Now the Voters Get to Chose

Tomorrow is Election Day here in the good old USA.

That means that you all have the responsibility to get off your butts, out of your houses and make the effort to go vote. But remember this one important thing. You are only allowed to vote once.

A while back a commenter asked my what I thought about our local measure N and the city council election.

I hate to admit it but I still have not made up my mind on measure N. I admit that the roads in this town need a lot of work. Actually I have driven on dirt roads that are smoother than some of the "paved" roads in this town. But then this is not a new phenomenon in Ridgecrest. Taxpayers have been trying to get the roads in this town for the entire 23 years that I have been living here. Even when we do managed to get a road fixed it is usually not one that needs it. So I would think that I would be willing to vote for measure N. But that is the problem.

I have never in my entire life voted for a tax increase. I'm not sure that I could ever pull that lever, fill in that bubble, punch that chad, or press that button. Voting for a tax increase flies in the face of everything I believe in politically.

I understand that we need money to fix our roads. But we have needed money to fix our roads for over 20 years. Unfortunately I am not as informed as I probably ought to be about our city budget and where we spend the money we have available to maintain and grow our city. So I can't speak to details. But I do see a lot of money go to waste in town year after year. The city is constantly trying to help bring businesses in town and we usually end up on the losing end of the financial deals. How much money did the city spend to help Matrix Motors, Front Porch Productions and countless others? Could that money have been used to maintain our streets.

Now that is my main concern here. Everyone talks about fixing our streets. My question is, why does our city not have a regular plan of maintenance for our streets. The infrastructure of a city needs to be maintained. You cannot just slap down some pavement and expect it to last a lifetime. And it is not just streets. The entire infrastucture of our city needs to be maintained - streets, sewers, water, electrical, gas, all of it needs maintenance. Since we have not been maintaining our roads, are we also neglecting the rest of the infrastructure of our city? What is next, another 1/2 percent sales tax to improve our sewers? Where does it stop?

I have heard a lot of people complaining that the city spends way too much money on the parks and recreation department that could be used for our streets. I disagree. The parks and recreation department in town is very important for the future of our community. By that I mean our children. Even more than complaining about our streets one of the longest running loudest complaints I have heard around town is that there is nothing for the kids to do. So many of our community's children seem to turn to drugs and sex as a way to entertain themselves. I can't quote figures so I don't know the facts. But from my anecdotal experience the children of Ridgecrest seem to be taking advantage of the parks and recreation department to find many things to keep themselves busy. And in my opinion that is a good thing. In my opinion, it is more important than the condition of our streets.

So I still do not know how I am going to vote on measure N tomorrow.

As for our city council. As a general rule I prefer to vote for small business owners for the city council. They are usually the citizens who have to most to gain from seeing our city prosper. However this year there seems to be a dearth of business owners running for office. Unfortunately we seem to have a lot of engineers running for office this year. I have a real problem with this. I am an engineer and have worked my whole career with engineers. Unfortunately most of the managers I have had in my career have also been engineers. However engineers do not often make very good managers. I have had some good managers in my career who were engineers but they have been far and away the exception to the rule. So as a general rule I do not vote for engineers for office unless I know quite a bit about their background and their beliefs. After all, I am an engineer and believe me, you would not want me in charge of our fair city.

As for our two incumbent council members I have known Steve Morgan for many years and he is a good man who really wants what is best for this city. But the last few years Steve seems to be developing some tunnel vision on how to solve problems for the city. He focuses in on one way of solving a problem and any other options to that solution he just will not consider. Whether or not this tunnel vision will cost Steve my vote or not I have not decided yet. I know I am running out of time to decide but historically I spend most of the election cycle considering my options and making up my mind based on those options while standing in line at the polling place.

But some decisions for me are made very early in the election cycle. For instance I will never cast a vote for Ron Carter. I attempted to make an appointment with Principal Carter at Las Flores Grade School 12 years ago. The run around I got from his office staff eventually led to their flat refusal to allow me to make an appointment to see Principal Carter. I had no choice but to assume that his office staff was working under his direction to keep parents away from meeting with him. The only other option I could imagine was that he did not know how his office staff were behaving. In that case he would be even less attractive to me as a manager than a guy who orders his staff to isolate him from a parent who would be sending their child to his school the next year. But the incident was very upsetting to my dear wife and I. When we tried to complain about his isolationist attitude to the school district we were told "If the Principal chooses not to meet with you that is his business." then they hung up on me. That event was the driving force behind us putting our children into private schools.

So who am I going to vote for for City Council? I will not vote for Ron Carter nor Randy (Charlie Chaplin) Jenkins. The council tends to be populated by clowns on occasion. I don't want to vote for a guy who campaigns on the clown platform.

Beyond them I have Steve Morgan, one businessman, two planning commissioners and a bunch of engineers to chose from. I'm sure I will make a calm rational choice while standing in line tomorrow morning.

VB in Bakersfield

I took my older middle school volleyball team to Bakersfield on Saturday to compete in the 20th annual Rio Bravo Greeley Middle School Volleyball Tournament. This is always a tough tournament for us. The teams that compete there are mostly all big schools with a large population of students to draw on. So taking a small school team which is usually made up of every girl I can get to play is a challenge.

Lonie, who runs this tournament has been very accommodating throughout the years. We first met Lonie several years ago at a tournament at Garces High School. My team was getting crushed by these larger schools. Lonie and our staff got to talking and she invited us to come compete in her tournament. But she allowed us, to play down a grade from most of the other teams. So unlike most tournaments, if I show up with a team full of 6th and 7th grade players with a couple 8th graders on it, she doesn't make us play in the 8th grade division. So for the last few years we have been playing with our "8th" grade team in the 7th grade division.

I was (and still am) uncomfortable with this. It kind of feels like cheating to me. But the last two years my teams have been eliminated from the tournament during the pool play rounds. But that is not all to blame on the quality of our opponents. Each of the last few years my teams have shown up at the tournament and played the worst volleyball I have ever seen them play. So we were sent home early both years.

This year started out kind of the same. Our first game was ugly. We could not pass a volleyball to save our lives. We lost our first game 23-30. We got most of our 23 points from opponent errors because when we could not handle a serve and when we did get a ball into play our offense was nonexistent.

Our second pool play game was against a weaker team than us. While our passing improved, our serving fell apart. But our offense was working better and we won that game 30-24.

For our third and final game in pool play we had to play one of the toughest teams in the tournament. My team finally showed up. For the first time in four years I got to watch a Saint Ann Volleyball team finally play a game of volleyball like they knew what they were doing. Serves were on, passing was only adequate but our offense was spectacular. I had hitters killing balls from all over the court. Our defense was playing fantastic. We had several long rallys - series of plays where the ball was crossing the net 7, 8 or even 9 times during the rally. In every one of them we were passing-setting and attacking while our opponents quickly settled for just hitting free balls back at us with the first or second hit. We won that game 30-22.

Due to a tie breaker system that I didn't try too hard to question we were placed first in our pool. Last year we were in a three way tie for last in our pool where two of the teams would get to play in the brackets one one would be sent home. All three teams were tied with identical match and game records, and had beaten each other in an A beats B, B beats C and C beats A fashion. I was looking at the points scored and realized that we had the edge in the points scored category over the other two teams. We also had the edge in the points allowed category. But the tournament broke the tie by taking the two teams that had allowed the most points to be scored against them. So we went home while the other two teams played.

This year made up for that. Once again we were in a three way tie with each of the teams having beaten one of the others. We were all 2-1. Unfortunately we were in second place in the points scored category. We were in third place in the points allowed category. And I didn't think that they would break the tie the same way they did last year. So I was prepared to be playing in the consolation bracket instead of the championship bracket. But when the results were posted we were listed as first in our pool and the number two team in the championship bracket.

When I asked the director what the tie breaker was she said head-to-head. Freedom beat El Tejon, and you beat Freedom, so you're number one. I didn't bother pointing out that El-Tejon had beaten us. I figured it was just a little pay back for last year. But I did feel sorry for El Tejon. They were tied for the lead in their pool and had to play in the consolation bracket. Which they won.

