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Photo of the Cross Country Finals Now: 5 November 2011

The MHSAA cross country lower peninsula championship is a great event held at a remarkable venue: Michigan International Speedway. It’s become one of my favorite events to shoot, in part simply because of the venue.

Like last year, both Chelsea boys and girls qualified for the championship. Here you can see the division 2 girls race starting with the racetrack in the background. (The Bulldogs are in the center of the photo in the yellow and white uniforms.)

After getting a few photos at the start, I took up residence at the finish line.

A little while later, the division 2 boys race made its way through the course and approached the finish line. When the lead runners rounded the final bend and came into my view, do you know who was leading the way to the finish line? Well…you might. But if you don’t, I’ll tell you: it was Chelsea’s own Bryce Bradley!

In the following photo, you may notice that his knee brace is no longer bracing his knee. Instead, it’s bracing his ankle.

Despite his knee brace’s well-intentioned but entirely unhelpful relocation, Bradley crossed the finish line in first. And not only did he finish in first, but he had the fastest time across all four divisions. In other words, Bryce Bradley was the fastest high school cross country runner in the lower peninsula. Is that impressive? Oh man, that’s impressive. That’s impressive.

(If you’re curious, his championship time was 15:20.6.)

At the awards ceremony, Bradley received congratulations from the second-place finisher.

He then smiled just a little bit. Just a little tiny bit.

It Takes 11: Week 2 vs East Lansing

Varsity 2011 record: 1-1 (0-0 SEC White)

The Enemy:
Opponent: East Lansing
Mascot: Trojans
Last Year’s Record: 7-3
Previous Result vs. Chelsea: 24-16 EL win (2007)
Last 10 years vs. Chelsea: 1-0
Miscellany: East Lansing High School is just across town from Michigan State University. MSU is the Spartans; ELHS is the Trojans. MSU is green and white; ELHS is blue and white and wears uniforms strikingly similar to those of Penn State, an MSU rival. Perhaps best of all: ELHS fans frequently utilize the cheer “Go Blue!” — a favorite cheer of Michigan, MSU’s hated rival. I might be tempted to make MSU-related jokes, but whether by accident or by design, ELHS is as far from MSU as ethics are from OSU football.

The Photos:


Mark Moundros covers the points. Do you cover the points?


Grant Fanning will give you five good reasons.


The marching band paid tribute to CHS cross country runner Kersch Ray, who had been hit by a car that morning and was in a coma.

In the first half, Tyler Geiger grabbed an interception and returned it for a touchdown:

After that, the Chelsea defense got back to its regularly-scheduled tackling.


The student section saw the signs. They opened up their minds. They saw the signs.


This isn’t quite the intent of the slogan, but…hey, it works. Actually, it works remarkably well. Excellent work.


Frowny face.

Photo of the Kersch Ray Fundraiser Now: 25 October 2011

If you’re in the Chelsea area, you’re probably familiar with the Kersch Ray story. If not, let me catch you up:

Back in early September, the Chelsea High School cross country team was out on an early morning run when two runners were hit by a car. One of the runners — Kersch Ray — suffered two broken legs and a closed head injury and spent ten days in a coma. He woke up, began rehab, and started speaking again. And then, just over two months after the accident, he went home to continue his recovery.

With the family supporting Kersch in his recovery, the community of Chelsea stepped up to support the family. On the 25th of October, a variety of local businesses and individuals gathered together and put on a spaghetti dinner and silent auction at CHS.

It was very well-attended.

There was an abundance of silent auction items around the room.

There was one particular donation that was extremely well-received:

No, I didn’t partake. I was working.

The spaghetti dinner was provided by the folks at one of Chelsea’s most legendary restaurants: Thompson’s Pizzeria. What’s that? You haven’t eaten at Thompson’s? GO. GO NOW. If you’re in southeastern Michigan and you haven’t had Thompson’s pizza, you’re missing out. It’s delicious.

The Ray family was grateful for the support from the community.

Photo of the Fire Station Open House Now: 16 October 2011

Every year, the Chelsea Area Fire Authority opens up the fire station to allow local kids to check out the firefighting equipment. It’s a great event that’s been happening for years — I remember visiting the fire station when I was a kid — and once again this year it was well-attended.

