Tag: um

Lions and Tiger(s) and Wolverines, Oh My!

Forgive the title, I couldn’t resist.

The Lions won. The Tigers won. U of M won (finally). Tiger Woods won (easily), which meant the most exciting thing about the final tournament of the FedEx cup was finding out about the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. Go ahead, look and see.

The Sylvania 300 was raced (Is that the lingo racing fans?) at the New Hampshire Int’l Speedway, which is fifteen minutes from where I live. The fans that didn’t (couldn’t? Do these things sell out?) get to see the race set up folding chairs on highway overpasses and watched the traffic driving south on I-93. They were watching me drive! I tried to give them a good show – a good clean lane switch. I overtook a Ford Focus in masterly fashion.

O.J. Simpson was arrested on a self-directed “sting-operation.”

The guy who bought Barry Bonds’ 756th home run baseball is asking the public what to do with it at vote756.com. There are three options: (1) send the ball to the hall of fame, (2) iron an asterisk onto the ball and send it to the hall of fame, or (3) banish the ball to outer space.

I don’t care about anything else that happened.

Go Blue: UM vs MSU Football

I went to the UM v. MSU football game in East Lansing this weekend. Michigan beat a tough and determined Spartan team, 28-24.

The patrons in front of me were true heathens. They were loud, obnoxious, and, well, they attacked me. They did not like that I was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt and shouting, “Go Blue,” in between chants of, “Go White” and “Go Green.” Nonetheless, I persisted with the fight song during touchdowns and clapping for Michigan. I wouldn’t have been so annoying had there been more Michigan fans in my area.

When UM scored it’s winning touchdown the TV camera was on me. I was on the scoreboard. I unzipped my jacket and held up the “Michigan” on my sweatshirt in front of the camera to show the stadium, at which point the large man in front of me with no sideburns and only slightly more intelligence grabbed the front of my sweatshirt. He assaulted me. Like I can’t celebrate.

The game was close, which is what I wanted. That’s always more exciting. Mallet, UM’s freshman quarterback, did an awesome job fumbling on the only play he played. And Hart did a more awesome job recovering the fumble for a first down. That’s the kind of stuff that happens when you win against a good team.

Go Blue.

… which reminds me… it was pointed out to me several times that there is no response to, “Go Blue.” If someone says it to you in passing, the only logical response is “Go Blue.” Saying, “Go Maize,” doesn’t really role off the tongue.

University of Michigan Admissions

In 2003, three years after I had been admitted to the University of Michigan, the constitutionality of the points based admissions process was challenged. The case, Gratz v. Bollinger, reached the Supreme Court. The admissions process was held to be unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored enough to not violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the United State Constitution.

You need 100 points to be admitted.

Academic factors (100 points):

  • 80 – High school GPA
  • 12 – ACT or SAT score
  • 10 – Quality of high school
  • 8 – Strength of high school curriculum

Non-academic factors (40 points):

  • 10 – In-state resident
  • 4 – Alumni relationships
  • 1 – Outstanding essay
  • 5 – Personal achievement
  • 20 – Other, including
    • Socioeconomic disadvantage
    • Underrepresented minority
    • Athletic recruitment
    • Provost’s discretion

Looking back, I spent way too much time on my essay.

Update on the Harmonica Player

I wrote an open letter about the harmonica player that sat on the cement wall outside of the UGLi throughout my four years at the University of Michigan. A recent facebook group brought to my attention that he is actually a professor at the U of M, and is not, as I had assumed, homeless. His name is Tom Goss and he’s been playing for nearly 20 years. Chances are that if you took a stroll through the Diag in Ann Arbor you would hear him today. Here’s a Michigan Daily article on him.