Tuesday, 12/12

Oh, those Germans. Those wacky, wacky Germans.

Some of you may recall that Loraine and I are going to Germany next year to follow in the footsteps of 'ol King Ludwig II, whom I once described as “the Brian Wilson of Bavaria”. In her research to put the trip together, Loraine discovered that there's a musical (called “Ludwig 2”) that's based on his life. As it turns out, the musical is being performed in the town of Fussen the night that we're there, so it looks like we're going to see a musical (in German) while we're in Germany.

We have no idea what we'll be seeing, but we've been promised a spectacle.

We were able to download the tickets after we purchased them, and we had to laugh when we saw them. Germans, in case you don't know, are sticklers for following the rules. A few years ago, when walking around a German town with a local resident, I made the mistake of of trying to cross a street in the middle of the block, and not in the marked crosswalk. I was told that I really SHOULD cross in the crosswalk, which I them did. The lady who told me that wasn't being mean or snotty or anything; Germans just follow the rules and laws of society. That's what they do. And they feel it's their civic duty to point out if you cross the street in the wrong place or drive too fast down the street or make noise when (or where) you're not supposed to.

Many days, I wish more Americans were like that.

Anyway, we downloaded our tickets, and had to laugh a little when we saw what we needed to do with them. When you present your tickets to get into the musical, you can't just give them the piece of paper upon which they're printed. Nope; you need to give them the tickets folded. And to make sure you fold them properly, they included some rather detailed instructions (in English, of course) on exactly HOW to fold the piece of paper.

Not only are you told EXACTLY how to fold your tickets, but the printout actually has helpful lines printed on the ticket so that you fold it correctly. And fold it correctly, you must; after all, it does say that if the ticket isn't folded exactly as described, you can be denied entry to the production.

And we wouldn't want that, would we?

Knowing just how much of a stickler for rules most Germans are, we both had to laugh. I mean, we knew they were tough, but instructions on how to fold a piece of paper? That makes being told where to cross the street child's play. Thankfully, we printed out several copies of the tickets. After all, if we make a mistake we wanna make sure we can start over again, and do it right.

That, after all, is the German way, right?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 12/11

I'm saying this with a smile, but geez...kids these days.

When I last left you I was about to head over to a taping of “High School Bowl”, and that's where this story takes place. We were doing a couple of practice questions before taping starts, a necessity when you have a dork as the host of the show. The practice question I asked regarded a luminary in the history of pop music, someone so important that his music has been sampled on hundreds of songs, a movie has been made of his life, and an entire generation of singers, everyone from Prince to Bruno Mars, has called him a major influence on their careers.

Yet none of the eight students to whom I posed the question, eight of the brightest young people on the planet, had any idea who James Brown was.

I know, right? How can you NOT know who “The Godfather of Soul” was? “I Feel Fine”? “Papa's Got a Brand New Bag”? Even “Living in America” if you around during the 80s? But nope; the question had all of them stumped, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the coach of one of the teams just put his head in his hand and shake it a few times, as if not believing what he had just not heard.

I felt his pain. I really did.

Now, I guess have two thoughts about this. Part of me really can't blame teenagers for not knowing exactly who James Brown was. After all, his last big hit was 30 years ago and he himself died a decade ago. But the other part of me just wants to shout out “You HAVE to know who James Brown was. His musical DNA is part of almost every song recorded since the 1960s. How can you NOT know who James Brown was?” The students knew who Prince was, because I asked. They certainly know who Bruno Mars is. But they had no idea about from whom those two artists drew (or draw) their inspiration.

I did leave them, though, with the promise that they'd Google James Brown, and find out a little about him. Maybe, just maybe, they'll then realize what an influence he was on pop music the last 50 years, and maybe, just maybe, they'll be ready to then answer a question about the Godfather of Soul should it ever pop up again. That's the least I could do.

Kids these days...

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 12/8

Because I have to go shoot what is now the first of three episodes of “High School Bowl” in the next seven days in a few minutes, I'm gonna leave you with a topic that crossed my mind as I was out running yesterday, a topic I wrote about almost four years ago to the day.

I guess it proves things never change, right?

Have yourself a great weekend. Back Monday with something brand new!

(jim@wmqt.com)

***

(as originally posted December 10^th, 2013):

I wonder how many are given out on any particular night?

Now that winter’s here some of my usual running routes are curtailed, and I find myself running more and more on city streets, instead of the usual Fit Strip or bike path or Park Cemetery or other off-road areas. While I’m usually not keen on street running (especially with the way people drive these days) I do get to notice one thing that you never see while running during the summer.

