The Month That Was - August 2023

Storms -- we had awful storms, high winds, tornados, power outages.  I can't remember a wetter summer.  Correspondingly it's also been a greener summer than I can remember.  Whenever I travel down to southern headquarters I am reminded of what a lush, verdant state Michigan is.  It is a thing I will miss if I leave.

I say "if" because I had the SO and daughter up for extended time in the mitten.  We visited Saugatuck and Traverse City and they were very impressed.  It's hard not to be impressed with Michigan when the weather cooperates.  It kind of re-opens the door to staying up here and simply snowbirding down south when it gets cold.  

As a strange surprise, my Michigan income tax return was held up for review this year with the result being they found a larger refund than I calculated.  Which is mind blowing because, a) they did it at all and, b) I'm pretty good at taxes and I'm pretty sure I did them correctly.  Now I'm concerned they will find it was a mistake and ask for it back.

Maybe I should spend it quickly. 

Content this month is light.  Visitors and travel have been a big distraction.  More next month, including my eulogy for Jimmy Buffet.  

[Rant] Tell You of my Dreaming

[TV] Unjustified

[Travel] Parks Outside the Box

[Rant] Tell You of My Dreaming

For the bulk of my life I thought I didn't dream.  In time I came to understand that I did dream but I had no recall of the dream. My dreams were completely ephemeral, vanishing on waking.  The story in the past few years has gotten more complicated.  Lately, the memory of the details has lasted longer although I still don't retain them for more than a few seconds, I am left with a very distinct impression of the tone of the content.  Not the details of the dream but the underlying theme of it.  It's all very strange. 

Literally every dream I have had in recent years has involved me wanting, planning, or needing to perform some activity or action and not being able to do it.  It could be some innocuous task and I keep getting distracted, or it could be a crucial activity and I'm roadblocked, but whatever the case, as soon as I start to realize I'm being stymied, I wake up.  Within seconds the details are gone, but the impression of the essential motif remains in absolute clarity.  

None of this is in focus, of course.  It's in dreamtime so there are shifts in perspective and rules and behaviors that are irrational, but I can't emphasize enough how clear the underlying message is.  Not just clear, the theme and the memory of the associated frustration is persistent, like actual memories, not a vanishing sensation.  This is very new for me.

These are not recurring dreams.  They are never the same.  It is only the sense of frustration at being unable to complete the task and the anxiety over the failure that is recurring. 

I really don't know what to make of it other than I am acting out comparable real world emotions.  In all likelihood that's all it is, just my anxieties manifesting during sleep.  The odd thing to me is not that I have anxiety dreams -- on more than one occasion in my life I have woken up shouting in panic. The combination of the common theme and persistence is what makes me think it is a meaningful development.

I have no idea what to do with this information. I am merely documenting it. I hope this new journey will lead to something.   But realistically, I expect, be an unsolved mystery.

[TV] Unjustified

I mentioned this last month but it merits repeating: the follow up mini-series to my beloved Justified is truly awful.  Normally I wouldn't give much of a hoot beyond simple disappointment, but this is border-line offensively bad.  This is an entirely emotional reaction on my part.  I really loved Justified.  I thought it had about the best writing a TV show ever has had.  Although for high concept and stunning dialogue it is topped by Deadwood, for effectiveness in the TV genre Justified was unsurpassed.  On more than one occasion I have been told that I have a demeanor similar to Deputy U.S. Marshal Rayan Givens, which is a great, and probably undeserved compliment.  A rewatch of a season is a go-to for me to purge the blues.  I don't know who is involved in this follow-up but it has no good qualities at all.  It is truly a first to worst scenario.  I have to admit I've stooped to hate-watching at this point. Of all the disappointments in television of recent years, this one really pissed me off.

I can't help but think somehow they realized what a disaster it was because, in the post-script we get to see the return of Boyd Crowder and a hint of some of the old energy.  It's as if they were saying, "Sorry about this pathetic mess, we'll do better next time."  I would love to see that follow up, but only if it's handed to a team of writers who respect the source material and can actually, you know, write dialogue.  And a showrunner who knows how to manage pacing and tone.  I won't hold my breath.

[Travel] Parks Outside the Box

I've spent a fair amount of time in National Parks.  They are wonderful places and I'm glad I saw so many before the deluge. I have visited many of the places mentioned in that article and can confirm the mass increase in visits.  A few years ago when I visited Zion to hike the Narrows I literally walked right in from my hotel just outside the park and hopped the (mostly empty) first shuttle of the morning to the river trailhead. I set off almost in complete solitude and maybe encountered 10 people along the 10 mile river route.  There is a picture of that trailhead in that article and it looks like Woodstock.  The first time I ever went to Arches National Park in Moab, I casually showed up and explored without a second thought.  Now, I believe you need a reservation.

