Lila gets her AA

Lila Mary Bear became a college graduate tonight. She got her AA from the Contra Costa Community College. We are all very proud of here. Sunday at 2:00pm we are holding a party at our house. Tonight she is out with her buddies celebrating.

Latino Grad Night

"La mejor manera de predecir tu futuro es creandolo tu mismo" - Anonimo

"The best way to predict your future is to create it" -Anonymous

Wednesday May 20, 2009

Contra Costa College Latino Association For Student Opportunity had a Latino Graduation & Transfer Ceremony where I received recognition for my A.A. in Liberal Studies

Sunday - Lina's 81st Birtday

Yesterday, Lina turned 81. We had a quiet day with family and neighbors at our house. Surprisingly, there was no pinata.

Jake's Birthday - Saturday

Saturday, we had a birthday party for Jake at Becky's new house. We had a great time. One big surprise was Christine came all the way from Sacramento on public transportation just for the party.

Reunion at Nancy's

Last weekend, we had a small family reunion of the West Coast Bears at Mark and Nancy's vineyard in Sutter Creek, CA.



It was a lot of fun, and besides spending time with each other, we got to taste some very good wine.

Niagra Falls

Last week, my work took me to Niagra Falls, Ontario, Canada. I flew into Buffalo, NY and drove over the border to Niagra Falls, Ont and stayed at the Sheraton on the Falls. Before traveling, I emailed my 2nd cousin, Dr. Bob Bear. He and his family had grown up in Buffalo, and I asked for some suggestions.


The next day, after I arrived, I had a bit of time in the afternoon, so I went to the Anchor Bar. This is where Buffalo Wings were invented. My minimum order or 10 wings, took longer than I had expected, but when I tasted them, I could tell why. They make each batch fresh from scratch. They are easily the best Wings I have ever had.

When I got to the Tavern that Bob had recommended to me, they had stopped serving lunch, so I was not able to have the local favorite sandwich called Beef on Weck. Which is sort of a french dip on a roll that has pretzel salt. They had already stopped serving lunch for the day when.

Wednesday, I got up to attend a breakfast and general session at the conference I was attending. It was 3:00am here on the west coast and it sure felt like it. After the conference was over, I packed my stuff and took 15 minutes to look at the falls and take a coupe of pictures.

I drove to the Buffalo airport only to find a restaurant serving Beef on Weck. I caught my plane, which had a stopover in Chicago. There we experienced a delay of about 30 minutes. Once in the air, we were plauged by bad weather. We were all strapped in for over 2 hours because of turblance. After we landed and drove home, it was after mid-night here on the west coast. That made for a very long day.

Carem, Ed and Van Morrison

Carmen and Ed won two tickets to see Van Morrison perform at the Greek Theater at the UC Berkeley Campus.

I got a call on my cell phone last week. The lady told me I just won two tickets to see Van Morrison, but I couldn't tell what radio station she had said she was with. I am sure glad we were not live on the air and that she didn't ask me what my favorite radio station was.

The concert was Sunday evening. We had never been to the Greek Theater before. I got their early enough to avoid paying $20.00 for parking. Much of the seating is on concrete. Luckily Visa was handing out foam pads for anyone with a Visa Signature card, which I just happened to have. Turns out, we had real seats, but the cushions were a plus. In fact, we were in the third row and no one was in the second row in front of us.

There really are no bad seats at the Greek Theater. The concert was wonderful. After all, it was free, we were in the third row and Carmen enjoyed it, which is what is most important!