Green Festival

Today I went to the Green Festival in San Francisco. My daughter, Lila, took me to the El Cerrito del Norte station in our Ford Escape Hybrid. I got off at the Civic Center Bart Station and walked to 8th and Brannon. It is just under a mile each way and I was working my hiking boots. This is important cause this is the longest walk I have done since I sprained my ankle. I really felt it on the way back.

It seems over the last year, that there are less conferences, expos ... etc. that focus on being green. There is the local Earth Day event in Richmond, but there were a lot more a year or so ago. I think they are important. It is a great way to get educated and inspired. I learn a lot every time and it makes me want to do better.

This year you could bring five cans of food instead of paying the $15 entry fee. I would have done that, but they did not post it on their web site. Last year it was three cans. You don't save any money, but it sure does some people a lot of good. Paying by donating canned food is my favorite method of payment. I still didn't have to pay $15, I got a five dollar discount for taking BART.

There were Circus Soleil performers out front while we waited in line to buy our tickets. That was a special treat. I wanted to get a short video, but I didn't want to loose my place in line.

One of the booths calculate how much impact your trip to the festival is and how much it would cost to offset using carbon credits. Since most of my trip was via BART, they calculated heavy rail. It came out to 3o cents. Just for fun, they calcualated what it would have been if I had driven. Funny enough, it was actually worse for me to take BART than drive. So then they decided to try and recalculate using the commuter train setting. It still would have been better to have driven the Ford Escape Hyrbid. Strange when you take into consideration that they gave me a $5 dollar discount for taking BART instead of driving. I don't know if the program was right, but it makes one think.

It was a full festival. Many drawings for prizes and I entered all of them. Hope I win. The samples were plentiful, wonderful food (chocolate is a food, right), fruits, drinks and more.



Here is one of the new technologies and space savers is this toilet/sink combination. I want one!



One of my favorite things was a lady wearing bags, to show how much goes into landfill for every person that shops every year. I thought it illustrated the point very well.



Some of my favorite companies are Green Zebra and Zip Car. They were there in force and I made a point of stopping by.

Saw my friends at 3prong. They have moved from their location on San Pablo Road inside the Green Motors facility. They are now on fourth street.

One thing that I noticed was just how nice and polite everyone was. It really makes a different and helps to put a smile on your face.

After I had made the rounds to each booth, I stopped to have lunch. In the ultimate green, I brought my own lunch in a thermos. I used a bandanna for a napkin, a spoon from home and a bottle of water and I was set. I did not stay for the live music. No one from my family was able to go with me and regardless of how nice it was, it is not the same when you are alone. Maybe next year!

Waterpolo

This weekend was an amazing weekend. I had been down last weekend, visiting Dave Talley and having lunch with a lot of my Charter Oak High School (COHS) classmates. This weekend, Carmen came with me. We drove down this time and Melinda Race was kind enough to put us up at her place. That helped us to keep the expenses down.

Melinda is an amazing woman. Her house is immaculate and her family is so wonderful. We especially enjoyed our time with her Grand Daughter Makala.

Saturday after breakfast, we visited Cobos. We had to, her cell phone doesn't work and her voice mail is full, so we stopped by and had a great visit with her daughter and new grandson Logan.



Next we were off to Glendora and visit Craig "Gumby" Schaeffer and his family in the house his father built. It is such a cool house and I apologize to his lovely wife for just dropping in. It was truly unfair, but I had not been to that house in over 30 years.

Next we hopped on over to Melinda's mom's house. What a beautiful house and Melinda's mom is such a sweetie. She even remembered me and I have to admit she looked familiar.


Now it was time for the COHS Alumni Waterpolo match. This was the major reason for the visit this weekend. My wife Carmen wore my letterman's jacket and it got a lot of looks. It was the only Lancer jacket there. I hope next year others will bring theirs and show that Lancer pride.

There were four of us over 40: Craig "Gumby" Schaeffer, Eric and Craig Schubel and myself. The turnout for the alumni was great and the stands were full of COHS 1978 alumni. Diana Cobos and Lisa Kagerise both came to watch as well.

