Because We Can, We Must

Bono received an honorary Doctor of Laws from UPenn. I like what he says about being a fan of America. I did not know that Ben Franklin went to Ireland for some months to study what a colonial relationship with Great Brintain looked like. There, he found poverty, mud and grass huts. He did not find anything good with the Great Britian-colony thing--so the rest is history. You can click on the title above to read the whole thing.

Lunch at Glen and Cindi's

It was a good lunch at Glen and Cindi's for Glen, Cindi, David, Steve, and Kyle's b-day party.
We called Steve on the phone to wish him and Kyle a happy birthday.

I saw some of the Giro d'Italia today. Cunego, Gilberto Simoni's young teammate won it.




(Cunego is the one in pink.)

Glen says I am responsible to get him and Steve caught up with the cycling world, but I get all my news from velonews.com (below), and my Cycle Sport magazines.

For the most up-to-date news, click this line

For his Tour de France preparation, Lance is doing well, and Jan Ullrich (his main challenger) is behind schedule with too much winter fat still. Perhaps this could really help Lance win. Beloki, another challenger for Lance, is not recovering from his nasty fall last year which broke 3 bones.

Michael visits

Michael, my sister Cindy, Jamie visit.

Beth and Steve with Michael.

Michael is scheduled to leave for the Iraq in August. We had a nice BBQ with him and my parents. Beth got to talk to her brother, David and Rob. Made her day.

David Weaver arrives

David Weaver arrived after 10 PM on Friday. He is now sitting here with Rob and I watching the puppy do his puppy thing. When asked for his best thoughts for inclusion in this post he says: "huh."

Invasion

Beth's fifth grade class spent the evening. Only one was pushed into the pool.

5 and one half hours in the sky

It is a loooooooooong direct flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. I was supposed to be on a connecting flight that went through Washington, DC, but that flight was delayed bcause of weather or crew delay so I was put on fight 99, direct to LA. That was better, but still long. (Did I mention that it was a long 5 hours plus flight?)

My birthday in Philadelphia

Thanks to Cindi for the faxed birthday greeting that said: " Happy 25th Birthday! (May 25th--that is)." All of my colleagues have enjoyed that as I have shared it with them.

Thanks to Beth and Steve who sent an electronic brithday card. I tried to use their system to reply, but I lost my concentration somewhere along the way and never finished it--so thank you here on the blog.

Jane Remington gave me a call on my cell phone---what a nice surprise!

Our group of MEDA staff and affiliated programs, about 20 of us, had a dinner together on Monday evening and they made me stand up in the middle of the restaurant and sang to me.

So, I think the frenzy of birthday celebration has slowed down a little bit.

Note to Daniel: I have tried to respond to your email, but for some reason it did not work yet. I would be happy to show you how to make hypertext linkages using HTML. Maybe we could look at it together on Sunday if you guys are coming over.

Good Morning from Philadelphia

it won't be as humid here today as it was yesterday, but still warm. Yesterday was VERY humid and reached to 90! I am seeing may old friends here at the AEO conference and the MEDA related ASSETS program folks had dinner together last night. They made me standup and sang happy birthday. More later, or not. I need to make sure and get a lot of work done while I am here in addition to all the networking and activities of the conference.

thanks for invite

Sat. we are having a BBQ for Michael (Steve's nephew). He is scheduled to leave for the Middle East in the next four weeks. Sun. we are attending a BBQ for Shannon Barger's son who is on leave from the Marine Corp. and will be here with his wife and stepson. Then Kyle returns on Sunday night. Beth is co-prinicpal of summer school and will be back to work on Tuesday. Flexibility is hard to come by these days. With planning we can be available for that phone call.

Beth, Kyle and I are looking forward to meeting Sam 2, visiting more colleges, and a Dodger's game. With schedules in hand we will plan a trip down to So. Cal.

Here is the best to the party goers. Happy Birthday to all.

You Are Invited...