Our semi final game in the championship bracket was an inability game. That is a game were we demonstrated our inability to play volleyball. Where our third pool play game had been the best game we had ever played in this tournament. This semi-final game was easily the worst we had ever played. Nothing was working. From the opening serve my girls were playing in panic mode. I took a time out at 0-5 to try and calm them down. No luck. I took my second time out at 3-15, again to try and calm them down. Again no luck. They finally calmed down late in the game when they stopped playing completely. We lost that game 9-30 and three of our points were garbage points when the other team got lazy right at the end.

After a break we were back on the court our last game of the day. The bronze medal match against the previous no. 1 team, which had also lost in their semi-final. We matched up pretty good against this team. We let them have a quick four point lead and then started playing good volleyball while we slowly worked to take that lead away from them. We managed to close the game up to 23-24 when the wheels came off our offense. We were still serving well, passing well and setting well. But our third hits were just not working. We suddenly started spiking into the net and under the net. We were hitting everywhere except over the net and in bounds. Six straight spikes in a row that never even got close to the top of the net and the game was over 23-30.

So we went home in 4th place out of 9 teams. Which is a great improvement over the last two years when we went home without any place at all.

Late in the tournament I had a chance to chat with a couple of the other coaches. When the subject of players ages came up, one of them flat out asked me "I hear you have a couple 8th grade players on your team?" I told her I did. When she asked how many I said three, and one 6th grader. Then I pointed to my girls and said you tell me which three are the 8th graders. They only got one right. Their other two picks were both 7th grade players. They both laughed when I told them that and said "Don't worry about it, Lonie did the right thing letting you play in this division."

An Answer to a Comment

My previous post generated a question from a liberal troll looking to get my goat. I have decided to break my normal rule about feeding trolls and answering his question. Even though I think anyone who will watch that video and ask what's wrong with that need their head examined.

Liberal Constructionist asked: "What's the part that you don't like ... and why? Just asking."

OK here is what I didn't like and why.....

1. "I am the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning."

Barack Obama is proud that he is the only major candidate who opposes fighting the war on terror.

2."I will end it."

The big O will end the war. Note he does not say he will win the war, he will simply just stop fighting it. We as a nation cannot afford a President or a dog catcher who will not fight to defend this country.

3. He will cut spending on unproven missile defense systems. How many unproven missile defense systems do we have in development?

Answer is ALL of them. Until tested in combat they are all unproven. The only way to prove a missile defense system is for someone to attack us. The big O just said he will not only stop fighting the war on terror but that he will cut spending on continued research we need to continue to expand the defense of this country against missile attacks.

4. "I will not weaponize space." Weaponizing Space? We do not even have a reliable space program that can get us out of low earth orbit and he is promising to not weaponize space. We don't even go into space anymore. However a flat refusal to do something that may become necessary at a later date is short sighted. If our enemies start weaponizing low earth orbit than we had better be ready to counter any obvious threat. If that means weaponizing space, or low earth orbit whatever it takes.

5. "I will slow our development of future combat systems" Bill Clinton and Jimmah Carter already tried that and it took years to recover from the damage they inflicted on our military. Our enemies and the the nations who build and sell weapons to our enemies are not going to slow down weapons development just because we do. If we do not keep up, or better yet push the boundary of weapons development in the world we are setting ourselves up for a world class, bloody butt kicking that could cost us thousands of military lives, or even 10s or 100s of thousands of civilan lives. Now maybe the big O is OK with that. But I'm not. If you are an active member of the military this presidental wanna-be just promised the equivalent of sending you into a gun fight armed with a knife.

6. "Will institute an independant blah blah blah..." All I heard is I will create a new government bureaucracy and task it to reduce spending on our military.

7. "I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons." YEAH! GO FOR IT! I LOVE IT! I think that is a wonderful wet dream there buddy. A world without nuclear weapons will be great. But how does the big O plan on putting the nuclear genii back in his bottle. Unilateral disarmament will only get us killed and if he seriously think the other nations of the world are going to willingly give up their nucs then he is beyond inexperienced, he is too inexperienced to be a dog catcher. OH, wait, I think I already accused him of that.

Someone needs to tell the Big O that Russia isn't the only other nation on the planet with nucs. Also let him know that none of the plans he mentioned will get rid of any of the nucs already out there. Besides we have seen how well global bans on making fissile material has been. Iran is still cranking away making theirs in spite of almost total global condemnation.

There that is what I didn't like and why.

This man is too inexperienced to be in charge, is too naive to be in charge and too stupid for any of us to be depending on to defend this country. Especially since he just spend the last 52 seconds tell us that he will not defend us. But worse than that he will consciously go out of his way to severely limit our current military's ability to continue to do it's job.

52 seconds of Barack Obama

Here is a 52 second explaination on why Barack Obama should never be allowed to hold any elected position in this country - that includes dog catcher.

More on Gas Prices

I gassed up in Victorville this evening before coming home for $3.29 a gallon at AM/PM. The Valero station was at $3.39. Several other name brand places were in the same price range. Even the places out by the highway all by themselves were under $3.40.

What makes this even worse was when I was in Trona yesterday the gas there was $3.73 when the cheapest place in Ridgecrest was $3.77. I can't remember a time in the last 23 years that I have lived here that gas was cheaper in Trona than here.

Better yet, if I am careful, and I top the tank off on my way back into town on Saturday I may be able to get through next week without buying gas locally so I can gas up again when I go out of town the next week for another volleyball game.

I know its kind of silly but for me the longer I can go without buying gas at these locally inflated prices the better.

But it is all depressing seeing as how they are paying only $2.75 a gallon in Idaho. But then they don't have to deal with our idiotic California Legislature.

Sound Financial Advice?

Michael Millar writing for the British Spectator Business has investing in these turblent times all figured out.

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

Its a pity I'm not more of a beer drinker. I could put this theory to test....

McCain or Obama

ABC News has a match-o-matic poll up. You pick the quotes you most agree with without knowing who said the quote. Then they tell you who you picked the most quotes from under the thought that you should be voting for that person.

The big flaw with this method of picking a candidate is there was no option for picking neither of the candidates.

Here is my results:



You will have to cut me some slack with the two Obama picks. The first one was on immigration where both candidates if left to their own devices would be standing at the border and handing out green cards by the millions. So I didn't agree with either statements in the poll. But had to pick one to move on.

The second "hot topic" question was on global warming where both candidates have been guzzling the global climate crises kool-aid and are practically indistinguishable from each other. Both men have decided to join Pope Algore's Church of Climate Crises. I still don't understand why so many of our politicians chose to agree with the Algore's consensus of scientists instead of listening to the consensus of scientists who disagree with the non-scientific theory that all us carbon based humans are to blame for this mystical problem.

So if you already know who you are voting for and are bored take the quiz. If you haven't decided who to vote for yet, don't let this quiz make up your mind. After all this is a quiz of statements made by two men who are trying to get you to vote for them. So chances are they are both lying. You need to look at both men's records, how they have voted and what they have done in the past and vote based on those things. Remember - you can't believe anything a politician who is running for office tells you - they are all liars.

SpaceX in Orbit

This is so cool....

HAWTHORNE, CA – Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) announces that Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle has successfully launched and achieved Earth orbit. With this key milestone, Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.

Oh, a lot of folks are impressed that the Chinese have also put men in orbit and performed a space walk this week. Well I am not impressed. The United States and the USSR both did that over 40 years ago. So I'm not very impressed.

All Tournament

I made a quick run out of town today to watch my oldest daughter and her varsity volleyball team compete in the 25th annual Scorpion Volleyball Tournament at Hesperia High School in Hesperia.

Her team did OK in the tournament. There were 10 teams divided into two pools of 5. In pool A the Burroughs team beat Victor Valley Christian 25-22, they beat San Gabriel 25-16, they lost to the host team Hesperia 23-25 and beat Lucerne Valley 25-14 for a second place finish in their pool.

Since the top two teams in each pool played this afternoon in the Championship Bracket. In the first semifinal Burroughs had to face the number one team from pool B - Quartz Hill. This was not a pleasant match for the Burroughs as they lost in straight games 14-25 and 12-25. Quartz Hill had three really good hitters to did a masterful job of hitting around the Burroughs blockers while completely overwhelming the back row defenders.

