Hey everyone, after going to the big 10 women's gymnastics competition 2 weeks ago mskate and I went to the big 10 men's gymnastics competition. We had to buy both events so we needed to be in the area all weekend, so we got a hotel for the weekend and decided we would go to the Ann Arbor hands on science center museum during the day. It's a children's science center, but we're not embarrassed. Also, mskate has a history with going to this hotel by UofM and wants to go there, and she's trying to figure out if it was the hotel that she went as a kid (which it was). Our exchange was basically this meme come to life.
We went to Ann Arbor after I got home from work. Mskate had everything packed so we could basically just pack the car and go. Normally when I do packing I pack our amazon fire stick so we could watch our streaming at the hotel, and I was planning on doing that this trip as well, but we forgot it and so we didn't have it. The drive was pretty easy, and checking-in was pretty easy as well. We got all our stuff unloaded and had some dinner stuff. There was a Wendy's across the street from our hotel, so I had a small fry and free jr. frosty with the free frosty tag. I had that with my vegetarian beans. We just kind of rested for a little before heading to the arena.
We got to the arena about 15 minutes before the doors opened, which is about 1 hour before the meet started. Unlike the women's meet the lines weren't very long, and when we found our seats the arena was pretty empty. Mskate pointed out that it's so much more empty than the women's meet. I said "that's because the men don't compete in glorified swimsuits, let's see what the attendance is like when the men are allowed to compete shirtless next year." As general attendance we could sit anywhere, and so we sat somewhat close to the floor (kind of like when we go to the meets at the small gym). After setting our jackets on our chairs we walked around the arena just because, and got mskate nachos. As we were walking around there was this guy at a table with a shirt hung up with a bunch of signatures on it. I asked him "so what's this," and it was a project his group was working on since 2018, he was getting as many signatures of current and former UofM gymnasts and they were going to present it to the head coach this year. The oldest signature he had was from the class of 1949 and the second oldest was from 1959, and when I asked he was finishing up with someone who was also a gymnast. It's a really cool shirt and I got a picture of it. Mskate and I are kind of doing something similar, we have a 2024 American Olympic T-shirt that we had Fred Richards and Paul Juda sign, and we want to get other former Olympians to sign it. We brought it in case we ran into others, but we didn't (the Ohio State coach was an Olympian and there was someone from UofM in the stands that was also an Olympian, but since they didn't represent the US we weren't as interested in getting them, if we ran into them sure but weren't going to seek them out and really try). There was also a beenie hat give away for big 10. I put mine on top of my fedora and mskate just held onto hers.
It started out with the walk out; the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Nebraska Corn Huskers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Penn State Nittany Lions, and University of Michigan Wolverines. I was laughing really hard at "the corn huskers." Like, that doesn't sound like a real mascot. It reminds me of the South Park Cows. This is a "multiple events playing at the same time" thing, it was "floor and pommelhorse, rings and vault, and parallel bars and high bar." The teams then rotated through floor, pommel, rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar, with UofM starting on the floor. It was a good set of rotations.
This particular meet was broadcast on the Big 10 Network, a national sports package cable channel, On the jumbotron they showed what was being shown on the tv channel and we were thinking "maybe we'll be on TV." but the camera wasn't pointing towards us ever. I looked up at the jumbotron and saw that when they did rings the audience was in full view and no one was up there, so I had the bright idea to go sit there and cheer for UofM when they were on rings wearing my high visibility yellow jacket. I told my aunt about it and she tuned in, and mskate told her mom to make sure she was recording it. I had to test the waters to see how far I could push it. First guy I just waved our pom poms while sitting down. Second guy I started dancing in my seat. Third guy (Paul Juda) I stood up waving my arms around. Fourth Guy (Fred Richards) I started doing the YMCA and Macarena. If you watched the Big 10 network during the UofM rings contests, you saw me dancing in the background. My aunt and mother-in-law really liked seeing me, and she sent me some videos and pictures. It was really fun. After that I went back to my seat.
Mskate recorded it. I'll try to get better quality but it might take a while.
The rest of the meet was pretty good. Lots of good competition and acrobatics. All of this went on and ultimately UofM won. I guess I should talk about some other events during the day. The MC of the night went around and talked to different groups and we got different chants and fun. Between the rotations one of the contests was kids doing the "stand on 1 food" competition, and the boy who won clearly was a gymnast since he was holding his arms in a very "direct way." We also saw the UofM storm trooper, and when I ran into him I said "hey hey, uhhh...the wolverines strike back right?" He said "*chuckle* no it's the M-pire" while pointing to the university logo "M" on his chest. There was also a boy by us that was waving at the front of the stairs (we were 4 rows from the front) that would regularly go say something to his mom. We could tell he was trying to get on TV and his mom said "you can try but you can't leave my sight." 20 years later he'll look at where the camera lands for different events and go there after saying "I'm the adult and I say I can go over there." After the meet we went to Wendy's for a large fry for me and diet coke for mskate. There was a promotion where I could get a free large fry with any purchase in the app, so I did that and mskate was getting a little annoyed since it was taking a while for me to figure out the app and people were showing up, and she wanted to get back to the room to watch the woman's gymnastics meet that was going to start. Since we were right across the street I told her "just walk back to the hotel." I got her the diet coke and myself the fries, and after that we just hang out in the hotel room for the rest of the night.
