Where is Starman?

Happy Friday Eve. Posting a little early since tomorrow morning at 6:15AM I’ll be enjoying my coffee in the car while driving to our TQL Stadium. In a short while I’ll be doing my volunteer part on the Pre-Game Ceremonies. Today’s (Saturday) FIFA Club World Cup 2025 game will feature the Mamelodi Sundowns FC (Pretoria – South Africa) vs Borussia Dortmund (Dortmund – Germany) game.

Afterwards Marcia and I will head for Centerville (near Dayton) to watch Vaioleti performing as a dance member for the Ohana Outreach Fundraiser, in their annual Luau! There Vai’ll promote dances from Tonga.

Now does the why for this Friday posting make sense? Thought you’d agree.

Cicada Time – Those pesky every 17 years beasties are back. No, I am not reposting the audio track of our local eatery’, “Snappy Tomato Pizza” notorious 1987 faux advertising jingle: “Snappy Cicada Pizza”. But just how strange an event it is, is clear when viewing this year’s emergence.

Here by our home, we’ve not heard or seen a single lonely one of those ‘red eyed’ bugs. However, drive exactly 9.2 miles away from our home, in Madeira and Milford the ground has become a living, writhing, carpet.

Early on the early emerging Cicadas were viewed a desert snack by other animals. Now, there are so many of the screeching beasties that it’s to a point where even the birds and the dogs are sick of them.

Think I’m kidding? Ha!

A Game / A Storm – Wednesday with temp hovering just over 90 and humidity as high as anyone would want my team and I did our pre-game banner routine. Even with the heat our performance came off flawlessly. Then, armed with lodge seat complimentary game tickets we were truly treated to a world-class game. Playing were CF Pachuca (Mexico) vs RB Salzburg (Austria). ‘Treated’ until shortly after the 2nd half started when Stadium announcers stopped the game and moved everyone under cover. And, yes, it was quite a thunderstorm which blew through.

Safely under cover away from the weather it was the Mexican fans who began to sing and party. I called Marcia to let her know all was OK and see if she was OK on the home front. Let me explain that with all the singing and chanting we couldn’t make out a word either one of us said or heard over the “Pachuca, Pachuca” chants, i.e. fun, fun times!

The Team – I’ve been asked what all this FIFA ‘volunteering’ is about. It’s a bunch of work performed for free. Actually, it’s work without renumeration, but with tons of fulfilling and gratifying good times. Here are a few pictures of the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff and one of ‘Moi’ and my team.

The Pitch

The Team

Rush – Earlier this year Vai and her school band, plus similar bands from 6 other high schools joined forces at Miami University to combine their Steel Drums for a concert of the band Rush’s music.

This, Rush’s “2112 Overture”, was just posted and is a much more professional video than my posting of their “Tom Sawyer” piece. This video of the 2112 Overture is too good to pass up, go full screen or TV and up the sound – ENJOY!

People ask – Dirk, over the years you write constantly about your walks and 5Ks, what gives? Maybe, these words spoken by Dr. Wendy Suzuki provide the best answer:

“We know that as little as 10 minutes of walking can improve your mood, that is getting (your brain) that bubble bath with the dopamine, serotonin, endorphins going, anybody can do that.”
Dr. Wendy Suzuki, neuroscientist, professor at the New York University Center for Neural Science

Life is AMAZING!

Dirk
BONUS POINTS:

Which of the following have served as a form of currency?

1) “Beads”
2) “Stones”
3) “Tulips”
4) “Eels”
5) “Shells”
6) “Salt”
7) “Animal Skins”
8) “Parmigiano cheese”
9) “Whale teeth”