Yelling at clouds aside, I really hope the Park Service manages to find a good way to maintain control of this without making it too onerous to visit. The article seems to blame this on Instagram or other social media, but that is, after all, the purpose of the parks.  To present natural beauty and generally cool stuff -- things you will want to take a picture of to share and remember. 

And while you may have second thoughts about visiting some of these more popular parks, I can assure you the less visited ones are also filled with visual delights.  Here are 13 good ones from Outside Magazine.  I can vouch for Everglades with its 13-mile loop through gator country.  Death Valley, the largest park in the lower 48, with great views, bizarre landscapes  and one of the best lodges in a National Park, the Inn at Furnace Creek, which has one of the best pools I have ever swum in.  I was just recently in Sleeping Bear Dunes with its challenging dune climbs and pseudo-California style views of the coast. I have Isle Royale on my bucket list.  And for getting yourself turned into a missing person statistic, Canyonlands has some of the most remote hiking you'll ever dare attempt.  Outside my comfort zone are the huge parks in up state Alaska that you have to be flown into.

So, yes, the big names have traffic issues, but think outside the box and you can be on the cutting edge of Instagram.

The Month That Was - July 2023

One thing I have not been able to do this summer is swim in the lake.  Between trips to Southern Headquarters and fire ant sores (see below) I haven't got out to the lake yet. Also I was late getting my sprinkler system started up and we hit a dry spell that pretty much killed my lawn.  Then as soon as I got it going the rains came and made it irrelevant.  I haven't turned them on since.

You could title the above paragraph Summer Problems of a Lucky Man.  Every summer like this is a gift.

[Nature] Ants of Fire

[Ann Arbor] Ann Arbor Backslide

[TV] Toob Notes - Partial Impressions

[Nature] Ants of Fire

So I had my first encounter with fire ants.  Down at Southern Headquarters I was simply wandering the back yard and I must have stopped in proximity to a nest. Now, I have a vague memory of a childhood trip to Florida and getting stung by ants but I don't recall any terrible reaction other than a brief owie.  This time I had a bad reaction.  A couple of the bites ended with small blisters but one was particularly bad and blistered at least an inch and a half across.  All bites were on my feet thanks to open-toed sandals.  The pain went away in a short while but the blisters, which were painless, lasted for days.

The real problem was the swelling.  My foot and ankle swelled greatly, which was a little scary to me.  After about a week of getting worse, I headed to urgent care where I got a steroid shot, antibiotic pills, steroid pills, antibiotic cream, and steroid cream. Yes, it may have been overkill. Now I'm going to talk about gross stuff.

The word on blisters from all sources is do not pop them.  I have come to disagree with that.  The reason you don't poop a blister is because it offers a bit of protection against bacteria getting in the wound.  Well, that's easy to manage with nothing more than neosporin and a bandage.  Popping (or at least draining) the blister can also allow your shoes to fit.  Also if the blister gets very large when it does finally break a huge swath of skin beneath it can be scarred and irritated.  That is in fact what happened to me. I left alone a small blister on my ankle and it grew and grew and then when it did pop it left a raw patch of skin, which is in fact painful.  Also, the doctor I saw at urgent care said popping a blister is fine if it makes you more comfortable and you are not going to anything to get the underlying wound infected.  So… lesson learned. 

Sorry for the grossness. Anyway, still not fully healed from it all.  So fire ants need to be eliminated from the face of the earth.  One encounter with the tiny little buggers has disrupted me for three weeks and it's not completely done yet. Chemical warfare was employed in the backyard, but I'm told even that is only temporary.  Resolved: While at Southern Headquarters each day will commence with a scan of the backyard for the savage critters and death to any I find.  I also need to wear thigh high boots at all times.

Thank God I'm a Northern Boy.

[Ann Arbor] Ann Arbor Backslide

Last month I fretted over the comparatively minor crime spike and, when coupled with some anti-Police legislation, wondered whether it was a bellwether of Ann Arbor being on the road to Portland or San Francisco-style degradation.

The usually inept Ann Arbor News has even caught on, cataloging the wave of 11 homicides in the area.  I will not make any observations about the character of these crimes; you can do that for yourselves.  I will point out that only half of them were perpetrated in what I would consider good, relatively safe places in the area, one was even out near and to the south of Dexter.  The rest were in points east (Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Superior Township) where such occurrences are much more to be expected.  There is a sarcastic localism that anything east of US-23 is Detroit, but maybe Detroit is reaching further west.

