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.

What Language?

This site seems to think that I am:

Older Futhark

Language of the Norse, Older Futhark! Thirty symbols, all told. And no hardier, more warrior-like tongue has ever graced the longships of the Viki or left the Celts and Saxons in such quivering fear. There's only one drawback, that being you died 800 years ago.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test

Being of Norwegian decent I kind of like that answer. Also these days I feel like I am pushing around 800 years old. Unfortunately I don't speak or read Older Futhark.
I can fake my way through some simple Norwegian genealogy documents but that is about it. I guess I should start studying a bit more. I just don't know when to do it. with all my other hobbies I barely have enough time to slop out a blog entry every couple weeks.

I hope to get back to writing more often in June with the Club volleyball season ends. Until then I have a job, a family and 10 young volleyball players who are taking up most of my time. Oh, I also try and sleep a little each day also.

Picnic with the Navy

One thing you have to worry about when playing volleyball in the park on a Navy base, is the low flying aircraft.



The best think about playing volleyball in the park on a Navy base is that you never know what is going drive by while you are there.

Mandatory No. 3

At our first tournament of the season I gathered all my players and their parents together and tried to explain to them that when dealing with the SCVA and club volleyball they have to be ready to be flexible and just go with the flow of any changes that happen at tournaments. Just as I finished my little speech one of our parents walked around the corner and announced “They just moved us from court C2 to D3.” Thereby, perfectly emphasizing my point.

Sunday we got to test our ability to relax, go with the flow and be flexible.

Mandatory 3 - 8:00 AM - Fullerton College. Or so we thought.

Since we had an 8 AM start time, and we were the number one seed in our pool, so we had to play at 8:00 we left town at 4:30 AM. This allowed us time to make a quick stop for coffee around 6 AM in Adelanto and still get to Fullerton College right around 7:30. Unfortunately none of us had ever been to Fullerton College before so we were not sure where to park. As a result the four cars we took ended up in four different parking lots. But eventually we all met together outside the gym.

Inside the gym, posted on the wall were the pool play sheets telling us who our opponents were and what court we would be playing on. Next to these sheets was a map showing the layout of the six courts that the 24 teams who were there would be playing on. There was also two gymnasiums that each looked big enough to hold 3 courts each. Standing around were a lot of coaches, a lot of players, and a lot of parents. The only things missing were: Standards, nets, officials, a facility coordinator and, lets see, one other thing…. Oh yeah, my bag of volleyballs.

While no one who was at Fullerton College had any idea where the standards, nets, officials and facility coordinator were at, I knew exactly where my bag of volleyballs was at. It was in the back of my car - in Ridgecrest.

Normally I would have been a little stressed out and embarrassed about forgetting our volleyballs. But since it didn’t look like were had courts to play on anyway I wasn’t too concerned - yet.

While several of us coaches wandered around trying to figure out what we were going to do, a lady named Rose, who I met last year when she was coaching a 16s team, and who had a 14s team this year stepped up and took charge. She started ordering all us coaches to find the standards and nets and get them set up while she started making phone calls.

After a bit we found the nets and standards for one gym. The equipment for the other gym was locked away somewhere. Unfortunately the nets and standards that we found for the one gym were not complete. We did not have a crank for winches on the standards. So I borrowed a volleyball from Rose so my players could start warming up. Then several fathers and I started trying to figure out how to get the nets set up.

Eventually, around 8:20 AM someone from the SCVA showed up and told two of the pools of players that they were supposed to report to the American Sports Center as soon as possible to play there. The rest of us were expected to be there at 1 PM that afternoon. Rose, bless her heart, immediately objected that the pool my team was in should be sent to the American Sports Center immediately because of the distance we had traveled and that she felt it was unfair that we should be kept waiting another 5 or more hours to play when we had already been going for the last 4 hours. The SCVA representative was unswayed. I added that one of the other teams in our pool was from Victorville and had traveled at lest an hour to get there also. Again he was unswayed. So eight of the teams immediately headed for the American Sports Center while the rest of us gathered together to figure out our next move. Since we now had several hours to wait to play volleyball.

Our team parents immediately all voted for breakfast. Since we were all parked in different places we decided to all meet at a Subway parking lot across the street from the College. Once there, we discovered that most of us had little idea what was available in that area. I knew that there were several restaurants on Harbor Blvd. So we loaded up the four cars and decided to head down Harbor Blvd. The lead car, when they saw a restaurant they liked, would pull in and the rest of us would follow them.

Thirty minutes later we were all sitting around tables in the sidewalk patio area of the IHop right outside of Downtown Disney. During breakfast, several of our players were talking about going shopping until our game time that afternoon. But many of the parents, who had been driving at 4:30 AM while everyone else slept were tired and had no desire to shop. While watching our players I noticed that several of them seemed nervous and edgy. So I called my cousin who lived just down the road a bit in Cypress and explained our situation. My cousin and his dear wife decided to hop on their white horses and come riding to our rescue. They invited all 20 of us to come over to their house to hang out for a while.

As we invaded my cousin’s house and back yard the players mostly settled into the game room where some of them were playing Guitar Hero. A couple of others were learning to shoot pool and the rest just sat around and kibitzed what the others were doing. Most of our parents found some space on the couch, in a lawn chair on the patio or crashed across the foot of guest bed for a quick nap.

The decision to invade my relatives castle turned out to be a good one. Our players when we left were much more relaxed and ready to deal with playing some volleyball. Sure they were a little tired, but at least they were calmer and ready to play. Unfortunately when we got to the American Sports Center we had to wait almost 90 minutes before we could get onto a court. Which was just enough time for the girls to hang around passing a volleyball in the parking long enough to get tired and impatient.

