Flag Planting in Oakview Cemetry

This morning, in preparation for Memorial Day, the local scouts (of which my son is a member) went along to plant flags on veterans graves. It was a damp wet rainy morning - perfect cemetery weather.

I have a strange interest in cemeteries - I like looking as gravestone inscriptions. Now, something I've seen here in quite a few places are graves that are occupied by one half of a married couple, with the surviving member having his / her name inscribed, but no death date yet. Basically, they are committing to be buried beside their loved one when they move on. It doesn't bother me that they do that - but to me it jest seems a little preemptive - I know I am not going to live forever, but I'd rather not have my name on a headstone till they are pretty sure that my heart has well and truly stopped beating.

On that, I seen a couple of grave markers that raised questions See below-
Now, the good Mt Christopher M. Schryer passed away in 1933, aged 64. His wife, Agnes, seems to have felt committed enough at the time to get her name carved into a stone, and placed beside his. I guess there is a chance that they both decided to place their stones there before he died. In any event, she was 70 at the time of his death.
Her marker stone is shown above, but note how there is no year of death inscription! Therein lies the mystery? Does the body of Mrs. Schryer lie here, and nobody ever got around to carving the date? Maybe she had no living relatives. Or did Agnes, at the ripe age of 70, decide to remarry, and now lies at the side of someone else? Or is it possible that, somewhere in Royal Oak, Michigan there resides a fine 144-year old lady?

Pistons - DEEEEEETROIT BASKETBALL!!!

I was given a pair of really really good Pistons tickets for last night's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers - playoffs game 2 of the conference finals.
These were easily the most expensive tickets I've had for a sporting event - at $280 each, they were somewhat out of my range, but boy were they good. We were about 10 rows behind the Pistons bench, for sure the closest I've been even during regular season.
The game was awesome - Pistons done their usual of falling behind in the first half, only to pull it back in the second. They effectively won by a point - even though the score said 3, Chauncy Billups was fouled with 1 second to go, and sent them both home. In any event, all was good - the Pistons seemed to be not firing on all cylinders (pun entirely intended), but they still got the job done.
Detroit in 5.

We also seen a heavily pregnant girl with her bulge painted as a basketball! Sweet!

That's the end then so.

I was in no mood to post anything yesterday. I watched the Red Wings fall to the Ducks the night before. If only they woke up earlier in the game.
If only they woke up in Games 4 and 5.
If only.....

Hey, I hear the Wings play hockey! In October!! Go Wings!!!!!

Stuff that makes me happy - #1 - Korean Food Store Staff - Seaweed Jelly

There’s a Korean grocery store not too far from where I work. Every now and then, I like to go there. Korean food ranks way up there in the foods I like – it’s a totally different range of tastes from anything else I’ve tried. Kim-Chee is amazing – and many westerners hate it.

Anyways, today at lunchtime, I visited the store. Out of interest, I decided to but some seaweed jelly noodles. I don’t believe I’ve had these before, so it will be a new experience. Now onto what I really liked there. When I went to pay, the lady at the desk went on and explained to me how best to consume these – what she does is rinse them, slice cucumber, onion, and other vegetables thinly, mix it all up with come mayonnaise, and serve. See, I didn’t even ask – she voluntarily gave me all the info I needed. Now I’m fully equipped to enjoy the noodles, with the knowledge that someone else has done so first. That’s what I call customer service.

Oh Well! Wings now facing an uphill battle.

That was really disappointing result. Even playing poorly, the red wings played better than the ducks. Unfortunate thing is that the duck scored in overtime.
Pronger was booed everytime he touched the puck, and so he should be. He was in our house.
Tomorrow night in Anaheim, the Wings have it all to do. They have the ability, but they did yesterday and they did on Thursday, but the powers that be didn't let it happen.
DO IT!

WINGS GET IT TOGETHER!!!

Man this is killing me. I feel like I've played a game of hockey.

1-1 Ducks Wings. End of regular time. Overtime coming up. Wing's let's roast dome Duck!!!!

Detroit Sports Update - Brought to you by Me!

Since I wrote here last, the Wings lost Game 4 v the Ducks. It was a highly annoying game - Detroit played well enough to win, but somehow Anaheim beat them.
That just makes it a lot more interesting for todays game - back here in at the Joe - with the series now tied at 2-2, if Detroit can keep winning at home, it will be on to meet the Senators.
Talking of which, I watched the Sabres-Senators game yesterday; not impressive, and I think Detroit can beat either of these teams in the finals.

Chris Pronger will be back today - I don't see this as an advantage to the Ducks at all. The wings tend to play to the conditions (excep in the 5-0 win - they totally took advantage of the conditions). I guess Pronger should count himself lucky that this is the "new" NHL - otherwise he might be looking for a battering today, following his nasty hit om Homer.

