Here Comes the Train!

We were finally able to set up the train track set that we got from Ojiichan and Obaachan a couple years ago. It's a set with Disney characters painted on the sides of the cars.

2009 Pictures of Autumn

We have kept a busy schedule during this 2009 autumn season. The weather has cooperated for the most part. Not much rain and moderate temperatures.


Starting from the upper left: Ryan as a construction worker helping to clean up the back yard; Ethan with friends Ben (wearing Cal sweat shirt) and Cal at Chabot Observatory school field trip; the three kids with their pumpkin carvings under the gazebo; Ethan at Karate belt test; Ethan as clone trooper, Ryan as an army man and Naomi as a witch; Ethan and Naomi with Auntie Betty and Uncle Alden; Naomi as "Jupiter" in School House Rock musical at school; Ethan with Den Leader Louis and Nate on Scouting for Food; and Naomi in group photo after piano recital.

Cal Bears Spoil Roses for Cardinal

Ethan had a belt test today at Bay Area Mountain Martial Arts & Fitness, where he was going for his blue belt in their Dragons Karate program. Ethan's belt test was as good as the Bears' game today.

Yes, today was Big Game Saturday. The underdog Cal Bears against the red hot Cardinal. The game was a late afternoon game on the Farm with Rose Bowl hopes on the line for one team.

Cardinal Colors Man: Do you think your team will do it?

Cal Bears Man: I don't know, but that's why they play 'em.

Cardinal Colors Man: I think that Stanford team will take it. They look pretty good.

Cal Bears Man: They look good, but it's the Big Game. You kind of have to throw all the stats out.

This was an exchange immediately after the belt test. The game was not available in my cable package. To get the game, I would have to upgrade to a digital package costing about $20 per month more. So by the time I remembered the game and looked it up on-line, the Bears were already down 0-14 and they were not out of the first quarter. I could picture the Cardinal side of the house already hedging their bets and placing calls for hotels rooms in Pasadena.

Those hopes were dashed when Stanford's young QB Luck who came into the game leading the Pac-10 in QB rating threw an ill-advised pass under heavy pressure from Cameron Jordan. This is the the same Cameron Jordan who was ragged (from afar and beyond hearing distance) by a couple of my friends at a recent Cal Bears basketball game. "You should not be here. You should be studying film on your next opponent." The Bears would go on that week to get dismantled by the Beavers. Bears are not suppose to lose to Beavers.

The not so Luck-y pass was intercepted near the goal line and the Bears' 34-28 win was preserved. This was a play that was not so dissimilar to the one by Riley two years ago against the Beavers. Young QB under heavy pressure who folds when his team was on the verge of winning or at least extending the game with greater spoils around the corner. How sweet it is!

Fall Piano Recital 2009

Naomi is really enjoying her piano playing. She has a great teacher who is generous enough to offer multiple opportunities for her students to play in public at recitals, senior homes, etc.

In this Fall's recital, Naomi played two pieces.

The first was "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," a American folk song set to music from a French opera by Rousseau called "Le Devin du Village" from 1752. That's Naomi's teacher next to her. Ethan shot this video.



The second was a duet playing of a song called "Carousel" with her friend Natalie. Mom shot this video.

Legos for Legos

We have a friend who has been blogging about shedding and culling stuff. We've had this same discussion about making room with our kids recently.

We say "making room" because invariably the Christmas season will bring more toys, games, and other "items to amuse us" for our kids. The sense of clutter blankets the boys' room more so than it does Naomi's room. And really it's the amount of Lego pieces in their room. They have buckets and buckets of Lego pieces, each piece at one time being a part of some set, now all cruelly mixed together. "Help, I'm missing my elbow piece," says a former Lego robot. "I'm over here with the Lego car pieces," says the elbow piece. It's funny, they don't want to give up any pieces, but we parents seem to care more about pieces being out of place.

So Christmas will come and go, and the prediction is that we have Lego pieces being replaced by other Lego pieces. Something has to give, doesn't it?

Time for a Family Bike Ride

Ethan spent time this afternoon on our street practicing his bike riding. Within an hour or so he was riding on his own. Maybe this will distract him from his talk about wanting to build a fort in our backyard.

His bike a hand-me-down from Naomi. He agreed to take it if we painted it so we spray painted it from its original purple color to blue. We took off the dog spot decals too. We still have to replace the seat which has the matching purple with dog spots theme.

He's added his own touch to the bike by taping a tissue box to the front of the handlebars so that there would be a spot for his teddy bear.

Questions and More Questions

Kids are really good at stalling when they don't want to do something. They are also very inquisitive. Here's what happened this evening at bedtime:

Ryan: What color are germs? [he's lying in bed]

Me: I guess it might depend on the type of germ. You might see different colors with a microscope.

