Week 2 of the Arctic Breakaway project featured the salads of Breakaway, along with a bowl of soup and a few sandwiches. (As you’ll see, an appetizer made its way into the shoot, too.)
First the salads…
Then one of the soups…
And a few of the sandwiches…
And finally, the (delicious) bruschetta…
If any of those dishes make you hungry, head on over to Arctic Breakaway.
A few weeks ago I began the most delicious job of my short career: photographing every item on the menu of one of my favorite restaurants, Arctic Breakaway. We’re going through one section of the menu each week, and we began with pizza.
Let me warn you: these pictures may make you hungry.
And, of course, what goes with pizza? Cheesy bread!
If these pictures did indeed make you hungry, I suggest you make your way to Arctic Breakaway.
Freshmen: d. by Monroe, 6-54
JV: d. by Monroe, 7-27
Varsity 2010 record: 2-0 (0-0 SEC White)
Location: Chelsea, MI
Opponent: Monroe
Mascot: The Trojans
Real Mascot: The Fighting Scrub Brushes. Wouldn’t this make a great mascot?
Last Decade vs. Chelsea: 0-1. Monroe never faced Chelsea until joining the SEC in 2009.
Last Game vs. Chelsea: Chelsea defeated Monroe 41-7 in 2009
The story so far:
The victory over Huron provided a highly positive start to the post-Nick Hill era, with the security blanket of a stout defense complementing a considerably more diverse offense. Week 2 brought all those positives back to Jerry Niehaus Field to start the home schedule against Monroe, a team that suffered a number of lopsided losses in 2009 but demonstrated ample improvement in 2010 with a close week 1 loss to perennial SEC contender Adrian.
First Quarter:
As they did last week, the Bulldogs started the game faster than Lightning McQueen on a caffeine buzz. After a Monroe three and out and a short punt, Chelsea marched down the field and finished its opening drive with a two-yard Truman Hadley touchdown run; another Monroe three and out yet again provided good field position, and that good field position turned into a nine-yard Berkley Edwards touchdown run. The resulting 13-point deficit finally irked the Scrub Brushes enough to prompt some life out of them, and a 48-yard kick return into Chelsea territory gave the Monroe offense the spark it needed to find the end zone near the end of the first quarter.
Second Quarter:
The second play of the quarter was a Chelsea punt, and it started to go steeply downhill from there; the punt left Monroe on its own 12, but before long the Scrub Brushes had a first and goal on Chelsea’s nine, threatening at least to tie the game with a touchdown and even — gasp! — to take the lead with an extra point. Facing a fourth and goal on the three, Monroe elected to avoid the field goal attempt in favor of the siren song of the potential of six points; that proved to be a mistake, as the Chelsea defense made the stop at the one. On the next play, quarterback Brian Paulsen connected with receiver Mason Borders for 33 yards, and before Monroe could blink as many times as one might blink in a minute and a half, Chelsea had finished its 99-yard, 90-second scoring drive with a nine-yard Paulsen touchdown pass to Chris Ballow.
The rest of the quarter was relatively uneventful; Monroe fumbled once, but Chelsea couldn’t capitalize on the turnover. Still, Chelsea retained its 19-7 lead at the end of the half.
Third quarter:
The start of the second half was a mirror image of the first, with Monroe forcing a Chelsea three and out and moving down the field to score. A second Chelsea punt paved the way for another strong drive by Monroe, but it ended in disaster when the Scrub Brushes fumbled the ball away inside the Chelsea 20. The Bulldogs offense ate up the last two minutes of the third quarter…
Fourth Quarter:
… and the first two minutes of the fourth quarter on its way to a 17-yard Paulsen touchdown pass to Borders. Monroe soon fumbled the ball yet again, and three minutes later a one-yard Paulsen touchdown run to provided a considerably more comfortable 31-13 lead…that lasted all of 14 seconds thanks to a 77-yard Monroe touchdown run. Oops. Chelsea recovered Monroe’s onside kick, but an interception gave the Scrub Brushes the ball on the sunny side of midfield with just under five minutes to play; however, though Monroe worked its way into another first and goal, the Chelsea defense again stood tall on fourth and goal, making the stop on the five yard line with only 59 seconds left in the game. Two knees later, the game was done.
Final Score:
Chelsea: 31
Monroe: 20
Don’t Forget My Number:
Photographic Evidence:
Chelsea linemen practice an alternative to the Heimlich Maneuver.
This is not a stickup. They’ve just got spirit. Yeah!