I will not make any predictions - seeing as how it went horribly wrong last time. - JUST GO WINGS!

I caught the end of the Tigers-cardinals games both yesterday and Friday - Today the tigers go for the sweep... why could they not have done this last October?? In any event, apart from the Boston blip, they are doing quite OK without Zumaya and Kenny. It'll be good to see how they change when the Gambler recovers and retakes the mound.

The Pistons started winning again - they beat Big Ben and his Bulls. Now it's on to see off Cleveland. With my limited knowledge of the NBA, it should not be too difficult for them.

The Lions - still not losing since I posted last...

LETS GO RED WINGS!!!!!

Detroit Red Wings 5. Anaheim Ducks 0.
Man I was happy with last nights performance. The Wings outplayed the Ducks in every aspect, including smart play. 5-0. Way above my predictions.
Dominic Hasek was amazing - to me, star of the game. A few decent saves early in the game took the wind out of the ducks, and it was all easy from there.
Holmstrom took a heavy hit, but survived it and was back on the ice after getting sewn back up - will be interesting to see in Pronger gets into more trouble over this. I'm thinking that it's the end of the incident - mainly due to the fact that Homer proved he wasn't too broken by returning. But we will see.
Now the Wings need to turn the screw tomorrow night, to allow them to finish it all up on Sunday on home ice. And progress to the Stanley Cup Finals!

Predictions:
Game 4 - Wings 4, Ducks 3. Wings win in OT
Game 5 - Ducks 1, Wings 3

Now to keep my fantasy team alive, lets hope the Sabres can turn around and route the Senators.....

Tigers beat Sox. Pistons lost again to Bulls.. Wings 4-0 up v Ducks

Tigers won. Good. Pistons lost. Bad.

GO WINGS. It's 4-0 wings with 20 minutes to go. This is better!

Stuff that bothers n bugs me - #2- Detroit loss Trifecta

Losing a hockey game is one thing. Losing a playoff game in overtime when you're the Detroit Red Wings, playing at home in Detroit is another.
Teaming that up with the Tigers losing heavily to Minnesota, and the Pistons getting beat up in Chicago makes for a poor sports start to the week.

The Wings will need to pull something out of the bag tomorrow evening in Anaheim – I’m confident they can – Babcock knows the territory there and Detroit will have some fire in their sticks.

At least the Lions didn’t lose – granted it’s summer and they were not playing, but I’m pretty sure that, had they have played, they would have made a big effort to not win as usual.

Royal Oak, Michigan. On a fine May Sunday.

Nuthin but a few pics. We went for a wander around Royal Oak, following a couple of hours at the Mothers Day Royal Oak In Bloom thingy.

11 Mile Road at Main

Main south of 11

The rail tracks at 4th. Photo taken without viewfinder.

Cafe Muse from behind. I've not been in there - have heard good reports.

The post office where, in 1991, a guy went postal.

Other Royal Oak posts:
Christmas Parade, 2007
Zombies in Royal Oak

Mothers Day in Royal Oak, Michigan

As it was a nice sunny Mother’s Day, we headed out to downtown Royal Oak, where they were having their annual plant / outdoor stuff sale – all nice and colorful.

I'm not exactly sure of what the statue above means - but it is different - and a very unique symbol of Royal Oak. It's "The Star Dream", by Marshall Fredricks - the sculptor also responsible for the "Spirit Of Detroit". On that, the Spirit better soon get his redwings shirt out.

The above Scarlet Macaws are actually used car tires – nice and inventive. Pretend dogs and wickerwork tricycles. Sweet.

Stuff that bothers n bugs me - #1 Back-To-Back Commercial breaks during Red Wings intermissions.

I might as well start numbering these whines. Maybe I’ll do a happier “things that make me smile” when I’m in a better mood.

I was watching the mighty game of hockey on last night, between the Detroit Red Wings and the San Jose Sharks. It was a pretty good game, not as fun to watch as the previous one, but they got the job done. 2-0 over the sharks, winning the series 4-2. The shark tank was supposed to be intimidating – c’mon, it’s in California – what are they gonna do? Text-message the wings with displeased comments?

Anyway, I enjoy watching hockey on Fox Detroit. I like listening to Ken Daniels, Mickey Redmond, and, between periods, Larry Murphy as well. What I DON’T like is, during the period intermissions, the LOAD of commercials I have to watch, most of all, when one set ends, they show a shot of the stadium, or wherever, and announce that they will be right back – THEN RUN INTO ANOTHER SET OF STUPID COMMERCIALS!!!