Everyone in the family is invited this weekend to our Summer Kick-off & Birthday BBQ. David Weaver is rumored to be coming this weekend, too. We will be celebrating the summer birthdays...Glen, Steve, Kyle, & Cindi...our May & June birthdays. We will celebrate with or without you, but it's richer if you can all stop in. I just wish I could tell you a time and day, but you know how this goes sometimes. Depending on when David gets here and when he leaves...it may be Saturday night or Sunday night or even Monday afternoon (Memorial Day). As Gumby says, "Stay flexible." Watch the blog for details. Glen and I will discuss a menu and cake priorities. Steve & Kyle - you can put in your vote on dessert preferences. Hope you can come! If not, maybe we can call you during the event, just to connect.

Sam #2...By the Way

By the way, Sam-2 has been with us for a little over a month. We got him at 6.5 weeks and 7 pounds. He is now 11.5 weeks and 19 pounds. And much bolder and bounces higher. A delight in my life.

This & That

Wow! Sam #2 does look big in that photo. He is so fun and cute. He has a 10 minute lesson practicing "come" and "sit" every morning about 6:30. Not sure what I'm doing, but he seems to be catching on. Next week, we'll work more on leash walking and progress into "heel." As opposed to, "heal." He, as of last week, wags his tail and runs to us. So I know he likes us now. I wasn't sure before. Maybe he even admires us, too. Isn't that why people get dogs? To project what positive feelings the dogs are having?

School ends 6/3. Teachers check-out 6/10. It's uphill right now. Lots of electronic reports to file and hours of proofreading for errors. I'll meet with all 31 students in the next eight days for the final Learning Record.

Glen grilled that Copper River Salmon yesterday. I'm not a salmon fan, but this was better than most. With salt, pepper, and lemon, I almost enjoyed it. I'd still prefer lasagna or a hamburger or beef wellington --- now we are talking! I so want to share Glen's passion for the pink fish, but alas, I cannot. If it's an acquired taste, I'll keep trying. Give me blackened mahi-mahi or just a tunafish salad sandwich like my Mom makes --- with chopped hard-boiled egg added (Glen taught me that). Must be lunchtime.

That is one healthy Puppy

Sam 2 is looking great. Sounds from your posts that you've taken him into your hearts.

Who is the biggest?

Samson 2 with his favorite domestique.

New video and hundreds of photographic images

. . . about bicycling competition on OLN.

Samson gladly wakes me up during the 5 o’clock hour so that I can get my coffee and oatmeal out of the way in time to watch the coverage of the Giro d’Italia with Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett commentating. (BTW, Bob Roll and Paul Sherwen do a nice job with the Tour de Romandie in the evenings. What does Phil Liggett do on his free evenings?)

I am about to write a note to NPR to suggest that Phil Liggett do a regular sports essay on bicycling—at least through the summer months. I think he could make the whole thing “very NPR.” And, it would rank up there with the old conversations that Bob Edwards used to have with Red Barber.



I really think that there would be more universal interest in the sport of bicycling than there is in horse racing, with all due respect to the horse named Smarty Jones. But, I don’t know anyone who knows anything about the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness. And NPR covers those. Are horseraces an east coast thing? Or, just something for old gamblers? Maybe I just don’t know the right people.

Those Sacramento Kings

"Doug Christie covered his bald head in his hands and fell to the floor in frustration. The image told it all" according to Canadian Press (AP) writer, Janie McCauley. Our hearts go out to the sports fans of Placerville who were cheering their guts out for a chance to be defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers. But it was not to be.

I am sure that our Ploog friends of the land of 10,000 lakes will be tickled pink that their Timberwolves have now progressed to this glorious point in history.

Philadelphia May 24-27

I will travel to Philadelphia, PA for the Association of Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) annual conference and membership meeting. This year the event is in Philadelphia.





In the recent past this conference has been in Wahsington, DC; Denver, CO; Oakland, CA; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; and Chicago, IL. I have gone to this event for the last several years and enjoy seeing friends from the microenterprise industrly. My friend Andres Martinez will be there--Cindi and I stayed at his flat in Mexico City a couple of years ago when our summer vacation took us through that city. He has moved since then.

Andres also stayed at our place in Whittier when he came through Los Angeles visiting the ASSETS related microenterprise programs that MEDA promotes. At JobStarts we started the BusinesStarts program on this model.

