brainsplotch

I love coffee.  Okay, I don't just "love" coffee, I'm obsessed with coffee.  I would walk several miles uphill both ways for the perfect brew.  I have to have coffee every morning and just about ever evening.  I don't know when this began, in fact I can't pinpoint a specific time in my past where I said to myself, "From this moment forward, I will want to drink coffee each and every day until I die." I didn't begin drinking coffee until I was in college at Michigan State, and back then it was only for the caffeine and not for any real enjoyment.  At the time, I had no taste in coffee, and I thought that the powdered flavored crap was actually rather fancy and classy.  I can still remember late nights boiling water in an electric water pot and mixing in that dreadful caffeinated powder. My most intense memory of drinking coffee in college took place in March 1989: Winter term finals week.  That term, I took a political science class that deal...

Friday night I watched the first MSU football game while putting together the foosball table my eldest son received for his birthday. (Above is a picture of yours truly, Captain Cueball, and the son taking a break during a heated foosball battle).  This continues a longstanding tradition of mine of watching the first weekend of the college football season whilst assembling a birthday present--since my son's birthday is on September 2.  For the rest of my life, the beginning of football and my son's birthday will be inextricably linked. That's not a bad thing, since this is my favorite time of the year.  I love the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  The overlap of football and baseball seasons is also wonderful, and especially this year with the promise of my team, the Detroit Tigers, making the postseason. I can recall how much I hated the Labor Day weekend when I was a kid.  For me, Labor Day only meant that the next day I'd have to go to school....

I don't have anything pithy, remarkable, or original to say about the 9/11 anniversary.  It was a sad, strange, surreal, and scary day.  I remember that my oldest son was nine days old and I was on a "paternity leave" and staying at home with my wife.  We had a small TV in our bedroom and I groggily awoke to her watching it and saying that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  The rest of the day is a bit of a blur to me.  I do recall driving to Ypsilanti with the thought that classes somehow hadn't been canceled at Eastern Michigan.  (I'd called in the morning and someone, probably a clueless undergrad, had said that classes were still on.  Instead of calling again in the afternoon, I simply got in the car and drove to Ypsilanti.  I think deep down I knew that classes were cancelled, I just needed the catharsis of a long drive).  I'll never forget that drive to EMU (and discovering the empty commuter parking lot and that, yes--of cou...

Yesterday, R.E.M quietly announced, via their website, that they were officially breaking up.  I feel a bit wistful about this:  I know it's time (and maybe has BEEN time for several years) but it feels like a part of my youth and young adulthood has "died".  I'm feeling a little bit melancholy, though I'm happy that they can at least call it quits on a creative and critical upswing.  Their last two albums ( Accelerate and Collapse Into Now ) were quite good.  Anyway, R.E.M left the scene the same way they spent their time in the scene: with grace and understatement.  Godspeed, R.E.M. You were part of the soundtrack of my life. Also yesterday, in news that is quite a bit more important than R.E.M.'s breakup, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia.  I have to admit that I had no idea who he was until recently, when the controversy over his murder conviction and impending execution became front page news.  After reading about this case, it seems...

Remember that "glass is half empty" comment that I made about the Detroit Tigers last week? Wow, was I wrong!  What this team has accomplished the last few weeks, and particularly during this 12-game winning streak they just added to moments ago, is nothing short of amazing. I wrote in a Facebook post that I haven't had this much fun watching baseball since 1984 (although the Tigers' charge to the division title in 1987 was fun, as was their improbable American League pennant win in '06). This team doesn't quit.  Today's win over Chicago was a perfect case in point.  Down the entire game, they calmly tied it up in the ninth on Ryan Raburn's solo homer and Alex Avila's clutch 2-run blast.  When the Sox threatened in the bottom of the ninth with the mercury-quick Juan Pierre dancing off third base with only one out, naturally these magical Tigers got A.J. Pierzynski to ground into an inning ending double play.  Not even Ramon Santiago momentaril...

I have tried twice to post an entry about the Fall football season, only to notice that Blogger had updated its interface and wasn't allowing me to post anything the old way.  AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!! Okay, here's an even more brief overview of what I was going to write.  Fall is upon us and its time for college football and baseball pennant races.  I remain glass is half empty regarding the chances of the MSU Spartan football team, the Detroit Lions, and the Detroit Tigers. Post script: Could I have possibly been any more WRONG about the Tigers.  Wow, what a finish to the regular season!  And the Detroit Lions--they are off to a great start in the regular season and may yet make a believer out of me.  As for the MSU Spartan football team--the jury is still out.