This year in Ann Arbor and New England, I started the year in Michigan and ended it back in the northeast. In January, I got my Covid booster, biked the Border to Border trail to see the geese and ducks (and a pair of hooded mergansers) wintering on the Huron River, made a belated gingerbread dinosaur nativity scene, celebrated National Peanut Butter Day with my daily lunch PBJ, and hemmed some pants. I also watched Addams Family Values and took a second stab at the Discworld with the Ankh-Morpock City Watch in Guards! Guards!. Perhaps most importantly, I submitted my thesis, had it accepted, and received official permission to graduate.
February began with a balmy 40 F day that once again saw me on the B2B. After spending five and a half years running simulations of surfactants, I finally put some surfactant solutions on the rheometer and produced some of my own experimental data. The Winter Olympics were held, and the New England Revolution kicked off their season with a semi-promising 2-2 tie in Portland. Other activities included baking banana pecan chocolate chip muffins, finishing a cross stitch project, starting the X-Wing books, and observing Twosday (22:22:22 on 2/22/22, which was a Tuesday).
Snow soccer happened not once, but twice for the Revolution in March. It was a rough season from then on. I baked rocky road cookies and cranberry orange muffins, and attended (what I referred to as) ChE’s State of the Department Address to hear about what was going on in the department. Our research group celebrated a defense by going out for lab lunch, and a few of us took a day trip one weekend for dim sum, cake, and stops at a couple parks.
I continued wrapping things up in Ann Arbor in April, starting the month off with a couple labmates at the house of another friend from a different lab for cocktails, snacks, and dessert. On the research front, I resubmitted my second manuscript a couple weeks later. Otherwise, it was more or less business as usual with group meeting, filing taxes, hiking my standard trails in search of birds and spring wildflowers, watching the Revolution ping pong between winning and losing, and baking double chocolate cookies and peanut butter cookies.
May was a busy month, my last in Ann Arbor. Before leaving, I made sure to meet up with a couple friends I hadn’t gotten to see much because of the pandemic, once spending an evening at Pinball Pete’s playing pinball and other games, then drinking a pitcher of sangria down the street. The lab had a cookout/potluck at our advisor’s house since a few of us were leaving Ann Arbor around the same time, and I invited the lab and a couple ChemE friends for one final happy hour at our favorite North Campus bar (it’s the only bar on North Campus). And then as the month came to an end, my parents arrived in Ann Arbor to collect me and all my things. Before cramming my belongings into the car, we drove to Sleeping Bear Dunes for a family vacation with my brother and his girlfriend. We spent a couple days hiking around the dunes, then returned to Ann Arbor. In my final days in Ann Arbor, we paid quick visits to the art and natural history museums while I also returned keys and spent an MDen gift card, and attended church so I could say my farewells. On the way back home, we stopped by Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and then I arrived back in New England.
Upon my return to the land of Wegmans, throughout June I unpacked some of my things and packed other things that had been sitting in my room for the past decade. I attended the last of our lab’s four dissertation defenses in the span of six months from home. After finishing the very, very good Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the month before, I began working my way through my next medical drama, Scrubs, and started a cross stitch birth announcement for nobody in particular.
I spent July working on a final (supposedly quick) manuscript while also doing jigsaw puzzles, watching the Revolution stumble their way through the hot, long middle of the season, and reading for my local library’s summer reading bingo. We went hiking a few times, once at a nearby state park, and another time at a nature preserve in town that was also holding an outdoor art exhibit.
August included more reading, more puzzles, and more Revolution-induced high blood pressure. We painted most of the deck. I tried baking focaccia for the first time. We borrowed a telescope from the library and spent a couple weeks observing the moon as it went through its phases. At long last, the lab started getting its code in order and put up all its open source code on a lab Github.
In September, when the weather went from hot and humid to nice for a few weeks, we hiked at Minute Man National Historic Park and the Parker River Wildlife Refuge and went apple picking (we got honeycrisp, gala, smitten, empire, and fuji, plus apple cider donuts). At the end of the month, I took a business trip to see collaborators in Cincinnati and visited the Cincinnati Zoo and art museum.
The yearly raking commenced in October, but before the leaves all fell, we took a few local hikes to enjoy the fall colors and weather. I finished my Singapore cross stitch, baked a Boston cream pie and a Swiss roll, and helped dig a hole so the septic tank could get accessed.
For the first time, I participated in NaNoWriMo in November and won, writing 50,072 words in thirty days. MLS cup was exciting, as was the USMNT making it out of the group stage at the World Cup. I baked pumpkin things and tried a recipe for ginger cookies (good, but could have used even more ginger), and we celebrated fake Thanksgiving a couple weeks early with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and some other Thanksgiving-ish foods.
To close out the year, in December I watched the USMNT get knocked out of the World Cup, then picked up watching again in the quarterfinals, leading to an absolutely crazy World Cup final that saw Argentina and France trade goals in regular time, then overtime, and go to penalty kicks to give Messi a World Cup. I finally started a dragon cross stitch for a friend, read The Sandman, watched pretty bad Christmas movies, and ended the year with roast lamb and wine.
Showing posts with label Ann Arbor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ann Arbor. Show all posts
Saturday, January 21, 2023
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Odds and Ends
Before leaving Ann Arbor, besides wrapping up as much research as possible and more or less packing up most of my belongings, I went for a few final adventures around town. I got to experience a last spring season and see the wild violets, bloodroot, dandelions, daffodils, tulips, trillium, wild geraniums, etc. bloom. Despite telling myself I wouldn’t, and that 250 mm (400 mm field of view full frame equivalent) isn’t that much zoom, I went bird watching with my camera to catch the spring migratory season, featuring red-winged blackbirds, robins, grackles, mourning doves, great blue herons, and more. There were also plenty of squirrels like always, plus rabbits (eastern cottontails), baby geese, a beaver, a painted turtle, and mating snapping turtles.
I baked cranberry orange scones, molasses cookies, and cranberry apple bread to use up ingredients in my freezer and pantry and celebrated warmer temperatures with courtyard lunches at the office. During my usual perambulations I discovered one weekend that Traver Creek had overflowed, flooded some of the trails, and washed out a wooden footbridge. In honor of Star Wars day, I put together a mini Lego Millennium Falcon that I added to an online order for free shipping. For the first time since Covid happened, I went to a library program, on how to birdwatch with the Washtenaw Audubon Society (sidenote – the first book I borrowed from AADL was Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven; the last: Star Wars: X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble by Michael Stackpole).
My lab had a celebratory barbeque/game night party at our advisor’s house for a few of us who were going to leave Ann Arbor soon (we ended up holding four dissertation defenses in just over six months). I also tried to meet up with some friends that I hadn’t gotten to see much during the pandemic times. One of those meetings was when I saw the mating turtles. Another time a friend and I biked downtown to play arcade games (including both Star Trek and Star Wars pinball and skee-ball) at Pinball Pete’s and drink a quart of sangria at Casa Dominick’s. Finally, our lab plus friends met up at the best (and only) bar on North Campus for after work drinks one last time.
Right before I moved my parents and I spent a day downtown returning my office key for the $5 deposit, visiting U-M’s Museum of Natural History and Museum of Art, and spending my M-Den gift card. And that was some of my last months in Michigan. Until next time, Ann Arbor.
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| Clockwise from top left: wild violet, wild geranium, bloodroot, trillium |
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| Clockwise from top left: snapping turtle, rabbit, painted turtle, baby geese |
I baked cranberry orange scones, molasses cookies, and cranberry apple bread to use up ingredients in my freezer and pantry and celebrated warmer temperatures with courtyard lunches at the office. During my usual perambulations I discovered one weekend that Traver Creek had overflowed, flooded some of the trails, and washed out a wooden footbridge. In honor of Star Wars day, I put together a mini Lego Millennium Falcon that I added to an online order for free shipping. For the first time since Covid happened, I went to a library program, on how to birdwatch with the Washtenaw Audubon Society (sidenote – the first book I borrowed from AADL was Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven; the last: Star Wars: X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble by Michael Stackpole).
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| Left: swollen Traver Creek (bottom) and flooded trails (top), right: same locations a few days later, with water levels slightly down (bottom) and the bridge replaced (top) |
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| Millennium Falcon microfighter |
My lab had a celebratory barbeque/game night party at our advisor’s house for a few of us who were going to leave Ann Arbor soon (we ended up holding four dissertation defenses in just over six months). I also tried to meet up with some friends that I hadn’t gotten to see much during the pandemic times. One of those meetings was when I saw the mating turtles. Another time a friend and I biked downtown to play arcade games (including both Star Trek and Star Wars pinball and skee-ball) at Pinball Pete’s and drink a quart of sangria at Casa Dominick’s. Finally, our lab plus friends met up at the best (and only) bar on North Campus for after work drinks one last time.
Right before I moved my parents and I spent a day downtown returning my office key for the $5 deposit, visiting U-M’s Museum of Natural History and Museum of Art, and spending my M-Den gift card. And that was some of my last months in Michigan. Until next time, Ann Arbor.
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| Pinball |
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Winter
After returning from the Upper Peninsula, as I mentioned in my yearly post, I jumped into speed writing my thesis before defending right before Christmas, then final thesis revisions were due in January. In between all that, I generally carried on as usual with life in Ann Arbor. It wasn’t a particularly cold or snowy winter, so I got outside when I could, including biking through the winter months. Right after Thanksgiving, I got my telephoto zoom lens, so I also spent time crawling through the undergrowth looking for squirrels and birds.
Early in December, I paid a visit to the arboretum to try out my telephoto lens. Around that same time, the public golf courses run by Ann Arbor Parks and Rec open up to walkers/dog walkers/etc. by inverse rule – from March to November, non-golfers are explicitly not allowed to be on the golf course, but if it’s not March to November, they’re not not allowed. I’ve mostly been walking in the same circles for the past two and a half years, so the golf course is a nice variation and it gives the golf course purpose in the winter.
I also continued on my other usual paths. The ornaments were out again this year in one of the parks I frequent, and I found some new additions. The week before Christmas, Ann Arbor got freezing rain, and I made a loop around my neighborhood to get photos. Between Christmas and New Year’s, a coworker and I made a trip to the botanical garden when the weather was too nice to stay inside. The indoor conservatory had reopened by then, and had a couple Christmas trees plus an “art” exhibit where they put frames around some of their plants to highlight different design principles used in art like color, space, texture, etc.
