Lotsa Little Bits vol 20

ITEM:  I didn't have a lot of game this morning, but I have overcome enough to give you at least a halfway interesting post.

ITEM:  Thank you to Mynx over at Lizard Happy!  As a result of a drawing held for the attendies of her anniversary blog party, I have won yet another piece of her magnificent artwork!  For those who hadn't seen, here is my other piece:

That one I won as a result of a contest where a bunch of her followers submitted their artwork to her;  this time, I think it was a reward for not getting into her underwear drawer.

ITEM:  Every city has them: massive outdoor sculptures that make no real sense to the common man.  In Fort Wayne, we had the "Helmholtz" sculpture in Friemann Square, in front of the Art museum.  It looked like this:

According to the Journal Gazette:

The Helmholtz, a large sculpture made of stainless and painted steel, was created by Mark di Suvero in 1985, according to the artist's website.

Amanda Martin, deputy director for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, said the sculpture was created specifically for Fort Wayne to commemorate the city as the Magnet Wire Capital of the World.

The steel sculpture was commissioned in 1983 by Rea Magnet Wire Co. to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Fort Wayne. It is named after 19th-century German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, who worked with magnets.

You'll note I said, "looked like".  Here it is this morning:

A 23 year old man with a .19 BAC and lack of appreciation for fine art remodeled it with his car last night.  The Helmholtz, which is of unknown value (but sculptures one-third the size have went for $400,000 to $600,000), is now an 8-ton pile of recyclable material, which at today's current prices would bring $1160.  Remains to be seen whether the young man in question will be charged or decorated.

ITEM:  Quick AIUHL update, the least I can do as it is the first time in 5 weeks the league's website had all the boxscores up by Monday Morning!  Adelaide split a pair with the Mustangs.  Saturday was a 3-2 shootout win, going OT despite the Ads outshooting the 'Stangs 42-24.  Travis Ouellette had a goal and an assist, and Darren Corstens got the SO winner.  Sunday, they again went to a shootout after a game that was tied five times!  Despite the Ads again outshooting the 'Stangs 47-39 and a 2-goal performance from Greg Oddy, Pat O'Kane's pair of scores led Melbourne to a 5-5 tie after regulation, and Brendan McDowell got the shootout decider for a 6-5 'Stangs win.

The Ice Dogs split a pair this weekend, too.  They beat Newcastle 4-3 on Saturday, but lost Sunday when Newcastle's Dominic Osmun beat Anthony Kimlin with just 1:03 left in the game to give the North Stars a 1-0 win.

The fun continues for Canberra as they absorb a 12-1 whipping at the hands of the Melbourne Ice Saturday.  They were outshot 55-14 (and are averaging being outshot 50-14 the last three matches) and have been outscored 27-3 the last two weekends.  Matt Armstrong scored another 4 goals in this game, and added two more in a 4-3 win over the Bears on Sunday.  With that, the Ice Dogs (8-3-4) are on top with 33 points, 2 ahead of Newcastle (10-3-0) and 5 up on the Ice (8-3-2).

ITEM: Also in hockey, the KHL made official the two new teams to join the league for the 2013-14 season.  The expansion team is Admiral Vladivostok:

They had their expansion draft on June 13th, in which they could pick from any of the Russian teams- except Lokomotiv, still exempted because of the plane crash two years ago.

The new team coming over from Austria's EBEL, Croatia's Medvescak Zagreb:

In addition, the former Vityaz ("Knights") of Chekhov is moving 27 miles up the road to Podolsk, a city three times the size still in the near environs of Moscow.  Actually, this is a return, as the team started out in Podolsk, but moved to Chekhov when the HC MVD team was formed.  MVD then moved to another Moscow suburb, Balashika, where it spent two years in the KHL until it was decided there were too many teams in the Moscow area and was folded into Dynamo.  In  Chekhov the team built up a rep for being run by the Molina and being stocked with thugs that washed out of the AHL.  Now they try to make a new start as Vityaz Podolsk.


ITEM:  And what about the rumors of other out-of-Russia teams joining the league?  Apparently Milan and Gdansk are still tying their Ps and Qs together; Switzerland is looking at a team next season; Belarus claims they can have as many as four more teams in a couple of years; and existing teams such as Norway's Stavenger and Finland's Espoo are still kicking it around.  But not this year, boys.

ITEM:  Decided it's been a while since I checked on Rikuzen Takata, the Japanese city flattened by the tsunami I've been following.  Earlier this month, they completed a "restoration" of the lone pine tree that survived the wave, but was killed by the salt water it absorbed.  The tree was preserved, given artificial brances and leaves, and the scaffolding was removed this month.  A flower altar and park will be built at its base, at a cost of around $1.6 million- and the locals are SO appreciative that monies that could have been used in restoring their city were spent instead on a dead tree.

Up the coast lies another damaged city, Minami Sanriku.  In 1960, it had been hit by a tsunami from the 9.5 quake in Chile.  Decades later, the President of Chile was visiting and was greeted by a simulated Easter Island Moai statue in their honor.  The recent wave took it down and Chile promised to send a new one, better than the first.  It arrived on Christmas last year, but because bigwigs from Tokyo and other large cities wanted to see it first, it made a grand tour and finally came to its new home at the end of last month.

An Easter Island statue- just what every Japanese city needs.

The miracle (I used to be a) tree.

Nice to know they are keeping it all in perspective.  Just like the US of A, there seems to be a cotierrie of "monument builders" scanning the world for the next disaster, which they can use to get government money to commemorate. Hey, I hear Fort Wayne has a spot opening up...

And just like the US of A, the tree was supposed to be ready in March- but was delayed.  Seems they had the angle of the "branches" wrong.

ITEM: That's all I got!  Enjoy your day.