The jury is still out about degradation.  If we start seeing headlines like this --Double amputee shot in back of head is among ‘rash of panhandler victims’ in Detroit -- we'll know it's time to bail.   On the other hand, if police blotters veer in this direction -- Northern Michigan woman attacks man with toilet cleaner -- we'll know we're going in the right direction.

Possibly related: Perennially one of the top ten places to live, Ann Arbor has slipped to #65 in this survey.

[TV] Toob Notes - Partial Impressions

Ted Lasso - I had temporary access to Apple TV when down south so a Ted Lasso binge was in order.  Season 1 was a delight.  Terrific ensemble acting, flawed characters who somehow find their way amidst loss and degradation.  Funny as hell.  Then Season 2 went in the toilet and turned into a weepy chick flick.  This was a series that was aching to follow the Seinfeldian principle of "no hugging, no learning" and they went opposite into a "get in-touch with your feelings, especially you toxic males" format.  Tremendous let down.  Season 3 (of which I only saw the first 3 episodes before I had to leave) seemed to get somewhat back on track, although I reserve judgment until I see it through.  My advice: watch Season 1 and feel free to bail at any point after that.

Justified: City Primeval - I was truly psyched to see Raylan Givens ride again.  Timothy Olyphant's portrayal in Justified was truly one of the greatest extended performances of all time.  For me, it's right next to pantheon level work by James Gandolfini, Ian McShane, and Bob Odenkirk in Sopranos, Deadwood, and Better Call Saul respectively. In short, City Primeval (through the first 4 episodes) is a big let down.  Gone is the great ensemble cast -- no Tim, no Art, no Duffy, no Constable Bob --  replaced by a set of personality-less interchangeable Detroit cops.  And while Boyd Holbrook does decent work as the big bad, he's no Walton Goggins, and his character, Mansell, is no Boyd Crowder. Worst of all, it's no fun.  The relationship of Raylan and his daughter gets a lot of time and while occasionally poignant, it's a bummer. The repartee and sparking dialogue is gone, replaced with standard cop show blather.  It's also harmed by its setting in Detroit, which is just depressing, although it does capture the dinginess of both the city and its leaders quite well. What does that say about Detroit, that it's more dire and bleak than Harlan, Kentucky.  

Marvel's Secret Invasion -- It is astonishing how Marvel has gone from doing no wrong and breaking box office records at will to having pretty much destroyed every property they had.  A tell-all book about the rise and fall of Marvel Studios needs to be written.  I canceled my Disney+ subscription some time ago, but they provided Amazon Prime with a preview of the first three episodes of their latest TV series, Secret Invasion. The plot here is that an aging Nick Fury has to work to stop a group of shape shifting aliens from exterminating the human race.  The first three episodes weren't offensively bad, which is an achievement for Marvel these days.  It suffers from what a number of late Disney/Marvel products suffer from, things happen for no other reason than somebody wrote a scene that said it would, whether it is internally consistent or not is unimportant.  They thankfully left the gag-laden self-parody out of it, but they also left out the fun. It was just kind of "meh".   Needless to say, I felt no urgent desire to renew my Disney+ to finish it out.  Neither should you.

The Month That Was - June 2023

I'm surprised I haven't heard more Smoke on the Water jokes. You've seen the pictures from New York.  It was actually worse in the Detroit area for a while.  Smoke from massive wildfires in Canada have darkened the skies over Michigan and the expectation is that it will continue until October.  Part of the reason for that is the scope of the fires is enormous.  Another reason is that Canadians don't seem to feel a sense of urgency about it because many of the fires are in remote regions with little threat to life or property.

I spent four days out in Orange County for work.  Sadly, I didn't get to do anything other than work, but I was put in mind why, throughout the last century, people rushed to live in California.  It was simply the best weather I have ever experienced; sunny and 70s with a wonderful sea breeze. Irvine, where I was specifically, is walkable and filled with outdoor plazas and dining.  It was a reminder of the times when Cali was associated with chill.  From the OC down to San Diego it can still shine like the days of old.

Returning to Michigan we are in the midst of 90 degree heat, stifling humidity, dark skies, and unbreathable air, and recommendations to stay inside and mask up.  These fires are going to destroy our beautiful Michigan summer.

