Good cartoon

Outdoor Update

I did a little weeding and realized the flowers have really taken off. The "wildflower garden" has been taken over by the pumpkin plants. It's survival of the fittest back there so we'll see what wins out.

Preparations

 

We are seriously into the preparation stage for our trip to Japan.  There are suitcases out and final counts of gifts, shirts and “unmentionables” have been made. 

I discovered a website called Cheapo Tokyo.  While I was reading it and admiring its very detailed information, I noticed most of the photos have pictures of cats photo-shopped into them. I don’t think you can go wrong with a website that includes pictures of cats.   

Busy morning keeping track of the rain drops

Which day? Birthday and Segway.

 

We spent three days down in Milwaukee this week while the cats went to their country villa outside of Eleva, Wisconsin.

Here’s Ravel looking dirty after rolling around in the dirt.

Sue saw her high school friend Pam who lives in Bay view. We met up with some of the Eau Claire crew at La Perla for dinner, saw Pete and Katie, and here we are with Dorene at a coffee shop near Tech high School (which now has a different name).

We golfed with Diane and Mom and then the next day took Dorene out for her first ever Tour de Segway on the Milwaukee waterfront.

After watching a ten minute video about all of the ways you could hurt yourself or others on a Segway, we saddled up. here is Mom nervously ready to climb on her hog. That’s Nick, our guide outfitting everyone. There were eleven segwayers on the tour.

The trick is to not try too hard. You just get on and let your intuition do the work. Nick told us, “People on bicycles will hate you and walkers will want to be you!”

Nick told us to push either your heels down or your toes down to move backwards or forwards but everyone I talked to thought it was easier to just lean forward or backwards.

We zipped along the lakefront by all of the landmarks down there including Summerfest, the Calatrava wing of the art museum, the War Memorial, and the harbor inlet light house. Nick gave us the tour spiel cracking as many jokes as he possibly could. I reused my line from the first time I rode a Segway in Texas telling some little kids, “We’re from the future.”

We even rode on the narrow wooden walkway that encircles the Discovery World museum.

And here we are on the plaza in front of the Miller Pavilion. We had a fun time. Happy (early)  71st Birthday Mom!

Sandtrap or water hazard...you decide...

Shinjuku Train/Bus/Subway Station, Tokyo

Shinjuku Station (新宿駅 Shinjuku-eki) is a major railway station in Shinjuku and Shibuya wards in Tokyo, Japan.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the busiest railway station in the world, where we will arrive jetlagged after a 17 hour trip. I’ve highlighted some of the more ridiculous facts.

Serving as the main connecting hub for rail traffic between Tokyo's special wards and Western Tokyo on inter-city rail, commuter rail, and metro lines, the station was used by an average of 3.64 million people per day in 2007, making it, by far, the world's busiest transport hub (and registered as such with Guinness World Records). The station has 36 platforms. Including an underground arcade, there are well over 200 exits.

 

Here is a schematic of some sort. . .

. . .and another map?

Wish us luck. Our hotel for the first night is listed as being a quarter mile from the station but on the map it looks like it is attached to the station.

Saturday

Tokyo map study

Team Hunting!

Back To Where We B(e)lo(n)g

 

Well, the blog works again. The posting from yesterday was one from several weeks ago. These biking pictures are from about a week ago but I rode again yesterday and wore the same blaze orange shirt from the Heart Walk. This McGroarty Park is next to highway 52 just south of Upper 55th Street. There is a bike path along side the freeway from 55th to 80th street. It has been recently repaved and is ultra-cruisable.

See what I mean?

Here it crosses under 52 to reach the east side of the freeway. There is a lot of undeveloped land in this area. I wonder who owns it and why they haven’t put up condos yet.

This is the Lions Park pond with the freeway in the background.

My band played last Sunday at the famed Lake Harriett Band Shell. We did my solo piece again, which went pretty well, and . . .

. . . Vicky, one of our singers brought her high school aged daughter along for their rendition of A Few of My Favorite Things.

And, we also played Sweet Trombone Rag, a bone section feature. Leon sat in for this concert and we also have a new trombone player for the summer named Taylor. That’s Marie standing in the middle. Marie, James, and I have been playing in the band for around 12 years. It was nice to have five bones for this heavy program.  Most of our music has three trombone parts but there can be between one and four parts.

Here is our new Black and Decker electric mower possibly designed by a team of engineers at NASA. Nigel watched me cut the grass from the open bathroom window.

May Bee See–One Two Three

 

 

Sue took her band/choir/orchestra to Chanhassen dinner theater today to see Mary Poppins. She called this morning with an extra ticket for me but was able to find one of the many students who desperately wanted to go but wasn’t able to get a ticket. Oh well, I spent this awesome May day riding my bike, cutting the grass, arranging some trombone music, and practicing my trombone. Here’s the shiny boy. . .

. . . and the orange boy with the matte finish.

I rode down by the river and then walked up the hill south of 494. these hills in this town are too steep for ever biking up. Here is 494 heating up with rush hour traffic.

Oh yeah, I got a haircut today, too. I could say I’m wearing my Houston T shirt today in honor of the flood victims there but really I wear this shirt about every third day.

The city marked two big trees on our block for removal. They took one down rather noisily today.

My new mower worked well except I have to get used to the lack of a reversible handle. People who mow electrically will know what I’m talking about. Our really nice neighbor Steph moved out. Jimmy remains. We don’t know the details.

This linden tree was planted as a 12 foot tall sapling back in about 2008. I would say it has grown nicely.

See who was waiting for me when I got back from my bike ride?

Summer Begins

Here are a few pictures of our flowers.  Either they just started blooming today or I just noticed because I have time to sit outside now that it's nearly summer vacation!   Nigel has spent plenty of time Snoop-ervising the outdoor activities.

Free Day Friday

Last day with students!  See ya kids!