Alumni Hoops - 49 feeling like...49

yours truly in red guarding Gus' kid

I was going to post this yesterday but wanted to convey the feeling 24 hours after running up and down an 80 foot basketball court, attempting to keep up with individuals more than half my age. Yesterday was the annual Milford alumni basketball scrimmage against the varsity and my feeling 24 hours after is…..I need a new set of hip sockets and my jump shot has left the building.

A running 5-minute clock each quarter; doesn’t seem too bad on paper and I consider myself in shape for the most part but a few fast breaks (my team unfortunately wasn’t up for walking the ball up the court; come on guys!!) had the brain asking to put the hands on the knees and search for an extra breath or two. On a positive note, the old guys won and I was able to get on the scoring sheet with one bucket that had the crowd of 15 in awe and on their feet shouting for more (slight exaggeration). On a not-so-positive note, I hadn’t played since last year’s game and it showed. If they were handing out nicknames, they would have given me former Piston Cliff Levingston’s persona, ‘House.’ As in, “He’s shooting so many bricks, he could build a house.”

The photos are courtesy of Gus whose son Gunnar is a sophomore on the team. My crafty veteran basketball tricks were of no use as young Gunnar schooled me for a few buckets. My advice to him is what old coach Harris used to tell me, "Shoot the damn ball Timmy!!!!"

Go Redskins...err Mavericks!

Trail Head aka 'House'

trail head looking for his shot - still looking

Scuba Dog

A Seadog shout out to the brother who has done more with no use of legs than the majority who do. His latest conquest being scuba diving in Cozumel, Mexico. A nice getaway for the man who is also teaching others to ski (http://mtbadaptivesports.com/) this winter. 

Get that turtle Jim!

Trail Head

Xmas in Beer Heaven

The 30th (31st?) annual CMU xmas party headed west this year to Kalamazoo; home of....beer. When in the home of beer, you jump on the brew pub shuttle taking you to beer heaven. A gold star to brew pub shuttle driver Tony for taking a group of fossils to the promised land. 

A great time with great people.

Trail Head

guessing pub shuttle driver Tony has some stories

crew cruising the mean streets of Kalamazoo

great band at Old Dog

little late

Alarm Down

lot of wear on that right alarm switch

Yep, the clock literally struck midnight this week as my alarm clock that I've used since the 5th grade (first time I had my own bedroom!!!!) decided to stop telling me when to get up. The alarm switch, flipped back and forth for I am guessing roughly 15,000 times over its tenure, no longer works. Getting up at 5 AM (internal alarm clock still gets me up at 4:50 for some stupid reason) for 26 years of work, getting up is never a problem; yet, we all love the crutch of the alarm clock! I was never a snooze bar user either. It always seemed like you were abusing your body getting shocked awake by the alarm every 10 minutes only to do it over again and again and again...  

The clock's replacement is another reason the world is evolving into Idiocracy. Upon opening the package with the clock, the user is presented with a sticker on it of what the illuminating view looks like. On the sticker (noted below) is the text "REMOVE BEFORE OPERATING CLOCK." 

Good information to know.

Trail Head 

Celebrity Sibling

So there I was yesterday at work, enjoying my lunch, reading the paper, avoiding any articles on my beloved (but woeful) Spartans football team. The sports section has its usual suck-up articles on the U-M football coach so I avoid it altogether. The last section of the paper, Homestyle, is presented to me. The people pictured on the cover look familiar but wasn't sure if I could make out who they were. On go the reader glasses and I get my confirmation. My sister and brother-in-law are on said cover! The first family of Detroit had an article on the updates they have made to their home; some beautiful ones. 

It was earlier this summer that I stumbled upon my nephew Jackson on television promoting a bicycle ride in town. Now we have Detroit's version of "This Old House" in the newspaper. With this much exposure, I might have to start calling my sister's family the Kardashians (ha). I am anxiously awaiting my niece Hannah's (aka Annie Leibovitz) show on photography in all of her worldly travels. 

Keep on keeping Kardash....

Trail Head

Boo!!!

My group of friends may be approaching 50, however, it's always nice to re-visit your youth every so often and what better way than Halloween to visit said youth!

We had Mr. Incredible, a group of greasers, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, a lumberjack, a pair of Velcro strips, an electrocuted individual, yours truly as a hippie and many, many more. 

Old in body, young at heart.

Trail Head

 

 

pre-party music in Milford

Moving Blues

took this pic a few months ago from my cubicle - building with the points is our new office

After 15 or so years in the building the critics said was Coleman Young’s way of flipping off the suburbs after it was built (look at the design next time you see if from afar), my employer is leaving the RenCen for a new headquarters about two blocks away.

Moving is never fun. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Growing up (queue the ‘way back machine’), nobody could move like the Reeves family as within a six year stretch, we lived in three different homes. My dad had a gift of finding the next best deal on a house. And he did quite well financially in doing so. However, there were drawbacks to the process. Do you think my dad hired a moving service each time? Are you kidding me? That would impact his bottom line so…pack on! It was during this time that young Tim attended three elementary schools; a tough thing to do in making new friends at each school. While I had no gift of gab (still don’t) in making new friends, I dominated in kickball so friends were never a problem…..if they wanted to win in gym class (ha).

