Weekend in Michigan

*click photos to enlarge

Following the game we attended a dinner party at the home of Florine Mark, President and CEO of Weight Watchers International who is hosting a speech I am giving on Sunday.

Here I am with former mayor of Detroit, Dennis Archer, who knew friends of mine from Detroit from years ago like Hamish Sinclair and Ken Cockrel.

Florine Mark asking the assembled 40 guests to speak briefly about the one material thing they can not live without. I thought about it and I can say, that there is not one single material thing I can't live without. I know that because I have lived without all the things I used to think I couldn't live without and found life quite fine without them. Sleep is the one thing I can't live without, 8 or 9 hours of it a night.

Richard with Andrew Goulston who is attending the School on a Richard Perry Music Scholarship.

Nice architecture, huh?

Inside the Arthur Miller Theatre. Stage set for a Community theatre group doing "Death of a Salesman." Miller insisted the theatre be very flexible so it can be proscenium or the apron can extend out over an orchestra pit as shown here. It holds about 222 people.

The Green glass wall is the Arthur Miller Theatre.

The audio studio which is an open resource 24/7 for the University community.

We stayed at the Bell Tower Inn in Ann Arbor.

The impressive Bell Tower on the North Campus

Richard with Carol Rosenberg who was in Theatre and education. Richard was in music education majoring in playing the oboe.

Richard being shown the Control room.

Dean of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance, Christopher Kendall, showed us around the facilities. Here is Dave Greenspan, the managing producer for audio, explaining the state of the art equipment to Richard in the Electronics Music Studio which has just been installed, and is state of the art.

We passed by some Frat parties on the way to the game.

We passed by some Frat parties on the way to the game.

We passed by some Frat parties on the way to the game.

In fact, this is the first football game I've been to since a Harvard-Yale Game when I was 18. Between then and now it's all been baseball. This is the View from the University President's box. We actually sat most of the game down near the field on the forty five yard line, until we got a little too cold.

This was my first University of Michigan Football game and I was excited! And they won, which made it even more fun. They call this stadium "the Big House." I even learned the fight song: "Hail to the victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes, hail, hail to Michigan, the champions of the west." Sometimes their chants sound like the Tomahawk chop song. Okay, so I'm a little homesick to the Braves.

Inside The audience--a mix of community people and students.

The "virtual reality cave" where, in this case, it is possible to see virtually what the new scoreboard on the hockey rink will look like and how the enormous statues of hockey players hanging from the ceiling will improve acoustics in the actual stadium without having to do it in the actual stadium which would be prohibitively expensive.

I put on the glasses and it was wild. They can have speakers going and determine if the hanging players make a difference

87 year old Mrs Pilcher's husband was a Prof of Finance at U of M. She's been coming to games for 65 years. Now she comes alone but still comes. Has 17 grandchildren all involved in sports.

The new building where much of the arts, music, technology, urban planning and audio/video studios are located. Richard was blown away. He says that in his day north campus was forlorn.