Category Archives: Photos

Photo of the Basketball Now: 16 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced Bedford. Officially they’re known as the Kicking Mules, but in basketball it’s illegal to kick the ball, so the mascot may require some adaptation to be appropriate. The Dribbling Mules? The Free-Throw Shooting Mules? There are any number of possibilities, really.

Anyway: Chelsea basketball faced the Bedford Fill-In-The-Blank Mules. On that particular evening they must have been the Rented Mules, because Chelsea beat them like…oh, you get it.


“No, see, you have to turn right onto Old US-12. Then you’ll see Thompson’s Pizzeria shortly after you pass M-52.”

Photo of the Hockey Now: 14 December 2011

Chelsea hockey faced Lumen Christi, one of its most strenuously not-so-liked rivals. For a time it looked like Chelsea was going to run — er, skate — away with the game, but Lumen Christi scored a few third-period goals to make it interesting. Regardless, the good guys won.

Who had the answer to the Lumen Christi defense? These guys did.

Get? They’re raising their hands because they had the answ…oh, never mind. I know that was a stretch. Just go with it.

Gravity is a powerful force, but as any good hockey player knows, sometimes it needs some help. The Bulldogs are nothing if not helpful.

Since the Bulldogs did plenty of scoring, they also did plenty of celebrating.

Plenty of celebrating. (The crowd enjoyed it, too.)

See?

The Bulldogs were celebrating more good times than Kool & the Gang.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 13 December 2011

Chelsea faced Flat Rock. Wait, what? No, Flat Rock isn’t Nebraska’s version of Plymouth Rock. It’s a small town in southeastern Michigan. It’s a town where they still actually build actual cars in an actual factory in the actual state of Michigan. It’s also a town that — according to Wikipedia, which is completely reliable all the time no matter what, right? — is home to a Law & Order: SVU actor.

These young fans brought a little extra encouragement for two of the Bulldogs:

Photo of the Santa in an Abandoned Factory Now: 11 December 2011

If you’ve driven down Main Street in Chelsea, you might have noticed a decaying factory building just south of downtown. For decades that factory housed Federal Screw Works, but in 2005 the company shut it down. It’s been maxin’ and relaxin’ ever since, taking up space and looking all hip and run-down like that weird guy at that too-cool-for-school coffeeshop. (However, redeveloping that guy would be a lot easier than redeveloping the old factory site.)

One Sunday afternoon my editor called and wondered if I was free to join her at FSW. She said the University of Michigan was putting on some sort of event there, but she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t get invited to abandoned warehouses very often — probably because my name isn’t Horatio Caine — so I said I’d be there.

When I arrived, I realized why she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. Here’s an excerpt from the brochure that accompanied the event:

In the collective optic, oscillating between fetishism and lament, ubiquity and monumentality, engagement and distanciation, a state of being and coming undone, the ruin has resurfaced as a site of symbolic appropriation, chimerical exploration, material contestation, and fabricated desire. Welcome to Federal Screw Works.

Later:

Can the self-reflexive cultivation of enthusiasm for the ruin help build support for its transformation; can the pluralistic reimaging of ruin help concerned constituents speculate about alternative futures for a derelict site? In consideration of these questions, Federal Screw staged an event and collective exploration, a first step in a forthcoming master plan for Chelsea Common.

Make of that what you will. To this decidedly non-academic layperson it appeared to be an art exhibition housed in a crumbling factory. It might hold more meaning to all y’all in the academic or art worlds, but I’m just a guy in the taking pictures for money world. I don’t fly in that stratosphere.

When I walked into the factory I was greeted by raucous percussion echoing through the cavernous main room. The source of that percussion? Santa. No, seriously. Santa was playing the drums. What, you don’t believe me? Here’s a picture.

You can get a sense for the level of decay the factory has suffered by the standing water on the floor. The roof, the roof, the roof doesn’t do its job very well anymore.

Here’s the whole scene. If the wall on the right side appears to be a bit newer, that’s because it is. It was hastily constructed after the original wall suddenly collapsed a few years ago.

Okay, fine, that wasn’t actually Santa playing the drums. How do I know this? Primarily because Santa is a jolly old fraud,* but also because his name was in the brochure. His name is Leo Denoyer.