In the 3rd place match Burroughs faced Victor Valley. After leading most of the game the Burros got themselves to a 22-19 lead and then several of the senior members of the team decided the game was won and dialed in the rest of the game. They lost 23-25. The frustration over this loss carried over into the next game where it pretty much just took over the entire team. They lost the second game 13-25.

The team went home with a fourth place finish out of 10 teams and they got a pretty good look as several teams that they will have to play against when conference play starts in a couple weeks.

For our family the highlight of the day was my daughter being awarded an All Tournament award. This award means that in the opinion of the tournament organizers she was the best volleyball player from Burroughs High School on the court today.

I agree with them completely. Although I think their sophomore outside hitter probably gave my daughter a good run for the money in the voting. But that is just my opinion.

Who Am I?

This has flashed through my email several times in the last couple days.

Who Am I?


I am under 45 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president,
I have less than two years experience in the governor's office.


I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.


And he ended up on Mount Rushmore

An Honest Politician?

Finally a breath of fresh air?

A hint of honesty?

A politician saying what he really thinks?

Yesterday on Good Morning American while discussing negative campaign ads Barack Obama made this comment:

"If we're going to ask questions about, you know, who has been promulgating negative ads that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand, I think I win that contest pretty handily,"

Now if I was a cynic I would say that he obviously meant to say that John McCain should win the unrelated attack ads contest. But in this case I think we may have actually caught a politician telling the truth.

Big-O? Are you paying attention?

This is a campaign ad for John McCain. But it is also a lesson to everyone out there who thinks that the war in Iraq was a mistake.

It is less than 2 minutes long. Watch the whole thing.

$3.69

Gas in Mojave, a wide spot in the road about 45 miles from here is $3.69 a gallon.

Gas in Bakersfield just 90 miles away is $3.69 a gallon.

Why the hell are we paying $4.15 a gallon here in Ridgecrest?

9-11

I thought long and hard all day about what to write about the seventh anniversary of the attacks of 9-11-2001.

First off, I don't intend to spend the day "remembering" 9-11. How the hell will I ever forget it. Fox News spent the day telling us that 9-11 was the day American changed. I disagree. 9-11 was the day that American finally admitted the truth - we had been under attack by islamic extremists for over 25 years leading up to 9-11. The attacks on the world trade centers were just a wake up call for most Americans who were too caught up in their day to day existence to pay attention enough to realize that we were already at war, we just wouldn't admit it.

I don't like to think of 9-11 as the day America changed. Because so much of America hasn't changed. A large portion of the population still doesn't recognize the dangers we face. A large portion still will not recognize that some wars must be fought. A large portion of the population still hates our military and everything they stand for.

So for me today was a day to memorialize the 3000 Americans who lost their lives on 9-11-2001. But in the fight against terror and tyrany, it was just another day. The enemy is still out there. The war goes on. In that regard, today is just like yesterday and just like tomorrow will be.

Carrot Sneeze

It is slowly becoming fall around here. That means that there is something in the air that is making me sneeze. It's not a lot of sneezing. But several times a day I really let loose with a series of loud, usually unexpected sneezes.

I discovered something yesterday. Sneezing with a mouth full of freshly chewed carrot is messy. Well, not as messy as it could have been if I hadn't gotten my hand up in front of my mouth in time.

There, never let it be said that I don't occasionally supply more information about my life than any normal decent person should ever know.

and yes, I did wash my hands.

Sarah Palin

I had read several rumors the last few months about who John McCain's running mate may end up being. I discounted most of them. After all the people spreading the rumors didn't know or have any more information than I did, and I certainly didn't know who he was going to pick. The only thing I knew for certain was that it wasn't me. After all, no one had called to get any information for the vetting process.

I won't mince words here. I am not a John McCain fan. I admire the hell out of the guy, but his pro illegal immigration attitude and the fact that he has bought into the global climate fraud are enough that I do not want him to be President. However, I am getting used to not voting for a President. Ronald Reagan's second term was the last time I walked into a voting booth and voted FOR a President. Usually I spend several minutes trying to decide who to vote for based on my guess as to who as the best opportunity to beat the guy (or girl) that I am voting against.

I had resigned myself that this election would be no different. I would be casting a vote against Barack Obama. The only thing that would change my mind on that would be John McCain's Vice-President selection. Personally I was hoping for Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana. My second choice was Kay Bailey Hutchinson from Texas.

Sarah Palin didn't come out of the blue as far as I was concerned. Her name had been tossed around by the media for several weeks. I had read up on some of her background but didn't really think of her as a serious contender, until last week.

This week is totally different. What I have read about this woman has me totally impressed. The fact that the liberal antique media is trying to generate a fire storm of controversy over her is even better news. Anyone who has the liberals in this country that scared of her, has got to be doing something right.

I especially like that all of the attacks are personal. Politically they don't seem to be able to find a chink in her armor. Its like Margaret Thatcher said:

“When they attack one personally it means they haven’t a single political argument left.”

So this election I am taking a different approach. Something I have never tried before. I am voting for a vice-president.

25%

The Burroughs High School Freshman Volleyball Team made their final cuts last night. They started freshman tryouts last week. Since then they made three cuts. One of the six players who played in Middle School for me last year did not make the second cut. This really surprised me. I was sure this player would do really well in High School. Once she got cut, I got really worried. I suddenly realized that if the new coaches at the high school were willing to cut a girl who was probably the best defensive specialist the had in the tryouts, then they would be willing to cut anyone.

Actually there was one girl who is a better defensive specialist than the one they cut. But she is also the best setter at the tryouts. So they probably won't be playing her as a defensive specialist.

When the tryouts started I was sure that all six of my players would make the team. They were, to me, the best six volleyball players at the tryouts. So when one of them got cut, suddenly, I got nervous. This nervousness manifested itself in me not sleeping well, or not at all, for the last week.

So last night I finished with my middle school practice at 7 PM. One of my players was waiting outside for her ride home when I left. Her older sister was one of my players trying out for the freshman team. Since her mother was picking up her sister, then coming for her, I told my assistant coach that she could go and I would wait with my player. I figured this was the quickest way for me to find out how the final cuts went.

So my youngest daughter and I tortured my player while waiting for her ride. Waiting for a ride while I wait with them is usually torture for my players, because I force them to talk to me. I'm not talking about what passes for conversation between many middle school girls and adults. They cannot just respond to my questions with monosyllable grunts. They have to talk to me.

After a few minutes which I am sure to my player felt like several hours her ride pulled into the parking lot. I could see her sister in the back seat but could not see her face clearly. I got up and started to walk towards the car and felt like I was walking with cement blocks on my feet. My thoughts were a massive jumble of what-ifs. What do I say if any of them got cut? What do I say or do depending on which one got cut? What if this? What if that? I was almost physically sick. I had been waiting for two weeks for this news and suddenly I didn't think I really wanted to know what happened. I was trying to decide whether to keep walking towards that car or just turn around and run away.

Then suddenly the back door of the car opened, and the brightest ray of sunshine I have ever seen leapt out with a huge smile on her face and both hands raised in the air and yelled "We all made it."

Suddenly, for the first time in 9 days I felt like I could breathe again. Just that easily all my what-ifs just vanished. I tried to talk to her parents for a few minutes but I am afraid that I may have been babbling. I did manage to gather myself together long enough to make it clear to my ex-player (which is not fully true, she is planning on playing on my club team again this winter. But for the next 10 weeks she has a different coach) that I never for the briefest moment doubted her, nor any of her teammates, ability to to make that freshman team. The only doubts I had were about the new coach's abilities to recognize talented players when they saw them.

So the point to this posting is to brag a little bit on my five girls who will be all wearing BHS green during this upcoming volleyball season.

The title, 25% is a little bragging on the five newest Burros freshmen and my volleyball players who have come before these five. Burroughs High School is the only public high school in this town. Each year the student body averages somewhere around 1700 students. Of those 1700 students, graduates from Saint Ann Middle School make up about 1.8% of the student body.

The three volleyball teams at Burroughs High School are made up of 36 girls. Twelve freshmen, twelve Junior Varsity and twelve varsity. Out of those 36 high school volleyball players 9 of them graduated from Saint Ann School. That is where the 25% title comes from. Our students make up 1.8% of the student body, but 25% of the volleyball team. We have five freshmen, 3 JV players and one Varsity player (my oldest daughter) playing volleyball in high school. The best part of this is hopefully we can up that percentage next year. The oldest of the Saint Ann Players is only a Junior. I only have three 8th grade players this year and I'm sure that one of them will make the freshman team next year. The other two are going to need a lot of work. But we have a year to get them ready. We will have to wait and see.