Yes, CAFA has a hovercraft. CAFA is that cool. A while back I asked a firefighter about the hovercraft, and he told me it’s great for rescues on the ice. There are a number of lakes around Chelsea, so it’s a useful tool. And it’s also really, really cool.

The fire station is in the shadow of the famous Jiffy Mixes silos:

Behind the station — back near the silos — they had a firefighter with a hose set up for kids to try. That’s what I most clearly remember from my visit to the station as a kid. It’s fun.

As usual, it was a popular attraction.

This little guy was very intent on his task:

If you didn’t make it to the open house this year, be sure to make it next year. Your kids will have a great time checking out the trucks, and you’ll get a chance to meet our local firefighters and to let them know you appreciate the work they do.

Photo of the Irish Hills Scenery Now: 12 October 2011

In an effort to catch a little bit of fall color, my parents and I visited Hidden Lake Gardens, a botanical gardens and arboretum in the Irish Hills. It was still warm, so the colors were a bit sparse. Still, the scenery was beautiful.

We decided to explore one of the trails. While on that trail, we found the most obvious sign in the whole county.

I was hoping to find another sign in the middle of a field somewhere saying “NOT A ROAD”.

The colors may have been a bit sparse, but there were plenty of leaves.

Some of them were even colorful!

The birch trees were still plenty white, though.

Elsewhere in the gardens is one of my favorite trees.

Sure, it may not look like much from the outside. But wait until you get inside!

There’s only one problem with this tree: people seem to think it’s a good idea to carve their names or initials in the bark.

I don’t understand what’s so appealing about carving things into trees, but since so many people do it, I’m assuming there must be something fulfilling about it.

From there we went to the conservatory. The arid dome has a collection of fascinating plants.

Outside the conservatory is a bonsai collection.

We found more color back in the conservatory’s temperate house.

We also found a plant that could become violent at any moment.

I’m happy to report that it didn’t attack while I was there. (Yes, I know the military term is spelled with an e. Don’t rain on my fun.)

Back outside not far from the conservatory, there was a cluster of maple trees full of color — mostly yellow. Many of the leaves had already fallen, providing a thick, brightly-colored carpet.

There still were plenty of leaves on the tree, though, and some of them were still holding onto a bit of green.

If you’ve never been to Hidden Lake Gardens, I’d recommend a visit — it’s gorgeous. It’s relatively drab right now since it’s November, but there’s beauty in a Michigan landscape no matter the season. And if a winter landscape isn’t your thing, don’t worry: it’ll be spring soon enough.

Photo of the Beach Wedding Now: 7-9 October 2011

(Before I start this post, let me reiterate something: I DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH WEDDINGS. This was a very special exception for two very good friends. If you ask me to photograph your wedding, I will say no. Save yourself the crushing disappointment by finding another photographer.)

Remember those engagement photos featuring Mike, Bethany, and Mike’s beard? Well, as often happens at the end of an engagement, Mike and Bethany got married. To celebrate the occasion, I showed up with my camera to get a few photos.

They got married on the beach at Somerset Beach Campground, where Bethany had been working for several years and where they’d met. What do beaches have? Beaches have sand.

Before the guests started arriving, we took a couple minutes to get a few photos.

You may have noticed that Mike has abundant hair on his face, while Bethany has abundant hair on her head. If that’s not the sign of a perfect match, I don’t know what is.

The following photo may be my favorite of the bunch.

Before long, the ceremony started. Mike was waiting off to the side with an outstandingly beardy set of groomsmen. (This was one of the many benefits of having a motorcycle club involved in the ceremony.)

What was he waiting for? He was waiting for this:

Mike was glad to be done with all that waiting.

With an outdoor wedding there’s always a risk that it’ll be cold or rainy or tornadoey or Floridaey or something, but Mike and Bethany managed to pick one of the most perfect days of the entire month.

Seriously: not only was it not overcast or rainy, but it wasn’t even cold. In fact, it was just warm enough to be t-shirt weather. (This may have been why I was wearing a t-shirt.)