With my bike in action and a telephoto lens in hand, I headed to the Huron River a couple times in January because from prior years I knew that a lot of ducks/geese/swans gather along the shores of the Huron during winter. It was mostly mallards and Canada geese, but also some trumpeter swans and once I saw a pair of hooded mergansers. With the weather holding through January, I biked my new telephoto lens out to the Barton Nature Area as well, but arrived in time for the sun to be setting directly over the river, so didn’t get a whole lot with it.
February finally stayed cold enough any snow we got to stick around for a while. One day, we were getting a good amount of soft, fluffy snow, the kind that sticks to branches if there’s not too much wind, so after work I headed out with my camera. Mid-February, there was one warm day that I took my bike out on the Border to Border trail. The B2B, at least the sections that go through the major parks, does get snow removal services during the winter, so that was clear. Once I got to the Parker Mill Park section, it was slushy, but passable with my all-purpose Target children’s bicycle. Then I got a look at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Trail, and somewhere in the back of my mind I think I did remember it falls into the university’s “no winter maintenance” category. The MBGT was essentially melted water over hard packed snow/ice, in other words, very slippery. At that point I decided it was not a good day to die, so I turned back there.
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| Squirrel |
Early in December, I paid a visit to the arboretum to try out my telephoto lens. Around that same time, the public golf courses run by Ann Arbor Parks and Rec open up to walkers/dog walkers/etc. by inverse rule – from March to November, non-golfers are explicitly not allowed to be on the golf course, but if it’s not March to November, they’re not not allowed. I’ve mostly been walking in the same circles for the past two and a half years, so the golf course is a nice variation and it gives the golf course purpose in the winter.
 |
| Golf course cloud at sunset |
I also continued on my other usual paths. The ornaments were out again this year in one of the parks I frequent, and I found some new additions. The week before Christmas, Ann Arbor got freezing rain, and I made a loop around my neighborhood to get photos. Between Christmas and New Year’s, a coworker and I made a trip to the botanical garden when the weather was too nice to stay inside. The indoor conservatory had reopened by then, and had a couple Christmas trees plus an “art” exhibit where they put frames around some of their plants to highlight different design principles used in art like color, space, texture, etc.
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| Some sort of Christmas rodent |
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| Christmas tree at the botanical garden conservatory |
With my bike in action and a telephoto lens in hand, I headed to the Huron River a couple times in January because from prior years I knew that a lot of ducks/geese/swans gather along the shores of the Huron during winter. It was mostly mallards and Canada geese, but also some trumpeter swans and once I saw a pair of hooded mergansers. With the weather holding through January, I biked my new telephoto lens out to the Barton Nature Area as well, but arrived in time for the sun to be setting directly over the river, so didn’t get a whole lot with it.
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| Barton Dam |
February finally stayed cold enough any snow we got to stick around for a while. One day, we were getting a good amount of soft, fluffy snow, the kind that sticks to branches if there’s not too much wind, so after work I headed out with my camera. Mid-February, there was one warm day that I took my bike out on the Border to Border trail. The B2B, at least the sections that go through the major parks, does get snow removal services during the winter, so that was clear. Once I got to the Parker Mill Park section, it was slushy, but passable with my all-purpose Target children’s bicycle. Then I got a look at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Trail, and somewhere in the back of my mind I think I did remember it falls into the university’s “no winter maintenance” category. The MBGT was essentially melted water over hard packed snow/ice, in other words, very slippery. At that point I decided it was not a good day to die, so I turned back there.
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| Snow on trees |
Sunday, January 16, 2022
The Year in Ann Arbor [2021]
Well, “year 2 of the pandemic” wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear after 2020, but here we are. For a couple blissful weeks in July, it looked like we might be able to slowly start reducing Covid restrictions thanks to vaccines and declining cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, then along came the delta variant, followed closely by omicron.
January was a quiet month for me. I went on a winter adventure for the sake of photographs and walked over 8 miles in snowy weather. It was completely worth it. Otherwise, I hung around my apartment, cross stitched for the first time since 2013, played the library’s special pandemic winter version of the Summer Game (aptly called the Winter Game), organized four years of research files, and started watching Kim’s Convenience on Netflix.
In February I worked on my big Acadia National Park cross stitch project and (re)discovered audiobooks and podcasts as a good side activity for cross stitching. I used to listen to audiobooks on cassette tapes, but I never could get into podcasts because I’d either be doing something, get distracted, and stop paying attention to the podcast or not be doing something, get distracted by the need to do something, and stop the podcast. Selections for February included Jane Eyre, Persuasion, and the Office Ladies podcast (an episode by episode recap and behind the scenes look at The Office). With my first paper (finally) accepted and published, I began working on and finalizing simulations for my next paper.
As the semester went on and the university continued transitioning back to in person classes and activities, during March all students in on campus housing, including grad students, were required to participate in weekly asymptomatic Covid testing. I strategically scheduled my tests for the same morning engineering would give out free donuts on North Campus so I could pick up a donut on my way back to my apartment. With my bike still out of action with a flat tire, I hiked the trails around my apartment for the 94,858th time. To celebrate one year of the pandemic, I gave in to the likely pandemic-induced brain melt and requested Twilight from the library.
April turned out to be one of my more eventful months of pandemic life. Although Tax Day 2021 was delayed, I filed in April because I had no reason not to. MLS and the New England Revolution also started up their 26th season, and I got my bike tire tube replaced (it was punctured by a metal wire, likely in a gutter masquerading as a bike lane), began the saga known as writing my second manuscript, finished the Acadia cross stitch, and received my first Covid vaccine (Pfizer).
With the weather warming up in May, I continued hiking as usual and also took my bike on an extended ride down the Border to Border trail into Ypsilanti. When a friend from Cornell was in Michigan to visit family, I met up with them at the arboretum for my first in-person social activity in months. Other notable goings-on: baking a carrot cake, finishing Star Trek: The Next Generation, watching soccer.
I kicked off summer in Ann Arbor on the second day of June by baking some quintessential summer staples, pumpkin cranberry bread and pumpkin muffins. At the beginning of the month, I staked out the peony garden, and that was followed by a hunt for periodic cicadas. Midmonth, the AADL Summer Game started, I checked in with Cornell ChemE at my virtual 5th reunion, and I worked on the incredibly tedious tasks of making manuscript figures and compiling the world’s longest Supporting Information section. Later in June, I baked the famous Doubletree cookies, then while on Reddit, read a post that discussed Dungeons & Dragons, wondered how exactly D&D worked, remembered a blog post from years ago about Critical Role (an internet show in which voice actors play D&D), and started in on Critical Role’s second campaign. Similarly to podcasts, it’s a great cross stitch side activity because you don’t really need to watch half a dozen people sit around a table and talk for four hours straight, but it’s an entertaining background for the repetitive nature of cross stitch.
The back and forth editing process with my advisor started on my manuscript in July. Thanks to the aforementioned vaccines, I attended outdoor church for the first time since the pandemic began, and the library reopened for browsing. The lab had its second virtual defense, I stopped by Art Fair to watch the chaos, and the Revolution unbelievably was having what was shaping up to be their best season ever. At the end of the month, I took two buses and a plane to go home for the first time since December 2019.
I spent most of August with my family at home, where I got to go to Wegmans, see a Revolution game, hike a fair amount, and take a road trip up to Acadia National Park. I planned most of the Acadia itinerary, and we hiked some of our usual favorite trails as well as some new to us.
Back in Ann Arbor for another semester, my first achievement of September was catching up on all 17 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. I also made my return to my office and started making preparations for graduation while finishing Star Trek: The Original Series before it left Netflix.
In October, I jumped right into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and my research group took a road trip up north to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We visited Pictured Rocks, the Porcupine Mountains, Copper Harbor, and Mackinaw City. Upon our return, I got back to work because I had my data meeting scheduled for the end of the month.
By November, the defense countdown was on. I submitted my second manuscript and NaNoWriMo-ed my thesis in the office while enjoying the weather outdoors when possible. After closing out the MLS season as the Supporters Shield winner (best regular season record) for the first time ever and setting an overall record for most points in a season, the Revolution lost in the first round of the playoffs, ending the hopes and dreams of Revolution fans yet again.
Finally, the time had come, to talk of many things, but actually just my micelles. In December, I got my thesis written and distributed to my committee, and shortly before Christmas, at long last, held my dissertation defense. After passing, I celebrated Christmas and New Year's in Ann Arbor with The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Night Before Critmas, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a bike ride along the Ann Arbor portion of the B2B trail when it hit 40 degrees on the last day of the year.
January was a quiet month for me. I went on a winter adventure for the sake of photographs and walked over 8 miles in snowy weather. It was completely worth it. Otherwise, I hung around my apartment, cross stitched for the first time since 2013, played the library’s special pandemic winter version of the Summer Game (aptly called the Winter Game), organized four years of research files, and started watching Kim’s Convenience on Netflix.
In February I worked on my big Acadia National Park cross stitch project and (re)discovered audiobooks and podcasts as a good side activity for cross stitching. I used to listen to audiobooks on cassette tapes, but I never could get into podcasts because I’d either be doing something, get distracted, and stop paying attention to the podcast or not be doing something, get distracted by the need to do something, and stop the podcast. Selections for February included Jane Eyre, Persuasion, and the Office Ladies podcast (an episode by episode recap and behind the scenes look at The Office). With my first paper (finally) accepted and published, I began working on and finalizing simulations for my next paper.
As the semester went on and the university continued transitioning back to in person classes and activities, during March all students in on campus housing, including grad students, were required to participate in weekly asymptomatic Covid testing. I strategically scheduled my tests for the same morning engineering would give out free donuts on North Campus so I could pick up a donut on my way back to my apartment. With my bike still out of action with a flat tire, I hiked the trails around my apartment for the 94,858th time. To celebrate one year of the pandemic, I gave in to the likely pandemic-induced brain melt and requested Twilight from the library.