Coach Scheese is begging you to gain yardage. Please?
Conor Tait is singin’ in the rain, but without the rain. And the singing.
Joey Newland has a strict no-hitchhiker policy, but some hitchhikers are persistent.
There used to be a lineman over center, but David Slusser vaporized him with his glare.
It’s the newest Olympic sport: synchronized footballing!
Apparently someone made the mistake of telling Logan Yordanich to “take his head off.”
Mason Borders does his best Blues Brothers imitation.
It’s so hard to stiff arm a defender when nobody volunteers to be stiff armed.
Obviously, it is the opinion of this jury that the Chelsea football team is good-looking.
Andrew Koch is always ready to comfort those who mourn. Even if they’re mourning the end of the play and he’s the one ending the play.
Truman Hadley must be looking for #1, Matt Gillespie.
Braylon Edwards’ beard can actually prevent concussions.
Charlie Kempf will not let you derail the Berkley Express.
It’s hard to tell if the defender is running towards Brian Paulsen or away from the edge of the frame. Either way, he’s in trouble.
Yes, Mason Borders. The goal posts are that way. But don’t tear them down just yet!
Cal Bauer and Ray Zielinski must have just seen Justin Bieber!
Matt Gillespie is so happy, he feels like he’s floating. He looks like it, too.
Next Week:
The Bulldogs face the Controversial Mascots of Ypsilanti. The game is in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. Be there!
Freshmen: defeated by Huron, 0-23
JV: defeated Huron, 41-14
Varsity 2010 record: 1-0 (0-0 SEC White)
First, a note to assuage the inevitable curiosity: T.A.D. is the team’s slogan this year, and it stands for Trust, Accountability and Desire.
Okay. On to the game.
Location: Ypsilanti, MI (Eastern Michigan University’s Rynearson Stadium)
Opponent: Ann Arbor Huron
Mascot: The River Rats
Real Mascot: The Hurons. If Pioneer can be the Pioneer Pioneers, then Huron should be the Huron Hurons.
Last Decade vs. Chelsea: 0-4. Huron is 1-6 overall against Chelsea, with the lone victory coming in the first game between the teams in 1997.
Last Game vs Chelsea: Chelsea defeated Huron 35-29 in 2009
The story so far:
Ever since the end of the 2009 season, the Chelsea football program has been bombarded with countless variations of the same question: “What are you going to do without Nick Hill?” While it’s easy to answer that question with countless variations of “Chelsea football is more than one player,” the only answer that quiets the questions is the answer on the field. The game against Huron provided an opportunity to show yet again that Chelsea football is not just one player, but a complete and consistent program.
First Quarter:
When phalanges met football (phootball?) to open the 2010 season, senior Matt Gillespie — whom AnnArbor.com described as “diminutive” — gave Chelsea the fastest start possible: he returned the opening kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown. After the first of Huron’s four first-quarter three and outs, Nate Udell kept the party going with a 48-yard touchdown pass to Mason Borders; after another Huron three and out and a 41-yard Chris Ballow punt return to the 20 yard line, sophomore Berkley Edwards scored his first career varsity touchdown, giving Chelsea a 19-0 lead only six minutes into the game.
The rest of the quarter was decidedly uneventful: Chelsea’s offense took a nap and lost a fumble, and Huron managed to gain exactly one first down.
Second Quarter:
Chelsea’s offensive nap continued into the second quarter, and its sleepiness even rubbed off on the defense: after Bradbury Robinson‘s gentle reminder to Huron that the forward pass is indeed legal, Huron used a 38-yard pass play to invade Chelsea territory on its way to a touchdown. That touchdown ended the slumber of the Chelsea defense: while Huron’s next drive crossed midfield, it stalled well out of danger at the 40. However, Chelsea’s offense continued to doze, so the half ended with Chelsea leading, 19-7.
Quite inexcusably, there was no marching band entertainment at halftime.
Third Quarter:
It seems there were no alarm clocks in either locker room at halftime: for over 11 minutes of the third quarter, the closest anybody came to any sort of excitement was a missed 48-yard field goal by Chelsea. But just when the game was beginning to feel more like golf than football, senior quarterback Brian Paulsen woke up the Bulldog faithful with a six-yard touchdown run with only 25 seconds left in the quarter, giving Chelsea a 26-7 lead. Huron produced a glimmer of hope with a 29-yard pass play to end the third quarter inside the Chelsea 40…
Fourth Quarter:
…But a series of negative plays and penalties pushed Huron back out to midfield, ending the drive with a short punt and effectively ending hopes for a comeback. From that point the game consisted of Huron playing football mostly against a cast of Chelsea backups on both sides of the ball. Even so, Huron couldn’t finish a drive, so the score remained unchanged through the fourth quarter.
