From Our Beat Reporters

This is a photo from my band's Centennial Lakes concert from about a week ago. I think Bob the trumpet player's wife took the photo. I guess I've just figured out how to upload photos that have been sent to me on email. "Windows 8" (shake fist in air while say this)!

Christoph and I practiced some of the music for next Monday's concert in which he'll be performing with the band without actually rehearsing with the band. I think he'll do just fine once we work out some of the trickier rhythms in Big Band Tribute.

 This is Nike the Cornale family dog from the camera of Dorene. Nike is a large dog who is getting larger all the time.

 Mike and Sunanda celebrated their 10th Anniversary last week. Congrats to them on 10 good years!

And here we are at the Oak Creek High School football game last Friday night. Christoph had many questions about American football. He made us wonder why there are so many tedious rules in American football. On Sunday night in Eleva, Mike tried to explain some of the myriad rules of NASCAR racing.

This is friend John's official mugshot in which he sports an Uberlingen am Bodensee T shirt. We looked with no luck in Meersberg for a similar T shirt to replace this shirt which apparently has disintegrated from being laundered so many times.  He opened the window and all of the remaining individual T shirt molecules drifted out with the breeze (joke paraphrased from Jerry Seinfeld, circa 1997). Poor John. Poor, poor John.

Sue's grandmother Mariann Berg as a small child . . . ?

Soup and sandwich at the Melthouse on Milwaukee's east side.

 And here is my older sister Diane and here son (my nephew) Zach. Keep rockin' the beard Zach!

Coolest Nearest der Michigan See

 Yeah, I thought our bike ride from Grant Park to South Shore Park was pretty cool. This is the bike trail that I rode all the time with my friends back in the 1980s. The trail was smoother back then but it is still a great amenity for the communities of Milwaukee. Virtually the entire shoreline of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee County is parkland (except for the harbor area).

 At my old high school, Cudahy High School (formerly known as Cudahy Senior High School) in Cudahy, we pulled up to watch a high school soccer tournament. The fog was rolling in off the lake and the temperature was a little chilly. Christoph had a lot of questions and comments about the game and the players and the sport.

 We could barely see the school through the fog.

 We met up with our buddy Pete and his two daughters and continued on our ride through the St. Francis Seminary grounds. I'd never been in this area before even though my Grandma lived a couple of miles from here and my cross country running team used to train all around this area.

 Zwei Tochter aus Peter mit Christoph

 Susan

und Christoph

Cooler Near The Lake

 

 From our boat ride in the port of Milwaukee harbor, we had some really cool sunset photo opportunities.

Mike, Christoph and I looked under the hood of my car to assess the air conditioning situation. Again, after driving about three hours with the AC on, it started to not blow cool air anymore. At Mike and Judy's we had a little time last night to kick around a small and flat soccer ball.

 Uncle Duke (The Dukemeister von Eleva Stadt - the Duke Master of the town of Eleva) and Mary stopped in when they saw the unlikely sight of two guys kicking around a soccer ball in the front yard.

 Ravel and Nigel got along well with Mr. Tailwheel as evidenced by the nephews licking their uncle while he ate his dinner.

  We picked up some sweet corn from a farmer's stand in Elsworth, Wisconsin. Christoph also took a lesson in laundering his clothing. School starts tomorrow!

The cats seem to like their older German brother.

Weekend Highlights

 

We left on Friday for a holiday weekend road trip and arrived home today, Labor Day.  Here are a few highlights from the trip.  After dropping the cats at “The Berg Estates of the North”, we headed for Milwaukee.  

Christoph got a good taste of American culture over the weekend, starting with McDonald’s lunch in the car. 

We had a nice meal at a Thai restaurant in downtown Cudahy with Mike and Sunanda.  It is good to see new things moving into some classic suburban downtown buildings.   

We went to nephew Nathan’s football game in Oak Creek – Friday night high school football…a true classic American experience.  We discovered it is difficult to explain the rules of “American Football” but we tried!

We took a very nice bike ride along the shores of Lake MIchigan.  Doug has been riding here his whole life and had some good stories to share.

 

Thanks to Pete and Katie, we had a very fun pontoon ride on the Milwaukee River and the very edge of Lake Michigan on Saturday night.  Milwaukee was hosting the 110th Anniversary of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  We saw A LOT of motorcycles and heard even more.  As we left dinner on Saturday night, there were non-stop motorcycles driving through downtown Milwaukee. 

We finished the weekend with a night with the Bergs where Christoph learned to play Hearts. 

Ready to Rock and to Roll

 This building, Union Depot, was St. Paul's train station from about 1920-1970. Last year it reopened and soon the Empire Builder Amtrak train will stop here daily on its way from Chicago to Seattle. Also, the Green Line light rail will end right hear in front of the station. They have turned a few of the train platforms into intercity and Metro transit bus stops.

 Work on the highway 52 bridge continues. Since I rode downtown with Christoph, I was able to walk around and explore the job site. If I'd gotten any closer they would have required me to wear a hard hat. The bridge and road basically connect interstate 94 just east of downtown St. Paul with the west side of St. Paul across the Mississippi River. Highway 52 is known to some as the Berg-Williams Turnpike.

 Under the bridge is where old highway signs go to die.

 After Christoph's first day of orientation, we walked around downtown a little to get a lay of the land. This is from the viewing platform next to the Science Museum of Minnesota. Makiko and Jojo will remember that their prom dances took place just across the river at Harriett Island Park. Actually, they took river boats for the dance--this is where they left from.

Christoph has the bus figured out and is ready to rock and roll!