GR Mini Maker Faire

The Grand Rapids Public Museum hosted the Grand Rapids Mini Maker Faire this weekend. Despite the "mini" description there was plenty to see, with a good-sized list of exhibitors spread out through the museum.

Exhibitors fell into roughly three categories at the faire: community organizations, crafters selling their goods, and food. I was familiar with a lot of the community exhibitors: our local public library system, various and sundry crafting organizations, the Grand Rapids Children's Museum, the Grand Rapids Police department, and so on. The commercial booths were a widely varied bunch - everything from 3D-printed toys to handbags to paintings to dolls. Good variety on the food, too, from a beer booth to bundt cakes to hot sauce to popsicles.

Most of the exhibitors had one kind of hands-on activity or another at their booth. Lots of families present, with kids of all ages trying out everything from build-your-own-floating-robot to woodcarving. Robotics and 3D-printers seemed to be the most common themes - several booths that had one or both. But there were plenty of more traditional exhibitors as well.

There were also a few vehicle displays, including a one-man submersible that looked incredibly cramped but awfully cool nonetheless. The Grand Valley State Solar Garden group was showing one of their vehicles, and one guy had an electric motorcycle. Pretty amazing some of the things that people put together in their hobby time.

The one negative to this year's event was the long line to get in, if you had to buy a ticket. I think they may have had some technical issues that resulted in a long wait for those of us who didn't buy tickets ahead of time. A fairly minor issue, though, and once I got inside it wasn't overly crowded at all. As a museum member I saved about eight bucks on the entry fee, which I immediately spent on beer...wait time forgiven.

If there's a Maker Faire near you, it's well worth taking a few hours to go check it out. Whether you're a crafter yourself or not, it's always interesting to see the huge variety of things that people are doing and making.

Senator Gary Peters Community Meeting in Grand Rapids

I've been to quite a few town hall discussions with my congressional representative, Justin Amash, several of which I've posted about here. But this was my first opportunity to hear from a senator, in this case Democrat Gary Peters. (My other senator, Debbie Stabenow, has not held any similar events in my area to the best of my knowledge.)

The meeting was held at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in downtown Grand Rapids. There's a nice auditorium there and it was mostly filled; a bit over 200 people would be my guess. I was a bit surprised that there weren't more folks, considering how rare it is for our senators to hold this kind of event.

The very first question set the tone for the meeting, when the question of supporting and co-sponsoring Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-all bill was brought up. Senator Peters responded with a lot of talk about the Affordable Care Act: how he'd voted for it, the Republicans were doing their best to kill it, and he was fighting to keep as many benefits as possible. All of which may be true, but did not address the Medicare-for-all proposal and did not satisfy the crowd. Several more people followed up with health care questions, and several others just shouted repeatedly that the senator should be both fighting for the ACA and supporting the new proposal. Personally, I agree that change is needed, but shouting down your senator at an event isn't the way to change his mind.

The senator eventually moved on to other topics, trying to end the conversation by appealing for unity against what the Trump administration and the Republican party are doing. I'm not sure that went down well with most of the crowd. This experience made it pretty clear to me that the Democratic party has a long way to go if they're going to overcome the kind of divisions that hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. Not a surprise, but still disappointing.

Other topics didn't get nearly as much time as health care, largely because the senator and his aides kept the meeting moving. The discussion did stay more civil, though. Here's a few of the topics:

• Supreme Court nomination: Senator Peters talked about pushing back against the Republican majority to delay any nomination until after the 2018 midterm elections (which is what the Republicans did back in 2016). His hopes appeared to be pinned on getting one or two Republicans to turn against any nominee that is put forward prior to the 2018 midterm elections. That seems unlikely to say the least. As far as I can tell, the only hope the Democrats have of blocking a nominee is to refuse to show up and thus deny the Senate a quorum, but that method wasn't mentioned.
• Border family separations: The lady who asked about this seemed woefully uninformed, as she thought there had been legislation passed to stop it (not true - it was an executive order) and for some reason thought that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had something to do with the process. But the senator did a fine job in response of talking about what was actually happening, and what he's been doing. Which isn't a lot, since the Trump administration is in charge, but at least he's been able to have his office check in at the detention centers and push for basic improvements like letting parents talk with their children on a regular basis.
• Interactions with police: An ex-policeman asked what is being done about the fear that many people, particularly those of color, feel when interacting with police. Senator Peters brought up the National Criminal Justice Commission and their work with both police and civil rights organizations.
• Campaign finance: The senator said he is in favor of reform, particularly provisions requiring disclosure of "dark money" sources and finding a way to combat negative advertising.
• Affordable higher education: State-level funding is the primary source, but the senator did talk about expanding federal grants like the Pell Grant program. He also mentioned tying student load interest rates to federal bond rates.

