Help some deserving girls out ...

Superior Central Softball Field, Eben Junction, MI

This is a small rural softball field in the middle of the UP needing a major facelift. It is the site of the only girls summer atheletic program in the area. It is competing against a number of other cities that have the support of the regional media like Iron Mountain and Marquette to have their field rebuilt by Kelloggs. They need 1,000 votes by April 30th to make it to the next round.

Please support Superior Central Softball Field so it has the chance to be rebuilt by Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal. They’re on a mission to rebuild run-down fields across America, because kids need places where they can work hard, play hard and be their very best. Let’s help this field be one of them.

To vote, you can go access it here at frostedflakes.com and click on "help rebuild America's playing fields" banner, then click on "Search for a Nominated Field", enter "Eben Junction" in the City and "MI" (Michigan) in the state. When the icon for this field appears click on "See More Info" to vote.

Then pass this on to your friends so they may help these deserving girls.

The Iditarod - My Winter Obsession is Over

What am I going to do now? The Iditarod is over! The eleven hundred (1,100) mile dog sled trek across Alaska from Anchorage to Nome has been dominating my attention for the past two and a half weeks. Lance Makey has made it a three-peat, now winning 2007, 08, 09. My favorites have made out well in the race, the Seavey family racing team and the SP Kennels racing team.

Seavey team was lead by Mitch who finished in fourth place, his son Dallas who finished in sixth place and Dallas’ wife Jen who nobly volunteered to run the “puppy team” finishing forty-third. The SP Kennels’ team was made up of Ali Zirkle who finished up in seventeenth place and her husband Allen Moore who ran their junior team that finished in thirty-third place.

The UP contingent was made up of mushers Ed Stielstra from McMillan who finished in thirty-second place and Tim Hunt of Marquette who finished in fifty-second place taking the Red Lantern trophy for being the final team to cross the finish line.

Now the placing of teams that finished is a little misleading. Sixty-seven teams started the race, fourteen of those teams scratched (dropped out of the race along the trail), one was removed from the race and six dogs died in the course of the race, in spite of the dozens of veterinarians staged at the beginning, end and at every checkpoint in between.

The race started out in unusually warm temperatures in the mid twenties, then the temperature dropped, the wind picked up and the snow started falling. Sustained winds of thirty-five miles an hour were augmented with gusts up to fifty miles an hour. The trail would frequently disappear thanks to the falling and drifting snow. The wind chill was often minus fifty degrees. As the mushers and the vets checked out the dogs all along the route, they removed weak, tired or injured dogs from teams to be flown back to the kennel in Anchorage.

Finishing the eleven hundred mile race is a victory in itself.

The updates were pouring in each day peppered with sprits of video, sound bites and pictures. I truly hung on every word and lost sleep one night after search planes were sent out to look for a missing team. (Later found stranded in snow chest deep and two dogs dead from hypothermia)

It is now over. I salute those mushers who have taken on the trail, those who have worked so diligently staging the race and above all the real athletes, the dogs. Although I someday would like to go to Alaska and work as a volunteer, I know it won’t be happening soon. I hope to be in the Marquette next year for the UP 200.

Dreaming of Statesmen

There is a difference between politicians and statesmen

Statesman
1: one versed in the principles or art of government; especially : one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government or in shaping its policies
2: one who exercises political leadership wisely and without narrow partisanship

Politician
1: a person experienced in the art or science of government; especially : one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government
2 a: a person engaged in party politics as a profession b: a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons

I have been praying that this election between Obama and Mc Cain would be a contest between statesmen. I have seen both men exercise restraint when others would have used personal issues as cannon fodder. It is obvious that party operatives and the media are trying to interject old school tactics on both sides.

How do we get the message across to the candidates that we want a civil campaign centering on real issues? How do we encourage civil discussions on those issues? How can we let them know that we appreciate them showing respect for each other?

We will never have a perfect world, perfect statesmen, journalists that put reporting ahead of the economic bottom line, but maybe, just maybe if we somehow find a way of letting the candidates in this year’s election know how much we want a civil process we can edge a little bit closer to that ideal.

Fields of Dreams

Chicago is blessed with many things, but one of my favorites is minor league baseball teams. In the immediate Chicago metropolitan area there are five class A teams, one affiliated and four independent. Expand the radius to a 100 mile drive you add in four more affiliated class A teams and one more independent league team. Now for those unfamiliar, affiliated means they are officially associated with a Major League Baseball (MLB) team.

