Detroit's History -- through Elmo's Eyes

Last Night we had the pleasure of experiencing 'Elmo's Coloring Book' a live sesame street production full of mystery, intrigue and elmo and friends search through his coloring book to locate the missing colors of Sesame street. It was a blast! the kids loved it and are apparently still talking about it today.

The show was held at the fabulous Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit. I was reminded of the amazing architecture in this historical building. While there, our group wondered aloud when the building was erected-- which lead me on a google seach to find out some more about the history of this building.

Here's what I found:

The building was built in 1928 and designed by C. Howard Crane. It was one of two identical thatres (the other is in st louis and was built in 1929). Crane is quoted as saying he considered this theatre to be his best efford (with a resume of over 250 theatres by 1928) The free press writes "Detroit's Fox Theater has the largest clear span balcony in the world. The stage proper is larger than the Roxy Theater in New York, and has the largest and finest projection room and equipment of any theater in the world." (1928) Today the fox still holds the title of the largest continually operating theater in the contry Imporant note, the Theatre was all but abandoned in the 1970's and almost suffered the same fate as most of the other theater's from this era, but a $12.5 million dollar renovation took place in 1988

Here are some pictures to wow you:

Links:

http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=215&category=events

http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17449_18638_20846-54585--,00.html

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/51/

http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=63&category=locations



Technorati Tags:

[Fox] [Theater] [Detroit] [Elmo] [Sesame] [History]

A very Google World

With all the buzz google has created over the years, some of you may have missed one or two of their very FREE downloads. If you click over to here, you can see all that google has to offer.


one in particular that i recently grabbed is the Google Pack, the google pack essentially allows you to download and install all your favorite google apps at once!!! (It also includes some non-google goodies!)

check it out

Bonehead Move

So,

Let me start by saying i ALWAYS use the odometer on my car to gauge when i need to refill gas (on my old car i would run out of gas after 330 miles). Well since the Olds has joined my fleet, i haven' really figured out where that line is, i generally have assumed that it is about the same place as the old vehicle (it is the same engine, and gas tank size). So i have been filling up right around 300 miles.

I did some extra running around last week, and ended up well beyond 300 miles on my drive home on friday. Now, because this was an a-typical week as far as my driving goes, getting gas wasn't even on my radar--


until i felt the sputter

I ended up just offa the highway (696 westbound for you locals) accross the street from a gas station (Score!!!) The only problem was that i had to cross over the highway to get to the gas station.

After dodging cars accross the bridge, i looked all around the 'mini-mart for a small gas can to tote back to my car, i couldnt find one ANYWHERE!

I hop into the line, and wait my turn; and ask the lady if she has them somewhere in back OR even if i could just borrow one. . . . .





"seems we're out. . hrmm. . that's unusual. . . oh well. .. sorry"







I was just blown away--- WHAT KIND OF GAS STATION HAS NO GAS CANS!!!


i did my best to keep my frustration to myself, and began to find an alternative source of fuel.

and i came up with this:

Now granted, that's cant be good for my o2 sensor, but in a 1989 delta 88 i'm not gonna worry too much. One bottle was just enough to get me accross the street to the gas station.

so that's my bonehead move for the week.

Fatherhood---

When i was a kid, i used to love to see my dad come home; we would race to see who could get to the door to give him the first hug. I will probably always remember that---

I am finally getting a little bit of a glimpse of that from the opposite perspective; the kids are now showing their own levels of excitement when i get home--- nothing beats an excited scream followed by the cutest voice screaming 'Daddy!!'


you definetly can't beat my kids, they are the cutest!!

[fatherhood] [family] [children]

Technorati Tags

So i've been reading on different blogging techniques; and one of the things that keeps popping up is this thing called 'tagging' a tag is a word that correctly categorizes your post so that search engines (like www.technorati.com) can group searches accordingly.

Unfortunately Blogger does not have a feature for this (many others have it built in natively) Technorati describes a link to use for adding tags to your post. While an excellent solution, making each of these tags could be very time consuming-- so being the windows scripting dork that i am, i wrote a little VB app that generates tags for me. You can download it here. If you use the program please give me a shout-out on your blog.

Thanks

note: This program will generate a set of html tags to add to your blog post, simple select all of the text in the box and copy it to your post. Also, this program only works with technorati, if you want to tag for another site-- ask, and i can send you the source code and you can modify it accordingly.


TAGS:

[blogger]       [blog]       [tag]       [technology]       [code]      

Apple gets sued

A US court has given the go ahead for a class action lawsuit against Apple citing antitrust issues between the iPOD and iTunes.

This style of business however is indicative of Apple's overall business theory. Their business model has classically been designed to stifle external input into their system. By building and developing the whole range of computing experience (hardware to software) you limit the ability to make the O.S a viable choice for widespread use.

"PC's" are generally more customizable, and allow the user to completely customize their computing experience. You aren't to limited to one type of hardware or software at any level.


It will be interesting to see how Apple fairs in this lawsuit, I would guess that it will come out with Apple on top-- but we will see

more info:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/83398/apple-antitrust-suit-gets-green-light.html

Apple + iPod + iTunes

Blogging in the Real world

I have just finished a 47 page article titled "We know more than our Pastors" written by Tim Bedner from www.e-church.com . In this article Time describes what he sees as a revolution in the way the internet is used for furthering personal spiritual journeys.

Tim describes the global 'cyberchurch' as a 'participatory church' where everyone who chooses to input their opinions, log their journeys or post their questions (via blogging) has equal footing with everyone else.

"We take Martin Luther's concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion"

Dubbing it 'the priesthood of all bloggers' Bedner describes the process by which bloggers gain stature in the online community, and various other aspects of this new evangelistic frontier.

While I don't agree with all of what Tim says, I find this to be an excellent resource for someone trying to understand what validity blogging can have in today's society. As a person who likes to have answers at my fingertips-- it is definitely a plus to be able to jump on googol or technorati and find information on a topic.

Bubblewrapped in my Mailbox

I received my book from www.inbubblewrap.com . I received 'The Fred Factor'-- I'll let you all know how it turns out.


(thanks IBW)

Superbowl commercial wrap up

Commercials were pretty good this year, definetly some really funny ones--- I hear a lot of rumbling that people are dissappointed. Here's my favorite ad (from sprint)



EDIT: Google video is AWESOME--- that link should do it. You can also view most of the other commercials on that site

New Site Design

Hey, the root site www.webberfam.com has been redesigned to make updating it easier (okay i ripped off blogger.com's setup) check it out for some picks and enjoy!

two! (part two)

Two times two!

The kids had their Second and Third birthday celebrations last weekend. They are officially two years old as of sunday (Jan 29,2005). On saturday we had a mexican themed party with the Extended webbers. It was pretty cool to have four generations of family all in one place. Everything went off without a hitch. Matt was very excited about his new 'electric' guitar.

On sunday we had a great time at church, the kids actually got a little present from their school teachers. We went to chuck-e-cheese after church and the kids had a blast.

This week has brought more 'growing': Matt and Kayla have graduated to big kid beds. Matt's loves his car bed with 'planes, trains, and trucks' bedding and kayla loves her little princess bed with 'dora' bedding.


It's amazing how fast they grow up!