The hardest thing about all this is trying to get to all the high school games. I have my middle school teams who need to be my first priority. But I now have nine other reasons, who are all very precious to me, to be in the stands cheering on the high school volleyball teams.

It is going to be a very busy volleyball season.

Gender Determination?

Mike of the Mike On Ads blog has created a little tool that will scan your browsers history and try and determine if you are a male or female based on your browsing habits.

So I decided to give it a try. My results were:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 5%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 95%

This is a great relief to me. I was getting worried. I spend a lot of my free time around tween and teen aged volleyball players. I worry that in some ways these young ladies are starting to effect my brain. I find myself wondering about what they are thinking, what they are feeling and stuff like that. That kind of thinking worries me at times. I'm a guy, and I'm not supposed to be worrying about stuff like that.

So this week I started preparing for the new middle school volleyball season to start next week. I was making some notes to myself about a few things to concentrate on this season.

Note No. 1 - It doesn't matter what they are feeling and thinking as long as they are running laps and suicides while they are thinking and feeling it.

Note No. 2 - If she starts crying, she obviously has too much time on her hands and needs to be doing more push-ups.

Note No. 3 - Nothing fixes a sad or depressed mood like spiking till you puke.

But now that I know that at least my browsing habits verify that I'm still a guy maybe it will be OK if I go ahead and worry about what my players are thinking and feeling during this season. Maybe it will be OK for me to concentrate on making sure my players are having fun and playing like a team instead of just running them into the ground.

Or, maybe I should start just leaving myself notes like:

DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY YOU SISSY!

USS New York

The Amphibious Transport Dock: USS New York(LPD-21), was partially constructed from 24 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Centers.

"An amphibious transport dock (also called a landing platform dock or LPD) is a warship that embarks, transports, and lands elements of a landing force for expeditionary warfare missions."

The USS New York will be commissioned into military service with the US Navy in New York City on September 12th 2009. Exactly 8 years and a day after Al-Qaeda terrorists destroyed the World Trade Centers the very buildings themselves will be joining the fight against them.

Vocabulary Score

Not bad for a guy who got Cs and Bs in English in high school. Maybe all the reading I have done in my life has been good for something after all. Even if I do waste my time reading all that Sci-fi and fantasy crap.

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Earthquake!

There was a 5.4 earthquake down in Chino Hills yesterday. If you watch the main stream media, you might think that California has broken up and fallen into the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the country should be so lucky. Sorry we are all still here.

Now, all this carrying on over a 5.4 earthquake is just silly. For most California residents a 5.4 earthquake is a lot like a tropical storm is to Florida. With a 5.4 earthquake things get shaken up a bit. But there usually isn't much damage. Like with Tropical storms, for the most part everything just gets wet.

For the uninitiated I have stolen from Erin a guide to understanding earthquake intensities:

A 3.0 is a CalPoly 'cause you have to be in the room with a seismograph to notice it.

A 3.5 is a Dish Rattler

A 4.0 is a Dog Barker because the dog barks like she does when the garbage truck goes by or a mouse farts behind the baseboard. Cats will hide in the closet and demand that Something Be Done; natural political action committees, most cats.

A 4.5 is a Car Alarm for obvious reasons, though you have to be close by for it to trigger. They sell a gadget to hang on your wall that works just like a car alarm; it scares hell out of you for no reason at the oddest times.

A 5.0 is a Hug-a-Tourist. That's when a perfect stranger in the mall grabs you and hangs on for dear life and you know they're from out of town.

A 5.5 is a Ceiling Check, all the natives and people who've been here for twenty years or more will look up then at the nearest door, just to make sure they know where it is.

A 6.0 is a Kneehole, you get down on the floor and scoot under your desk and you pull your idiot friend from Iowa who's still looking at the ceiling under with you.

A 6.5 is a T-Shirt Slogan, you can buy one that says, "I survived the such-and-such earthquake" afterwards.

A 7.0 is a Wake-Up-The-Governor to call the National Guard; they may need to go dig some unlucky people out from under collapsed buildings and freeways.

A 7.5 is what Californians call a Real Earthquake.

An 8.0 is The Big One.

AAA Jumps Ship

California State Automobile Association, an affiliate of the national AAA, announced it is closing all three of its call centers in the state at a loss of 900 jobs.

Is the California State Automobile Association going to change its name to the Arizahoma State Automobile Association?

Spokeswoman Cynthia Harris was quite blunt about the reason: "It costs more to do business in California than other states." Her group will now will be answering calls from California motorists from new centers in lower-cost Arizona and Oklahoma.

We have the California Car Culture here. Sometimes it seems like everything in this state is all about the car you drive. If you look at almost any advertisement for the State of California and a predominate feature of them all is - cars. Yet the one orgaization in the state dedicated solely to drivers, the California Automobile Association is leaving the state because of the onerous cost of doing business in Taxifornia.

How about we get our state legislature and our RINO Governator Arnold to outsource themselves to Arizona or Oklahoma? That way they can harass someone else for a while and leave us poor working stiff alone.

700

According to Blogger this is my 700th entry into this blog. Considering that when I started this I could only think of about 20 things to say I guess that since I managed to ramble on for 680 entries more than that must mean that I have a lot more crap floating around in my brain that I thought was necessary to share with you than I thought I would.

Now the depressing part. 700 blog entries since March 11, 2005. That is 700 posts in 1225 days. Which works out to one an entry every 1.75 days.

Which doesn't really make me very prolific. Now my critics will tell you that me not being prolific is a good thing. My response to those folks is if I bore you, piss you off, or insult you, don't click over here any more. If that doesn't satisfy you than I can shorted it to "Bite Me."

If you like what I write here and want me to write more, be patient, I am trying. My life has changed a lot since I started this blog. My kids are older and while they don't seem to need more of my attention, they do need more of my time. Gone are the days when I could sit at the computer and work with a bundled baby laying on my lap or on the desk between my chest and the keyboard. (try typing like that some time. It will do wonderfully horrible things to your wrists and shoulders. But it kept the baby quiet so my dear wife could sleep.)

I am now a volunteer volleyball coach for 8 months a year instead of just 2.5 months a year. This takes up a lot of my free time. I described to a friend a while back that coaching this club team was like having 13 kids. Three of my own, and 10 extra daughters that I only get to see 3 days a week on the volleyball court. But in between the practices and the games there is a lot of other stuff to do. Practice plans, travel plans, newsletters for parents, pictures, paperwork, etc. But as time consuming as this has been, I can't imagine not doing it. My one regret is that I waited so many years to start doing this.

I have a new job that is not as flexible with my hours as my older job was. This doesn't really cut into my blogging, but it is an handy excuse that I have been using for other things way too often lately.

Well it's late and needed to be in bed a couple hours ago. I have to get up and go to that new pain in the neck job early in the morning.

Quiz

All my kids were making and taking this quiz. So I got badgered into making one also.

The link to it is here -

Coach's Lame Quiz

Summer Rain

We are having some summer rain this afternoon. Actually we are having what back home they would call a gully washer. Around here they call them flash floods. The rain comes down so hard and fast that they ground cannot soak it all in.

I love these summer rains. But I really dislike the aftermath of them. The humidity level shoots way up and then our swamp coolers don't work anymore. That is where we are right now. There is still a few drops falling, and some thunder and lightening in the distance. But it is getting humid and warming up quickly. It cooled down while the rain was falling to somewhere in the low 80s. But once the rain stops the temperature shoots up rapidly.

************** UPDATE **********************

I think the rain has finally quit. It has stopped, started, stopped and started again. Each time it was raining a little harder than the time before. The last stretch included some pretty good wind. We could hear it pounding against the garage doors as well as pelting the roof.

I'm including a few more pics. The first two are taken over the back fence looking north. There was quite a substantial puddle there. Of course none of the desert dwellers here would ever consider turning around and taking an alternate route.