It's now Saturday and we went out to breakfast at Anna's House, a local restaurant that works well for mskate and her allergies. I don't care much one way or another, it's an aright restaurant but nothing super big for me. For like 2 days she was saying "I'm going to get a lemon poppy seed crepe with cream cheese filing and blueberry sauce," and then when we got to the restaurant she was like "maybe I want this," and I'm like "no, you've been saying 'I want lemon poppy seed crepe with cream cheese filling and blueberry sauce' for days, you're not about to change your mind." She chuckled and said "yeah what am I thinking." I got the brunch burger; 1 beef patty, an over medium egg, bacon, caramelized onions, hash browns, and burger sauce. It was really good. While we were sitting in the restaurant a guy approached our table and asked how we were doing. I was thrown off because I regularly have people remember me (because I tend to make a big impression) but I don't remember them. He then said "I saw you cheering for Michigan yesterday, now I need to ask, were you just cheering for them or were you trying to distract them." I laughed and said I was just cheering for them, and wanted to get on TV. This was the first time I've ever had someone "recognize pokematic and approach me for it" (because "I'm going to dance to get on TV" is more of a "pokematic thing to do" than "an IRL me thing to do") so it was kind of surreal to be on the other side of "I recognize your work." I ate my entire burger and fries but mskate needed to save her other crepe for later. That was OK because we had a refrigerator in our hotel room, and it would work for a good meal like thing before the meet later. We spent about an hour afterwards just resting in the room watching online videos.
Now for the day activity. Ann Arbor has a hands on science center in the down town and mskate said "hey that would be a fun thing to do." She went there with her school once, and I went with my grandparents. When I was little we would go to hands on science centers regularly since I really liked them, and once my grandparents too me to this one. The main thing I remember was that it used to be in a fire house and they still had the fireman's pole, and there was a thing where it was "pull the rope and go inside a bubble. There were also some things that I remembered when I saw them, a laser harp (stick your hand in the laser beam and it makes the sound of a harp string being plucked), and maybe the water exhibit but that's kind of common at other science centers, and maybe this "make a maze and the ball rolls down" but that's also common (someone also took the ball, so I pulled one of the balls I carry in my pocket and ran it). At this other science center (I think it was Cosci in Toledo) there was this "giant marble run" where pool balls run on tracks and do different things, with switches that allow users to change paths. They had one at this science center too (they just weren't pool balls, same size but "non-specific" heavy solid balls), and I just stood there watching it fascinated watching every path and seeing what every switch did. One of the workers saw me and said "this is one of my favorites too, want to see something cool, every 2 weeks or so the chain gets jammed and someone has to climb to the top and fix it, this is what it looks like at the top" and he shows me some photos on his phone. That was really fun. Mskate really liked this "logic and follow the path" event. There was this little general store thing, and there was a hologram of "people coming into the store," and then I explained how holograms worked to the camera. There was a "this is how a tornado works" display that makes a little tunnel of fog. There was a thing that showed off binary, and having taken digital logic I had some fun with the binary. There was also a "crane game" thing where it was working with different axes, and I did pretty well with getting the balls to the staging area, but then I screwed up the y axis and z axis and knocked the balls off where they were supposed to be. We also went to the water thing and had some fun with the water displays, and one of the things was "ball pit balls" to help show how water moves as they float on the water, but it was just for 1 location and if used on another they would get stuck. Lucky for me I'm now tall enough to get the things out of the place they aren't supposed to be at a science center (because that seems to happen a lot). Mskate and I went down to the group lunch rooms since she went there with school once and that was her big memory. Here's a video of clips I took.
Before the meet we had our left overs. I had the other half of my beans and coffee maker ramen, and mksate had her other crepe. We got to the arena without problems and got in line without problem, but then there was a little miscommunication of when the doors would open with the guy outside telling us "the doors are open, go in" but they're still locked and we had to wait another minute or 2. This time we tried to sit a little more center of the floor routine, and the interesting thing is that unlike last night where they had 2 events going on at the same time, it was just 1 event at a time and full display on the TV (probably because it was just the top 10 competitors instead of 5 competitors over 5 teams). I went over to where I could be seen on rings and did the YMCA and Macarena when UofM was on rings and then just doing arm waves and such when the other teams were on the rings. Once again, I made it on TV, and they were cutting away from me when they had the chance. Later in the night mskate noticed some other people doing similar things to what I was doing, so maybe I started a bit of a trend. I don't have much to say about the events, it was good competitors doing well at their sport. Between a rotation the hypeman MC came over to where we were sitting but interviewed the big Michigan group that was next to us since they looked more the part. I did do a YMCA for him and he seemed to know what I was doing.
Now for the big award ceremony. Everyone paraded in and sat down with the podiums in front. Here are the different presentations.
Floor Routine
Pommel Horse
Rings
Vault
Parallel Bars
Second Team (top 11-20)
