Bigtime Coach, Well Grounded

This interview with St. Mary's men's basketball coach Randy Bennett is a nice look inside the personal life of the man at the helm of a collegiate basketball program that has made some waves on the national scene in recent years.

We go to the same church as the Bennetts, and they just completed their first year with the swim club we belong to, where their two young boys are both strong competitors. They are also, unsurprisingly, involved in the local basketball youth league. Coach Bennett helped out at the league's evaluation day last month (held at St. Mary's, shockingly enough). Michael ended up scrimmaging in front of Coach Bennett a couple of times; he even pulled off a sweet crossover dribble and drive to the hoop under the Coach's watchful eye. Is it too early to start thinking about scholarships?

Belying his growing stature in the very public and glamorous world of Division I college basketball, Coach Bennett is quiet and unassuming. He and his family have committed to setting down roots in Moraga (Coach Bennett recently signed a 10-year contract extension), which is the intention of most families with kids in elementary school around here. This portion of the article shows why he is such a good fit here (because he shares my views, of course):

Bennett and his family are Moraga homebodies, he confides. A sandwich from Bianca's or pizza from Panini's is about as good as it gets.

"We kind of stick around here; Walnut Creek is a long trip," he laughs, but isn't kidding.

It is a little exciting to have a semi-celebrity in your midst on a regular basis. Even better, though, it getting to spend time around a terrific family that shares your interests, values and goals and struggles.

What A Difference A Week Makes

Last week, Michael's soccer team was blitzed by, um, Germany, ending up on the wrong side of a 4-0 deficit by halftime. Michael's hat trick made the game exciting, but it was only a moral victory.

Things were different this week. It was our turn to come out of the blocks blazing. The boys passed really well and put the pressure on the other team from the opening whistle. The ball was never played on our defensive side of the field in the opening half.

Michael didn't score three goals this week.


He scored four.

He also had two assists in the 7-0 victory, and could have scored at least two more in the second half had he not terminated several of his breakaways to look for teammates to pass to. His coach has now made Michael the designated taker of corner kicks after he deposited one into the middle of the goal box in the first half (past everybody except one of our players, who was so shocked to see the ball he whiffed on the shot). Michael's second assist came off a corner kick in the second half.


This little guy (for once I'm not referring to Michael) scored that goal. Pound-for-pound he is our best player: clever feet, good vision and judgment, a motor that never stops, and surprising speed and power for his size. Michael is the best player overall, a deadly finisher with skills and a lot of power and speed when he chooses to use it, but our little number four is an indispensable piece of the team.

That didn't stop us from giving him and our other best player to the other team for the second half to even things up a bit (they were already missing a player and used one of ours in each quarter, and we gave them another for the second half so that we were playing a man down), but we still scored two more goals and they only had a handful of threatening moments against us.

The boys are very squirrelly in practice, but apparently something is getting through. They scored well because they played well, for the most part. They will come crashing back to earth at some point, but for today, they got a taste of what happens when they follow their coaching to distribute the ball around and play hard.

Who Is That Old Guy In The Mirror?

Being the parent of an elementary school student and a high school student creates unexpected fissures in your sense of self. At the gradeschool back to school night last week, I looked around the room at all the young, attractive, fit parents and thought with satisfaction, ah, these are my peers.

At the high school back to school night we attended last night, I looked around at all the old, tired, weary people filling the room and thought, this can't be right -- these are my peers?

The Forgotten Sport Resumes

In my childhood, and in the first part of my own children's childhoods, soccer was the only youth sport of note in the household. Soccer has always been an integral element of the fall frenzy, a seasonal houseguest with a standing invitation.

Then the kids got older, and we found ourselves in a community with many more sporting options. That, and the implication of public shunning if your children do not compete in at least three sports or the course of the year, two of which must be played simultaneously, led us to a multitude of new sporting arenas. Basketball, baseball, volleyball and swimming quickly took over our youth sporting lives. We have all had great fun, made many friends, and experienced many new highs and lows with these sports.

The one constant over the years, though, was soccer. The local program is not as far-reaching as the AYSO of our early years, nor is it as intensely competitive or time-consuming as the local club systems. It provides the essential opportunity, however, for hundreds of kids to stay connected with a game that is as much a part of the lexicon of childhood these days as the Nintendo DS and SpongeBob SquarePants. Personally, there is a comfort to returning to the soccer fields every fall, a settling and resetting of the psyche in line with the new school year.

