Ann Arbor

On Sunday I'll be going to Ann Arbor for the four-week statistics seminar.  I verified that the Border's there next to the campus is still open.  I hope I'm still up to the walking involved.  Mike tells me there is a course I should be interested in.  I hope it doesn't meet at eight o'clock.

My Life in Ann Arbor

I love this place. It has all of the amenities of a university town. My apartment is one block off of the University of Michigan campus. I'm within walking distance from almost everything I could possibly want: classes, computer lab, cafes, cleaners, book stores, coffee shops, movies, restaurants (including one Chinese), pizza, drug store, grocery store, ATM machines, clothing store, post office, libraries, shaded walks, barber shop, liquor store,, Art Museum, and Ben and Jerry's, The apartment has a broadband internet connection. There are several places where I can get a wireless connection for my netbook. I run into many people that I know (more than at home). Everyone is friendly. The weather has been to my liking. Unfortunately, the Ritz camera store where I got prints made closed. I can live with that. What else could I wish for? Well, for my girl friend to be here with me. (Gosh, I love that woman.)

UPDATE: I'm back home again.

Back in Ann Arbor

For the sixth year now I attend the summer program (2nd half) of the INTER-UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RESEARCH (ICPSR). My good-hearted nephew, who is an instructor there, takes me along and I sit in on one or more of the classes. We have apartments in the same building and do some things, but not everything, together. He always has lots of friends around. This year I'm "taking" Structural Equation Models w/ Latent Variables. I may add Advanced Bayesian Models for Social Scientists.

I had the date wrong so when I got a phone call from Mike saying he would there at around 10am, I quickly got my stuff together. As usual we stopped at a friend's near Paw Paw who gave us coffee and showed us the damage to her house on a small lake caused by several blown-down trees. We arrived at Maynard House around 5pm and unloaded. My furnished apartment was missing much of the furnishings because they had been cleaning the carpet and hadn't put things back. This was easily remedied. Then we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and drinks and more conversation.

This morning at Frank's Place where Pete has reigned for year's I had my usual breakfast. I was greeted by Pete and by his son-in-law who was taking orders today. No doubt we will see the daughter, Athena, soon. She is such a pleasant person. Next to Frank's is a bicycle shop where, day after day they put about a hundred bicycles outside. In the afternoon they take them in again.

I had pizza with Mike tonight at another nearby place. We had separately found our way to a book store. I was able to have my mail forwarded on line.