Chuck Grimmett

As soon as everyone returned from Thanksgiving break, they got in the Christmas spirit! Here are two quick and rough shots I took of areas around Simpson dorm:

Let’s turn back the clock back a little bit to halloween (and no, I am not talking about retrodating this post…)

When I first heard of this, I thought someone misspelled “Clunkers”… then I read on and realized this is another CfC-named program the government is putting on. I am sure you remember Cash for Clunkers, the $3 billion transfer program that destroyed wealth, right? Well, here is a new one- Cash for Caulkers, a “stimulus” program that plans to retrofit energy inefficient houses to make them more energy efficient, while providing jobs at the same time.

I shot this photo of a few CCA papers for a Collegian article that was featured on page A1. Read the corresponding story at HillsdaleCollegian.com. (I had two A1 photos this week!)

Here is the answer to the Blue Eyes Logic Puzzle I posted.

Today, Amanda and I drove to Detroit to see Handel’s Messiah performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (I bought her tickets for her birthday). We had a wonderful time! The performance was excellent, we had great seats, and we ate good food afterwards at Union Street. Overall, today was a great day!

As I was looking through my photo library tonight, I realized that it was exactly a year ago yesterday that I saw Handel’s Messiah performed at Hillsdale. (If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, I went to see it performed in Detroit yesterday.) I saw the performances exactly a year apart! I thought that was pretty exciting.

I took some photos of the men’s basketball team practicing today:

Two statues of great Americans braving the harsh winter while their ideas do the same.

Click on the photos to view them at a larger size.

“Senior Kevin Hershock keeps careful count of his T-shirts. As the president of Be A Number, every $20 shirt he sells has a twin that will become the property of an underprivileged child in America or a third world country.” Read the rest of the article.

Today was the last day of classes. Thankfully, all of my papers are turned in now, so all I have to worry about is finals.

The Hillsdale men’s basketball team played their home opener today! They played a tough game, but unfortunately lost to Ferris State 78-67.

Legal Systems Very Different From Our Own – David Friedman (video)

Here is where I’ve been studying all night – a room in the math building. I pushed multiple desks together to make a table.

My linear algebra exam is tomorrow morning. I am feeling a little better about it than I was yesterday.

Four down, one to go!

Today was my last day of finals, and I finally got to come home! I am very excited to be home for a few weeks.

While I was out finishing my Christmas shopping on Saturday, I couldn’t help but think a little bit about economics. I know I am strange, but it is what I am majoring in and what I’ve been studying these past three semesters at Hillsdale, and I am not very successful at turning my mind off (not that I’d ever want to…) More specifically, the work of Israel Kirzner. I read quite a bit of Kirzner in Austrian Economics I with Dr. Steele this past semester, so I thought I’d look at the world immediately around me through the lens of his work. The result? Shopping as a learning and discovery process.

I visited my friend David Wagner today, and we drove all around the Huron/Sandusky/Port Clinton area this afternoon. David just got home for Christmas from his teaching position on Bordeaux, France. I haven’t seen him since the beginning of September, so it was wonderful to spend all afternoon and evening with him. If everything goes according to plan, I am going to fly to France to visit him (and take photos!) over spring break at the end of March.

After a routine checkup at the dentist this morning and a quick lunch with Dad, I went to Amanda’s house and helped her make three batches of cranberry pecan biscotti. I’ll admit, I was not much help besides mixing together dry ingredients, but it was nice to spend part of the afternoon with her, anyway.

Tonight we celebrated Christmas with my Mom’s side of the family. Here is a picture I took of my little cousin Evie:

This is my answer to the Friday the 13th calendar question my friend David posed to me on Monday:

It has been quite a while since I have done much of anything with long exposures, so my parents and I went down to the old train depot and took a few shots. I am getting rusty!

Today, Amanda and I went for an afternoon hike in the snow at Schoepfle Gardens and the woods behind. It was snowing a lot, but we had fun. Here are some photos:

I did a little thinking on New Year’s resolutions today, and they do not make much sense to me. Why resolve to do something that you think will better your life in some way starting at a future date? Whether what you are doing is trying to break a bad habit (smoking, drinking, overeating, procrastinating, etc.) or doing something positive (reading your Bible and praying more, saving money, becoming more disciplined, getting in shape, etc.), why not start as soon as it occurs to you to make a resolution for the upcoming year? January 1, 2010 is really not much different than December 31, 2009, or even December 10, 2009. If you have a change you want to make in your life, it is best to implement that change immediately. Waiting to make a change does not make much sense to me (with one exception, stated below.) If, for example, you want to lose weight but keep overeating until January 1, what have you accomplished? You have only made it more difficult for yourself. If you’ve waited until January 1, what is one more day? Pretty soon those “one more” days might add up… If you are going to do something, do it now.

As I stood in front of the fireplace this evening, I realized that I don’t remember a time when my family has not had one. Both of our houses have had one, and so has my grandmother’s house. It is so wonderful to come inside from a cold, snowy, windy day and warm up in front of the fire. It is also a wonderful place to sit in front of and read or think. As soon as the weather turns cool, I yearn for the smell of a wood fire in the air outside and the warmth inside that it provides. It is something I miss greatly in cold Hillsdale, MI.

Year two thousand and nine has been an exciting, grace-filled year full of adventures, lessons, and valuable time spent with family and friends. This post draws my modified Project 365 to a close. Posting every day this year has been a challenge and a lesson in discipline, to be sure. Sometimes the posts came after midnight (never after 2 a.m., however), but there was a post for every day and the majority of them came in on time. My friend Emily Fisher did a good job making that happen by scolding me whenever she noticed a late post.