Best stadium food you ever had

I almost forgot about today's post, yet I'm actually posting earlier in the day than I normally do.  I went on a hike this morning, got home and looked at my email and remembered that it was Monday, the first day of the third week of P.J.'s 20 days of Chill Writing challenge.

I will be the first to admit, that I'm not a connoisseur of stadium type food.  Mainly because I'm pretty cheap when it comes to buying food from stadiums or amusement parks.  If I can work around it, I probably will.  Stadiums are easier since you're usually only there for a limited amount of time, so you can eat beforehand, or eat afterwards at places outside of the stadium/arena that are much more affordable than the Jacked up prices you'll find inside.

Amusement parks, on the other hand is an entirely different story since you're there all day and unless you want to go outside the park and get your food elsewhere, you're going to have to bite the bullet and pay the price.  For a family of four, the price of meals at an amusement park is almost like buying another entrance ticket to the park.

But as I sit here thinking about publishing this, it comes to mind that I did buy a cheeseburger at AT&T Stadium last summer when I was there for my future son-in-law's last game as a single man.  It wasn't so much the burger as it was the garlic fries that came with it.  My daughter and my future son-in-law both said that I needed to get some garlic fries.  Usually, when someone raves about something, the food doesn't live up to expectations.  These did.  I don't care how many people I offended with my garlic breath.  These fries were that good.

PB Challenge (April 2015): Friends and Family

When I saw the prompt for this month's Photo Blogging challenge, I thought it might be difficult, but then I remembered that Easter was right at the beginning of the month and I knew we'd be with family, plus I also hosted a geocaching event at the beginning of the month, so then it actually became even tougher as I ended up with quite an assortment of photos for the theme.

That being stated, I decided to go a little bit different route with this month's theme.  And so without further ado, I give you my five photos for the theme Friends and Family.

1.  Handprints in cement

I think these handprints are from when I was about eight or nine years old.  Mine is the one on the right.  Sometime during that period, my dad poured some concrete at our house in Santa Ana, CA where we grew up and had all three of us put our hands in the wet cement.  When they finally moved out of that house about 15 years ago or so, my dad pried up that piece of cement and brought it with them to their new house where it now sits on an island in the front yard.  It's definitely a reminder of when we were a lot younger and smaller and it's fun to look at.  You can see I really relished squishing my hands into the cement, whereas my sisters were much more dainty in their approach to the gooey stuff.  Boys will be boys I guess.

2.  The Calendar

I'd say close to 20 years ago, my two sisters and I decided to start a family tradition by giving my parents a photo calendar.  The past 6 years or so, I've coordinated the effort, collected the photos from various people and put the entire thing together on my computer.  It's worked out rather well and my parents cherish this gift each year and it proudly hangs on their refrigerator in the kitchen.  The first year, my dad wanted to actually use it to write calendar reminders in it, but my mom put the kibosh on that very quickly.  They also don't throw them away and my mom says she goes out in the garage where they are stored and looks through them from time to time.  She gets to see her grandkids grow up every time she does that.

When we started this endeavor, it was a lot easier because there was only three sources that the photos came from since the kids were small and the adults, my sisters and me were the ones who took the photos.  Now, with four of the grandchildren on their own, we have to really on photos from seven different sources.  That just means we have to start the process earlier each year.  Before, I used to send the "all call" for photos sometime just before Thanksgiving and I'd have the photos soon afterwards and it would be a done deal.  This year, we were slightly late getting the calendar to my parents, but they did get it before New Year's Day, so it's all good.  April of this year was my niece's and her husband's month, so they're featured on that page.

3.  University of Notre Dame

Some of you might not be aware of this, but I was born in South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame.  This all came about, because my grandfather taught at Notre Dame back in the early 1930s.  Because of this, my dad and two of his brothers also went to Notre Dame.  Some of my cousins went to Notre Dame and I also had a cousin who was a priest who taught at Notre Dame.  This cousin also married my parents and married my sister and her husband.  Notre Dame is a family affair with us and although I didn't attend there, mainly because it was out of my price range when it came my turn to attend college, I follow the college quite closely, especially for football.

