Cal Bears Basketball - Game #3

Bears 77, SDSU Aztecs 69 on Saturday at Haas.

This was the toughest game in what has been a pretty weak schedule to date for the Bears, but 3-0 is better than 1-2 or 2-1. So I'll take it, especially with the Bears still on the mend. And besides, come Tournament selection time, this win against what was a 5-0 Aztec club could be viewed as a good win.

The player of the game was Jerome Randle who scored a career high 21 on his return game from a kidney biopsy. Without him, the Bears probably lose this game. I don't know what he does on his dribble, but he got whistled on a carry once again. He's got to get this corrected. This was also a common occurrence last year.

This was another game that the 2006-07 version of the Bears probably would've lost. The Bears were down 26-40 with about 3 minutes left in the first half, but fought back to 33-40 at the half. This 7-point run featured 3 lay-ups and a FT. This was a key sequence. The Bears did not panic and start hoisting threes, but scored inside. The last was a breakaway by Antioch's own Eddie Miller that went in even though it looked like goal tending by one of the lanky Aztecs. There was no whistle by the refs.

The 2nd half was dominated by the Bears. The Bears finally caught the Aztecs about 10 minutes into the second half on a 3-pointer by (yes, you guessed it) Randle. It finally got the somewhat subdued crowd into the game. SDSU never regained the lead after this although they did tie up the score once.

The tie score was at 66-66 with just over 6 minutes left in the game. Game symmetry: from the time the score was 26-40, the Bears countered with their own 40-26 run to tie the game at 66-66.

The Bears finished on a 11-3 run to finish the game, including a 7-point run to 73-66 to put the game away for all intents and purposes. This run featured Hardin's first basket of the game to break the tie. Followed by 2 clutch FTs and another layup by Christopher. This was followed by 1 of 2 from the charity stripe by Ryan. The Bears need to work on their FT-ing.

The Aztecs had a couple of amazing performances themselves. Kelvin Davis (#40) reminded me a lot of Ed Gray in his hey day with the Bears. Not only because of his build, but also the way he was hoisting and sinking threes, many with a hand right in his face. There was one where he fell back into his bench, with the shot hitting nothing but net. Another similarity, they both attended that junior college basketball outpost, College of Southern Idaho.

Part of the reason for the less than enthusiastic crowd was there was no band, no cheerleaders, no yell leaders, no nothing. At one point in the game, there was Jamal Boykin (former Duke Blue Devil sitting out a semester according to the NCAA transfer rules) jumping up and down trying to get the student section into the game. It looked out of place. I could see him thinking, "oh, wait, these aren't Cameron Crazies."

I have to give a shout out to Fondue Fred's on Telegraph for letting us use their restroom going against the grain that is "our restrooms are only available to paying customers."

Next up is Nevada on Wednesday, the Bears first road game. Will be a good test for the Bears, but it should be a winnable game for the Bears. The Wolfpack lost at UCF who lost to K-State (in the Old Spice Classic) who the Bears will see in December.

Stats Redux - November 22, 2007

Here's an update on stats first posted in November 2005, updated January 2006, June 2006, October 2006 and March 2007.

Price of Gas: $3.39 per gallon (up $0.26 since the March 2007 check-in; the price has held steady for the past week or so with crude oil prices hovering around $100 per barrel; reports yesterday indicated that the price go up another $0.75; and another sign of the times perhaps: one of the new sit-coms this year is one about carpoolers)
Price of Milk: $3.99 for hormone free milk at Trader Joe's ($1.00 price increase since March 2007)
Bridge Toll: $4 as of January 1, 2007 on all Bay Area bridges except Golden Gate Bridge
Today's High Temperature: 64 degrees F (overnight low of 38) and sunny!
Dow Jones Average: 12,799.04 (up 688.63 since March 2007); and this is with a 211 point drop yesterday
Shopping Days to Christmas: 32 days (http://eclecticesoterica.com/xmas_cnt.html)
Dinner Tonight: Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, ham, asparagus dish, salad, corn casserole, rice, and soup to name a few items)
Average Commute Time: still over an hour (in a 3-person carpool MWF and a 2-person carpool TuTh; added 1 person to MWF carpool and TuThu carpool is a new one with a fellow employee)
Cost of Area Homes: the median price has dropped from $620,000 to $556,000 in Concord since March of this year
Movie Ticket: still $9.50;
Time with My Kids: visit with Santa planned for tomorrow

Also, today is my parents' anniversary. Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad!