[Rant] Death Watch: San Francisco

[Rant] A Moment of Gratitude

[TV] The Bear, Season 2

[Rant, Ann Arbor] Death Watch: San Francisco

Speaking of California, the opposite of the state of OC is the state of San Francisco.  I declared Portland dead last month.  San Francisco is in the ICU:

Hotel rates are up everywhere but in San Francisco.  Time was, San Francisco would top the 10 best places to visit list.  Now it's on the downswing.  In a remarkable example of understatement: "Conventions—previously a major driver of group travel—have still not returned to pre-pandemic levels, a problem some attribute to a decline in street conditions and worries about public safety."  Lol, ya think?

If visitors are fearful, imagine what it must be like for residents.  This story of Eli Steele getting his car broken into is remarkable.

And of course, we have the well known dynamic of business exodus (Nordstrom, Old navy, Whole Foods, Westfield Mall) and related population exodus (tech focused).

None of this is surprising to anyone who has been paying attention to urban dynamics since the turn of the century.  What I will never understand is how deeply people delude themselves about it.  Everybody speaks of it as if it were temporary, just a downturn that will correct itself with maybe a clever policy machination or two.  It won't.  I'm from Detroit; a dying city doesn't turn around.  At best you might manage to cordon off a small downtown segment -- sports team complex, a casino, a key museum might attract some short term visitor money -- and keep it going as a lifeline.  If smart attentive people are elected you may tread water for a year now and then.  But in no way will the city ever recover.  Smart, attentive people have already left the city, so electing smart, attentive people gets less and less likely.

My advice to you: Have no delusions, your city is not coming back. Get out while the gettin' is good.  Your life will be better for it.

One of the best decisions I ever made was to settle in the Ann Arbor area. A mid-size city that is buoyed by the enormous University of Michigan and has been fairly recession proof, Ann Arbor has grown from about 200k when I first moved here in 1978 to about 330k today.  It is statistically very safe, especially for residents who all know where the few points of low income housing are and know where to avoid the homeless. It is also wealthy, which has kept the undesirables from the east priced out of living here.  (That was tongue-in-cheek.  The city immediately to the east is Ypsilanti, which is not particularly safe.  Further east is Detroit.)

But there are concerns.  Recently there has been a spate of violent crime.  Broadly speaking, what little violent crime there usually is in Ann Arbor centers around the aforementioned low-income housing spots and the homeless.  The homeless are a particular problem in Ann Arbor because downtown we have something called the Delonis Center.  Delonis is, to put it glibly, a five-star homeless shelter. Most homeless shelters are horrible places and can be outright dangerous in themselves.  Homeless come from far and wide to shelter at Delonis, and that gives Ann Arbor an outsized portion of crazies in the streets.  It is kept somewhat under control because if they are caught committing crimes or harassing people they can get booted out of Delonis and have to go back to some hellhole, so there is incentive to behave, but let's face it, your standard homeless guy is not a rational actor.  Delonis has been a source of controversy over the years and the balance of wanting to do good and be humane versus public safety and commerce has had its share of challenges.

Being good, woke, liberal folks, the city council has responded to this by forbidding the police to stop vehicles for minor offenses like a broken tail light or tinted front windows (forbidden in MI) because that's racist.  (Evidently today is the day for me to glib.)  It sounds appealing on the face of it.  I mean, I've been pulled over because some cop thought my license plate was too worn and old to be read.  But having seen what well intentioned efforts to curtail police power have done over the years -- from New York City to Portland to San Francisco -- one wonders whether the frustration of a penny-ante annoyance may not be the lesser evil.  Maybe this is a one time thing and Ann Arbor is not going down the road of reacting to crime by just letting it happen, like San Francisco has.  But I worry.  Ann Arbor leadership is full of righteous demagogues just like San Francisco.  It's filled with activists who will happily watch things be destroyed in the name of their deluded notions of fairness.  Maybe, just maybe, it's a coincidence that it coincides with a crime uptick and it's not a baby step toward degradation.

But like I said.  I worry.

[Rant, Dexter] A Moment of Gratitude

The two above posts were rather dire.  I should take a moment to point out how lucky I am and how good I have it.  I no longer live in Ann Arbor proper, and honestly, I don't think I would.  I live on the outskirts of the first city to the west, Dexter.  I don't even really live in the Village of Dexter proper, I live in Webster Township.  A rural enclave with some upper middle class exburb developments.  

Crime is a non-issue for me.  For the most part, so is traffic, barring construction.  I've gotten so used to free movement that if I even have to head into Ann Arbor during work hours I am annoyed at the tiny delays.  Traffic in Savannah is even worse -- one day I'll write about the infrastructure inadequacies down at Southern Headquarters.  Everything I need is literally within a ten minutes drive, except the day job, but I can leverage work from home options there. 