Growing up in Southern California, that was sometimes very tough to do, mainly because many of my friends in junior high and high school were USC fans.  My best friend attended USC and during the 70s and early 80s, it was tough being a Notre Dame fan when they played each other because usually USC came out on top.  Yes, I was there in 1974 when Notre Dame was ahead 24-7 at halftime and I watched Anthony Davis run back the second half kick off directly toward the Notre Dame section at the closed end of the Colosseum in Los Angeles, which started an avalanche of points, eventually leading to a 55-24 loss to USC.  That was just ugly.

I was also there in 1988 with our entire family to watch #1 Notre Dame battle #2 USC.  Both teams were exceptionally good that year and my dad and I surmised that the winner of this game would become the national champion that year.  My dad took no chances that year as he was decked out in full Irish regalia, including his blue and gold Notre Dame tam-o-shanter.  That's when I finally realized that my dad was one of "those" people.  Those crazy alumni you always see.  I'd never seen him like that before, but he really wanted a win that day.  I don't believe he'd seen Notre Dame win in Los Angeles since 1966 when the Irish shellacked the Trojans 51-0 enroute to a national championship that year as well.  Anyway, to make a long story short, Notre Dame came out on top that year and our family went home very happy.  I haven't been back to see a Notre Dame/USC game in Los Angeles since that game.  I want that memory to last forever.  It was very satisfying.

4.  Father of the Bride

About a year and a half ago, I was up visiting my daughter.  I'm an early riser and my daughter isn't so I'd usually get up early, find some local geocaches and then hang out with her later in the day.  This particular day, my daughter's boyfriend asked me if he could tag along and go geocaching with me.  Sure, why not?  But I had a suspicion that he had ulterior motives, after all he'd been dating my daughter for four years at the time and we were pretty sure they were serious about settling down.

Eventually that day he asked for our blessing to marry my daughter.  I don't think my daughter could have picked a finer young man to spend the rest of her life and my wife and I were both thrilled that he was going to be joining the family.  As you can see, all of this will be coming to fruition in the middle of July up in the Bay Area. I will fully admit that I will probably be very emotional about this and will probably be the one crying as we walk down the aisle.  But I know if I start to cry, so will she and it will just be a mess, so I will restrain myself and think of happy things.  Maybe I'll even crack a joke as we walk down the aisle.  I think part of me is sad, after all, I loved her first, but most of me is very happy.  He makes her happy and I like that.  I'm looking forward to when I can call him my son-in-law.

5.  Geocaching friends

Most of these photos have been about family, so I knew this last one had to be about friends.  Another part of geocaching that I don't always talk about is the number of friendships that have developed for me over the years since I started this crazy game.  Outside of my wife, I can say most assuredly, that most of my best friends are fellow geocachers.

This is Craig who I've known for three years, possibly more.  I don't think I can pinpoint the exact time I met Craig, as it's more of a gradual thing as opposed to a specific day.  Either way, Craig is a very good friend of mine and although this isn't the best photo of him, the only other one I had was of his backside carrying a tire while we were cleaning up a trailhead last weekend during a Geocaching earth day weekend event.  I'm sure he's probably glad that I didn't post that one.

Craig is the friend that I helped last summer hike the John Muir Trail.  He needed a ride to get up to the starting point in Yosemite Valley and I readily jumped at that opportunity.  In fact, I credit Craig with helping me get into better shape.  When he decided to do this hike, I was invited to come along.  I knew I wasn't in any kind of physical shape to do that kind of hike, but over the past year, I've lost weight, gotten into biking more and am just more physically fit.  If he'd been doing this trek this year, I probably would have gone on the hike.  As it is, there was a time in the last couple of years when I thought my hiking and backpacking days were behind me, but I don't think that anymore and I thank Craig for being that inspiration.  This year, he and I have another road trip planned for June just because we like to geocache and it's fun to go out on the road and explore new territory.  