And that’s tickets on cars that have violated Marquette’s overnight parking ban.

Depending upon where (and for how long) I run I’ll see anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 cars with tickets on them, but I really noticed it Saturday morning when I went out and saw 4 tickets on just one block. That made me pay close attention; by the time I got home, I counted 14—fourteen—cars with tickets on them. And while I didn’t check each individual ticket, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that those cars were ticketed for violating the overnight ban.

Especially the car that had been plowed in for what looked like several days, as evidenced by the multiple tickets stuck under the windshield wiper. Someone’s gonna have fun paying those tickets, and also paying for getting their car plowed out!

I don’t wanna sound like I’m stereotyping a whole group of people, but I notice that a large majority of people who seem to have ticketed cars get those tickets in neighborhoods with a lot of college housing. I mean, I live I one of those neighborhoods, and that’s where I saw those four cars in one block with tickets stuck under their wipers. On one hand, I suppose I hafta give credit to whomever the cars belonged; I’m guessing they got a little too carried away with their celebrating, realized they weren’t in any condition to drive, and just left their cars where they parked them. That’s great. But after spending what I’m guessing is an amazing amount of money on booze, do you really want to add in another $50 (or whatever the price is) for a ticket, as well?

I’d be curious to know how many of those tickets the Marquette City Police give out on a nightly basis during the winter. I’d also be curious to know how many of those tickets are actually paid, and how much money the city makes off of them on an annual basis. I’m guessing it’s not a small amount, but who knows. Maybe the tickets can pay for a new patrol car or breathalyzer or bulletproof vest. At least something good would come out of it.

For now, though, I’ll just look at the tickets I see as one of the (few) perks of running in Marquette in winter. Sure, you’re slipping on ice, and dodging cars that are driving too fast, but at least I know that when I get done I won’t see that little yellow envelope stuck under my windshield. Because that, I would guess, would not make a run (or going out to your car) very much fun at all.

Wednesday, 12/6

They're on their way there. See? It isn't that hard.

I know I've probably railed about the misuse of the different forms of “there” in the past, so forgive me if I'm babbling babbles that I've already babbled. But there was a meme going around on Facebook this morning in which someone posted that people join an organization because “there to stupid to do anything else”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have the very latest definition of the word “irony” right there.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole “there/their/they're” problem is the latest version of the “chicken & the egg” quandary. Are people just grammatically stupid overall, and we notice it more these days because they post everything they write on the internet? Or has technology—the internet and spell-check—made people stupider, so much so that they don't actually know which “their” to use here and there?

Some days, I just don't know.

Now, I make a lot of grammatical & spelling errors when I write, as those of you who read this are no doubt aware. I rely too much on spell-check, and each and every one of these could probably use an extra round of proofreading, the time for which is, unfortunately, limited. So I'm not claiming to live in a glass house. I'm not claiming to be a perfect writer myself. But if I were to post something accusing someone else of being stupid?

I'd make sure I wasn't an idiot myself. But then, that's just me.

I'll shut up about this now, as my schedule for today has been thrown a bit askew and I have to figure out what to do. You see, I was supposed to go hang out with people who, I'm guessing, actually DO know which “there” to use, four teams of some of the brightest young people on the planet, who were to be taking part in another action packed edition of “High School Bowl”.  However, the weather in the western UP (from where two of the teams were coming) has pushed that back to Friday.  Hopefully, the weather will have cleared up by then, and the teams can make it to here from there.

Just not their. Or they're.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 12/5

I was able to do one of them yesterday. Unfortunately, I couldn't do both.

Another birthday has come and gone, and first of all I'd like to thank everyone who sent along their best wishes, whether in person or online. I do appreciate each and every one of them.

I was kind of surprised when a small yet sizable subset of those people asked if I was going to repeat “Birthday at the Beach” yesterday. For those of you who don't recall, two years ago it was 60 and sunny in Marquette on my birthday, so I spent a little time at the beach that day. After all, if you have a December birthday, you don't often get to spend that birthday at the beach. When I did it, I was SHOCKED by the number of people who thought it was an amazing idea; even Loraine had a bunch of her co-workers ask if I went to the beach that day. And based on the comment I received yesterday the concept must've made quite the impression.

So sorry to disappoint everyone, but rain and temperatures in the 40s (and skies so dark the streets lights stayed on all day) wasn't exactly beach weather, even for someone who would go to the beach every day if he could. But trust me—if it's ever warm & sunny again on my birthday, we're ALL going to the beach.

