December 2010 Lunar Eclipse

The current Photo du Jour on our blog is a photo that we took in our back yard of the December 20, 2010 lunar eclipse that started just shortly before 11:30pm. The photo shows the moon after it had been totally eclipsed.

Naomi stayed up with us to watch the eclipse even though we had a 7am flight the next morning.

Seahawks Upset Saints

The Seahawks upset the Saints in a wild 41-36 back-and-forth game. At this point, each game that the Seahawks play this year is just gravy. It's a miracle that they are still playing. After all, the 'Hawks were but a 11-point underdog at home to the defending Super Bowl champs due to their 7-9 finish to become an unlikely division champ, one where each of their nine losses was by at least 15 points. Kudos to Eric Allen of ESPN for being the only "expert" anywhere who had picked the Seahawks to win the game.

The play of the game was the 67-yeard TD run late in the game by Marshawn Lynch, former Cal Bears star RB. Here's the link to the official NFL.com video clip of the his run in what is being referred to as "beast mode," perhaps a nod to a certain video game play mode I think.

Here's another clip from YouTube:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sound track includes the following:

"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Grreen Day
Special Duet by Chuck Kistler on Bass and Naomi Emoto on Piano
"Throw it in the Bag" by Fabolous
"Alleluja" by Sarah Brightman
"Dynamite" by Talo Cruz
Jazz Medley by Jeff Busch Jazz Quartet
"Life in Technicolor II" by Coldplay
"I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas
"We Live for Love" by Pat Benatar

This is how we rolled out 2010 and rolled in the new year.

Shimanami Kaido Bike Trip

Perhaps one day this will be a family trip. Saw this on NHK television this morning on a travelogue. The Shimanami Kaido is the only way (of three options) that is completely traversable on foot or by bicycle from Honshu to Shikoku.

The total distance of this toll road is just under 40 miles. From what we saw on the show, the bike route is well-maintained, well-traveled, has incredible scenery of the Seto Inland Sea, and stations along the way catering to bikers and walkers.

Tire Tracks or Also Called...

Ryan has a way with words.

He is the one child in our house who will on occasion greet me in the garage after work. Today, he came out barefooted even though the driveway was damp from sporadic sprinkles.

Crouching down, pointing to the driveway he said, "Look dad at these 'drove-in marks'." He was pointing at the tire tracks from my car.

Ryan's First Law of Motion

Ryan's First Law of Motion:

R = N * a * P

R = A child's level of motion

N = Number of people in proximity

a = Amount of activity around the subject child

P = An adjustment factor to account for holidays and proximity to favored relatives

Notice that the right side of the equation spells the level of activity sought by parents.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a full house and lots of great food for Thanksgiving this year. The roll call for food included:

Turkey, Ham w/Pineapples, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Sweet Potato Rolls, Cranberry Gelatin Mold, Yams and Sweet Potatoes, Corn Casserole, Pea Salad, Deviled Eggs, Crudites, Ambrosia, Sticky Rice, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, Vanilla Ice Cream, Butter Pecan Ice Cream, and Finger Jello.



Here's what we looked like before we ate:



After we ate, well, it was another story...

A Duet

Practicing for the Thanksgiving evening entertainment for family.

On This Veterans Day Weekend...

Here's a song honoring those who have sacrificed for our country. It's called "A Pittance of Time" by songwriter Terry Kellly.

Conan's Back!

Conan O'Brien is back on the tube. Did not know that he is quite the musician. On his first show last night he played with Jack White.

"Rock" and Roll?

We took the kids to the Contra Costa Mineral & Gem Show this weekend. It started because a Boy Scout troop was using the event as an opportunity to help Webelo scouts earn their geology pin; and Ethan wanted to earn his pin. This led to Ryana and Naomi joining too because all scouts in uniforms got free admission.

Ethan and Naomi had a general understanding of what we were going to see. The kids hurriedly got into their uniforms as we readied to leave. But I wasn't sure if Ryan understood what we were going to do. So I asked him, "Do you know what we're going to see at the Gem and Rock show?"

After a brief pause, Ryan said, "I think we're going to a gym and we're going to see a rock show...you know, a rock and roll show with music."

The Giants - Out of the Dungeon

This is for Giants fans who live away from the Bay Area. Some of what is written below was gleaned from listening to many hours of KNBR over the past couple weeks on my commute to and from work.

