Seb the crazy Serb, seen here in action for the Over 35 Salisbury Scorpions takes a magnificent mark, grabbing the ball from the air, thwarting a potentially season ending raid from the visiting Irish Rangers..

Playing one short the entire match, the Scorpions hung on for a well earned 1-1 draw, thanks to the acrobatic brilliance of the Seb crazy Serb..

Their eyes were in, there legs were square
Their general mien was mannish
Their name invoked fear everywhere
‘tho’ none of them were Spanish
Relentlessly they fought the fight
on any likely wicket
For every mans god-given right
to barbeques & cricket

With steely gaze & sinews tight
with skills and wits collected
Behold, in baggies red & white
the team no-one expected

by Jo
(the better half of David Williams)

The pitch felt hard, and in order to avoid a run chase under pressure, I elected to bat first. I suspect this was a mistake as the wicket exhibited a little more life in the morning than it did in the afternoon sun.

As has characterised our season, we again struggled to string together partnerships of any substance. Wickets fell regularly, unfortunately assisted by some fairly ordinary umpiring, but ultimately it was once again that lack of a solid partnership that contributed to our modest total of 150.

Once again Dale sparkled with the bat, as he has done all season. His knock of 77 included some magnificent shots, and lots of boundaries including one big straight six. Dale’s aggregate for the season is approximately 230 runs which is a great effort.

Backed by our strong bowling combination, we started optimistically, but it seemed that luck ran against us with a number of inside edges and near misses in slips. Their openers, one of whom in particular looked a good bat, got the upper hand and played very positively. At none for 88 at drinks it looked very much as though the game had slipped from our grasp. A couple of quick wickets after drinks exposed a much weaker middle order, and for those of you curious as to whether or not they reversed their batting order, I can tell you from my observation of their scoresheet that they did not. Unfortunately, we had left it a little late to get at their soft middle order and despite the loss of five quick wickets they reached the target of 150 fairly comfortably. Michael picked up three wickets for not much, and John bowled well at the other end but without much luck.

I would like to take the opportunity, on behalf of myself and Glen, to thank you all for playing this year. Once again it has been a real pleasure to play with such team orientated individuals. We hope that you will all come back next year, and that some of you will be available to play some cricket over summer.

Special thanks to Glen who has been doing the shopping, cooking and kit hauling side of things all season.

David Williams
(co captain, Spanish Bard)

After flying to Michigan for some much earned r&r, I met up with ArtsyT, Rhonda_Marie, Cris, Ross, Nicole & Meghan for an up close and personal tour of downtown Detroit… These guys, better known for their involvement with flickr group Exposure.Detroit, were just the most wonderful hosts, who couldn’t do enough to show me the city that is Detroit..

This also happened to be the start of the GM 2008 Rivers Days Festival. The first place we settled as we waited to meet more flickr peeps, was the water fountain outside of the RenCen. The water fountain was at ground level and made up of some 100 individual water spouts which made for an extremely fun day for kids and adults alike. In my photo I tried to capture the essence of the River Days carnival atmosphere… I noticed one of the children playing in the water running with their arms out wide, and I thought that’s perfect…

I submitted the photo to the Absolute Michigan flickr group, and was selected as the Friday Photo winner for www.absolutemichigan.com..

What a great honor, thanks to the wonderful crew who took me under their wing like a little (big really) brother, and showed me the wonderful sites of downtown Detroit..

Saturday the 14th was my last day in old San Francisco.. After a wonderful breakfast in Union Square, and quick walk around, I headed back to the hotel to pack, and catch the Hotel Shuttle to SFO for my flight to Dallas, TX…

Once in Dallas, I hired a Dodge Avenger to travel between Jim & Marilyn’s (Rowlett, TX) and Louise & Brett’s (Fort Worth).. We spent Sunday at Brett and Louise’s house in Fort Worth for Fathers Day.. After a wonderful BBQ of Chicken & Beef, we all sat down and watched the US Golf Open… What a great day…

Monday, Louise gave me the cooks tour of Fort Worth… Firstly we toured the wonderful golfing facility that is The Colonial Country Club, which is home to the Crowne Plaza Invitational, won this year by Mr Phil Mickelson.. It is also home to a wonderful tribute to the late and great Ben Hogan…

more photos can be found on my flickr account..

That night, we had Texas BBQ at the Railhead Smokehouse with a pound of Brisket, and a pound of smoked Sausage… yum yum yum..

The next day I headed back to Jim and Marilyn’s for the night… In the way i popped into Bass Pro for a spot of shopping, and to avoid the storm that was bearing down on Dallas.. This place is big, and when I say big I mean big.. If you want anything outdoors, you will find it here.. That night we headed out for more meat and BBQ to a Brazilian Steakhouse at the new Firewheel Town Centre… Damn that was a lot of meat, some 15 kinds of meat brought right to your plate..

Wednesday was goodbye to Dallas, and lunch with Marilyn at PotBellies… Boy this place does a good sandwich… Then it was back to Fort Worth and to Brett and Louise’s for my last night in Texas… We had a lovely pasta vegetable bake for dinner, and then we watched the movies Cars with Gabby.. It was an early rise, next morning at 5am, for the trip to DFW Airport and my next destination Detroit..

On the final day of WWDC, we finished around 12:30, and headed for a tour of University of California - Berkeley. After a short ride on the Bart we hopped off downtown Berkeley and wandered the streets up to the University Campus grounds..

The highlight of the trip to Berkeley Campus was the world famous Sather Tower… An elevator takes visitors 200 feet up Sather Tower to an observation deck with sweeping views of the campus, the surrounding hills, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate. On the day we visited, the tower was closed, so I had to use my artistic license for this photo from the ground level..

More photos can be found at my flickr account..

On the last night of WWDC, Apple put on a party… Beer Bash in Yerba Buena Gardens just across from Moscone West… The entertainment for the night were the Bare Naked Ladies, and they rocked… It was a night of beers, hot diggity dogs, ice cream and the bare naked ladies…

for the rest of the photo’s from the Beer Bash go to my flickr page.

Today the AUC grantees, took a trip the San Francisco area, with first stop Fry’s Electronics… One of the largest electrical retailers around… I will have to be honest, while the selection was absolutely massive, the prices weren’t that great…

After we finished at Fry’s, we headed out to the “another age must be the judge”… The first complete Babbage Engine was completed in London in 2002, 153 years after it was designed. The Difference Engine No. 2, built faithfully to the original drawings, consists of 8,000 parts, weighs five tons, and measures 11 feet long.

Day two started in a similar way to the way day one ended, in a plane, over the Pacific somewhere.. With very little sleep, I made my way through customs, to meet up with a good friend Chris.. From the airport we made our way up some highway to Mountain View where we did a tour of his work, a little company called Google.. You may of heard about them… This photo was taken on the corner of Charleston & Amphitheater Way at Google HQ..

After the tour, we made our way to the Mountain ViewCaltrain, for the train back to San Francisco… The train was delayed two hours due to a fatality (suicide), a bit further up the line… Once this was cleared (so to speak) we were on our way to Millbrae Station, to connect with the BART and onto Montgomerie St Subway…

I checked into the Marriott Courtyard around, then took a wander downtown to find some tucker.. On the way I stopped by a certain city building (which will remain nameless) with a great view of the Oakland Bay Bridge…. (photo’s can be found at flickr.. After a short stop we made our way to a great little Thai restaurant just off the Embarcadero, of which I can’t remember the name… Anyway the food was good and the beer (Anchor Steam) was cold and served in a long tall beer mug… Just my style.. Cheers..