Thank you, Senator Peters, for holding these community meeting events. I'd love to see them more often, from both of our senators.

In This Moment and Halestorm at the Deltaplex in Grand Rapids

Stitched Up Heart, New Year's Day, In This Moment, and Halestorm...four female-fronted rock/metal bands on the same night at a venue close to home. Not an opportunity I was going to pass up.

The Deltaplex here in the Grand Rapids area is basically a gymnasium with some warehouse-like open space next to it. It generally hosts basketball games for the Grand Rapids Drive and merchandise shows, so it's not exactly built as a concert venue. I was pleasantly surprised that the acoustics weren't terrible, though it still wasn't nearly as good as a place like 20 Monroe Live that's built for concerts.

Probably just as well that they booked the Deltaplex, though, because they had a good-sized crowd. It wasn't completely sold out, but still, it would have been a tight fit in a smaller venue. And there were a lot of women in attendance. Most rock/metal shows are slanted toward men by 2:1 or more, but in this case it was even, or possibly tilted a bit the other way. It was great to see that many women out in support of this all-female-fronted lineup.

I was a little late getting out to the show, plus there was some confusion over the process for getting my ticket redeemed (had to go to the box office since I bought it through Groupon), so I ended up missing all but about half of the last song from Stitched Up Heart. But I heard the complete sets for the other three acts. Logistically, the only real complaint I had was the same I have at almost every show with multiple openers...it takes forever to switch sets. Ended up with more than an hour and a half wait time by the end of the night.

Both New Year's Day and Halestorm were great, though neither are on my usual playlists so I only knew a few songs during their sets. Since New Year's Day was on early, they had a bit less crowd energy to work with, but I thought they did a fine job with stage presence and I enjoyed their set. And Halestorm really knows their way around a stage, which makes sense after 20 years. Particularly the Hale siblings (front-woman Lzzy and drummer Arejay), both of whom took some solo time as well as playing with the band.

For me, though, In This Moment was the highlight of the show. Which was initially because I knew their work best going in, but the stage show certainly cemented that feeling for me. Several big video screens were right behind the band, and lead singer Maria Brink was dancing as much as singing, usually with one or two other dancers alongside (including New Year's Day lead singer Ash Costello on one song). This was a kind of interpretive dance that went along with the music, not the over-sexualized twerking that passes for dancing in much of today's popular music. They didn't stint on props either - several costume changes, some kind of glowing ball thing, a sort of pulpit on one song, and they even launched a bunch of balloons in the audience near the end of the set. Good set list, too - I liked Big Bad Wolf in particular, but they hit most of their most popular songs.

I'd love to see more tours like this one, focused on bands with female members. Judging from the turnout for this one, there's certainly a market for it. Count me in for the next one!

Nightwish Decades Tour at the Kalamazoo State Theatre

Two years ago, I had to travel a couple of hours east to Royal Oak to see Nightwish in concert. This year they made a stop in Kalamazoo, just about an hour south.

The Kalamazoo State Theatre is an interesting venue, but I wasn't terribly impressed with it as a concert hall. It has an old-time theatre feel inside, and it appeared that all the seats have a good view. There's a small open area in front of the stage, but most of the place is filled with standard seating. I was up in the second level, where I could see the stage just fine, but felt very cramped. The acoustics weren't great at all, in my opinion, particularly on the first couple of songs. Perhaps I got used to it as the concert went on, or maybe they made some adjustments, since things sounded much better later on. I think I'd enjoy seeing plays at this theatre, but it's definitely not my top choice for concerts.

