Lead the Way: Week 1 vs. Ann Arbor Huron

Freshmen: defeated Huron 34-18
JV: defeated Huron 19-6
Varsity: 1-0 (0-0 SEC White)

Varsity 2008: defeated Huron 35-27

After a one-year absence from the somewhat awkwardly-named season-opening Big Day Prep Showdown — I would have called it the Weekend of Awesome — Chelsea returned to hawk its winning wares at Eastern Michigan University’s Rynearson Stadium. (What’s that? No, Chelsea wasn’t scheduled to play EMU. But now that you mention it…does anybody have Ron English’s phone number?) Chelsea entered the game with a 2-1 record in the BDPS; on the other hand, Huron entered the game with a record of preventing Chelsea from playing in the BDPS in 2008. But that was okay, because Chelsea also entered the game with a five-game winning streak against Huron dating to 1998, way back when Aerosmith didn’t want to miss a thing.

“I don’t know…this iPod seems a little bulky.”

He are serious Nick. This is serious game.

As in 2008, the Chelsea/Huron pairing brought together two much-ballyhooed athletes to thrill fans and dismay defensive coordinators: Chelsea’s Nick Hill and Huron’s Jeremy Jackson. The two have been conference rivals through high school, and that won’t change when they start college; Hill will play for Michigan State, and Jackson will play for Michigan. Of course, that’s also where it gets confusing: Jackson wears Huron’s green, while Hill wears Chelsea’s blue. Does that seem backwards? Yes, it does. But much to the delight of football fans everywhere — or at least those at Rynearson — they decided to play the game anyway.

Even opponents can’t help but admire Nick Hill’s muscles.

“Look! It’s Ed Hochuli!”

Chelsea came into the game with high expectations for the season, but apparently somebody forgot to have high expectations for the beginning of the game: a simple miscalculation of the kickoff put the Bulldogs at their own one yard line to start their first drive. It didn’t get any better when, on third down, the Huron pass rush caught up to Chelsea quarterback Brian Paulsen in his own end zone; not even two minutes into the game, Huron had a 2-0 lead that would be more at home at a baseball game. Oh, and guess what? Shortly after the safety, the River Rats quickly scored another touchdown to push their lead to 9-0 before Chelsea could even gain a first down.

Ouch…

And even more ouch.

The world grew a little brighter when the Chelsea offense put together a promising drive, but it fell short of points, and Huron responded with another quick touchdown. With thirty seconds left in the first quarter, the River Rats had a 15-0 lead, and the Bulldogs had an incalculable lead in anxiety. Unfortunately, anxiety doesn’t win football games, so head coach Brad Bush had to find a way to get his Bulldogs back into the game after a first quarter one analyst described as “uglier than a Pontiac Aztek.” (This analyst may or may not be a figment of my imagination.)

Gravity holds no power over Dakota Cooley.

“Please, please, please let the running back through!”

Did the Bulldogs play Huron…or Geraldo?

Why do scrambling quarterbacks always look so suspicious of defensive linemen?

I didn’t eavesdrop on the conversation between the first and second quarters, so I don’t know what the coaches said, but it must have been good: Chelsea marched down the field and scored a touchdown (Paulsen). The Bulldogs were on the board! Hooray for points! Chelsea fans celebrated the positive turn of events…for all of 13 seconds, which is how long it took the River Rats to run back the kickoff for a touchdown. Huron fans celebrated their positive turn of events…for all of 11 seconds, which is how long it took Zak Giller to run the kickoff back to the Huron 11 yard line. A touchdown (Hill) followed in short order — making for 20 points scored in less than two minutes — and Huron’s lead was cut to 21-14. And Chelsea’s revival wasn’t done: after a very welcome stop by the Chelsea defense, Hill finished off another drive with another touchdown with his second touchdown of the day, and the extra point evened the score at 21.

Dakota Cooley is divisible by Spencer Mykala.

Zak Giller will not share with you.

“I told you: the football field is over there!”

Thanks to their rousing comeback in the second quarter, the Bulldogs were in a good mood after halftime. But the Menace of the Odd-Numbered Quarters was not yet satisfied: Huron’s first drive of the second half ended with a 54-yard touchdown run that yet again left Chelsea playing catch-up. Of course, with that pesky menace making life difficult, Chelsea didn’t play catch-up very well, so the Bulldogs managed to score exactly zero points in the third quarter. But wait! There’s good news, too! Huron failed to score again, so the deficit was still at eight when the fourth quarter began.

