The Year in Ann Arbor [2018]

January – We loved the timing and convenience economics of the 5 am flight back to Ann Arbor so much that we did it again this year. I arrived in Ann Arbor bright and early, went grocery shopping, and spent the rest of the day watching TV on my bed. When classes started, I began my mandatory semester of TA’ing, my first time as a grad student but my third time overall. Bessel functions made their return in a problem set, we got back to work in the band room preparing for our second concert of the season, and I ended the month at the Michigan Theater celebrating Mozart’s birthday.

As the TA, I had the pleasure of writing up all the homework solutions, which meant I had the pleasure of solving all the homework. February brought the return of the COMSOL problem set, which I tackled with, of course, all the pleasure. The Revolution began preseason and once again, fled from Foxboro to play in the Mobile Mini Sun Cup in Arizona, where they emerged victorious [this would, sadly, be a highlight of 2018 for them]. I watched most of the games thanks to the internet and also caught highlights from the Olympics. In other news, I finally gave in and bought a DSLR.

In March, my TA duties included attending a seminar titled The Power of Peer Review. Literally the only reason for that title is the alliteration. About a dozen people actually showed up and almost all of them were there because they had to be. At least there were snacks. I also carried on with grading, holding offices hours, and research. Outside of work, I began watching/rewatching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in anticipation of Avengers: Infinity War, which I still have not seen.

Easter this year was in early April. To celebrate we had lunch after church, an egg hunt (I got to hide eggs again), and a piñata. Very traditional. Since classes ended, I got to wrap up TA’ing for the time being, and I attended several band and chorus concerts in support of music and friends in the school of music. At some point during the month, the guy who writes PhD comics came to the university, so I went to see him talk.

May is a big month for early PhD students. Last year I took my doctoral candidacy exam; this year was the preliminary exam. I passed and immediately headed out of Ann Arbor to visit my brother in Chicago. I met up with my mother there and this time I got to see Chicago instead of haul my brother’s belongings across the city. We visited the zoo, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum, plus saw Cloud Gate lots of times.

When I returned to Ann Arbor in early June with my mother, I took her to see the peonies and other bus/foot-accessible locations in town. At church, we observed the end of the school year for the kids with water balloon games, a water balloon fight, pizza, and a movie. My lab had a summer BBQ at our advisor’s house, followed by a game of Pandemic (we won). At the end of the month the World Cup started, so there went the ragged remains of our motivation and productivity at work.

In July, I continued the summer tradition of biking across most of Ann Arbor. My future roommate and I paid a visit to the food trucks at the Farmer’s Market for dinner one night and got a chicken jerk wrap and pizza. Art Fair came to town; I went to look at the prices. I got caught up on Marvel movies and started on watching every theatrical Disney animated feature film. With the availability of $25 tickets, a coworker and I went to see Manchester United and Liverpool play at the stadium.

Summer continued in August. Midmonth, my new roommate moved in. I took advantage of a library event and went to see Jennifer Pharr Davis, who wrote Called Again, speak. I took advantage of the library itself and finally saw the fourth season of Sherlock. I have very mixed feelings about this season. As summer wound down, I made a return trip to Chicago to meet up with a friend from Cornell.

At long last in September, our church moved into a building that we’d been renovating for the past year. Band started back up. I went to see a free showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey that was accompanied live by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. We participated in fall by going to a cider mill for cider and donuts.

October brought the arrival of my first academic conference as a graduate student. Another student and I flew down to Houston together a day early and spent the extra time at Space Center Houston. At the conference itself, I listened to dozens of talks, met up with several Cornell acquaintances, presented, and otherwise tried to subsist on free food and alcohol.

In November I took an extended break from work and travelled to Singapore to see family, some of whom I hadn’t seen for fourteen years. We saw a lot of people, ate a lot, and did all the touristy things.

December – On the way back from Singapore, we had a whirlwind stopover in Hong Kong. Back in Ann Arbor, the ChemE department hosted a Christmas party [food + alcohol = the one(?) time a year the department gets together], and I made Christmas cards and meatballs. Since I used all my vacation days to go to Singapore, I remained in Ann Arbor for winter break, and spent time with families from church and played Ticket to Ride and Exploding Kittens for the first time.

Minutes: I practiced 4165 minutes (69.4 hours) in 10 out of 12 months, or about an hour and a half a week. Hey, at least I practice.

Miles: Rode 254 miles in 9 out of 12 months. I moved closer to my office so I can walk instead of bike, which is where a lot of my miles last year came from.

Numbers: Books – 63+2 rereads, split 21/44 nonfiction/fiction

Movies – 58+11 rewatches

#ThatsAllForNowFolks [October 2018]

Last month of the Revolution’s 2018 season, which means no playoffs for them. Again.

