Weekend of Leaves and Golf

I find it funny how my plans for a Saturday never play out as I write them down. This Saturday, I was going to sort some paper, play nine holes of golf, rake, and do some work. Instead, I ended up raking for three hours, going on a hike at Misty Acres down near Frankfort, MI with dad and Katy, and then raking some more.

After we cleaned the leaves off of the entire driveway, Lindsey and I went to the Old Mission Tavern for a nice meal. We tried to use a 50% off your second dinner coupon, but the (excellent) waitress informed us it wasn’t good until November. Woops! The bread and salads were excellent, regardless. Lindsey wasn’t crazy about her prime rib, but I liked my parmesan-crusted whitefish. What made the evening, however, was running in to my golf coach from the University of Michigan, Jim Carras. I had not seen him since 2002 or 2003, when I was a Junior in college. He was up with friends visiting the area.

Sunday morning was spent eating pancakes and trimming some pine trees on the south side of the driveway. I am bushwacking all throughout the developed areas of our property in an effort to recover some of what I perceive to be areas and views lost to overgrowth permitted by prior owners.

I played in the Big Hole Golf Event at the Grand Traverse Resort on Sunday afternoon with Ben Orr and Chris Day. This is an event where they cut 10 inch (instead of 4.25 inch) holes in all of the greens. It was fun, but we still couldn’t make a putt!

The Tigers completed getting swept for the second time in the World Series. Not sure what the problem is there. Would have been fun to see them win, but I’m not a huge baseball fan. Lions won. Woop-de-do. Until next weekend, have a good week.

New House: Day Six

Since buying the house, I’ve started carrying around a black journal in which I semi-compulsively write all of the various chores, projects, purchases, etc. that need to be accomplished. “Stress Inducing Log of Expensive Projects” might be a better term for the journal. Regardless, I wrote the following passage in it this morning:

I woke up early this morning to do some work before going to work. However, I’ve spent the first ten minutes of my extra hour looking for the coffee filters, which Lindsey had moved while unpacking the hundreds of kitchen things we (apparently) own. I spent another ten minutes waiting for my toast to toast in the toaster oven that had been shifted and, unbeknownst to me, unplugged. Now, I’m sitting in sweat pants and a hooded “Michigan” sweatshirt with hiking boots on as a precaution for having to chase after Yogi if he decides to bolt into the woods.

I wrote the last sentence about hiking boots before I put them on, and just before Yogi actually did chase after a deer. So, instead of running after the dog in boots, I was in yellow Dutch-shoe slippers. I ran around our little house, through the pricker bush thatch, up the large hill, and down half of the other side of the large hill, all the while yelling, “Yogi! Yogi! Yogi!” It was dark, I was cold, my slippers were ruined and the moral of this story is that we need to fence the other half of the yard.

My Year in Cities 2010

In 2010, I slept at least one night in each of the following cities. The asterisks denote multiple-visit cities.

After drafting the following list of cities, I now realize how close-reaching my 2010 travel has been. This indicates a big shift in my life from looking far away for what I want, to being happy with that with which I’ve chosen to surround myself. I have nature. I have family. I have love. I have work and play. I have entertainment and downtime. And all of these things are in my backyard (so to speak). They are closer than they’ve ever been in my life, and I intend to cherish that by spreading my roots far and wide and making a mark on the local community. Of course I hope to travel far and wide for many years to come, but now, more than ever, I’ll do it knowing where my true home is.

  • Traverse City, MI* (Hometown)
  • East Lansing, MI (MI bar exam)
  • Ishpeming, MI* (Grandma’s house)
  • Wilderness State Park, MI (Camping)
  • Charlevoix, MI (Wedding)
  • Holland, MI (Wedding)
  • Ann Arbor, MI (UM v. BGSU)
  • Chicago, IL (Wedding dress hunt)
  • Grand Rapids, MI (Law seminar)
  • Olympia, Washington (Wedding)

On Being Home

I’ve been home for less than a week, and already I’m gong nuts. I walk around looking in cupboards, around corners, and outside. I’ve managed to take a doorknob off, but replacing it has been asking a bit too much at the moment. It’s weird to experience such a drop-off in mental tasking from 2+ weeks of law school finals to loafing. The down time is good, but I need to make / build / do something sooooon.