When push comes to shove, Scott Devol comes to destroy.

Chelsea Bulldogs: always ready with a hug.

Since the fourth quarter is not an odd-numbered quarter, the Menace of the Odd-Numbered Quarters held no sway within its borders. The Bulldogs didn’t wait long to take advantage of the menace’s absence: shortly after a 65-yard Chris Ballow run, Hill tallied his third touchdown of the game. And finally, with under five minutes to play, Hill followed a Giller interception with his fourth touchdown to give the Bulldogs their first lead of the game. A missed extra point left some room for anxiety, but Huron’s last drive ended in futility, and Chelsea celebrated its season-opening 35-29 victory over the River Rats.

Odds & Ends

Chelsea’s 2-1 BDPS record featured a split with Novi and a victory over Ypsilanti. Obviously, now the record is 3-1, and it features a victory over Huron.
How did the much-ballyhooed athletes perform? Hill finished with 147 yards and four touchdowns on 36 carries; Jackson finished with 88 yards on 5 receptions.
Since the Bulldogs seem to prefer even-numbered quarters, it might be a good idea to abolish all odd-numbered quarters. Of course, to maintain the original length of the game, that means the team will play second, fourth, sixth and eighth quarters instead of first, second, third and fourth. Is that a good idea? No, that’s a great idea.
Be sure to check out the full gallery of game photos.

Next Week
Chelsea faces the Trojans of Monroe; the game is in Monroe on Friday at 7PM.

Photo of the Now, vol. 203

After enjoying the horse show, I wandered the fair to see what else was happening. What did I find? Rabbit judging and chainsaw carving!

Photo of the Now, vol. 202

The Chelsea Community Fair took over town last week. It also took over my week, which is why this blog has been so quiet. But thanks to my six fair visits in four days, the blog silence is over: the flood of fair photos begins now.

On Tuesday I took in one of a number of horse shows the fair features throughout the week. This particular show featured Western Showmanship.

This Week in Chelsea Sports Photography: 16 Aug – 22 Aug

Thursday: Football
Chelsea brought the football preseason to an end with its annual preseason scrimmage at Jerry Niehaus Field. Like last year, it was a five-team scrimmage: Haslett, Grand Ledge, Monroe Jefferson and Pinckney joined the host Bulldogs to work out a few kinks before the start of the season.

Nick Hall was ready for the season, but apparently his collarbone wasn’t.

Chelsea’s new strategy: confuse the opponent with two quarterbacks and two footballs.

After three outstanding yard-gaining touchdown-making years, Chelsea’s illustrious running back Nick Hill faces high expectations for his senior season. Hill has committed to play football at Michigan State.

He’s running…

…And he’s stopping.

Hill saw limited action, but he did manage to score a couple touchdowns, including one on this play.

When A.T. wants you to hear something, you’ll hear it.

(Full gallery.)

This Week in Chelsea Sports Photography: 9 Aug – 15 Aug

Thursday: Football
Thursday marked the first day of full-contact practice, which means Thursday was the first day football practice sounded like football. Wham! Crash! Thwack! Whump! Or something like that.

Continue reading →

The west of the story, day 5: The friendly ghost

In early July, I stowed away with my parents as they traveled to Idaho to visit Strong Family West — and this time, instead of flying, we made it a road trip. Naturally, I took pictures.

Day 4 didn’t include anything that prompted me to pull out my camera, so you’ll never know what we did. Ha! Take that!

On Thursday we decided to enjoy a uniquely western feature: an Idaho ghost town named Silver City. Like most ghost towns, Silver City is as close to a main road as the Detroit Lions are to winning a Super Bowl, so the last 20 miles of our trip took 45 minutes because they were on a winding road that provided somewhat disconcerting views like this:

As a further reminder that we were nowhere near the laziness of suburbia, farther down the road we were confronted with this, a most comforting sign:

Despite the magically disappearing roads and sternly-worded warning signs, we did manage to traverse the mountain and make it to Silver City. Though it’s classified as a ghost town, Silver City isn’t devoid of life: it actually has a number of summer residents who live alongside the ghosts. It’s a well-known fact that ghosts are terrible at structural maintenance; however, since the summer residents aren’t ghosts, many of the buildings are properly maintained, so the town gives a persisting glimpse into history.

