Here's the email I just received from the Marquette Interchange Project. Kudos to them for doing such a great job. I lived downtown for a year and on the south side (or Bay View as Chris calls it even though we didn't really live in Bay View) for another year during the heart of the project and I have to say I was utterly impressed with how well the project went and how well they communicated all of the changes.
Yes, I know I haven't been there for a year+ but I still get all the emails about any closures and news. While it may have been confusing for people who didn't really travel through downtown all that much, Chris and I both drove through it every day and were repeatedly impressed with how smoothly it actually went. For those of you who thought it was rough, think of the people in Boston. I, myself, am looking forward to driving through it in a few weeks.
O.k. So now here's the email.
"The Marquette Interchange is Open We are excited to announce that the largest road construction project in the history of the state, the Marquette Interchange, has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget. The new and attractive Marquette Interchange is safer with wider ramps, greater distance between ramps, longer merge lanes and exit ramps on the right side. We want to thank the community for their cooperation and patience, and everyone who changed their approach but not their destination.
The new interchange has many new ramps and changes to existing ramps. To acclimate yourself and learn how to make it work best for you, click here to view the Owner's Manual for your new Marquette Interchange. If you would like a copy of the Owner's Manual mailed to you, please e-mail your name and mailing address to: MIPownersmanual@gmail.comThe Marquette Interchange is open - enjoy the ride.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Jump-Off
I attended my first and only 2008 Olympics event this evening - Equestrian Jumping Qualifications (3rd round) and Team Jumping Competitions (Final Round & Medal Ceremony). Unfortunately, Chris is traveling all week. Not very much fun for him but very fun for my friend, Sara, who got to come with me instead. I'd like to give a big Thank-You to my friend, Katie, who had the extra tickets and let me buy them from her. And another big Thank-You to Richie who very kindly left his pocket radio and dual headphones for me to listen to the commentary at tonight's event.
You can watch tonight's performance on the Oxygen channel from 5-7 p.m. on Monday night. If you haven't checked the internet and don't want to find out what happened...STOP READING HERE :)
Let me just start by saying a few things. I love the Olympics. I love America and I love our hearing our national anthem.
The great things about the Olympics is that you get to watch sporting events that you only watch every four years. Even better, you don't have to know anything about the sporting event you are watching the enjoy it. My sisters and I found that to be true back in 2002 when we were at our first bobsledding event. The same happened tonight with the show jumping.
Granted, I have a basic understanding of the sport. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the horse should go over the jump, not stop in front of it; the horse shouldn't knock any of the poles off the jumps; and the rider should say on top of the horse. These are all basic.
The cool thing about the Olympics is that now I know words like "cups" - the things that are holding the poles up and phrases like "he chose a 5 instead of a 6" - meaning the rider had the horse take 5 strides in between the jump instead of 6 strides. I also learned things like, there are colleges in the U.S. that have collegiate level riding programs (this one really blew us away). Or things like, the Americans and Canadians generally take the shorter number of strides and the Europeans generally take the larger number of strides.
Why do the Americans and Canadians do this? Maybe it's because we're better! The American rider was the last to go and her ride (only one jumping fault but no times faults for a total of 4 points) brought the Americans in to a 2-way tie with the Canadians for the gold medal. Time for a jump-off! I think that we were the only people in the stadium who really had no idea what was going on, but it was worth the text to our friend, Lorraine, sitting on the other side of the stadium to figure out the rules. Fewer jumps but the fewest penalties and total time dictates the winner. Three Americans and two Canadians later, the Americans had it locked and we were cheering for the gold. It was awesome. Really so cool. So, so cool.
I will try to post pictures tomorrow, especially of the very interesting medal ceremony. Let's just say that the horses really would prefer to be in the stable and not out with the very noisy crowds. Right now it's after 1 a.m. here and I'm off to bed.
You can watch tonight's performance on the Oxygen channel from 5-7 p.m. on Monday night. If you haven't checked the internet and don't want to find out what happened...STOP READING HERE :)
Let me just start by saying a few things. I love the Olympics. I love America and I love our hearing our national anthem.
The great things about the Olympics is that you get to watch sporting events that you only watch every four years. Even better, you don't have to know anything about the sporting event you are watching the enjoy it. My sisters and I found that to be true back in 2002 when we were at our first bobsledding event. The same happened tonight with the show jumping.
Granted, I have a basic understanding of the sport. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the horse should go over the jump, not stop in front of it; the horse shouldn't knock any of the poles off the jumps; and the rider should say on top of the horse. These are all basic.