Daylight Saving Time

This year, changing from Daylight Saving Time back to Standard Time occurred on the first Sunday in November instead of on the last Sunday in October. The impact for us was that instead of darkness falling a little after 5pm on Halloween, darkness fell after 6pm. This meant that trick-or-treating at least for our kids started a little later than in past years.

The following is a video that was shot at about 2am of our auto-setting clock running forward to adjust backwards by one hour.

Daylight Savings Time
Video sent by CEmoto

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 15 to 20

Item #15: An odd drive-through service

We thought that a drive-thru pharmacy to be an odd service, but guess what? Now such services are making their appearance in the Bay Area. This picture was taken near ojiichan and obaachan's place in Kent, WA. This pharmacy with its drive-thru window has been in business for several years now.



Item #16: The travelers playing a miniature golf course

The miniature golf course that we played was at the Seattle Center. Ryan didn't quite get it as he insisted on playing the same hole over and over and then thought it was a good idea to try to collect all the golf balls.



Item #17: Smokey Bear

Did you know that there's not a single National Park in the state of Oregon? This is what we learned during our search for Smokey Bear while in Oregon. We have to give kudos to the very friendly volunteers at the visitors' center in Medford, Oregon who directed us to the Oregon Department of Forestry building on the outskirts of Medford. A call was placed to verify that they had cut-outs of Smokey Bear. Not only did we get cut-outs, but also coloring books.



Item #18: A menu or sign selling root beer floats

This photo was taken at an A&W in Kent, WA. The place even had drive up service where you could place your order while parked in a parking space. No waiters on roller skates, but still retro. We couldn't think of such a drive-up restaurant near our home.



Item #19: Something very unusual not on this list

We had our choice of items that we could use just from the Fremont district of Seattle. The Fremont district of Seattle is the self-proclaimed Center of the Universe. There's the giant troll under the bridge.



Or the statue of people waiting for a bus (I think that's what this is).



But the unusual item that we submitted with our entry was the statue of Lenin. The story goes that the statue was rescued from Slovakia by a man from the Seattle area. The statue is believed to be the only one of Lenin surrounded by guns. The more usual statues show Lenin as an intellectual, carrying a book or two. The statue is now actually on sale for $250,000 by the family of the man who brought the statue back to the U.S. The proceeds of the sale are set to go to community art activities in the Fremont area.



Item #20: Farm machinery in a field

We had a great time hunting this one down. We got several photos of farm machinery, but what made this one unique was that the person driving the farm machinery in this case was a woman. We waved to her and she waved back!

Second Best to No One, Not Even Mona Lisa

Ryan: I was so tired that I pictured my self asleep. And that's what happened. Preschool is tough, but still lots of fun. I get to make cool stuff like picture frames. That's where the frame on my face is from. Mom told me not to play with it, that it would lose its adhesiveness. Well, I couldn't help my self. After all, I am only 3 years old.

The Ryan Chronicles 1

Let's check in to find out about the latest on life from the point of view our three-year old Ryan.

Kids seem to need shots about as frequently as cars need oil changes. Almost every "well" visit to the doctor's office involves some sort of shot. The most recent visit included flu shots.

The usual routine goes something like this. The nurse shows up with the needle. Child gets frightened and tries to squirm away. Parents help to expose area to be shot. For toddlers like Ryan, the area is usually the upper thigh. The child continues to struggle while the parent and nurse hold the child down while the shot is administered. Child continues to cry while the nurse tells the child that he can get a prize for being so brave.

Here's a recent conversation between Ryan and Dorothy.

Ryan: Where did you go?

Dorothy: I went to get a blood test.

Ryan: Did you have to get a shot?

Dorothy: Yes, they poked me with a needle.

Ryan: Who held you down?

Not Really a Deepak Chopra Fan, But...

I saw the following list on a recent blog attributed to Chopra about ways to slow down aging:

1. Change your perception of time. Don't be in a hurry.
2. Get restful sleep.
3. Eat fresh, nutritious food.
4. Take at least two multivitamins with minerals every day.
5. Practice a mind body technique such as yoga or tai chi.
6. Exercise regularly.
7. Don't put toxins in your life, including toxic food, toxic
emotions, toxic relationships, and avoid toxic environments or toxic relationships.
8. Have a flexible attitude to minor hassles.
9. Look at so-called problems as opportunities.
10. Nurture loving relationships.
11. Always have an attitude of curiosity, learning, and wonder and spend time with children.