This building houses a small store whose profits support Silver City Fire & Rescue. Yes, even a ghost town has its own fire & rescue squad, and for good reason: in addition to the regular summer residents and their eminently flammable 150-year-old houses, Silver City sees a regular stream of tourists atop ATVs and dirt bikes during the summer. As we all know, where there are people, there can be injuries…and where there are people on ATVs and dirt bikes, there can be more injuries. SCF&R isn’t constantly busy, but when there’s a problem, its presence can make all the difference.

While I was browsing the SCF&R store, I was startled to see a familiar name on the wall:

She’s missing an L on the end of her name, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s close enough.

Hey, look! Another picture of my dad being a tourist!

On the left side of that picture you can see a rusty old car baking in the sun; that sort of scene can make for nice pictures, so I walked over to get a closer look.

It turned out to be an old Packard that’s seen better days; as you can see in the picture, the car — which I just now decided to name Percy, because everybody knows alliteration makes life better — is missing its front end. It’s obvious Percy Packard has been retired for a long, long time…but wait. What’s that bright blue spot on the back end?

Yes, that’s right: a rusted car that’s long been baking in the Idaho sun has a spotless license plate that expired in 1985. Somehow, that sort of bizarre time warp makes sense in a ghost town.

The large brown building in this picture is the Idaho Hotel. The hotel was established in 1863 and closed in 1942; however, it reopened thirty years later, and to this day it’s still a functioning hotel (though parts of it are still being restored). Staying in the Idaho Hotel is a bit like going back in time; there are showers and flush toilets, but since Silver City has no power, that’s the extent of the amenities the hotel offers. (If you’re curious, the hotel site has pictures of the rooms.)

See that tall skinny structure jutting out of the ground to the right of the house? That’s a two-story outhouse.

As the license plate shows, residents are proud to call Silver City home for a season. Many of the homes have been owned by the same family for multiple generations; we talked to one resident whose Silver City home has been in her family for six generations.

Silver City’s old cemetery is just outside town, and we decided to make a stop there before we headed back to Mountain Home.

Come back later for Day 7, when we go to prison. Seriously!

This Week in Chelsea Sports Photography: 2 Aug – 8 Aug

The sports-barren summer seems nigh eternal, but the end never fails to arrive. And, of course, the end brings with it the reawakening of that establishment of esoteric popularity: This Week in Chelsea Sports Photography.

Wednesday: WOOOOO FOOTBALL!
Yes, that’s right: football is back! The first game is still two weeks away, but there’s plenty of work that has to happen before that first game, and all that work starts early in August.

Don’t make the A.T. angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry.

(Full gallery.)

The west of the story, days 2 and 3: I’m a travelin’ man

One month ago, I stowed away with my parents as they traveled to Idaho to visit Strong Family West — and this time, instead of flying, we made it a road trip. Naturally, I took pictures.

First: yes, I know you don’t remember seeing a Day 1 post; that’s because there wasn’t a Day 1 post. We spent the first day driving from Michigan to Nebraska, and I didn’t take a single picture because AHHHH HOW CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE SO MUCH CORN IN THE WORLD MAKE IT STOP!

So, on to Day 2. It started in Nebraska, a state that lives in constant fear of a blistering heat wave that would result in acres and acres of popcorn covering the landscape. I know, I know: everybody makes jokes about Nebraska, so why am I joining the crowd? Well, because I was egged on by this message over the door of a Nebraska gas station:

Further down the road we stopped at another gas station, and we were thrilled to encounter Nebraska football coaching legend Tom Osborne!

Oh, come on: as a Michigan fan, I’m obligated to make Nebraska football jokes, and I couldn’t pass on that option.

While doz…uh, driving through Nebraska, we were surprised to discover a non-traditional crop growing among the acres of corn. It seems somebody buried a whole bunch of box fans and covered them with Miracle-Gro, and this was the result:

There’s no word yet on whether or not the fields of giant fans have succeeded in making the state any cooler.