Finally we got onto a court and discovered that the one team in our pool that was from Victorville had decided to just go home instead of showing up for the matches. I guess they didn’t have relatives in Cypress who would welcome a volleyball player invasion.

The SCVA says that if we get into a 3 team pool we have to option to play three games to 25 against each team instead of the normal best 2 of 3. the other coaches and I all agreed that we had all been through a long enough day that we were good with just two - best two of three matches.

Our starlings team started off quickly but soon slowed and allowed our opponents to catch back up. We ended up losing the first match 25-27 and 24-26. They were close games that we should have taken but the grind of the day was finally catching up with our girls. Our second match was against the team that had allowed us to borrow their practice balls for our warm-ups before both matches. So I felt a little bad beating them, but not bad enough to not enjoy the victory. Our team was kind of flat for the first game and lost it 17-25. But for the second game our opponents relaxed a little, and I think that relaxing led them quickly into a crash after the long day. Meanwhile our Starlings got their second wind and started to play some volleyball. We won the second game 25-21, then carried that momentum into the third and deciding game where we ran up a quick 8-3 lead. After changing sides of the court, we also slowed down a little but managed to hold for a 15-10 victory. This gave us a second place finish for the day.

But our adventures didn’t end there. On the way home one player and a parent who were traveling in different vehicles started getting sick and had to stop several time to leave their lunch/dinner/breakfast in the California ditches.

I just want to take a moment here to brag about my player’s parents. When they could have gotten angry and started complaining they didn’t instead the helped set up nets. They kept their daughter’s upbeat and focused on why were there. They just waited for me to tell them what was going to happen. When we had to make changes they simply packed up our stuff and players and moved to wherever we had to be. I have heard a lot of coaches and directors complain about the parents they have to deal with. I am pleased to say, I have no idea what these coaches go through. I have great players who in turn have great parents.

An Absolut World?

This billboard and press campaign from Swedish vodka maker, Absolut, started running in Mexico last week.



Personally I have to wonder, does Absolut really sell enough vodka in Mexico to make it worth losing a large chuck of their customers in the United States? I'm sure that there will be a lot of people in the United States who will not find this ad offensive. But they will most likely be illegal immigrants or some left wing looney tunes who love to hate this country that gives them the freedom to be so irrational.

In response to a storm of complaints to the corporate offices Absolut left this statement on their consumer inquiry phone line.

“In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,”

Which sounds to me like they are simply saying "Don't believe your eyes, don't take our ad at face value, just ignore what we said and believe what we tell you now."

Apparently the phone message didn't get people to stop complaining. So yesterday Absolut posted this on their website:

During the weekend we have received several comments on the ad published in Mexico. We acknowledge the reactions and debate and want to apologize for the concerns this ad caused. We are truly sorry and understand that the ad has offended several persons. This was not our intention. The ad has been withdrawn as of Friday April 4th and will not be used in the future.

In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues.

To ensure that we avoid future similar mistakes, we are adjusting our internal advertising approval process for ads that are developed in local markets.

This is a genuine and sincere apology,

By Paula Eriksson, VP Corporate Communications, V&S Absolut Spirits

Again this boils down to "Oh crap, we were really stupid because we forgot all about the internet and didn't think you ignorant Americans would ever find out what we were saying about you in Mexico in order to sell our cheap firewater."

I think that Absolut's next advertizing should be back home in Sweden and should look like this:



Well I am not a vodka drinker. But if I decide to take it up I will certainly not be drinking Absolut. However, Absolut vodka was puchased by the French company Pernod Ricard in March. I don't know if this marketing champaign was started before or after the sale of Absolut but if you are a boycotting type of person you might want to check out the list of other products that Pernod Richard owns here.

Spring Volleyball

Today was the first day of Spring break for most of the students here in Ridgecrest. At least that is what the pubic schools call it. The private schools gave the students the day off for Good Friday. Regardless, the students had the day off and so did I, so we played volleyball.

We were originally scheduled to have practice tonight from 6PM to 8PM. But several of the girls wanted to go to the movies tonight, so I moved practice to 10:30 this morning. We also moved the venue from the indoor gym to the park.



This is one of the few things I like about living here in the desert. It is March 21st. The second day of spring. In certain parts of the United States they are shoveling snow, suffering floods, and just dealing with the wrap up of a long cold winter. Here in Ridgecrest we are playing volleyball in the park, in shorts and tee shirts.



I made the girls run one lap of the park at the beginning of the practice so that we could call it a practice. After that I tried to get out of the way and just let them play volleyball. They played 2 on 2, 3 on 3 and some 4 on 5. I stepped in to even out the sides for a while but was saved when one of the younger girl's older sister showed up and took my place.

It was a beautiful day, warm, no wind and everyone had fun. We all decided we have to do this again soon on a Saturday and make it a family event. Parents, siblings, BBQ, and volleyball. Sounds like fun.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke passed away early this morning. While I rarely listed him on my list of top 5 authors. He was always on my top 10.

I was required to read Childhood's End when I was in high school. It was one of the first full length Sci-fi books I ever read. I was disappointed. There were no space battles. I few years later I had to read it again for a class in college. I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around.

I never really cared for 2001 - A Space Odyssey, the book nor the movie. But I loved Rendezvous With Rama and it's sequels.

Many people who have never heard of, or read any of Clarke's books may have heard of him from his three "laws" of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The first law provided sci-fi fans countless of hours of entertainment when Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov would start discussing this theorem. But then anytime those two men were in the same place hilarity ensued.