Fortunately, the band is great and overcame the drawbacks of the venue. Nightwish has great stage presence and got the crowd into the show quickly, which is especially impressive when there's no opening act to warm things up. The stage backdrop was a screen playing various song-specific images, which I thought really added to the experience. They played for almost exactly two hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The set list was pulled from all across the Nightwish catalog, all 20+ years of it (thus the "Decades" tour name). I recognized all but one song pretty much right away, but then I've been listening to the band for more than 10 years myself. (That one was Slaying the Dreamer...looked it up later and found it was on Century Child, the one album I haven't listened to very often.) I particularly enjoyed the tracks from Once, including Ghost Love Score and Wish I Had An Angel.

Everyone who attended got a Decades CD to take home, which feels a bit 1990s. Probably that was the point. I may never open mine, since I do all my listening to music digitally these days. Nice to have a souvenir, though.

Irish Jig 5k 2018

It's time to end the Michigan winter hibernation, and get back to running.

OK, so I haven't exactly been hibernating. Even did a run up at Perrin Brewing back in January. But the Irish Jig 5k around St. Patrick's Day always feels like the turning point from winter to spring. This year the calendar cooperated so that the race fell squarely on the holiday.

Parking is a bit of a challenge any time there's a race in East Grand Rapids. I got there about an hour before race time, and got just about the very last spot in the parking structure that's right across the street from the race start. Any later and I'd have had to roam the side streets looking for a spot. Next year I might just go straight to the side streets, since it seems there's more and more people every year.

Good turnout again this year for the race - just under 4000 participants, according to the results page. It was pretty cold, down around freezing at race time, but that's far from the worst we've seen in West Michigan around this time of year. I remember running through a fairly heavy snowfall one year, and nearly slipping on ice another time. No snow, only minor wind, no icy spots...pretty good for mid-March in these parts.

The course around East Grand Rapids has a lot of up and down, but no really big hills. Still, for someone who has been running almost entirely on a treadmill for the last 4-5 months, it's a bit of a challenge. I purposely lined up quite a ways back from the front, as I figured I might be a little slower than normal, and ended up being near the front of the second wave of runners. That worked out nicely since it meant that I didn't have a whole lot of traffic for most of the way, though I did catch up to the tail end of the first wave on the second half of the course. I was pretty happy with my just-under-26-minute time, right about top third for my age group.

So that's the first race of the Triple Crown series done. Looking forward to the Diemer and Reeds Lake runs later on this year.

Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Festival 2018

That was some serious beer.

I went with a group of friends to the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Festival this past weekend. It was supposed to be a week earlier, but the weather didn't cooperate. They've held this festival in freezing temperatures and blizzards in the past, but this year a rising river forced a delay over flood concerns. (Good thing, too, since I hear there was a couple of feet of water in the area last week.) The weather was awesome this past weekend, though. And the delay didn't thin out the attendees much...it was still plenty crowded!

Our group took a car service up to Fifth Third Ballpark where the festival was held. I highly recommend this approach, if you can get a group together to split the cost. No crowded public transport, no waiting on cabs or Uber, no worries about surge pricing. And you can easily contact them if you happen to lose something, which I did - left my phone in the car on the way home. Got it back easily enough, which probably wouldn't have happened with a bus or cab!

This festival is a big one, with dozens of breweries and hundreds of beers. (At least - the ads actually say thousands!) I tried around a dozen, almost all browns or stouts, and the majority were great. A few weren't, but that's to be expected with such a huge variety. I was particularly impressed with the number of barrel-aged brews. I'm used to thinking of those as premium, limited-edition runs that aren't generally available for long. But they were plentiful at this show!

With so many breweries to choose from, I had to narrow it down somehow. So I tried to focus on places away from Grand Rapids, since I can always visit the nearby ones at other times. There were still plenty of choices! If I had to pick one favorite beer from the afternoon, I think I'd go with One Well Brewing's Scheming and Plotting - a bourbon barrel aged chocolate imperial stout. But honestly, there were probably half a dozen that were so good that it's hard to choose.