Duane Kuiper (also known as "Kuip") has now been associated with the Giants since 1982, when he had a three-year stay as a second baseman for the Giants from 1982 to 1985. When he retired, he turned to broadcasting and now is one of the Giants key play-by-play radio announcers. Knowing that he would do the ninth inning call for what would prove to be the clinching game of the World Series, he put some thought into the call that he would later make. He actually wrote out what he was going to say because if he didn't he thought that he would break down in the moment and not know what to say. Apparently, there was a moment right after the game ended when he tried to get Mike Krukow (also known as "Kruk"), who himself has now been associated with the Giants since 1983, to chime in but all "Kruk" could do was do a two handed wave to basically say, "not now." It was just too emotional.

Listening to the radio today, there was story after story about what the Giants World Series win meant to fans. There was the Humboldt State student who called in to say that he watched every Giants playoff game on television even though he didn't own a television. The retort from the "Razor" (one of the KNBR afternoon drive time sports talk show hosts) was, "that's a neat trick, watching television without a television," The student went onto explain that he watched the games in a common area in his residence hall, but his main point was that spending time in the common area resulted in him making new friends with other like minded people.

There has been much written about the Giants' pitching which has been spectacular, but not many people know that the Giants also won plenty of games down the stretch with their bats. After overhearing on one of the talk shows that the Giants led the National League in home runs hit from September on to the end of the season, I tried to verify this. After about a half hour of tick marks, my tally showed that the Reds had hit 33 home runs. the Rockies had hit 35 with and without the humidor, the Phillies had 38, but at the top of heap was the Giants with 39. Surprising indeed.

On Tuesday mornings, the KNBR morning drive hosts have a call in show with "Kuip" at 7:30, which usually puts me about 10 minutes from work. After the World Series, there was talk about whether there would be a call-in show on this morning. After all, the morning drive show was going to be broadcasting from Texas and then fly back after their show, and "Kuip" would be calling in after a red eye flight. But "Kuip" made this a non-issue when he said that there was no way that he was going to miss this show, the one show that he had been waiting to do ever since they started the morning call-in segment for him maybe six or seven years ago. On this show, he explained what he did to prepare for the call of the end of the Giants' Series clinching win.

This evening the Razor and Mr. T on their show were talking with Scott Ostler, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, when the discussion turned to Aubrey Huff, he of the rally thong. Ostler shared about an incident when another writer mentioned that he should go check out the Giants' weight room. So he ambled down to the room, only to see the sight of Huff lifting weights wearing thong underwear. This would be Huff's red rally thong. He started wearing this to break a slump that he was in at the end of August. With the thong in full effect, the Giants would go 25-12, win the National League West, lead the league in home runs, and rest is history as they say. It's funny that baseball would crack down on closer Brian Wilson's orange shoes, but be powerless to do anything about Huff's red thong.

Giants Baseball - Torture

I am not a Giants fan per se, but can't escape following them with their success pushing their imprint on almost every square foot of Bay Area media real estate. And even though I am not a Giants fan per se, I have to admit that theirs is a compelling story. This is a baseball franchise, if not for the hapless Cubbies would have a firm grasp on the ultimate baseball loser title, having not won a championship since moving west from New York to become the San Francisco Giants in 1958

First it was Glee, and now the Giants have taken on "Don't Stop Believing" as a theme song. Of course, we'd like to think maybe they're copying us.

The following is the Giants version of the song courtesy of Ashkon Music.



Just a loyal fan
Tryin' to do the best I can
But these last three or four years have made it hard

But I had faith and I had hope
And thankfully the Padres choked
Either that or maybe it was the Rally Thong

Let's go Giants
NL West Division Champions
Feels good but we ain't stopping here

We got Timmy and Torres
Huff Daddy and Buster Posey
Hands down Rookie of the Year

The playoff fever's giving me the chills
Willie Mays and Will the Thrill
Bobby Thompson and the shot that day heard around the world

We're here to win but in case we lose
I'm purchasing a case of booze
I guess the torture will never end
It goes on and on and on and on

Kung Fu Panda
Pat the Bat and U-ribe
Brian Wilson in the ninth

Don't stop believin'
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die

Don't stop believin' (Yeah, shout out to the Giants' entire organization)
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die (Bochy, Sabean, Kruk and Kuip, what up?)