I respected Arthur C. Clarke for his choice to live the last 58 years of his life in Sri Lanka. He could have been swamped by adoring fans throughout the western world if he chose to. He chose not to. I liked that.

For those of you who may think, "Ok, so he wrote a few sci-fi novels, big deal." Arthur C. Clarke is universally credited with developing the idea of Communication Satellites in the 1940s. So the next time you use your cell phone - Say thanks to Sir Arthur.

Home From San Diego

On Friday night, my oldest daughter and I drove down to San Diego for a volleyball tournament. We stayed at the Doubletree Golf Resort in Poway which seemed like a nice place, but we were not really there long enough to tell. Dinner that night was at a nearby Claim Jumper Restaurant with two other players and their parents and the coach and his Dad. We had a great time and a wonderful meal. I had the prime rib, medium rare. It was a delicious birthday dinner. My daughter ratted me out to the others that it was my 50th birthday. So they had the waitress bring me a slice of grasshopper ice cream pie with a candle in it. I was so full from dinner that I could only eat a couple bites. But the players at the table took care of the rest of it for me.

Our tournament the next day was held at the Epic Volleyball Club which is a fantastic facility. I got a chance to play there at the Starlings Directors meeting back in December so I was glad my daughter got the chance to play there also.

Her team did really well, they won all three matches and only had to play one three game match. Some of the games were close, but unlike other tournaments they managed to stay focused and finish off their opponents. Best of all in every game they played they looked like they were having fun. That was a really pleasant change for this team.

After the match the whole team went back to the Claim Jumper Restaurant where the coach paid off his bet with his players. The evening before he had promised his players that if they won all three matches that day he would bring them back there and buy them one of the giant mondo supersized six layer chocolate cakes that they serve there. The cake was big enough hollow out and sublet to a couple college students. It was delicious.



Everyone there got a half a slice of cake, and most of us took half of it home with us. I think the coach still had enough cake to take home with him that the girls will all be having some tomorrow after practice.

The drive home from San Diego was definitely a contrast in environments. When we were in the restaurant some of the girls were talking about going down to the beach to play some beach volleyball, but when we walked out of the restaurant it was overcast in the direction of the beach and there was a sharp cold wind blowing. So we decided to wimp out and just head for home.

Ten miles up the road we were driving under blue skies



and enjoying all the wild flowers that were growing along the road sides.



For the next 2 hours I drove in scattered rain showers that varied from a light drizzle to a downpour so loud it woke up my daughter.

Then suddenly the rain turned white.



Then everything along side the roads turned white.



Then in just a hour further up the road we were enjoying a wonderful sunset and driving home under a mostly clear night sky.



Without a drop of rain or a flake of snow to be seen.

50

Oh Crap, I just turned 50.

Well other than being a little tired, probably because it is midnight and I am still up, I don't feel that much older.

The only thing about turning 50 that bugs me is that I don't get the food discounts at restaurants until I'm 55. If I have to be over half a century old I should at least get a discount on lunch.

Since my daughter and I have to leave for a volleyball tournament in San Diego tomorrow (I guess it is actually today now) and my wife has to go to Lancaster to bring her mother home from the hospital we won't be able to have a birthday celebration until later. Earlier this evening my dear wife and kids stopped by the end of my volleyball practice with a carrot cake to share with my players. They all sang happy birthday to me. Even though it was a day early it was a good birthday celebration.

Mandatory No. 2

We played in SCVA Mandatory No. 2 on Sunday, March 9, at El Camino College in Torrance CA. We were the number four seed in our pool and therefore didn't have to play in the first match. So we left Ridgecrest at 5 AM that morning. With only one brief stop in Mojave on the way down we arrived at the college just after 7:30. This was a pretty pleasant trip, nice roads, not much traffic and other than some fog once we got into the LA area the weather was clear.

Going into this tournament I had been harping on our players to concentrate on the volleyball games and not spend so much time worrying or wondering about any extra-curricular activities that may have been planned for the day.

Unfortunately they didn't come to this tournament any more focused than before. I don't know if it is just their age, or what, but most of this team still thinks that club volleyball is supposed to be a social event. Meaning that you don't do anything without standing around for a half an hour talking about it first. Prime example was trying to get the girls out side the gym to warm up once we all got there. I called out to them and said "Ladies, lets go" and motioned for them to follow me. Then I walked outside, where I had to wait until they all eventually wandered out the door. Once outside they immediately circled up and started talking again. I got a couple of their attention and motioned for them to keep following me. Then I walked around the corner to the area I had selected for our warm-ups. Then I waited there for a couple minutes with about half the team wondering where the rest of them are. Finally I started the few girls that were there warming up and just added the rest of them into the group as they eventually strolled (while chatting together) over to where we were.

Our first match of the day was against a Bakersfield Club Jamba team. Watching the other teams in our pool warm up and play I had already decided that this was going to be our tough opponent of the day. Then half way through our first game I was starting to re-evaluate my decision. Our Starlings team started that game playing like a team who has finally come to a tournament to win. We were serving well, everyone was moving, and talking. Our passing was spot on and hit were dropping in also. We very quickly ran up a 20-13 lead over this team. Then just as fast as we started in this game, we stopped. We stopped serving, passing, moving, talking and spiking. Suddenly my volleyball team turned into 6 spectators to a very one sided volleyball game. We lost the game 23-25.

For the second game I tried to get my shell shocked team back into focus and playing again. But it was not to be. The second game was a complete repeat of the end of the first game. Except for serving. We did serve well that game. But since we were not rallying the serves didn't do us much good. We lost the second game 12-25.
Our next match was against a Beach Cities Volleyball Club team. We started out slow and static again, but fueled by a couple good service runs we managed to make the game close. Too close. We took a slight lead at 23-22 but then started reverting to our old slow ways. Several of my players seemed to sense that victory was in our grasp and really tried to keep the team moving. But we just couldn't put this team away. Eventually after several lead changes we lost this game 29-31. The longest game this team has played so far in their short history.