April turned out to be one of my more eventful months of pandemic life. Although Tax Day 2021 was delayed, I filed in April because I had no reason not to. MLS and the New England Revolution also started up their 26th season, and I got my bike tire tube replaced (it was punctured by a metal wire, likely in a gutter masquerading as a bike lane), began the saga known as writing my second manuscript, finished the Acadia cross stitch, and received my first Covid vaccine (Pfizer).
With the weather warming up in May, I continued hiking as usual and also took my bike on an extended ride down the Border to Border trail into Ypsilanti. When a friend from Cornell was in Michigan to visit family, I met up with them at the arboretum for my first in-person social activity in months. Other notable goings-on: baking a carrot cake, finishing Star Trek: The Next Generation, watching soccer.
I kicked off summer in Ann Arbor on the second day of June by baking some quintessential summer staples, pumpkin cranberry bread and pumpkin muffins. At the beginning of the month, I staked out the peony garden, and that was followed by a hunt for periodic cicadas. Midmonth, the AADL Summer Game started, I checked in with Cornell ChemE at my virtual 5th reunion, and I worked on the incredibly tedious tasks of making manuscript figures and compiling the world’s longest Supporting Information section. Later in June, I baked the famous Doubletree cookies, then while on Reddit, read a post that discussed Dungeons & Dragons, wondered how exactly D&D worked, remembered a blog post from years ago about Critical Role (an internet show in which voice actors play D&D), and started in on Critical Role’s second campaign. Similarly to podcasts, it’s a great cross stitch side activity because you don’t really need to watch half a dozen people sit around a table and talk for four hours straight, but it’s an entertaining background for the repetitive nature of cross stitch.
The back and forth editing process with my advisor started on my manuscript in July. Thanks to the aforementioned vaccines, I attended outdoor church for the first time since the pandemic began, and the library reopened for browsing. The lab had its second virtual defense, I stopped by Art Fair to watch the chaos, and the Revolution unbelievably was having what was shaping up to be their best season ever. At the end of the month, I took two buses and a plane to go home for the first time since December 2019.
I spent most of August with my family at home, where I got to go to Wegmans, see a Revolution game, hike a fair amount, and take a road trip up to Acadia National Park. I planned most of the Acadia itinerary, and we hiked some of our usual favorite trails as well as some new to us.
Back in Ann Arbor for another semester, my first achievement of September was catching up on all 17 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. I also made my return to my office and started making preparations for graduation while finishing Star Trek: The Original Series before it left Netflix.
In October, I jumped right into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and my research group took a road trip up north to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We visited Pictured Rocks, the Porcupine Mountains, Copper Harbor, and Mackinaw City. Upon our return, I got back to work because I had my data meeting scheduled for the end of the month.
By November, the defense countdown was on. I submitted my second manuscript and NaNoWriMo-ed my thesis in the office while enjoying the weather outdoors when possible. After closing out the MLS season as the Supporters Shield winner (best regular season record) for the first time ever and setting an overall record for most points in a season, the Revolution lost in the first round of the playoffs, ending the hopes and dreams of Revolution fans yet again.
Finally, the time had come, to talk of many things, but actually just my micelles. In December, I got my thesis written and distributed to my committee, and shortly before Christmas, at long last, held my dissertation defense. After passing, I celebrated Christmas and New Year's in Ann Arbor with The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Night Before Critmas, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a bike ride along the Ann Arbor portion of the B2B trail when it hit 40 degrees on the last day of the year.
Sunday, January 9, 2022
What I Did Last Fall
Back in Ann Arbor at the end of summer, I prepared 1) for the undergrads returning en masse and 2) to get ready to graduate. I think I’ve been in school long enough. In between deciding to hold my dissertation defense before the winter break and subsequently having to track down my committee, submit a paper, fill out all manner of paperwork, hold a data meeting, and NaNoWriMo1 my thesis, here are some things I did during my last fall in Ann Arbor as a grad student.
Looked out the window at the right time for a random sunrise.
Took an early fall bike ride out to the Barton Nature Area in the late afternoon of a warm, sunny Friday. I knew it was too early for fall colors, which are never spectacular in Ann Arbor anyway, but the weather was too nice to miss out on inside.
Saw a Michigan volleyball game with some coworkers. Like a lot of things at this university, it was a spectacle, and not entirely in a good way. (Nothing against the players themselves or volleyball, more so how the university treats many things Michigan related as a Big Deal that you should be #blessed to have the privilege of witnessing.) Michigan lost to Ohio State in straight sets; the only good thing about that was that they didn’t drag out the ordeal too long.
Took a later fall bike ride out to the Matthaei Botanical Garden past peak fall colors mainly to enjoy the bike ride, which can normally be done almost completely on recreational shared-use paths. At this time, a portion of the Border to Border trail was closed for repaving, so I took a detour that’s shorter than the B2B but less pleasant, on account of the traffic roaring past you at9485 “40” mph. I also spent part of an afternoon at the Arboretum and some afternoons/evenings rotating through my usual parks.
Also caught up on all of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix and finished Star Trek: The Original Series before it left Netflix; watched the New England Revolution win their first ever Supporters Shield; worked on cross stitch projects; took a trip to the Upper Peninsula (posts to come); read about light and darkness (Light: Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting and The Left Hand of Darkness); celebrated Thanksgiving with cranberry sauce; and baked snickerdoodles, banana muffins, double chocolate cookies, molasses cookies, sugar cookies, and cranberry orange scones; besides various research activities and other actions necessary to sustain life.
1Short for National Novel Writing Month, in which participants try and write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. I wasn’t writing a novel, but I did have a thesis to put together in about a month.
2Bracket/shelf fungus is an actual identification, I couldn’t find what the orange mushrooms might be, and I’m pretty sure lasagna fungus isn’t an actual thing.
Looked out the window at the right time for a random sunrise.
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| Good morning, Ann Arbor |
Took an early fall bike ride out to the Barton Nature Area in the late afternoon of a warm, sunny Friday. I knew it was too early for fall colors, which are never spectacular in Ann Arbor anyway, but the weather was too nice to miss out on inside.
 |
| Clockwise from top left: tree, Barton Dam, kayakers on the Huron River, Barton Pond |
More fungus hunting while on mini hikes closer to my apartment. It was overall a very damp summer and a great year for mushrooms, at least the very probably poisonous and at best un-nutritious varieties I’ve been spotting.
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| Clockwise from top left: yellow lasagna fungus, red bracket/shelf fungus, shiny orange mushrooms, brown bracket/shelf fungus2 |
Saw a Michigan volleyball game with some coworkers. Like a lot of things at this university, it was a spectacle, and not entirely in a good way. (Nothing against the players themselves or volleyball, more so how the university treats many things Michigan related as a Big Deal that you should be #blessed to have the privilege of witnessing.) Michigan lost to Ohio State in straight sets; the only good thing about that was that they didn’t drag out the ordeal too long.
 |
| Crisler Center |
Took a later fall bike ride out to the Matthaei Botanical Garden past peak fall colors mainly to enjoy the bike ride, which can normally be done almost completely on recreational shared-use paths. At this time, a portion of the Border to Border trail was closed for repaving, so I took a detour that’s shorter than the B2B but less pleasant, on account of the traffic roaring past you at
 |
| Clockwise from top left: lone tree across a pond, high water at Fleming Creek at the Botanical Garden, yellow tree at the Arboretum, Dhu Varren Woods |
Also caught up on all of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix and finished Star Trek: The Original Series before it left Netflix; watched the New England Revolution win their first ever Supporters Shield; worked on cross stitch projects; took a trip to the Upper Peninsula (posts to come); read about light and darkness (Light: Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting and The Left Hand of Darkness); celebrated Thanksgiving with cranberry sauce; and baked snickerdoodles, banana muffins, double chocolate cookies, molasses cookies, sugar cookies, and cranberry orange scones; besides various research activities and other actions necessary to sustain life.
1Short for National Novel Writing Month, in which participants try and write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. I wasn’t writing a novel, but I did have a thesis to put together in about a month.
2Bracket/shelf fungus is an actual identification, I couldn’t find what the orange mushrooms might be, and I’m pretty sure lasagna fungus isn’t an actual thing.
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Tour de Ann Arbor
When I set out to bike to all five branches of the Ann Arbor District Library in one day, I didn’t realize the Tour de France was going on at the same time, but turns out it was, so that was fitting. On the very first stage of the race, a spectator managed to step too close to the course with a sign and cause basically the entire peloton to crash, which was more or less the big news of the Tour de France. Fortunately, on my journey I was not hit by anything besides a vine that scratched my arm because I biked into it.
During the summer, I normally visit all the library branches in search of summer game points, but usually just one or two at a time. After five years in Ann Arbor, I’ve biked almost everywhere in the city, so for fun I mapped out a route that would take me through all the branches in one trip and realized it was actually feasible. The way the library branches are spread out, the most efficient route roughly circles the city and is about fifteen miles long if you start downtown. Even adding the mileage to get downtown, the whole trip is about as long as some of my rides along and around the Border to Border (B2B) trail, so I thought, why not?
Setting out, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant ride, which proved to be true. I picked a time on the weekend when there was less traffic, but the drivers seemed worse than average. Given that during the pandemic lockdowns in Michigan traffic decreased but accidents per mile travelled increased, I wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers were actually worse than usual. Because I had a lot of ground to cover, I took the shortest routes, which included a lot of not-so-great roads for biking.
The B2B and its connections through Parker Mill County Park and to the Matthaei Botanical Garden Trail are great. There are enough pedestrians on campus and downtown to keep traffic slow and drivers aware enough to make them fairly bikeable. Residential neighborhoods are also fine, and most of the main spoke roads radiating from the center of Ann Arbor have decent bike lanes, but outside of that the biking’s not super fun. Part of the problem is that Ann Arbor has an incomplete interior ring road. It was supposed to move cars around the city quickly, but because it’s so piecemeal it has more intersections, entries and exits (to shopping centers, housing developments, churches, schools, parks, golf courses, etc.), and traffic lights than a ring road should have. This defeats the purpose of a ring road because if you have development along it, it itself becomes a destination and it’s no longer a fast way to circumscribe the city. In fact, the not-ring road makes traffic in the city very messy, leading to the conclusion that I came to after this bike ride.