Sadly, Kelly no longer plays. If AYSO had managed to secure a beachhead in our community, she would. Her last coach – my baseball co-coach – attempted to bring AYSO to town last year to supplement the local organization's program, which essentially ends at eight grade. Although many saw the wisdom of giving our kids access to AYSO's established program, which would give older kids an opportunity to play regular season games as well as in post-season tournaments, the entrenched powers-that-be in the local organization would not hear of it. That may change sometime in the future, but too late to prolong Kelly's career. Instead, she gets to be a (reluctant) spectator like the rest of us at Michael's games.

When Michael's coach first contacted us, we did not recognize any of the names on the e-mail list. In contrast to the other soccer teams he has been on over the last three years, when nearly everyone on his teams was a classmate, all but three of the kids on this year's team go to one of the other elementary schools in town. After the first practice, his reviews were not good. He was not impressed by the skill level or attention span of his teammates. I had to remind him that he was the big fourth-grader now, on the team with a number of third graders. Last year he had the luxury of being a third grader on a team with a couple of dominant fourth-graders; now he has to be the player the others look to.

At the first game this Saturday, things went as expected, unfortunately. Against a team full of Michael's friends, we were down 4-0 by halftime. Michael was playing a center forward position, but hardly had any opportunities to do anything with the ball, as most of the gameplay was in front of our own goal.


Michael facing off against his friend Nick.
To start the second half, we made a couple of small adjustments to the lineup. Within a couple of minutes, one of Michael's teammates got him the ball in the opponent's side of the field. Michael took the breakaway and slotted a strong shot between the goalie and the near post. Thirty seconds later, he did it again. A few minutes later, he had another breakaway opportunity. He put good moves on the two defenders, then scored on a cross-goal shot as the goalie came out to take away any near-post opportunities. In the span of a few minutes, what had seemed to be the harbinger of a very long season became an energetic, fiercely contested game. Our defenders suddenly figured out how to play with energy and the other team lost its swagger. The game was still played mostly on our end of the field, but it became an entertaining game to watch rather than the beat down it had been in the first half. One of the other parents even came over to Michael before the fourth quarter to thank him for making the game fun and interesting again.


On the way to a breakaway goal.
We spend much time shaving seconds off of lap times in the pool, tweaking batting stances and honing free-throw form, but without any fanfare, Michael dropped right back in the soccer with a hat trick in the first game. The team still lost, and has a long way to go to figure out how to play good soccer as a team (including Michael; he is a great finisher, but needs to figure out how to be part of the overall flow of the game). Fortunately, the team also knows that it has at least one solid offensive weapon. With any luck, the goals will still come, but in support of at least a few wins.

Bright(ened) Eyes

Three day weekends at home generally mean projects around the house. In the past, many rooms have received fresh coats of paint. Running short of compelling home improvement ideas lately, I have found myself taking care of little projects with the cars that are not crucial, but scratch certain itches that are peculiar to me.

On Memorial Day, I polished the exhaust tips on my car:


Yeah, they will be dirty again in a day. What's your point?
Over Labor Day, I finally tackled the plastic headlight covers on the family car, which had begun to develop the cataracts common to so many cars these days (now that glass headlights are rare):


Before. Click to enlarge to see how bad they were.
I had previously tried a fix that used only a polish and a drill-mounted soft buffer, which did absolutely nothing. Stay away from that snakeoil. This time I went with the big guns, a wet-sanding process that I hoped would clear the lenses and not ruin them under my inexperienced hand. The technique involves using the drill to sand with 500 grit paper, then 800 grit paper, then a wet foam pad, and finally a sponge with a rubbing compound.


After sanding. I sure hope this is going to work.
It is counterintuitive to induce clarity by adding scratches, but for the most part, it works as advertised:


After. Sparkly.
The lenses are not as good as new and never will be, but they are far better than they were before. Mission accomplished.

The Boys Of Summer, Anytime

Yes!



Just in time for the pennant races. This will really be nice to have in January when the season is still two months away and we're tired of basketball, hockey and football. Baseball will always be the sport of summer. A breath of the green warmth of summer will be most welcome in the frosty depths of winter.

Better Living Through Gluttony

According to some people in white lab coats, eating chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease by as much as 33% or more. The research boffins are from Cambridge, so they must be right.

Another study by people who probably spent too much time indoors in college has found that drinking up to a bottle of wine a day reduces the risk of heart disease by as much as 50%.