The cool thing about the Olympics is that now I know words like "cups" - the things that are holding the poles up and phrases like "he chose a 5 instead of a 6" - meaning the rider had the horse take 5 strides in between the jump instead of 6 strides. I also learned things like, there are colleges in the U.S. that have collegiate level riding programs (this one really blew us away). Or things like, the Americans and Canadians generally take the shorter number of strides and the Europeans generally take the larger number of strides.
Why do the Americans and Canadians do this? Maybe it's because we're better! The American rider was the last to go and her ride (only one jumping fault but no times faults for a total of 4 points) brought the Americans in to a 2-way tie with the Canadians for the gold medal. Time for a jump-off! I think that we were the only people in the stadium who really had no idea what was going on, but it was worth the text to our friend, Lorraine, sitting on the other side of the stadium to figure out the rules. Fewer jumps but the fewest penalties and total time dictates the winner. Three Americans and two Canadians later, the Americans had it locked and we were cheering for the gold. It was awesome. Really so cool. So, so cool.
I will try to post pictures tomorrow, especially of the very interesting medal ceremony. Let's just say that the horses really would prefer to be in the stable and not out with the very noisy crowds. Right now it's after 1 a.m. here and I'm off to bed.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Olympic Lessons
Hopefully many of you watched the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games on Friday night. Unfortunately we couldn't watch it on our slingbox because NBC decided that they shouldn't broadcast the opening ceremonies live. Bummer for us...or me really because Chris worked until 9 p.m. and isn't all that excited by the Olympics. After some TV issues (not surprising), we were able to watch them live at our friends' house. Fortunately, we had an English channel to watch.
The pageantry was nothing short of incredible, but we really enjoyed seeing how the Chinese culture would come through in the evening's performances. It was very cool to learn more about Chinese history but also very interesting to watch some of the things and think "that is so Chinese." For example, the "cheerleaders" who lined the border of where the athletes gathered after the procession. Did anyone happen to pay attention to them and find them slightly hysterical? None of them could really keep a beat and they kept doing this really funny looking dance. The sheer volume of people, fireworks, etc. was also very Chinese. Not in a bad way at all. But I'm sure you noticed that everything was amazingly over the top. The Chinese call it "Face" the Americans would say "Go big or go home."
Even though the opening ceremonies were awesome, the athlete procession is a little bit like a graduation ceremony. Did anyone notice? The poor countries who came in first. They were just sitting down, taking a nap, trying not to be too bored for the next 2 hours while the rest of the athletes trailed in to the stadium.
All in all, it was a quiet Friday night for us, accompanied by a little bit of education. Here are some of the things that we picked up just from watching the Opening Ceremonies.
The pageantry was nothing short of incredible, but we really enjoyed seeing how the Chinese culture would come through in the evening's performances. It was very cool to learn more about Chinese history but also very interesting to watch some of the things and think "that is so Chinese." For example, the "cheerleaders" who lined the border of where the athletes gathered after the procession. Did anyone happen to pay attention to them and find them slightly hysterical? None of them could really keep a beat and they kept doing this really funny looking dance. The sheer volume of people, fireworks, etc. was also very Chinese. Not in a bad way at all. But I'm sure you noticed that everything was amazingly over the top. The Chinese call it "Face" the Americans would say "Go big or go home."
Even though the opening ceremonies were awesome, the athlete procession is a little bit like a graduation ceremony. Did anyone notice? The poor countries who came in first. They were just sitting down, taking a nap, trying not to be too bored for the next 2 hours while the rest of the athletes trailed in to the stadium.
All in all, it was a quiet Friday night for us, accompanied by a little bit of education. Here are some of the things that we picked up just from watching the Opening Ceremonies.
- During the procession of athletes, countries entered the stadium in alphabetical order, alphabetically according to the Chinese alphabet that is. I didn't quite catch what it was based on given that the Chinese have a character based language and not really an alphabet, but it explains why it went from Ghana to Argentina (or whatever the order).
- I need to spend more time in Africa & the Caribbean - I started keeping track of how many countries we have never heard of before. Out of 204 countries participating in the Olympic Games this year, we were bound to have a few that we didn't know. Sadly, the list got sort of long: 15+ and then I stopped counting. We worked out that all of the countries that we didn't recognize were in either Africa or the Caribbean. Before living in Hong Kong, I probably would have had the same experience with countries in Asia. You obviously get more familiar with an area of the world when you spend time there. Thus, I need to eventually head to Africa & the Caribbean. Hmmm, maybe for someone's wedding in January?
- The Bartolotta fireworks are no longer the best that I have ever seen. Unless, of course, the Bartolottas were helping the Chinese out on Friday night.
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