Don't stop believin' (F.P., Marty Lurie, Steve Perry)
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die (White collar brawlers, Ashkon)

© 2010 Ashkon Music, WhiteCollarBrawler.com

The Giants are really a Band of Misfits as they and their fans have labeled them. They have a first baseman who has bragged about wearing a rally thong, a third baseman who looks to be eating his way to his nickname "Kung Fu Panda," a rookie catcher who acts like a wise old sage, an ace pitcher who was taunted by Phillies fans for looking like a girl and having been pinched in the off season for pot possession, a closer who has a dyed black beard that has resulted in the slogan "Fear the Beard," and of course the unlikely outfielder MVP who was claimed on waivers to be kept away from an opposing team and has disclosed that his dream as a child was to become a rodeo clown.

The following is a tribute to that rodeo clown wannabe.



This has led to their real team anthem coined by one-half of the Giants broadcast team, Duane Kuiper: Giants Baseball - Torture!

Neil Young at Bridge School Benefit Concert

Neil Young played at this year's Bridge School Benefit Concert again. Here is a video clip from his appearance at the 2009 concert. If you search on YouTube you can find other clips. Neil Young is near the end of the clip.

Overheard This Weekend - Episode 1

I'm talking to a friend on the phone and ask, "What's going on?"

His answer is, "I'm watching C-SPAN2."

I ask, "What are they talking about?"

My friend says, "C-SPAN3."

Did you know that C-SPAN is an abbreviation for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network?

Cross Country Running in September

Hardly posted a single entry last month, but this was not for a lack of subjects to write about. Far from it.

For some reason, we thought that it would be a good idea for our kids to do cross country running. The kids are running through the local Catholic church's youth sports program. Several other families from our school are also on the team. The season only runs through part of October, but the kids have practice two days a week and a meet on a third day.

While watching NFL games this weekend, Ethan noted that the 49ers were playing the Falcons. The game information showed ATL and the team logo so I asked how he knew that the Atlanta team was the Falcons. He said, "Because the logo is the same as the one on our cross country running team uniforms."

Their team name is the St. Francis of Assisi Falcons. Can you spot Naomi in the photo below?

Scavenger Hunt Results are In

Alas, we did not win the scavenger hunt, but we came close again. We found all 20 items, but lost out on the tie-breaker. The tie-breaker is whoever comes closest to guessing the number of teams to find all 20 items. We guessed 93, and at least 2 other teams had guessed 88 and 89. The correct answer was 88 out of 452 entries.

According to the paper, people had the most difficulty finding people feeding pigeons. Other items that gave people a difficult time were ice cream truck, mime and motel named for two people. Our most difficult item was a mime.

We did get one consolation, with one of our photos making it on their slide show. See if you can find our photo in the Best of the Rest slideshow on their site. You might recognize where the photo was taken. The answer is in a previous entry on this blog.

We had a great time though. We'll give it a whirl again next time.

Thinking Outside the Box

A friend forwarded this to us. It's from TheFunTheory.com. Our kids got a kick out of this video and others on the web site. Ryan said, "can we go see it?"

2010 Scavenger Hunt Compilation

This is a compilation of what we found for our road trip scavenger hunt this year. Some of these photos were in a previous post, but this is the entire list. The two most difficult items to find this time were a motel named for two people and a mime. There really aren't too many motels named for people these days. The market is dominated by chains, and the ones that are not chains have catchy travel related or destination oriented names like Ponderosa Motel or Drift-Inn Motel. We learned that miming is likely a dying art. Perhaps in NYC or other large urban centers street mimes can be found entertaining tourists, but we didn't have any luck finding a mime in the cities that we visited. In the end, we had to improvise.

We completed two road trips this year to find all of our items. In an earlier post, the first part of our first road trip is described. Picking up the discussion from that earlier post, we zipped across from Montana to Seattle in one day. We stopped along I-90 in Montana to pick up fireworks that were a hit later on the Fourth. There were many such fireworks stands along I-90 to Seattle. We knew that we could cover this last leg of over 500 miles to Seattle in one day because we had done it before.

We'll post our photos from our stay in Seattle separately so we'll just say that our stay in Seattle was shorter than usual, but we had a full Fourth with tons of food and a great fireworks show, a Mariners game, and visiting and sleepovers (for the kids) with family and friends.

The second road trip was to southern California. People who don't live in California may not understand this, but southern California is different from northern California. Geographically, southern California is just so much more spread out. We talked about going to the beach one day, but didn't make it because it was going to take too much time. Even though we live in-land in the Bay Area, going to Ocean Beach in San Francisco does not seem to be the same sort of ordeal. Ocean Beach is not like the California beaches you see on television which are usually beaches in southern California. Ocean Beach is 60 degrees and windy, with very few tan bodies.