We all played and Craig even scored. The game went into double overtime and sudden death. In the end, we won 20 to 19. I have to hand it to the COHS seniors. They only had 3 substitutes. We had about 18. We wish them luck when they go to CIF.


After we washed up, we headed over to the Black Watch Pub in Upland. Little Debbie Knott, is all grown up now and organized a mult-year COHS reunion.

Debbie is now Debbie Ross and she has a fantastic band that rocked us all night long.

It was so good to see so many classmates and I have to say that the class of 1978 had the best showing at the reunion. That is because 78 is great! LOL


That evening passed way too fast. We returned to Melinda's house. The next morning, we chatted with Melinda and Carla Anderson. Terry (1977) snuck out of the house before the rest of us could get up.

Carmen and I headed back home at 11:30am and it took use 7.5 hours with no traffic to get back home. The plane was a lot quicker.

Visiting My Friends from Charter Oak High School

I’m back home safe and sound. I had a fantastic time visiting my classmates from COHS. It is amazing how strong those childhood bonds are. These people go beyond friends, they are an extension of my family. When we get together, everyone has so much to contribute.

Judy was amazing sacrificing so much of her weekend and doing all that driving. Visiting Gary Dahle and his wife in their house was really special. It was great to see how much we have in common. I am not the only one that has rain barrels, or grows fruits and vegetables, makes jam and does canning.

It is hard to think about visiting people from COHS without seeing Deann (Call) Lent. She has done so much for our class that Judy and I think she should be declared COHS, class mom of 1978. She was so kind to make time for us out of her busy schedule. We really enjoyed visiting her and her husband.

Then it was off to attend Tom Lindquist’s party. I had not seen Tom in over 31 years. That alone made the trip worth while. We had a great time chatting and meeting Tom’s sisters, who thank God, do not look like him. They are pretty!

The next morning I spent with Dave Talley, and all I will say is that I was honored that he included me. He continues to inspire others by living his life in a way that provides a proper example. He talks the talk, but he also walks the walk.

When we returned, Dave was kind enough to bring me to into his house. He has an amazing house, which he built. His family is great and makes one feel so welcome. All I can say is that may God bless Dave Talley and his family.

We had a glitch in our lunch plans. The restaurant that we had selected did something that many restaurants are now doing because of the tough economic times. They stopped serving lunch. Our lunch was scheduled to start at 12:30pm and I arrived a bit early to make sure everything went well and sure enough the sign said “New Business House 4-10pm”. We were out of luck.

Judy went and found a round table about a block away with plenty of tables. We called everyone we had cell phone numbers for, put a message on my board on Facebook and put a sign up on the door, explaining where we were and giving my cell phone number.

We had a great turnout. Judy Zeiter, Craig Schaeffer, his wife and daughter, Dave Talley, his wife, son and daughter, Melinda Race, Eric Schubel, Gary Dahle, Diana “Cobos” Campbell and myself. These are some of the people that I grew up with. Together we became the people that we would become. Our ties are very strong and they are an extension of my family. I love all these guys.

I am back home, safe and sound. I am happy to be in my own house and with family. I look forward to next Friday when my wife and I will drive back down to southern California so that I can participate in the COHS alumni water polo event. Sometimes I wished I lived down there so I could be with these wonderful people more often.

From Tia Leony to Buzz Aldrin

A few weeks back Tia Leony came to visit us from Peru along with Kike, Carolina and Enrique. During the final hour of the flight Tia Leony had a headache, it became more and more severe. Once at the airport, they whisked her to the hospital. Turns out she had experienced a aneurysm. By the time the doctor got to her, she had slipped into a coma. She had suffered sever brain damage.

Leony's eldest son, Juan was the only son or daughter with a visa issued by the USA, so he flew up and went directly to the hospital from the airport to be with his and authorzie taking her off of life support. His family should be proud of him.

Over the next few days, the family stayed with her. Lina, age 81 spent two nights with her sister. At that age, sleeping in a chair is very rough. Carmen stayed with Leony every night and Lila spent the last night with her and was holding her hand as she slipped from this world to the next.

