Prepping for H2O days!

Happy Saturday. And I hope yesterday was your year’s best since it was National Donuts Day. I skipped the celebrations, but that’s probably for the best. At Dunkin’ it’s coffee and donuts as a snack, I went the solo coffee route.

Mentioning yesterday, I learned that if one has the thermostat set on ‘heat’ in June it’s in error. I was on my Zoom exercise cluster when I first noticed that I was dripping sweat on my Yoga mat as if a faucet had turned on. It turned out that exercise coupled with an inside humid temperature of 79 is not a happy combination. Early afternoon all was good (by then I’d also downed over 20oz of water).

Bet you didn’t Know – Now what would that be compadre? Ever heard of Stricker’s Grove? No? It’s an amusement park located outside of Hamilton, OH about 25 miles from our little abode. Started by Henry Stricker in 1924 on 55 acres of property. Henry worked at Procter and Gamble where he allowed his fellow employees over as a picnic spot on weekends.

Stricker’s Grove is a family friendly amusement park where I’ve never been. The reason is simple, it’s only open to the public 4-days a year. It’s still family owned, now starting year 101.

You ask, “How do they stay alive”, simple, it’s a destination place for events, company outings, weddings, and so forth. A quick factoid, years ago it was Ralph Stricker himself who built the Tornado, a full-scale wooden roller coaster as well as a smaller kiddie one..

“Are the rides safe?”— might also be something you wonder about, but don’t worry, the place is checked out by the State. Also, somewhat different, in Ohio it’s the Department of Agriculture which inspects amusement parks. It makes perfect sense. If you understand how a cornstalk snaps, the principle of Coaster snapping applies.

CWC 2025 – Some of you have probably had enough of me babbling on and on about the Club-World-Cup 2025 soccer event which starts this coming week. But it is nothing like what I spotted on BBC Sport: “Men ‘hid in toilet for 27 hours’ to watch Champions League final for free”. This happened in Munich; Click here to read just how they survived their escapade.

But for me, tomorrow I get fitted for my uniform gear and pick up my accreditation pass. Tuesday I am on the University of Cincinnati practice field to perfect the 15-minutes of ‘Rah-Rah’ officially labeled as the “Pre—Match Ceremonies Team” – I must be a slow learner because they have blocked 4-hours for me to learn the 15 minutes of glory.

Included for our team will be the display of the Tournament Brand Banner & Team Crests, then Music & some chorography, Team player walk on, match info, Player announcements, and breakdown of everything on the pitch. Whew! All done in 15 minutes.

A Very Special Visit/Day – Then on Thursday it really kicks in, I have a hospital visit at 7:00AM (my exact procedure requires that I drink an inordinate amount of clear liquid, sans solids).

Then at 5:00PM I’ll be back on the UC practice field to perfect the ‘Rah-Rah’ routine. Thursday should be fun and will certainly be the highlight of the week! Marcia is chortling. Adrianne is driving me around and will probably wonder why she volunteered for that chore. Me? I am a little more sober about the start of the day.

Corner dogs – The corner of Chaos & Mayhem was mostly quiet this week, except for one incident. A lady residing nearby has two dogs and one crazy habit. See, she puts her ‘pets’ on their leash (most times) and then drops the end she should be holding on the ground. Basically, she free-ranges her dogs which roam in about a 40’ or so radius. Mostly it all seems works – except for her picking up any ‘deposits’, which she doesn’t.

This week her lazy habit didn’t fare so well. Another neighbor’s daughter happened to set out to walk another neighbor’s two dogs – hers were properly on leash. The dogs caught sight of one another. Let’s just say that by the time the ruckus died down the daughter was in tears. That very next day the daughter reappeared, now with her upper arm all bandaged up (Ace). Sometime later that same day a city truck marked “Warden” rolled up and the driver went to the lazy dog owner’s home. And so, it goes.

Maybe that lazy woman would be better off heading for the Chinese online shopping site, TEMU where they’d sell her an electronic, peeing, attack dog.

Dayton – Vai and her Olohana’s Polynesian Dance were invited on Dayton’s GoodDay ABC Channel 22 this week. They performed a couple of dance numbers for the live show where Vai represented Tonga. Guess who was all smiles? Vai herself, her mom and dad, and Marcia and me.

Groceries – by now regular readers know that Marcia LOVES on-line grocery shopping. Yesterday morning, at 9:00, the Kroger truck rolled up and the groceries were brought to our front door. That evening Marcia commented that, including our delivery, she had counted 14 Kroger trucks roll by.

Life is AMAZING!

Dirk

BONUS POINTS:

Yesterday was the 81st year of the invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944). During WWII the allied factories (primarily the USA, UK, & Canada) produced a lot of aircraft – 630,000. Do the math, how much time between each new airplane to be completed and roll off the assembly line.

1) “12-minutes”
2) “1-hour, 12-minutes”
3) “47-minutes”
4) “2-hours”
5) “5-minutes”
6) “1-hour, 47-minutes”
7) “18-minutes”