Its been a good wrap-up to the end of summer. Lots of people to see and things to do. I even managed to make it home twice in the last couple of weeks! Granted one of the trips was only for a couple of hours, but it still led to a nice dinner.

For work I had the privilege of going down to Peru, IN for three days and taking a driving class at an old air force base. The experience was absolutely awesome, imagine 10 hour days with 8 of them driving a car around, and being paid the whole time, to top it off. I even came away with a trophy in the end which is now proudly displayed on my desk. The best part was that I got to bring a Pontiac Solstice back up to Michigan and had the chance of stopping off at my parents for a couple of hours on the way home. My mom and sister absolutely fell in love with the car, although I did manage to scare them a bit!

That weekend, I had my first what I'll call minor party in my home (about 10 people), for the Woodward Dream Cruise. This is the biggest event of the summer (30,000 old muscle cars), and my new house is about a 1/4 mile away from all the action, so I decided to take advantage. It seemed as though every third house or so was having a party in my neighborhood, and it was almost surreal, until about 2:00 in the morning when it was still really loud. At least its only one day a year I guess. A lot of people actually leave town because they don't want to deal with it. Lots of cool cars though. We ended up cruising around Friday night in an old 5.0 mid 80's Mustang convertible.

I also attended my 10 year high school reunion which was an absolute blast! I had really built it up in my mind and it didn't disappoint. All of my good friends were in town, (Ross, Chris, Luke), and I ended up seeing about everybody at the reunion that I could have wanted. We ended up touring the old place as many construction projects had occurred and then ended up taking a 2 hour tour on lake Wawasee courtesy of The Frog boat. We wrapped things up at the bar, and it was hilarious to see the look on peoples faces to see that Ben Carpenter actually drank beer! For the record I don't think I ever had a drink until I turned 21.

This past weekend, for Labor Day, Tim Fenton and his wife Nicole flew into town, and Tim Staufer, his wife Esther, and their 18 month old Michael drove in, to spend some time together. Tim Fenton was my college roommate for 3 years, so we had some pretty good stories to go around. Ended up doing some typical Detroit things, John K. King used book store, Detroit Jazz Festival, and the Detroit Zoo. At the zoo we had one of the most amazing experiences with one of the polar bears. They have an arctic area this huge glass tube/walkway goes underneath the water. We are inside the tube and this polar bear literally sits right on top of the tube with only six inches of glass separating us. Was one of those moments that you remember for the rest of your life. Very cool. Anyway, we all had an awesome time, reconnecting and making new memories. Also, with an 18 month in the house, I learned about all the things I need to change if I ever have children. Lets just say there were more than one or two small injuries that occurred over the course of several days with Michael.



Until next time!