Lyon Street Water Slide 2010

Amid much publicity and hoopla, Grand Rapids became home to what had been billed as “the world’s largest inflatable water slide” over the weekend of 21 & 22 August 2010. This community event was organised by Rob Bliss and was free, with the costs of setting it up apparently covered by various sponsors. Thanks to Susan Dmytrusz who happened to be standing near the top when we got there for our turn, to whom I gave a card with my eMail address on it and asked her if she’d mind taking a couple of pictures of us and then eMailing them to me – Thanks Susan!!!! (I hadn’t taken my camera as I couldn’t think of anything to do with it while going on the slide).

The Slide - Looking Uphill from the Middle

The Slide - Looking Downhill from the Middle

Things got off to a slow start on Saturday, with the start delayed from 9 AM to 2 PM for technical, and weather reasons, and once running things seemed slower than expected. People were waiting up to 6 hours for their ride. One of the bottlenecks was the tubes needed for sliding – a “chain gang” was in place to return them from bottom to top, as can be seen in the two pictures above, but the reality was that people walking up the hill were actually travelling faster than the mis-thrown, dropped tubes were.

Lisa and I decided to head down earlyish on Sunday morning to see if we could get a ride with a shorter wait time. We got there right about starting time of 0800, only to find things already behind schedule. We had to line up below the bottom of the slide on Lyon Street, in what turned out to be very nearly a 4 hour wait.

Lined up waiting our Turn

Thanks to Nathan Vandenbroek for taking the above photo on his cell phone and eMailing it to me.

As we slowly made our way up Lyon Street to the start, the slide ran, then stopped for repairs, was delayed waiting the return from the bottom of the needed sliding tubes, etc etc

A description of the mornings events might have gone something like this…

Waiting, chatting, waiting, idle chatter, waiting, “why don’t they do it this way”, waiting, waiting shuffling slowly up Lyon St, waiting, “oh the sun has come out” waiting, waiting….

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Thok!!

$10 Tee shirt

Been There Done That

A photo gallery with a few more images is below.

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Camaro Superfest 2010

The Camaro Superfest 2010 was held July 2, 3 and 4 at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and (on Friday afternoon) at Michigan International Speedway. Lisa and I, along with friend Kristie, her 3 kids and her parents went to take a look at the cars on Saturday.

A panorama made by joining 15 photos together

Not far in from the entrance - a line up of red Camaros - 2010 models in front, and a couple of the earlier ones up to 2002 bhind.

White 69ish Camaro and Black 2010 Camaro in the shade.

This 1970s Camaro was an amazing orange colour.

A photogallery with a lot more photos follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Ypsilanti July 4 Parade

The Camaro Superfest 2010 was in Ypsilanti on July 2, 3 and 4. July 3 was also the Ypsilanti July 4th Parade, which went right by Riverside Park where the Camaro Superfest was being held. So we got there in time to see most of the parade before going down to see the more than 150 Camaros.

I guess it wasn’t quite what I was expecting – too many politicians “on the stump”, and not enough celebration of America’s history I thought, but we did manage to make our own Red, White and Blue…

Brenden after eating a red candy.

Roger after eating a blue candy.

A number of different groups were handing out promotional bubbles – the bottles all seemed to have a sticker on them for some politician or religious group or school…

Kristy blowing the bubbles while Lisa looks on.

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2010 Byron Center Relay for Life

May 7-8 2010 was the Byron Center 24 Hour Relay for Life. It was also the weekend for Roger and Lisa to host Dinner Club. So we decided to combine the 2 events and have Dinner Club at the Relay for Life – a great plan, except of course one can’t control the weather

The Forecast

So we held what was probably one of the wettest, coldest Dinner Clubs held.

The Serving - Main Course - Lamburgers

Survivor's Parade - it's raining...

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Relay for Life 2010 – Murder Mystery

As a fundraiser for the Relay for Life Event for the American Cancer Society, some of the staff at Byron Center United Bank arranged a Murder Mystery Dinner. Around 100 people were treated to a FANTASTIC dinner prepared by Courtney’s Mum and her band of helpers, and then entertained by “GT Productions” who presented “Jack Spade and the Silk Stocking Murder” – an interactive murder where YOU are the sleuth.