My primary problem with Ann Arbor is that it can’t decide whether it wants to cater to cars (ring roads, high speed limits, four+ lanes of traffic) or encourage pedestrians and bikers (sidewalks that don’t suck, bike lanes, not almost getting run over by a car every time you cross a street). Take, for example, the not-ring road. It has posted speed limits of 35-40 mph, which is too fast for bikes to keep up with and not fun for pedestrians to walk next to. However, the not-ring road has (not great) sidewalks because of its proximity and direct access to public services like schools and grocery stores that people without cars might conceivably need to get to. So the not-ring road sucks for pedestrians/bikers that need to access things along it because it’s noisy and terrible to walk/ride along, and it sucks for drivers because it’s riddled with traffic lights, crosswalks, and turn lanes. Overall it sucks for everyone because it’s not particularly safe for anyone.
I was on Reddit awhile ago and in some post about biking (probably related to the Tour de France crash) someone posted an interesting link to a video that addresses this topic. In the video, they define a road as a “high-speed connection between two places” and a street as a “complex environment where life in the city happens.” The problem, they argue, is “stroads,” which try to combine streets and roads but don’t properly do the job of either. Sounds a bit like the not-ring road that I had to bike on to visit all my library branches. Anyway, in the end, I got my summer game points, some exercise, and only a scratched arm, so I guess it was worth it.
During the summer, I normally visit all the library branches in search of summer game points, but usually just one or two at a time. After five years in Ann Arbor, I’ve biked almost everywhere in the city, so for fun I mapped out a route that would take me through all the branches in one trip and realized it was actually feasible. The way the library branches are spread out, the most efficient route roughly circles the city and is about fifteen miles long if you start downtown. Even adding the mileage to get downtown, the whole trip is about as long as some of my rides along and around the Border to Border (B2B) trail, so I thought, why not?
Setting out, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant ride, which proved to be true. I picked a time on the weekend when there was less traffic, but the drivers seemed worse than average. Given that during the pandemic lockdowns in Michigan traffic decreased but accidents per mile travelled increased, I wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers were actually worse than usual. Because I had a lot of ground to cover, I took the shortest routes, which included a lot of not-so-great roads for biking.
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| Library branches, in the order visited: Top right - Downtown, center - Westgate, bottom right - Pittsfield, bottom left - Malletts Creek, top left - Traverwood |
The B2B and its connections through Parker Mill County Park and to the Matthaei Botanical Garden Trail are great. There are enough pedestrians on campus and downtown to keep traffic slow and drivers aware enough to make them fairly bikeable. Residential neighborhoods are also fine, and most of the main spoke roads radiating from the center of Ann Arbor have decent bike lanes, but outside of that the biking’s not super fun. Part of the problem is that Ann Arbor has an incomplete interior ring road. It was supposed to move cars around the city quickly, but because it’s so piecemeal it has more intersections, entries and exits (to shopping centers, housing developments, churches, schools, parks, golf courses, etc.), and traffic lights than a ring road should have. This defeats the purpose of a ring road because if you have development along it, it itself becomes a destination and it’s no longer a fast way to circumscribe the city. In fact, the not-ring road makes traffic in the city very messy, leading to the conclusion that I came to after this bike ride.
My primary problem with Ann Arbor is that it can’t decide whether it wants to cater to cars (ring roads, high speed limits, four+ lanes of traffic) or encourage pedestrians and bikers (sidewalks that don’t suck, bike lanes, not almost getting run over by a car every time you cross a street). Take, for example, the not-ring road. It has posted speed limits of 35-40 mph, which is too fast for bikes to keep up with and not fun for pedestrians to walk next to. However, the not-ring road has (not great) sidewalks because of its proximity and direct access to public services like schools and grocery stores that people without cars might conceivably need to get to. So the not-ring road sucks for pedestrians/bikers that need to access things along it because it’s noisy and terrible to walk/ride along, and it sucks for drivers because it’s riddled with traffic lights, crosswalks, and turn lanes. Overall it sucks for everyone because it’s not particularly safe for anyone.
I was on Reddit awhile ago and in some post about biking (probably related to the Tour de France crash) someone posted an interesting link to a video that addresses this topic. In the video, they define a road as a “high-speed connection between two places” and a street as a “complex environment where life in the city happens.” The problem, they argue, is “stroads,” which try to combine streets and roads but don’t properly do the job of either. Sounds a bit like the not-ring road that I had to bike on to visit all my library branches. Anyway, in the end, I got my summer game points, some exercise, and only a scratched arm, so I guess it was worth it.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Cicada Summer
In my latest adventure, I traverse the Border to Border trail in search of cicadas. Currently in the United States, there are 15 broods of periodic cicadas, 12 that appear every 17 years and 3 that appear every 13 years. Periodic cicadas (genus Magicicada) emerge en masse for a couple months from late April into June to mate, lay eggs, then burrow until their next appearance in 13/17 years depending on species. In contrast, annual cicadas (any of hundreds of other genera) have shorter life cycles that span 2-5 years and do not synchronize so they will come out in any given year. In 2021, Brood X, the Great Eastern Brood, was scheduled to surface across large portions of the eastern United States with concentrations in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Indiana, but reaching into southeast Michigan. Brood X is the largest of the 17-year periodic broods, and it was a once-in-17-years experience (I missed Brood VII, the Onondaga Brood, that emerged around the Finger Lakes in 2018), so I set off to find some cicadas. What else am I doing with my pandemic life?
First I headed to west Ann Arbor and the Bird Hills Nature Area where I’d heard reports of cicada mounds, which indicate their eminent arrival. I saw a bunch of cicada holes, some dead cicadas, a few cicada husks (shed by cicadas after emergence), and a single live cicada, but I might have been too late to catch the cicadas there. When I walked over to the Barton Nature Area, I possibly heard/saw a couple cicadas flying around, but mostly saw cicada wings (from cicadas eaten by birds?).
A few days later, I biked in the opposite direction to Matthaei Botanical Gardens east of Ann Arbor. On the way over, I could hear the cicadas, so I had some hope of meeting some. When I made it to Mattaei, the greenhouse/conservatory was still closed, but the trails have been open throughout the pandemic. I looped up and around Fleming Creek, first saw several trees with cicada husks hanging off their leaves, then found the cicadas. They’re not scared of people (or anything else) because they’re only around ~1% of the time and rely on their sheer numbers to survive, so there were a whole bunch just hanging out on the trees, flying around, and making noise. Like the partial solar eclipse a few years ago, it was pretty cool. With that, it was mission accomplished. Until my next quest.
First I headed to west Ann Arbor and the Bird Hills Nature Area where I’d heard reports of cicada mounds, which indicate their eminent arrival. I saw a bunch of cicada holes, some dead cicadas, a few cicada husks (shed by cicadas after emergence), and a single live cicada, but I might have been too late to catch the cicadas there. When I walked over to the Barton Nature Area, I possibly heard/saw a couple cicadas flying around, but mostly saw cicada wings (from cicadas eaten by birds?).
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| Cicada husk |
A few days later, I biked in the opposite direction to Matthaei Botanical Gardens east of Ann Arbor. On the way over, I could hear the cicadas, so I had some hope of meeting some. When I made it to Mattaei, the greenhouse/conservatory was still closed, but the trails have been open throughout the pandemic. I looped up and around Fleming Creek, first saw several trees with cicada husks hanging off their leaves, then found the cicadas. They’re not scared of people (or anything else) because they’re only around ~1% of the time and rely on their sheer numbers to survive, so there were a whole bunch just hanging out on the trees, flying around, and making noise. Like the partial solar eclipse a few years ago, it was pretty cool. With that, it was mission accomplished. Until my next quest.
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| Cicadas on tree |
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| Cicada on tree |
Sunday, March 28, 2021
The Pandemic Year
Over a year ago, the country abruptly came to a stop as COVID-19 spread through the states. In an effort to control the coronavirus, events were cancelled, businesses closed, and people asked to remain home as much as possible. One year and half a million deaths later, the US is still reporting tens of thousands of cases a day, but the situation appears to at least be managed, if not controlled, plus vaccines are rolling out, so people are starting to return to jobs and school and other everyday activities. I’ve written about how I spent most of my pandemic year, but I wanted to highlight a few more things, and present some pie charts, because it’s been awhile since I posted any graphs [see here for definitive proof that studying lowers your grades].
My last big public event was my band concert on Sunday, March 8, 2020. On that same day, Bernie Sanders held a rally in Ann Arbor and undergrads were returning from spring breaks in who-knows-where. By Wednesday, classes were cancelled; Thursday, March 12, was the last time my research group saw each other in person at group meeting, and I haven’t set foot in my office since Thursday, March 19. In the year following, I’ve basically only been to the grocery store and the great outdoors. I’ve travelled exactly zero miles on any form of motorized transportation, including car, bus, plane, train, ebike, and Spin scooter. I did cover close to 300 miles on my bike and another ~200 on foot for recreational purposes.
Pandemic activities included 1 trip to the dentist, weekly outings to the grocery store, and just under 140 Ann Arbor parks visited (~90%). On the home front, I attended 1 Zoom wedding, hacked off my own hair twice, did a couple dozen loads of laundry, and washed approximately 5,982,481 dishes (confidence level = -99%). Shockingly enough, research got done. Weekly meetings with my advisor continued via BlueJeans/Zoom, as did group meetings every 1-2 weeks, one of my coworkers had a successful Zoom defense, and, of course, I got my first first-author manuscript published. H-index greater than 1, here I come. This brings us to our first pie chart, summarizing how I spent the pandemic, more or less.
Next, we’ll consider my questionable diet, in which peanut butter may or may not be a staple food. For over a year, I’ve prepared/cooked every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner that I’ve eaten. While I would like to support local restaurants, I haven’t eaten out or ordered takeout at all. The process is almost as much effort as cooking and more effort than granola bars and instant oatmeal, so I’m probably deficient in any vitamins not found in fortified cereal and milk. See pie chart below for a model of a highly balanced and nutritious diet. I baked on average once every other week and made the following: peanut butter cookies, cinnamon rolls, sugar cookies (x2, different recipes), banana bread, pineapple upside down cake, popovers, apple cobbler, cranberry orange muffins, chocolate chunk cookies (the only bake from a mix), banana walnut muffins, chocolate peanut butter swirl brownies, pineapple cake, pumpkin cranberry bread, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, chocolate cupcakes, molasses cookies, cranberry orange scones (x2), brownies, banana muffins, shortbread cookies, thumbprint cookies, and pecan rolls.