October 6, 2018, at Atlanta United, 2-1 L
This was the game with the absolutely unbearable announcers. I knew it was a nationally televised match, but for the first twenty minutes or so, I thought they were broadcasting Atlanta United’s feed because the announcers would not shut up about Atlanta United. It was worse than the time the Kansas City announcers wouldn’t stop going on about the turf at Gillette Stadium. Worse than the NYCFC broadcast that kept cutting away from the ball every time the Revolution had possession to show NYCFC players on the bench. After the first goal (complete with GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLL call, which, to be fair, the announcer also did for the Revolution’s late goal), I switched to watching the muted video stream and listening to the Revolution’s radio call with a 2-3 minute lag. As for the game itself, the Revolution played with the intent of not losing by a lot of goals, which is not how you win games. Juan Agudelo picked up the late consolation goal in the second minute of stoppage time.

October 13, 2018, vs. Orlando City SC, 2-0 W
Was away for this game and missed it, but the Revolution picked up another home win. Cristian Penilla and Diego Fagundez scored their twelfth and eighth goals of the season respectively. Orlando is another team that struggled in 2018, but these are the kind of games the Revolution historically, bizarrely, can’t win. See the tie against a 2-win San Jose team earlier in the season.

October 18, 2018, at Real Salt Lake, 4-1 L
This was basically the Toronto game again. They went down early, stayed down, and when they had a chance to start a comeback, Nick Rimando saved a Teal Bunbury penalty kick. Which isn’t that surprising¹, but that’s the kind of game it was. Kelyn Rowe got his first goal of the season to close out the scoring for the night.

¹According to the MLS website², Rimando has faced 32 unsuccessful penalty kick attempts out a total of 88 taken against him, which is more than 36%, double or close to double the typical miss rate for penalty kicks. Besides that ridiculous percentage, the number of unsuccessful penalties against him is more than the total number of penalties all but the top dozen or so MLS goalkeepers have faced.

²mlssoccer.com, which belongs in the ranks of PIN numbers and ATM machines. This is what happens when you don’t found your league until 1996 and the Multiple Listing Service exists.

October 28, 2018, vs. Montreal Impact, 1-0 W
For the second year in a row, New England ended their season by playing Montreal. Last year they were spared the indignity of not winning a single road game with a late goal from Rowe to earn a 3-2 victory. This year, the big story was Fagundez scoring to secure the win as well as pick up his 50th MLS regular season goal. He’s the youngest player to do so (the second youngest is Landon Donovan) and the third Revolution player after Taylor Twellman and Lee Nguyen.

Record for October: 2W-2L-0D
Overall record: 10W-13L-11D

At the end of the season, it came down to not winning enough games. For all Brad Friedel’s talk, he ended 2018 with less points than New England finished with in 2017 (41 vs. 45). His 10W-13L-11D record is about the same as the 13W-15L-6D from Jay Heaps’ last season with the team, and although early on it looked like they might have better balance between their home and away records, they weren’t as good at home in 2018 and they still only won 2 games on the road. I don’t think it’s entirely Friedel’s fault, and I don’t think a revolving door of coaches is the solution to all the Revolution’s woes, though there are some concerning comments from the players about the first-year coach. I’m interested to see how next season goes, but I’m not sure I’m even cautiously optimistic about it. More like keeping optimism in a box in the back of the closet where it can be dragged out if things start going well and are still going well in mid-October or so. Here’s to the end of the 2018 New England Revolution season and the start of the 2019 season, another year of dreaming of 20-goal DPs, stadium deals, and MLS cup.

Merry Christmas

Altitude and Art

While I wouldn’t have minded spending my whole trip redoing things in Chicago, I did see some new things, namely the Sears sorry, Willis, Tower, and the Chicago Art Institute. I also (finally) had Chicago deep dish pizza. It was alright. The crust was both over and undercooked, but the pizza in no way desecrated the name of the food it was supposed to be. I’m looking at you, Manhattan “clam chowder.”

Normally, the thought of paying to take an elevator ride and look out windows reminds me of shredding money, but once in a while, I will pay for the privilege of throwing my hard-earned stipend at these tourist traps. This was one of these times. We headed up around sunset to try and see the city during day and night. There was almost no line when we arrived, and we only had to wait at the elevators for maybe ten minutes. Once we arrived at the viewing area, however, we found the tourists out in full force. We walked around a couple times, then decided to wait in line for the glass floor alcoves because we were there, and we had nothing better to do.

View toward Lake Michigan.  Buckinham Fountain is in the bottom left, half covered by the red building.  The part jutting out further down is Adler Planetarium.  Next to that are the Shedd Aquarium and Field Museum.  No clue about the rest of the buildings.  The things in the sky are clouds.