My players seemed to take this close loss personally and really roared onto the court in the second game. This game looked a lot like our first game. We started out playing like we were invincible. Then once we got a big lead we slammed on the brakes, stopped moving and let our opponents scramble back into the game. However, unlike the first game, this one we managed to end before our opponents mounted a full comeback. We squeaked out close 25-21 victory for our first win of the day. Unfortunately it was also our last.

The third and deciding game of the match was never close. We changed sides of the court when our opponents were up 8-2, we went on a mini run of points right after the side change, but eventually lost the game and the match 8-15.

After a one match break, we stepped onto the court to play what I thought was the weakest team in our pool. This team, called TCA, had beaten the Beach cities team, but and been manhandled by the Bakersfield team. We spotted them a 7 point lead to start the game, then actually started playing some volleyball. Unfortunately we were playing trade points volleyball. Finally down 19-12, one of my 7th grade players woke up and decided to start playing, from the service line. Using a wonderful mix on top spin and floater serves she fired off seven service aces to tie the game up. But once they finally managed to return one of her serves we were through. We lost the game 22-25.

That loss seemed to just end the day for my players. They stood in the huddle before the next game and were saying all the things you would want to hear them say. Unfortunately it was all just talk. Because once the game started there was only talk, no action. I used one time out early and struggled to find some new words to explain to them that they were not moving at all, and that just standing in place and reaching for balls that came near them was not going to work. But like the rest of the day they were either, not listening, not hearing, or just not caring. The continued to play their own special style of stand around volleyball until the game was over 11-25.

This one game win, 0-3 match record day was the worst day for us as a volleyball team. Unfortunately the blame for today must rest firmly on my shoulders. I obviously have not been getting through to these girls. So I am in the process of revamping my training schedule, and my practice plans. What we are doing is not working, so I have to try and find something that will. I have until 6 PM Tuesday night to do so. Wish me luck....

Now That's Just Wrong

I feel very guilty about just how funny I think this video is.

Hawks and Doves

My dear wife and children always put out birdseed in the winter for their feathered friends that hang around here when the weather gets a little chilly. Mostly we have doves that congregate in the backyard and several little finches that like the thistle seed they leave in the front yard.

The downside of their kindhearted act is that our neighbor's cat which thinks of our backyard as his own personal litterbox and dove buffet occasionally goes after the doves there. The other preditor that seems to like the doves in our backyard is a hawk. Well the entire family pretty much agrees on one thing, we don't mind feeding the hawk, but we want the fleabag cat to stay the heck out of our yard.

This evening just before dinner was ready my oldest daughter was sitting at the computer when something thumped pretty hard into the glass patio window. I looked up to see what my daughter had thrown against the window when a second larger object also hit the window.

The first thump was a dove in full flight. The second thump was the hawk who seemed to have a lot more control than the dove. The dove stunned itself when it hit the glass, the hawk didn't. The result of this daredevil game these birds were playing is right here.



The hawk sat there for a few moments kneeding his dinner with his talons. The dove was still twitching so we think the hawk was finishing off the dove as well as securing his grip.

We were going to watch the feast, but the neighbor's cat decided to get involved. It hopped over the fence and the hawk too off with his dinner. Which was too bad. I can't get close to the stupid cat, so I keep hoping that the hawk will take care of it for me one day. I would love to see this hawk winging his way across the backyard with the cat riding where the dove is in the second picture.

The Dungeon Master Dies

E. Gary Gygax, the man who invented Dungeons and Dragons died yesterday. Rumor his it that he was not eaten by a red dragon.

I started playing D&D back in 1976. The original rules were published in 1974, by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. However my fellow gamers and I didn't waste much time on Gary Gygax's version of D&D. We very quickly bastardized several different gaming systems to make our own version of the D&D which we played all through college. Yes, I was a total geek in college, you didn't think I started acting this way just recently did you?

Once I got out of college I got a chance to try playing regular old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons the way E. Gary Gygax intended it to be played. I hated it. But for three years it was the only game in town because none of the gamers in Amarillo TX were willing to try the system my friends and I had used in college. So for three years I languished in Gygax hell.

When I moved to Ridgecrest I was reunited with one of my old gaming buddies and I immediately joined in the gaming group that he was playing in. Getting back to the good old system from my college days was like a breath of fresh air. Gaming was fun again. Then we discovered a role playing game called Runequest and we never looked back. We played role playing games every Friday night for anywhere from 5 to 10 hours.

During the 18 year period from 1976 to 1994 I suspect the only thing I spent more time on than playing role playing games was work, but only because I had to do it 8 to 9 hours a day.

In the early 90s things started changing around here. Many members of our gaming group moved away. We tried bring guys into replace them but they were too Advanced Dungeons and Dragons oriented. In order to play Runequest, or our old made up version of D&D you had to be willing to role play and to think. You couldn't solve every problem by killing everything that moved. After several years of struggling with Gygaxian gamers who were only interested in playing AD&D I finally gave up and quit the group.

This was a total cold turkey split for me. No 12 steps, no patches, no programs. I went home filled three boxes with every piece of role playing paper or information I owned and shoved them into the corner of the attic, where they languish to this day.