Final Score:
Chelsea: 26
Huron: 7
Don’t Forget My Number:
Photographic Evidence:
All I said was that there were fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies on the other sideline. They must have been hungry.
The Huron kicker just wanted to tell Matt Gillespie a secret…
…And Gillespie said, “Sure! Come tell it to me in the end zone.”
Either they’re enthusiastically volunteering…or they’re doing the wigalow. Hands up high, feet down low!
Wonders Mason Borders: “Wait…wasn’t there supposed to be a defense?”
Logan Yordanich can multitask: he can make a tackle and look at the camera at the same time!
Side effects of Chris Ballow may include missed tackles.
“Okay…I think we should all go to the Eminem and Jay-Z show in Detroit. Oh, and I guess we should run a play now, too.”
Is that defender going to be able to stop Berkley Edwards from crossing the goal line?
Of course not! You can’t stop the Berkley Express from reaching his destination.
Huron tried a radical new strategy of not blocking anybody. It was a remarkable success.
Charlie Hess will make you jump! Jump!
Logan Yordanich can push you out of bounds simply by gesturing at you.
Well, look who’s Mr. Popular!
Though Huron’s scouting indicated otherwise, Nate Udell is, in fact, not ticklish.
Calling Joey Newland’s running lane a gaping hole is like calling Warren Buffett moderately wealthy.
No, really: Joey Newland is in there somewhere.
Yes, the Chelsea student section is that intimidating.
Brian Paulsen can’t shake the feeling he’s being followed.
Aaron Johnson knows the answer to your question.
Now that he has your attention, can Logan Yordanich interest you in a timeshare?
You’d think EMU would have opened more than one checkout lane.
“You know what would get that stain out and leave your jersey brilliantly white? Tide with Bleach. Trust me.”
Cal Bauer and Anthony Catalina are all about teamwork.
Be careful — if you make eye contact with Matt Gillespie, he’ll steal your soul!
The scoreboard operator cleared the score too quickly, but trust me: Chelsea won, 26-7.
Next Week:
The Bulldogs face the Trojans of Monroe. The game is in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. Be there!
To those who know me — and even those who don’t — it’s no secret that my favorite season is football. I mean, fall. Did you know the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was originally written about football season? It was! But then those greedy Christmas profiteers got their hands on it and rewrote it to be a Christmas song. (The last three sentences may or may not be fictional. And by “may or may not be” I mean “definitely are.”)
Chelsea football began early in August, and yea, it heralded a time of great joy. Why? Because the beginning of football practice is happier than a Prozac sandwich with Zoloft bread. I visited the football field on the second day of practice to get my share of the happiness.
I’m legally required to get at least one of these shots every year.
Coach Brown the Younger must be a big fan both of footballs and of Tropicana’s orange juice packaging.
Is this a dance contest? I’ll never tell…
Throughout the first week of practice, players had to battle high temperatures and nearly unbearable jealousy of Coach Brown the Elder’s visor.
Cal Bauer does his best imitation of a European exit sign.
Here’s a dirty little secret of Chelsea High School athletics: Gatorade cups and water bottles almost never contain Gatorade.
No one — and I mean no one — can backpedal fast enough to get away from Coach Dignan’s steely gaze.
Coach Fanning once again amuses himself by telling the players to line up alphabetically by height.
Chelsea’s summer-long Sounds & Sights on Thursday Nights events features one extended weekend with three evenings of concerts under a tent on a downtown parking lot.
Thursday evening: Champions of Breakfast
Thursday evening: My Dear Disco
Friday evening: the Howling Diablos
Between acts Friday evening, the CHS drumline entertained the crowd.
Friday evening: the Sun Messengers
Saturday afternoon: Koala Tease
Saturday afternoon: Dr. Dwayne and the Bad Boys From Spain
Saturday evening: Noteworthy
Saturday evening: Fifty Amp Fuse
In mid-July, the Chelsea Garden Club held its biennial Garden Walk, an event that gives the public a chance to walk through ten of the Chelsea area’s more beautiful gardens.
The Mastie garden:
The Mann garden:
The Larson garden:
The Dreher garden:
The Inwood garden:
The Cooper garden:
In mid-July, Grass Lake hosted a Michigan Hydroplane Racing Association event.