And that about does it for this month's photo blogging challenge. I hope you have enjoyed this month's selection.  It's not my usual type of shots, but I wanted to do something a little bit different this time around.  To see other people's interpretation of this month's theme, stop by P.J.'s blog and click on the links at the bottom of that page.

Photo Blogging Challenge (Dec. 2014): ‘Tis the Season

This is the last day of the year and it's time once again for P.J.'s Photo Blogging challenge.  This month, the theme was 'Tis the Season, and I've approached it, at least in my mind, from a traditional and non-traditional viewpoint.  Some photos will make perfect sense with the theme, while others will need some explanation.  But you already know I'm going to explain all of them anyway, so here goes.

1 and 2.  The Evolution of our family Christmas trees
Christmas day, the family gathered at my sister's house to celebrate the day.  Lots of good food was had by all and by the time the last of us had eaten the last portions of cheesecake that my other sister had made, most of us could probably have just rolled down the hill back to our own homes.

My sister's Christmas tree is the only tree in the family, that I'm aware of that has just white lights.  I believe that all the rest of us have colored lights on our trees.  Growing up, for the first ten years or so, our family tree at home was all blue.  Blue ornaments, blue lights - everything was blue on the tree.  Christmas of 1971 or 72, we went back to Indiana to have a "White Christmas."  While we were back there, my last surviving grandparent passed away.  He had been suffering from what we would call today Alzheimers disease, so it was not totally unexpected.

We ended up staying a couple of extra days because of the funeral and other family obligations that come along with an event such as this.  One of the things that ended up coming home with us were a lot of really old Christmas ornaments from my grandparent's estate.  The next year, we used those ornaments on the tree and over the next 10 years or so collected, purchased, etc., other ornaments so the tree was no longer a blue tree.  We got new light strings with multi-colored lights to add to the non-blue theme.  Some ornaments were even made.


As each of us eventually moved out of the house, the ornaments that had been given to us as children were taken and subsequently added to our own Christmas trees in our new places.  My daughter has taken her ornaments that have been given to her and she now has them displayed on her tree in her place.  My middle son didn't have a tree this year and isn't totally settled yet, so his, plus my youngest son's ornaments still adorn our tree every year.  In the near future, I'm sure this will change.

Both my older sister and I have a strong affiliation for things Disney, so it was no surprise to see several Disney ornaments on her tree.  This one of Dopey Dwarf climbing the staircase heading up to see who was up in the Dwarve's bedroom struck my fancy.  To took several shots, because the shutter speed was very slow, one thirteenth of a second, which is usually too slow for hand held shots.  I'm very pleased that this one is in pretty fine focus.  

3.  Games
Every time I blog this particular post, I look forward to the next month's theme.  This is one of the few times I'm disappointed I can't use this photo for next month's theme as the theme for next month is Games.

In our house, the kids tend to generate the games and it was no exception this year as several games were pulled off the shelves and others were given as gifts this year.  Growing up, I enjoyed playing games although sometimes found few takers.  I can't imagine my competitiveness had anything to do with that. <smirk>

The day after Christmas, the kids gathered around to play games.  My middle son's girlfriend is an artist and began sketching us as we played Settlers of Cataan.  My youngest son is on the right and he's not complete obviously, but the rest of us, moving counterclockwise from the upper right, my son, my daughter, myself and my future son-in-law are all there.  She did an excellent job capturing the character of each one of us in this drawing.  If you look closely, you can also see that each of us are labeled and identified.

4.  Trip to the Lake
My father-in-law lives up in Lake Arrowhead and for the past several years, we make a trip up there over the holidays to visit with him.  This year, he went all out for us to enjoy our short stay up there.  Blintzes, tamales, the chocolate cake that was to die for were just some of the treats he had for us.

Usually, we'll go down to the lake to feed the ducks and this year was no exception to that.  It's no wonder the ducks and geese are fat and happy up there as there were all sorts of people doing the same thing.

