Tyler Dale Gaastra

Attorney. Armchair historian. All things Michigan. OPC. #gogreen

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Dirty Donut Gravel Race 2026 was a huge success. 5 Gaastras in various races. All finishers. Team Alger Bikes represented very well.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Connor Cook sighting! Spartan football was so fun.

[Owen Oszust @Owen_Oszust]

"The reason we were so great was because guys wanted to stay."

Former Michigan State QB Connor Cook spoke about what made MSU teams so special under Mark Dantonio. He also believes 2013 MSU could've beaten Auburn and Florida State that season. @wilxTV

https://t.co/w06far8aSe

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

This situation is a 10-minute walk from my office. Grand Rapids glow up. Summer nights 🔥.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

June 12, 2026. The USA is awesome at building rockets and playing soccer. Let's go!

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

What an impressive goal.
USA!

[U.S. Soccer Men's National Team @USMNT]

THREE FIRST HALF GOALS FOR THE UNITED STATES

TWO OFF THE FOOT OF FOLARIN

[Simon D. Schuster @Simon_Schuster]

It's final: MI gubernatorial candidate Ralph Rebandt won't make the GOP primary ballot in August after the Michigan Supreme Court denied his appeal.

State election officials previously determined he didn't submit enough valid petition signatures.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

I'll say this about the practice of law in 2026.

All good attorneys must develop the skill and patience to go through multiple rounds of writing prompts, patiently reading output, writing new prompts, and patiently reading output. Drafting within AI tools well before manually typing anything in Word has to be the default.

One must know grammar, good writing, and the underlying law for any of this to be executed well, but typing words per minute is the new cursive. Cute, but an unnecessary skill.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

VanDrunen on🔥🔥🔥. The American revisions to the Westminster Standards are nearly 250 years old and were made less than 150 years after the Standards were created in the 1640s.

[Sola Media @solamediaorg]

“Just to be clear, the PCA, OPC, this is what we confess. We don’t confess the original theocratic statements.”

David VanDrunen on the American revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1788

https://t.co/31CSb5AArW

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Representing Hillsdale, Michigan and the Presbytery of Michigan and Ontario! Praise God for Rev. Henes.

[OPC | Orthodox Presbyterian Church @OrthodoxPC]

The 92nd General Assembly has elected Rev. Everett Henes as its moderator. #OPCGA

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Jesus didn't drink Welch's. 🤣

[Jared Nelson @brothernelson]

🚨 The OPC used wine in communion. This is not a drill. The OPC used wine in communion🚨 #opcga FYI #pcaga

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

I feel this.

[Zach Molzer @molzer]

Owning a business is thinking about how stupid you were 6 months ago, every 6 months

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

💯Though less weird in West Michigan.

[Presbycast @presbycast]

If you have an evening service, physical psalter-hymnals, and powerful congregational singing, your church is immediately one of the weirdest in town, easily standing out from the rest. "Marketing" has never been easier for presbyterian and Reformed churches.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Big if true [sarcasm].

[Craig Mauger @CraigDMauger]

Republican Ralph Rebandt is disqualified from the ballot.

He intends to fight the decision.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Likely true. Ecclesiastical procedure, including evidence rules, in Presbyterian churches isn't that far off from legal procedure.

[Ryan Burge 📊 @ryanburge]

The rise of non-denoms has an underappreciated legal consequence:

Without hierarchy to resolve disputes, secular courts are more likely to step in

If the United Methodists get in a fight, the courts will let the UMC deal w/it

If it's The Bridge, the courts will get involved

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Arcadia Grit & Gravel is kinda my nemesis, but I love it. Two years in a row, I just have nothing left in the tank and slow to a crawl at the end. The only answer is more training miles (like I have time for that). #puremichigan

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

The Pistons need more firepower to beat the best. Sad.

[Tyler Dale Gaastra @TylerGaastra]

Good notes here. Detroit is a fascinating city.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Detroit impressions:

• The downtown is full of beautiful buildings. All of them seem to have been built specifically in the 1920s. I guess that is after the city had accumulated enough auto wealth but before the twin hits of Modernism and the Depression. (I hadn't known that the GM Renaissance Center, built as a revitalization project, was at the time the largest private development in US history, and also at the time the world's tallest hotel. It may be large, but it is not pretty.) The downtown is surprisingly depopulated -- both the streets and the sidewalks feel empty. That said, it didn't feel at all unsafe. There are lots of great homes in the suburbs.

• The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation is amazing, and it's worth visiting Detroit for it alone. Among many (many) other things, it contains the oldest known surviving steam engine in the world, the actual Montgomery bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a deconstructed Model T, a deconstructed Eames Chair, and many great cars, agricultural equipment, locomotives, industrial specimens, and more. (They have the Lincoln Continental that JFK was riding in when assassinated -- which, apparently, was returned to service and used by several subsequent presidents.)

• The museum made me wonder why American car design peaked in the mid-60s. (This fact is very evident at the museum.) The LLMs blame the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. (Not quite https://t.co/ox5TEECH6N, but close.)

• Good food exists but it is hard to find.

• The Heidelberg Project also exists and is unique.

• We stayed at the Dearborn Inn, which is wonderful, and contains cottages modeled after the homes of significant American figures. Dearborn (and Hamtramck) are now predominantly Muslim, apparently for reasons that go back a century to Henry Ford's $5 wage. Dearborn felt noticeably prosperous (we stopped for coffee at a fancy Japanese cheesecake cafe); Hamtramck did not.

• https://t.co/OOkCI7DbAz says that the Hispanic population of Michigan is just 6%. Coming from California, the absence is very striking.

• The Detroit Institute of Arts is remarkable, particularly the room with the American landscapes and the section with the Dutch masters (especially The Visitation). An obvious question is why there is nothing quite like it in the Bay Area given how much richer the latter is than Detroit ever was -- we techies are just so uncultured by comparison. The Diego Rivera murals are amazing (and quite strange; you can see why they were controversial).

• Detroit is full of historic plaques -- they are truly everywhere. This is presumably due in part to the fact that Detroit has a lot of history, but it still has many more than places with comparable historical depth. Some research suggests that it might be related to generous tax credits for historic preservation. Whether or not that is true, Detroit persuades me that other places should engage in more plaquemaxxing.

• I recommend a visit! You overall leave with some sense for how exciting America must have felt in the early 20th century.