekend I’ve had some kind of engagement or work to do. This afternoon, I went to my parents’ old friends’ son’s graduation party. Yeah, it was awkward with no one there that I knew, except the family. I made some conversation with an older couple, and it was still enjoyable to chat a bit with some friends. I had a roasted pork dinner, too. My hopes weren’t high for it because I had heard earlier (when I had visited the family a few weeks ago) that the pig was going to be cooked with gas. Roasting a pig with GAS?! Yikes! What’s the point? Well, I tried it and it was OK. It was certainly tender and juicy, but it was missing the flavor. Sure, you can slop on some BBQ sauce, but the meat should stand on its own. Instead, it was bland and the crisped skin tasted like burning, not the good, wood flavor of real BBQ. Plus, with all the special breeding they do with pigs now days to make it more lean, there’s no good pork flavor, either.

After the party, I thought about what to do next. Nothing came to mind, so I pulled out my US road atlas and looked to Western Michigan. I would take a road trip to Holland! I drove a little over an hour and reached Zeeland township and then headed into downtown Holland. Being in Dutch country, I half expected to see a plethora of windmills and tulips, but I was disappointed. However, downtown Holland is very nice. They have a lively shopping district reminiscent (to me) of Annapolis or Fredericksburg. Lining Lake Macatawa were several glorious mansions. Detroit, Flint, and Lansing neighborhoods may be suffering, but Holland is doing very well. I passed by the H. J. Heinz plant, and I was sure I could smell Ketchup in the air. On my map, I had seen a marker for Saugatuck State Park, but there was nothing on the map showing me how to get there. I decided to wing it, because I wanted to see the beaches of Lake Michigan. I had been to the beaches of Ogden Dunes in Gary, Indiana, but I was disappointed by the fact that my view was spoiled by the surrounding steel mills (still worth seeing, though - a nice break from my trip back to Lansing from Champaign a couple weeks ago).

Getting to the beaches in Indiana was difficult because most of the shoreline was occupied by private developments and access was obtained via a confusing mess of roads. This adventure was equally difficult. I followed the afternoon sun west as far as I could and headed south when forced to a dead end. Eventually, I reached the park entrance and parked near the Felt Mansion. The mansion was built by the man who patented the comptometer, an early adding machine. I wandered around the grounds for a bit, trying to figure out how to get to the beach. I followed a dirt trail past an abandoned building and saw several people walking toward me wearing beach clothing. I knew I was on the right track. I followed the path over some large, wooded sand dunes. On the other side, I came to the lake shore. It was very pretty - white sand, calm water, and hardly any people. In the summer, this would rival the Gulf Coast! I waded in the water, walked along the shore, and took some pictures with my Nikon FG20 inherited from my dad. As I walked through the sand, it squeaked! I remembered that the dunes were “singing sand dunes.” Sweet! I headed back to my car and headed back to Holland.

On my way into Holland, i had seen a couple of guys selling BBQ Chicken next to a gas station. They had a couple of large, barrel grills set up next to a wooden shack. Hungry, I decided to give it a whirl. I bought a bottle of Faygo “Rock & Rye” pop at the gas station and headed over to the BBQ shack. I bought a quarter chicken dinner and talked to the owner. He says he was selling Texas style BBQ chicken. I asked him what kind of wood he used and he says he uses mesquite and brings up bundles of the wood from Texas every year. With my food, I headed to a park in Holland I had passed back in Holland. I sat at a picnic table overlooking Lake Macatawa and ate. The chicken was pretty good, but what caught my attention was the sauce. It was almost like sweet and sour sauce and was very tangy. It was different, but good. The chicken hadn’t acquired much smoke flavor, but it was good. With mesquite, I don’t think you want too much of the smoke, since it tends to turn acrid. I then headed home on a full stomach.

On my way home, I was listening to Sufjan Steven’s Michigan album. I heard these lyrics:
I always knew you
In your mothers arms
I have called your name
I have an idea
Placed in your mind
To be a better man
Ive made a crown for you
Put it in your room
And when the bride groom comes
There will be noise
There will be glad
And a perfect bed

I thought about the recent passing of Dave Cho, a pastor at my “old” church and the recent illness of my grandfather. I also thought about how anxious I am to see my wife and move into our new house. I thought about how exciting it will be to finally see Jesus! I thought about our current situation as humans on earth, and how everyone (including God) is anxiously awaiting the day when we finally meet God and how much rejoicing there will be. I thought about how excited I used to get at concerts, finally seeing great artists in person and the feeling I would get of pure joy and excitement. I thought about all the weekends when I see Julie at the airport after being gone for a week and how absolutely wonderful it is to see her after being so long apart. I thought about our engagement and the excitement I had about being married and sharing a home together. I really hadn’t thought about God that way in a long time. It really will be more amazing than all of those experiences combined. I’m so excited! It’ll be the greatest homecoming ever! It’s going to be flippin’ sweet!