The shot is of my middle son on the left and my future son-in-law.  I had a couple of different shots of the two of them, plus one of them with my daughter, but this one turned out the best of the set that I took while we were down there.

Both men get along very well with each other, which is a very good thing.  We are all looking forward to July when Brian and my daughter Kathryn tie the knot.  He is very good to her and he is a very welcome addition to our family.

5.  The Granddaddy of them all
Finally, what seasonal blog would be complete without something dealing with the new year, which is literally right around the corner now.  In some cases, it's already here and you might even be reading this in 2015.

Growing up in Southern California meant watching the Rose Parade and watching the Rose Bowl on television.  I actually attended two Rose Bowls in the late 70s, courtesy of my good friend who was attending U.S.C. at the time.  U.S.C. was a powerhouse in football back then and they usually contended for the Rose Bowl every year back then.

Every year, we'd get the Pac 10 vs. the Big 10.  Since we were from northern Indiana, our allegiances were more toward the Big 10, especially since my father attended Notre Dame.  We wouldn't root for U.S.C.  We would very often root for west coast teams in other years when U.S.C. wasn't there however.

Now with the old BCS and the new playoff system in place today, college football doesn't always have the traditional rivalries we came to expect in certain bowl games.  This year, the Rose Bowl (which is the 101st edition) is giving us Oregon vs Florida St. in one semi-final game.  The Sugar Bowl in New Orleans is giving us Alabama vs Ohio St later in the evening on the 1st.  

Given that I've always enjoyed the traditional match ups for bowl games, it should come as no surprise that I'm rooting for Ohio St. and Oregon to prevail and meet in the championship game.  And yes, I will be rooting for the Ducks in the championship game as well.  I took this shot just after Christmas when we went on a hike up the Arroyo Seco, which is where the Rose Bowl is located.  Walking back down to our car, we also found a geocache.  So what else is new?

And there you have it.  This was my interpretation of the theme 'Tis the Season.  I hope you have enjoyed these shots.  Please stop by P.J.'s blog to see his interpretation and look below on that page for the other links to others who have participated this month.

Baseball

Now it's already fall and I really haven't written much about what happened this summer, so you're going to get a retrospect view of different things that happened to me this summer.

This summer was really a whirlwind type of vacation for me for the first time in a long time.  It seemed like I had things happening all the time and just when I was done with one thing, another thing got planned.  Not all the things were pleasant (most medical procedures aren't), but it's safe to say that I passed those with flying colors and am now moving on to rectify the things that were in the grey area, health wise.

Summer, for me, actually started Memorial Day weekend.  I went up to visit my daughter and her fiancé.  My middle son was up in the Bay Area that weekend as well, so we ended up taking in a Giants game at AT&T Park in San Francisco.  We rode the train in, barely making it to the station on time, but the ride worked out well as we had seats.  As we made our way closer to the ballpark, the train kept getting filled with more and more black and orange.  I felt like alien, this Angel fan that I am.

As you can see from the first shot, I didn't do a very good job of raising my daughter to be a local team supporter and so she's become a Giants fan.  Nothing much I can do about that as she's a big girl and can make her own decisions.  I blame it on TV.  Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Now hear me out on this one.  I'm not a fan of watching baseball on TV.  Whenever my daughter has taken me to games at Angel stadium, we always go early.  My daughter says, "It's like a religion to him.  He has to see batting practice or the experience isn't complete."  And that's right.  I like watching batting practice.  I like watching the players warm and and play soft toss.  I like to watch them stretch and loosen up.  It's all part of the game.

TV doesn't offer that.  For the most part, not all, but for the most part, TV presents a duel between the pitcher and the batter.  With TV, you don't get the pleasure of watching the players adjust with different pitches.  You don't get to see the center fielder shade a batter to left center and make subtle adjustments throughout the at bat.  TV doesn't cover baseball well in my opinion.  And so, because of that, I never watched baseball on TV and my daughter has glommed on to the Giants as her team.  Yeah, part of that is her fiancé's fault since he's a die hard Giants fan, but if I'd watched more baseball, she probably would be a better local sports enthusiast.