This last pic is of some neighbor kids playing in the puddles in the desert behind our house. The one that is standing in the knee deep water was wearing midcalf rain boots, which are obviously not going to keep his feet dry now. Not that it mattered, a few moments after I took this pic, he was laying down in the water.



Of course my own family enjoyed the rain. The kids were out in the street laying in the gutters that had overflowed the sidewalks. My dear wife was running around in the front and back yard playing also. Of course I also got soaking wet. But I wasn't playing. I was wondering around the yard checking on possible floods that could potentially cause some water damage. It was a dirty job but someone had to do it and I certainly wasn't enjoying playing in the rain....

New Link

I added a new link to the External Ridgecrest Links on the right side.

Photographic History of NAF and VX-5

Make sure you have plenty of time when you sit down and start clicking on the links there. Gary has done a fantastic job of collecting a lot of photos.

Happy 4th of July

Happy Independence Day

Two hundred and thirty two years ago a bunch of rabble rousing malcontents got together and decided that they were fed up with being oppressed by their government. So they wrote down some complaints, signed the list and told their King to go jump in the lake.

Who would have thought that their little insurrection would grow into the nation we live in today.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,


When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is in the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid World.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People; unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond the Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule in these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Powers to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic Insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.


Signed by ORDER and
in BEHALF OF THE CONGRESS
JOHN HANCOCK,
PRESIDENT.

Inconsistant Golf

Last night I finally played in my third round of golf for the current intramural golf season. I missed most of the first half of the season due to volleyball practices.

Last night was hot and there was a lot of smoke in the air. In spite of the all the smoke I elected to walk anyway. I just have a hard time riding in a cart when I am supposed to be golfing for the exercise.

Last night I think I invented a new golf game that I am going to call "pars and sevens". For the nine holes we played I shot 5 pars all the other holes I shot 7s. Over all it was a good round for me. Five pars in nine holes is great considering I'm a 23 handicap golfer. Unfortunately because I am a 23 handicap golfer, I shot the four 7s also. I have to thank my opponent for one of those sevens. He gave me a 20 foot putt to save me from having to take an 8.

However I may have pulled off that putt. I played nine holes last night and took only nine putts. Actually I only had to make three putts all night. The other six were gimmes that were surrendered by my opponents. I had that one 20 foot gimme. But most of them were under 12 inches. The three putts I did make were about 4, 6 and 10 feet. I only had one lag putt all night and that was on the first hole, the only hole all night that I had two putts.

I shot a 46. That is a net two under par for me, and that includes to out of bounds shots, one on 14 and one on 18 (two of the holes I shot 7 on). Overall a great night. Except that I only managed to tie my match. But I had a good round against a couple decent guys who were good competitors.

I have missed golfing these last two months and am looking forward to the next two months. But considering how much I am also missing my volleyball team, I would give it all up to be back in the gym with my Starlings on a regular basis.

One Word Meme

Mostly Cajun had this up when we got home and it seemed like a good chance to unwind from the long car ride, so here goes...

In a Word:

1. Where is your cell phone? table

2. Your significant other? sweetheart

3. Your hair? gone

4. Your mother? memories

5. Your father? Cheyenne

6. Your favorite time of day? nighttime

7. Your dream last night? volleyball

8. Your favorite drink? rootbeer

9. Your dream goal? complicated

10. The room you’re in? messy

11. Your ex? nonexistant

12. Your fear? failure

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? retired

14. What you are not? thin

15. Your Favourite meal? steak

16. One of your wish list items? gym

17. The last thing you did? drove

18. Where you grew up? mountains

19. What are you wearing? casual

20. Your TV is? off

21. Your pets? imaginary

22. Your computer? laptop

23. Your life? good

24. Your mood? tired

25. Missing someone? Starlings

26. Your car? Dodge

27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes

28. Favourite store? hardware

29. Your summer? hot

30. Your favourite colour? varies

31. When is the last time you laughed? today

32. When is the last time you cried? week

33. Your health? acceptable

34. Your children? sleeping

35. Your future? confusing

36. Your beliefs? solid

37. Young or old? older

38. Your image? unknown

39. Your appearance? round

40. Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? sure

Home Again

It seems like I just got home last week from a four day volleyball tournament in San Diego and here I am on the road again.

The family and I left for my sister-in-laws place in Pleasanton CA, up near San Francisco. My oldest has been up there for two weeks and is ready to come home. Actually her mother is ready for her to come home. She misses her baby. I do to but don't tell her that it will go to her head.

So we drove up to the Bay area Thursday evening after work. We spent Friday hanging out and doing some shopping. Today we spent more time with the family and eventually loaded up the van and headed for home around 5:30 this evening. We made pretty good time, and arrived home right around 11:30 tonight.

The rest of the family has headed for bed, and as soon as my caffine high wears off, I'm headed there also.

Heller Decision

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Just enough time for a happy dance, then off to work. More later.....

George Carlin RIP

I read where George Carline died of heart failure yesterday. My friends and I used to sit in our rooms and listen to his albums until we had most of his routines memorized. We even went to the trouble of changing them around and replacing some of his language so that we could repeat them to each other in front of our parents.

As I got older I found that I didn't appreciate his current humor near as much as I had in the past. I still loved his old stuff. But in his later years he seemed less of a comedian and more of just an angry old liberal who didn't have anything to say that I could relate to. But I don't hold that against him. I got way to many laughs from him through the years.

A lot of bloggers have memorialized George by quoting their favorite jokes of his. I couldn't possibly pick just one. But I do have a question "Do you think he got a two minute warning?"

Starlings National Championship

My volleyball team and I left last Wednesday for the Starlings National Championships in San Diego.

We started our adventure at the opening ceremonies at Sweetwater high school. The place was jamb packed with Starlings Volleyball players, their coaches and parents. There was a parade of banners, a lot of dancing, laughing and just overall good fun by all.





The next morning we started pool play at the Alliant Sports Center. This is a large canvas roofed building that is big enough to hold 12 volleyball courts. Unfortunately this facility is not air conditioned. This became important as the weather in San Diego was unseasonably warm this week. By the time the first round of pool play was half over it was well over 90 degrees in the building and very humid.

Our day started off a little strange. We were on the court warming up waiting for our opponents from Watsonville CA to show up. We were there, a San Diego Navajo team that was going to be refereeing our match was there, and a team from Mission Bay San Diego. But there was no sign of our opponents. So the other two teams sat there and watched us warm up for a few minutes. Eventually we started scrimmaging with the Navajo team because we were all bored. After twenty minutes the tournament official declared our match a forfeit and we recorded our first win of the tournament without even seeing our opponents.

Next up we had to referee the match between the Navajo team and the Mission Bay team. Our Watsonville opponents showed up in the middle of this match. They had all been riding in the same van that got lost on the freeways in San Diego.

Next up we played the Mission Bay Starlings team. We cruised to an easy 25-4 win in the first game on the backs of Laura and her 11 consecutive serves followed by Alyssa fired off 7 of her own including three jump serve aces. The next game we got a little complacent and allowed our opponents to hang around way too long before we finally beat them 25-18.

Unfortunately that complacency carried over to our next match against the San Diego Navajo Starlings team. We let them get a 23-14 lead over us before we finally started to play. With Jazmine serving seven straight serves our team managed to close the game to 21 to 23 before they finally scored their last two points to win the game. The second game we started out like we finished the previous game – hot! We stormed out to a fast lead in the game and held a 23-20 lead when everyone just shut down and stopped moving. Our opponents outscored us five to two in the last couple minutes to win 25-27.

This 2-1 performance was enough to get us a second place finish in our pool. This put us in the division with the top 18 teams of the tournament, which was all the number 1 and number 2 finishers on Thursday.

On Friday we were in a pool with teams from Phoenix Az, Oakland CA and Bakersfield CA. We played at the Balboa Park Activities Center which like Alliant University also didn’t have any air conditioning. It did however have a little better ventilation than Alliant did so to start it seemed a little cooler inside to start. But by the end of the match it was just as hot as Alliant.

Our first match was against the Oakland team. Both teams started a little slow but the Oakland team warmed up a bit quicker than we did. They won the first game 22-25. But once we got going they discovered what kind of team we really were. We won the second game 25-15. In the third and deciding game the team slacked off again and needed six serves including three aces from Rebecca in order to win the game 15-13.

