Leisure … more than a word, it's a lifestyle

This will be a bit of a weird post for some of you today but it’s time for our American friends to come to appreciate a little about the noble game of cricket. The reason I’m writing is because I’m furious about a completely shocking, abject and utterly disgraceful England performance against the West Indies this afternoon.

For those that don’t know anything about the game, this was the equivalent of a 100-0 thashing at American Football or basketball or even a 15-0 goal thrashing at soccer. All this from so called professionals…and what makes it worse, the West Indies are pretty much the worst recognised international team out there…save for perhaps Bangladesh!

Sure the WIndies used to be a formidable force in the 70′s and 80′s but this team is a shadow of it’s former glory and the way they disposed of England today was unbelievable. Going back a few years the Windies had a fantastic team and every Englishman amongst us always believed they could steam roller over us. They often did, once famously “black washing us” and bowling us out for 46…but this, this was something else.

It’s hard to believe that the nucleus of this English team was the same one that had beaten the all conquering Aussies in the Summer of 2005 but that seems light years away now. England go to Barbados next and let’s just hope they put on a better performance for the thousands of supporters following them out there from the snowy UK. After that, we have the Aussies again…and who knows what they’ll be capable of doing to us.  Shocking.

Anyway, this blog always trys to educate and inform so I thought I’d try and teach you the rules of cricket. Here they are:

If you’re currently staying in one our luxurious vacation homes in Orlando you’ll need something to do today because it’s very chilly out there. As I write this the temperature is 32 degrees and even though the sun is out it’s not going to get much over 54 degrees today.

I know some people in other parts of the country will laugh at this but this is serious stuff for us Floridians and we’re just not used to it. We’re seeing freezing citrus crops and that could be bad news for our fruit industry and while some of us don’t mind the odd cold day, this has been around for about two weeks now and enough is enough!!

Anyway, here’s some great things to do today. Places you can take your family and stay nice and warm.

The Charles Hosmer MORSE MUSEUM of American Art holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany including Tiffany jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass, leaded glass windows, lamps and the chapel interior he designed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The Holy Land Experience is the world’s first living, historical, biblical museum. It has many fascinating biblical exhibits and profound biblical presentations.

Old Town is a mini park with shops, restuarants and rides like “The Giant Ferris Wheel”, rotating swings, “Wind Storm roller coaster, tea cups, merry go round, go carts and much more. On Staurday’s there is the famous “Saturday Night Cruise” which features hundreds of classic cars as they cruise the street of “old Town”.

Orlando Museum of Art has a broad spectrum of art genres on display. It was founded in 1924 and its mission is to be an education institution for the local community.

Reptile World Serpentarium features snakes and reptiles including venomous snakes from around the world. gila monsters, aligators and more. No web link for this one but if you go east on US 192 around 20 miles from I4 junction on US 192 you will find it on the left when the road narrows to two lanes.

Fantasy of Flight is home to over 40 rare and vintage aircraft many of which have been restored to flyable condition. You can climb inside the cockpit of a Corsair fighter or take a spin in a state of the art hang glide simulator in the Fun with Flight area.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not  For over 40 years, Robert Ripley– the modern Marco Polo and the real-life Indiana Jones– traveled the world collecting the unbelievable, the inexplicable, the one-of-a-kind.  All of it amazing and much of it extremely amusing.  His collection is housed in over 27 museums in 10 countries.  Each museum’s collection is 90% unique and different.

WonderWorks. If you like Ripley’s then you’re sure to love WonderWorks. The exterior of WonderWorks is Orlando’s most photographed building. It is packed with over 100 games and gimmicks used by science museums to teach basic principles of physics and it turns them into a highly enjoyable interactive amusement arcade for all the family.

It was 50 years ago today (3rd February 1959) that Buddy Holly was tragically killed in a plane crash at the age of 22. Buddy rapidly rose to fame and had only been recording for two years at the time of his death but he still had time to influence the world with such hits as “Oh Boy”, “Peggy Sue”, “True Love Ways and “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.”

He was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock Texas on September 7th, 1936 and began his musical journey at the age of eleven with piano lessons. Oddly enough, after only nine months of lessons and being applauded by his teacher as one of her top students Buddy, without explanation quit. He told his parents he wanted to play the guitar, and even though they were struggling financially they found a way to grant his request. 