Now if you're going to talk football with her, she definitely has her passions, or at least she knows which teams to really hate.  Her fiancé has learned that if the Cowboys are playing well, it's just better to turn the TV off, because she really hates the Cowboys, just like her dad.  I couldn't be more proud.

The baseball game that weekend was a lot of fun.  I went to three games this summer, far more than I've gone in the past couple of years combined.  I didn't realize how much I missed the game.  I suspect that in the upcoming years, I shall be returning to different stadiums to enjoy games more than once every couple of years like it's been in the past.

Total Random stuff

I have been challenged by my blogger friend P.J. to a post of randomness.  11 random thoughts about me, 11 questions from P.J.  Then I'm supposed to challenge 11 other bloggers to do the same thing.  That's the tough part, which won't get done, and you'll see why in the randomness below.  I hope not to repeat any randomness that P.J. might have already stated, but that's the randomness I guess.

So here goes.

1.  There are 58 National Parks in the United States.  I have been to 24 of them.  I will not list them all here as that would be tedious. At one time I had a goal of seeing them all.  Whether that will happen all depends now upon how healthy I can stay over the next 20 to 30 years.

2.  I think most people who read this blog don't realize that I am happily married.  I post a lot of photos of my kids, but very few of my wife.  I've been married for 26 years and they have been the most fulfilling years of my life.  I would not be the person I am with her.  Therefore, every photo in this blog will feature her.

3.   I have had two concussions that I know of, but it could be more.  Perhaps the dain bramage associated with concussions has knocked that out of my memory.  First one was when I was 8 or so and I got run over by a neighbor while we were playing kickball in the street.  I was knocked unconscious and lay there for a long time.  I have no recollection of this incident outside of what my parents have told me about it.  The second time was between 8th and 9th grade in a bicycle incident.  Not saying I wouldn't have gotten a concussion had I been wearing a helmet, but I wish they had been mandatory back then, especially with all the evidence coming out recently over head injuries in sports.

4.  I have broken my right pinkie finger twice and my left arm once, all between February 1972 and July 1972.  Let's just say that the last part of my 8th grade year, I was always splinted up in some way.  I broke and dislocated my pinkie playing basketball.  Three days after the doctor took the splint off of my finger, I bumped into a friend of mine and broke the finger again in a different place.  That splint lasted until the end of the school year.  My left arm was broken in the above mentioned bicycle accident.  As an aside, I am still very good friends with the girl who I bumped into when I rebroke my finger.  She doesn't know about the incident, unless she figures it out by reading this.  Also, when I hold my palm up on my right hand, my right pinkie doesn't meet with the other fingers.  These are the only bones I've ever broken.

5.  I have cool looking eyes. They are bluish gray with gold flecks in them.  Looking at some photos of my youngest son, he has similar eyes.

6.  I do not read very many blogs.  In fact, I don't think I could tag 11 other bloggers to get them to repeat the process, so I won't be doing that part.

7.  I used to do counted cross stitch.  I entered several of them in the Los Angeles County Fair and one year, my design took home a first place ribbon.  Our home is decorated with many of my designs, most from patterns that I used to buy.  When people visit and see them for the first time, they always compliment my wife over her stitchery and she always has to refer them back to me.  I don't do this anymore because it aggravates my carpal tunnel syndrome.  My hands go to sleep in minutes after starting to stitch.

8.  There has been a teacher in my family since 1896.  I consider myself a fourth generation teacher.  My dad was a teacher as were both of his parents.  I have a newspaper clipping from 1896 that shows my great aunt as the teacher in a one room school house.  There is a little doe-eyed kindergartener sitting in the front row - my grandmother.  She was being taught by her oldest sister, who was basically a full generation older than she was.  My daughter has continued on the tradition.

9.  If I wanted to recreate my proposal to my wife, I couldn't.  I proposed to her as we floated over Fantasyland in Disneyland on the skyway.  That ride doesn't exist anymore.  Why Fantasyland?  It was too noisy on the Tomorrowland side, so I waited until we rode through the Matterhorn into Fantasyland where it was a little quieter and then popped the question.