Ryan: What's a swine flu?

Me: It's a type of flu that came from pigs.

Ethan: What's a swine? [leaning near the edge of his loft bed]

Me: It's another name for pigs. Okay, it's time for bed now.

Ryan: No, no, no. I have another question.

Me: Okay.

Ryan: Are nails harder than wood?

Me: Yes, nails are harder. That's why you can hammer nails into a piece of wood.

Ethan: So why do nails bend, but boards don't?

Me: That's a good one. Now it is time for bed. [later Dorothy told me that Ethan and Cal were hammering nails into boards the other day over at Cal's house]

Halloween 2009

That wraps up another Halloween. The perfect weather (last year it rained) probably had a little to do with it, but we had the most trick-or-treaters in all the years that we have lived in our current place. There seemed to be more kids from outside our area walking our neighborhood.

This year Naomi was a witch, Ethan was a clone trooper from Star Wars, and Ryan was an army guy. They met up with friends and spent about two hours walking the neighborhood.

Auntie and Uncle visited afterward to end the evening, bringing over some goodies for the kids. They reported that a larger number of kids than last year came by their house too.

Songs Played After MLB Home Wins

Before the 2009 season is over, let's salute all those wins across MLB stadiums. Some teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants have played the same song after home wins over several seasons. These songs have come to become synonymous with the team. For a few teams, I was not able to identify a song.

Boston Red Sox – “Dirty Water” by The Standells
New York Yankees – “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra
Baltimore Orioles – “Orioles Magic” written by Perfect Pitch Inc. (did they play this in 2009?)
Toronto Blue Jays – ????
Tampa Bay Rays – “Feel the Heat Rays” by Living Under Venus

Cleveland Indians – “Rock and Roll All Night ” by KISS
Detroit Tigers – “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang
Minnesota Twins – ????
Chicago White Sox – “Sweet Home Chicago” by The Blues Brothers
Kansas City Royals – “Kansas City” by The Beatles

Oakland A’s – “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang
Seattle Mariners – “Kernkraft 400” by Zombie Nation
Los Angeles Angels – “California Angels A-OK” by Dick and Shirley Winslow
Texas Rangers – “I Like Texas” by Pat Green

New York Mets – “Takin’ Care of Business” by BTO
Philadelphia Phillies – “Goin’ Back to Philadelphia, PA” by Bobby Burnett
Washington Nationals – “Beautiful Day” by U2
Florida Marlins – ????
Atlanta Braves – ????

Chicago Cubs – “Go, Cubs, Go” by Steve Goodman
St. Louis Cardinals – Not sure if there is one song, but the organist often plays “Beautiful Day” by u2
Houston Astros – ????
Milwaukee Brewers –Not sure if there is one song, but Jasen Roby the saxophonist under I-94 plays the “Rocky” theme song after wins
Cincinnati Reds – ????
Pittsburgh Pirates – ????

San Diego Padres – “Rock and Roll Part 2” by Gary Glitter
San Francisco Giants – “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” by Tony Bennett
Los Angeles Dodgers – “I Love L.A.” by Randy Newman
Colorado Rockies – “Rocky Mountain Way” by Joe Walsh
Arizona Diamondbacks – “D-backs Swing” by Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers

Those Darn Raccoons!

We have raccoons tearing up our lawn. This is a new experience for us - one that's been ongoing for a couple of weeks now. Our neighbors actually saw them one evening. She said it looked like a mom and maybe two or three little ones.

They have visited us three or four times now, each time digging up the same part of the lawn. We understand that they are just foraging for food. This happens in the fall when all of the hills are dry and brown, and lawns are not.

We sent an email to Gary Bogue, a newspaper columnist with our local paper, who has assembled a pamphlet on tips for dealing with raccoons. We've added a link to Gary's web site to the Links section of this blog for anyone interested.

We've tried leaving the outdoor light on near where they've been digging. We were told that we could kill the grubs in the lawn that they are after, but we haven't done this yet. We changed the time when the sprinklers come on hoping that they would find the wetter than normal lawn to not be to their liking. Who are we kidding, these are animals that will forage through almost anything. We probably really should turn off the water and dry out the lawn. We'll see what happens.

Jeremy Cohen

Yes, we had quite the musical weekend. On Saturday, we took the kids to see the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra. Besides the price being right, it was also a chance to see Naomi's piano teacher play. The treat of the night was the playing of violinist Jeremy Cohen. He was the starring musician in a set featuring a Duke Ellington medley. It was quite a riveting piece.

