What have I been up to in 2025?
Hi folks! Been a minute, so I figured I'd fill you all in on some highlights from the first half of my year.
Holiday season
For Christmas last year, I went with my family down to New Orleans. It was all our first time there, and we had a blast! We ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, took a river cruise down the Mississippi, saw a jazz show at Preservation Hall, and took a boat tour of a bayou, among other things. Also, I took a TON of pictures of the streetcars down there. Also, as you may expect, I took the train down there, and my sister came with! We had a great time.
A few shots from NOLA and the trip down. I might share the full collection later
New Year's Eve was spent in Ann Arbor with some friends :)
Lone Star Harmony Brigade
In March, I headed down south to Dallas for the Lone Star Harmony Brigade! For those unfamiliar, a Harmony Brigade is a barbershop singing event in which a group of barbershoppers all learn ~10 songs on their own, then convene for a weekend of "extreme quartetting," where participants are assembled into random quartets to compete. There's also an accompanying show for the public.
As with many of the past years, I was able to also meet up with my college friends Ben and Adam, as well as my great uncle Mike and my great grandma Mary, all of whom came to the show. In addition, a new friend I made on the train last year Tom joined, with his partner David and his parents, who were visiting from out of town. Tom and I also got lunch the next day while I was waiting for my train back north.
Tom comes to Michigan
Speaking of Tom, he also paid me a visit towards the end of March! A little while after the brigade, he went up to Minneapolis to bring his parents back, and he had the idea to swing by Ann Arbor to check things out in Michigan. He was only here for a couple of days, but we made the most of it!
On the first day, we went to Detroit to take a tour of the recently restored Michigan Central Station, and after a lunch at Slow's BBQ across the street (as well as some brief railfanning), we checked out some other Detroit sites like the Renaissance Center (GM's headquarters, for now...) and the Detroit History Museum. We then hitched a short train ride back to Ann Arbor to dine at Ann Arbor's Michigan Central Station, which has been a restaurant since the 1970s. It was super cool to eat dinner right next to the tracks in such a historic building!
On the second day, we had some breakfast in downtown Ann Arbor before heading out on another train to Dearborn to visit the Henry Ford museum. I'd never been, and neither had Tom, but it was quite impressive. Tom was most interested in seeing JFK's presidential limo (in which he was assassinated on that fateful day), and I was excited to see their collection of trains. Afterwards, we headed back to Ann Arbor, had some Detroit-style pizza (I know, ironic that we didn't do that in Detroit), and parted ways. A wonderful visit overall!
Pioneer Spring Convention
The next notable event was the Pioneer District Spring Convention, held in Lansing this year (a new location!). One of my choruses, City Lights, competed in teh chorus contest, and won! My other chorus, MI-X, had to sing away the trophy this year, as we won last year and aren't eligible to compete until the 2027 contest, per the rules. You can check out both performances below at the timestamped YouTube embeds.
Vintage Baseball for Fathers' Day
As my parents live far away, I haven't been able to celebrate Fathers' Day with them for a while. My roommates, however, have family that's a lot closer, and last year I joined one of their families at Greenfield Village (a recreation of a turn-of-the-century village that's a part of the Henry Ford museum complex) to watch some vintage baseball and admire some antique cars. We also took a ride around their train loop. I was invited back this year, and had a great time!
City Lights Chapter Show
The last major thing that's happened this year was the City Lights Chorus chapter show, which happened only last week! We prepared a program of 10 songs, and were joined by company, a chapter quartet, and Fifth Element, the current British Association of Barbershop Singers quartet champion. The show was a blast, and I had quite a few guests come out to see me, including my parents, sister, her boyfriend, my grandparents, a coworker (who brought his mom and grandmother), and even my hairdresser from Great Clips.
My family stuck around the next day as well, and we enjoyed a brunch at Afternoon Delight in Ann Arbor before heading out to see the Henry Ford museum (we were intending to go to Greenfield Village, but it was too hot out)
What's next?
Well, as it happens I'm writing this on the eve of a pretty exciting train trip out to Denver for the BHS International Convention. Not only am I taking the California Zephyr out there, but I've somehow managed to convince nearly 30 of my fellow chorus members to come along! It should be quite the fun ride, you can definitely expect another post about that in the coming weeks/months (whenever I get around to it...)
I'll also be taking a trip to Cedar Point with my roommates, my friends, and possibly my sister to check out the new rides (Top Thrill 2, namely) at some point in July, and there's likely some other fun summer things that'll happen :)
Following that, I'm planning on attending two more brigades: one in Indianapolis this November, but before that I'll be going to a brand new one out in Phoenix (and of course, I'm taking the train - stay tuned!)
That's mostly it for now, thanks for reading if you made it this far!