10.  My favorite painter is Pablo Picasso and my favorite photographer is Ansel Adams.  I could look at paintings by Picasso or photographs by Adams for hours on end.  When we go to the Los Angeles County of Art, I always head to the Picasso area first.  After Adams died, I went to a showing of 100 of his photographs.  He is a fine landscape photographer, but I don't think he could do portraits very well.  In my opinion, they lacked something that the rest of his photographs had.

11.  My favorite singer when I was in high school was John Denver.  I saw him in concert twice, once at the Universal Amphitheater and once at the Inglewood Forum.  The concert at the Forum was in the round and he was on a revolving stage, so he faced the entire audience at one time or another.  He put on a very good show both times.

Well, those are my random thoughts about me.  P.J. also posted 11 questions that I'm supposed to answer too, so here those are.

1.  What is your dream vacation spot and why?

One of the national parks I have not visited is Arches National Park in Utah.  I would like to go there, spend an entire day sitting near Delicate Arch and watch the light play over it, all the while taking photos.  I guess, in the long run, any place I haven't been to yet would be a dream vacation for me.  I love to travel and going somewhere new would be incredibly fun for me.

2.  Where did you come up with the name of your blog?

At the time, I was doing my 365 project, taking at least one photo every single day.  So this is another part of it - A Photo a Day.

3.  How do you define blogging success?

I think success is dependent on the blogger.  What some people would consider success, others would consider failure.  As long as I continue to write here, I consider that a success however.

4.  What is your favorite type of "going out" entertainment?

Getting outdoors and hiking with someone, or geocaching with a friend is what I enjoy the most.

5.  How many states have I lived in?

I was born in Indiana, lived there until I was 3 and a half, then my parents moved us out to California where I've lived ever since.  Interestingly, it wasn't until I was in my 20s before I stopped thinking about Indiana as "back home."  

6.  What is my favorite holiday and why?

This may sound selfish, but I like President's day.  It happens right around my birthday which usually means I get a three day weekend out of the deal.  I kind of like that.

7.  What your favorite number and why?

13  My favorite football team is the Miami Dolphins and my favorite football player is Dan Marino who wore 13 during his career.  I also like the fact that most people view 13 as unlucky.  That makes it good for me.

8.  What would be your dream vehicle to own?

Pretty much anything from the 1950s would be really cool to own.  

9.  What is your favorite hobby?

Geocaching.  Some would say it's an obsession of mine, but I enjoy participating in the silly game.  It keeps me busy and out of trouble for the most part.

10.  How do you try and keep your blog fresh?

My first blog was entitled Electronic Breadcrumbs and it was solely about geocaching.  After awhile, you can only talk about geocaching for so long before you end up repeating yourself.  I found I was doing that and started to write less and less on that blog.  That's one of the reasons I started to write this blog.  It's about anything I want it to be, which keeps it fresh.  I don't think I'd write a specialty blog again.

11.  Where do you do your best thinking?

When I'm out mowing the lawn.   Mowing the lawn is pretty mind numbing, so I think about all sorts of things while I'm mowing the lawn.  It keeps me occupied and seems to shorten the process of getting the grass cut.

Well, there you have it.  That's probably way more than you ever needed to know about me.  I'd love to hear your feedback, preferably here as opposed to on Facebook, but I'll take it either place.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday's post originally was entitled Thanksgiving.  I changed it after I started writing, so since today is the actual day this year, I'll be posting some of my thoughts on what I'm thankful for.  You may not agree with all of them, but that's your right.

This will not be a post about being thankful for friends, family, etc.  I'm always thankful for them.  I want to show some thanks for other things that I think many of us take for granted.  And while it's true, we may take our family for granted, I hope that I don't.