Finally, let’s look at what (TV shows) I watched on Netflix. Additionally, I saw Jeopardy! almost every weeknight, watched the Revolution’s post-shutdown season, and saw a couple dozen movies, but the Netflix breakdown is more interesting. This pie chart includes a rough estimation of the time spent (in hours) watching each show based on the number of episodes and episode length. Bake Off has close to hour-long episodes, TNG and Grey’s Anatomy are about 45 minutes, and everything else is 21-25 minutes. I finished The Office right as lockdown started, and started on TNG, which I’m now 6 (of 7) seasons through. For both Avatar series, Parks and Rec, and Schitt’s Creek, the hours shown are the complete series. Kim’s Convenience is everything on Netflix, and I’m now eleven seasons into Grey’s Anatomy, which is ridiculous, but entertaining, in a ridiculous way.
My last big public event was my band concert on Sunday, March 8, 2020. On that same day, Bernie Sanders held a rally in Ann Arbor and undergrads were returning from spring breaks in who-knows-where. By Wednesday, classes were cancelled; Thursday, March 12, was the last time my research group saw each other in person at group meeting, and I haven’t set foot in my office since Thursday, March 19. In the year following, I’ve basically only been to the grocery store and the great outdoors. I’ve travelled exactly zero miles on any form of motorized transportation, including car, bus, plane, train, ebike, and Spin scooter. I did cover close to 300 miles on my bike and another ~200 on foot for recreational purposes.
Pandemic activities included 1 trip to the dentist, weekly outings to the grocery store, and just under 140 Ann Arbor parks visited (~90%). On the home front, I attended 1 Zoom wedding, hacked off my own hair twice, did a couple dozen loads of laundry, and washed approximately 5,982,481 dishes (confidence level = -99%). Shockingly enough, research got done. Weekly meetings with my advisor continued via BlueJeans/Zoom, as did group meetings every 1-2 weeks, one of my coworkers had a successful Zoom defense, and, of course, I got my first first-author manuscript published. H-index greater than 1, here I come. This brings us to our first pie chart, summarizing how I spent the pandemic, more or less.
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| How I Spent the Pandemic [click to enlarge, and it should also be less blurry] |
Next, we’ll consider my questionable diet, in which peanut butter may or may not be a staple food. For over a year, I’ve prepared/cooked every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner that I’ve eaten. While I would like to support local restaurants, I haven’t eaten out or ordered takeout at all. The process is almost as much effort as cooking and more effort than granola bars and instant oatmeal, so I’m probably deficient in any vitamins not found in fortified cereal and milk. See pie chart below for a model of a highly balanced and nutritious diet. I baked on average once every other week and made the following: peanut butter cookies, cinnamon rolls, sugar cookies (x2, different recipes), banana bread, pineapple upside down cake, popovers, apple cobbler, cranberry orange muffins, chocolate chunk cookies (the only bake from a mix), banana walnut muffins, chocolate peanut butter swirl brownies, pineapple cake, pumpkin cranberry bread, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, chocolate cupcakes, molasses cookies, cranberry orange scones (x2), brownies, banana muffins, shortbread cookies, thumbprint cookies, and pecan rolls.
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| What I Ate (featuring 193 peanut butter and jam sandwiches) |
Finally, let’s look at what (TV shows) I watched on Netflix. Additionally, I saw Jeopardy! almost every weeknight, watched the Revolution’s post-shutdown season, and saw a couple dozen movies, but the Netflix breakdown is more interesting. This pie chart includes a rough estimation of the time spent (in hours) watching each show based on the number of episodes and episode length. Bake Off has close to hour-long episodes, TNG and Grey’s Anatomy are about 45 minutes, and everything else is 21-25 minutes. I finished The Office right as lockdown started, and started on TNG, which I’m now 6 (of 7) seasons through. For both Avatar series, Parks and Rec, and Schitt’s Creek, the hours shown are the complete series. Kim’s Convenience is everything on Netflix, and I’m now eleven seasons into Grey’s Anatomy, which is ridiculous, but entertaining, in a ridiculous way.
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| What I Watched on Netflix |
In hindsight, should the pandemic have been handled differently, particularly in the United States? Quite probably. But despite everything, I still managed to explore Ann Arbor, eat a lot of baked goods, get a paper published, and watch plenty of highly educational TV, so the year wasn’t all bad news.
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
My latest slightly ill-advised adventure took place on a Sunday morning at the beginning of January. I rolled out of bed and was eating breakfast when I looked out the window and saw a snowy winter wonderland. Because it was early on a weekend morning, the snow was light enough, and it hadn’t been windy overnight, not only was the ground covered in several inches of snow, but so were all the tree branches. I’ve been working on a photography project (to be revealed later), and was waiting for a day such as that to get snow photos. After consulting three weather forecasts, I determined that the temperature was going to rise above freezing by lunch, and two out of three forecasts said that the snow would stop by midmorning. The third said it would turn to rain, but two out of three is sixty-seven percent, which is a passable grade in plenty of engineering courses. Also, it didn’t feel like a snow to rain kind of day, and I was willing to take the risk of getting caught in rain. I decided to try and catch the window of time after the snow stopped and before the temperature rose above freezing so there wouldn’t be snowflakes blurring my pictures but would be snow on the tree branches. Which meant that I had to get out that morning.
Having no progeny, pets, or plants to be responsible for, I finished breakfast, got dressed, and was out the door with my camera, water, snack, and extra dry jacket, mittens, and hat in ten minutes. My destination: Barton Nature Area. Depending on your definition of walkable, it’s walkable from my apartment. I arrived at the nature area without incident, encountering the usual three categories of peopledumb hardy and adventurous enough to be out in that kind of weather: dog walkers, exercisers (including runners, cross country skiers, and fat bikers – bikers riding fat bikes, not bikers who are fat), and photographers. And I got the timing almost exactly right. It stopped snowing about fifteen minutes after I arrived and by the time I left, the snow was already melting off the trees.
This nature area is contained within a loop of the Huron River, with bridges connecting it to the other side of the river. It’s adjacent to the Bird Hills, Kuebler Langford, and Hilltop Nature Areas, which together form one of the largest, if not the largest, contiguous-ish natural areas in Ann Arbor. There is a way to hike a loop through the four parks (which I did here), but on this morning I stayed within the Barton Nature Area. There are good views of the river, a dam (according to the parks and rec website it’s the only dam in the city still generating electricity), and a pond. I walked a loop through the park before making my damp way back to my apartment, where I spent the rest of the day nice and warm. Enjoy the photos.
Having no progeny, pets, or plants to be responsible for, I finished breakfast, got dressed, and was out the door with my camera, water, snack, and extra dry jacket, mittens, and hat in ten minutes. My destination: Barton Nature Area. Depending on your definition of walkable, it’s walkable from my apartment. I arrived at the nature area without incident, encountering the usual three categories of people
This nature area is contained within a loop of the Huron River, with bridges connecting it to the other side of the river. It’s adjacent to the Bird Hills, Kuebler Langford, and Hilltop Nature Areas, which together form one of the largest, if not the largest, contiguous-ish natural areas in Ann Arbor. There is a way to hike a loop through the four parks (which I did here), but on this morning I stayed within the Barton Nature Area. There are good views of the river, a dam (according to the parks and rec website it’s the only dam in the city still generating electricity), and a pond. I walked a loop through the park before making my damp way back to my apartment, where I spent the rest of the day nice and warm. Enjoy the photos.
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| The Huron River from the south bridge |
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| Looking the opposite direction, train bridge and US 23/M-14 |
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| Snow-covered trees |
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| A tree and a pond |
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| Train tracks |
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
The Year in Ann Arbor [2020]
2020 was not the year most people thought it would be, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20, right? To document life during a pandemic, unlike other years I’ve been writing monthly posts since March, so this post will be a summary of summaries. [Find each month here: March April May June July August September October November December.]
For the third time in four years, I began the new year at the airport, flying back to Detroit at the beginning of January. I reread The Fellowship of the Ring, ate pineapple tarts delivered from Singapore and picked up at home at Christmas, had a band concert in which I made my debut on the triangle, and was recruited to attend a couple ChemE seminars and have lunch with faculty candidates.
In February, reports of a new virus in China were circulating, but it was believed to be localized and people didn’t need to be concerned unless they had recently travelled to China. We procrastinated and complained in the office, our lab had group meetings, band rehearsals for our third concert of the season continued, I watched the end of Cornell men’s hockey’s very successful season and the start of MLS’s 25th season, and I started Star Trek: The Next Generation.
By March, it was becoming clear that the coronavirus was not contained in China. Days before classes went online, conferences and visit weekends were cancelled, churches stopped meeting in person, and sports were delayed, I performed in what might end up being my last concert with the Ann Arbor Concert Band. Later that week, our lab had our last in-person group meeting, and I went to my office for the last time to pick up books and notes before non-essential research (anything not virus-related or necessary to keep cells/animals alive) was shut down. As Michigan got an official stay at home order, I finished watching The Office.
I worked from my apartment through the month of April and started exploring the neighborhoods and parks of Ann Arbor on foot. Community came to Netflix, MLS re-aired old matches while the season was on hold, and I baked peanut butter cookies and cinnamon rolls, assembled jigsaw puzzles, read from my bookcase, and finished writing the first draft of my manuscript v2.0.
During May, businesses started reopening with cleaning, mask, capacity, and distancing requirements. As a computational researcher, I continued computing in my apartment, though the university tested opening a limited number of labs for experimental researchers. I began my quest to visit every park in Ann Arbor, which turned out to be a great pandemic activity. Basically free, essentially infinitely ventilated, can be done alone, generally easy to remain distanced, is a source of vitamin D, reduces cortisol (stress hormone), and produces endorphins (can lower symptoms of depression and anxiety).