I should dig some of that stuff out some day. I may have a few books in there that could have some resale value. In the late 80s my gaming group and I went to the Origins Gaming Convention in Los Angeles. On a total lark, we all entered the AD&D tournament they were having. I decided to not take the game very seriously and was just trying to entertain the the other players at the table. I think I succeeded marvelously. By the time the tournament ended I had most of the onlookers giggling and muttering "I can't believe he said, or did that." Without even trying I finished up the tournament in second place. Later I was wondering around in the market room trying to figure out what to spend my winnings on when E. Gary Gygax put in an appearance. Immediately all my friends started insisting that I use my winnings to buy the latest AD&D book that had been released and then get E. Gary Gygax to autograph it.

I have never been a big fan of stars. I'm not a autograph seeker. In my lifetime I only ever collected a few autographs. I met Rory Calhoun in a restaurant in Rapid City when I was a kid. I got to meet George McGovern when he was running for president. I got to say Hi to Ken Curtis one year at Frontier Days in Cheyenne. I have a baseball signed by the Oakland A's team including Vita Blue, J Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson. The only autograph I have that I really enjoy having is a hand written note and a signed copy of Chicago's Night and Day album, signed by Jason Scheff, the base player.

But in most instances I found that meeting some famous person to be kind of a letdown. They never seemed to live up to everyone else's expectations. E. Gary Gygax was no exception. I picked up my book and my friends shoved me over next to him where he was having his picture taken with one of the Convention organizers. As I held out the book, he glanced at me and snapped "I don't have time for autograghs." So I used that opportunity to try and escape what I found to be a very uncomfortable situation. But before I could shoulder my way through the crowd the convention organizer grabbed my arm and told Gygax, "Gary, you will love this guy, he placed second in the AD&D tournament and had everyone in stitches in the process."

E. Gary Gygax gave me a bit of a fish-eye stare, then snatched the book out of my hand, scribbled his name inside the cover and handed it back to me with a muttered "nice job kid." Then he walked away, taking the enormous crowd of admirers with him.

I went home, tossed the book on a shelf when it sat untouched until it ended up in a box in the attic with the rest of my role playing stuff. I don't even remember what book it was. I only knew it was a hardback AD&D book that I was never going to use to play games.

In the end I should say something nice about the recently deceased Mr. Gygax. I didn't like his game and I didn't like him. But he did create a game that got me and my friends started on a hobby that caused us to waste 1000s of hours over the years. Certainly I could have used that time to do more constructive things. But what the heck, I had fun. Sure it was geek fun, but even geeks are allowed to have fun occasionally, aren't they?

Survival

A couple more tests to check my ability to survive in situations that may happen any day now. Good thing I am prepared.

78%

This information won't do you any good however, because when the zombies attack if you show up on my front door looking for help I will assume you are just one of the I-wanna-eat-your-brains crowd.

80%

I have a nit to pick with this test. My answers exactly matched NASA's result except the last three items on the list which NASA thinks are "worthless" or "not needed". So I my score was down graded because I couldn't figure out which of the useless items I needed the least. But then again this is NASA, the same people that have not been able to get us out of low earth orbit for the last 25 years.

Should I be worried that I am apparently better informed on how to survive on the moon than in my own backyard. However, if the zombies attack on the moon, I'm all over that.

Booze Exam

I don't know whether to be impressed or depressed with the results of this test.

98%ALCOHOLIC

As a guy who doesn't drink much nor often, and doesn't drink exotic stuff I did quite well on this test. I have never tried over two-thirds of the alcohols in this test,so the results may be just be the result of a mind full of useless information that I will never be able to use to earn a living. The information certainly didn't come from personal experience.

Flu

I have managed to avoid catching the flu, that everyone around me seems to be sharing - until now. Monday afternoon I started feeling a little out of sorts. I had a tickle in my throat and my chest felt a little congested. By the time I went to bed Monday night I was running a low grade fever.

My fever broke around 8 Am Tuesday morning. Then came back again by mid afternoon. Last night when I went to bed it was 102.5. This morning it was only 100.2. Around 11 this morning my fever broke again, then it was back around 2PM, and gone again by 4PM. It is just a little past 5 now and I'm starting to feel chilled again. Oh boy...

I have sick leave to stay home and I am doing that. I have someone lined up to handle my volleyball team practices for the week. But I really hope I get over this before the weekend. My 14s volleyball team is scheduled to play in San Diego on Saturday. The thought of sending my girls off to play without me is just killing me. I know that my girls will be fine without me, their parents will be there, and once the games start my team is pretty self sufficient. I just need someone to keep track of the pace of the game and to call a time out if they get into trouble. But I like to fool myself into thinking that they need me there, even if they don't.

Naval Bullseye

Yesterday the Guided Missile Cruiser, USS Lake Erie, launched a STANDARD Missile 3 at a failed spy satellite that was falling out of orbit. The Lake Erie scored a direct hit.



I worked on the STANDARD Missile program for over 19 years. I never had the opportunity to work directly on the SM-3 Program. I spent most of my career on the SM-2 precursor. But I loved seeing the old program have this kind of success.

I hear a lot of people complaining about the cost of this exercise, around 30 million dollars. There is also a lot of hand wringing about what the rest of the world is going to think. It seems that a lot of people are worried that the rest of the world is going to see this as a threat. I think that the world would be yelling a lot louder if we let this satellite fall out of the sky and its fuel tank full of hydrazine didn't burn up in the atmosphere.

If the rest of the world takes a close look at this shot and sees that we fired one shot and hit a school bus sized object that was 150 miles away and moving 17,000 mph and decides that maybe they should not try shooting at us then I'm all for this kind of show boating. It doesn't do much good to stand around telling the world that we have missile defense capabilities if we don't have the ability to occasionally step up and prove it.