First off, I am going to say I'm thankful for our health care we have here.  My dad was an "orphan" by the time he was 27, my mom was "orphaned" before she turned 40. Both of my parents are still alive as is my father-in-law.  Without advances in medicine that we've had in the last 50 years, it's very likely that they might not be around to enjoy their grandchildren.  While it weirds me out a little to realize that I'm now the father of three adult children, my parents have seven adult grandchildren.  I don't believe my dad's parents even got to enjoy one adult grandchild.

I'm thankful that I can get up in the middle of the night and get a drink of water if I want.  Nearly one billion (yes, you read that right, billion with a B) people don't have access to safe water on a regular basis.  According to water.org website, 3.4 million people die each year from a water related illness.  The majority of those illnesses are caused by fecal material (still hungry for that turkey dinner?).  More people have a cell phone than have safe water to drink.  Those are some sobering statistics.

I'm also thankful that I live in a country that allows me to worship, or not worship as I please.  Can you imagine living in a country where you could only worship via one religion?  What if you didn't agree with that religious philosophy?  Think about that the next time you kneel down to pray.  Our country might not be perfect in many ways, but it's a lot better than many other areas out there.

Lastly, I'm thankful that we can all share in discourse about what we think is right and wrong with our country and with the way some businesses choose to run their business, which is what I'm going to do right now.  

Over the past week, I've seen many posts on Facebook from people voicing their displeasure over certain stores opening for business today.  The business of the company is to make money for the company.  They don't make money when they're closed.  If they believe this will bring in more money for them, then more power to them.

You don't have to go.  Yes, I respect your right to voice your displeasure, however, I believe you're wrong.  If you don't like it, don't go.  When I worked as seasonal help at Disneyland back in college, I never worked on a holiday.  Why?  Not because Disneyland was closed, but because the permanent employees all wanted to work.  They got paid time and a half.  Granted some stores might not do that because they aren't unionized, but the employees might need that extra money down the road for Christmas presents.

I also find it interesting that all this complaining has been directed at stores opened on Thanksgiving Day.  How many of you watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade?  Do you think Macy's produced that out of the goodness of their heart?  Why are there no complaints about the people holding onto the tethers of the balloons at the parade?  In fact, why is there no complaints about the NFL playing football on TV?  All those poor football players, and referees and stadium employees away from their families on Thanksgiving Day?  What a travesty.  I think we should boycott that too.

Tongue in cheek aside, I hope all of my readers have a happy Thanksgiving, no matter how you choose to celebrate it.  As for me, my plan is to watch the Lions win on Thanksgiving for the first time since 2003, then drive with my wife and boys to my sister's house to gather around the table with the family that's here in Southern California.  My thoughts will be with family members (especially my daughter who will be celebrating with her boyfriend and family in San Mateo) who weren't able to make it down.  I know we shall be seeing them at Christmas.

Happy birthday son

He came into world at 1 AM, straight up.  Were it not for daylight savings, he would have been born at midnight, one of those kids where you're really not sure what day he was actually born on, but because of daylight savings, we celebrate his birthday today, August 12th.

Of my three children, he was the only one who was smart enough, I guess, to keep his hands down at his side when he was born.  Consequently, he was born quickly - very quickly.  I know I've told this story many times before, but I can still remember the nurse springing up from her chair, running to the door of the delivery room and screaming at the top of her lungs, "SOMEBODY BETTER FIND DR. LEE, OR HE'S GOING TO MISS THIS ONE!!!"  Dr. Lee came in and caught our Andy about a minute later.

The second thing that really struck me about my first born son was how alert he was.  He just wanted to look around the room from the getgo.  It was almost like he was thinking, "Whoa, this is a whole heck of a lot different than what I've been looking at for the last 9 months."

I've always been interested in when people were born and who famous was born on such and such a day.  On this date in history, one of the first five men to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Christy Mathewson was born.  Other famous people sharing this date include, football player Plaxico Burress, tennis pro Pete Sampras, Jane Wyatt from the sitcom "Father Knows Best," the famous movie director Cecil B. DeMille, and Erwin Schrodinger the Austrian physicist who used a cat in a box to explain quantum mechanics.  

