Hello All, Unfortunately, almost four months have passed since my last update. I’ve been unusually busy at work since April which has cut deeply into the free time I normally reserve for chronicling our activities. As you may have heard, the U.S. Auto industry is in a freefall. Michigan has claimed another dubious #1 honor – highest unemployment in the nation at above 15%1 (I believe this is comparable to Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism). Michigan’s economic situation isn’t helping our home value but otherwise we are lucky enough to be largely unaffected. IAV laid off about 15% of their staff in May but I am actually busier than I have been in over two years. I’m the Project Manager on one of IAV’s largest programs at the moment and it is the first project in our new test facility so we are plowing new ground and working the bugs out of the equipment and the system. I am enjoying it because I get to invent many of the new practices and policies with very little existing structure in place to impede our progress. I am working with a very important new customer so the project receives a lot of priority. In the meantime, Spring has quickly come and gone as it usually does here in Michigan. This is a photo taken of the kids in June. It was still in the upper 30s - low 40s in the morning.

Now it’s summer (my fourth favorite season here in Michigan) – muggy, hot and swarming with mosquitoes – especially here in the swamps of Genoa Township. I’ve started a letter-writing campaign to mandate DEET as a gasoline additive here in Michigan so that we can literally “drive” the mosquitoes down to Ohio.

1 A record last held by West Virginia in 1984.

It’s been about a year since we returned from Germany but we are already getting the wander lust again (something about SE Michigan seems to generate the desire to travel in us). In June, I received a very flattering offer from IAV’s office in England. They asked us to move to the U.K. for two years. Jack seemed very excited to go. His first question was “What’s the driving age in England?” His expectations may have been a bit overly optimistic. Although we have often thought of living in the U.K. sometime and look forward to taking a couple months to explore Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and London, two years is a long commitment. In the end, my U.S. management blocked the move because of the priority of the U.S. project I’m working on currently. But, it was a good chance for us to seriously consider if we would live abroad again and now we are just waiting for the next opportunity. While we’re still here, I’m trying to make the most of Michigan. In May, I spent a weekend in Motorcycle Safety Education classes that are mandatory for receiving a motorcycle license in Michigan. It was a great class! 28 hours in one weekend (4 hrs Friday night, 12 hrs on Sat and Sun.) all for just $25 and they supplied the motorcycles! You can’t ride go-carts all weekend for $25. That was a great deal! I’d take the class again if anyone wants to join me. I made a friend in class named Helmut. He’s from Germany. Helmut is taking the class because obtaining a license in Germany requires the same training but costs 1500 euros (about $2100). But, it only costs $60 to transfer his Michigan license to Germany. The week after the class, I received my license and bought a motorcycle.

It was cheap and has a top speed around 55 mph but it get’s 76 mpg. It’s no good on the highway but there are plenty of back roads that will get me to work if necessary. Jack is already looking forward to the day when I can hand it down to him. I seem to be able to find a reason to run errands into town almost every night. I take library books back one at a time. If I find less than a month’s worth of butter in the fridge, I make a run to the store. The motorcycle was partially in response to the recent decline of Marie’s minivan. A recent emergency made us face the fact that we are dependent on two aging cars that might suddenly need a week of repair work2. Others might see this as an incentive to buy a new car. I look at it as an opportunity to buy a third cheap form of transportation as a backup. However, insuring 3 cars is expensive. But motorcycle insurance is only $12/month. It is also part of my mid-life crisis. I don’t know much about mid-life crises but I assume that delaying it as long as possible will, by definition, extend your life. Since I’m turning 40 this year, I assume it’s time. Along those lines, the weekend after I finished my motorcycle class, I joined the local sailing club and began taking sailing lessons.

2 I won’t bore you with the details of our recent car problems but, for those who need closure, I’ll tack the stories into an Appendix.

The boats above are used for instruction and practice on Kent Lake near Brighton.3 There is quite a bit of training, maintenance, and testing involved but it’s a lot of fun. The next series of classes includes sailing much larger boats on Lake St. Clair which is a very large lake to the East of Detroit which connects Lake Huron and Lake Erie. At the highest level, sailors take a week-long trip across Lake Huron. It’s my kind of club. The cost is low because there are no employees. The members are just required to put in a certain number of volunteer and maintenance hours per year which then gives them unlimited access to the club’s boats.

3 Kent Lake is just farmland that was flooded about 40 years ago. There is one place on the lake that the center board will hit “15 Mile” road which still runs along the bottom of the lake.