With coronavirus numbers looking much better, the stay at home order was lifted in June. I spent the month on my bike in all corners of Ann Arbor hunting parks down. The Ann Arbor District Library put on the 2020 pandemic version of the Summer Game. My baking masterpiece of the month was a pineapple upside down cake, and I finished the available Great British Bake Off episodes, started rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, and ate, slept, and did research.
July was hot and humid, just like summer should be. While I sweated my way through dozens of parks and miles on my bike and avoided the oven, Jeopardy! opened up their vault and aired old episodes, and MLS started back up after four months. They bubbled up in Orlando for the MLS is Back tournament (the Returnament), where each team played three group stage games that would count in the standings followed by knockout games that didn’t factor into the standings but would earn the team a mostly meaningless trophy. The Revolution picked up a win and two ties, then were knocked out in the round of 16 (the first knockout round).
Students returned to campus in August for a limited number of in-person classes and on-campus activities. I didn’t think it was a great idea, but covid numbers in Washtenaw county looked pretty good, so I wasn’t vehemently against it. The MLS regular season picked up again with regional games (with the three Canadian clubs stuck in Canada only able to play each other), no fans, and regular testing. At the end of the month, I submitted edit 927 of version 2 of my manuscript and had my first day of 21st grade.
The university’s (lack of) coronavirus plan was a major point of contention in September, as minimal covid testing and quarantine housing conditions, among other things, drove the grad students to strike, the RAs to strike, the dining hall workers to want to strike, and the faculty senate to vote no confidence in the university president. Matters were somewhat resolved and people settled in for the semester. In other news, I finished Parks and Recreation before it left Netflix, met up with a couple individuals for the first time since March, picked up my clarinet very briefly, and saw goats.
October was my birthday month, and to celebrate and enjoy fall before everything froze over for six months, I visited several parks in Ann Arbor in search of fall colors. Covid cases at the university rose enough for the county to issue a shelter in place order for the undergrads, and nationwide cases and hospitalizations were trending upwards (again).
I was finally forced to put on pants in November when temperatures dropped, but I continued my outdoor wanderings (in shorts) whenever possible. The election happened. One of my coworkers defended via Zoom, I watched a livestreamed wedding, and the Revolution finished the regular season with enough points to make the playoffs. To the surprise of many people, they won a play-in game, beat the number one Eastern Conference seed in the round of 16, and emerged victorious in their conference semifinal game, earning themselves a spot in the conference final. Also, I baked molasses cookies and cranberry orange scones, made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, had breakfast for dinner, and my manuscript, after a couple rounds of revisions, was accepted. One of those things is not like the others.
And finally, we made it to December. The Revolution lost in the conference final, but that means they made it to the conference final. I tried to venture outside a few times a week, it snowed (and melted), and I started cross stitching again. And my paper was finally, after many trials and much tribulation, published.
For the third time in four years, I began the new year at the airport, flying back to Detroit at the beginning of January. I reread The Fellowship of the Ring, ate pineapple tarts delivered from Singapore and picked up at home at Christmas, had a band concert in which I made my debut on the triangle, and was recruited to attend a couple ChemE seminars and have lunch with faculty candidates.
In February, reports of a new virus in China were circulating, but it was believed to be localized and people didn’t need to be concerned unless they had recently travelled to China. We procrastinated and complained in the office, our lab had group meetings, band rehearsals for our third concert of the season continued, I watched the end of Cornell men’s hockey’s very successful season and the start of MLS’s 25th season, and I started Star Trek: The Next Generation.
By March, it was becoming clear that the coronavirus was not contained in China. Days before classes went online, conferences and visit weekends were cancelled, churches stopped meeting in person, and sports were delayed, I performed in what might end up being my last concert with the Ann Arbor Concert Band. Later that week, our lab had our last in-person group meeting, and I went to my office for the last time to pick up books and notes before non-essential research (anything not virus-related or necessary to keep cells/animals alive) was shut down. As Michigan got an official stay at home order, I finished watching The Office.
I worked from my apartment through the month of April and started exploring the neighborhoods and parks of Ann Arbor on foot. Community came to Netflix, MLS re-aired old matches while the season was on hold, and I baked peanut butter cookies and cinnamon rolls, assembled jigsaw puzzles, read from my bookcase, and finished writing the first draft of my manuscript v2.0.
During May, businesses started reopening with cleaning, mask, capacity, and distancing requirements. As a computational researcher, I continued computing in my apartment, though the university tested opening a limited number of labs for experimental researchers. I began my quest to visit every park in Ann Arbor, which turned out to be a great pandemic activity. Basically free, essentially infinitely ventilated, can be done alone, generally easy to remain distanced, is a source of vitamin D, reduces cortisol (stress hormone), and produces endorphins (can lower symptoms of depression and anxiety).
With coronavirus numbers looking much better, the stay at home order was lifted in June. I spent the month on my bike in all corners of Ann Arbor hunting parks down. The Ann Arbor District Library put on the 2020 pandemic version of the Summer Game. My baking masterpiece of the month was a pineapple upside down cake, and I finished the available Great British Bake Off episodes, started rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, and ate, slept, and did research.
July was hot and humid, just like summer should be. While I sweated my way through dozens of parks and miles on my bike and avoided the oven, Jeopardy! opened up their vault and aired old episodes, and MLS started back up after four months. They bubbled up in Orlando for the MLS is Back tournament (the Returnament), where each team played three group stage games that would count in the standings followed by knockout games that didn’t factor into the standings but would earn the team a mostly meaningless trophy. The Revolution picked up a win and two ties, then were knocked out in the round of 16 (the first knockout round).
Students returned to campus in August for a limited number of in-person classes and on-campus activities. I didn’t think it was a great idea, but covid numbers in Washtenaw county looked pretty good, so I wasn’t vehemently against it. The MLS regular season picked up again with regional games (with the three Canadian clubs stuck in Canada only able to play each other), no fans, and regular testing. At the end of the month, I submitted edit 927 of version 2 of my manuscript and had my first day of 21st grade.
The university’s (lack of) coronavirus plan was a major point of contention in September, as minimal covid testing and quarantine housing conditions, among other things, drove the grad students to strike, the RAs to strike, the dining hall workers to want to strike, and the faculty senate to vote no confidence in the university president. Matters were somewhat resolved and people settled in for the semester. In other news, I finished Parks and Recreation before it left Netflix, met up with a couple individuals for the first time since March, picked up my clarinet very briefly, and saw goats.
October was my birthday month, and to celebrate and enjoy fall before everything froze over for six months, I visited several parks in Ann Arbor in search of fall colors. Covid cases at the university rose enough for the county to issue a shelter in place order for the undergrads, and nationwide cases and hospitalizations were trending upwards (again).
I was finally forced to put on pants in November when temperatures dropped, but I continued my outdoor wanderings (in shorts) whenever possible. The election happened. One of my coworkers defended via Zoom, I watched a livestreamed wedding, and the Revolution finished the regular season with enough points to make the playoffs. To the surprise of many people, they won a play-in game, beat the number one Eastern Conference seed in the round of 16, and emerged victorious in their conference semifinal game, earning themselves a spot in the conference final. Also, I baked molasses cookies and cranberry orange scones, made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, had breakfast for dinner, and my manuscript, after a couple rounds of revisions, was accepted. One of those things is not like the others.
And finally, we made it to December. The Revolution lost in the conference final, but that means they made it to the conference final. I tried to venture outside a few times a week, it snowed (and melted), and I started cross stitching again. And my paper was finally, after many trials and much tribulation, published.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Thank U [2020], Next
There was a global pandemic, wildfires, murder hornets, lockdowns, protests to open businesses, protests to close businesses, kidnapping plots, a presidential election, and more. We stayed at home, masked up, and social distanced. People baked bread, started gardens, ordered takeout, dined outdoors, distance learned, worked from home, had virtual celebrations, threw drive-through parties, and (finally or suddenly) found themselves in December.
Life for me has continued much as it has for the past nine months, except with colder temperatures, less sun, and Christmas lights. My local NBC channel, however, started the month off by airing the wrong Jeopardy! episode on Tuesday, December 1. I completed my mini-quest to photograph all the canoe sculptures the next day, Wednesday, December 2, and worked on finalizing simulation results and writing my next manuscript throughout the week. Here we go again. The Revolution’s pursuit of their first MLS cup continues, as they suffered a 0-1 defeat at thehands feet of the Columbus Crew on Sunday, December 6, ending their 2020 playoff run and season.
The week of Monday, December 7 was another normal week of research. It got pretty warm for December (mid 40s) at the end of the week so I went out for a couple walks/hikes and discovered that some individual or individuals had put up ornaments on one of the trails that I visit occasionally, which was a fun surprise. Saturday, December 12 was grocery day, and on Sunday, December 13 I made a batch of brownies.
It was back to work on Monday, December 14, and I also watched a virtual performance of Handel’s Messiah put together by UMS (University Musical Society). The video combined recordings from past years, a virtual chorus (plus organ) from this year, and commentary from the music director. I might have tried to go to the live performance this year – I missed it last year for Tuba Christmas – but obviously that didn’t happen. On Tuesday, December 15, I got out for a quick walk around North Campus, which was indeed quiet with only a few days of finals left in the semester. I finished season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Wednesday, December 16, as well as turned the last of a bag of slightly wrinkly apples into applesauce, and then made a pot of curry on Thursday, December 17. After going over proofs of my paper, it was published online on Friday, December 18. Four years of work turned into eleven pages plus citations.
On Monday, December 21, my lab had our last (virtual) group meeting of 2020. I took a couple pre-Christmas hikes on Tuesday, December 22 and Wednesday, December 23. I went out right after lunch on Wednesday to try and beat the rain, and I was almost successful. Christmas Day, Friday, December 25, was uneventful for me. Ann Arbor did end up with a white Christmas, but the temperatures haven’t consistently remained below freezing so since then it’s been grey, gross, and muddy outside. I’ve been hiding out in my apartment watching Netflix, intermittently doing research, and working on cross stitch, my latest old-person hobby (joining solving crossword puzzles, eating soft foods, and watching Jeopardy!). Because it’s been so gross outside (it would actually be better if the ground went ahead and completely froze already; it’s not good for the trails to be constantly wet and muddy), I gave in and ordered cross stitch supplies to entertain myself this winter. Although I didn’t need them by a deadline, USPS delivered within a week across the country, saving my things from package purgatory in Allen Park outside of Detroit. Today, on Thursday, December 31, the last day of 2020, I took one last hike and will bake a final batch of cookies for the year, then it’s onward to 2021.
