Up North

We had a busy, hectic, outdoorsy sort of week. The kind that can reveal some tension, but also times that you'll remember--like K reminding J about the importance of memories.

A little agenda and then my highlights...

Got in Saturday, picked up pizza and groceries. Favorite part? Hanging out at the hot tub, hearing J tell kindergarten stories (no way he's in group I!!) and watching the sunset.

Sunday getting a bite to eat after church, and then a barbeque and gorgeous sunset.

Monday? Watching soccer at Mackinaw Brewing Company in downtown Traverse City. Grilling fajitas, and then sunset and J's Bar and getting reminded about the need to tip.

Fishing in Elk Rapids on Tuesday. We caught some great Lake Trout and then had a fish fry that night. Also smores! I also went to a winery with P&M to Hawthorne Winery.

Wednesday we went up to Mackinac Island. We rented bikes and biked two loops (16 miles) around the island. Then dinner at mom & dad's favorite Darrow's.

Thursday was the next U.S. World Cup game against Germany (go USA!) and we had lunch with C & baby Jack at Seven Monks Taproom. We then kind of lazed around with pizza before an epic battle of Apples to Apples.

Friday we went to the cabin, the first time I've been there in almost twenty years. We went to 2 Lads Winery before another barbeque, more Apples to Apples, and a memorable night of playing a$$hole with my brothers and SILs. We also let off some fireworks (baby ones).

And then it was time to go home.

Favorite memories?

1. J reminding me "Uncle Steve said you had to pay me a dollar" for his beer delivery.
2. J proudly proclaiming "I'm a good reader!"
3. J reading SCOTUSBlog with me.
4. J bringing out the soap after his pee break.
5. Baby Jack never stopping smiling!
6. C&J drinking water out of the hose, and coaxing a smile out of C.
7. S trying to swim in that ridiculous wetsuit and his even more ridiculous attempts to stand-up paddle board. Also S's 18 mile two a day.
8. Those absolutely breathtaking sunsets, where the sun literally melts into the earth.
9. All of our ridiculous attempts to hook up ESPN.
10. Hanging out with my siblings and SILs that last night, telling stories, talking about Aunt Joan and little Asian babies and how sweet little J is, how sad he was about leaving, and remembering how much I miss not being closer. Sigh.
11. Lots of Shorts beer. Awesome to discover a new brewery from Elk Rapids and Bellaire!

Beautiful Michigan

I thought this was a neat list of some of the most beautiful wonders of Michigan. I've been to all of them. How gorgeous is this? I miss my home state...

Michigan for Romney?

Recent polls show the race to be a dead heat in Michigan. And with Michigan's history as Reagan Democrat country, maybe there's a chance that the state will vote for its hometown son this election year? Marc Thiessen sees several reasons why MI may go for the GOP this year beyond just the economy:

But the Romney campaign has also been highlighting two other issues that have particular resonance in Michigan. One is the administration’s contraception and abortifacient mandate, which hurts the president with the socially conservative Reagan Democrats in such places as Macomb County. There are 2.4 million Catholic voters in Michigan, and Obama’s assault on religious liberty has alienated many of them. In May, the Michigan Catholic Conference filed suit against the Obama administration over the Health and Human Services mandate — and Catholic priests will be preaching against it in parishes across the state between now and Election Day. Look for Romney to underscore his opposition to the HHS mandate — and his endorsement by Lech Walesa — with these Catholic voters, many of whom are of Polish and Ukrainian descent.
The second issue is welfare reform. Welfare fraud is fresh on people’s minds here, thanks to the news of a Detroit area woman who was recently caught continuing to collect benefits despite winning a $1 million state lottery prize. Michiganders have a strong work ethic and remain justly proud of their state’s role as a pioneer of welfare reform in the 1990s. The charge that Obama is gutting welfare reform hits a nerve here.

I would love, love to see Michigan go Romney. When I was there in June, some of the lawyers suggested that possibility.  Hopefully it can become a reality.

Amazing Statistics

By year's end, Michigan is expected to have lost 950,000 jobs since 2000, or 20.3 percent of its workforce, according to a recent University of Michigan report, largely because of dramatic restructuring in the U.S. auto industry. Per-capita income in Michigan has fallen from 16th to 33rd over the same period. In the first quarter this year, 10.4 percent of all Michigan mortgages were past due -- the fourth highest of any state.
More on Obama's visit here.
So we pay their mortgages, their college education, and then what: their food bills (food stamps)? Clothes? Cable? Internet? It never ends...

Beautiful

I need to look at some beautiful colors that aren't also paint colors from Benjamin Moore. Here are some gorgeous shots of Michigan. Lovely.

Random Thoughts: Politics Edition

Executive privilige, President Obama? Really? Though Drudge's morphing of Obama with Nixon is a bit much (or is it?. Here's more on his hypocrisy. 

It would be oh so ironic if Pawlenty gets the vice presidential nomination after his botched campaign.  Ironic because if he had stayed in, he never would be in contention. Though if he had stayed in, perhaps he would have beat Romney?

