Happy New Year, Welcome to a New Decade
We’ve had a fun New Year’s with a little swimming and ice skating.
Looking back on an interesting decade, here are some highlights:
2000 – Internet Bubble Burst
2001 – 9/11 Terrorist attacks, War in Afghanistan Begins, First iPod Released, First Harry Potter Movie, First Lord of the Rings Movie
2002 – Winter Olympics in SLC
2003 – War in Iraq Begins
2004 – Google Goes Public, Giant Tsunami kills 230,000 people
2005 – Hurricane Katrina Devastates New Orleans
2006 – Bird Flu Scare, YouTube purchased by Google
2007 – First iPhone Announced
2008 – Financial Trouble Begins “The Great Recession”
2009 – Barack Obama Sworn in as First African American President, H1N1 Virus Pandemic
Here comes the smog
Let’s starting cleaning up our air. The valley creates a condition where the pollution stays during the winter unless blown out by a storm. We drove up above it to feel a little better, and it was great. Fortunately, it only lasts a few days and usually is blown out by a storm which should take it out tonight.
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Bringing Home the National Championship
Goooooooooooooooal!
Congratulations Real Salt Lake!!!!
Video Courtesy of KSL.com
ESPN headlines run: “RSL [Real Salt Lake] stuns Galaxy…”
CNN calls it a “Monumental upset.”
Real Salt Lake sister team is Real Madrid (Spain). David Beckham (when he played for Real Madrid) came to play Real Salt Lake in one of their first seasons as part of a promotional good will game.
Real Salt Lake had a long way to go to reach the championship. We were fortunate enough to attend the Real Madrid vs. Real Salt Lake game at the U of U stadium. Below is a picture we took of Beckham taking a kick in the Real Madrid vs. Real Salt Lake game in 2006.
RSL has since found a home in their own state-of-the-art stadium (pictured below).
Image Courtesy of Wikipedia from Ytoyoda
Commemorating The Great Fall of the Terrible Wall – Holding a Piece of History
Do you remember the fall of the Berlin Wall? What an emotional event as we watched on television and in pictures!
Today, November 9, 2009 we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall.
I remember watching the images and the joy of the people of Berlin as the wall came down. One of our family friends visited Berlin as a reporter soon after the wall fell and was allowed to bring back pieces of the wall that he chipped off by himself. Below is a picture of me holding a piece of history, part of the Berlin Wall in my hands.
Courtesy Noir, Wikipedia, GNU License
Courtesy, Staka, Wikipedia GNU License
Courtesy Wikipedia, Public Domain
About the Berlin Wall from Wikipedia:
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a concrete barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany) that completely encircled the city of West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The Wall included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses.
The separate and much longer inner German Border (the IGB) demarcated the border between East and West Germany. Both borders came to symbolize the Iron Curtain between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc.
Prior to the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans had avoided Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and escaped into West Germany, many over the border between East and West Berlin. During its existence from 1961 to 1989, the Wall stopped almost all such emigration and separated the GDR from West Berlin for more than a quarter of a century. After its erection, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between around 100 and 200.
During a revolutionary wave sweeping across the Eastern Bloc, the East German government announced on November 9, 1989, after several weeks of civil unrest, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans climbed onto and crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, parts of the wall were chipped away by a euphoric public and by souvenir hunters; industrial equipment was later used to remove almost all of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.
Courtesy Wikipedia, GNU License
Courtesy Wikipedia, Sue Ream, CC 3
The Denver Post Blog posted awesome pictures of the event as well as the progression of the building of the wall, escape attempts, and the coming down of the wall.
Here’s the link to Ronald Reagan Berlin Wall Speech in its entirety, Courtesy Wikipedia. I listened to the speech recently, and what a great hallmark it is.
Even Alvin and Chipmunks (the cartoon) had an episode I remember from the 80′s calling for the The Wall to come down.
Wikipedia Source: Berlin Wall. (2009, November 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:40, November 9, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Berlin_Wall&oldid=324762845
Read MoreRudy, 34 years ago
It’s true, I had never seen the movie Rudy until this past Thursday. You, know, football movies are all pretty much the same. “Rudy” is different; it’s better. I enjoyed watching the movie and then watching the special features. Someone posted some of the special features on YouTube. It’s amazing that the story and the game in the movie followed very closely the events that really took place.
YouTube Video of the real Rudy that someone uploaded.
What an inspiration for dreamers who work at pursuing their dream.
November 8th is the anniversary of the game Rudy played in.
Link to the Movie Page on Amazon.com:
Shark Week 2009
As you may have heard (or have been anticipating all summer), this week is Shark Week, the Discovery Channel’s week-long, annual focus on the beasts from the deep. So why the interest in these deadly predators from someone who never, ever wants to see one in the wild? Well, one can be interested in atomic reactions, fission, fusion, and other explosions, but know enough to stay away, far away.
Shark week is a fantastic look into the life of one of the worlds greatest predators. It’s one of those things that you just can’t not watch when flipping through the channels. Shark Week helps to raise awareness of the importance that sharks play in the earth’s ecosystem as well as their beauty and majesty (from a distance, as in tele-vision type distance for me).
Other media outlets get into Discovery’s Shark Week as well, Life posts pictures, CNN posts video, and bloggers start the hype.
See Discovery.com for more detail.
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