During his teen years Buddy performed with close friend Bob Montgomery billing themselves as Buddy and Bob as they performed local events throughout Lubbock, Texas. It was only after opening a show for Elvis Presley at a local gig in 1955 that Buddy knew exactly what he wanted to do. Success, however, didn’t come until Holly formed his new group, the Crickets that consisted of Jerry Allison on drums, Niki Sullivan on guitar, and Joe Maudlin on bass. The Crickets recorded “That’ll Be The Day” in the Clovis, New Mexico studios of producer Norman Petty and the record hit the top of the charts in September of 1957.

in the fall of 1958, due to legal problems concerning royalty money, he split from the Crickets and Norman Petty. He married Maria Santiago and relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City.

In January of 1959, Buddy along with 17 year old Ritchie Valens,  J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and other acts embarked on what was billed as the winter dance party.  From the very beginning, the tour was plagued with difficulty. The tour buses inability to stay running, a faulty heater, and the series of one-night shows caused many of the performers to display cold and flu symptoms. It was after a show in Clear Lake, Iowa that Buddy, tired of the miserable conditions, decided to charter a plane. He hoped that he and his sidemen Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup could wash their clothes and get a decent nights’ sleep before the next performance. The word quickly spread through the troop and soon both Jennings and Alsup were getting requests to give up their seats. J.P Richardson, the “Big Bopper” convinced Jennings to give up his seat stating that a man his size wasn’t able to put up with the cramped conditions on the bus. Ritchie Valens appealed to Allsups gambling side by proposing they flip a coin for the seat. Unfortunately for Valens, he won the toss.

Holly, Valens, and Richardson along with their pilot Roger Peterson took off from the Mason City airport on February 3rd at 12:40 A.M. All four men perished soon after when their four seat aircraft crashed after takeoff. The surviving members of the tour did not want to perform without their stars but soon succumbed to the pressures of the promoters and continued the final show. However, when Buddy’s band stepped on stage without their leader there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience. It was a terrible tragedy that took the musical community many years to realize. As Don Mclean hauntingly put it in his 1971 hit, “The day the music died.”

Walt Disney Co. today informed the financial markets that it’s net income had fallen 32% in the last quarter. This is a sign of the state of the economy at the moment but instead of focussing on the negative we really need to look at the positive.

Once upon a time a company reporting a net income of $845 million would have been celebrated but we now live in different times. OK, it was down from $1.25 billion on the year earlier but it’s still a great result even in harder times.

It just goes to show that people are still visiting the parks and they are still buying Disney products. It also means that the parks aren’t packed and that ride times are shorter. In fact, it could be argued that now is absolutely the right time to make a visit.

Santonio Hughes celebrates the game winning touchdown

The score will go down in history as a win to the Pittsburgh Steelers by 27 to 23 over Arizona Cardinals but it’s a game that will go down in folklore as one of the best ever…but here’s my confession, I’m not even a fan of football American style. So even with that being the case I still sat down and watched a lot of the game last night and I was totally enthralled as the clock ticked away and the pendulum swung both ways.

With 2 minutes and 30 seconds to go the Cardinals moved ahead for the first time in the game and it seemed all over for the Steelers. They knew better however and with just 35 seconds on the clock they managed to conjure up a touch down that will be remembered forever. It was the finest of margins and even after video replay had been looked at several times it was still a knife edge decision that rightly went in favor of the Steeler’s.

So with this win they now have 6 Lombardi Trophies to make them the “winningest” team in Superbowl history. It also makes them “World Champions”. Not quite sure what the rest of the world makes of that but last night America showed everyone they can host an event like no other nation. From start to finish it was superb entertainment…and who knows, I may even get to like the game called football that is actually played with the hands.

SuperBowl 2009 is now history and what a great game.  As neutral observer (I am a Rams fan), I was enthralled and enjoyed one of the greatest SuperBowl games I have ever seen.

I am also pleased for Kurt Warner … many years after the Rams wrongly dumped him, he had fought his way back and guided an unfancied Arizona team all the way to the SuperBowl and then but for a couple of very cruel twists of fate almost took them to the winning podium in a performance that belied his 37 years.

Even though he came up short, this was a real MVP performance and should hopefully secure his entry to the Hall of Fame.  He now has the 3 top passing games in SuperBowl history.  I am not sure if he should come back next season or not … but he will no doubt make his own mind up.

KURT’S NFL RECORDS

It’s horrible growing old … because your heroes grow old as well and then eventually die.  One of my favorites are Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band who have endured more tragedy than any deserve, suffered another blow when Billy Powell, the keyboard player died in Florida aged 56.  This band represented Florida with pride and spearheaded the Southern Rock movement.  In rock nothing compares to Billy Powell on the keyboards for Freebird.  Knowing some of the band personally, I am saddened to think I won’t see him play this iconic anthem any more.

The musician was found dead at his Florida home by paramedics on Wednesday January 28 after he called them to complain of breathing difficulties.

The day before he had missed an appointment with a doctor for a heart examination.

Powell, who was born in Texas, went to school in Florida with the future bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd, Leon Wilkeson, and initially found employment as the band’s roadie.

He worked for them until 1972, when singer Ronnie Van Zant heard him play his own version of the band’s hit Free Bird and invited Powell to join Lynyrd Skynyrd as their keyboard player.

Their self-titled debut was released the following year and the band achieved huge popularity during the rest of the decade with hit songs like Free Bird and Sweet Home Alabama.

Lynyrd Skynyrd were struck by tragedy in 1977 when their private jet crashed into a swamp in Mississipi.

Although Powell was seriously injured, he survived, unlike fellow members Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines.

In the years that followed the crash, Powell played keyboard in a Christian rock band called Vision.

He toured with Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1987 when the band reformed with Van Zant’s brother Johnny on vocals and remained with them till his death.

Powell’s wife Ellen and four children survive him.

10 Facts About Skynyrd

1) Previous names for the band included the Noble Five, My Backyard and One Percent.

2) The band finally got their name from the basketball coach at their Jacksonville High School, Forby Leonard Skinner, after he sent them to the Principle’s office for having hair that was too long. At first they spelt it, Leonard Skinnerd, which then changed to their more distinctive spelling on their first album.

3) They established their trademark three guitar attack on their first big hit Free Bird which was a tribute to the recently deceased Allman Brothers guitarist Duane Allman.

4) The band’s female backup singers were known as the Honkettes.

5) They supported the Who on their 1973 Quadraphenia tour.

6) 1974 hit Sweet Home Alabama was written as a tribute to the celebrated R& B studios Muscle Shoals, but after Neil Young’s criticisms of the South in his songs Alabama and Southern Man they rewrote the third verse to rebuke him. But the band and Young were on good terms and the Canadian originally wrote Powderfinger for Lynryrd Skynyrd although they never recorded it.

7) Gimme Back My Bullets was a reference to Rolling Stone magazine’s rating system. They had to stop playing it live because fans threw real bullets on stage.

Aerosmith had previously rejected the plane that crashed in 1977 and destroyed half the band at its peak for not being safe.

9) The cover of their sixth album, Street Survivors, released three days before the crash, which pictured the band surrounded by flames, had to be pulled.

10) The band reunited in 1987 with Johnny Van Zandt, brother of original singer Ronnie and were made honorary colonels in the Alabama State Militia.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band promised a “12 minute party” at Super Bowl XLIII and they completely delivered with an utterly amazing performance that is sure to live in the minds of football and rock fans alike.

In previous years we’ve been treated to U2, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Justin Timberlake, Tom Petty, Shania Twain and other memorable halftime shows but Springsteen captured the moment like no-one had done previously.

Half Time: 17-7 to Steelers.

Well Superbowl is here and if it gives us a performance even halfway as good as the one Jennifer Hudson gave us when she sang the national anthem, then we’re in for a treat. Simply amazing given all that she has gone through recently.

It promises to be a fascinating night and it was good to see Faith Hill back to belt out “America the Beautiful” as well as Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and the US1549 flight crew co-pilot Jeffrey B. Skiles and flight attendants Doreen Walsh, Sheila Dail and Donna Dent

So…onto the toss of the coin…”tails” is the call and it comes down “heads” and Arizona wins the toss…can they win the game?

Check out our blog “2009 Superbowl…Oooze gonna save us?“ here