*(Hey, if your Santa-believing child is reading this blog, he’s old enough to know better.)

On the left side of the above photo you can see a low wall. On the other side of that wall was a display of balloons.

This had nothing to do with barrage balloons in World War II, though that would have been a nifty historical reference. The brochure lists the balloon display as “Phytoremediation forest doppelgänger“.

A couple rooms away was a mildly disorienting display that involved optical illusions and disposable shoe covers. (The shoe covers weren’t part of the display. They actually were for covering shoes.)

When I sent the photos to my editor, I provided the following caption for the above photo: “Optical illusions: fraud for your eyes.”

There were people wandering around with cameras, but I have a sneaking suspicion I was the only oddball getting paid to take photos. Here’s one of those other camera people taking a picture of the mildly disorienting display.

The FSW factory is a very large building, and the gentleman in charge indicated they had a very limited budget for the project. This meant most of the building was simply left in its naturally dilapidated state, as seen here:

Though I may not be able to explain the event that was taking place in the building, I can tell you that I was excited to see the interior of the old FSW building. Having lived in Chelsea for 30 years now, and having watched the building slowly decay over the past six years, I’ve long been curious to see the interior of FSW. Now I’ve seen it.

…And, like few others, I’ve seen Santa playing the drums in it.

(In case you’re curious, here’s the article my editor wrote. She did a much better job of making sense of it all.)

Photo of the Basketball Now: 9 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced South Lyon. Both my editor and I kept getting confused, though, because South Lyon’s uniforms were nearly identical to Saline’s. I’m pretty sure we both referred to them as Saline at least once. Hey, don’t judge: we see Saline much more frequently than we see South Lyon.

For the uninitiated, this is a basketball:

The student section was happy to see Cody:

This is what happens when members of the student section ask you to take a picture:

Jack would like you to look over there:

But Logan is looking at you:

It was a close game, but the Bulldogs fended off the South Lyon Lions — the Fightin’ Redundancies — for the win.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 7 December 2011

Chelsea hockey faced the Ann Arbor Skyline Eagles. It would have been great if I could have said Chelsea hockey faced the Ann Arbor Schembechler Aviators, but noooooooo, the school board had to be as generic as it possibly could have been. Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the mail that arrives at Skyline is addressed to “Resident” or “Occupant.” That’s how generic they made this school. It’s sad, really. Where is Skyline High School? Why, just look for the skyline! In…every city…on earth. Who are the Eagles? Why, they’re the sports teams at the local high school…in dozens of towns…across the state of Michigan. WHOA. Way to be proud of your city, school board. You created the store brand of high schools. The Store Brand High School Fightin’ Generics. Go team!

Anyway. Skyline hockey isn’t what you’d call “great” unless your meaning of the word “great” is “undermanned,” so the game got a little lopsided.


“Hooray! Our high school has a meaningful name and our logo is easily recognizable!”

Okay, I know I complained a lot at the beginning of the post, but I’m not quite done. I have very important sartorial complaints. Specifically, I have absolutely no love for Skyline’s colors and logo.

First, the color scheme: it’s actually baby blue and white. Officially I think it’s Carolina blue, but let’s be honest: it’s baby blue. The problem with this color scheme is that it doesn’t lend itself to appealing sports uniforms. (North Carolina basketball may get away with it, but that doesn’t mean you can.) A good color scheme features contrasting dark and light colors so you can produce good home and away uniforms. Baby blue doesn’t contrast with white. No, to the contrary: they’re peas in a pod. Baby blue actually hangs out with white all the time. They go to the clubs together and dance like nobody is watching, primarily because nobody can see them. They both vote the same straight ticket on election day. They like the same awful romantic comedies. The only contrast they know is the setting on their tv.

To combat the problem caused by this color scheme, the Skyline hockey folks introduced an actual contrasting color into the away uniform. In the photos it looks like a dark blue; in person it looked dark blue at one moment and black the next. I’m still not sure which color it was. In either case, it looked considerably better than the original color scheme. I’d say it looked 800% better than the original color scheme, but 800% of 0 is still 0, and the original color scheme looks 0 good.

