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Musings On Country Music

Not pertinent to anything, but I don't have any other proper outlets to write this. I've been making a conscious effort to listen to my entire record collection lately - rough estimate, I own somewhere around 100 to 120 records, most of which were purchased over the years at thrift shops for $20 or less (my favorite era was the 2010-2020 era when records were as cheap as 3 or 4 for $1).  I've got them arranged alphabetically by artist, then title (or simply title in case of a compilation/anthology or soundtrack), and marked with a sticky note in the corner to show which ones have been played:  I'll remove the little sticky note flag when I play one.  As vinyl has had a recent resurgence, I have maybe a dozen new purchases from merch tables at my Year Of Concerts , or online from various podcasts about music . I started buying records right around 2013 or 2014, searching thrift shops for specific titles which I'd cut into guitar pickguards, as seen in this Etsy pos...
Recent posts

A Comparison Between Our Brewing Company's Bourbon Bottles

 Our Brewing Company (76 E 8th St, Holland, MI 49423), opened in 2012, has been a staple of the Holland beer scene since they opened with a bang, running out of beer during their grand opening celebrations, and having to shut down for 2 weeks to build up stock again.  They're a personal favorite of mine - I've had a mug club membership there for 10 years now.  The atmosphere is great, and they're not afraid to experiment with different, cool, and obscure beer styles! In 2019, they started experimenting with distilling.  Everything was brewed, distilled, aged, and packaged in house for their bourbons, so everything was done under their control - no MGP stuff here (unlike Coppercraft Distillery, north of downtown Holland).  Their first release of this batch was aged for 3 years, in 2022.  Each subsequent offering was released at 1 year intervals:  4 year in 2023, 5 year in 2024, 6 year in 2025, and 7 year in 2026.  I've been fortunate (through my mu...

Junk Food Review: McDonald's Big Arch

 By now, we've all seen the video of a McDonald's CEO timidly taking a bite of their Big Arch burger before telling us that "we're all going to love the product," in what appears to be a hostage video perpetrated by Linda At The Front Desk .  All publicity, they say, is good publicity, and what was originally a botched promo video did indeed inspire me to buy not one, but two, Big Arch combos from McDonald's.  I don't normally eat at McDonald's, since the ones around Holland seem to be more expensive than other local areas, plus if I'm grabbing junk food on Saturday, I'll often err towards Burger King or some sort of sub sandwich like Jimmy John's. The Big Arch "start[s] with the two juicy quarter-pound 100% beef patties, layered with three slices of melty white cheddar cheese. It’s then topped with both crispy and slivered onions, zesty pickles and crisp lettuce, but what truly sets it apart is the new BIG ARCH Sauce—tangy, creamy...

XFinity Sucks. Or, Why I'm Excited For Holland BPW Fiber To Come Through Our Neighborhood

 The whole thing started in October - we hit the data cap for our XFinity plan in 2 or 3 days. I didn't know we had a data cap on our XFinity plan, so I was befuddled. Problem is, you can't just call XFinity, you must escalate your ticket up their chain of command: Start with their AI chatbot, escalate to a human typing on the other end of the chatroom, get transferred to an AI phone operator, escalate that to any number of human phone operators. Somewhere in that initial escalation, they discovered that we weren't on an actual plan from them, and the services we had weren't even offered by them anymore - our account had slipped through the cracks. Their "solution" to the massive data leak was to give sell us the premium tier service with no data cap...which didn't actually solve anything, it just passed the buck down the road. By October 6 or 7, we had blown through another terrabyte of data, so I reached out to Customer Service agai...

Photo Walk Through Holland, MI on December 7, 2025

 

The 50th Anniversary Of The Sinking Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

On November 10, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost in Lake Superior.  With her, the souls of 29 sailors were lost as well. Lakeshore Drive, Marquette Michigan, autumn 2009 Being a graduate of Northern Michigan University, I learned to respect Lake Superior and the weather she brings with her.  There's something awe-inspiring about seeing waves cresting over a 5' tall breakwall and breaking over a road.  There's something awe-inspiring about seeing waves crash over the Black Rocks geologic formation at Presque Isle.  There's something awe-inspiring about SCUBA diving beneath those waves and feeling the chilling water swirl around you.  Lake Superior can be beautiful and serene; she can also be a tempestuous bitch.  But, I guaran-dam-tee you that if I could arrange a job back in the UP, I'd take it in a heartbeat. The reason the Edmund Fitzgerald is so important is because of how modern it is.  This ship was lost in 1975!  We had RADAR and color t...

2025 Holland City Elections

 Congratulations to Abby Klomparens and Tim Marroquin for unseating the incumbents on the Holland City Council, and congratulations to Tim Vreeman and Scott Corbin for retaining their seats!  Mayor Nathan Bocks held on to his seat, roundly defeating his challenger, Brian Everitt.  Sources cited are 2 MLive articles .  It's been fun following Ms. Klomparens and Mr. Bocks on Instagram for the past few years.  I loved Bocks' "...and we get to live here" hashtag on his posts especially during the CoVid era.  Klomparens ran against former mayor Nancy DeBoer in the Michigan State House election last year (2024). It's always interesting to see the more  progressive  candidates winning Holland city elections, while outerlying Ottawa County tends to swing HARD right-wing most of the time.