Back to the work move. I will miss the views (attached pictures are from my last two cubicle locations) and the ‘city’ that more or less resides in the building I’m leaving; having a post office, a pharmacy and various stores in the same structure when its zero outside is a bonus. What I won’t miss are the west winter winds pushing through the windows. I believe they are the original windows when the building was built in the mid-70’s; chilly. Another item I won’t miss are the larger than life cockroaches in the stairwells; huge. Hearing the building creek and sway during high wind days was also a bit unsettling.

Regardless, if my door swipe card works on Monday, there will be no complaining from yours truly.

Trail Head

I had this view at my previous desk - not a bad way to start the morning

Night Moves

Early darkness smarkness (not a word). Yes, it blows the big one that darkness is setting in way too early these days. You would think us pompous Americans with our advanced technology would find a way to tilt the earth so we could keep those nice long days all year. Yeah, no.

Here nor there, with the help of technology, early darkness will not stop the weeknight mountain bike season this year! It was the maiden voyage for the handlebar light tonight on the Milford Trail and no regrets on said purchase. Besides three deer that weren't going anywhere soon, I had the trail to myself. 

As Bob Seger says in a song, 'Ain't it funny how the night moves...'

Bring on the night.

Trail Head

Chippewa River Float - Good People Remain Good People

Yep, been doing the Chippewa River float for more or less 10 years as my pea brain can recall. The core has been pretty much the same with a newbie coming and going; yooper John S. making an appearance this year with Roger C. showing up for the Friday night festivities. You can't ask for a better group as they put up with my idiosyncrasies; one of which is when its time for 'Timmy Leaves' to leave, he will. 

The float was enjoyable, as always. No trophy fish to report but thankfully no spills in what was a very cold river. 

Trail Head 

 

the bicycle had a great trip as well

Reality

If you think your day was bad, someone maybe cut you off on the ride, too much construction (the M-5 north ramp project can end anytime!!!), you spilled your water on your keyboard, the release didn't go as planned, whatever; I had that kind of week. Then I came in this morning and got the below e-mail from a co-worker in Florida.
Yep, not that bad of a week.

Trail Head

Number 986th Place!

I recently started using a new program with my phone that has the ability to track your mountain bike riding efforts. I won't bore you with maps of each ride as who wants to see a bunch of maps with some red squiggle lines throughout? One of the bells/whistles of the program, however, is it also tracks EVERYONE who has rode a certain trail (and is using the application) and ranks the times. As old Coach Stevenson used to tell us, there is always someone better. So true in this case. For the trail I rode today, I am in 986th place, so I got that going for me. I pulled up a few trails in the area for comparison with the group I follow; noted at the bottom of this post. Leading the way on two I pulled is former Milford Redskin Shaun L. Funny thing is I don't recall Shaun being that athletic in high school but damn she has really taken a grip on the mountain bike world. Right behind her is my nephew Jackson and roughly 10 minutes off the pace is yours truly. My excuse (always an excuse) is I like to stop for photo opportunities and Hendrix on with my music player a bit more than the others. Excuses, excuses.
Trail Head  

Indy Road Trip - Blind Squirrel Found a Nut

Yep, it had to happen eventually. Prior to yesterday, only one Lion road trip for me resulted in a victory, that being the woeful Browns when we had the "we suck less" chant going. I'm going off of memory but some form of my Michigan posse has been to Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland (twice), Green Bay, Nashville, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.....to see the Lions lose. That is a lot of losing on the road. But thanks to the Colts secondary who I hear were working at UPS and Staples last week, the Lions somehow won. They tried their darnedest to lose but it was not to be. 

These trips are usually part football and part local sight seeing, however, being a former Hoosier back in the late 90's, I had seen most of it already so besides checking out my old house, I was more or less being the tour guide Saturday night for the many Michiganders making the drive.  

With me for the game were friends and former co-workers when I lived down there, Devin and Doug. Both are still in the area, raising families and doing well. Rather than doing the pre-game tailgate, we went with the local tavern to watch the early games. Many "Luck" jerseys in the house.  

A gold star to the Lion contingent who made the trip. We sat near a group from Allen Park and the northeast area of the stadium had the "Let's go Li-ons" chant going before being drowned out by the Colts fans who just booed. Devin and Doug had to hear my rendition of "forward down the field" after each Lion score; which of course ends with the ROOOOAAARRRR!!!!!! (with the stretched out claw for effect). 

The Colts stadium is a beautiful one. It is pretty much identical to the Lions stadium with one caveat that I can't believe wasn't even considered; a retractable roof with a north end wall that opens to the city skyline. 

It wasn't pretty but the Lions are 1-0 and in first place!

Trail Head 

winning field goal

Devin and Doug

view from the north side of the stadium

quite a few Lion fans in the house

victory is near

 

my old crib in Indianapolis