Gen James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provides further information related to this successful operation in a longer video.



Note this video is about 27 minutes long and may take a while to download.

Las Vegas Invitational

My oldest daughter and I got home from Las Vegas last night around 5:20 PM. We were both tired, and we think she is getting sick.

This morning (I had planned on taking today off work) she is still in bed - sick.

We left for the Las Vegas Invitational Tournament Friday morning around 10 AM. We picked up our three passengers (a parent and two other players). Then we hit the Trona Rd. heading for Las Vegas. Since it was a holiday weekend I had no intention of getting anywhere near I15. The last thing I wanted to deal with this weekend was a highway full of idiots from Los Angeles all trying to get to, or home from, Las Vegas as fast as they could. So we went through Death Valley to get there. The drive wasn't too bad. The road is a little rough in spots, but the lack of traffic sure make up for that. Sure it took a full four hours to get there. But I'll trade that extra 30 minutes on the road for only seeing 50 cars on the highway over a 200 mile stretch any day.

We got to Vegas and got checked into our Casino around 3 PM. We were staying at Arizona Charlies Casino on Decatur Blvd. It is an older place that isn't kid or health friendly. Meaning the entire casino, hotel and restaurants reek of cigarette smoke. Even the non-smoking rooms smell bad. Because even on the floors full of non-smoking rooms, people walk around the hallways smoking. So we took 9 young athletes to a three day volleyball tournament and dumped them into a smoke filled environment surrounded by sex and gambling for the weekend. Next year my daughter and I don't care where the team is staying. We will be booking a room in a motel, not a casino. We were there for the volleyball tournament, not the casino atmosphere. We're not sure why the director was there.

Friday night I was signed up to work the Unsigned Seniors Showcase. This is a two hour volleyball practice where unsigned seniors can show off their talents for all the college recruiters that were there for the tournament. I spend the first half hour serving at girls. This was exhausting. I have served for 10 or 1 minutes at a time, but never for 30 minutes. I did get a chance for a break after 20 minutes, but it only lasted 1 minuted before the coach on the other side of the court needed me to spell him. So it was back to serving again. After serving I had to toss balls to hitter for the next 40 minutes. This wasn't nearly as tiring as the serving. Actually I really had fun. After spending so much time on the court with 14s players, it was really different tossing balls for girls who really know how to hit.

The second session was full of setters. We ran a coach on three drill for about 30 minutes, I started out warming the players up for about 10 minutes, then this (much) younger coach took over and really ran them through their paces while I just shagged and feed balls for her. The second half of that session they moved our setters onto a court with several middles and two other coaches. So the three of us who had been working the setters didn't have much to do. Mostly I spent the last half hour shagging balls, and keeping people from wandering onto the courts. The showcase was fun, and I will probably volunteer to help out again next year. After all, I got a polo shirt and a $10 Subway gift card out of the deal. OK, so the pay wasn't great, but it did give me a chance to maybe help some young player get a chance to play volleyball in college. That made it worth while.

On Saturday we played in the top pool of the tournament at the Cashman Center on Las Vegas Blvd. Our pool consisted of the number one seed team in the tournament, 801 from Utah. Also the numbers 78 and 79 teams from Central Ohio and Colorado Springs, CO. Yes, we were the 156 (last place) seeded team in the tournament. Our team managed to put a scare into the team from Colorado Springs, losing the second game to them 24-26. The rest of the day was pretty much our girls getting whacked. Our second best game of the day was a 16-25 loss to the number one seeded team.

Since we had the afternoon off, and all of Sunday morning off, we took the team to the Tournament of Kings Show at the Excalibur. This dinner show was a lot of fun. It is a lot more theatrical than the Medieval Times dinner show down in La Palma. I prefer the Medieval Times show because there is a lot more horsemanship, combat skills and fighting. This show had a lot of pageantry and showmanship to it. But it was still entertaining. After dinner we decided to walk the strip with the girls for a while. Unfortunately this adventure got a bit out of hand and we ended up walking about a mile farther than most of the girls and parents wanted to walk. So by the time we got the players back to the Casino, they were all exhausted.

The next morning, no one else would get up in the morning with us, so my daughter and I rolled out of bed around 9 AM, we had breakfast at the IHop down the street, then did some shopping. We hit a couple shoe stores, and the Meadows Mall.

That afternoon our team was playing much better. We still didn't win any matches. But we did managed to take the first two teams we played to three games. Our third match was against our old friends from the Tehachapi Starlings team. This team and ours usually match up pretty well. The girls all get along and we have had a friendly rivalry going steadily since the beginning of last year. Unfortunately they were ready for us in that match and we provided them with the only two games, and the one match they won all weekend.

This last place finish in the second day of pool competition put us into flight 5a for the Monday competition. Monday was a single elimination bracket with 6 other teams. Unfortunately we showed up half asleep, with half the team starting to get sick, and we lost our first match of the day - 19-25, 15-25. So we had to hang around and keep score for the next match then we headed for home. We stopped by an A&W for lunch before leaving Las Vegas, again, to travel home through Death Valley. I was only about 10 minutes down the road when all three girls fell asleep. They only woke up as we reached potential bathroom stops when we asked if they needed to stop. They didn't, so we just shot straight on through to home.

By the time I went to bed last night the final results of the tournament were posted online. We started the tournament seeded in last place. We finished the tournament tied for last place with 6 other teams. When all was said and done, we were on of 8 teams in the tournament who did not win any matches. But, of those eight teams at least we were not one of the three who also did not win any games.

I think the tournament was fun. My daughter came home sick, tired and sick and tired of losing. The team had some troubles this tournament, but they also had some bright spots. I just hope that each of them learned something.