These seem to be sensible points to follow whether you are striving to live longer or just living life to its fullest. Here is what a six-year old might say about the above list:

1. Are we there yet?
2. Do we have to go to sleep already?
3. Yea! Chicken nuggets and fries again!
4. Can I have another vitamin (gummi-vitamins, emphasizing the "gummi" part)?
5. Look at how high I can jump on your bed!
6. You can't get me! Na-na-na-na!
7. Is it okay to eat this? (crawling up from under the dining table)
8. I guess reading just one story tonight is okay.
9. You mean if we walk home now, we can watch some tv?
10. But I wanted to feed Mimi (our goldfish)! I never get to feed her.
11. Can I have a play date with Ben today?

We Will Rock You

Ryan's current favorite song is "We Will Rock You." He picked it up from one of the Disney "Move It" CDs. The song again matches his personality.

Here's an animation that moves to this song.

Now You See Me ... Now You Don't!

Wild and Reckless

Sometimes actions that are random do not seem to be so. Take what happened this evening when we went out for ice cream.

The place that we frequent under went a renovation some time earlier this year. They installed new ice cream counters that have a rail along the bottom to allow kids a step up to see the various canisters of ice cream. The kids think it's great that they can see the ice cream.

The minute we go into the ice cream shop, the kids are busy trying to check out all of the ice cream flavors. Naomi is usually deliberate and low-key in her search for the right flavor for the moment, but usually settles on some chocolate variation. Ethan often picks some variation between vanilla and strawberry. Ryan is a little more unpredictable. Sometimes he copies one of the other two kids. Other times it seems he bases his selection on color.

This evening, he settled on a flavor quite quickly. When he pointed out his selection, we had a good laugh. He was pointing to a flavor of sherbet called "Wild and Reckless."

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 13 & 14

We had lots of fun with the next two in different ways.

Firefighters having a meal in a fire station. In hindsight, we really didn't have much to worry about. The winning entries had photos that were not much different than ours. There were a couple photos that showed a table full of firefighters sitting down for a meal, but more often the pictures were like the one we took.

Our photo was taken with Fire Captain Paul Eckstein of the South Lane County Fire and Rescue station in Cottage Grove, Oregon. He almost looked lonely in the fire station as most everyone else was out on calls. We pulled up to the station mainly because we smelled food.

Turns out the Fire Captain was at the station working over a BBQ. So we had food on the grill but no crew to eat it. We didn't have a lot of time either so we improvised. That's how we got the photo.

Before getting the photo, we toured the station. The grill in the back "yard" of the station was a giant Weber appropriate for a fire station. Off to the left of the garage was a narrow hallway leading to a room where all of the chairs were lazy boy recliners. The recliners were lined up facing a wide screen flat panel television mounted on the wall. Immediately behind this room was the kitchen counter and in the kitchen were two fridges side-by-side. It was not fancy, more functional and had a feel that it was a boys' place.

What they say about fire fighters being really generous turns out to be right on the mark.



So what do you picture when you hear "merry-go-round"? Here's what we found.


The photo was taken at a local park in Albany, Oregon. I think we were trying to find farm machinery that we had seen from the freeway when we found the park. It's not often that you see an old-fashioned merry-go-round in parks these days. I can't think of any parks where we live that have such a play structure, but when we were kids it was one of our favorite.

Gone in 59 Seconds

Spit! Ethan is on a fluoride rinse program prescribed by his dentist. The poor guy. Last year he had a dental visit where we were told that he had 8 cavities. He just has teeth susceptible to cavities. He and Naomi brush the same way each day. Naomi's had nary a cavity.

Rinse. Rinse. Rinse. This goes on for a minute. Ring. Ring. Ring. We have a timer that goes off after a minute signaling that the fluoride rinse can be spit out.

At dinner last night, we were talking about telling time. This is something that we've had to really work on with the kids. They still have trouble sometimes telling time from a clock with old fashioned hands. I think that this is so because most of the clocks they see are digital clocks. It's pretty easy to tell time if the clock says: 7:45. You just have to know if it's 7:45 AM or 7:45 PM.

So at the dinner table last night I asked the kids, "How many seconds are there in a minute?"

Without hesitation, Ethan answered, "59 seconds."

"Why 59 seconds?" I asked.

Ethan was giggling, "I don't know."

Then I realized why. "Is it because of the timer we use to rinse?"

"Yeah, Dad. It says "59" whenever I rinse."

"That's really funny. Is it because when I start the timer it always starts with 59 seconds on it?"

What happens is that the timer starts with 1:00 on it, one minute, but the second that I start it, it shows 0:59 and continues to count down. Ethan had associated the 59 he was seeing as the time for one minute.

The Seal Dribbler Kerlon

Check out this video.

