KANSAS CITY ROYALS INCREDIBLE POST SEASON WINS!!!!

In my home away from home hometown, Kansas City, the month of October has proved to be an incredibly exciting experience in the world of professional sports.  Besides Sporting Kansas City, the local major league soccer team, clinching a spot in the MLS playoffs, the major league baseball team, Kansas City Royals, have ended their 29 year post-season drought.

   

October for the Royals began with a game that started on a September evening that ended four hours and 45 minutes later!!  As a wildcard team, it was a one game chance to move on to the best of five divisional series games.  This beautiful mess of an American League Wild Card Game went 12 innings (for those not familiar with American baseball, a normal game is nine innings), that involved 41 players and ended with Salvador Perez’s how-did-he-pull-that single to left, a rip that scored a rookie utility man named Christian Colon from second base with the run that provided a 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

The team came back from a four-run deficit with three runs in the eighth off pitcher Jon Lester, then another in the ninth against Oakland closer Sean Doolittle, who had been scored upon once in his past 20 outings.    Pinch runner Jarrod Dyson stole third in the ninth inning to set up the tying run on a sacrifice fly, one of Kansas City’s seven stolen bases. The Royals won because a 21-year-old lefty, Brandon Finnegan, who, five months ago, was a student at Texas Christian University my friend Shayla’s university,  held the A’s scoreless in the 10th and 11th with dominant stuff and preternatural poise.

The Royals moved on to sweep the Anaheim Angels in the best of five American League Divisional Championship series games.  Currently, they lead 3 games to none in the best of seven American League Championship games.  They could clinch their place in the World Series tonight!!!

Enjoy this amazing video from last nights game:

Amazing catch


Here are the headlines from the local paper from the past couple of weeks:

The State of Missouri, USA, has an awesome park system and conservation department.  Recently my mom and brother and friend were at the Lake of the Ozarks and did a day trip to Ha Ha Tonka State Park.  It is in the center of the state, near Camdenton. This park is known for it's Karst topography, a landscape of caves, sinkholes, and underwater streams and springs.  In the early part of the 20th century, a large stone castle was built on the bluffs.  It burned in 1942 and some of the stone walls are left.  There is a natural bridge, a beautiful spring, and lots of hiking trails.  Here are some photos and don't forget to click on the link for more information.

 Ha Ha Tonka State Park

New attraction in the Windy City - the Tilt!

Saw a news story about the latest attraction in Chicago at the John Hancock building - It's the Chicago Tilt. Up to eight people can fit inside the glass and steel moveable platform that slowly tilts outward on an angle, providing downward-facing views of the city from over 1,000 feet above.  Heights don't really bother me, so I think I would do it, but I know plenty of people who would be in a panic if they even thought about trying it.

AFRICAN DAISIES !!!

I know with spring getting underway in the midwest, and particularly in Kansas and Missouri, my mom is probably snapping up some flowers dear to her heart - osteospermum - the African Daisy.  The come in so many cool colors, and sometimes the center has a metallic look to it.  My friend back there loves the ones with the petals shaped like spoons.  The winters in the US midwest gets too cold so these amazing daisies are just grown as annuals there.

Here are some pictures to enjoy:

The Lake of the Ozarks

Some of my friends spent a couple days at the Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri.  It is a huge lake, sometime described as the dragon lake or magic dragon because of it's unusual shape.

It was built in the early 1930's to provide electricity and also recreation.  Here is a link to some facts about Bagnell Dam.

Bagnell Dam Facts

Here are some photos my friends provided.  Their place is around the 42 mile marker.

My ma and my second ma did a road trip today in Missouri, USA to a botanical garden.  I understand the weather wasn't the best, but it wasn't a total bust.  Now they have memberships so besides the pictures they sent me to post of their expedition today, I am sure as the seasons progress I will have more to add.

Here's a link to the garden:http://www.powellgardens.org/

Here are a few photos:

Well, my friends and family back in the midwest USA had stormy weather yesterday.  Although there was no tornadic activity in the vicinity of where they live, many other places were not as fortunate.  In fact at least 14 people died in the storms.  Here is some information about tornadoes:

Interesting Tornado Facts

Each year, about a thousand tornadoes touch down in the United States, far more than any other country.

Waterspouts are tornadoes that form over a body of water.

A strong tornado can pick up a house and move it down the block.

Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas make up Tornado alley, where tornadoes strike regularly in the spring and early summer.

Many houses in tornado alley have strong basement shelters.

Some people have seen inside a tornado with their own eyes lived to tell about it.

Knives and forks have been found embedded in tree trunks flung from a tornado.

Usually a tornado starts off as a white or gray cloud but if it stays around for a while, the dirt and debris it sucks up eventually turns it into black one.