I had to suspend my campaign against the lawn this year. I have been intentionally neglecting it for the past 6 years as a part of my overall strategy to eliminate senseless maintenance work like mowing. Our yard can’t be seen by the neighbors or passersby so I haven’t fertilized or watered it…ever. The clover and dandelions are competing for supremacy over the septic field. Usually, we don’t even rake all of the leaves off of it. I’ve basically allowed the surrounding forest to encroach as far as it desires. But, the hillside behind our house is threatening to erode away so I needed some grass. Holly helped me to put in a sprinkler system and Jack pitched in too. Now we have thick, lush grass (mostly weeds actually…but thick lush weeds) covering the hill in the back yard. But, now I have to solve the problem of mowing it every week. I seem to arrive at the same solution to most of my problems lately…

…Lily. She cut the grass until the mower ran out of gas and it only cost me a half can of Squirt. Afterward, she told me “Mowing down that long grass was really satisfying.”4 I think that means that I overpaid by a half can of Squirt.

Holly also helped with the new sidewalk project. Altogether, the kids unloaded 194 bricks out of the minivan. They are really starting to pay off.

4 My mom, my brother, and Marie’s mom have all invited Lily to come stay with them this summer. I’m not sure I can get by without her.

We are very happy to be rid of the pea-gravel walk in the back.

We also repaired and sealed the driveway and installed a basketball hoop. Again, Holly was eager to help.

After 6 years of work, this house is nearly in livable condition.

Lily’s trying to teach Holly the sense of satisfaction that comes from physical labor.

Above, Lily is on our old “Summer Sled” which my brother and I risked our lives on at our grandparent’s house when we were kids – long ago, before product liability lawsuits were invented...when the fun didn’t stop until someone was bleeding. The primary difference between a “sled” and a “summer sled” is the protective layer of snow vs. the merciless asphalt when the inevitable crash occurs. Also, summer sleds don’t glide safely down rural hillsides. They often share the road with traffic. This photo of Marie was taken by Holly. Marie is still looking great!

Marie has taken a huge leap forward in personal communication technology. She bought her first cell phone5. She got a phone and 600 minutes for $23 – even I have to admit that’s a pretty good deal. Marie had a short summer break of her own in July when Lily and Jack spent a weekend at Paul and Michelle’s house in Dayton. They loved it. Jack’s favorite part was the roller coasters at King’s Island although you might not guess it judging by the look of abject terror on his face in this photo.

You can see the terror a bit better in this close-up. Apparently, Jack is an adrenaline junkie. He rode coasters all day.

5 She doesn’t count the free “bag phone” that I managed to acquire for her from Ford 12 years ago. It resembled a WWII era Army field radio.

In May, we went to our local Rottermond Jewelry Store for Lily’s award ceremony which I mentioned in my last letter (she was in the top 5 finalists in her school’s Mother’s Day Essay Contest). Lily was awarded her birthstone (amethyst…a very, very, small amethyst) and

Marie received red roses. I wasn’t sure exactly what motivated Rottermond to hold this contest until they announced that every finalist’s birthstone stone (that’s 5 finalists from 8 schools – ie. 40 students) could be mounted into any of a dozen pieces of jewelry that were conveniently available…for a nominal fee of course. Suddenly, the whole event made sense. All of the poems and essays were posted around the showroom. I noticed a couple of essays such as this one on the right that seemed to have had some trouble making it through the censors. My first thoughts were that the essay either contained…

• A lot of swearing…which seems inappropriate for an essay on “What my Mother means to me.”

• Or national secrets…also unlikely It was later revealed that any reference to the identity of the author or Mother was removed to ensure an impartial judgment.

Holly really loved the event too. The photo on the left may give you a clue as to why.

Rottermond Jewelers in Brighton. (Jack was at wresting practice.)

Lily also passed through two major milestones in May.

1. She received her 11 yr immunization shots that she has been dreading for many years (on her 10th birthday, she cried because she was one year closer to 11).

2. She received “the talk” at school. Yes, that one - sex ed. Naturally, the teachers and administrators were all very concerned about the reaction of the parents. So, they organized a gathering the night before at which the parents could view the material that would be shown to the kids the next day. Imagine a twenty-something elementary school teacher lecturing a room full of middle aged mothers about sex education and reproductive health.

I also mentioned in my last update that Lily entered a youth rifle club that meets every Sunday to practice. The club concluded its season in June with a competition. Lily (the only girl) won first place easily. In one round of 10 shots at 50 yards, she scored 4 bulls-eyes and 4 nines. She’s officially a lethal weapon.

Marie recently took Lily to the bank so that she could deposit her quarterly earnings. Marie asked her if that was all the cash she had and Lily said that she kept back $1.50. Marie asked why $1.50 hoping to learn something about Lily’s interests. Lily replied “I don’t know… in case I get into trouble I guess.” (Many household misdemeanors are punishable by fines now. The most expensive fine is $1.00 for waking me up from a nap) Lily and Jack both received All A’s this year in 5th and 3rd grade respectively. Jack also earned the National Fitness Award and the “Random Act of Kindness” certificate which was very pleasantly surprising.