Life for me has continued much as it has for the past nine months, except with colder temperatures, less sun, and Christmas lights. My local NBC channel, however, started the month off by airing the wrong Jeopardy! episode on Tuesday, December 1. I completed my mini-quest to photograph all the canoe sculptures the next day, Wednesday, December 2, and worked on finalizing simulation results and writing my next manuscript throughout the week. Here we go again. The Revolution’s pursuit of their first MLS cup continues, as they suffered a 0-1 defeat at the
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| Hiking at sunset |
The week of Monday, December 7 was another normal week of research. It got pretty warm for December (mid 40s) at the end of the week so I went out for a couple walks/hikes and discovered that some individual or individuals had put up ornaments on one of the trails that I visit occasionally, which was a fun surprise. Saturday, December 12 was grocery day, and on Sunday, December 13 I made a batch of brownies.
It was back to work on Monday, December 14, and I also watched a virtual performance of Handel’s Messiah put together by UMS (University Musical Society). The video combined recordings from past years, a virtual chorus (plus organ) from this year, and commentary from the music director. I might have tried to go to the live performance this year – I missed it last year for Tuba Christmas – but obviously that didn’t happen. On Tuesday, December 15, I got out for a quick walk around North Campus, which was indeed quiet with only a few days of finals left in the semester. I finished season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Wednesday, December 16, as well as turned the last of a bag of slightly wrinkly apples into applesauce, and then made a pot of curry on Thursday, December 17. After going over proofs of my paper, it was published online on Friday, December 18. Four years of work turned into eleven pages plus citations.
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| Snow at Traver Creek |
On Monday, December 21, my lab had our last (virtual) group meeting of 2020. I took a couple pre-Christmas hikes on Tuesday, December 22 and Wednesday, December 23. I went out right after lunch on Wednesday to try and beat the rain, and I was almost successful. Christmas Day, Friday, December 25, was uneventful for me. Ann Arbor did end up with a white Christmas, but the temperatures haven’t consistently remained below freezing so since then it’s been grey, gross, and muddy outside. I’ve been hiding out in my apartment watching Netflix, intermittently doing research, and working on cross stitch, my latest old-person hobby (joining solving crossword puzzles, eating soft foods, and watching Jeopardy!). Because it’s been so gross outside (it would actually be better if the ground went ahead and completely froze already; it’s not good for the trails to be constantly wet and muddy), I gave in and ordered cross stitch supplies to entertain myself this winter. Although I didn’t need them by a deadline, USPS delivered within a week across the country, saving my things from package purgatory in Allen Park outside of Detroit. Today, on Thursday, December 31, the last day of 2020, I took one last hike and will bake a final batch of cookies for the year, then it’s onward to 2021.
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Canoe Art
My latest discovery in Ann Arbor was a giant fan made out of canoes. I was in the middle of a 7 mile walk along the Huron River (because why not) when I came upon this work of art, part of Ann Arbor’s Canoe Imagine Art project. Canoe Art was a public art initiative consisting of four sculptures constructed of recycled canoes from the city’s canoe liveries. The sculptures were installed in parks along the Huron River in 2015. Each chosen artist was given the canoes for their sculpture and an honorarium.
Tulip (Ray Katz), Bandemer Park
Starting furthest up the river at Bandemer Park, we have a canoe tulip. I didn’t remember this canoe sculpture, but when I went to deliberately hunt it down to photograph it, I realized I had seen it before in my quest to find a way to Barton Nature Area. It’s on the north side of Bandemer Park, in the area marked as Huron Bridge Park on Google maps, and I guess it does bear some resemblance to a tulip?
Turbine (Missouri State Western University artists J. Neil Lawley, Heather Andrews, Jake Proffit, Dustin Lafromboise and Hausman Metal Works), Broadway Park
Continuing down the Huron, we reach Broadway Park, which is actually a dog park next to Kerrytown. Out of all the canoe sculptures, this one has the most potential to be an accidental health hazard, because it’s located inside one of the fenced areas of the dog park. The canoes are at a perfect height to give someone a concussion and/or head laceration either from walking straight into the edge of a boat or ducking beneath the sculpture to deal with a dog then standing up without paying attention.
Canoe-vue (Jeff Zischke), Island Park
This was the first canoe sculpture I was aware of. I’ve been to Island Park for ChemE barbecues a couple times, and I think I did a summer game badge at the park as well. Island Park is along the stretch of the Huron between Gallup and Bandemer, just off the Fuller Road portion of the Border to Border (B2B) Trail, so it’s not too far from campus. I believe the idea behind Canoe-vue is that the canoes are now also benches, but I’ve never seen anyone sitting there.
Canoe Fan (Victoria Fuller), Gallup Park
Finally, we reach Gallup Park. Unlike the other three sculptures, there’s more of a story behind how the city ended up owning Canoe Fan. In return for materials and the honorarium, the city was supposed to retain ownership of the sculptures, but the Canoe Fan artist didn’t realize this and ended up using canoes she had previously purchased (just your average starter art kit: markers, glue, construction paper, googly eyes, canoes, etc.). As a result, she loaned her sculpture to the city, and the city ended up buying it for roughly the cost of materials and time. I’ve been to/biked through Gallup Park plenty of times, but the B2B runs along the other side of the river. This time, I approached Gallup from Furstenberg instead of the B2B and was exploring the opposite side of the Huron when I found Canoe Fan. You can get from one side of Gallup to the other in multiple places in the park, I just usually don’t because I’m on the B2B.
So there you have it. Four sculptures made of canoes. A celebration of the Huron River, recycling, and public art.
Monday, November 30, 2020
Coronavirus Chronicles – November
The month started off on Sunday, November 1 with a slightly crazy Revolution 4-3 victory over D.C. United and cooking the first pound of my buy-1-get-1-free beef roasts (I’ve got four more pounds hanging out in the freezer). The following week, like a lot of the northeast, Ann Arbor experienced much warmer weather than usual for November, so I went out for walks/hikes multiple times during the week in between dealing with email, my manuscript, and other assorted research. Election Day was Tuesday, November 4, and I followed along with the results throughout the night though the media did not announce their projected overall winner until the weekend, as people were forewarned might happen.
On Saturday, November 7 I baked a batch of molasses cookies that turned out well and Sunday, November 8 after internet church, I picked up my library summer game rewards1, did a load of laundry, and watched the Revolution finish their regular season by losing 0-2 to the Philadelphia Union. I attended my first Zoom thesis defense on Monday, November 9, which went impressively smoothly. For the first time in a while, I crossed North Campus on Tuesday, November 10 to get to a park and enjoy perhaps the last mild weather day of the year. There were a good number of people out, but at least almost everybody was correctly wearing a mask and distancing, as required by the Wolverine Culture of CareTM. The week’s #2020 moment is brought to you by the power outage in my apartment right when I was supposed to be meeting virtually with my advisor, leading to me using my phone as a phone for the third time this year (the other two times were getting my appointment reminder call from the dentist and calling my advisor because the internet kept dropping out during our meeting).
Throughout the week, I also continued working my way through Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to the internet, seasons 3-5 are peak Star Trek, and midway through season 4 that seems to be proving true. Another square to check off in Coronavirus Bingo – I “attended” a livestreamed wedding on Saturday, November 14. Directly afterwards, I baked a batch of cranberry orange scones. I doubled the amount2 of cranberries the recipe called for and used whole milk instead of heavy cream. The dough was initially pretty wet, but it smelled really good. After baking, I can say that the scones also tasted really good. I maybe overbaked them slightly, and I’d reduce the sugar next time, but for what might be the first time ever, I don’t think I overworked the dough when I cut the butter in. This was also the first pants day of the season, as it was only in the 30s when I went grocery shopping in the morning.
I worked on my manuscript throughout the week of Monday, November 16, and went out a couple times during the week for a quick hike and bike ride. Even though the sun sets about an hour later than it does in New England, it’s still starting to set pretty early, so I may need to reorganize my schedule if I don’t want to invest in night vision goggles. The Revolution had their play-in game against the Montreal Impact on Friday, November 20, and it took a last-minute-of-second-half-stoppage-time goal, but they got the win and moved into the actual bracket.
Four days later, on Tuesday, November 24, the Revolution were back at it with their new BFFs (Best Foes Forever), the Philadelphia Union, also the number 1 seed in the eastern conference. To the surprise of basically everyone, they won. The next day, Wednesday, November 25, I got a late birthday/early Christmas/Thanksgiving present in the form of my paper, at long last, being accepted. In an act of rebellion against a tyrannical government, I refused to live in fear of a silly little virus and celebrated Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26) in the exact same way as I did last year . . . alone in my apartment. I found a mini ham at the grocery store, made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, and heated up some frozen vegetables for single grad student Thanksgiving dinner 2020. I had Thanksgiving leftovers on Friday, November 27 and finished some pretzels and chocolate hummus that I got on sale at the grocery store – would recommend.
Over the weekend (Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November 29), the temperature got up into the high 40s (hello, shorts weather), so I went out for what may be my last bike ride and hike of the year without wearing sixteen layers of clothing. The Revolution took on Orlando on Sunday for their next playoff game . . . and won again, so they’re heading to the Eastern Conference Final. I finished out the month on Monday, November 30 with breakfast for dinner – fried(/steamed) apples, scrambled eggs, and a freezer pancake.
So, it looks like the country survived the election, minus the people who died unnecessarily from the coronavirus. News of vaccine efficacy has been interesting and cause for cautious optimism. Hopefully hospitals can hang in there and Thanksgiving doesn’t push them over the top even before Christmas happens. In-person classes at the university are done for the year, so I’m guessing campus has quieted down, though I haven’t been by to check. I’ll be sticking around in Ann Arbor through the New Year. Still waiting for the first big snowfall. No real plans for Christmas, but maybe I’ll look for a Chinese turkey for the occasion.
1A t-shirt to wear to all the places I’m not going, a lunchbox for all the lunches I’m not packing, and a travel mug for all the drinks I don’t need to keep hot/cold.