Wild Copper Salmon Season

According to the sign at Ralph's, the Wild Copper River Salmon starts tomorrow. Last year I missed it all together our of just plain ignorance. My plan is to go down early to the store and buy some for lunch. I remember this salmon to have excellent flavor and texture. It is not farm raised so it has more of those omega fatty acids that are good for you.

Moratorium on Blogging about blogging

I have decided that I no longer am interested in blog posts about blogging. I know that I invited such posts a while back. I know I have no way of enforcing the ban. Nevertheless, I hope that people will now be posting about the fascinating things in their fascinating lives.

Comments

I am having trouble with knowing when new comments are posted. I find myself reviewing every post that has a comment section and trying to remember if the number of comments has changed or not. Often I look at the comments because I can not remember how many comments were there before. I now realize that I have missed comments on some posts and reread comments from other posts. I find this feature very time consuming to use. I realize I have the option to not use it and just continue to post all my input as posts rather than comments.

Yellow puppy and a yellow puddle

I would like to know who taught a lttle yellow labrador retreiver puppy that the area by the stove in the kitchen is a cool place to deposit a yellow puddle. Hmmn.

Bloog in general

I agree with Rob that the Bloog site seems less user friendly but maybe I'll get used to it soon. I was finally able to print up a receipt for the trip. (This not on the bloog ) They kept dumping me out saying I could try later. I kept putting my pass word in and my secret code and also put a new one in, then when I would click on that they said I was already a member. I finally admitted that I forgot my secret code and they sent it to me via e-mail and I realized how it got there. Thanks Steve. I've been collecting names of places that we just must see from different groups of friends. The Willows has come up from every group. It's a restaurant and has been there since before the 50's. Will sent things on as they become clear or any of you can send suggestions of places to visit.

The most important place is the Pearl Harbor Memorial then the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Who's going to Disney World?

The company that is Cindi's Creative Memories business is running a special promotion with Disney. It is a contest that will send some lucky customer and the consultant who sells the wining album to Disney World.

Cindi bought 15 of these special albums. 11 are already sold. So hurry in and buy your album to see if you win! The contest ends June 30. I think she will buy more if she needs to-- hurry!

Where's Lance today?

It seems like whenever I turn on the OLN, hoping for a tidbit of news about cycling anywhere in the world, all I find are bullriders and fishing competition.

I have read that Lance has won the Tour de Georgia. I believe he will be competing in some other races before TdF. I am wondering what else is happening. Can anyone help us out a little bit here? What is the state of the pro cycling world? Post here to let us know.

(If anyone wants to, I can teach you how to make a hyperlink like the one above--that means you can click on it and it takes you to more information at another site.)

Google Search Feature

A Google search tool is now located in the right side column for your convenience. Many people use Google to search the web and now you can do it from this site.

This feature was requested by Beth of Placerville.

BTW--when you enter your own name into Google to search, it is called ego surfing. Have fun!

Lakers

Rob, it didn't take another miricle shot for the Laker's to move on. They won with confidence.

not sure about this new layout...

this new format for the blog seems to be less user-friendly for the "casual blogger." i don't like how you have to select a topic to read, instead of just reading it as a sort of running list of the blog entries. the lakers are going for the series tonight against the san antonio spurs. the shot derek fisher made the other night to win the game was like none that will ever be seen again. there was .4 seconds on the clock, where .3 is considered not enough time to catch the ball and shoot. sports fanatics get a little out of hand with this stuff. i saw a guy who painted "(explitive) spurs" on the back window of his truck. i wanna go watch the game at his house! sam #2 is increasing in size at an incredible rate. i just paid for my summer school CLASS, not CLASSES, and the cost was 96 dollars. that doesn't include the cost of the book, which thankfully, i'd already purchased for the bargain price of $86.50. i'm learning a lesson in math before i even take this stupid course. a collumnist who contributes to the los angeles times shared that it cost him 57 dollars for a full load to attend uc san jose for one semester. i'm considering going back to polly's, or getting a different second job. does anyone know of any openings? i have experience in dealing with customers, food service, and i'm a pretty good ticket-taker guy. don't worry about dangling participles glen...
"From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."
-Sir Winston Churchill

Sports

I am impressed by the knowledge of some members of this family group regarding specific teams or sports. I am sure that the more knowledge you have about a sport the more you can appreciate participating or observing. I am more of a dabbler. Here to the more knowledgeble among us.