Our second game was against the Phoenix team. There were so far the best team we had faced in the tournament. We started out a little slow and eventually lost the first game 19-25. But the girls got going again in the second game and took an early lead. But we once again slowed down in the end and lost that game 22-25.

The Bakersfield team was our last challenge of the afternoon. We eventually won a slow and error filled first game 25-21. Then sleep walked our way through a crushing 14-25 loss. But the team woke up and really came out serving and hitting in the third and final game. We changed sides of the court with an 8-3 lead and cruised to and easy 15-7 victory. After the match our referee, Ernie, who is the National Starlings ambassador, called the team over and congratulated them on a spectacular performance. He was very impressed with how well out team full of young players held their cool and didn’t get flustered after that big loss in the second game.

Once again we found ourselves with a 2-1 record and a second place finish. And just like yesterday it was enough to keep us in the top division with all the other first and second finishers.

On Saturday we were one of the eight teams that entered the Gold Championship double elimination part of the tournament for a chance to play for the U14 tournament championship.

Our first match of the day was against the Tehachapi U14 team. This team had also played in the Southern California Volleyball Tournament season with us. But we had never played each other. They were always ranked one to two divisions below us in the standings. But they had finished the season strong and didn’t look to be a push over team. I was hopeful when they took the court because they also had two girls who looked like they were no older than the three eleven year olds on our team. However, those younger smaller players never got onto the court for their team, where all three of young players play – a lot.

Unfortunately Saturday was not to be our day. I don’t know if it was the heat, the humidity, the three consecutive days of volleyball, or the fact that my normally tight, best friends, team that has gotten along fantastically all season was suddenly fractured into three distinct factions that were not getting along on or off the court. I have several ideas about what happened to my team but I’m not going to air them here. But their off the court disagreements and bickering carried over onto the court in a huge way this day and brought a very unsatisfying end to our season.

Our match was against Tehachapi who was playing well but not nearly as well as our team was capable of when they were getting along. Unfortunately we were not getting along, we were not moving, and my players were acting like they really didn’t care if they won or lost. And so they lost – 16-25 and 19-25.

Following that match we had to ref a match. It was a very uncomfortable time because I had to down ref for the match and I was very aware of my team that was sitting on the floor behind me keeping score with a lot of glaring going on and no one talking to each other.

This loss moved us down to the loser bracket of the championship division. We had to play a match against a team called Scripps Ranch from the San Diego area. They were also having a bad day. At times they seem to be a fairly good team who was struggling with the heat and humidity. We squeaked out a 25-21 win in the first game and that seem to really deflate our opponents. They pretty much just phoned in their last game of the weekend and we cruised to a 25-12 victory and a chance to keep playing.

We got a three minute break after the match and had to play our next match of the day against the same Phoenix team we had played on Friday. This team was really down. They had been undefeated going into the day and had just lost their first match of the season to an undersized Navajo team from Tuba City AZ. When they walked over to our court they were all shuffling their feet and walking with their head down. They looked like a bunch of whipped puppies.

I tried to rally the team to step up and start playing together like they used to. But it just wasn’t to be. We gave up 6 consecutive serve aces to start the game and that got our opponents fired up. And as fast as they got excited we crashed. We lost the first game 17-25 and the second 15-25.

Our run at our first ever Starling National Championship ended in a two way tie for fifth place. It was not the ending of the season I was hoping for. But overall it wasn’t a bad finish. We started this season as a first time team with first time club players and a first time club coach. The players learned to trust each other, work together and cooperate as a team. In the end we forgot some of the lessons we had learned but we competed in a tournament with Starlings team from all over the country and finished in a tie for 5th place out of 36 teams.

There's a Starling In My Tree

My dear wife ran out this evening to pick our son up from his Boy Scout Meeting. They arrived home around 8:40 and closed the garage door and turned off the exterior lights.

Then about 30 minutes later my dear wife is filling the coffee maker for the morning and she glances out the window and notices something white fluttering in the breeze in the front yard. She looks closer out the window and announces "In the 30 minutes since I got home, someone TPed our house."

So I hauled my tired old carcass out of the chair and wandered over to look out the window. While I was looking out the window, my dear wife had walked over and opened the front door. Sure enough, I looked out the window and there was toilet paper fluttering all around the trees and shrubs in the front yard. As I turned to walk toward the door my wife stepped away from the door and whispered, I think there is still someone out there.

So I grabbed a weapon to defend myself with - my camera, and headed out the door. As I walked down the sidewalk I saw a familiar looking shape scamper around and hide behind the neighbors car. Then I heard the familiar sound of a bird in my tree. Peering closely up into the wind blown branches I discovered a rare sight, there was a Starling was in my tree.



As I snapped this picture the Starling in my tree serenaded me with it's famous call of "Hi Coach!"

Glancing around the yard I quickly found several other Starlings doing what Starling do best - having fun.





Eventually I managed to get a picture of the whole flock together as they plotted their next caper. But then just as fast as they gathered together the whole flock scattered back around my yard.



As the flock of Starlings fluttered around my yard I managed to snap a few more pictures of their handiwork. For a brief moment the adult homeowner in me started thinking about all the cleaning I was going to have to do in the morning. But it is hard to be irritated with Starlings who are leaving "We love you Coach" signs scattered all over your property.





These Starlings, even though they were up to mischief, were being smart. They had left my new car alone. But that all changed when they asked if they could paint the windows on my new car and for some weird unknown reason I told them yes. I'm glad I did because the windshield ended up with this:



If you are not fluent in reading windshield it says:

Starlings Rock, and sometimes we shoulder roll

That's my Starlings, and I wouldn't trade them for all the TP in my trees, the plastic forks and spoons in my grass and the window paint on my glass.

Thank you ladies. I hope you all had fun.

I did.

FIRE! Again....

It is summer in California which means that it is fire season in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This is the first one we have seen so far this year. The smoke looks like it is coming from deep in the mountains well off to the NNW of us.





I just can't help but ask "Who is going to have to pay for the carbon offsets to pay for all the global warming that this is going to cause?

Also I don't like the fact that the smoke seems to be drifting our direction. My sinuses really are not looking forward to a valley full of smoke and particulate matter.

Getting Back to the Course

I haven't been golfing much lately. I was starting to spend a lot of my time on the golf course last year. I was making a point to get out to the range or the practice green at least two or three times a week. I was getting in at least one full round of golf every two weeks. I was starting to really see some substantial improvement in my game. Sure I was still a 20+ handicap. But I was a low 20s instead of a high 20s.

Then volleyball happened.

Normally the middle school volleyball season would cut into my golfing game and practice a bit, but I still had my weekends free to spend some time at the course. But this year I progressed straight from middle school volleyball to club volleyball. The mai difference was the time involved. Between my daughter's club team that I had to be involved with as a parent and my Starlings Club team where I was the director and coach I was busy every weekend and at least 2-4 weeknights a week. Since volleyball was taking up so much of my time, something else had to give, and that was golf.

(And for the few regular readers that I had here, you will also note that my blogging took a big hit also.)

Now, I do not in any way saying that I regret the time I spend on volleyball the last 8 months. I loved every minute of it. I actually had this week off because it was the end of the school year and I really missed my team. I'm not sure what I am going to do in two more weeks when our season ends for good. I guess I will have to spend some time writing, some time golfing, and some time catching up on my honey-do list.

This morning I ran across an article that has kind of rekindled my desire to get back onto the golf course. A study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet reports:

The death rate amongst golfers is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the population, which equates to an increased life expectancy of five years.

So I guess I have to get back out on the golf course again. At least until the next volleyball season starts. Then my priorities are going to shift again. But this year I may try and make the effort to get in an occasional round of golf during the volleyball season.

Oh, I may try and be a little more consistent writing here also.

I want a gun...

I was sitting at lunch with several friends today and somehow we got onto the topic of boys wanting BB guns. I related my story where my parents would not let me have a BB gun but they bought me a 22 rifle for my 12th birthday. I still wanted a BB gun but the answer was always no. Then they bought me a Winchester 30-30 for my 16th birthday, but still would not let me have a BB gun. Years later when my Dad suddenly realized that they had never let me have a BB gun he got me one for my 35th birthday. No, I didn't shoot my eye out with it.