The Hawaii Slideshow

Here are some fun photos from our trip to Hawaii.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 10 to 12

The next three items were each: one that would be easy to find, a second that was a head scratcher, and a third that was "what is that?"

The one that would be easy to find was a machine that flattens pennies. Our kids have a very large collection of such pennies from several places in Japan and the U.S. On this trip we documented our find at the Seattle Center in the shadows of the Space Needle. Lianne, Yuki's daughter, joined us for the photo.


The next one was a real head scratcher. A vehicle unique to the region that we would be visiting. We thought, "maybe we need to drive to Pennsylvania so that we could photograph ourselves with Amish driving horse and buggy." The best we could come up with were triple trailers. Triple trailers are illegal in most states. Oregon is the only state on the west coast that allows triple trailers. The other places where triple trailers are allowed are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana Toll Road, Kansas Turnpike, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio Turnpike, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.

The photo is one that Dorothy took during our drive on the road to Portland, Oregon. I'm in the foreground of the picture because one of the requirements of the hunt was that a member of our traveling party needed to be in each photo. We ended up with this moving photo because for some reason the only place where we could find triple trailers were while we were on the move. At the truck stops where we stopped, we found only single and double trailers. We wondered, "Do they have other stops just for triple trailers?" Fushigi datta (Japanese for "it was a mystery").


This next one was maybe the one for which we did the most research. We only had vague notions about phosphates. The scavenger hunt only said, "An old-fashioned soda shop that serves phosphate."

We did most of our research only after we had reached Seattle. We could not find any soda fountains serving phosphates in the Seattle area. The closest locale that held some promise was a soda fountain in Wenatchee, the apple capitol of the world in central Washington. We thought about driving there, but then we found two possibilities in Oregon.

The first one in Albany was a strike out. It turned out to be a candy shop in Albany called The Velvet Touch. Would we really find a soda shop in a place called The Velvet Touch? Sounded more like an adult entertainment establishment. It turns out they had great ice cream. So there we were at 10 in the morning eating ice cream. It was not a total loss.

The Grants Pass Pharmacy was our last chance. This was not our first visit to Grants Pass. The last time we found statues of dogs dressed up as batman and robin in front of a motel. This time it was all of the bear statues on the downtown street corners. San Jose had their shark statues. Seattle had their pig statues. Santa Rosa, home of Charles Schultz, has the Peanuts character statues. And Grants Pass has their bear statues.


The pharmacy did have a real soda fountain. It was a small soda fountain right in the middle of the pharmacy. And it did serve phosphates! The price was right, too. Twenty five cents. We pulled up to the counter and asked for a phosphate. The soda jerk said, "what flavor?"

"What are the flavors?"

"Anything on the board."

There were something like 20 flavors (coke, diet coke, Dr. Pepper, sarsaparilla, sprite, diet sprite, root beer, orange, grape, cherry, etc.) on the board. We had no idea.

The soda was made by mixing flavored syrup, soda water and what I assumed to be phosphoric acid. We ordered grape. It lasted just like a regular grape soda pop.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 9

This is the item that prevented us from having a chance to win the scavenger hunt. Of the over 300 hundred entries received by the paper, well over 100 were for entries where all 20 items were found. We found but 19.

We just ran out of time on our trip to Seattle. We needed to return by July 8 to the Bay Area so we departed Seattle on July 7, Friday. We reasoned, since Saturday would be 7-7-07 there would be some wedding in one of the towns that we would be driving through.

Also, we still needed to make it to Grants Pass and the the Grants Pass Pharmacy in the hopes that it would have a soda fountain serving phosphate. The pharmacy was only open until 600pm or so on Saturday.

So here we were driving down I-5 in Oregon on Saturday trying in vain to find a wedding. We even stopped and asked people if they knew of any weddings in their towns. Maybe belief in lucky numbers is not important in small towns. We couldn't figure it out. We thought, "there's got to be one wedding some place."

We placed a call to Yuki during the drive. She reported to us how a church in Seattle had been performing weddings every 15 minutes since midnight because of the demand for weddings on 7-7-07. Just our luck. Maybe we should've stayed in Seattle.

Wedding Bash

Tonight wrapped up the Jen and Matt wedding miniseries that started for us with our departure to Honolulu on September 3 to attend their wedding. Jen is Jennifer, Dorothy's niece.

The wedding was a small affair outside of Honolulu at a country club on the Pali Highway. It was attended by about 50 family and close friends, some traveling from as far away as Florida. It was a beautiful setting for a wedding, nestled in amongst the lush hillsides of the windward side of the island. Everything was green, from the groves of trees to the green lawn to even the bride's maid's gown. Naomi was the flower girl, which she thought was really cool. Waking up early to get hair done and dressed up for the wedding made it extra special for Naomi, and her first ride in a stretch limo wasn't too bad either.


