For the next few weeks, we’ll be observing an anniversary: 10 years since we left San Francisco and moved to Ann Arbor. I’ll repost articles Frank and I wrote at that time for our Ann Arbor blog, aSquared. Bittersweet, very definitely they will be, bittersweet.

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

‘The calm before the grad school storm …

‘Ann Arbor: day five

‘Today was a bumpy one. We went out to get some supplies and victuals. I bought a few new short-sleeved shirts but I don’t know how much longer they’ll be wearable here. The traffic around Ann Arbor right now is not much better than traffic during a typical weekday rush hour in the Bay Area, and the drivers are aggressive and careless. We went to Target and Meijer, right next door, which is a huge shopping center that is sort of a combination of a supermarket and a department store. Today it is was like a combination of the busiest Safeway and the busiest Macy’s rolled up in one. The crowds were incredible, and it was not even 4.00 yet.

‘We dealt with it for about 45 minutes and then (having found most of what we needed) gave up when some voice started annoyingly announcing, over and over again, insistently, a contest for some useless merchandise over the PA system and egging shoppers to race to the other end of the store as quickly as possible to get a prize, hardly a wise thing to be doing in what was already a zoo. We drove back to the house and cleaned up some more, unpacked a few things, but mostly rested.

‘On the positive side, we walked the dog again around the complex around 10.00 and I saw what I think must have been Mars up in the heavens, looking bright and beautiful in its approach to the closest it has been to Earth in 60,000 years. The horizon is so flat here that you can see the heavenly bodies quite clearly, a definite plus.

‘Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me. Have to be at Michigan Union around 8.30, then it will be a full day of welcome-wagon stuff and, later in the afternoon, evidently, registration. It is scheduled to last until 6.00, though I doubt it will last straight through to that.

‘More tomorrow.

‘—Posted by Frank at 23:59:00 | 26-Aug-03’