Suddenly one of my friends said "I want to buy a gun, so that when the government comes to take it away I can tell them NO!"

Starlings Regionals Tournament

The Ridgecrest Starlings Volleyball Club U14 team completed the Southern California Volleyball Association tournament season last weekend by participating in the SCVA U 14s Regionals Tournament.

The Starlings were seeded 32nd out of 32 teams in the Brass Region. On Saturday the Starlings began their weekend playing on Court A1 at the American Sports Center in Anaheim, CA. During team warm-ups the Ridgecrest Starlings managed to sprain an offhand finger on one of their outside hitters, sprain the right shoulder of a defensive specialist, and one of their starting setters took a solid spike to the face just two minutes before the first match started.

The Ridgecrest Starlings were in a pool with the 1st seed team from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club, the 16th seed team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club and the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club from the San Fernando Valley.

Reeling from the sudden onslaught of injuries the Starlings set out to do something they had not needed to do all season – play hurt. In their opening match against the San Gabriel Volleyball Club the Starlings put on an almost flawless team serving performance, with four members of the team delivering serving streaks of six or more serves. Strong performances by defensive specialists Jazmine Stenger-Smith and Brooke Nelepovitz led their team to a first match victory, 25-14 and 25-14. Nelepovitz valiantly tried to end the second game from the serving line with six consecutive serves that included 3 aces before her injured shoulder gave out and ended her serving opportunities for the weekend.

Next up was the 1st seed in the region from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club. Maggie Champeny led the charge in this match with over 12 serves and a solid spiking performance proving to her teammates that her injured finger was not going to slow her down that weekend. Unfortunately the Starlings came up short in this match 21-25 and 22-25.

The last match of the day was against the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club in the San Fernando Valley, which having already beaten both the other teams in this pool was looking ahead to an easy first place finish. The Ridgecrest Starlings rallied behind their team Captains Sammi Anderson and Alyssa Ochoa who combined for an impressive 25 serves. Stifling blocks by Miss Ochoa, Laura Metcalf and Ashley Sherrick drove the Starlings to a loud and exciting 25-19 and 25-20 victory.

The Starlings ended their first day in a three way tie, at 2-1, for first in their pool with the Moreno Valley and SHS teams. The first tie breaker was game record which eliminated the Moreno Valley Team. The Starlings won the second tie breaker over SHS to take the day, and retire to a family BBQ at their motel to celebrate their upset filled day.

Day two of the tournament had the Starlings playing at CSU Dominguez Hills as the new number one seed against another team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club, a team from the Rancho Santa Margarita Volleyball Club and a team from the Bakersfield Club Jamba team.

Again the Starlings started the day by playing strong against another San Gabriel Volleyball Club team. Highlighting the first game was the serving of Rebecca Dwyer and Ashley Sherrick leading their team to another 25-14 victory. The serving duties in the second game were picked up by Laura Metcalf and Maggie Champeny. While Ashley Sherrick added seven kills for a 25-15 win.

The second match of the day was against the Bakersfield Club Jamba team. This match was the first real let down for the Starlings. They struggled to a 20-25 loss in the first game and completely lost track of themselves in the second game to lose it 9-25.

After a two match break the Starlings were back on the court against the Rancho Santa Margarita team. Powerful serving by Anderson, Metcalf and Champeny and strong front row play from Sherrick and Champeny led the Starlings to 25-15 and 25-20 win.

For the second time in two days the Ridgecrest Starlings found themselves in a three way tie for first at 2-1. However this time the tie-breakers did not go their way and they had to settle for a second place finish. But that was good enough to put the Starlings in the upper bracket of the region’s tournament quarter-finals.

In the afternoon’s quarter-finals bracket the Starlings faced a tall, strong team from the Temecula Volleyball Club in a one game to 25 single elimination match. The Starlings stayed with the Temecula team until the game was tied 9-9 but asking for a fifth upset victory in two days was apparently too much and Temecula slowly pulled away from the Starlings to win the game 25-18.

The Ridgecrest Starlings started the weekend ranked 32 out of 32 teams and returned home to Ridgecrest Sunday evening tied for 5th place in the region. By any standards this weekend’s volleyball tournament was a resounding success for this young team.

This tournament marked the end of the SCVA season. But the Ridgecrest Starlings aren’t finished yet. They have finals, the end of the school year, middle school promotions, the start of summer and only three more weeks to get ready for the Starlings National Championship in San Diego. In a four day event starting on June 19th the Ridgecrest Starlings will compete against some of the best Starlings U14 teams from all over the United States.

Mandatory No. 5

Sorry for not getting this posted earlier. I had to get things prepared for Sports Night at St. Ann School.

Mandatory No. 5 found our Starlings back in Division 12. we had briefly played in division 12 back in Mandatory No. 2. The results then were not pretty. After finishing first in Mandatory 4 we were elevated again to Division 12. I was looking forward to this opportunity. We are a much better team now than we were back in March. However, the teams that are in Division 12 now, were also much better teams than they were a couple months ago.

We played at Gahr High School in Cerritos, CA. Gahr High School is right at the intersection of the 605 and 91 freeways. So we had a ways to travel to get there on Saturday morning. Fortunately we were the number four seed in our pool, so we didn’t have to play or officiate the first match. We arrived at the gym around 8 AM. This means that I missed the coaches meeting so I didn’t get to be lectured for the 8th time this season about not letting my team trash the gym, climb on things that are not meant to be climbed on, or take too long on the court. Remember folks we are there to play volleyball and we are there to play it quickly.

Our first match of the day was against the Cal Jrs 14-C team. This team eventually won our pool. They were a good eye-opening experience for my players. This was really the first team we have ever faced that served like a volleyball game is supposed to be served. Of the 9 players on their roster, six of them could fire hard, serves that cleared the net by only inches. They could also hit those serves where ever they wanted them to go. Their coach watched our team during warm-ups and for the first few minutes of play then she started directing her servers where to serve. They immediately targeted both of the younger players that I had playing in the back row. As a result, my two younger players spent most of this match getting creamed by hard serves.

Of course I had options to try and stop this. I could have called time outs to try and ice the server. But in my experience that seldom works if the server is truly good at what she is doing. Icing a server only works with a weaker server who suddenly finds themselves on a hot streak. Usually taking a time out during a hard service run is done more to allow the receiving team a few moments to collect themselves and to get ready to play again. I also could have subbed those players out of the game. But all that would accomplish is to teach them that I don’t have any faith in their ability to handle a tough situation.

So I kept a close watch on my young players and let them get pounded, as long as they didn’t start losing faith in themselves. Four times on that Saturday I watch these two young players get repeatedly hit with rocket serves and after four or five shanked receive attempts I would finally start to see their shoulders droop or their faces start looking at the floor. Each time I would give them one more receive then I was going to call for a sub and get them out of there before they completely lost faith in themselves. Every time I decided that it was time to pull that struggling player they would manage to pop one of those hard serves back into the air and suddenly we were playing volleyball again.

Yes, we had a hard time handling our opponent’s serves. And yes, we didn’t dominate our opponents with our serves the way we had done in some previous matches. But once the ball was received and in play, we were every bit as good or better team than our opponents were. Our defense was as good as our opponents and our hitting and blocking was better than any of the three teams we faced that day. In all three matches we played, by the middle of the first game our opponents were not hitting, and not blocking and any aggressiveness at the net that they may have shown early in the match was non-existent by the end of the match.

We lost our first match to the Cal Jrs. 18-25 and 15-25. Which isn’t bad playing against a team that had recorded four consecutive division 12, 2nd place finishes in the first four mandatory tournaments. Especially considering that our serves were not working and we were really struggling on serve receives.

Our second match was against a team from the Impact Volleyball Club. This team was having a rough year. They started in Division 8 for Mandatory 1. After 4 straight 4th place finishes they were finally down to division 12. But this does not mean that this was a bad team. They were good enough to have won at least one match in division 8, 10 and 11 on their way to division 12. Again we were facing a team that served a lot better than we were receiving. Again, we were facing a team that was targeting those serves at our younger players.

