Weekend Economists Could Have Danced All Night! October 16-18, 2015

[Demeter]

20. Sorry to be so AWOL this Weekend

Things are going badly chez Demeter what with the Kid being sick and the winter closing in so suddenly. It looks like it's going to be a bad winter, too.

Autumn has been dry (hence, the leaves are not being pounded down and the colors are glorious). But if winter is started, and it seems that way (it visibly snowed, twice, on Saturday: once at 11:30, and once during the third quarter--a few bits of what might more properly be called sleet, but still, it's 2 weeks before Halloween! It's not supposed to do that!)

Ah, yes, the game...the game was...peculiar. The referees seemed to be operating with two sets of rules, one for UofM and the other for MichState. The crowd, already inflamed by rivalry, was in near mutiny by the flash finish. I'm not expert on football, and have only a bare-bones understanding of the game, and it sure looked odd to me. Among other things, the referees' constant turmoil meant the game lasted another hour and it was quite dark by the time we got to the car to go home...

It's very odd for a person like me, who avoids crowds on principle, to go to a mass event. And this time in particular, nobody would sit down. The man next to me stood in front of me practically the whole game blocking my view both of field and Jumbotron, or whatever the big screen is called...at least we didn't freeze. I have a bit of sunburn from when the sun shone, on what little was exposed to the wind.

The helicopters kept circling the stadium...and there was a huge police presence. I guess, when the opposing team lives within driving distance and has a rowdy reputation, one can't be too careful. My client enjoyed it, regardless. Since she has a foot in both schools, she won either way. Since I have a foot in neither, I didn't much care. I would have liked to be able to see more of it, though.

Over 111,000 people all crammed into the stadium. Both bands were huge, but the sound didn't carry well and the shapes were rather abstract. All in all, it was a bit shifted off-normal.