Saturday Sportsball Day

I got an invite to a tailgate at MSU on Saturday to watch them play Boston College.

So I met up with friends, and drove to East Lansing for the tailgate.

Passed by many places I remembered including my old place of employment. 

Got to the parking lot and parked the car, then walked to where the tailgate was held around 3:30.
 

 Everybody was in their best Greens and Whites for the game.

The tailgate had it all, food, beverages, and Sparty. 

Yes, the amazing fellow running the tailgate didn't just have music, he also had a TV to broadcast sports over the internet during the tailgate.  Rather cool. This tailgate had it all.

So, a lot of fun was had, chatted with quite a few people, ate some great food and drank some pre-game libations. I brought 100 doughnut holes as a contribution as that was on the sign-up list.

Then we helped close up the tailgate and get ready to go see the game set to start at 7:30.

I got some tickets on the 45-yard line in Seciton 9, for not too much, and they turned out to be pretty great seats except for two drunken young men right behind us that didn't just have outdoor voices, they had no setting but yelling at the top of their lungs the entire flipping game  You know you have the right to remain silent - these two lacked the ability for that completely.

Everyone else in the area was having a good time and enthusiastic and loud at the appropriate times.  There was one Boston College fan right in the row in front of us, and he was a good sport, and gave as good a ribbing as he got, and everyone was friendly and fun about it.

 The marching band began the opening festivities.

 Then the game was one.

Michigan got the first touchdown and easily made the extra point. 

 

For the touchdown and subsequent MSU touchdowns, fireworks went off in appropriate colors.
 

It was a nail-biter of a game finally going into overtime and then double overtime.

MSU won in double overtime with a 2 point conversion, 42-40.

 It was fun to watch live with friends.  It was a heckuva long game though. Then we along with the crowds headed out and I finally got home after 2 am.

 I managed to get to sleep and then sleep in a bit until 8am before my next weekend adventure on Sunday.

The Good Ol' College Hockey Game

Yesterday I went to East Lansing to attend the Big 10 Men's Hockey Tournament game of MSU v Notre Dame. First time I've been back to the Munn Ice Arena in years.

College hockey tends to be a lot of fun to watch.

We got there pretty early and before that got lunch at Raising Cane's the ne plus ultra of chicken strip restaurants. Yum. We then parked and headed to the arena, with plenty of time to wander around.

 Free rally rags were provided to all the fans.

 

We got to watch the warm up.

 

And the game began.

It was a very low-scoring game with a lot of action.

 A couple small fights, a few penalties and both teams were excellent at killing the power plays.

The Spartans won 1-0, with the single goal taking place in the third periods, with 46 shots on goal to Notre Dame's 19.  Should have been a much higher score, but defense on both teams were seriously on point. 

It often seemed the Spartans were taking shots when off balance and not ready to receive the puck after a pass to take a shot at the net.

Still, a win is a win, and they advance in the tournament to play again next week. 

A nice Saturday day trip.

Local(ish) Game

Went with a friend after work yesterday to the MSU v Purdue Football game.

With an 8pm start it made for a long night including the over an hour drive to East Lansing in quite a bit of traffic.

 Quite a bit chillier than Florida, with a fair bit of wind and temps in the 40s.

I'm not a football aficionado, but it easy to see that it was quite a rough game.

To say it was an ugly game of football is an understatement.

MSU started out with a 24-3 lead, and that lead kept narrowing as the game went on into the second half.

MSU narrowly won, barely, but only by making slightly fewer mistakes than Purdue.  At times it seemed MSU decided the strategy was to run the ball as they couldn't complete a pass if their life depended on it. 

The only saving grace for MSU was that Purdue was worse including suffering a blocked field goal, a fumble, and throwing interceptions, and couldn't capitalize on the many mistakes the Spartans made. 

Still for all that it was a fun time, and good to see the home team win 24-17.

Finally got back home around 1:30 am. Quite a long day, but fun.

More Revolving Door Justice Leading To Murder

Progressives hate the idea of the criminal accused (and most especially the minority criminal accused)  having to post a bond and prefer them walking free. They have the wonderfully naive belief that said criminals will then not commit crimes while they're released on their own promise to be good and will then happily show up to their hearings.

Reality begs to differ with their quaint utopian dreams.

In the latest example on August 11th, a MSU student, a junior, at 20 years old is murdered by the 22-year-old estranged baby daddy of his lover at the lover's home.

The Detroit News:  22-year-old man charged in fatal shooting of MSU student

Unreported in the Detroit News article is that the 22 year old had been previously arrested on May 5 for 4 counts of domestic violence. He was released on a personal bond, meaning he didn't need to pay anything to be released.

Oh, and he was next apparently arrested (the story reporting this is rather badly written and it is hard to tell what happened exactly) again on August 1 on yet another charge of domestic violence and a felony home invasion and apparently let go yet again.

Said criminal clearly takes this really, really, seriously, as he then fails to even show up to his hearing on August 3.  The counts don;t take the failure to appear all that seriously and just a bench warrant gets issued for him then, after 5 domestic violence counts and a felony home invasion.

Then, on August 11 he finally kills someone, when as he's out on his bond for all these previously committed crimes and is not allowed to possess a weapon. Because after all, of course he'll follow the restrictions of his release, right?

You know, if someone got arrested for 5 counts of domestic violence and a home invasion - or even just arrested for 4 counts of domestic violence -  instead of giving them a personal recognizance bond, maybe requiring them to put up some serious coin or even better have the bond set high enough that they sit in jail and can't commit further crimes just might be useful.