The outdoor activities available are remarkable.  Hiking and biking paths everywhere, including trails through the woods for both bikes and hikes.  Two lakes within ten minutes.  And failing all that, my health club (where I have belonged for 22 years) is 15 minutes out.

There is wildlife everywhere too.  Deer are beyond numerous.  There are bunnies and groundhogs that tramp through my backyard.  Turkey flocks come and peck at their reflections in my basement windows. I have a bike ride I do through some of the gravel roads that takes me past cows and horses and even a llama ranch.  

Winters can be hard, but in truth, they grow more tolerable each year.  I have lived in Michigan my whole life. I have been in the Ann Arbor area for 45 years.  I have been in the Dexter area for 30 of those years.  And I have lived in the same house for 13 years.  I must like it here.   

[TV] The Bear, Season 2

Famous Don Draper quote from Mad Men: "You know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay."  The arc of the characters in season two of The Bear is their journey to knowing they are OK.  All except one.

There are so many things I admire about The Bear that it's going to be an effort to list and organize them.

The characters we're already incredibly well drawn, but this season we get a deeper dive into all of them.  This is valuable because the show is so character driven -- a rare thing in itself.  Like all of us, these characters are driven by their fears and insecurities as much as their more positive passions.  The external conflicts are secondary to the internal conflicts they trigger.

The dialogue style is remarkable.  Characters talk over the top of each other constantly.  In the much discussed episode 6, it seems like the entire first act is two or three conversations going at once.  No one lets anyone else finish.  No one stops talking until they are out of breath.  Simply from a standpoint of dialogue mechanics it is amazing.  How does one write and time the talking of the characters to do that?  How much is left to improv?

The table stakes of limiting exposition are easily achieved, but even the exposition that remains is oblique and often when a character expresses a direct emotion it's just a smokescreen for something deeper.  This engages the viewer very deeply.

There is virtually no societal aspect to the plot.  There is nothing ripped from the headlines. There are no great issues of the day on display.  It is purely personal, purely human.  

There is no fat.  Most of the 10 episodes are less than an hour. The acting is terrific.  These folks are really pouring themselves into their characters and it shows.  Back to episode 6, where heavy hitters were brought in as guest stars, the regulars stood up to them just fine. The direction and editing are well calibrated to keeping the emotional tension high.

It's also great to see what is essentially a workplace drama that reveres the workplace. To my knowledge there are only three shows ever to do that: Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire, and The Bear. It is clear the showrunners have a deep understanding of the sorts of personalities that devote themselves to restaurant work and to service as a career in general.

The Bear provisionally enters the Pantheon (Deadwood, Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire).  It will have to really screw up its next season to get booted out.  I'm going to watch this season all over again.

The Month That Was - May 2023

As I write this I am in fear of missing another month (update: turns out I'm just very late).  This one because I am mostly drawing a blank on topics.  This site is largely unsuccessful at attracting eyeballs because I don't write about bombastic stuff designed to inflame your neurosis.  Nor do I write anything that is too deeply personal or anything regarding other people in my life or work.  I also offer no special expertise or important information to share.  I would consider those the three things that attract an audience to web writing and I'm 0/3. The last one, I have nothing to offer.  The first two I am too old school to find appropriate.  I guess, for the time being the purpose of this site is just to keep me in the habit of writing, if even just in a small way.  I have previously sworn not to start another novel until I retire (not that far away). So in that sense, not having topics is a good challenge to keep the writing muscles in shape.  

If I really wanted to be an influential writer I would start a Substack. That's what anyone who is anyone is doing.  They provide a great format for long form writing, one which is very easy to monetize.  But I would be facing the same issue I am here.  What would I write about that would be of value (productive value or entertainment value) that wouldn't be one of these three things.  What I do have for a project is publishing all 5 of my books as substacks with nominal fees.  But again that's for some time in the future.

All this in an environment where the written word is being abandoned in favor of youtubes and podcasts. And the world's greatest twitter troll, Three Year Letterman, is releasing his new book, Not Some Random Clown, as a series of tweets.  

This world has moved beyond me.

[Sports] Things Are Getting Interesting

[Travel, Rant] Scurrying about Down South

[Sports, Baseball, Hockey] Thing Are Getting Interesting

I've been watching a fair amount of sports lately.  Baseball and Hockey.  Both have been wonderful this year.