It took me a few hours to recover after all that beer, but again, the car service was great for getting out of there after the festival. Spent a while on a considerate friend's couch and ended up no worse for wear. Next year I think I'll have more food - I only ate a bunch of pretzels this time. Which were fine, but a burger or two would have balanced out the beer a bit.

All told, the Winter Festival was a great time and I'm definitely going to keep it in mind for next year. Can't expect the weather to always be as nice as it was, but even if we'd had to deal with snow it would be worth it!

Ada Chili and Beer Festival 2017

Chili and beer, sounds like a good Saturday afternoon to me.

Every year, folks from the Community Church in Ada and Ronald McDonald House organize a chili cook-off. Most of the entrants are from local restaurants and brewpubs, who also bring their beers and ciders along.

Doing an outdoor event so late in the year in Michigan is a bit risky, but the weather cooperated this year. No major snowstorms and it wasn't even all that cold. Though with as many people as were crowded into the big tent, cold wouldn't have been an issue regardless. Nice to have the option of wandering around outside a bit, though.

I didn't come close to trying every chili or beer option, way too many choices! About a half-dozen of each, I think, before I was too full to keep going. Everything was good, though! I look forward to another round next year.

Car Shopping

After my 2010 Toyota Yaris lost its battle against a deer, it was time to go car shopping.

I don't enjoy vehicle shopping. To me, a car is a tool to get from point A to point B, with as little fuss as possible. I don't much care about looks, high performance, fancy interiors, and just about anything else that a salesman is trying to sell the customer on. My selling points are reliability and economy, which means I'm about the lowest commission that they're likely to see. But, it's a necessary evil, so I made the rounds.

That deer did me no favors, but at least the timing wasn't too bad. Now is a pretty good time of the year to be looking for a new vehicle. The dealers still have some 2017s sitting around that they're wanting to get off the lot, so they can show off the 2018 models. And everyone has Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Year-End deals getting off the ground.

There's no lack of places to look for a car in my area of West Michigan. Within a 15 minute drive, there are at least 7 different dealerships. Drive another 10-15 minutes and you can double that. In a couple of days, I stopped in at a variety of brand dealers: Chevy, Ford, Honda, Toyota, and Kia. Plus a couple of used lots. And looked at just about every local dealership's online listings.

I basically had three choices. One, buy a new car: most expensive but least risk of problems in the near term. Two, buy a lightly used vehicle from a dealer: a bit less expensive, but slightly more risk of problems. Three, buy a cheap older used car: almost free after my insurance payout, but highest risk of problems cropping up.

In the end, I decided on the lightly used option. I really didn't want to deal with the maintenance issues of an older used car, so that eliminated option three. I wouldn't have minded a new car if the right deal had come along, and there were some fairly decent deals available. However, there was a 2017 Chevy Cruze with 30k miles on it at the dealership right down the road that still beat the new car prices by several thousand dollars. A good chunk of the manufacturer's powertrain warranty remaining, only one previous owner, and certified by the dealer service department. The only downside was that the previous owner was a rental car agency, but the dealer certification and limited warranty that goes with it mitigates that concern.

The new Cruze, at home in the garage.

So now I'm mobile again, hopefully for many years with minimal maintenance. And no deer encounters.

Oh Deer

I hit a deer.

It’s a dark Sunday evening, and I’m going about 50 along Broadmoor Ave, which in that spot is a 4-lane divided highway. A deer comes running left to right from the median and across in front of me, so I reacted by swerving a bit left and hitting the brakes. Which meant that I hit the second deer, right behind the first one, broadside right on the hood. I had no idea it was there until I hit it, and I had to still be going about 45 at impact.

It doesn't look too terrible...

Good news: No human injuries. The car coasted a good quarter mile down the road to a convenient parking lot entrance, so I didn’t block traffic. I didn’t go back to check on the deer but the road looked clear, as best I could see in the dark, so it probably survived. I called my auto insurance folks at State Farm and they handled roadside assistance. Both the state trooper who came to report the incident and the tow truck driver who picked up the car were awesome. They made the reporting and towing process as painless as possible under the circumstances.

Bad news: The engine died immediately and wouldn’t restart. The hood crumpled up, and one headlight shattered. Deer > car.