Subjective Sports, Triplets, Comments

I had wanted to make a comment about subjective ness of sports in a post by Steve a while back. However, time has slipped by and I am just now posting. As the readers of this blog are likely aware, I have not been much of a fan of watching sports. My thought on this is that if the subjective, emotional part was not a big deal, there would not be many fans. If the objective discipline and rules that set an immovable infrastructure against which to play, there would be nothing to be fanatic about [sorry this sentence ended in a preposition but it is too late to change this dangling participle].

Lakers are leading San Antonio by 10 in the fourth quarter as I type this. This may be the first time they have led in this game--an important one in a series that determines progress in playoffs. I am the only person left in the room watching this game. I think the true fans have been so affected by the pressure of the game and whether their preferred team will win that they have been driven from the room. My friend Lalo told me tonight that he has a hard time watching the Lakers--especially this season because of this whole passion issue.

Previously I had mentioned that I would comment further on the animated feature length French film Triplets of Bellville. So here it is:

1. It is extremely odd--exemplified by unusual lines and proportions on faces, buildings, streets, contrasting tall and short people, etc. and a topless dancer in some sort of cabaret and on and on it goes.
2. There is no real dialogue, the story is told entirely with visuals.
3. Interesting sonically--recurring sound devices like the dogs toenails against tile, the sound of a passing train, a whistle blowing, music, all seemed to serve to draw attention to a certain scene for a purpose. Much like the use of lighting a sound in a live theatrical production.
4. Visually interesting--combination of hand sketched 2 dimensional animations and computer generated 3 dimensional animations contrasted in the same scenes to make varying impressions on the viewer.


It may have been easier to use the comments function for part of this post, but it doesn't work on older posts.

Dog report

Thankfully, Cindi is home documenting most every motion of two dogs with her camera. Anyone want to make a bet on how many CM albums will result from this new puppy?

Whittier Mom's Day report

We started our Mother's day celebration on Saturday, Mother's Day Eve, with a brunch at the California Grill in Whitter.

Then, Sunday, we barbequed at the Peterson's Milton Mansion. Doris brought macaroni salad, Audrey brought a green salad with "lime" dressing that was a lot like guacamole.

Included in our celebrations: Doris, Audrey, Garth, Timothy, Daniel, Rob, and me. Hope the rest of you can join us next time.

New Look

I was so shocked to sign into this and see a whole new program. It doesn't take much to get me confused on the computer but after remaining calm and reading through the options I was able to fing out how to read the entries and also to make an entry. I do like the temperature

New blogger features and a new look

Blogger has launched a lot of new features and a new look to the user interface section.

I have also, in a completely seperate act, inspired by the other changes, made some changes to the look of our site. I am not satisfied with several things yet; so I will keep trying. Once I get a look that I like better, I will add those weather reporting links back in.

Your comments are weicome.

UPDATE: I have tried a couple of template changes that get the stuff I wanted to work--I kept getting various errors and formatting problems. Steve--I took you post of the steamboat off by making it a "draft." The problem is that the picture is wide and was pushing everything on the page off of the side. If you can shrink the photo, upload it with the same name, and republish that post, everything should work. Let me know what you think.

Happy Mother's Day

To all of the moms have a happy mother's day. According to the weather information you will all have a bright and warm day to enjoy it. Best wishs to all.
Beth and I had lunch with my mother yesterday. I got caught up on all of the "family" news. My father enjoyed our company and was glad we took time "from our busy schedules". I think anyone younger than 86 would look busy to him. It was a plesant afternoon.

Have to learn to Hula Dance

Audrey and Doris are meeting Steve and Beth in Hawaii. We will all have to learn the Hula. We will also have some interesting words to add to Glen's list.

So, what about words?

