Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges


For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.

And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

January 2, 2007:Butterflies at Sentosa Island

Today was a public holiday in Singapore - and since some of our grandkids are going to visit next summer, we started checking out places that would be interesting. Today we visited the Butterfly Garden at Sentosa Island - a large open sort-of-cage with a small rain forest and butterflies. Here are the photos - and comments to follow

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This is not a butterfly

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This is an orchid

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Just hatched

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This is Ellen's finger - and the first flight of this butterfly after exiting the hatchery.

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A butterfly lady

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This little guy just sat there on this blade of whatever - long enough for me to focus.

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It seems that butterflies can play the mating game

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Another view

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Apparently butterfly mating takes some time

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These yellow and black butterflies are active and it takes some patience to catch them in a quiet state

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A different quiet state - enjoying dinner

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From the other side

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And this one has some red

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My favorite

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This is a flower - not a butterfly in disguise

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However this is a butterfly

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This is a sequence of the same butterfly - from the side

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With the wings closed

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Half open

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Completely open and landing gear down

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I like this red flower

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Three butterflies can play on the same flower

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a different view

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And two butterflies can play

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An interesting black butterfly

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Dinner is served

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with desert

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Like the aqua dragonfly, this is simply breathtaking

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and just to avoid confusion, these are not butterflies. They are mild scorpions - with a bee-like sting (accofding to the guy holding them

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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