Holly “graduated” from pre-school in June. Even though she received a pre-school diploma, we’ve encouraged her to go on to Kindergarten since it’s hard to find a well paying job with just a pre-school education in this economy. In order to test her readiness for Kindergarten, Marie asked Holly if she knew “Dad’s and Mom’s phone numbers”. Holly said “Yes, one and four.” In my day, we had to memorize our entire phone number, not just the speed dial.

Yesterday, we were all driving somewhere, each thinking our own thoughts when Holly said out of the blue “Mom, can we never fly in an airplane that you jump out of?” Marie reassured her that we would avoid such airplanes. Relieved, Holly said “Good, because I don’t like to jump out of air planes.” Although I’m not sure she has ever tried it. Jack, of course, added that he had read of a sport in which you throw your parachute out of a plane and then jump after it in hopes of putting it on before hitting the ground. Jack seems to have an attraction to everything dangerous.

We attended the awards banquet for Jack’s wrestling club in May. Jack received awards for

1. “Scholar Athlete” (for good grades in school), 2. “Shooting Star” (for 29 takedowns at tournaments throughout the season), 3. And the “100 Point Club” (for 135 ‘wrestling points’ which is complicated)

Jack worked hard and did very well. We are very proud of his accomplishments. We get a lot of use out of our local library. Their online system allows us to request books and movies to be transferred from other libraries and held for us at our branch in Brighton. When the book or movie becomes available, they send an email notification to me. I received this notice at work a few weeks ago

It looks like I’d better find out what Jack’s planning this summer6. I imagine his plan lies somewhere between subliminal control of his 4th grade teacher next year to plotting the overthrow of civilization. My boss asked if Jack was an evil genius. I replied that he’s not an evil genius yet…but he’s making progress…needs a little more evil.

6 You may have noticed that there was no question as to who reserved this book. This has Jack’s M.O. all over it.

On June 17th, we stayed up late to witness the end of television. We were watching Letterman just before the signal went digital (or “blue screen” for us). There was a crawler on the bottom of the screen that said the conversion to digital signal was about to take place and urged viewers “not to call 911”! Who calls 911 when their TV goes dead? Do the 911 operators have TV repairmen standing by? Is there even such a thing as a TV repairman anymore? What exactly would you say to an Emergency Services Operator? “Help! Send entertainment quick! I’m alone in the house with my family and we don’t know what to do!” Now we only receive CBC (Canadian T.V.) which is ironic because most of the Canadians that we know watch pirated American satellite T.V. So, now we are very up-to-date on Canadian politics and events. I feel like we are spying on Canada. It’s a big improvement actually. Canadian problems don’t seem to affect my mood as much as U.S. problems do and we are looking forward to the Curling Season to begin. Overall, having just one channel saves us a lot of channel surfing time. If you turn the TV on and you don’t like what you see, you can just turn if off again. The morel mushrooms sprung up on schedule during the first week in May. They are really good. Most connoisseurs of fungus agree that they are the most delicious mushroom in North America. They taste like butter.7 I was perusing a mushroom website recently which offered this nugget of fungal wisdom. “You can eat any mushroom you find…once. If you have a bad reaction, you may live or you may die…either way you will regret it.” But, morels are very safe. They are not easily confused with any poisonous varieties.

7 Possibly because I sauté them in butter.

We found this ad in a local newspaper. Does anyone need to get rid of some unwanted children this summer?

I came home from work one evening this summer to find that Jack had been writing letters to our congressmen. Initially, I was excited about the possibility that he was writing one of the “cranky old man” letters of complaint that I had been intending to compose for many years. But instead, I found that he was writing to propose new legislation that would recognize an official Michigan state sandwich. The idea came from his last few days of 3rd grade when they were taught the official state symbols of Michigan – one of which is the official Michigan state dirt – “Kalkaska Sand”. Jack’s comment at the time was “Dirt?!?! Michigan has an official state dirt?!?!” Do they have a State sandwich?!?” To which his teacher replied equally sarcastically “I don’t know, why don’t you write to your congressman?” So, a month later, with nothing better to do and inspired by the apparent open door policy given to elementary school children by the Michigan State Symbols Department8, Jack proposed that the official Michigan state sandwich should be “Ham with Cheese, Egg Salad, or Ham with Cheese and Lettuce.” We are still waiting to hear back. I assume the issue is stuck in Committee. Meanwhile, Jack is preparing his speech for the official unveiling.

8 Notice on the next page that the Michigan State Game Mammal and the State Reptile were chosen as the result of the lobbying efforts of 4th and 5th graders. Jack may be the first 3rd grader to successfully influence the Michigan State Legislature. I think he would do well in politics. Anyone who knows him will tell you that he thrives on endless debate. We could call him “Jack ‘Filibuster’ Ireton”

Some of Michigan’s State symbols… Copies of Jack’s letters are on the following pages.

