Wanna see something fun?...

From the Mentos school of great promotional ideas (if I didn't send you the link to the 5 million times viewed video that a couple of guys created displaying what happens when you mix Mentos mints with Diet Coke - click here), check out this YouTube clip from Canada - an entry in a promotion they ran for creating art with Mentos. Cool

Recognise anyone?

You might need to double click on the image to enlarge...! The occasion - Sheila's 50th last weekend, and the dress code - come as a famous couple.

Jake and Elwood

That's Nellie, Donald (who came with Rosie - see below...), Princess Grace, Prince Ranier, Ricky Ricardo...

Holly (?!) and Hugh

Liz and Edmund (maybe in their lifetime!....?)

Rosie and wife Kelli (and a visitor from the Hawkes Bay)...

Post dinner, the festivities continued back in the hotel room...with dancing...

and more singing...

The following night the party continued with Mexican food, tequila...(yes, that's Nellie drinking Patron!)...

...and cake.

It was a wonderful few days, which doesn't happen often enough. Roll on next time....

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Anyone remember my posts from a few months ago when I was talking about how white Milwaukee was...well now it's RED!...It's 6pm and 93F outside - that's about 35C but it feels about 5C hotter.

We've been to a movie in the middle of each day this weekend in a bid to escape the heat. Our house is the top floor of a duplex so, without air-conditioning, we're getting the heat rising off the pavement. The fans are on in every room and I am longingly looking back at those snow pictures wishing for some white!

We had a picnic dinner out last night in a bid to escape the heat...Tonight I had the stupid idea, being Sunday night, to make some cookies for Nellie to have in the pantry during the week for a snack - which of course raised the temperature in the kitchen by another 375F!

Today is the final day of Milwaukee's famous Summerfest 10-day long music festival. It's actually been so hot this week we couldn't even face going a couple of nights when we had tickets...although we did see Peter Frampton in fine form the other night, as well as BB King, and Robbie saw Lindsay Buckingham. There were plenty of sights to be seen. My highlight - the size and scale of the motobike park...this is definitely the home of Harley Davidson...

Hard to see the scale of how impressive this parking lot for the bikes was...

...although, as you might be able to tell, there were four times the amount of motorbikes as push bikes!

S'More to it!

A couple of late entry pictures that I should have posted the other night to go with our 4th of July story...

We cooked a deep fried turkey for our neighbors and in true American summer tradition we cooked s'mores for dessert - toasted marshmallows, with a slab of chocolate, sandwiched between two graham crackers (a sweetish wheaty biscuit).


Georgina, I thought of you!

4th of July and time for a new sport...

Raise the flags high and get out your red, white and blue clothing (see pic below) for we've just had the 4th of July in the US.

Mother Nellie has come to visit us for three weeks after the celebrations in CA (will post about those next). This week the US Seniors Open is being played at Whistling Sands at Kohler, an hour north of us here in Wisconsin, so I decided to get tickets for us to head along to one of the practice days that was held yesterday - for no doubt it will be crowded later in the week and probably a bit hard to get around.

Here are some pictures of our outing where Nellie outdid herself scrambling over hills and down dales.

The highlight for me was a) seeing Tom Watson in the flesh (the only name I recognised) and seeing the very flash coolers for competitors that they had at every tee filled with waters, Gatorade, snack bars and candy. I want to know whether they chose the signage paint colour to match the coolers, or spec'd the coolers to specially be the same green to match the environment (that's the event planer coming out in me....!)

The 18th green

As seen on the 4th of July - gotta wear your red white and blues, especially if it has the Declaration of Independence on it. Who needs a tattoo...

Check out those coolers!

The course has something like 1200 hazards...they're not hard to spot.

Nellie the billy goat gruff...Tom Watson
...and Nellie with Tom.

Bear with me...

No post today. You know the reason why...just a little too sad and need a little time to gain a little perspective...

Match Point - A Historic Race 7

When we wake up tomorrow we'll have race 7 of the America's Cup on our hands - at least for those of us watching on American time.

It's only the second time there's been a race 7 in Cup history - and you might well remember the last one - 1983. Let's hope that sensational result by John Bertrand and his boys gets replicated by Dalts, Deano and the rest of the team. By race 7 in 1983 Australia 2 was on their way to a historic 4-3 victory after being down 3-1 (in those days the event was a best of seven competition). I wonder how many times the ETNZ boys have reminded themselves (or been reminded) that it can be done.

This can't be last race. It can't be the last time Louis Vuitton, the longest continuous sponsor in sporting history, is involved in the America's Cup. It can't be the last time Moet & Chandon is sprayed on the America's Cup victory podium (it's likely they will pull out of the Cup if parent LVMH withdraws Louis Vuitton's sponsorship). It can't be the last time a journo wins a Louis Vuitton goodie in the daily media prize for picking the final delta.

It just can't.


P.S Potent story on the Herald website about Bertarelli's control of the behind-the-scenes organisation at the Cup. Goes someway to validating suspicions I had about why certain Kiwis with Cup experience weren't offered jobs in the current regime...

P.S.S The latest acronym coming out of Valencia - ABBA - Anyone But Bloody Alinghi. Fingers crossed its all comes crashing around their ears.

©Thierry Martinez
A few nervous Kiwis watching the action at the weekend at the Southwestern Yacht Club in San Diego
A lone lucky red sock keeps vigil...