Our trip to southern California was more scavenger hunt oriented so there were no stops at the "Happiest Place on Earth" or other amusement parks. The closest we came was the Watermelon Festival in Sunland, California. The itinerary of events for the Kids' Stage at the festival listed "mimes," but there were no mimes to be found. We did have a nice chat with "The Great Omar" who had a nice kid-friendly magic act. When we spoke with him after his performance, he said to us, "No, I don't know of any mimes being booked for this festival." He did give us his card that Ryan promptly took after which Omar said, "Here's another card because who knows where that card will end up."

We spent part of one day in Little Tokyo. The Japanese American National Museum had several activities ongoing that were all free. Besides free entry into the museum, they had a hands-on arts and crafts workshop with free popcorn and cotton candy. The museum had two main exhibits. One was on portraits of multiracial kids by Kip Fulbeck. There weren't any photos of Japanese-Chinese kids. The second was their main permanent exhibit called "Common Ground: The Heart of Community" on the 130-year history of Japanese-Americans. A smaller exhibit called "Textured Lives" on Japanese immigrant clothing from the plantations of Hawaii was also running through August 22, 2010.

We drove US 101 on the way to Los Angeles. it was a good compromise between taking the much slower Highway 1 on the coast and the faster, but less scenic I-5 route. The only Pea Soup Andersen's that we knew of was the one that is located along I-5 near Santa Nella, but the original one is located along US 101 in Buellton. Apparently, there were as many as four such restaurants. Not sure if all four are still open, but we'll have to stop in next time.

One reason for taking US 101 was because Dorothy's always wanted to visit Solvang. For those of you who have never heard of Solvang, it's a small town in Santa Barbara county that was founded in 1911 by Danes from the Midwest. It has the feel of a small European town with narrower streets and sidewalks full of tourists. The architecture is suppose to be consistent with what is common in Denmark. We sampled some delicious pastries, checked out the Hans Christian Andersen Museum and saw the sights of the town. Solvang is a picture of quaint.



Another US 101 stop was San Luis Obispo. Did you know that SLO is the home to the first motel? The term motel was coined by Arthur Heineman in 1925 for his new creation the motor hotel. The Milestone Mo-Tel (later renamed to Motel Inn) was suppose to be a convenient rest stop for travelers between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but the motel chain never got underway. Heineman was undone by an inability to register the name as a trademark allowing others to use the "motel" name and do so more cost-effectively. There's not much more than two partial buildings left today behind a chain link fence.





We also checked out the Cal Poly University SLO campus. Maybe a preview of things to come in perhaps six years or so. Wow! Can't believe that we could have a child heading to college so soon. Here's a photo of us outside the office of my friend who teaches in the Department of City and Regional Planning. He obviously was not in as the campus was still on summer break and quite quiet.



Okay, that's enough background on the rest of our road trips. Here's the compilation of our finds for the scavenger hunt. Drum roll please....

1. Covered Bridge - This was an easy one for us as it was a repeat item from a couple of years ago. The last time we had covered bridges on our list, we had no idea where we would find a covered bridge. We only could think about the "Bridges of Madison County" and the actual bridges of Madison County, Iowa. However, we learned that Oregon has many covered bridges, probably one of the largest collections in the country. We knew exactly where to find one that would be easy to reach. Cottage Grove, Oregon on I-5.



2. Church with Visible Bell - This one was a little challenging when we realized that most churches these days do not have bells. Even with steepled churches, the steeples are often solid with no belfry. Perhaps this is due to the age of technology and speaker systems that can broadcast the sound of bells. The church in the photo is St. Rose's Church in Dillon, Montana on I-15. We stopped in because I have a colleague who works for Caltrans and has in-laws that live there. We wanted to see what was in Dillon.



3. Sign that is Intentionally or Unintentionally Funny - We could have used any number of several signs for this one. Naomi picked this one in Twin Falls, Idaho as being funny.



4. Black Bear - Okay, so it was going to be a long shot that we would find a living black bear. Perhaps in a zoo, but we found this taxidermy black bear at the visitor information center in Butte, Montana.



5. Lemonade Stand - Normally, one would look for a lemonade stand in a neighborhood. We were surprised to find one at a freeway rest stop outside Missoula, Montana on the way to Seattle. The rest stop had this little stand complete with lemonade operated by a White Star of Jerusalem chapter out of Missoula who were raising money for dental work and orthodontics for children. I learned that one of the women working the stand was originally from Fairbanks, Alaska.