Tonight's affair was the traditional Chinese wedding banquet. However, it also served as the main wedding celebration for most since attendance at the wedding was made available only for a small number of people. And it was quite the affair too. One of the largest wedding gatherings that I have ever attended, perhaps over 500 people.

Banquet Video
Video sent by CEmoto

This wedding was special for our kids also. It's probably the first one where they were interested in the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, the garter toss, and the other activities associated with the event. The following are a few of the sights and sounds from the wedding banquet from the point of view of our kids:

The Garter Toss

Dad: Were you able to see what they did?

Ethan: Yeah it was funny. Matt threw the headband and it landed on Bill's [Bill is Jen's younger brother] back. Bill didn't even try to grab it. Someone else took it off his back. It was really funny!

Wedding Favors

Dad: Ryan, why do you have two favors?

Ryan: Someone gave me hers.

Dad: Are you sure it's okay?

Ryan: No, it's okay. It was our other cousin who gave it to me.

[Later during the good-byes.]

Aunt Josie (Dorothy's Aunt): Did you see that I gave Ryan my wedding favor?

Dad: Oh that was you. I didn't know who gave it to him. He told me that it was our other cousin who gave it to him.

Left Over Food

One of the things that's done at Chinese wedding banquets is that the servers pass out take-out boxes for those who want to take home leftovers. The other family seated at the table with us did not want the leftovers so we packed what we wanted. The amount of food that is served is usually for 10 adults per table. Given that our table had one empty seat and three smaller children, we had plenty of leftovers. So we even filled up two boxes to give to Auntie Josie.

Dad: Ethan, can you take these boxes over to Auntie Jo?

Ethan: Okay.

Dad: Do you know which one she is?

Ethan: Yes, Dad. She's the nice lady who came over to see us. The one who has that thing [a cast] on her hand and blond hair. [Auntie Jo is recently retired and has graying hair. I guess to Ethan it looks blond. Maybe it was the lighting in the restaurant.]

So I learned tonight that Jen had a headband on her leg that Matt retrieved with his mouth and that Auntie Jo has blond hair and is really our cousin.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 5 to 8

The Contra Costa Times showed some photos earlier this year that showed families posing in front of famous trees with bark seeming to show a face. There was one from some place in Indiana. Something tells me there was lots of research done to find some of these items. We did a little too, but not nearly enough to find all of the items prior to our trip.

The picture of the fifth item was taken outside the Charlotte Martin Children's Theater at the Seattle Center. The scavenger hunt did not say that the tree had to be a real one.


The next item was difficult to find at the time of our trip. We were able to find gas for less then $2.75 based on a tip from my brother. The picture was taken near Wood Village, Oregon on the Columbia River Gorge.


This year is the 40th anniversary of the writing of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." This explained the lack of copies of this book at several libraries. We finally found one at the Burien, Washington library and Stephen the librarian was kind enough to pose with us.


Finding a red caboose was one of the easier items to find. The photo shows a red caboose in downtown Albany, Oregon that had been remodeled into a pet grooming shop. We were actually looking for a soda shop serving phosphates when we came across this caboose.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 4

We had to reach for this one. We found that all sheriffs at least along the west coast are County sheriffs. The scavenger hunt specified a town sheriff. We did the best that we could by going to the Tehama County sheriff's office in Red Bluff, California, only to find that the sheriff was not in the office.

However, a very personable public relations officer came to our rescue with trading cards with pictures of the sheriff and other goodies for the kids. We learned that the sheriff was Clay Parker. The back of his trading card says that he is a 5th generation law enforcement officer with 27 years of experience. It also says that he enjoys outdoor sports and is an avid bowler.

This definitely was one stop that we would not have made without the scavenger hunt.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 3

Did you know that there is a covered bridge association in Oregon? We did not know this. Always pictured covered bridges as an artifact of other parts of the country. Think "Bridges of Madison County."

The one that we found was located in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Cottage Grove has special meaning for us. We first stopped there in September 2001. Ethan was not even a year old. Naomi was just past two. We were scheduled to fly up to visit Ojiichan and Obaachan, but 9-11 cancelled all flights. So we decided to drive. We stopped to get gas in Cottage Grove and were invited to join a candlelight vigil. We couldn't stay because we were trying to make it to Portland, but the image of streams of people passing through downtown Cottage Grove to a candlelight vigil will be something we will always remember.