The tow truck dropped me off at home and I settled in to deal with insurance and repairs. I had no major plans for the next couple of days, so having no transportation didn't hurt me. By Monday afternoon, the car had been moved to a repair shop (also arranged by State Farm). And by Tuesday afternoon I had a preliminary estimate...lots o' money, likely enough to total the car.

...but a closer look shows that the front bit, with the air filter, is badly bent and pushed back into the section behind.

Why so high on the estimate? This little Toyota Yaris is a very compact car, and all the space under the hood is used very efficiently. Which means that when something impacts the front and crumples it up, it also damages engine parts. The body damage would be bad enough, but add engine repairs and the cost skyrockets.

Yep, that thing is hosed. "Twisted" is a bad look for engine parts.

So, now I'm just waiting on the official estimate and then the insurance verdict. I'll be shocked if they don't just call it totaled. Meanwhile, I'm doing a month-long rental to give myself time to figure out my car situation without too much time pressure. Not exactly the kind of holiday shopping I'd intended, but the deer didn't ask if it was a convenient time!

Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters Craft Fair

There was a craft fair today held at the Byron Center high school. I heard about it from a friend, whose wife had a display booth for her artwork.

A herd of wooden reindeer, one of many craft items available. Managed to snap this in a rare moment when no child was trying to climb on them.

I showed up expecting a few dozen exhibitors, probably set up in the gym, and hoping I could do a bit of Christmas shopping. This was a gross underestimate. The first sign was the completely full high school parking lot - I had to park on a nearby road and walk in. There were not a few dozen booths in a gym - there were over two hundred booths set up in two gyms and lots of hallways and other areas. Hundreds of people crowded through the halls and around every booth. Clearly this is a major event!

All the cars. They had a shuttle to a nearby middle school for even more parking.

All kinds of craft art was on display. Paintings, wood carvings, clothing of various kinds, pillows, and so on. Several booths had collections of rock pieces. There was a group selling "yard yahtzee" with giant wooden dice, and several with various versions of the cornhole beanbag-toss yard game. And food, of course, from kettle corn to bake sale tables. It was not hard to fill a few spots on my Christmas list!

One of two gyms full of people. Not to mention all the hallways.

The fair benefits the Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters, which is a volunteer organization that raises money for fine arts programs like theater, band, and choir. I'm always happy to help out those kinds of causes, though it does sadden me a bit that it's necessary. Personally, I'd be happy to pay a bit more in taxes so all schools could have this level of support for these kinds of programs, not just the districts that are wealthy enough to support organizations like the Fine Arts Boosters.

I did not purchase the Batman pillow-and-blanket combination. But it was tempting.

My visit to the craft fair was a fun couple of hours, and useful in the annual holiday shopping quest. I'll be keeping it in mind for next year, too.

Great Pumpkin Runs 2017

The folks who organize The Great Pumpkin Run stay busy in the fall, organizing races in ten different cities this year. I went to two of them, near Lansing and Grand Rapids.

Both events took place at cider orchards. Early in September, I drove over to Uncle John's Cider Mill north of Lansing. And a few weeks later at the end of the month, I went up to Klackle Orchards in Greenville, north of Grand Rapids. It took me an hour or so in each case, since I live south of Grand Rapids.

Both of these cider orchards are popular family outing places even when there's not an event like The Great Pumpkin Run. Play areas for the kids, band stages, cider and donut vending, etc. Fortunately the races happen early in the morning before the rush of regular visitors arrive. I'm glad I signed up for the early race waves, because there were a ton of people showing up even as I was finished and leaving. Traffic was pretty heavy, especially at Klackle.

The race routes went through apple orchards, as you'd expect, as well as pumpkin fields and some forest trails (in the case of Uncle Johns). Part of the Klackle course even went through their corn maze. Probably not going to set any personal records on those courses, but they're a fun change of pace from road routes. My GPS said that both courses were a bit under five kilometers, which was probably intentional as there were a lot of twists and turns, plus the finish lines were uphill from the starting area.