The start of a hydroplane race is a little different: the boats are given a one-minute countdown to start, with a large clock at the starting line displaying the countdown. Racers try to time their run to the start line so that they cross exactly when the clock hits zero. If they cross before the clock hits zero, they’re disqualified.
One racer cut a corner too close and caught a buoy with his boat.
Another racer caught just a little bit too much air and flipped his boat; once it was towed back to shore, other racers helped flipped it over. The racer suffered only a few bumps and bruises.
To race an Ironman triathlon, you have to be more than a little determined. And by determined, I mean crazy. Why? Because while an Olympic triathlon covers nearly 32 miles (.93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike, 6.2-mile run) and is finished by top pros in roughly two hours, an Ironman triathlon covers over 140 miles (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run) and is finished by top pros in at least eight hours. It’s not just regular crazy; it’s italicized crazy.
On the last Sunday in July, over 2,600 italicized crazy competitors descended on Lake Placid, NY for the 2010 Ironman Lake Placid triathlon, determined to spend up to seventeen hours conquering one of the more difficult U.S. Ironman triathlon courses outside of Hawaii. Oh, and did I mention that one of those italicized crazy competitors was my brother? Because one of the competitors was my brother, Luman.
Luman’s race day started bright and early: he left the hotel at 5:00am to be in town well in advance of the 7:00am start time. We spectators took up our positions by Mirror Lake and watched as the competitors entered the water and waited for the cannon. Unsurprisingly, the start line grew crowded with over 2,600 people in it.
The kayaker and the scuba divers are there to help competitors who run into trouble. Support volunteers (with boats, kayaks and surf boards) were stationed all along the course, and scuba divers were stationed beneath the course.
The race started with a massive flurry of arms and legs churning the water.
Luman later recounted the violent chaos of the swim start, telling us he got kicked numerous times, once getting his goggles knocked off.
While the swimmers were all concentrating on navigating the course, we spectators were treated to the beautiful scenery surrounding Lake Placid.
The dark clouds over the mountain weren’t empty threats: in the middle of the swim, it began to rain.
The rain was inconvenient for us spectators, but since the swimmers were in the water, it didn’t make much difference to them. It lasted only a few minutes, and but for one two brief light showers over the next hour or so, it remained dry and overcast the rest of the day.
As the swim photos show, there was no realistic way to spot Luman in the water; when you put wetsuits, swim caps and goggles on a crowd of men, they start to look the same. I stood at the swim finish for 45 minutes watching the swimmers finish their first lap, and I don’t know how many men I saw that I could have sworn were Luman. That means you’ll have to look at the swim photos above and pretend you can see Luman somewhere in the crowd.
The swim finish was crowded and chaotic, too, but since the competitors spread out a little bit over the course of the swim, it was chaos on a smaller scale.
There was a bevy of volunteers stationed on the beach, and they all had one job: to help remove the competitors’ wetsuits. Though we couldn’t spot Luman in the water, we were fortunate enough to spot him on the beach.
With his wetsuit removed, Luman began the quarter-mile run to the transition.
Luman finished the swim in 1:17:44 — nearly 20 minutes faster than he expected. It was a good start to his day.
On the path from the swim to the bike, one spectator had a curious note of encouragement for the competitors.
We weren’t able to make it to the bike start to see Luman, so we headed into town to enjoy the local Starbucks while we waited for him to finish his first lap. He thought his first bike lap would be about three hours, but since he rode more conservatively, it ended up being three and a half hours. We stationed ourselves in front of the 1980 Olympic arena in the middle of town to wait for him, and he greeted us happily as he passed.
With Luman out for his second bike lap, it’s time for a brief tangent.
If the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic arena sounds familiar to you, there’s a good reason. It was the site of one of the greatest events in sports history: the Miracle on Ice. (If you’re not familiar with the Miracle on Ice, you should click the link and read about it.) The arena is open on race day, and while we were waiting for Luman to finish his second bike lap, we found an open door that let us onto one of the benches.
The arena is immaculately maintained and is still in regular use. It’s amazing to walk into the arena when it’s quiet and imagine the pandemonium back in February 1980, when the upstart U.S. hockey team upset the seemingly unstoppable Soviet team. For any sports fan with a sense of history, the Lake Placid arena should be on the must-visit list.
You may have noticed my shirt in the above photo. As explained in a previous post, that’s the shirt I designed as a way of showing support for Luman. We found the high-profile bright yellow shirts to be very useful: it was easy for us to spot each other, and it was easy for Luman to spot us. (The following photo is courtesy of my sister.)