2Microsoft Word wants this to be number, which is technically correct, because cranberries are countable, but I refuse to say it’s really correct, because recipes ask for a quarter or half cup of cranberries, not one hundred and twenty-seven cranberries.
On Saturday, November 7 I baked a batch of molasses cookies that turned out well and Sunday, November 8 after internet church, I picked up my library summer game rewards1, did a load of laundry, and watched the Revolution finish their regular season by losing 0-2 to the Philadelphia Union. I attended my first Zoom thesis defense on Monday, November 9, which went impressively smoothly. For the first time in a while, I crossed North Campus on Tuesday, November 10 to get to a park and enjoy perhaps the last mild weather day of the year. There were a good number of people out, but at least almost everybody was correctly wearing a mask and distancing, as required by the Wolverine Culture of CareTM. The week’s #2020 moment is brought to you by the power outage in my apartment right when I was supposed to be meeting virtually with my advisor, leading to me using my phone as a phone for the third time this year (the other two times were getting my appointment reminder call from the dentist and calling my advisor because the internet kept dropping out during our meeting).
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| Sunset on the river |
Throughout the week, I also continued working my way through Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to the internet, seasons 3-5 are peak Star Trek, and midway through season 4 that seems to be proving true. Another square to check off in Coronavirus Bingo – I “attended” a livestreamed wedding on Saturday, November 14. Directly afterwards, I baked a batch of cranberry orange scones. I doubled the amount2 of cranberries the recipe called for and used whole milk instead of heavy cream. The dough was initially pretty wet, but it smelled really good. After baking, I can say that the scones also tasted really good. I maybe overbaked them slightly, and I’d reduce the sugar next time, but for what might be the first time ever, I don’t think I overworked the dough when I cut the butter in. This was also the first pants day of the season, as it was only in the 30s when I went grocery shopping in the morning.
 |
| Scones |
I worked on my manuscript throughout the week of Monday, November 16, and went out a couple times during the week for a quick hike and bike ride. Even though the sun sets about an hour later than it does in New England, it’s still starting to set pretty early, so I may need to reorganize my schedule if I don’t want to invest in night vision goggles. The Revolution had their play-in game against the Montreal Impact on Friday, November 20, and it took a last-minute-of-second-half-stoppage-time goal, but they got the win and moved into the actual bracket.
Four days later, on Tuesday, November 24, the Revolution were back at it with their new BFFs (Best Foes Forever), the Philadelphia Union, also the number 1 seed in the eastern conference. To the surprise of basically everyone, they won. The next day, Wednesday, November 25, I got a late birthday/early Christmas/Thanksgiving present in the form of my paper, at long last, being accepted. In an act of rebellion against a tyrannical government, I refused to live in fear of a silly little virus and celebrated Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26) in the exact same way as I did last year . . . alone in my apartment. I found a mini ham at the grocery store, made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, and heated up some frozen vegetables for single grad student Thanksgiving dinner 2020. I had Thanksgiving leftovers on Friday, November 27 and finished some pretzels and chocolate hummus that I got on sale at the grocery store – would recommend.
 |
| Thanksgiving dinner |
Over the weekend (Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November 29), the temperature got up into the high 40s (hello, shorts weather), so I went out for what may be my last bike ride and hike of the year without wearing sixteen layers of clothing. The Revolution took on Orlando on Sunday for their next playoff game . . . and won again, so they’re heading to the Eastern Conference Final. I finished out the month on Monday, November 30 with breakfast for dinner – fried(/steamed) apples, scrambled eggs, and a freezer pancake.
So, it looks like the country survived the election, minus the people who died unnecessarily from the coronavirus. News of vaccine efficacy has been interesting and cause for cautious optimism. Hopefully hospitals can hang in there and Thanksgiving doesn’t push them over the top even before Christmas happens. In-person classes at the university are done for the year, so I’m guessing campus has quieted down, though I haven’t been by to check. I’ll be sticking around in Ann Arbor through the New Year. Still waiting for the first big snowfall. No real plans for Christmas, but maybe I’ll look for a Chinese turkey for the occasion.
1A t-shirt to wear to all the places I’m not going, a lunchbox for all the lunches I’m not packing, and a travel mug for all the drinks I don’t need to keep hot/cold.
2Microsoft Word wants this to be number, which is technically correct, because cranberries are countable, but I refuse to say it’s really correct, because recipes ask for a quarter or half cup of cranberries, not one hundred and twenty-seven cranberries.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Winter is Coming
Before winter arrives, whether on the calendar or with snow and freezing temperatures, I’ve been enjoying the outdoors. I’ll still enjoy the outdoors when it’s covered in a foot of snow and everything’s grey, but the fall colors are nice while they last. I closed out October with a couple last bike rides/walks to some of the parks I’ve been frequenting. As it turned out, on the very first day of November, Ann Arbor got its first snowflakes of the season. The ground and air temperature were too warm for anything that could even be called a coating to stick, but winter is coming.
As we headed into the second half of October, I biked over to the Barton Nature Area to check on the colors by the river. The Border to Border was still well-trafficked by exercisers, but the number of people just hanging around at the parks along it was on its way down. I was hoping for blue skies and bright colors over the Huron, but got a grey sky and a scattering of yellow and brown trees instead. Oh, well. It was still nice in person.
By the end of the month the temperatures started dropping from pleasantly cool to uncomfortably cool without a jacket. So I put on a jacket, but held off on pants. I made the rounds through some of the parks that I’ve been circling through for the past nine months, for which I have coronavirus to thank, in more ways than one. Firstly, for being the reason that I’ve been wandering through the woods unaccompanied instead of going to band rehearsals, church events, and seminars. Secondly, for being the reason I discovered the parks in the first place and ended up exploring large portions of Ann Arbor.
There was a good mix of color when I was out at the end of the month. Some of the trees were past peak and turning brown or dropping their leaves, but enough of them still had leaves on their branches to make it feel fall-ish and not dead and winter-ish. From the pond, I made my way to some beech woods, which were very yellow. On the way back to my apartment, I encountered a mushroom growing out of a tree. I’m pretty sure it was real, but this is Ann Arbor so it could be an open-air art installation contemplating the decay of civilization juxtaposed with the endurance of humanity. Or something like that. I also met what looked like a really fat, round bird that was actually a hawk. The picture below is blurry because it’s extremely zoomed up. Guess who still doesn’t have a telephoto lens?
It’s either a Cooper’s hawk or a sharp-shinned hawk, which even birdwatching sites will admit look very, very similar (see what I mean?). The Cooper’s hawk is bigger, but a male Cooper’s hawk can be about the same size as a female sharp-shinned hawk. Plus, you try figuring out what “bigger” is when you’re hiding in the bushes thirty feet away. The tails of the two species differ in shape; the Cooper’s hawk has a rounded tail while the sharp-shinned hawk has a squarer or notched tail. The Cooper’s hawk also has a bigger head that can look a bit block-like, and the sharp-shinned hawk has thin, “stick-like” legs. Both have reddish barring on their bellies and black and white striped tails, and can be found in Michigan. My bird has a rounded tail, but I can’t say it looks particularly block-headed, and I don’t know if I would or wouldn’t call those legs stick-like either. If I had to say, I’d go with Cooper’s hawk, but I wouldn’t bet any money on that. So far during coronavirus I’ve identified (okay, attempted to identify) wildflowers, wildlife, fungus, and now birds. Why not trees, you ask? Already did that in seventh grade science. (And we did rocks in eighth grade science.)
As we headed into the second half of October, I biked over to the Barton Nature Area to check on the colors by the river. The Border to Border was still well-trafficked by exercisers, but the number of people just hanging around at the parks along it was on its way down. I was hoping for blue skies and bright colors over the Huron, but got a grey sky and a scattering of yellow and brown trees instead. Oh, well. It was still nice in person.
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| Kayakers on the Huron River |
By the end of the month the temperatures started dropping from pleasantly cool to uncomfortably cool without a jacket. So I put on a jacket, but held off on pants. I made the rounds through some of the parks that I’ve been circling through for the past nine months, for which I have coronavirus to thank, in more ways than one. Firstly, for being the reason that I’ve been wandering through the woods unaccompanied instead of going to band rehearsals, church events, and seminars. Secondly, for being the reason I discovered the parks in the first place and ended up exploring large portions of Ann Arbor.
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| Fall colors |
There was a good mix of color when I was out at the end of the month. Some of the trees were past peak and turning brown or dropping their leaves, but enough of them still had leaves on their branches to make it feel fall-ish and not dead and winter-ish. From the pond, I made my way to some beech woods, which were very yellow. On the way back to my apartment, I encountered a mushroom growing out of a tree. I’m pretty sure it was real, but this is Ann Arbor so it could be an open-air art installation contemplating the decay of civilization juxtaposed with the endurance of humanity. Or something like that. I also met what looked like a really fat, round bird that was actually a hawk. The picture below is blurry because it’s extremely zoomed up. Guess who still doesn’t have a telephoto lens?
 |
| Beech forest |
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| Mushroom growing out of a tree |
It’s either a Cooper’s hawk or a sharp-shinned hawk, which even birdwatching sites will admit look very, very similar (see what I mean?). The Cooper’s hawk is bigger, but a male Cooper’s hawk can be about the same size as a female sharp-shinned hawk. Plus, you try figuring out what “bigger” is when you’re hiding in the bushes thirty feet away. The tails of the two species differ in shape; the Cooper’s hawk has a rounded tail while the sharp-shinned hawk has a squarer or notched tail. The Cooper’s hawk also has a bigger head that can look a bit block-like, and the sharp-shinned hawk has thin, “stick-like” legs. Both have reddish barring on their bellies and black and white striped tails, and can be found in Michigan. My bird has a rounded tail, but I can’t say it looks particularly block-headed, and I don’t know if I would or wouldn’t call those legs stick-like either. If I had to say, I’d go with Cooper’s hawk, but I wouldn’t bet any money on that. So far during coronavirus I’ve identified (okay, attempted to identify) wildflowers, wildlife, fungus, and now birds. Why not trees, you ask? Already did that in seventh grade science. (And we did rocks in eighth grade science.)
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| Either a Cooper's hawk or sharp-shinned hawk |
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