In summary…dear high schools: if you have to introduce a third color to make your color scheme suitable for sports uniforms, you need to pick a different color scheme.

Now: on to the logo. A Google image search for “eagle logo” turned up a few very appealing results. The common traits of the best eagle logos? They’re all simple, easily recognizable at varying sizes and distances, and easily adapted to numerous settings and purposes. The Skyline eagle logo? It’s none of those things. You can see it in many of the above photos, but here’s another look:

That’s a nice complex artistic rendition of an eagle head that might look great as part of a high school art show. It’s too bad sports jerseys aren’t an art show.

Okay, now I’m done complaining about the Store Brand High School Fightin’ Generics and their ill-conceived color scheme and logo. I’ve been holding that in for a while. I feel better now.

Photo of the Early Christmas Festivities Now: 3 December 2011

Area kids got to descend on a downtown Chelsea church to make gingerbread houses on Saturday. It was a popular event. Also, it was serious work.

It may have been serious work, but the serious workers still were festive.

The front of his house was as festive as his hat.

When the sun went down, a crowd lined Main Street for the light parade.

Do you know what’s in a light parade? LIGHTS!

Do you know what else? MORE LIGHTS!

What would a light parade be without an entry from Chelsea Light & Power? It wouldn’t be much of a light parade, that’s for sure.

Oh, and do you know what else is in a light parade? A MARCHING BAND!

(Hey, some of the musicians were wearing lights.)

The parade ended at the Chelsea Teddy Bear Company, where there was food and live music.

As part of the party, the company invited several kids to run through the factory and collect as many bears as they could hold. One participant collected almost more than she could carry!

Those bears were then boxed so they could be donated to area children’s hospitals for Christmas.

Up next: the Nutcracker, and…no, just the Nutcracker.

Photo of the Early Christmas Festivities Now: 2 December 2011

Each year in early December, Chelsea has a weekend packed full of Christmas-related festivities. No, wait: “packed full” isn’t a strong enough phrase for the weekend’s schedule. Clowns in a Smart Car? Commuters on a New York City subway at rush hour? Pixels on an 18mp APS-C sensor? They have acres of space compared to the schedule for Chelsea’s Hometown Holidays weekend. There are events on top of events on top of events on top of Christmas cheer.

Like previous years, I was tasked to photograph a sampling of events from the weekend. Unlike previous years, I had to photograph the hectic weekend immediately after returning from my 10-day trip to Albuquerque. So yeah, I was a little ragged, but it still was a fun weekend.

The weekend always begins with the tree lighting in Pierce Park.

The past couple tree lighting ceremonies took place on frigid cold nights during snowstorms, but this year’s ceremony occurred on a surprisingly mild evening. That weather attracted an even better crowd than usual.

(No, wise guy, that’s not the whole crowd.)

The Chelsea Fair Queen showed up to help Santa flip the switch to light the tree.

The park looked much more festive after the ceremony.

Afterwards, Pam from The Office showed up at the Chelsea Farmer’s Supply to read books to kids.

No, no, I’m just kidding. That’s actually Robin, a librarian from the Chelsea library. Despite plenty of distractions and noise, she did a good job of staying focused on the book.

Speaking of the library, there was a live nativity not far from the library.

Hey! Put down the phone. Relax. Don’t call your lawyer. The nativity wasn’t at the library. It was by a church.

However, the library did host a concert by the Common Chords handbell choir.

And for those who were hungry for a little food and a little music, Back to the Roots had live music.

Up next: gingerbread houses, Christmas lights and teddy bears.

Albuquerqation: Memorials, bleachers, and hometown exports

On our last day in the mighty city of Albuquerque, we decided to keep it low-key and just check out a couple nearby sites we found noteworthy. The first such site was the New Mexico Veterans Memorial. It’s well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.

Brick borders line the sidewalks of the memorial, and families can donate engraved bricks in memory of veterans.

The memorial is expansive, and it has a variety of thoughtful features. (I didn’t take a lot of photos.) There are memorials for veterans of each war; this statue was for veterans of the Vietnam War.

When we were looking at the memorial honoring submariners, we discovered a familiar name among the fallen.