Wind Damage

The last few days it has been pretty windy here in the high desert. Yesterday was the worst.

I was on the way out to Inyokern with the kids when we reached a traffic slowdown. The wind had blowen over a power pole right outside of Buttermilk Acres. The pole was leaning at about 45 degrees over both eastbound lanes of Inyokern Road. I don't think it had been down long. There was one electric company truck, and two highway patrol on the scene. They were routing westbound traffic onto the shoulder of the highway to make room for the eastbound traffic that was crossing the median to avoid driving under the leaning pole.



I wasn't able to get my camera out quick enough to take a picture. But when the kids and I came back the road was still blocked and I snapped this one shot from about a hold mile away. So you have to look closely to see the leaning pole.

The detour to get home was a lot different than the detour getting to Inyokern. Both lanes of the highway were closed and most of the traffic was being routed down Jack's Ranch Road to Ward St. This was OK for a while until the traffic reached the quarter mile stretch of Ward street that is a one car wide dirt trail. So there was a lot of cars trying to go two directions on a one lane road and absolutely no traffic control. Fortunately for us we were in the line of cars that was bulling its way through while the line of cars going westbound sat and waited. I don't know how long they had been waiting, or would have to wait. With no control it could have been a long time before the eastbound traffic cleared.

Qualifier Number 3

We played Qualifier No. 3 at the American Sports Center in Anaheim CA at 3:00 PM Saturday. At least that was the plan. We arrived at the ASC around 2:15 and discovered that the morning sessions were still in progress. We couldn’t find an empty court to warm-up on so we took over the hallway in the back of the building near where the basketball standards are stored. It was kind of crowded but it gave the girls a place to pass and set for a while. We were supposed to start at 3 on courts B3 and B4 but at 3:00 the teams on those courts were just starting the second game of their last matches.

Eventually a court opened up over on the D row and hustled the girls over there to start warming up. We were about 10 minutes into a warm up and some guy and a referee come over to me and ask “Ridgecrest Starlings?” When I yes he says “You are up on court C3, right now.” Then the referee looks at me and says “I need your captains.” and walks away.

Well my girls were all on the court with me, but all their bags and my stuff, including lineup sheets in my briefcase were over in the corner with our parents. I sent one of the girls’ friends running to get their parents and our stuff while we moved over to court C3.

When we got there we found out that one of the teams in our foursome hadn’t showed up, but we were continuing on without them. So as our parents settled in to watch my girls got onto the court and ready to play. I was a little apprehensive because of how fast things were happening. I have tried to get my team into a mindset where they can play under any circumstances, even when rushed and hurried. I was very proud that they handled the situation very well.

Our first game was against Revolution 14-1, a team from the Lancaster/Palmdale area. Their coach had approached me earlier and asked if all my players had made it, since he was still waiting for two of his. Apparently they did get there before we were supposed to start playing.

My girls muffed the first couple serves to give the Revolution team a slight lead. But that is it for that game. We rolled to a pretty convincing 25-13 win. My players were serving a lot better than last week, and playing defense well. We didn’t get a chance to run much offense. Most of our points came off service aces, service errors by our opponents, or illegal rotations by our opponents. The Revolution team was running the same complex player rotation and serve receive rotation that our local high school team runs. Personally I think they were crazy, the rotation was way to complex for younger girls, but more importantly the game they play at this age doesn’t require it. It is a serve receive for older bigger serves and a game that is played a lot faster than the one we play. In the case of our match those younger player’s inability to maintain or control their overlap cost them 10 points in the first game and 7 or 8 in the second.

The second game was a game of experimentation for my team. I managed to get three of my girls to give their jump serves a try. One of them struggled with it a bit but the other two were doing well. They all three jump serve well in practice but are all afraid to do it in games. Hopefully the success they had will encourage them to use it more often. We won the second game 25-15.

Our second match was against a team from Palm Springs called Club Mojave. This team looked to be a stronger team than our first opponent. But they had a really hard time receiving our serves. We committed four serve errors that game, and won the game 25-5. In the second game our opponents got them selves collected and started playing some volleyball. At one point they had a 13-9 lead on us. But some solid serving (no jumps) and some good offensive plays finally led us to a 25-19 victory.

With the missing team never showing up we recorded a couple forfeits. So our record for the day was 3-0 in matches, 6-0 in games for a first place finish in our bracket. That finish should put us in the division 13 when the mandatory tournaments start next month.

18-1

Way to go Giants! I am a Dolphins fan dating back to 1971. So while I usually couldn't care less about the NY Giants, I was a huge fan this afternoon. I needed them to help protect the Miami Dolphin's undefeated season record.

My new favorite team, for at least 4 hours this afternoon, came through like gangbusters. The Giants upset the Patriots in Superbowl XLII, 17-14. Sure the Patriots won 18 games this season, but more importantly, they lost the one that really counted - the Superbowl.

Go Giants!!!!!

Qualifier Number 2

My 14s volleyball team played in our second tournament on Saturday. We left town at 4:30 in the morning. Drove down to the American Sports Center in Anaheim CA in time for the start of the tournament at 8:00 AM.

We were the number 4 seed in out bracket so we did not have to play the first match. We were scheduled to play in the second, third and fifth matches. We had officiating duty in the sixth match.

Our first game was against a team called Impact 14. We struggled in the first game, but managed to stay close. We lost that game 22-25. But I was hopeful. I hadn't seen that team do anything we couldn't counter, handle or out play. In the second game my girls seemed intent on proving me right. We jumped out to a small lead and were cruising right long until the game got to 21-18. Then the other team rotated a really good server to the line. This rotation coincided with my girls going just a little flat. They were down for just a couple minutes. But it was enough. I used my timeouts, and one substitution. But that didn't stop our opponents from stealing a 23-25 win from us. This Impact Team ended up finishing the day an undefeated 3-0.