We managed to get a few more of those hard serves into the air where our offense could go to work. As a team we only committed three service errors and our hitting kept the game close. We were down 23-24 when Sammi crushed a spike right at the back line of their court. Everyone on the court looked at the linesman who was very obviously not paying attention to the game. This clueless 14 year old waffled back and forth between signaling in or out for a few seconds. Then she looked at our opponents and noticed all of them signaling out. So she joined in and signaled out. The referee who’s line of sight was blocked on the play went along with his linesman call. Game over 23-25. After the match three different people who were paying attention told me that the spike was in by at least 6 inches. Oh well. We had given up 24 other points in that game to get us into that situation. But I am getting really tired of coaches who will send players out onto a court to call lines or keep score without making sure that first) their players know what they are doing, and secondly) who will not stick around and keep an eye on their players to make sure they are paying attention.

This close loss seemed to encourage our opponents a bit. They played better in the second game. They definitely served a lot better. I think they realized that their hard serves were their best offensive weapon to use against us. Eventually they won that game 17-25.

Our third match was against the No. 3 seed in our pool, a team from the Stealth Volleyball Club. This team had played the last two tournaments in division 12 after starting the season in division 10. So again they had a lot of experience playing against higher division teams. The only difference was that while they also had great servers, they had the same difficulties receiving hard serves as we did.

During the two games we played against them we had 5 different servers with service runs of more than 5 serves in a row. Once our Starlings figured out that they could match this team serve for serve they got a rush that really pumped up our hitting game. We won both of these games 25-15 and 25-17.

The most entertaining part of this match was watching the referee unload on the Cal Jrs. Coach because of the lousy job her team was doing of keeping score accurately and for missing very obvious line calls. If only he had cracked down earlier in the match a couple of the close games that had been played (with and without us being involved) would have turned out differently. We were not the only team that day to suffer from missed calls by linesmen who were not paying attention.

The final match of the day we had to call lines and score keep for the Cal Jr. vs Impact match. I was very pleased with the job my players did that match. Afterwards the referee congratulated our team on their diligence and attention. He told the team “If more 14s teams would take their officiating responsibilities as seriously as you do, my job would be much easier.” I was also thanked by two other sets of parents from other teams for having players who obviously knew what they were doing and paid attention the entire match. I was very proud of our players.

In the end we were 1-2 in matches, and finished in 3rd place. This was a great 3rd place finish. We faced a couple very good teams who were very good at exploiting our weaknesses. We managed stay in division 12 and in the process prove that we do belong there.

The best compliment I received at the end of the day came from a couple parents from the Stealth team. They loved the way our entire team stayed positive, upbeat and focused during the both the matches we were losing and the match we won.

The Creation of Wyoming:

I got this is an e-mail from my niece...


Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days.

Eventually, Michael the Archangel found Him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, 'Where have You been?'

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, 'Look Michael, look what I've made!'

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, 'What is it?'

'It's a planet,' replied God, and I've put life on it. I'm going to call it Earth, and it's going to be a great place of balance.'

'Balance?' inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth. 'For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. And over there I've placed a continent of white people, while over here is a continent of black people.' God continued, pointing to different countries. 'This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.'

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large land mass and said, 'What's that one?' 'Ah,' said God. 'That's Wyoming, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful lakes, rivers, sunrises, sunsets, rolling hills, high mountains with snow covered peaks, open prairie, geysers, hot springs, water falls, monumental rock formations, abundant wildlife, excellent fly-fishing streams, pure white snow in the winter, white fluffy clouds, blue skies year-round, and a place where a person can see millions of stars in the sky at night.'

God continued,

The people from Wyoming are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace.'

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, 'What about balance, God? You said there would be balance!'

God replied wisely, 'Wait until you see the idiots I'm putting around them in Nebraska, Colorado, South Dakota, Utah, and Montana.'

Indiana Jones Preview

I finally saw a preview of the new Indiana Jones Movie that premiers later this month.

I'm ready to go now....

I haven't been all too thrilled with most of what Hollywood turns out these days. In fact I refuse to go see about 99 percent of it. But I have always loved the Indiana Jones movies, all of them. Even Temple of Doom.

But what I'm looking forward to the most about the new movie? Karen Allen is back as Marion Ravenwood.

I loved her in Raiders and was very disappointed that she wasn't in the second and third ones. It was good to see her back with Indy again. Sure she is almost 57 years old now, but she is a good looking 57 from what I saw. Maybe it's the freckles, I've always liked girls with freckles. Good thing my dear wife has them, huh?

Robot Test

It is amazing some of the things I can find to do to waste time when I am supposed to be doing something useful, like sleeping.


Created by OnePlusYou

Mandatory 4

When the schedule came out for Mandatory 4 we were scheduled to play at Citrus College. This was a wonderful location for us. It is one of the closest to home locations that we could draw, and the start time was delayed until 9 AM. Which meant that we would not have to leave town until around 6 AM which is much better than our usual 4-5 AM departure times. But the day after the schedule came out it changed. Suddenly we were scheduled to play at TBD. Man, I really hate playing at TBD, the facilities there are really bad.

Finally on Friday, a third schedule was released and we were scheduled to play at the Home Depot Center in Carson CA at 8 AM. So we were back to a 4:45 departure time in order to get there in time.

We were the number two team in the pool which meant that we didn't play until the second match, but we had to officiate the first match, so at least five of our players had to be at the Home Depot Center by 8 AM.

For those of you who have never played volleyball at the Home Depot Center it is a really unique environment to play in. The Home Depot Center is also known as the Los Angeles Velodrome. The Velodrome is a large indoor wooden bicycle race track. The infield of the track is a large enough space that they can set up 5 volleyball courts in it. Last year the U16s team my daughter was on played a tournament in the Velodrome. I hated it. The parents have to stay off the court. So they sit outside the bicycle track and watch the volleyball games from over 100 feet away. Between the spectators and the courts is a large black net that keeps the balls from flying out onto the bicycle track. However, this year being down on the court as a coach I didn't mind the place so much. There is plenty of room around the courts, it's actually kind of quiet down there. And the roof is really high, there are no overhead obstructions to get in the way. This however did bother a few of our players. They felt like they were playing in a really large fishbowl. Which is actually pretty fitting. The hitters and setters took a little time to adjust to the fact that the roof was so far away.

Our pool for the tournament consisted of teams from Bakersfield, Victorville and Pasadena. So the Arroyo team from Pasadena was the only team that didn't have to deal with a long drive that morning.

In our first match against the Arroyo Volleyball Club Team from Pasadena. Our Starlings started out a little slow, but quickly got organized and got used to the size of the venue we were playing in. They won that first match in two games - (25-18 and 25-15). Following that match we had our only break of the day. Then it was back on the court for a match against the Bakersfield Volleyball Club. The match my players looked a little more like the team I was used to seeing. Which is not a good thing. After winning the first game 25-19 the girls slacked off a little and tried to take it easy for the second game. This led to a 19-25 loss in the second game, and for the first time this season actually started a little bit of barking and snapping at each other on the court. Fortunately they were able to get things together for the third game. We played pretty even until the side change then my front row took over the game and we ran away with a 15-11 victory.

Following that match was our second officiating duty of the day, then our last match.

The final match of the pool was the 2-0, number one seed team from the White Lightening Volleyball Club in Victorville CA against our also 2-0 Ridgecrest Starlings. The way the other matches had worked out this match was for first place. The loser was going to finish in second. Our servers came out of the shoot hot in this match and when we really started spiking the game ended quickly - 25-16. Unfortunately that quick easy win led my still young and relatively inexperienced players to think that they second game would be just as easy. It wasn't. In a back and forth game where our opponents pretty much abandoned their attacking offense in favor of playing defense to counter our attackers both teams stayed close most of the game. Eventually we gained a small lead and held on for a 25-22 victory.

This left us in 1st place and will move us up to division 12 in two weeks. I hope my girls are ready for that. So far this season the only tournament that was not a first or second place finish for us was Mandatory 2, the one and only time we played in division 12.

Highlights for the day were Alyssa serving 36 times with zero errors and Ashley recording 13 aces in just 30 serves. Oh, and the ice cream I had to buy, because they finished first place again. Yeah, I know I guy who is supposed to be teaching them about healthy lifestyle choices buying them ice creams seems a little contradictory. But what the heck, it they keep winning, I'll keep buying ice cream.