My current interest lies with the independent teams. The players and coaches are there for the love of the game. Pay for independent players is below that of affiliated players, they are not “part of the program” of some major league behemoth, the players are either young ones who never got drafted and are trying to make a name for themselves or older players who have fallen from grace of the major league track. The coaches … their stories are pretty much the same.

This is not to say that they are scorned forever by the major league gods, for each year a couple dozen players and coaches make the jump up into a MLB program, but to even be down there in the first place you’ve got to love the game so much it hurts. So when you go to one of their games you see real passion, fierce competition and desire that words can’t describe.

In addition to all that you have the “Circus” of the minor league experience. Teams have mascots dancing around the park or jumping on the visitor’s dugout. They have games for the fans between innings that are a cross between a children’s party game and a TV game show. Some even have cheerleaders or dance teams. There are always contests of one form or another, even split the pot raffles like you had in little league (but with 2,500-4,000 fans the pot is a little bigger).

I the late eighties and early nineties business men found that there is some money to be made in independent baseball and towns found that it is a good draw to bring people in. Consequently, there are some rather nice new stadiums in the area with conventional seating, private boxes, lawn seating, picnic areas and in one case at least a deck with a hot tub in right field. So you can find pretty much whatever makes you comfortable.

Seat prices are comparable to a movie, lawn seats / general admission is less than that. Sooooo some night when you find yourself looking for something to do click on some of the icons in this section, find yourself a game and enjoy America’s pastime the way it was meant to be.

TED - My Great Escape

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is a group of accomplished people who come together annually to discuss their fields of endeavor, findings, achievements and quandaries. It is no cheap thrill to be a conference participant; it requires an investment of $6,000 per person per year. Not only is there the financial burden you need to be able to convince them that you have something to contribute to the discussion and are worthy link in the network formed among the participants.

The main presentations are roughly 18 to 20 minutes each. These are to be catalysts for interested participants to seek out more information or to initiate dialog on the subject.

TED has a web site that allows the common man to participate. It contains video of past presentations that can be selected on demand. You can sign-up for an “online membership” that gives you access to ratings, blogs, discussions and the like. Each week they add a handful of presentations to the library.

From religion to medicine and from magic to the environment the presentations educate, stimulate, and create interest and questions. These have been a great escape for me, a 20 minute brain massage. I’d encourage you to go to TED and give it a test ride.

http://www.ted.com

A Discussion of Size and Value

There is a piece of land for sale that recently came to my attention outside my beloved town of L’Anse. South West of the town the parcel is 800 acres for $900,000. (No I’m not in the game) It is mostly mature woods that have established roads, several hearty creeks, abundant wildlife, bluffs, ravines, and many buildable sites.

Now when I think spatially I orient myself by the town I grew-up in, La Grange Park Illinois. When we were looking at a 10 acre parcel in Michigan the land matched a two block area that contained a park I played in exactly. Ok, I can put my mental arms around that and appreciate the dimensions. Now 800 acres is roughly the size of that entire town that housed between 13,000 – 17,000 of my nearest and dearest friends.

Switching to money, I am using the block my sister’s family and my father live on for my stake in the ground. This is in the town of La Grange next door. Up until this last year when the real estate market went topsy turvy (or was it that way to begin with and now it is becoming realistic) 50’ x 150’ lots (tear downs) were going for $300,000 and they were building new homes on them that were selling between $850,000 and $1,000,000. So right now there is a house across the street from my sister (and two houses down from my father) that holds a husband, stay at home wife with two kids that they bought about three years ago for nearly $900,000.

Now mind you the original parcel in L’Anse is not in a desert, it is truly what I would call “God’s country”.

Pardon my French, but WTF.

How radically diverse are our value systems? How do we compare and contrast this house on a 50’ x 150’ lot with a piece of land the size of the town just north of it. I know location, location, location. One is 17 miles from downtown Chicago and the other is a mile, give or take, from Lake Superior.

On the other hand … if our economy goes to hell in a hand basket and property becomes monetarily worthless, one person still has 800 acres from which to hunt and grow food, has several sources of fresh water while the other one has four bedrooms a big family room and a three car garage sitting on a lot that might have a couple of robins and an occasional rabbit running across.

Now in about five months “We the people …” in Michigan, Illinois and the other 48 states are going to be electing a man to lead us away from that “hell in a hand basket”. How we manage to come to a consensus on what we value and who has the intelligence, values and strength to preserve what we each individually cherish is going to be an effort of that continues to confound this feeble mind.

My Lord, maybe if I sell my two homes I could come up with a down payment …