6. Water Tower with Writing on It - Almost all of the towns in Idaho that we passed through had water towers so we had our pick of towers to photograph. The trick was to try to get a shot showing the tower and the writing with members of our family in the photo. This was taken in Burley, Idaho.



7. Festival Celebrating Food, Vegetable or Fruit - The photo is from the Watermelon Festival in Sunland in southern California that was mentioned earlier.



8. House that Doesn't Have Four Sides - Another find in Cottage Grove, Oregon. These are yurts based on structures of the same name used by the nomads of Central Asia. They can now be found at some campgrounds in Oregon. The inside of the one in the photo was complete with sleeping, dining and cooking areas.



9. Mime - If you read our earlier post, you'll get the story behind the photo below from Hollywood, California



10. Someone Feeding Pigeons - This photo was taken in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon. Did you know that if you feed pigeons and the birds do not pick all the crumbs clean, you could be cited for littering (at least in Portland)? We were told this by a nice security guard at the square who politely warned us. There were plenty of pigeons, but no one feeding them so we became the pigeon feeders. What was funny was that when we started feeding the pigeons none of the birds in the area would come to the food that we were tossing on the ground. It took one bird to take the first step and the others followed.



11. Ice Cream Truck - This is one of those trendy roving food trucks. On this day, the Coolhaus truck was on the rooftop of a business next to what seemed to be a very popular downtown Los Angeles seafood market and restaurant called the Fisherman's Outlet Seafood. The Coolhaus truck was partnered with another food truck serving some sort of Asian fusion food. The flavors are interesting, but their twist is that the ice cream is between soft cookies as a sandwich. Your fingers sort of stay clean due to an edible wrapper. The ice cream sandwiches were tasty!



12. Motel Named for Two People - This was the big head scratcher. We had no idea what to do, but did a little research while in southern California and came up with the motel in the photo below. Thanks to our GPS we were able to find the motel in a part of Oxnard that probably would not be a destination for most.



13. Obscure Historical Marker - This was one of the first items that we found. It was a marker at the Elko, Nevada airport marking it as the destination of the first air mail route in the U.S. This was covered in the earlier post.



14. Parked Car with More Than 10 Bumper Stickers - This was one of only two items that we found in Seattle. In previous years, we used the knowledge of family and friends in Seattle to find items there. My sister spotted this van and took us to where it was located.



15. Building Painted Purple - We found this building in Pocatello, Idaho. It was a night club, sort of explains its purple color.



16. Blank Billboard - We didn't think that this would be an easy find, but we were wrong. It's probably a sign of the times and the down economy, but there were plenty of blank billboards along I-80 in Nevada and other states too. This was near Hollister, Idaho on the way to Twin Falls. We found others but nothing like this where one could stand under the billboard. The story behind the story here is that we were looking for a place where Ryan could use the restroom. We couldn't find one and this billboard appeared so we took care of two things at once in the parking lot of the Country Haven General Store. No, we did not relieve ourselves on their property. We have a portable potty that has been a lifesaver on several occasions.



17. Closed Store with We've Moved Sign - This was the other item that we found in Seattle. We found it on the way back to our car from the Seattle Mariners game. Lianne is in the photo with us.



18. Ferris Wheel - We could've used a couple of different ferris wheels, but this one is from the Watermelon Festival. Ethan and I were the only ones to take a spin. Ryan wanted to take a spin too, but he was not tall enough. We got our money's worth with over a dozen revolutions on this ferris wheel



19. Rainbow - We have more information on this one on our previous road trip post too. But we got this photo along Highway 93 in Montana.



20. Something Unusual Not on the List - This was a keeper. It was in a place not well traveled - Cut Bank, Montana. The Cut Bank area does figure prominently in the Lewis and Clark chronicles as the north branch of the Marias River traveled by Meriwether Lewis is the present day Cut Bank Creek. I don't think Lewis and Clark would've ever envisioned a 20-foot plus tall statue of a penguin in northern Montana. We had to double back in the rain to get this photo. Totally caught us off guard.



Well, that's it for our road trip scavenger hunt. Naomi is the only member of our family that made into each of the above 20 photos - what a trooper!

A Teaching Moment

School started this week. Fittingly, here's a video clip that provides an example of a teaching moment.