The same day Leony passed away, I had planned to go to the USS Hornet in Alameda. They were having a special cerimony celibrating the 40th anniverisary of Apollo 11. After speaking, he was going to sign books. The moon mission was very special to me. As a young boy, I had watched each televised Apollo blast off with my dad. Listening to Walter Cronkite and like most little boys, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Some things are bigger than going to the moon. Tia Leony was one of them. Despite being urged by Carmen to go to the book signing, I could not out of respect for a great lady, who had touched all of our lives in such a wonderful way.

The following weekend, we had the memorial service at St Calistic. Both Lila and Carmen got up to do a reading. Immediately, Lila started to break down and cry. Carmen urged me to go up and comfort her, but as I watched, I could see that she was struggling to get control and so I waited. She did get control and finished the reading. At the end of the mass, Lila got up to speak about Tia Leony in English. Carmen went up after her and spoke in Spanish. They could not have done a more perfect job. The entire family was very proud of them and I am very proud of everyone in my family.

As for Tia Leony, she was 79. She spent her last concious day with plesaant thoughts anticipating her visit. She endured pain for a very short time. She was surrounded by family and never left alone. Her passing was painless and very quick. We should all be so lucky. At the memorial service, that over 30 people attended to pay respect to a little old lady, thousands of miles from her home, who had only visited here once. She brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, may she rest in peace.

Last week, I was looking at Twitter reading postings from Buzz Aldrin. I decided to visit his website again. Turns out he added some additional book signings. Two in California, one last Saturday in Torrance at 2pm and the other next Thursday in Santa Barbara. Apparently they were recently added. I told Carmen about it and she encouraged me to go. I asked Lila if she was interested in going and she said yes, so on Friday evening we decided to go. I made hotel arrangements for Saturday night and we left at 6:00am the next morning.

We ran into traffic, and instead of arriving 2 hours early, we were only one hour early. We bought our books, and got our wrist bands that put us in the second signing group. We went to where seats had been set up for the event and got the last two seats that were still together.

Buzz, got a wonderful standing ovation. At 79, he looks great, is sharp as a tack and a very good speaker. After his talk, we got in line, got our books signed and our pictures taken with Buzz. I wondered if I were to step on the foot of the man that stepped on the moon, would that mean that I had stepped on the moon too?

That evening, Lila and I had dinner at Diana Cobo's house and got to meet her family. Diana had been on the swim team with me at Charter Oak High School and was the first woman to letter varsity in mens swimming. I thought she would be a good role model for Lila. Lila was initially very leary of meeting people from my school, but after she admited that Diana was very cool.

Diana's daughter Zoe, was pregnant. In fact she was due that exact day. The baby (Logan) was good enough to not be born so that we could visit Diana. Logan was born on Monday. Mom and son are doing very well and all are healthy.

Sunday we drove back and stopped to have lunch with my brother Dave. It is the first time we have been with Dave anywhere near his birthday in quite some years. We gave Dave his present. An authographed book by Buzz Aldrin. I think he really liked it. Lila and I took turns driving back. We stuck to a very strict budget on this trip and we both really enjoyed it.

Lunch With Nate Thurmond

Today, I'm still on vacation. I decided to have lunch with Nate Thurmond. That's right, NBA Hall of Famer, Nate "The Great" Thurmond. One of the greatest basketball players ever.

I should explain, that while I had lunch with Nate, Nate did not have lunch with me. You see, Nate is the owner and operator of "Big Nate's". A great BBQ joint in San Francisco. I had ribs and man were they tender. Nate took my order, my money and gave me my change.

San Francisco is not known for great BBQ, but at least we have Nate's. One special thing you should know is that Big Nate's deliver.

Vegas Vacation

Immediately after work on Tuesday, June 30th, I drove to Fresno and spent the night with my sister Susan, visiting her, her husband Willie and my nephew Jake. Everyone is doing well. Even Susan is in school these days. She and Jake had to leave by 7:00am, so I was on the road by 8:00am the next morning.