For the adventuresome, runners could sign up to carry a pumpkin around the course. I have enough minor back pain without carrying extra weight while running, thank you, but I saw quite a few other people doing it. One guy had a huge pumpkin that he had balanced on one shoulder as he made his way around the course. Weird, but impressive.

Always nice to have a little cider at the end of a run, and the orchard routes are interesting as long as it's not raining. The Great Pumpkin Run was fun, though I probably won't do two of them in future years. One per year is plenty!

America on Tap Beer Festival in Grand Rapids 2017

I enjoyed last year's America on Tap Beer Festival enough that I decided to go back again this year.

The event was in the same place as last year, Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids. We arrived a bit earlier this time, about 15 minutes before the gates opened, which meant we weren't quite as far back in line this time. It still took a good half hour to get in, though, and plenty of others were waiting behind us. Definitely a popular event.

The America on Tap folks know how to organize this kind of event, in start contrast to the terribly organized Tots and Beer event that I went to earlier this summer. No long lines for beer - I think the longest I had to wait was just a couple of minutes. Around 3 dozen different breweries represented, with plenty of space under a couple of long tents. Live music and several food carts if you'd like a snack. My only complaint was that they only had a couple of people checking IDs at the entrance, but once you got inside everything was set up well.

The weather was just about perfect, plenty of sun but not too humid and a bit of a breeze to cool things down. Like last year, quite a few of the beers I tried were lighter fare since that goes with the weather better than heavy dark stouts. I did try a couple of the latter as well, though. Just about every kind of beer you can imagine was represented, as well as plenty of mead and cider.

As long as this festival is making stops in Grand Rapids, I'll try to make it out. Good fun with a friend or two, and plenty of excellent beverages to try.

Grand Rapids Tots and Beer Festival

The idea of sampling craft beers and eating interesting preparations of tater tots is a good one. The execution could use some work, though.

This festival was held in downtown Grand Rapids at Ah-Nab-Awen Park, right by the river. A friend and I drove down, found parking easily, and walked over to the park. Nice area, and there was plenty of room fenced off for the festival goers. Couldn't ask for better weather - sunny with occasional cloud cover, upper 70s, bit of a breeze off the river.

There were eight beer-serving stations, with about 30 beer options. Unfortunately, they needed about twice that many for the number of people who showed up. Compare that to last year's America On Tap festival, which had a couple of dozen serving stations. The problem isn't overcrowding - they limit the number of available tickets - so I can only assume the organizers simply didn't plan properly.

With so few places to get the beer, the lines were ridiculously long, running 20-30 minutes to get one sample. Obviously there's no way to sample every beer at that rate, or even a third of them. I ended up trying three, but no more - couldn't bring myself to stand in line any longer. I had a brown ale that was pretty good, but the others were forgettable.

The food part wasn't nearly as busy, no more than a couple of minutes wait. There were about a half-dozen stands that served a few tater tots with various toppings. Nothing amazing, but nice snacks to have in between beers. My favorite was the jalapeno popper version. They even had some dessert choices, but fried potatoes with powdered sugar or chocolate didn't seem like a particularly good idea, so I skipped those.

I like the idea of this festival, and despite the lines my friend and I had a pretty decent time. Still, I can't recommend that anyone go to this particular festival. There are enough others that don't have the organizational issues and long lines that it's kind of silly to spend money and time on this one.

A Visit to Blandford Nature Center

I recently went along on a trip to the Blandford Nature Center, as a volunteer helping out with a summer education trip.

I had no idea this place existed until this trip, although I probably would have if I'd grown up in the Grand Rapids area. They do a lot of work with area schools, bringing kids out to experience a bit of nature and see some of the wildlife being rehabilitated. It reminded me of Oregon's outdoor school program, which I attended way back when I was a sixth grader, though not nearly as involved.

The nature center is on the northwest side of Grand Rapids, in a fairly heavily wooded area. There are quite a few trails to walk around in the woods, though on this short visit we stuck to the shorter ones. There's also plenty of open meadow area and some swampy wetlands spots, so visitors get to see all sorts of different habitats. Our group was large enough that we split up and cycled through all the various areas a few at a time, with the center staff leading us through some areas and exploring others on our own.