C’mon Fox (or Versus, or whoever). I know you need to make cash, but at least give me a reason to watch the intermission – I’ll watch some commercials, but not that many!

Oh yeah.

GO WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A fun weekend at D-Bar-A Scout Camp

Last weekend was our first spring camp out - previously we only went in the fall. The weather was great - perfect camping weather - and great weather for a fire. We got a face chord of firewood delivered - much more efficient that those $10 teeney weeney gas station bundles. As every other time we built a fire to be seen from outer space - even though it was not cold. Well, it roasted the dogs and smores anyway.
I also got some real amateurish moon shots in - seems dark, but I like it as it was a good representation of the actual lighting.



Sunday morning leaving was really nice - more pics...



Other links about D-BAR-A
2005 Spring Campout
2007 Campout - This time in November
2008 Spring Campout

I'm on a plane, I can't complain

So said Kurt Cobain in 1991 - and how true. I was on a plane to Detroit from Europe - and I certainly was not complaining.
I'd never took photos from a plane before. ...

These are all over Quebec - it looks rugged!
Below is the final descent into Detroit Metro.


And a bumpy shaky turbulent descent it was. I was ever so slightly nervous - the plane was being bounced around like a trailer in a tornado. But, as is obvious by my posting this, the great staff of NWA managed to get us to the ground in total safety.

Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Amsterdam, DETROIT!!!!!

I didn't get much chance to take many photos on my return to ths Stuttgart area - it was off the plane, into a car - my colleague took responsibility for the car - a really nice 3-series beamer - and straight to work. And hotel (Nestor - see earlier post), food, work, food etc etc.

The above photo amused my little brain.

On my final night there, we all went to a really nice Italian restaurant in the Market Square in Ludswigburg. I had a salmon pizza - it was awesome. Never had a salmon pizza before. It's a pity I can;t remember the restaurants name.

Two random German Countryside pics - above mid-wee, below on the way to the airport.

And onto Stuttgart airport, my time in Europe was up. The whole check-in time took forever - I guess it's all part of travel these days.
Observing Germany, there are a few things that were evident to me even in the airport. You know, it's the little differences, as Samuel L said. Example: escalators. It's pretty hard to find one going down in Germany- plenty going up. Which to me makes sense You have gravity on your side - there were a few elevators to go down in, but why have constant down escalators? Also, the up escalators seemed to go into sleep mode when not in use - to be re-activated when triggered by an optical sensor at the bottom. Again, makes sense in an energy conservation way.

And from there to Amsterdam Schiphol- another 286-mile walk. And onto a plane and back to Detroit on time to the snow and rain - and the comfort of my home and family and dog and just general niceness - it felt great. Ahhhhh!

Graz, Austria - continued. A walk around the City.

The first post about Graz was getting messy - I wanted to keep the picture somewhat in order, but the limitations of Blogger and indeed my inexperience was leading to me not being able to do this as I wanted to. So I'm returning to posting photos centered only(except the one here - I think I can control him).
There were a lot of bronze statues all over the place - Not sure who they were but they looked impressive. From here, we found ourselves in front of a tunnel - to where we did not know.

See. More statues!
And a building with exposed brick which seemed to be eroding away.

Turns out the tunnel was to the foot of the hill on which Graz'z most recognizable building sits - the clock tower. The path up to is was very steep - seemed like a great place for a workout.Said clock tower

One of the views from clock tower level. It's a pity it was so foggy.Thank You Graz!
The ruins pictured above are on the spot of, or part of a structure that stood on the spot in 1265.

The above sign made me laugh. Flower bulbs feel pain too!
Graz does weird trees pretty well.

A view from the bottom. A lot of steps.
Now I'm not exactly sure what this is but it's old.
Below are the balconies.


For those who didn't feel like the steps or the slopes, there was a tram.

We seen this strange looking architectural monstrosity and were somewhat confused about what it was.On closer investigation, we found it to be an art museum, the Kunsthaus Graz

Graz is Tram-tastic!

Two views of the same street.

The "Rathaus", or city hall.

A regular Grazian street - notice all the tram lines and tracks.
Above is a man-made island which contains a restaurant. We didn't go in there.

Above and below, check out the designs on the building.Now I've not got much of an idea what the mural above is at all about. A beach? In Austria?

And from there, we wandered around a bit more - it's pretty hard to find a restaurant that is open during the day in Graz. So, being in Austria, what better place to have food could there be than the Irish bar, Flann O Brien's. Turns out they were able to show the Detroit Pistons game, so my friend was happy. And from there it was back to the hotel, pack, sleep, rise, eat, and head to the airport to catch a plane to Stuttgart.

Slan to Graz for now.