The cast of the Murder Mystery - MJ Gottricks, Rita Gottricks, Father Mike, Javier Montoya (or is he????) Jack Spade, Sister Mary Rose of Sharon and Nurse Jenny, along with Courtney and Jennifer who organised the evening.

They put on a great story, acting out various elements of it as they moved around the room, showing us hopefully enough that we’d be able to figure the Means, Opportunity and Motive behind what happened. A photogallery follows.

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Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Grand Rapids 2010

Saturday April 24 was “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” in Grand Rapids. A grey drizzly day as it turned out. Fortunately not really raining. The event started this year in Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids (the green arrow on this map) and wandered around a little before heading up Ottawa Ave, past Calder Plaza where we had started in previous years, across the Grand River, back south on the River Bank walk, past the Fish Ladder, Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum before crossing the river again to finish back at Rosa Parks Circle.

Roger was all in pink again this year.

The Finish Line - Lisa and Roger at the Start/Finish Line.

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Spaghetti Dinner for Relay for Life

Tuesday 9 March 2010 was the day of the Spaghetti Dinner at First Christian Reformed Church in Byron Center. This was to raise funds for the “Relay for Life” that is coming up on 7-8 May 2010.

There was spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, bread sticks and Pavlova. There was also a Bake Sale table selling a variety of cookies, cup cakes, and of course ANZAC Biscuits.

It was fairly successful – we made nearly $500 from it, so that will be a great start on the Friends Team fund raising effort for Relay for Life this year.

Swim Meet 23 Jan 2010

23 January 2010 was another Age Group Swim Meet for Kyle and Zoe. This time it was at Rockford, Michigan. Kyle and Zoe both swam. The YouTube videos are below.

Zoe 50 Yards Backstroke. Zoe, 3rd from bottom in Lane 4 (the gap in the video is Uncle Roger pressing the wrong button on the camera at the wrong time). Zoe wins her Heat in 47.09 seconds.

Kyle 50 Yards Butterfly. Kyle is in Lane 4, diving in over the orange cap of the swimmer from the previous race. Kyle wins this heat in 30.94 seconds – not quite up to his 30.18 from 2 weeks ago – a better turn would have helped.

Zoe 50 Yards Breaststroke. Zoe is in Lane 2 at the bottom of the picture. She won this heat, but less time looking across the pool would have given her a bit faster time . 1:01.82 – hey it’s still waaaaaay better than I could even think of doing!!!!

Kyle 50 Yards Backstroke. Kyle is at the bottom in Lane 2 – a great start and then an easy swim sees Kyle winning this Heat in a good time of 35.11 seconds- more than 5 seconds ahead of anyone else.

Great Job Kids!!!!!!!!! See you next weekend

Swim Meet 9 Jan

Saturday 9 January was the Quad Swim Meet for Byron Center, Zeeland, Rockford and a team called “Heat”, although I don’t remember what school they were. This is part of the West Michigan Swim League.

Zoe wasn’t swimming today – she was a Church Camp, but Kyle competed in a Relay and 2 Individual events.

50 Yards Butterfly…

Kyle finished a close second in this one.

100 Yards Freestyle

Kyle won this race very easily, but his time was second overall – the winner of the first race was 7 seconds faster.

A couple of other shots here, including an “action” diving shot.

First Lego League Michigan Finals

One part of the Michigan State finals of First Lego League was held at Carman-Ainsworth Middle School in Flint, Michigan on 12 December 2009.

The team from Byron Center – Team <Default> – made it to the State Finals for the first time ever thanks to their performance at the Regionals at Grandville on 20 November 2009.

Overall as a Team they finished in the lower half of the 48 teams present, but they learned a lot from seeing and competing against the other teams. They did however win the “Alliance Challenge” – a time limited challenge whereby 4 teams had to work together on a plan to have their robots each drive down the course and for all of them to end up parked in the smallest possible space.

Alliance Challenge Winners

Kyle’s idea of having the Team <Default> robot run up a ramp that was on one of the other robots, thereby effectively parking 4 robots in the space occupied by 3 robots proved to be the winning idea. A photogallery of images from this is available when viewing the whole post. (click link below if it’s not showing.)

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