Bethany’s flower girl was her niece. Though the wedding was reasonably short, her niece decided it was long enough that she needed to find some entertainment. Fortunately, the sand provided plenty of entertainment — and a good photo opportunity:

One of the more inexplicable wedding traditions is the unity candle. I guess it’s appealing if you’re a big fan of fire or if the room is cold or something — though in both cases it should be a unity bonfire — but like most wedding customs, it’s not really a good use of everybody’s time. Seriously, people: it takes ten seconds to light a candle. Pairing a ten-second ceremony with a three-minute song is monumentally inefficient and serves only to make everybody uncomfortable as you whisper sweet nothings to each other for two minutes and fifty seconds.

Anyway: when planning their wedding day, Mike and Bethany did many, many things right. One such thing was to dump the unity candle in favor of a sand ceremony. They had small containers of two colors of sand…

…and in a sequence that lasted much longer than ten seconds, they filled one larger container with layers of the sand:

This ceremony provided them with something that looks nice enough to display. What does a unity candle provide you with? A partially-burned candle. I mean, seriously…do people ever really think about wedding traditions? Is a ceremony that partially destroys an object preferable to one that creates an attractive decoration? Enough with the candles. If you’re going to have a wedding, try to be more like Mike and Bethany.

The wedding ended successfully: Mike and Bethany ended up married. And there was much congratulating.

When the congratulating was done, Mike and Bethany signed the government’s version of the unity candle sand.

This marked the first time Bethany had officially signed her new name.

Yes, she spelled it right, wise guy.

One of the other things Mike and Bethany did right was to separate the wedding and reception: they had a small wedding on Friday, and they had a larger reception on Sunday. I didn’t have my camera out during the reception, but I had it ready when they were leaving.

Because they were leaving on a motorcycle, it was neither practical nor wise for Bethany to wear her wedding dress for their exit. She had another outfit for that occasion.

She was happy to be married.

Before they roared off into the…uh, afternoon sun, they paused for a few more photos.

Yes, that’s my shadow in the bottom left. That’s how you know I was there. Well, that and all these photos.

Ah, but wait: it wasn’t just Mike and Bethany roaring off into the afternoon sun! They were accompanied by a dozen or so members of the motorcycle club.

This was by far the best wedding reception exit I’d ever seen (and heard). A limo? Eh. A classic car? Okay. A tractor? Not bad. A horse and buggy? Also not bad. But a bunch of motorcycles? OH YEAH.

And that, as they say, is that. Hearty congratulations to Mike and Bethany.

Photo of the Veterans Day Now: 11 November 2011

Chelsea held a Veterans Day ceremony at the city’s veterans memorial. The event attracted a great crowd of veterans.

See those veterans kneeling in the front row? Those are the World War II veterans.

A group of students from South School — South Meadows Elementary for you newcomers who don’t know any better — walked down to the park to sing a couple songs for the crowd.

Chelsea mayor Jason Lindauer introduced the speaker.

The speaker was Col. James Coolican.

Coolican served 28 years in the U.S. Marine Corps; his assignments included: Brigade Chief of Staff Advisor to the South Vietnamese Army; Company Commander, Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.; U.S. Naval Academy Faculty; Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations Division-NATO HQ, Italy; Director Marine Corps Doctrine Center; and Chief of Staff, Marine Corps Forces, Europe.

His personal awards include the Navy Cross; Legion of Merit; Navy-Marine Corps Medal; Bronze Star with Combat Distinguishing Device; Purple Heart; Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Combat Action Ribbon; Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry; and Vietnamese Honor Medal.

Col. Coolican started out by talking to the kids.

He then spoke to the crowd as a whole. His speech wasn’t short, but it was worth every second.

When the ceremony was finished, the students thanked the veterans for their service.

Afterwards, the veterans headed to the conference center at the Comfort Inn to watch the Chelsea library’s documentary detailing the experiences of local World War II veterans.

Before the documentary, Jeremy Ziegler gave the Toast for the Fallen.

Veterans Day 2011

Today, the city of Chelsea held a Veterans Day ceremony at the local veterans memorial. The memorial was dedicated two and a half years ago, but — as I’m embarrassed to admit — up until a few weeks ago I didn’t realize it existed. On a clear day last week I visited the memorial to get a few photos.

(I’ll post photos of the ceremony on another day.)