3 out of every 4 tornadoes in the world happen in the United States.

Thunderstorms most likely to give birth to Tornadoes are called supercells.

Tornado winds are the fastest winds on Earth.

A Tornado in Oklahoma once destroyed a whole motel. People later found the motel’s sign in Arkansas.

A Tornado can sometimes hop along its path. It can destroy one house and leave the house next door untouched.

In 1928, a tornado in Kansas plucked the feathers right off some chickens.

In 1931 a tornado in Mississippi lifted an 83 ton train and tossed it 80 feet from the track.

The United States have an average of 800 tornadoes every year.

Each year, dozens of Americans die from tornadoes.

Usually, a tornado’s color matches the color of the ground.

Some tornadoes make a considerable amount of noise while others make very little. It depends on the objects a tornado might hit or carry. A tornado moving along an open plain may make very little noise.

Some people think the crop circles in the UK are the result of weak whirlwinds. About 60 of these small tornadoes are formed every year in Britain.

SOUTH AFRICAN FUN FACTS

Haven't posted anything recently from the South Africa - The Good News website, but here are a few miscellaneous fun facts:

Miscellaneous

• South Africa has 11 official, state wide, languages, more than any other country.
• The only street in the world to house 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners is in Soweto. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street, Orlando West. SA ranks 7th in terms ofnumber of Nobel Peace prizes. (Economist).
• Two of the world’s most profoundly compassionate philosophies originated in South Africa – Ubuntu (the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity) and Gandhi’s notion of "Passive resistance" (Satyagraha), which he developed while living in South Africa.
• The Western Deep Level mines are the world’s deepest mines at approaching 4km.
• South Africa houses one of the three largest telescopes in the world at Sutherland in the Karoo.
• South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantleits entire nuclear weapons programme.
• SA ranks 12th in terms of beer consumption (China 1; USA 2; Russia 3; Brazil 4 and Germany 5).
• SA has 45 million active cell phones (population 49 million) – ranking in the top 5 globally in terms of cell phone coverage.
• SA has 66 colour TV’s per 100 households, 9 telephone lines per 100 population and 90 mobile telephone subscribers per 100 population. (Economist).
• 2 Cape Town restaurants are in the top 50 restaurants in the world according to the S.Pellegrino Worlds 50 Best Restaurants list 2010. La Colombe restaurant in Constantia, Cape Town, was voted the 12th best andLe Quartier Francais in Franschhoek came in at 31
• South Africa has 8.5 computers per 100 population (UK 80, Spain 40,South Korea 47 and USA 80). (Economist).
• SA ranks 31st in terms of internet users per 1000 population. (Economist).
• SA ranks 16th in terms of cinema visits per 1000 population. (Economist).
• South Africa does not feature on the "brain drain" list of 20 countries. (Economist).
• 

I received some nice pics from my KC friends of a few of the fountains on the Country Club Plaza.  From what I hear it was a beautiful Easter morning there.  I am adding a little info about the fountains that I found on the KC fountain web site.  Hope you enjoy.

This fountain is the best-known and most-photographed of all of the city's fountains. It is located at the east entrance to the popular Country Club Plaza district. The figures were sculpted by Henri Greber in 1910 and adorned the mansion of Clarence Mackay in Long Island, NY. Over the years the fountain was vandalized and eleven parts were missing. The Nichols family initiated the purchase and installation which was funded by the family, the city and private contributions including a collection by school children in the Kansas City area. It was brought to Kansas City in 1951 and refurbished by Herman Frederick Simon and dedicated in 1960. The J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain has four heroic horsemen which are said to represent the four rivers of the world: the Mississippi River (the Indian riding the horse and beating off an alligator), the Volga River (with the bear), the Seine and the Rhine. 

The Boy and Frog Fountain is an original bronze and Verona marble fountain by Raffaello Romanelli. On the base is a faun on a dolphin. The bowl & pedestal are rose colored Verona Marble. Purchased in 1929 in Florence, Italy, this fountain has impressed and amused visitors to the Plaza. 

This wall fountain is one of three, which was inspired by the Alhambra Court of Lions fountain in Seville, Spain. This black volcanic stone lion is emerging from its decorative niche on the wall.

The Neptune Fountain on the Plaza is a favorite. Miller Nichols purchased the 8,000-pound cast lead fountain for its weight in scrap metal. It was found on the top of a train car full of scrap metal by workmen at a salvage company. Installed in the 1950's, the Roman god of the sea moves in his chariot pulled by three attributes, the trident, dolphin and sea horse. The fountain originally came from the Bromsgrove Guild, Worcestershire, England in 1911