My local hockey team, the Red Wings, is not in contention.  (Aside: Detroit sports teams except the Lions -- Red Wings, Tigers, Pistons --  tend to be competitive once every 15 or twenty years.  The Lions tend to compete once every century.)  So as a result I spent the playoffs wondering who should be my favorite.  There are a number of ways to assess it. The closest teams to southern headquarters in Savannah would either be the Tampa Bay Lightning or the Carolina Hurricanes. There are two other teams that are related to places I love, the Florida Panthers and the Las Vegas Golden Knights. One other thing I enjoy about all four of these back-up teams is the irony of warm weather hockey.  That must really rub Canadians raw.  

A couple other teams that I hold a certain irrational affection for are the Seattle Kraken, just because I love to roll my Rs and say Krrrrraken.  I also like the Arizona Coyotes because they are the ultimate underdogs.  They are not particularly good, have weak fan support, lost their arena and ended up having to play on a local college campus.  If they were good, they could be like the Indians in Major League or the Jamaican Bobsled Team, or dare I say it, The Mighty Ducks. 

We are coming up fast on the Stanley Cup Finals and it's Vegas versus Florida, so I'm cool with either winner.  Truly there is no sport more fast and exciting than playoff hockey.  Hockey's not-so-secret weapon is changing lines on the fly.  The result is that skaters get on the ice and go all out for ideally 90 seconds and they are replaced on the fly by fresh skaters.  In fitness terms, think of it as 90 seconds of anaerobic exercise.  To compare to football, suppose that instead of after a play everybody stopping and setting the ball and huddling up, a batch of fresh players came on and just kept going where the last play left off.  (Would that be rugby?).  The action is relentless and game stoppages are relatively few -- you can get 4 to 5 minutes without a break; emotions and momentum and fate can turn in an instant.

The average hockey game is 2 hours and 20 minutes.  The average baseball game is 2 hours and 38 minutes this year, down from about 3:10 the last few years.  So in other words about as long as the standard mildly bloated Hollywood movie.  

Truth be told, the pitch clock in baseball has made the games much more watchable.  It's interesting that they were modifying the rules surrounding the 20 second pitch clock almost up to the start of the season.  Technically the rule is that the pitcher must pitch within 15 seconds if there are no runners and 20 seconds if there are runners on.  There is also stress on the hitter in that he must be in the box and prepared with 8 seconds left on the clock.  There has been some getting used to, but mostly it's really moved the games along well.  

I'm less enamored with some of the other rule changes but I understand them.  There is now a limit on trips to the mound, a limit on the number of times a pitcher can throw to hold a runner, and a minimum number of batters a relief pitcher must face in some circumstances.  These remove an aspect of strategy, but perhaps open another, in the name of stopping baseball from becoming like football where you stop after every play and re-adjust to maximize your personnel. One I continue to not like is the forbidding of "the shift", overloading one side of the infield to account for batter tendencies.  This was outlawed in the name of "making the game more athletic", but I don't know.  It does seem to have improved overall batting average so maybe that was the subtle goal.  More offense = more eyeballs?  Maybe.

A couple of narratives have started to build in the season.  One is the Tampa Bay Rays getting off to an enormous start.  One is the comic occurrence where, as I write this, the entire AL East has better records than the entire AL Central (including the Tigers).   Last place in the AL East is better than first place in the Central.  Sheesh.  Another interesting thing to note is that the team with two of the best players in the game and stars of the World Classic from the summer -- Shohei Otani and Mike Trout -- continues to struggle to stay above .500.  Lastly, the Mets, who have reunited the last great Tigers pitching duo of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, are also treading water around .500.

In any event it looks like it's going to play out to be one of the more interesting and enjoyable baseball seasons in recent memory.  

Addendum:  The most fun reporting on baseball is generally coming from Jomboy Media on Youtube.  Simultaneously reverent and irreverent.  Both informative and entertaining.  Recommended.

[Travel, Rant] Scurrying About Down South

I flew down to Southern Headquarters this time.  Interestingly, for the stretch I was down there, Savannah was cooler than Michigan.  In fact, for this entire trip the weather was of the sort that makes you feel that the southern realm is a climate paradise.  My long history tells me that is quite rare in June, but the uninitiated could be fooled. (Michigan was sweltering and dry and I came back to a brown lawn thanks to my sprinklers not yet being turned on.  That's a separate rant.)

The first week was a week of chores.  Mostly gardening.  The SH (Southern Headquarters) features very productive fruit trees in the backyard. The SO (Significant Other) and SSD (Sorta Step Daughter) enhanced those with a spice garden and have since taken gardening to heart.  So the week was taken up with mulching and planting.  Not unpleasant work as chores go, although we left a big part of the project to the professionals.  And the yard is looking good.  The star of the show is a Sunflower that is well over 5 feet tall with lots of growing still to do.