If Marion Barry wasn't so shameless, I could almost get behind the challenge to the streetcar.  And I hope that Catania's firm has been fully vetted. But after all of the investment and infrastructure, and the decrepit state of the X2 bus line, it's ridiculous that he is playing politics.

And is my home state in play? 

Oh yea, it is the summer solstice. Yes, I get sad as sunlight diminishes. Though this is interesting.

Michigan Ground Zero

All eyes are on Michigan today, as voters participate in the state's Republican primary. It really is the Romney vs. Santorum show, with each side picking their surrogates (like, say, Kid Rock).  I think Romney will pull it out, though I don't discount the likes of Dems supported by Michael Moore voting for Santorum in order to get their "preferred" opponent for Obama. I'm not sure who I would vote for if I still liked in Michigan. I guess Santorum, Or Romney; I'm not convinced by Taranto's argument that Santorum could be more electable. 

Either way, I'm actually interested in a primary. Let's see if Romney can win.

Mario's Michigan

The place to be in the summer. I miss it.

Back Home to Michigan

Jay Nordlinger just wrote about returning home to Michigan in a recent Detroit News column.

These paragraphs resonated, though really his entire column did:

When I was a kid, I would spend a chunk of each summer Up North, mostly with my grandparents. I remember the long drives on I-75 and M-33 and then hitting the back roads. There were no DVD players to pull my gaze or iPods to fill my ears — just a vision of green forests and the hypnotic hum of tires on asphalt. We always went the same way and I knew every curve and bump.
Toward the end of the trip, we'd go west for five or six miles on a straight stretch of blacktop. Then we'd turn right at a four-way intersection. This was the sign that we were just a few minutes away from lakes and creeks and trails and bug hunting and perch fishing and blueberry picking and all the things that made Up North so special, then and now.

"Up north" is a place I haven't been for far too long. It might be the nicest place in the country. In fact, Sleeping Bear Dunes was just rated the most beautiful spot in America.

If we have children some day,  I would love to take two weeks and rent a cottage by a lake, or stay near Traverse City, and visit those small shops and swim in those clear lakes. It's an idyllic place. I'm glad others recognize it, too.

Twenty Years Ago III

So I could be off by a day or two, but 20 years ago our family left Detroit and settled in Fraser.

I lived in Fraser for four years, went to high school in GPW and Royal Oak, and then left for Indiana in 1994. Four years later, I came to DC and I have never left. So after twelve years, DC is so much more home than Fraser was.

But it's still "home." Detroit is home, Fraser is home, it is where my family is and where I grew up.

Michigan is at a crossroads this year, just like in 1990 when John Engler was elected. Yesterday was the primary, pitting Virg Bernero vs. Rick Snyder. Not the top choice for many Republicans--more people voted against him yesterday than voted for him--but I am hopeful he will prevail in November. Just like twenty years ago, Michigan will elect a Republican governor in November.

And things will get better.

Amazing Statistics

By year's end, Michigan is expected to have lost 950,000 jobs since 2000, or 20.3 percent of its workforce, according to a recent University of Michigan report, largely because of dramatic restructuring in the U.S. auto industry. Per-capita income in Michigan has fallen from 16th to 33rd over the same period. In the first quarter this year, 10.4 percent of all Michigan mortgages were past due -- the fourth highest of any state.

More on Obama's visit here.

So we pay their mortgages, their college education, and then what: their food bills (food stamps)? Clothes? Cable? Internet? It never ends...

Michigan & the Knowledge Economy

Great piece in the WSJ today about Michigan & the knowledge economy.

At a groundbreaking ceremony for a road project in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Friday, Mr. Biden joined Democratic leaders from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow in suggesting that prosperity is around the corner. The federal government, he said, was doing all it could to help Michigan "lead us into the 21st century like you did in the 20th century."

Doesn't this say it all? Hey, maybe Steve is right and there is a role for government in stimulating the economy, or at least in promoting innovation. But I somehow don't think this is the same thing. Honestly, the federal government's solution is to throw money at a problem and hope that it gets spent wisely. Manufacturing and its 20th century model isn't going to help the state create jobs like it did even twenty years ago. College grads leave the state or search for opportunities that spur growth, both in the economy and in their careers.

The larger point is that what the middle class needs more than anything else is an economy where employers have to compete for their labor. The more open a state's economy is to investment and entrepreneurship, the more employers there will be. And the more education a state's citizens have, the more advanced the industries they can support.

Michigan needs to create reasons for its college graduates to stay. Kevin is an exception, and he found one of the few opportunities where technology and innovation is at the forefront. But the federal government isn't doing that. What's going to happen once the federal roads are built? Where do those workers go? Kevin's not hiring them. The stimulus money will be spent, invested in roads and infrastructure. It needs to be invested in workers.

Back to Michigan

Finally home after a long weekend in Michigan (Ann Arbor/"home") for our conference. Lunch at Gratzi on Saturday. The conference went well, despite some fireworks from the BAMN supporters during the Ward Connerly panel.

So my little nephew will be named Joseph Edward! What a perfect name, and I am so so so excited. I need to do some shopping!

I also got a couple of birthday gifts: a blue windbreaker from Land's End/Sears and a book of Laura Ingalls Wilder columns. Nice!