Though he’s dressed for sleeping in the above photo, even baby Simeon donned the yellow!
With that tangent complete, we headed to the bike transition area to watch the end of Luman’s bike ride. While we were waiting, we were reminded that the Ironman is a brutal test for anyone; as one competitor rolled into the transition area, the volunteers immediately began calling for the medical staff. His day ended on the shoulders of two volunteers.
Luman entered the transition a few minutes later in much better shape.
Luman was consistent on the bike, keeping his second lap only a few minutes slower than his first; he finished the bike in 7:06:33. A few minutes later he was through the transition and on the run course.
For spectators, the run is by far the easiest of the three events. It’s practically impossible to pick any one swimmer out of the crowd, and the bikes cruise by at a fast pace, but the runners lope by at a pace that makes it much easier to spot specific competitors. As well, because the course is two laps around an L-shape rather than a loop like the bike course, the corner of the L affords four chances to spot your competitors. That also makes it easy to spot the more extraordinary competitors, like this remarkably determined gentleman.
Though the race was (understandably!) beginning to wear on Luman, he still had a smile and a wave whenever he passed us.
As Luman began his second lap of the run, we headed to the finish line to wait for him. While we waited, we were thoroughly entertained by the steady stream of overjoyed competitors crossing the finish line. Seriously: the finish line of an Ironman is one of the happiest places on earth. Some finishers danced their way to the finish line, one even did a cartwheel, and even the finishers who clearly had just enough to reach the finish line still had a look of pure happiness on their faces.
After a couple hours — shortly after the sun set — we saw Luman enter the final stretch. He was weary, but like the other finishers, he was happy.
Going into the race, Luman’s goal was to finish in 14 hours. He finished the run in 5:23:43, and he crossed the finish line at 14:08:57.
Though he’d just finished 14 hours of non-stop exertion, he had no trouble walking back to the van. And though we all expected him to be out of commission the next day, he was limber enough to join us on our visit to the top of Whiteface Mountain. In fact, while he admitted to being a bit sore, he seemed to be more spry than some of us spectators — an accomplishment he attributed to his rigorous training.
Before the trip to Lake Placid, Luman’s wife had arranged for a surprise: an artistic friend was going to paint the Chelsea rock to celebrate Luman’s successful race. We arrived home Tuesday night, and by noon on Wednesday the rock was celebrating Luman’s accomplishment. A few minutes later, Luman arrived to find his surprise.
During the summer the rock often is painted once a day, but Mr. Strong’s Ironman rock remained unblemished from Wednesday noon through Monday evening.
My brother has long held the goal of completing an Ironman triathlon, and in only a few hours (at 7 a.m. on Sunday) he’ll begin the final leg of that goal when he starts the 2010 Ironman Lake Placid.
(For those of you unaware of the Ironman, it consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run; it began in Hawaii in 1978 after an argument about which athletes were the most fit, and it continues today as a highly reliable method of determining insanity.)
His Ironman journey began in earnest last July, when we traveled to Lake Placid to watch the 2009 race and to register him for the 2010 race. (Ironman Lake Placid is so popular that if you don’t sign up in person, you don’t make it.) While we were watching the race, we noticed many families and friends printed special shirts to show their support for their racers. We all liked that idea, so we began thinking about ideas for his shirt; by the end of the day, I had an idea.
If you’ve seen my Christmas cards, you know I enjoy taking something widely-recognized and re-appropriating it for a different purpose. When it comes to widely-recognized, few shirts can top the eye-catching LIVESTRONG shirts offered by the Lance Armstrong Foundation:
It just so happens that not only does my brother’s first name begin with an L, but his last name also begins with an S and ends with a trong, making that shirt perfect for this particular re-appropriation. Before long, I had the shirt design ready to go:
While at Ironman Lake Placid 2009, we also noticed some families chose to add Bible verses to the back of their shirts. The LIVESTRONG shirt has no design on the back, but it was important to both my brother and me that we include a verse as a display of our faith. Most families used one of the same two verses: Isaiah 40:31 or Hebrews 12:1-2. Those are both superb verses that express important Biblical truth and fit the situation, but they’re also the popular choices. I didn’t want popular, so I mulled it over a bit and decided to use a verse that expressed important Biblical truth and fit the situation, but in a different way. The verse I chose was Proverbs 27:17, and the back design makes it clear how it fits the situation:
