On Friday, Jay and Carl flew back to Seattle. On Friday night, Anne and Bill hosted a dinner party. Karen, Janet and the dogz flew down from Grand Blanc. It was good to see them again. Anne, Bill and I managed to solve most of the world’s problems that night or so it seemed at that time. I was not so sure of that though the following morning. I have chosen two landmarks of downtown Ann Arbor as photo fodder for this post, the Michigan and State Theaters.

Saturday morning we went to the Arboretum. Rey, Anne and I met Banana and Mr. Bill outside the Arb. Ann Arbor’s Arboretum is set in a narrow valley that trails downhill to the Huron River. The weather was cold and windy, but the sun succeeded in poking through the clouds every once and a while. The two Annes and I ended up on the Devil’s Leap, an exciting, but also dangerous sledding and tobogganing slope. In the intervening forty years since high school, it has been fashioned into a scenic overlook and it has been crafted to discourage its further use for winter sports, even if the University of Michigan‘s emergency room door is just around the corner.

Afterwards we retired back to Chez Harry’s to watch the big football game, the Michigan and Ohio State game. The game was pretty much over by halftime, but we watched it to the bitter end. Anne, Michigan State and I were hoping and depending on Michigan to beat Ohio State, but that was not to be. Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin are in a three was tie for the Big Ten championship. If Michigan beat Ohio State and if Michigan State beat Penn State, which we did, then Michigan State would have been the Big Ten champions. But Michigan lost. We never should have sent a boys team to do a man’s job. Now in all likelihood Wisconsin will be the Big Ten Champions, but failing them it is Ohio State’s and all because of the crummy BCS system for ranking college football teams. Michigan State beat Wisconsin and Wisconsin beat Ohio State, so it seems clear to me that the Spartans are clearly the best team in the Big Ten this year. Just because Michigan State and Ohio State did not play each other this year is no reason to let some buggy computer code pick the winner. The BCS sucks. Now instead of our team going to the Rose Bowl, we’ll probably end up going to the Humanitarian Bowl or the Feed the Hungry Bowl, how humiliating. I hate you BCS!