. . . or should we just grunt and point? Here is a word that came up at lunch today:

ram·e·kin or ram·e·quin n
1. a small ovenproof dish with vertical fluted sides designed to hold a single serving of a prepared food, especially one that is baked
2. a portion of food cooked and served in a ramekin

Rob said he was curious about the etymology of the word ramekin, I think he was right about the Dutch: [French ramequin, perhaps from Dutch dialectal rammeken, toasted bread, or from Low German ramken, diminutive of ram, cream (from Middle Low German).]

Maybe you were wondering what a ramekin looks like?



I recently started a list of new words for myself. When I hear or read a word with which I am not familiar, I write it down, look it up and add the definition to the list.

After watching a movie that Rob loaned me recently, I added this to my list:

rumpus (n)
an outcry or noisy disturbance

--and this--

obsequious (adj)
Excessively eager to please or to obey all instructions

I might of added this one after going to the theater:

scrim n
1. a drop curtain in a theater that appears opaque to the audience when lit from the front but transparent when lit from behind
2. a durable open-weave cotton or linen fabric used for curtains, clothing, upholstery lining, and in industry

Mother's Day Weekend activities

Cindi went to Akron, Ohio this weekend for Mother's Day. That is because her mother is there.

Audrey and I will take our mother to lunch today, Saturday, to celebrate motherhood. We expect that Rob and Timothy will join us.

My friend Pedro, the owner of Uptown Mexican Cafe, told me this week that he expects to be busy from Friday dinner through Monday dinner with Mother's day revelers. Buddy at California Grill expects that they will be busy for Saturday breakfast and dinner and Sunday for lunch.

[Little Sam is snoring away on the floor behind the rocking chair right now--it made me laugh, and reminded me of Cindi.]

One day governance seminar in Los Angeles on June 5

Something I started when I was working for JobStarts is a one-day seminar with John Carver on Policy Governance that will take place on June 5 Carver at the BP Amoco building in Los Angeles. It is now possible to register by credit card for the seminar through the Los Angeles Jr. Chamber of Commerce's website. Thas is really cool.

I am still acting as a consultant on this project. We have room for 90+ people. There are currently 19 paying customers signed up, all of whom I have personally signed up. We are a long way from breaking even at this point. I am nervous.

Heres to subjective sports.

After a steady diet of sports news the last couple of months I want to change sports to a purely subjective endeavor. Teams would show up, demonstrate their skills for a set number of minutes, and then there would be no score or other objective criteria remembered. Spectators would only remember the event for is subjective "emotional" value. Sports would then be delegated to just another of those "emotional" moments that do not require any logical or critical thinking. Wait, sports writers and many fans only think emotionally about sports, they forget the scores or use the data from events for their own emotional reasons. Not much evidence of logic or critical thinking now. Forget I said anything.

HTML on blogger

Well Steve, I tried. I am sure that if I read more instructions, I'd find out why the HTML is working in the right column field and not in the post message field.

Which one do you like?

The second "sticker" is identical to the one posted in the right.

more important weather

alt="Click for Honolulu, Hawaii Forecast" height=108 width=144>

perserverence

I am impressed Glen. Value added. All the weather sites show up.

A hot, hot Sunday

It was really hot again today in Whittier. I think that the high was 110 degrees or more! Right now in Whittier this is the time and temperature:




UPDATE: So as a value added, you can easily check out the weather for several of the places represented by those who read and post to the PWWCR Family Blog. Did I miss anyone?

UPDATE [an hour later]: Ok, after about 3 tries with varying degrees of sucess, failure, sucess, failure, (repeat ad naseum). I think this weather listing is going to work. I was putting the HTML in the wrong place and blogger was producing errors. I have now moved it all to where I think they wanted me to put it in the first place. It seems to have responded correctly now for a few repetitions. We'll see how it goes. If it works--there should be several boxes with weather for various places on the right.

Did you think that I was going to be awake until the end?

Especially after an afternoon in the hands of the lovely people at United Airlines. I will have to watch the last part of the film to see how it ends. The film is unusual and interesting both visually and sonically. After I watch the rest of it I will try to post again with more.