Jeremy Cohen is a member of Quartet San Francisco. Here's a link to the video page at their web site that includes a video of the quartet playing "Libertango" by Astor Piazzolla amongst other compositions.

Jeremy Cohen's set that featured the Duke Ellington medley really did steal the show. It even had the kids' attention. After the intermission, the orchestra played the story of "Peter and the Wolf." The idea of a story through music sounds interesting, but Ryan did not see it the same way as he soundly slept his way through the entire number.

The Story of Billy McLaughlin

Billy McLaughlin was the guest musician at our church this weekend. He demonstrated his unique method for playing the guitar. The story about his battle with a neuromuscular disease called focal dystonia was shared, but it was only after checking out his web site that the extent of his battle was really apparent.

The Very Definition of Inspiration

What if Wynton Marsalis played a set with your high school jazz band, and it was entirely unplanned? This is exactly what happened to the Vaca High Jazz Ensemble at this past weekend's Vacaville Jazz Festival.

The story goes that Wynton Marsalis was driving down I-80 on his way to the Monterey Jazz Festival when he saw a banner for the Vacaville festival. He of the nine Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize quietly joined the high school band on stage. His time included one solo (see video below). As quickly as he joined the band, he was gone after a handful of songs, some autograph signing and other pleasantries.

This is probably something that these kids and their parents are going to remember foe quite some time.

Ichiro Gets 2000

Ichiro got his 2000th Major League Baseball (MLB )hit today against the A's. If you combine this with the hits that he got in 9 years playing professional baseball in Japan (starting as an 18 year old) before joining MLB, it would be enough to place him 12th on the all-time MLB list just 5 behind Willie Mays' 3283 hits.

Pete Rose leads the hit parade with 4256 career hits in his major league career. He got a hit about every 3.3 times at bat. Ichiro in just his MLB career has averaged a hit every 3.0 times at bat. If you add his Japanese baseball stats, then it's one hit every 2.93 at bats.

He's made it to 2000 faster than anyone not named Al Simmons who went on to finish with 2927 hits. He'll be 36 when baseball starts next year, when he should have about 2040 hits. By the time he finishes his first season as a 40 year old five years from now, he should be at about 3140 hits.

At one point, it was thought that Ichiro's stats in Japan would be needed to help him get into the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. This is no longer the case. He's gotten 200 hits in all 10 years in the majors. Pete Rose did not get his 10th 200-hit season until his 17th season. Ichiro also has been a Gold Glove fielder each year in the majors. He's broken the all-time single season hits record. He led the Mariners to their record 116-win season. Now it's just a matter of how many more stats he will amass before he decides to hang up his cleats for good.

Ponyo

We went to see this movie with my mom during her visit with us. Now I'll find Ryan humming the theme song from time-to-time. So here is the song with lyrics.

2009 Summer Road Trip - Part II

Here's a compilation of photos from the second half of our trip. Again, the slide show includes more items for our scavenger hunt.

2009 Summer Road Trip - Part I

The following is a compilation of photos from the "to Seattle" leg of our trip. This slide show includes a few of the photos for our scavenger hunt. How many can you spot? Some are marked, but others are not.

Good luck in spotting our "finds!"

Road Trip Scavenger Hunt

The local paper ran a scavenger hunt for summer road trips. The hunt ends on August 26, but we've completed our search and have submitted our entries. The following are the items that we were to find over the course of our road trips this summer:

1. Town mascot
2. Gas station adapted for different use
3. Professional fisherman with catch
4. Town square clock
5. Headstone inscribed with date before 1800s (bonus point if before 1700s)
6. Double-decker bus
7. Dog on the beach
8. Traveler from your team assisting street performer
9. A real outhouse (no portable potties allowed)
10. Red barn
11. Sign with Mother's, Mom's or Ma's on it (or foreign equivalent)
12. Cobblestone street
13. Oversized animal sculpture
14. Outdoor pay phone
15. Statue or art made entirely of edible food
16. A sign that is intentionally or unintentionally funny
17. A camel (bonus point if not from a zoo)
18. Town sign with population of 100 or less
19. A former jail
20. Something unusual not on the list

We had to have a photo of each of the items above with one of our travel party in the photo. The photos could not be from locales in the Bay Area.

The places we visited to collect entries for the hunt included items found at or near the following places:

California: Redding, Hilt, Dunsmuir, Humbug, and Truckee
Oregon: Grants Pass, Florence, Newport, Riddle, Wolf Creek, Canyonville, and Winston.
Washington: Seattle (Fisherman's Terminal, Pike Place Market, and Lake View Cemetery)

So as you can see we had an adventurous summer once again.

2009 Seahorse Season

Here's a video recap of our swim season. Enjoy!

Ryan's First Backstroke