That’s not my grandfather, but that’s my grandfather’s name.

From there we drove through the University of New Mexico main campus and down to the athletic campus. As football fans, we were curious to see UNM’s football stadium. UNM football has struggled as of late, but we were pleased to find a very nice football stadium. And, in stark contrast to Michigan’s more recent switch to a locked-gates policy (dear Michigan athletic department: BOOOOOOOOOOOOO), we were also pleased to find the gate wide open so we could wander inside to enjoy the view.

Real live green grass doesn’t seem to be an abundant natural resource in Albuquerque — the popular ground cover options seem to be rocks and dry brown grass — but UNM didn’t take the easy option of installing artificial turf. When we arrived, the sprinklers were watering the well-maintained natural grass field.

That mountain view isn’t too shabby, either. Good job, Lobos.

In order to have a little more evidence that I really did travel to Albuquerque, I had my dad take a couple photos of me in the stadium.

I know I’m scary, but don’t be afraid. Look! My sweatshirt is waving at you!

No, I didn’t stand in front of section B because my name starts with B. That’s just a happy coincidence.

As I said, UNM football hasn’t exactly been taking the world by storm recently, but it has had its good years. Its more recent good years included a linebacker who has since become one of the best linebackers in the NFL.

Urlacher the Terrifying is still playing for the Chicago Bears…which just so happens to be my dad’s favorite team because he grew up in Chicago. He enjoyed seeing that banner. (I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it; I’m just saying…oh, never mind.)

From the football stadium we drove across the street to the basketball arena — “The Pit” — to visit the store located in the arena lobby. Shortly after we entered the store, we spotted a familiar sight:

Take a closer look at the tag on that UNM cheerleader bear:

Do you know where the Chelsea Teddy Bear Co. is located? Chelsea, MI. Yes, that’s right: we could’ve traveled all the way from Chelsea to Albuquerque to…buy teddy bears from Chelsea. Afterwards, we could’ve gone to the grocery store to buy Jiffy Mixes!

Though I wasn’t in the market for a teddy bear, I was planning to make a purchase. If you know me, you know I’m a big fan of t-shirts. In fact, the only times I don’t wear t-shirts are the times I’m cruelly and unusually forced to wear something more formal. (Thankfully, these times are extraordinarily infrequent. Dear button-down shirt manufacturers: BOOOOOOOOOO.) While browsing the shirts available in the store, I found one featuring a classic UNM logo that, in my opinion, should still be in use as the primary logo today:

They’ve since switched to some boring modern-looking Lobos logo, but…come on. There’s no way the current logo is better than that old sailor hat-wearing, chops-licking Lobo. If you’re reading this, UNM leadership, here’s what I’m saying: you need to switch back to the old logo. It’s at least 100% better than the current logo.

(As an aside…what is it with universities discarding great logos in favor of average logos? And sometimes not even just great logos, but great mascots? Yeah, I’m looking at you, Lehigh. Your mascot used to be the Engineer, a unique mascot full of historical significance. This logo is all-caps AMAZING. And you dumped it for what? The Mountain Hawk? BOOOOOORING.)

(Okay, enough of that aside. Back to the post.)

The arena itself wasn’t open, but we could peer through the gates to get a look at the interior. Once I got a look at it, I desperately wanted to go to a basketball game there. Seriously: The Pit is one of those legendary old gyms that makes you look down your nose at shiny new generic NBA arenas. Check out the photo of the interior at that link. That’s a great sports venue.

From The Pit , we headed back to the base and had a quiet afternoon and evening there.

We left for home far too early the next morning. In the first Albuquerqation post I believe I made clear my feelings regarding early mornings, and believe me, the equally early departure from ABQ didn’t change those feelings. The only benefit to leaving so early was the sunrise.

The drive home was generally uneventful…aside from my missing the Joplin exit and thus delaying dinner another hour because western Missouri is a wasteland. But we survived the wasteland of Missouri and the low speed limits of Illinois — seriously, folks, it’s not 1970 anymore — to make it safely back to Michigan.

In summary: I’m happy to give Albuquerque the official Burrill Strong Seal of Approval. Thanks for a good time, ABQ!