Wednesday July 1st, I pulled into Las Vegas and checked into the Casino Royale. I touched bases with my friend Chuck, who is the GM there and we agreed to get together for breakfast the next morning. I called my nephew Carlos, who is in the air force. He had to study for a test Thursday afternoon, so we agreed to hookup after his test.

Thursday July 2nd, is the first day of Pooker Palooza. It opened at 11:00am, but I was there shortly before 10:00am, immediately after my breakfast with Chuck. I was one of the first people inside. I collected pictures of myself with famous poker players, t-shirts, decks of cards, beef jerky and other trinkets. Greg Raymer gave a very good seminar on tournament strategies.


That afternoon, Carlos called me to let me know that he was done with his test. I drove over and picked him up from the air base. We stopped at the half price tickets place and picked up two tickets to see Gordie Brown at the Golden Nugget. Gordie put on a great show and Carlos really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to the Mermaid also located downtown on Fremont street. There Carlos had Island Tea, in a very big (plastic) glass that was about three feet tall. It even came with a neck strap. Carlos never did quite finish the drink and from time to time, we would step out of the Casino to enjoy the "Fremont Experience", which is a wonderful combination of images and music. The Queen tribute was especially good. Back inside the casino, we decided to try a deep fried Twinkie and Oreo. Amazingly while they sound disgusting, they are actually very good. I brought Carlos back to the base at around 11:oopm. He had to get up to catch his flight back early the next morning.


Friday July 3rd, is the 2nd day of Pooker Palooza and the first day of the World Series of Poker Main Event. This day started off with an incredible educational seminar by Annie Duke. I spent the day collecting more loot. That evening, I picked Lila up from the airport. We headed directly over to the Pooker Palooza, where Lila met legendary poker player Sussie Isaacs, where she got her picture taken and an autographed copy of her book. We headed over the Fremont street for dinner, a very large strawberry daiquiri with a neck strap and a deep fried Twinkie and Oreo.


Saturday July 4th, Lila and I headed over to the Pooker Palooza. We enjoyed an excellent lecture by Mark Sief. We got lots of pictures of Lila with famous poker players and Lila even got to see the legendary Doyle Brunson. We collected as much loot as possible before calling it a day.


We headed over to the Sarah, had a prime rib buffet dinner and finished it off with a Zombie mini shot, that costed a whole dollar and we still got to keep the glass. We returned to our hotel room to wash up and get changed for what would prove to be the highlight of the trip.

The Mirage has a Circus du Solei called "Love". Usually these shows are all about the amazing performances and the performances at this show were out standing, but what was really amazing was the music. It was the Beatles. George Martin had been hired to put together the music for the show and he had complete access to all of the original Beatles recordings. Dolby 5.1, is the latest technology in sound was used. Lastly, the theater seemed to be built specifically to allow the customer to enjoy the most amazing sound. This show was an amazing experience.


Sunday July 5th was supposed to be the day that Lila flew back home. Her flight was free and the only time available was at 7:00am. It was decided that I would cut my trip a bit short and she would ride back with me. That allowed us to sleep another 3 1/2 hours. Instead of driving straight back via Tehachipi, we drove to Studio City to have lunch at Jerry's Famous Deli with my brother Dave. The food was amazing. It really reminded me of NY deli food. From there we drove back home and pulled in at about 9:30pm.

It was an awesome trip.

Fathers Day 2009

Fathers Day 2009

Today is June 21st, or as my late grandmother would remind us, the longest day of the year and my dad's (Grandpa) birthday. This year is also happens to be Father's Day. Everyone but Bob, was able to make it. Say Bob, what is your excuse? LOL

My nephew Jake showed up with a new haircut to reflect his Punk Rock lifestyle.


Being that my sister-in-law Martha was in the hospital yesterday, everyone brought some food. Lila did the BBQ, mom brought fruit, Dave and Charlie brought potato salad and Beckey brought a delicious cake.

Dad is getting a gas BBQ for his birthday and will pick it out with Becky later this week. He actually had enough strength to blow out the candles as you can see in the movie below: