It’s About Time

  We spent a night at the Oriental Hotel that’s along Raffles Ave. the main reason is to watch the NDP fireworks at the bay front.  A special package was made available and my wife was keen to sign up for it.

She has always liked watching fireworks.  The one that serves as best we’ve seen was in a small town in IA. Can’t remember if that special fireworks show was in Union, or what.  That was way back in the summer of 1996 when I was doing internship at Fellowship Baptist Church in Marshalltown, IA.  Bro Katzer brought us there for that 4^th July fireworks.  A unique small town where the folks would drive a small parade through main street with town folks of all ages participating. It wasn’t anything fancy compared to any major cities’ standard but it was no less fun. The Catholic church of the town hosted the special meals where folks paid a reasonable amount. It was a festive occasion no doubt. 

The firework was held at night, and being summer, you can imagine what time it got started!  Nobody complained.   From the vantage point that we had, we could see many cars where folks from other towns drove in to watch the fireworks display. 

It appears that this town has a tradition (no idea when it started) where it puts up a show of this magnitude.  The whole fireworks lasted 45 minutes.  Before the show started, an announcer stated over the PA that they have collected few thousand dollars for the following year’s fire work display. So it appears that this fireworks is the desire of town folks (and those from out of town), and they gave generously towards it. I am sure the various fund raising acts contributed towards it too.  My wife and I felt so much a part of the fanfare.  Thanks for the memories, folks. Sorry that I couldn’t recall the name of your town!

Back to present day. The firework here however lasted only 15 minutes though not small in terms of the amount of fireworks and intensity. I think this is a South American company that produced the show.  The fire works was excellent but what made the experience new was that we viewed from 16^th floor of the hotel so that gave us a new perspective with regards to watching fire works show.  Amanda was enthralled by the show.

How many people watched last night’s show? 27,000 were what I gathered from the MC of the show, which was a downer least to say.  Thankfully, it was a short 10 minutes’ torture before the show began. By the way, those 27,000 in attendance comprise only of those who paid for tickets to see it from the viewing gallery which of course, was the best place to watch the whole shebang. Others who prefer FOC watched from buildings or along the road, and riverwalks. We saw several boats on the river that “parked” for a good view. Of course, people on board must have paid a sum for it too. It’s the best time to capitalize on the occasion for extra pocket change!

The stay at the Oriental Hotel was enjoyable albeit expensive but my wife felt refreshed by the short getaway, so that’s great.

  Sven Eriksson was much criticized for his failure at the last World Cup with regards to England’s failed campaign in the midst of heightened pre-world cup talk.   Now that his Manchester City is doing well at the start of the new EPL season, people in particular, the media appeared to be ‘shocked” and some even suggesting that City could be the surprise of the season. 

I can’t help but think that these people are either incredibly stupid or just plain stupid, period.  There is a fundamental difference between being manager of England and that of a club. Erickson was known for his club successes prior to hire by England FA.  While one could call up any world class English player to form the national team, it doesn’t mean automatic gelling of players to form that cohesiveness or teamwork.  Because these players spent more time playing and training under a different coach and style, it takes a while before it can do anything substantial. Whereas at club level, the manager gets the players to train on set pieces on a daily and weekly basis. The camaraderie is easily formed and understanding builds through weekly doses of EPL if not championship league or UEFA ties.  The England manager often encountered deliberate attempts by club managers to deter the calling of their key payers through “injuries.”  The club manager knows if a player is truly injured or not. He can benched or sell away the player if he is not up to mark at club level.  Not being called up for one’s country may not directly jeopardize one’s football career though it certainly adds feather to the cap, so to speak.  Beckham may have had some difficulty, but his club performances is so well coupled with England’s dismal performances literally “forces” Mclaren to issue recall to the former captain. What a load of pride to swallow!Would Erickson do well for Manchester City this season? I think so but perhaps not at the top-four placing for starters.  It’s time for this underachieving club to at least attain top-ten spot this season and helped boost the fans’ morale seeing they’re often overshadowed by their more glorious rival, United. 

With MU having drawn two games and two “R”s missing, it will be interesting to see the resilience of this team this season. Carlos Tevez may once again prove to be the man for the hour.  And that’s my thought for this weekend.