In and around the central building are habitats for injured or otherwise incapacitated animals. We saw owls, turtles, rabbits, and even a bobcat. The kids I was with were particularly impressed with this part of the trip, especially when they were able to touch the turtles.

There's also a farm on the premises, growing all sorts of vegetables and other crops. Not a lot of quantity, but plenty of variety. Same with animals, with a small flock of chickens and a few pigs. They also make maple syrup in the winter - we didn't see that part in action, of course, but did pass by the barn and saw the equipment.

It's good to see these kind of nature centers available to the public, particularly for school groups. It's important for city kids to get exposure to the world as it exists outside of the urban areas where they spend so much of their time. Hopefully the Blandford Nature Center will continue to serve that need for a long time to come.

Air Show in Battle Creek

Every summer down in Battle Creek, the Air Show and Balloon Festival is held around the 4th of July. I've thought about checking it out in the past but never got around to planning a trip, but this year I spent a few hours visiting.

I have fond memories of attending air shows when I was younger, living out in Oregon. (Well, fond except for the sunburn.) I'm not enough of a airplane enthusiast to go well out of my way for a show, but since this one is only about an hour from home I decided to check it out.

A friend and I made the drive down to Battle Creek on Saturday, which this year was early in the festival. Things generally peak on July 4th, but we were happy to go on an earlier day and avoid the worst of the crowds. There were still plenty of people wandering around, but we didn't have to wait very long in any lines - just about the best we could hope for.

The festival name is a bit of a misnomer since there's a lot going on that's not in the air. The main attraction is the aerial acts, of course, but there's also a live music stage, carnival rides, half-mile car races, and even timber sports. And of course, plenty of vendors.

I was a little surprised that there weren't more planes on display on the ground. The Air Force recruiting area had one, but otherwise all the vehicles on display were cars. Guess the organizers decided not to move display models around from nearby museums.

We got to see several planes in the air, though no balloons (they were scheduled for several hours after we left). I particularly liked Kent Pietsch's act featuring a landing on top of an RV driving along the runway. The Air Force heritage flight was pretty neat, too, with a WW II-era plane flying in formation with a an F-22 fighter jet.

I had a good time for my first visit to this air show festival. I'll probably go back in the future, maybe planning a visit so I'll catch the balloon launch.

Office 365 Day

I spent part of this weekend attending Office 365 Day, a professional event focused on Microsoft's Office 365 software. The event took place at Davenport University's main campus, just up the road from where I live in Caledonia. It's a smallish campus as universities go, but well designed and only a few years old.

The event was created by Andy Tabisz, a Microsoft MVP from here in Michigan. He and the other organizers did a fine job pulling together sponsors, gathering speakers, and all the other details needed to make an event like this happen. About 30 people attended, which is on the small side, but that's normal for a regional event that isn't part of an ongoing series.

You might ask why a retired guy is spending eight hours on a weekend to attend an information technology event. Primarily it's because I'm still an IT worker, just on a volunteer basis now rather than as a paid job. Much shorter hours and less stress, but the same general knowledge base. In addition, this particular event made sense because it was about 5 minutes drive from home, free of charge, and one of the speakers was an ex-co-worker of mine from my consulting days. And besides, I'm enough of a technology nerd to enjoy keeping up with what's happening in the IT world.

There were 15 different sessions available across the day, organized into 5 blocks of 3 concurrent presentations. The five that I attended dealt mostly with administration topics, such as security and how to organize SharePoint sites. I figured those are the kinds of things that no one else is likely to know at the small organizations where I'm spending my IT support time these days.

In addition to the Office 365 information, a chance to talk with some other IT folks from around the area, and free food, I was one of the fortunate ones to win a raffle prize. (These events always have raffle prizes at the end - encourages people to stick around all day.) I'm now the proud owner of an Amazon Echo Dot, which is one of those techno toys that I'm not likely to buy for myself, but I'm sure I'll love playing with now that I have it. 

Thanks to Andy and all the others who organized the Office 365 Day event. It was informative, a good networking opportunity, and going home with a new toy was a nice bonus!

Voters Not Politicians Town Hall Meeting

The group Voters Not Politicians (VNP) held a town hall meeting yesterday in Kalamazoo which I attended. VNP is a ballot question committee working to get a state constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that reforms the redistricting process.