After we escaped the ponderous clutches of Nebraska, we drove across southern Wyoming — travel tip: there are maybe three gas stations on I-80 in Wyoming — and ended up in Salt Lake City. We didn’t have much time to see the SLC sights, so we chose to see the most famous sight in the city: Temple Square, featuring the LDS Temple.

The temple is very tall and very white, but I’m pretty sure that’s all it has in common with Conan O’Brien. (Well, I guess it’s not actually white. But I really wanted to use that joke, and it does look sort of white in the first photo.)

Hey, look! Here’s a picture of my dad being a tourist!

Among the other buildings in Temple Square is Assembly Hall, a building that has absolutely nothing to do with the home of Indiana University basketball. And if you stand in the right place, you get a strange view of that 132-year-old building with a decidedly not 132-year-old building looming over it.

Finally, as we were driving through downtown SLC, we spotted a sign that sends chills down the spines of the Woodward Dream Cruise organizers:

I understand the idea, but I’m confused about something: the top of the sign says “traffic congested area,” but the bottom of the sign specifies a time period that is typically associated with minimal traffic. Is this sign schizophrenic, or do the residents of SLC really clog the streets between 11 P.M. and 4 A.M.?

Come back soon — or, you know, sometime — for Day 5, where I explain why there is no Day 4. Oh, and some other stuff happened, too.

Photo of the Now, vol. 201

Last Friday, I visited La Jolla Fine Jewelry in downtown Chelsea to get a few pictures of their jewelry-making process for an upcoming feature in the Standard.

No, La Jolla doesn’t sell strange blue rings. These are the wax forms used to design the rings and cast the molds.

Owner Curtis Gough looks over some of the molds he’s accumulated over the years.

“…And then I put the marshmallow in there and heat it until it’s ready for a tasty s’more.” (Seriously: he uses the torch to melt the metal of choice in the Gravy Boat of Doom — well, maybe I can’t remember its real name, okay? — and then he spins the whole thing around like a playground merry-go-round to force the metal into the mold to create the jewelry. Hooray, physics!)

Stephen Kolokithas isn’t mixing a drink; he’s mixing the mold material. You don’t want to drink that material unless you want a mold of your esophagus. (You don’t want that. You really, really don’t.)

That’s DEFINITELY not pancake batter.

Do they ever take off those magnifying visors? My sources say no. In fact, I suspect the best jewelers are born with magnifying visors on their heads.

When his employees get hungry, Curtis bakes a batch of tasty cookies in La Jolla’s oven. (Actually, he’s putting a mold into the oven; about an hour later, he’ll take it out, and it’ll be baked solid, but not tasty. Then he can pair it with the Gravy Boat of Doom.)

Curtis still works with his mother, Gloria; however, Gloria doesn’t enjoy being in front of a camera, so I had to settle for getting a photo of a photo.

Okay, so this is just plain cool: Curtis has a laser welder to help him with his very precise work. He told us the welding beam is thinner than a human hair, which makes it somewhere around the width of the average supermodel. I know it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true! (The part about the beam, not the part about the average supermodel. Science still has no way to measure the thickness of the average supermodel.)

Though the laser welder is cool, the craft of a jeweler still requires low-tech hands-on work; here, Curtis is grinding down the prongs before he mounts the jewel.

A jeweler’s workbench, Curtis told us, should always be a bit of a mess; that means he’s busy. (Does that mean my messy desk is a good sign, too? No, probably not.) Here, Curtis is busy forming the prongs around the jewel.

When I showed Curtis one of the pictures I’d taken, he glanced at the screen, decided the image was too small, and flipped down his magnifying visor to get a better look. (That’s not what he’s doing here; he’s still seating the jewel in the mount. This just happened to be the best opportunity to tell that story.)

This is a glimpse inside the outrageously cool laser welder. The jewel is now mounted on the ring, and Curtis is using the welder to secure the diamond to the prongs.

What, you think it’s just automatically shiny and pretty when it comes out of the mold? Of course not! Stephen would never let a piece of jewelry go out the door without the proper finishing work.

Photo of the Now, vol. 200

First, an historical note: this marks the 200th photo feature here on the blog, a milestone that comes nearly three years and two name changes — one of the feature, and one of the blog itself — after the first photo post on 31 August 2006.

After sharing an evening with Sounds & Sights, Chelsea’s Summerfest had Friday night all to itself. The evening was highlighted by a car show on Middle Street.