The other chore, if I can call it that, was getting the SO's car situation sorted.  She was buying out her lease, which was set up in Texas prior to moving, so she had to make arrangements to buy the car from a dealer in Georgia and finally get her Georgia driver's license.  If you have any understanding of how the world works, you can already see where this is going.

Buying out the lease was annoying, a complete waste of time.  I fail to understand why a process like this, where a price is already decided on, where boilerplate papers need to be signed, can't be handled in 15 minute meeting, but requires a three hour stretch in the dealership most of which is sitting around making awkward talk with a salesman while waiting for the business manager to be free.  Throughout my life I have had essentially no positive experiences at an auto dealership. Every single one of them has been frustrating and wasteful. Virtually every other commercial experience has improved in my lifetime but not auto dealers.  Their service model is the worst.

Correction:  Their service model is the second worst.  The worst is the DMV.  AKA, Secretary of State in Michigan or Department of Driver Services in Georgia.  In Georgia you need to show your Birth Certificate, your Social Security Card, two examples of proof of residency (utility bills are good for this).  Furthermore, and this is especially hard on women who have been married, you must show proof of name change.  So the maiden name on your birth certificate must match with the name on your marriage certificate.  What's worse, the marriage certificate must be an official embossed copy.  

Problem:  The SO was married in California where they do not produce embossed copies.  And this is where you will find yourself in either 1984 or Idiocracy depending on your mood.  Situations like this are what two-bit bureaucrats live for.  They now have the power to tell you "no" and the excuse of "we're just following the rules".  What they really mean is "I don't have to care about your problem and there's nothing you can do about it and I'll still get paid." I would bet the DMV is responsible for more MAGA-drain-the-swamp-types than Fox News.

The truth is that they can help you.  They can make exceptions.  They can work to enforce the spirit of the law -- letting people they believe are low risk to be scamming them get licenses even if the documents don't perfectly conform -- rather than the letter.  They just don't want to. It is a true power rush for a basic bureaucrat to stiff arm you free of consequence. 

Luckily I have experience with this.  I knew from my days dealing with the Secretary of State that it all depends on who you happen to get at the window.  I also know that in small towns, rural areas, people are more inclined to be helpful and understanding since most of the folks who come in are their neighbors.  Our first attempt in Savannah produced a defiant stiff arm.  The situation was resolved by driving an hour away to an office in a much smaller, more accommodating place where we were in and out in about 15 minutes, further confirming the arbitrary nature of the whole mess.

Adding insult to injury is that there is a new initiative that most States are adhering to called Real ID.  When you have a Real ID license you have verified that you are who you are.  If you have a Real ID license in one state and want to get one in another state, you should just have to verify residency.  Your identity has already been verified.  The SO's Texas license has Real ID, but we were still put through the identity wringer.  Arrgh! 

Not that I was planning on it, but the whole escapade made me resolve that I won't ever be moving to Georgia. 

Where I will one day be moving is Florida.  And that was the second part of the trip.

Two stops in Florida, the first Sarasota.  

I have lost track of the fastest growing retirement communities in the country but I know the last time I checked The Villages, was on top and probably still is.  Second is Lakewood Ranch, a community -- or rather, a series of communities inland from the Sarasota/Bradenton area, just east of I-75.  Somewhat famously, Mick Jagger bought a home there for his in-laws.  This was Target One for this trip.  

Lakewood Ranch consists of 50 square miles with a dozen or so individual developments which have slightly varying features and costs.  Now bear in mind this was June, off season, and we are a good distance away from the beaches and the tourist areas, and it was still very active.  There are areas of commerce, including a nicely designed "Main Street" area which I assume is the center of any lifestyle activity.  There was a top notch farmers market going on the day we visited.

First, an aside about retirement communities.  These are obviously a big deal in Florida, and presumably,  a growing deal in most other places considering the aging population.  Some, but not all of these communities are called "55+", which does not mean you have to be over 55 to live there.  It means:

55+ communities do not allow anyone under the age of 18 to live there full-time, although visitors are allowed for specific numbers of weeks per year, as stated in the homeowner association documents.

People who are not yet 55 or older are also allowed to live in these communities provided their spouse is at least 55. Many communities require at least 80% of the housing to be occupied by 55+ owners or renters, with up to 20% only required to be 50 years or older.

When we visited the Villages last year I was surprised at the number of young people I saw.  In our new world where rent is so high, adult children continue to live at home and I sense that there are many such situations in these communities.