It might just dissuade, or if kept in jail, completely prevent the criminal from going out and doing more domestic violence rather than the progressive approach of "Cheerio, off you go? ". 

Just a suggestion.

MSU Email, We Hardly Knew Ya

My MSU email account, after being happily active all these years, over 15 years post attendance is now going away.

It seems they've finally decided to kick the alumni off the email system.

Originally the University on May 30th in a sent a terse email to the affected alums:

You are receiving this message because you have been identified as someone who has not taken a course at Michigan State University in two or more years. MSU IT Services will be deactivating msu.edu e-mail accounts and AFS (Andrew File System) storage space for those who have not been students in two or more years to maintain university storage efficiencies. Starting on June 26, 2012, your e-mail and AFS accounts are among those scheduled to be deactivated. Between now and June 26, we encourage you to go through your accounts and save or migrate any files you wish to keep.

Less than 30 days to migrate your email account that you've had for years and notify all services and persons that use it to communicate with you, nice.

They then, five hours later on the same day backpedaled on the cutoff date and provided some further information/justification:

Dear Spartan, We have heard from some of you today that we could have done a better job giving you notice about deactivating your MSU e-mail and AFS space. You are right. We apologize for providing less than a month's notice. That's not enough time. We understand that this came suddenly and unexpectedly to some, in part because of confusion over the "Technology Guarantee" provided by Peter McPherson. For that reason, we will provide additional time before deactivating your account. This action will not be taken until Friday, August 31, 2012. To clear up the confusion about the "Technology Guarantee," it's useful to go back to the source, a speech given by Peter McPherson in 1996 in which he stated: "MSU alumni will have affordable lifelong technological access and two post-graduate years of free e-mail access." Technology access included student NetIDs and login to StuInfo or Web Enroll. McPherson's speech is located at http://www.msu.edu/~presofc/guarantee.html. The university needs to take this action for several reasons. Primary among them are freeing up university data storage resources and maximizing services for current students. Few of our peer institutions offer extended access to e-mail and storage accounts for the same reasons. When MSU first made the decision to provide e-mail and storage after graduation, access to these services was limited. Today, low cost or free e-mail and data storage options are abundant. Again, we apologize for the short notice on our part, but we hope you can appreciate that we are taking steps to serve MSU students and to be fiscally responsible. Sincerely, Dave Gift Vice Provost and CIO MSU Libraries and IT Services

But regardless of the tone and apologies for lousy messaging, they are moving ahead and shutting down the accounts. Instead of 2 years post-attendance, I, for one, got 15 years out of it. I wonder if I have a claim to keep it due to adverse possession at this point? Sadly not. But, I think by this point most alumni figured it would stick around and not be deleted as there hadn't been a word about such before.

When you have to reach back to a quote from a 1996 speech you're kinda reaching for a justification I daresay.

Having a permanent email address was quite useful. My MSU account was my one "main" account with most online personal and business transactions run through there (except for the blogging and related stuff) and was quite convenient.

I'm now busy updating all my online accounts such as with Midway, CDNN, Ebay, Paypal, Netflix, NRA, Divers Alert Network, investment accounts and the like to my new email address on a different service.

It's a major pain, especially for those services that only give occasional email updates, and I'm busy trying to remember where other accounts with that email address may lurk.

On the upside, its an opportunity to rotate and upgrade all of the passwords with some upper cases and numerics if they didn't have them before.

It's unfortunate that MSU didn't think outside the box for a bit:

Had they charged each alum $20 or $25 a year that would likely more than cover any real storage costs and the minimal admin overhead maintaining the existing accounts might cost. After all, storage is dirt cheap these days. They likely would have not only opened a new revenue stream but gained a lot of goodwill with their Alumni.

As it now stands, this much in the way of headaches certainly wipes out the potential for such goodwill.

Pity.

MSU Students set up us the bomb.

Oh, for the good ol' days when getting bombed in college meant you were drunk off of your posterior.

4 MSU students face felonies for setting off bomb

Four Michigan State University freshmen face 20-year felonies after police say they detonated a commercial-grade explosive Sunday at a home on the 400 block of Grove Street.

Olivia M. Hudson of Okemos, Darby D. Dudley of Mason, Sasha N. Savage of Okemos and Nikolai E. Wasielewski of Rossford, Ohio, have been charged with placing explosives and causing property damage, and possession of bombs with unlawful intent -- causing property damage.

East Lansing 54-B District Court Judge Richard Ball arraigned the suspects, all 18 years old, on Monday. All were released on $2,500 cash bond. If convicted of the charges, they each face 20 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

A hearing is set for Nov. 10 and a preliminary exam on Nov. 13.

Late Sunday, the explosive -- a type of firework used for large municipal displays -- was intentionally thrown at a home on Grove, less than one block from the East Lansing Police Department, police said.

"It was thrown in the direction of a specific address," East Lansing Police Capt. Tom Johnstone said. "Officers on duty heard the explosion and went in the direction of the smoke."

On viewing the poictures, they do not appear to be the smartest set of criminal masterminds that MSU has yet to produce. That their car was observed at the scene and more mortar bomb fireworks were found inside the car when they returned to their dorm kinda confirms it.

Something tells me that these freshmens' university careers are about to come to an abrupt halt, aside from possible correspondence courses for prisoner extension programs.