Getting Out

I moved in at just the right time. I have plenty of time to get situated, and then still over a week left until school starts to just chill out for once. But I figured it would be a good time to try and get out and meet some people. So the first thing I found to do? Scrabble. That's right. There's this website called meetup.com where you... meet up with people to do stuff. There were two interesting groups in Ann Arbor, but the Indie Film group isn't meeting for a while. So Scrabble it was. And man, it was an UGLY game. For a while I had E-I-E-I-O, plus U and Y. But it was fun, and we played at this nice coffee shop in nearby Ypsilanti.

A note on Ypsilanti. It's pronounced like the first letter is an I, or Ypsy (Ipsy) for short. It's a town just to the East, and it's more working class, more red-neck. It's home to Eastern Michigan University, along with all the big box stores like Target, Walmart, etc. I went there last weekend for their Heritage Festival (imagine a county fair minus the livestock), and it was pretty nice. They had this great African drumming/singing/dancing band performing.

I also went shopping for banks. The excitement never really ends for me. So I've been reading up on socially responsible banks, and how they can make a difference in a community. My current online bank, Citibank, is known to have one of the worst social responsibility ratings. So I did some research and visited 6 banks within walking distance. I asked them about what kind of community services they provide, how much they support local small businesses, and how they invest their (ie my) money. Some banks told me how they donate to March of Dimes, etc. One guy looked at me like I asked him if he liked purple cheese. I ended up going with Flagstar, a regional bank. They are heavily involved in the Community Reinvestment Act, and they require all employees to do community service. Last year they renovated a poor elderly person's home. Also, they offer pretty good services, including a CD at 7.5% APY, which is ridiculous.

I've also been looking for musicians to hook up with. Today I had a rehearsal with a guy trying to start a "deep funk/R&B" band. He linked me to this video as an example:

They're still in the early stages, but it looks promising. We just need to find a bass player and a trumpet player, and we'll be set. Plus I'm hoping this will be a way in to the music scene here.

I also found this craig's list ad looking for someone interested in doing some sight-reading, so I emailed this guy. I went to his house after playing Scrabble again, and he has stuff everywhere. Sheet music, computers, plants, instruments, literally, everywhere. So we started off with some duets by Carl Stamitz, him on mandolin and me on flute. Then I got tired of flute (which doesn't take long), and I switched to clarinet. Although I'm better at clarinet than flute, that was offset by the fact that I had to sight-transpose the music. But I did ok. Then we played some violin-viola duets with Gale on guitar, followed by me switching to tenor sax, then followed by some jazz duets. Overall, a good time--I've always enjoyed sight-reading.

Besides that, I'm probably going to look for some Yoga classes, possibly through the school.

Orientation for school starts tomorrow, so my freedom is running its course.