VNP has been holding these meetings all over the state of Michigan this month. Normally I'd have attended one closer to home, but my schedule was such that Kalamazoo was my best option. It's only about an hour drive. The First Congregational Church in downtown Kalamazoo were very gracious hosts, providing space for the around 100 attendees. The main presentation was given by Wayne State political science professor Kevin Deegan-Krause. He's a very enthusiastic and engaging speaker who kept things interesting, not an easy task with this kind of potentially dry subject matter.

The purpose of the meeting was to explain what VNP is trying to do, why they're doing it, and communicate the process. Put simply, they're trying to end the practice of gerrymandering in Michigan. Gerrymandering is the process of drawing political district boundaries to give advantage to a particular group, and as for why it should end, it's a major factor in skewing representation away from the actual voter proportions (which is something I've talked about before). In Michigan today, the districts are drawn by the legislature, who are the people who most directly benefit from that process - an obvious conflict of interest.

To end gerrymandering in Michigan, VNP is putting a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2018 to establish an independent commission to draw district boundaries. That's a pretty long and involved process, thus the meetings happening more than a year before the election. They're working on the amendment wording now, and will be collecting voter signatures over the summer. Assuming that all goes well, the group will then be promoting the ballot measure next year leading up to election day.

The turnout for this meeting was great, with over 100 people on a Sunday afternoon, and the leaders mentioned that other meetings had been just as well attended. Gerrymandering has been a problem for a long time, but not many people in Michigan have been motivated to address it. The extreme partisanship of recent times and unhappiness with the last year's election results make this a great time to push for change in the political process, though, and VNP is in a good position to take advantage of that. They have my support and I very much hope they succeed.

Some Cars

The Michigan Internationl Auto Show is in town this week. A friend and I went downtown to check it out.

A pair of Prii.

If you're not in Michigan, you've likely never heard of this particular show, which is held in Grand Rapids. The much more famous North American International Auto Show takes place in late January over in Detroit, and pretty much every year it makes the national news. Once that's over, the car companies pack up a small portion of their wares and truck them over to Grand Rapids for the smaller Michigan show in early February.

The modern muscle car lineup. None of them transformed, sadly.

I'm not much of a car person, but I like looking at shiny things as much as the next guy. I won't go much out of my way to see a bunch of new cars (say, driving to Detroit) but when it's happening nearby, I figure why not? Especially when the entry was free, since Michigan Radio was kind enough to provide me with a couple of tickets (via a contest drawing).

The modern Meijer would need a whole lot of these to keep the stock coming in.

When you walk in the front gate, you could be forgiven for a bit of confusion since all the cars are old. That's the Gilmore Car Museum collection, which is right in the front hall. There's also a replica of the very first Meijer truck, complete with replica 8.5 cents-per-gallon gas pump. Which gives you an idea of what era was represented.

A small herd of student-built vehicles.

Behind the classic cars was an area with student-built vehicles from local schools. As an engineering school graduate, I found those interesting, even if they weren't the solar-powered types that I remember from my days at Rose-Hulman. One was a restored classic car to be driven in the 2017 Great Race - a student driver, adult navigator, and no modern navigation devices going from Michigan to Florida.

A Great Race vehicle.

Then there was the giant room of modern automakers, showing off all the various current models. I'd say about half were trucks or SUVs, which I mostly ignored except to be thankful that I have no need for such a gas-guzzler. There were plenty of luxury models as well, some in the "you can buy a nice house for that" price range. Makes no sense to me, but some folks have more money than they know what to do with, I suppose. I spent most of my time looking at hybrids and economy models.

Pictured, approximately 2 mansions worth of car.

I found the 2017 Toyota Yaris, which didn't look much different from my 2010 (except cleaner, of course). About the same price and fuel efficiency, and no major form changes. I consider that a good thing, no reason to be anxious about upgrading.

Wandering around looking at all the new vehicles made for a fun couple of hours. Certainly there are plenty of interesting options out there in the market. In the end, though, I mostly was glad that I'm in no immediate danger of going through the hassle of getting a new car.