Epic Dragonboat Showdown in Niles Michigan

Posted by Jack on 08.28.2008 at 2:18 pm

You’ve heard of them, Jordan’s Bulls, Montana’s 49ers, Gretzky’s Oilers, Bird’s Celtics, Magic’s Lakers, the teams that any player hates to play because they know the odds are against them because that other team of stars is going to play all out until the buzzer sounds.  At Riverfest in Niles Michigan, in the Dragon Boat Races, the town of Niles is that team.  Reaping both the benefits of home [river] advantage and a team comprised of grizzly veterans and new rising talent, the deck was stacked against any competition.  Niles is known for both experienced play and a solid farm system, bringing refined talent to the adult level from the highly competitive youth races.  The Niles High School Band would hold up that dominance in the youth league, but in the adult race, change was in the air.

Better World Books came to Riverfest to sell books and engage in a great festival, they came to put a creatively designed float in the water, but most of all they came to win.  Like a rookie in battle who is too ignorant to know to fear a war champion, Better World Books was the lowly infantry man to Niles’ Achilles; but unlike the lofty Greek, Niles had no perceivable weakness.  Better World Books would have to simply be the better team.

Murmurs spread around the festival all day of a young upstart team, made up of heart and absolutely no talent whatsoever, a bookish crowd with warehouse tans that would take on the Olympic level competition of the iron-fisted Niles crowd.  Could the tiny Better World Books boat stand against the wrath of the Dragon Boat embodiment of Posiedon himself?

The race started close, jitters clearly affecting Better World Books as the Viking like warriors of Niles stroked even and true.  But slowly something changed.  Cows lay down when it is going to rain–they just feel it in the air and react–so when all of the kids stopped playing and went to watch the river, the prescience of the youth was palpable; victory would be a cruel mistress today.

Only a few meters left, rowing beyond their own abilities, infused with the spirit of Michael Phelps, the scrappy squad of ARC stud, Jorge Fragoso, Howard Roark-esque architect Jaime Knabet, superstar receiver, Javier Castro and hard hitting Maintenance standout David Sherwood were joined by the husband and wife Majerek in an epic throwdown.   Also, Better World Books saw promise in a few Niles folks who were left off the famed squad.  It was those few crew members, the rejects, who had become the proverbial cornerstones of the squad.  With this group they would stand strong, crushing through the ripples of the river and the mighty approach of the heroes of Niles, Michigan.

Better World Books: Ballerific

Life moves on, and as Herodotus said, “You can never step in the same river twice.”  Jordan has retired and Montana is in the booth, and Niles, Michigan is left scratching their heads as to how a small upstart company came in and simultaneously sold books while taking the checkered flag at their own flagship event.  Will they ever recover or are the nouveau riche of the Dragon Boat circuit set to become the next giants of the Mitten State scene?  Only time will tell, but the pantheon of great teams will truly never be the same.

1 Comment » | Tagged Dispatches from the Green House, Better World Books in the field, bookstore, hilarious posts, Michigan, niles

“We Made it! Barely…”

Posted by Jack on 07.09.2008 at 10:50 am

We’re live at Rothbury Music Festival! Our hi-jinx will be (roughly) recounted and hopefully you’ll get a (clean) image of what’s going on here.

The trip started with insane rain and wind, why wouldn’t it end in a lightning storm?  As we sat, white-knuckled grabbing sleeping bags (or in Aaron’s case the “borrowed” couch cushions…) as the deafening thunder and blinding lightning came down quite literally right around us, it wasn’t easy to sleep, but it was easy to think “Good Lord I hope that we live through this.  Do I seriously want to be remembered dying on a work trip at a music festival in northern Michigan?” (quick answer: no).

However, we would make it through the ridiculousness.  There were no locusts, frogs or taking of first borns, just some crazy lightning and some people who thought that fireworks during a massive storm would be a good idea.  We cleaned up the booth and got on the road, facing the fact that every single road in Michiana and Illinois is currently under massive construction and that sometimes NPR reaches for content.  The plane was delayed, luckily for Geoff and me, so we made it and at 1 am that night, 14 hours after the beginning of the day’s journey, we were home.  I’ve got some conclusions and updates for you:

-The shower is a great modern invention.
-The crowd that appreciates this kind of festival is quick to embrace our mission (but quicker to embrace the free books we had(!))
-Hunter Lovins is an awesome woman!
-Michael Franti is legit
-Gary Braasch takes a mean photograph
-I should never be allowed to not shave

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, festival, Michigan, rothbury

“We’re Not Gonna Make It…”

Posted by Jack on 07.04.2008 at 3:38 pm

We’re live at Our hi-jinx will be (roughly) recounted and hopefully you’ll get a (clean) image of what’s going on here.

We begin our journey by driving due north from the Green House in South Bend. We’re driving for a ways when Jesse and Aaron decide it’s time for some food, so we GPS the nearest place and in our attempt to wade through the McDonalds and Burger Kings of the world we see “Sidetrack Bar and Grill.” Now you would think that the “Sidetrack” might not be the most convenient place to go eat, per se, but at this point collective hunger reigns and after the previous night of Taco Bell owning my stomach, Sidetrack it is.

We’re 10 miles off the highway and we still haven’t reached our destination but we’re definitely the residential area of the farmland boonies. At this point I believe we’re in a suburb of Muskegon, Michigan, so yeah, it’s a little Deliverance-esque. We roll up to the “restaurant” (actually a gutted house with a “patio” that’s the backyard) and go in. The only three people in the restaurant laugh aloud and say “You’re not from here, are you?” and we take a seat. There’s Poison on the jukebox, Jean Claude Van Damme (and not even Bloodsport, some other random one that starts with a semi-pornographic introduction and I think ultimately had to do with child slavery?) and when Jesse asks “Do many people come here from the highway?” the waitress looks at him like he’s crazy. He might be, but that’s not going to help us here.

We pay our bill, take a photo and it’s time to roll out. We wade through crazy storms and a system of registration that’s running like a well-baked machine and finally pull up to our campsite. Tuckered out from the excitement of unloading books and setting up tents in the rain we crash like a plane out of fuel. Rothbury has officially begun.

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, bookstore, Michigan, rothbury festival

Book Drives in Michigan

Posted by admin on 09.29.2006 at 7:07 am

A few of us here at Better World Books recently had an opportunity to speak with a reporter from The Michigan Daily, and they have run an article on our book drives in Michigan.

In the Spring of 2006, Better World Books coordinated book drives at 32 schools in the state of Michigan, totaling close to 20,000 books. Michigan State University collected the most books of any school in Michigan, sending in over 5,000 books. The book drive at Michigan State was lead by their “Books 4 Africa” student group. All the books collected in that drive went to benefit Books for Africa.

With over 150 colleges and universities in the state of Michigan, I hope we can have a lot of success with book drives there this year. I expect to see a lot of healthy competition between the The University of Michigan and Michigan State University to see who can bring in more books.

The Michigan Region of Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honor Society of the 2 year college, is encouraging all of their chapters to run a book drive with Better World Books this year. I am expecting great things from the state of Michigan this year! Below is a picture from the MSU B4A student group:

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Uncategorized, books for africa, Michigan, Michigan State University, Phi Theta Kappa, press, The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan