Fire and Ice Festival

Today Allison and I stopped by downtown Rochester to check out the 2011 Fire and Ice festival. She lives in Rochester and tells me that this is a yearly event. The festival runs from Friday to Sunday and basically involves ice sculptures (Ice) and fireworks (Fire), as well as some events for the childrens. We missed the fireworks part, but were in time to see the Toys R Ice! ice sculpture show. I was hoping to see some chainsaw-on-ice action, but alas, no such luck. We only got to see the final products. I think my favorite was the leprechaun outside the Irish pub Gus O'Connors.

It was definitely cold enough for ice sculptures (about 25 F), but also too cold for wandering outside aimlessly. There was a cool iced-out hill for sledding that I totally wanted to ride, but I ended up stepping in a huge puddle of ice water and my feet were turning black.

Maybe next year we can catch the fireworks and stay warm with Guinness inside the pub!

The 2011 North American International Auto Show

Well, nearly 8 months have passed since I finished my last blog - A KEG in Deutschland. Sadly, I am no longer in Deutschland. However, I have since moved back to the U.S. and began my new job in Detroit on May 24, 2010. I don't actually live or work in Detroit, but rather the Detroit Metro area. I like to tell people I live in Detroit because it gives me more street credibility. But I must say, the suburbs are quite lovely. I work for BASF Corporation in the city of Wyandotte, MI which is about 30 miles south of Clawson (my home). Wyandotte is not so lovely.

I feel like I should keep my family and friends back on the East Coast up-to-date with my goings-on in Michigan. I also feel like I should start using use many more hyphenated words. Life is really good at the moment and now is as good a time as any to start up with the blog again. So beginneth my new blog, 'KEG in the D.' Detroit baby! I hope to update it once or twice a month.

Today, January 23, 2011, I had the pleasure of going to the 2011 North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit with my beautiful girlfriend, Allie Grabmiller. Her father works for GM, so naturally tickets were free! Today was the last day of the auto show, so we figured it would not be so busy first thing in the morning. Indeed, this was true at 11 am.

By the time we left, after about 2 hours of perusing, it was much more crowded. I must say, I don't have a lot to blog about. In this case pictures are worth 10 trillion words. As you can probably tell from the pictures, the show was truly outstanding! The U.S. automotive industry is back on track and kicking some major ass! I was REALLY impressed with the number of hybrid and electric cars that are emerging. It made me truly happy to see that collectively we (as human beings) are trying to get our act together (for obvious reasons, I hope).

I hope you enjoy some of the pictures from the show:

Ford:

(I think I caught Allie by surprise here!)

This is the car from HBO's Entourage, equipped with suicide doors.

Ford had an awesome indoor track where you could take a ride in an electric car. Pity the line was too long.

A badass new Ford concept car, the Vertrek.

General Motors:

The above 5 picture are the Chevy Volt. In my modest opinion, GM has hit a homerun here. They definitely stole the show with this one! This will definitely be my next purchase after I get rid of my Ford Edge (which rocks by the way!). And yes, my 6'3" self fits in that sucka.

Chrysler:

These folks have some catching up to do! Chrysler was mediocre at best. Although I do love the Jeep!

And now, the Germanians (Audi, VW, Mercedes, etc..). They do make some beautiful looking cars :

We might buy this one day. Allie looks really good next to it! ;)

(I however look like a big blob)

This old-school car (above) was in the lobby of the BASF Southfield site when I worked there, painted with BASF paint. Natuerlich!

And some others:

And there you have it folks. The auto show rocked! Hopefully 2012 will be even better. Don't forget to support the U.S. auto industry. Until next time...