You have no choice in the matter, apparently.

However, I was able to do one thing on my birthday that's just as quirky and just as strange. Remember last month when I wrote a blog about wearing shorts to run at least once every month this year? Well, I completed the cycle yesterday morning; since, as I mentioned, it was 44 degrees, well above the 32 degree minimum for wearing shorts while running, I did something I never thought I'd be able to do (or, at least be able to do while I was still in possession of most (if not all) of my faculties)--I have now run in shorts at least once a month every month of a calendar year.

Who would've thought.

Finally, before I go, I have to thank my young friend Jaxon for one of the most unique gifts I've received recently--

How many of YOU have a hand-made cow Christmas ornament? I thought so!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 12/4

Well, I made it through the weekend. And I didn't explode!

That's right; those two days of (basically) non-stop gnoshing and snacking that I wrote about Friday are now over. The Greek food was, as always, amazing, the baked goods we picked up at sales and ate at the Library Open House were yummy, and the (early) birthday treat of pumpkin bars and mint chocolate chip ice cream was scarfed down with abandoned.

Now, I just need to figure out how I'm gonna eat all the extra pumpkin bars I brought home.

A couple of years ago someone asked me why I have pumpkin bars instead of a birthday cake when the anniversary of my world premiere rolls around, and I have no real answer for them, other than to perhaps say that I don't like to do what everyone else does. I know that's not a real answer; the answer is that I just really like pumpkin bars. At one point in my life my mom made pumpkin bars instead if a birthday cake, and it's stuck ever since.

Not that I would have it any other way.

I in no way mind taking all those extra pumpkin bars home; I would eat them every day if I could. I'd probably be 1,000 pounds heavier than I am, but I'd eat still eat them every day if I could. I just wish, on occasion, that church bazaar day, the day on which I eat more food than perhaps any other, wasn't so close to my birthday. It'd be nice to spread it all out a little, you know? And there have been many years when church bazaar day falls on my actual birthday, so in one intensive 24 hour period I'm bombarded with all the food I've been describing the last few days. That always take a while to get over.

Luckily, though, not this year. Now, I have a couple of days to rest, recover, and eat nothing but fruits and vegetables in a vain attempt to clear my body of all the delicious yumminess I've been consuming. And yes, I DO remember I have all those leftover pumpkin bars to finish. The good thing about that?

Pumpkins are technically a fruit, so I can try to convince myself I'm actually eating with my health in mind. I'm just not so sure I'd actually believe what I'm trying to sell.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 12/1

Tomorrow's one of my favorite days of the year.

Tomorrow is what Loraine and I jokingly call “church bazaar” day, but it's so much more than that. Tomorrow, the Greek Orthodox Church in Marquette is holding their amazing annual Greek bake sale, filled with some of the yummiest food you'll ever taste. Meanwhile, St. Paul's Church is holding an international craft fair (and bake sale), while the First Presbyterian Church is holding their annual holiday bake sale. Tomorrow afternoon, Peter White Public Library's holding their annual holiday open house & cookie fest (where you can see Loraine's usual Gold Star tree). Then Sunday I get to celebrate a day early by eating birthday pumpkin bars and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

By Sunday night, I'll be uttering those infamous words--”I'm never gonna eat again”.

I don't know what it is about the confluence of all those events that makes Loraine and me celebrate like we do when it rolls around, although you may have noticed that food probably plays quite a huge role. But there is something else to it, too. All of those events that I described? The bake sales, the open houses, everything? They all occur within a four block radius of where we live. We hop out of our apartment Saturday morning and just wander through all of these really cool events before strolling home with whatever we've picked up. For some people, picking out a Christmas tree or visiting Santa or singing carols is how they get into the holiday spirit.

For us, it's spending the weekend walking to all of these events and just seeing what there is to see. And that's not even counting some of the other events that occur within that four blocks radius—performances of “The Nutcracker”, visits with Santa, and much, much more. Remember a few days ago when I wrote about how lucky I realized we are living where we live? Well, this is just another example of how it's true. Sure, this time it doesn't involve a beach. It just involves Greek food, baked goods, and birthday ice cream.

What more could you want?

On that note, I hope you all have a great weekend. If you're in Marquette, I hope you get the chance to check out some of those events I mentioned. If not, I hope that your community gives YOU something to help get you into the holiday spirit!

(jim@wmqt.com)