On the following pages are copies of the letters he sent.

We’ve ventured into Downtown Detroit a couple of times this year. It is actually pretty nice down by the waterfront now. On our most recent trip downtown, I saw this billboard which I remember from over 15 years ago in East St. Louis (another rundown slum of a city). But, back then, Billy Dee Williams wasn’t a cartoon. This was my favorite billboard for years because it acknowledges that Colt 45 is more than a just refreshing adult beverage. It seems to have a higher purpose9 for which it claims to be highly reliable (unlike other malt liquors?). I wonder how many people drink Colt 45 for its dependability.

Now that we’ve lived in a couple of big cities, we notice how different Detroit is. For example, the panhandlers are very cautious and nervous in Detroit. We were approached by a woman downtown who came up very slowly with her hands in clear view and said “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not dangerous. I’d just like to ask if you have any spare change.” I had the feeling that she was expecting to being maced or tasered. Tourists in downtown Detroit may to be a bit on edge. I suspect that they have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later when approached by Detroit’s homeless drug addicts.

9 The poor man’s GHB perhaps.

In closing, I’ve included a few photos of the wild flowers that grow around our house. What we lack in big city excitement, we partially make up for in natural abundance.10 We have redbud trees, trillium, bleeding heart, and tulips.

The front yard is full of purple gilliflower and lilac.

10 Marie would like to point out that Vancouver had both big city excitement AND natural abundance.

Fauna: Just outside the garage is a songbird nest that we are trying not to disturb. We’ve tried this in years past but with limited results. This season she seems to be hatching one egg of her own and two from a brown-headed cowbird which can lay over 30 eggs each season but always in the nests of other birds. The cowbird lets other birds struggle to build a nest and feed the chicks while the cowbird enjoys a life of irresponsibility. It’s the ultimate deadbeat parent.

We have lots of rabbits that eat everything we try to plant. We’ve had a few turkeys move through. We also have a garter snake living in our downspout that makes an appearance once in a while and leaves snake skins outside the garage door. We haven’t been grilling this year because Marie discovered a mouse living in the grill. Usually, we just light the grill to get rid of the mouse but this year, she was nursing her newborn babies. So, we have to wait until they are old enough to find their way into our snap traps before we can grill again. Until then, our grill is a rodent sanctuary.

Appendix 1: Automotive Report On Friday afternoon a couple months ago, Marie called to say that the minivan was broken down near our house. Unfortunately, the van was stuck in the center turn lane on a busy road so she had the chance to meet our local policemen. AAA towed her to our house for free. Marie said that the engine was running great but the van wouldn’t move. This condition was said to be preceded by a “horrible metallic grinding sound”. Our first thoughts were that the transmission had failed – a fate that could easily lead to a $4,500 replacement or more likely a ‘new’ car. It also was starting to look like my weekend was shot. Luckily, when I conducted the post mortem, I found that one of the bolts that fasten the front brake caliper to the chassis was missing. The caliper had rotated and jammed against the wheel which locked the wheel in place. So, instead of a $4,500 transmission repair, the van is back on the road after replacing a $1 bolt11! As a bonus, I managed to salvage most of my weekend. The fact that the brake bolt worked loose and fell out was very strange. But the story gets a bit stranger. I went to our local junk yard to find the bolt. After a bit of searching, I found the van that I needed but there was already another guy working to remove something from one of the front brakes. As I came closer, I saw that he had the same bolt that I was looking for. He had the exact same problem. The brake bolt worked loose and fell out. I feel relieved that it’s not just me. Since then, I’ve also had to replace the sway bar and strut bearing. The deterioration of the minivan seems to be accelerating. The tires are now so bald that they are beginning to regain some traction as the steel belts start to protrude and act like tire chains.

11 Of course that’s the junk yard price. I originally went to the GM dealership to find the bolt but it cost $19! For one bolt! I won’t be sad to see them go out of business. That bolt must have been hand forged with a gold core coated in moon rock. One of my Chief Engineers at Ford would have said “What is it made from? Unobtainium? Cantaffordium?”

As for my car… In April, I smelled a small electrical fire while driving down the highway. My airbag light began to blink on and off as if it had begun a countdown. So, I gently eased the seat back as far as I could in case the airbag decided to deploy. It seemed to have lost its senses.

For the next few weeks, I carried a small fire extinguisher in the front seat in case the electrical fire decided to spread (I’ve since lost cruise control). But, I began to fear that, some day, I might honk the horn or turn on a blinker and the airbag would go off so I removed it. I thought we might detonate it in the front yard on the 4th of July. That ought to make an explosive spectacle.

But, Lily didn’t like the look of the steering wheel without the airbag (and I’m not sure I could get a valet to park it in this condition) so she reinstalled it for me (with the detonator disconnected.) She’s pretty handy. I don’t know what I’d do without her.