Still, the most important person born today is my son, Andy.  I've watched him grow up, spread his wings to explore the world beyond us.  He is everything I could want in a son and I wish him all the best on his day.  Happy birthday son.

All over but the shouting

Once again, the Super Bowl is history.  As I noted last year around this time, the past couple of years have produced some very entertaining football games.  It seemed like in the 90s, most of the games were very lopsided.  This year was very similar to last couple of years however, with the game not being decided until very late in the game.

Monday morning quarterbacks will complain about non-calls in the end zone, or possibly blame the blackout, but one team won and the other team lost.  I also noted last year that if the game wasn't a good one, I hoped the commercials would be good.

This year, I didn't find many of the commercials that entertaining.  Perhaps it's because we've come to expect a certain level of commercial at Super Bowl time and when they don't deliver, we pass judgement quickly.  Or maybe, just maybe, advertisers have finally run out of ideas.  Did we really need to see full mouth on kisses like the one shown on the GoDaddy.com ad?  It was rated one of the lowest liked commercials of the Super Bowl and yet most people will continue to talk about it.  Isn't that what advertising is all about though?

There were a couple of funny ads.  I liked the old folks going out for Taco Bell.  I thought the Kia ad about where babies come from was entertaining.  My favorite commercial wasn't funny at all.  I probably liked it because it was so visually stimulating.  Dodge Ram truck used a speech by Paul Harvey and showed farm life throughout the 2 minute commercial, entitled, God Made a Farmer.  About 30 seconds into it, I just stopped what I was doing and watched, totally mesmerized by the images.  

I've watched it now three times and will probably watch it again.  I've already thought about ways that I could use the compositions of different shots into my own shots.  I guess that's what photographers do. - look at other people's work and try to emulate it.  If I can, at some time, produce images like are in this commercial, I shall be satisfied.  Until then, please feel free to enjoy it here.

I've included above a shot that I took on Saturday while out geocaching.  I think it fits the theme of the video quite nicely.

On to the SuperBowl

I spent most of the day watching football.  It was pretty much a wasted day, but I knew it would be.  Both games were tense affairs, one went into overtime, the other should have gone into overtime if not for a shanked field goal in the last seconds of the game.

Neither team that I really wanted to win came through today but that's OK.  I was hoping for good games and both were good, decided in the last seconds of one and overtime in the other.  That's pretty exciting, even if your team doesn't win. 


My team, the Miami Dolphins, are not in the Superbowl this year.  I grew up in Southern California, yet I follow the Miami Dolphins.  Go figure that one out.  In fact, I joke that I have three favorite teams.  The Dolphins and whoever is playing the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders that week.


I've come up with a theory on why people root for certain teams.  They are either indoctrinated by their family, or they glom on to the winning team at the time they become aware of the said sport.  The other two jerseys are my two sons' jerseys.  Obviously, I didn't do a very good job of indoctrinating them correctly, especially since one roots for a divisional rival. 


The Dolphins were just coming into their own about the time I was in 6th grade, so I started to follow them.  Two years later, they were in the SuperBowl against the Dallas Cowboys and lost.  Gee, I wonder why I don't like the Cowboys?  Actually, I was a Rams fan as well and the Cowboys used to beat up on the Rams in the playoffs on a regular basis in the 60s and 70s, so there are several reasons why I don't like them.


As for the Dolphins, the next year was the year of the perfect season and the rest is history.  I've followed them ever since.  Three SuperBowls in the early period cemented it and two more while I was in college.  It's been a long time since they've been to the big one.  I'd like to see them get back there again.


And my other favorite team (whoever plays the Oakland Raiders)?  It's probably because I've never really liked Al Davis, the owner of the Raiders.  It's a silly reason not to like a team, but then liking a team and "bleeding" silver and black or whatever color your favorite team happens to be is pretty silly too.


I just hope the SuperBowl is a good game.  Most in the past couple of years have been pretty good affairs.  And if it's not, then I hope the advertisers come up with some good commercials.