Aside to the aside: Folks look on this phenomenon as a kind of failure, but multi-generational homes have been the rule, not the exception, for the bulk of history.

Only a couple of the developments in Lakewood Ranch are 55+, although you wouldn't know it since the bulk of the people who can afford these homes have had to have long, productive lives to get there.

Developments like these, where for the most part you are buying new construction, are centered around a builder. Pulte, Toll Brothers, Lennar are some big names. These builders supply buyers with alternative floor plans of varying specs -- square feet, number of bedrooms/baths, garage space, etc. -- and varying ability to customize.  The houses themselves typically range from 500k for the most basic all the way up into the millions.  On top of that you have to pay what is called a lot premium -- an extra amount that depends on the desirability of the location, usually starting about 50k but into the 200k range for water view and golf course abutting lots.  So, yeah, this is a big purchase and generally reserved for what one hopes will be their final home.

Lakewood Ranch has some nice benefits.  First it is in the Sarasota/Bradenton area that I know well.  There are limitless things to do, there are beaches within an hour, there is a big-city level commerce and services available, including high-end medical facilities.  There is an airport in town used by most of the big airlines.  All in all, it would be a solid place to settle in and hope you don't get swamped in new developments.

There are, naturally, some downsides.  First, while there are nice clubhouses with pools and fitness facilities, I'm not sure they will be up to snuff for me.  I have pretty high-end requirements in those areas.  That means I may be looking into the surrounding area.  Second, I have seen how busy and chaotic it can be when the snowbirds flock in.  That could get frustrating. But otherwise this would be a cool spot.  Well, not in summer, but I have already resigned myself to finding ways to spend high summer back in Michigan.

Target number two was a couple hours north in Crystal River.  Crystal River is famous for being the place you can swim with the Manatees.  A thing I have done twice and highly recommend.  It's not swimming in a tank or pool with captive manatees.  You are swimming with them in their habit.  

All areas of the Florida coast have names.  Here is a map of them. Crystal River is part of The Nature Coast.  If any area of the Florida Coast can be considered to be undeveloped it's the Nature Coast.  How it was spared is interwoven with the story of I-75. Back in the 80's I-75 was being extended all the way through Florida (it starts in Northern Michigan).  Eventually it reached almost to Marco Island before hanging a sharp left and connecting with the Atlantic Coast via Alligator Alley.  This did two things.  It alleviated traffic on the former north-south corridor road, US-41 and also encouraged commercial development another 5-10 miles further inland.  Another interesting effect of this was to essentially freeze US-41 in the 80s.  With the bulk of the pass through traffic taking I-75 there has been very little new development on US-41.  All the old buildings and strip malls and motels still exist there in all their tedious-road-trip-in-the-family-station-wagon glory.  I-75 was indeed a blessing.  I am one who had to make this road trip on stop-and-go US-41 so I know that to be true.  But I digress.

Anyway, as I-75 grew southward it passed through Gainesville and at some point it was going to have to veer towards the gulf coast to relieve US-41 as planned, but drawing it away towards the center of the state was the 900 lb. gorilla of Orlando and The Mouse.  This made Crystal River an afterthought for snowbirds barreling down from the northern kingdoms.

The vibe in Crystal River and the surrounding areas is palably different from Sarasota/Bradenton.  To me it's more normal.  The traffic is not bad.  It's filled with two-lane roads with long distances between stop lights.  And there is only one really nice retirement community, but it's really really nice.  Although it's a smaller community, the homes are just as nice as Lakewood Ranch and a bit more customizable. It's also what is called a lifestyle community, like the Villages, where the recreation and social world revolves around the on site amenities.  There are restaurants and health clubs and, of course, golf courses and pickleball courts, all for residents only.  Even I was impressed with the gym, and that's not easy.

Crystal River is not a backwater. But the retail atmosphere is Publix/CVS/Target level.  And the good restaurants are few.  The growing (and, I think, affluent) city of Ocala is about a half hour away where choices are better.  Tampa is probably an hour and a half.  Orlando is probably two.  So there are citified choices if you really need them.

One concern with being away from the city centers is medical services, a thing that is likely to grow in importance as time passes.

At one point in the visit the SO turned to me and said, this is kind of like Dexter.  A major plus as I love my current home of Dexter, MI.  There is still time, but at least for now, I would say Crystal River is the frontrunner.

I have probably been talking on this site for at least 10 years about retirement planning.  It's getting closer and more real with each passing month.  Soon a decision will have to be made.  And money spent.  Lots of money.