Our next match was against a team from the Channel Island Volleyball Club. They had lost a close match against our third opponent of the day in the opening match of the day. We played OK but just couldn't seem to get out offense working. We lost the first game 16-25. This loss seemed to wake up my players a bit. We won the second game 25-16, and cruised through the third 15-5.

Our third match was against Conejo Crush 13s team. We probably matched up pretty well with this team as only 3 of my 8 players are too old to play 13s. For a group of 13s this team played really well. We won the first game 25-18. The second game was a different game. We just could not pull away from this team. They matched up point for point or short run for short run. We held our short lead most of the game but eventually fell behind 23-24. Then my worst fear happened. My star player rotated into the service spot. Normally this would be a good thing. But while she was setting and hitting well that day, and playing great defense, her serving was a nightmare. On the day this player, who has been a star of my middle school teams for 3 years, couldn't serve her way out of a wet paper bag. She was hitting 20% from the service line. Twice I had warned her that if she didn't get her act together I was going to make her start jump serving. Just so that she would have an excuse for missing. (btw, she has a very nice jump serve, that she is scared to us in games).

Well, this star player comes to the line, her team down one point, her opponents needing only one point to end the game, and she calmly and smoothly serves three straight service aces. I told her that I would consider that performance as redemption for the rest of the day, but I would still spend some time examining the game video to see if her serving problems in the last two tournaments was a technique or a mental problem. I'm really hoping its technique, I can fix that a lot easier than I can fix a mental one.

So we finished the day in second place in our bracket. I hope that is good enough to get us moved into the bronze bracket next Saturday. If not we will just have to play our way up during the mandatories which start on March 1st.

The only glitch in our day was some of the parents that came with us had some real trouble with the score keeping that was being done. They tended to get a little vocal when the teams score-keeping would make mistakes. Which happened a lot. I was shocked to see how little effort some of these other coach's put into the score-keeping process. Each team had to score-keep one match each day. Many of these coaches just dump a couple girls who may or most likely don't know how to keep score. Then they disappear. So we have girls who don't know what they are doing, or more likely just are not paying attention handling the scores for their opponents. In each of our games we had at least one stoppage of play in order for the referee to straighten out the score-keeping.

When the score-keepers would mess up the flip chart my parents in the stands would start yelling and pointing that the score was messed up. They were taking this personal because the mistakes were constantly being made against us. The referee we had was trying to be reasonable, but he was not going to allow anyone to yell at the score-keepers, even if they were messing up - a lot!

In the end, after we had finished our turn as scorekeepers the referee apologized to me and our parents for threatening to throw them out of the gym. He noticed the attention my girls paid to the score-keeping process, the lines and the paperwork. He saw that I stood there with my girls the whole time checking their work and helping them were needed. He also noticed that the two games we were score-keeping were the only games he refereed all day that he didn't have to stop the game to straighten out the score-keeping. He told me "If that is level of maturity and careful attention your parents have some to expect from volleyball players I can understand why they got so frustrated with the sloppy work from the other teams."

It made me feel good about my girls, and really disgusted with the half-assed job most of the other 14s coaches seem to be doing teaching their players about their off the court duties.

We got home about 6 PM Saturday night. Three of my players had a special engagement that evening. Our School was holding a major fund raising event that evening. The 20th Annual Saint Ann's School Car Raffle. The three players were supposed to show up dressed nicely and work as the "Vannas" for the night. Named after Vanna White their job is to take the ticket numbers as they are drawn off one board and move them over to another board. These three young athletes were radiant in their nice dresses and too high a heels. I was proud that none of them feel off their heels, off the stage, or asleep on the job. It was a long day for them and they did a wonderful job.

Our next tournament is next Saturday. But before then we have two practices and a lot to work on. I can hardly wait.

Berkeley Votes to Boot Marines - Update

Mark Williams on Fox News just called Berkeley the "Left wing cesspool of America."

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has just called for over 2 million dollars of federal earmarks to be pulled out of funding for the city of Berkeley.

“This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families. The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money. If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer funded handouts. I am currently drafting legislation to ensure that American taxpayers aren’t forced to pay for this insult by rescinding all of the earmarks for Berkeley in the Omnibus Appropriations bill, and to transfer the funds to the Marine Corps.”

It's not every penny of federal money that we all pay to support Berkeley, but it is a start. Next they should close the post offices. After all, if the Marines have to go, then the post office should go also.

Berkeley council tells Marines to leave

According to the Contra Costa Times the Berkeley City Council voted 6-3 last Tuesday night that the U.S. Marines which have a recruiting center on Shattuck Avenue are no longer welcome in their city and that is is time for them to leave.

The council said that the recruiting station

"is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

Personally I think that the Marines should heed the Council's request and leave the city. But along with them should go every single penny of Federal Government money that is sent to the city of Berkeley. And I mean every penny, including all federal scholarships or financial aid that is given to any student at UC Berkeley. Any federal appropriation that would be spent in, or to the benefit of the City of Berkeley should be immediately canceled.

Then let the city know that in order to get their government largess back they have to go completely back through the federal appropriations process again from square one, and they have to do it for every single penny.

It is time that idiots like those council twits learn that blind hatred and stupidity has consequences. If you are an elected official who is that stupid and so intent on sharing their stupidity as the Berkeley City Council is, then they should have to face the consequences for their folly.