Most of the families and groups were pretty good about getting in there, snapping a few pictures, and moving on. There were a few people who felt the need to do a short photoshoot, take seventeen thousand selfies, and then switch positions with their friend, but they weren’t the majority, thankfully. We watched the sun set while in line, made it to the ledge, took some pictures, and looked down 1,353 feet to the ground. I wouldn’t say you have to do it, but if you’ve bought the CityPass or need to complete a Chicago experience in less time than it takes to go to a museum, I guess it’s worth it.

On our last day there, our attraction of the day was the Art Institute of Chicago. I like art, but I’m not going to debate symbolism or color theory, and if your art installation is fifty-three TVs screaming at me, I will be less than enthused. I found the layout horrendously confusing and kept wandering in circles and/or going left when I should have gone right and/or going right when I should have gone left. By the time we left I had it mostly figured out, but not before seeing European Art Before 1900 four times.

Clockwise from top left: dead chicken, abstract buffalo

(it's supposed to be suggestive of a landscape), Nahant shoreline, dead fish

Overall, I liked the Art Institute. They have a nice variety of paintings, sculptures, furniture, and other art-ish objects. Everything is generally arranged by region and time period and includes Asian art (further subdivided), Greek and Roman art, American art pre 1900, American art post 1900 (up to 1950), Impressionism, Contemporary art, Modern art, the arms and armor, paperweights, and the Thorne miniature rooms (models of rooms built at a 1:12 scale). I was most entertained by landscapes, dead animals, and the paperweight collection. I also enjoyed the arms and armor and American art, plus mini Lincoln in the sculpture court. Other highlights were American Gothic, Georgia O’Keefe’s cloud painting, and that painting Sunday at the Park with George is inspired by.

Top: armor.  Bottom left: mini Lincoln.  Bottom right: paperweights.

It was a quick trip to Chicago, but I/we managed to pack a number of things into it. We went to the zoo, Field Museum, Skydeck, Art Institute, walked along Lake Michigan, saw Grant Park, ate deep dish pizza, and had dinner with my brother. After all that, I got back on the train and headed back to Ann Arbor. We made good time out of Chicago and through Indiana, then outside of Kalamazoo, we stop a couple hundred feet down from the station. They announce that we’re waiting for a freight train to get out of our way. Okay. We sit and wait. Ten minutes later, they announce that the freight train is waiting to get into the yard so it can get out of our way. Okay. Fifteen minutes later, we finally get moving again. Combined with other smaller delays, we’re close to an hour late when we make it to Ann Arbor, but I’ve heard of people being two or three hours late, so I’m not complaining (too much).

Return to the Windy City

[In case you missed me, I was away, but I’m back – and back to work – now. At this point, blog time is running about four months behind. There are a couple more summer posts after this one, then in fall I went to a cider mill for the first time in years and attended a conference. After that, I left the country for two and a half weeks, which hopefully I’ll finish posting about by next summer. Stay tuned.]

Once again, we leave Ann Arbor for this post and head back to Chicago. On this trip at the end of August, I was headed west to see a friend from Cornell – a former fellow ChemE, senior design group member, and roommate – who was vacationing in Chicago. This time, I did not travel at the crack of dawn on a bus-less holiday morning, but in the middle of a Sunday when both the city and university buses were running. I did miss church, but if I’m remembering correctly, this was the first Sunday that I’d missed all year. I rode Amtrak again, and the train ride there went smoothly (besides the fifteen minutes we pulled over to restart the electrical system . . .). Don’t worry, the train ride back was more than an hour late to make up for it.

Instead of recapping this trip day by day, I’ll condense it to two posts, one with things I’ve done before (this post) and one with new experiences (the next post). The friend I was meeting up with hadn’t been to Chicago before, so we did some of the big Chicago things that I’d already done because I’m the kind of person who eats the same ten things every day. I’m not going to be bothered by seeing the same museum twice in a summer.

After I arrived in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, we made a quick trip to the zoo that was notable mainly for the heat. A lot of the animals were in hiding. Either that or they were abducted by aliens. We did see the polar bear, which was MIA last time I was at the zoo. Most of the primates were also in view, mainly because they had no energy to hide from people.

The primates are #OverIt

The first full day in Chicago, I paid a second visit to the Field Museum to spend some quality time with Sue and friends, plus rocks, minerals, and taxidermy. Once again, I enjoyed it, and wandered around for most of a day. Because my friend actually likes food, we left around lunchtime to eat something that wasn’t an eight-dollar museum sandwich, then returned. I skipped the room of fake plants this time, and took more time to look at the dinosaurs. It turns out that last time we missed the part of the exhibit where Sue is being rehomed. She’s not on display yet, but there’s a viewing window that lets you see her in her mostly-reassembled state.

Hi, Sue

Lastly, would this even be a post about Chicago without a picture of Cloud Gate? The answer is no. Here’s the bean:

The back side of the Bean