Fantastic! All I need now is for the next study to confirm that consumption of filet mignon on a regular basis will take care of the remaining 20% of risk of heart disease, and my life will be complete.

I might eventually tip the scales at 300 pounds, but by golly, my heart will be disease-free.

Eventful Beginnings

After weeks of intense anticipation, the school year started vigorously.

Michael got the fourth-grade teacher he was hoping for. Several of his best friends are also the class. Equally important, most of the problem children of his grade are not in his class. As he describes it, the people in his class are "all friends." He had been looking forward to school starting, and the first day did not disappoint.


Ready For 4th Grade, Freshman Year
The focus this year has been on Kelly as she starts her journey through high school. The adventure began in early July when she began taking herself to school on her bike three times a week for open gym volleyball sessions. Two weekends ago, she attended two six-hour days of training camp. A week ago, we went to the campus for Cougar Day for the yearbook picture and to pick up her schedule, and came back in the evening for a physical for the athletics program. Thankfully, she got all the classes she signed up for, alleviating one worry that had nagged all summer. Last Friday, tryouts for the freshman volleyball team began, and continued each weeknight through last night, the first day of school.

Kelly's first day of school went well, with no problems being lost on campus or getting stuffed into garbage cans by upperclassman. She came home with geometry homework, an assignment to read and analyze the first chapter of “The Old Man and the Sea,” and to write a Spanish essay. She also had her fourth evening of volleyball tryouts. At the end of the evening, the coaches advised that they would post on the team website the names of the players asked to return for the final tryout session on Thursday – the first cut.

Unfortunately, she did not survive that first cut. Over the course of the summer, she improved her skills significantly. However, in a volleyball-mad town, at the high school that won the state championship last year, the competition for roster spots is fierce. Ultimately, there is not much she could do about being 5’1”, playing against girls who almost universally played for club teams. There was not a single player in the gym, Kelly included, who was anything less than a good volleyball player. In the end, there were simply too many who were better than she was.

When the list was finally posted and her name was not on it, Kelly received the news with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders, saying, "really? Darn." She admitted that as the tryouts went on, she found her desire to make the team growing. However, she treated the disappointing news with grace and good cheer. I think she knew, better than we did, the high level of competition she faced. She took the news well, without outrage or surprise. She accepted the finality of the decision far better than we did.

I struggle with the knowledge that her athletic career is over, in all likelihood, without ever having had the opportunity to compete for her high school. She developed such a strong connect with volleyball in such a short time, it is disorienting to have it all go away so suddenly, even as her skills continue to increase and her knowledge of the game grows. The recreational league is not available for kids in high school, and the club teams require a greater commitment of time than she, wisely, is willing to give (and the logistics of any club team would be impossible for us anyway). In the end, there were too many other girls better than she was. That is the nature of competition; sometimes, you don't win, not because you were cheated, but because you weren't the best. Wisdom dictates that you accept defeat gracefully and grow from it. Kelly, apparently, is extraordinarily wise.

There is a slight possibility that she will try out for the school soccer team, competing against legions of girls who have played for club teams for years, and she might give volleyball another go next summer. The chances of making the those teams, she knows, are slim, but she might do it anyway just to get it all out of her system.

For now, though, she will just have to fall back on schoolwork. That is not bad option. After going through three years of middle school without a grade lower than an A, the classroom is a place of pride and accomplishment for her. After the first day of high school that she just had, it is also hard to imagine that anything to come over the next four years will be able to throw her off her stride.

This Day In History

1965: The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium.
1969: Woodstock music festival begins.
1993: Two otherwise sensible people get married at the tender ages of 22 and 23, doing what the modern world said that we need not or should not do.

Eighteen years later, the marriage endures happily, with much less screaming, hearing loss, mud or drug use (non-prescription, anyway) than the other two events.

Spring Sports In Review: Volleyball

Kelly's career in recreational league volleyball came to an end in early June. Her team ended up playing very well over the course of the season, losing only one match (unfortunately, it happened on a weekend when grandparents were visiting). The coaches were enthusiastic, but knew nothing about volleyball. They were lucky to have several good athletes on the team, but the gameplay was rarely high art. Nevertheless, the girls dispatched nearly every appointment on their way into the playoff tournament.

Unfortunately, they lost in the first round of the playoffs, and under the odd structure of the tournament, they could not play themselves back into the championship game. They lost to the team that they shared their practice gym with and scrimmaged frequently. Until the playoff game, our girls had never lost to them. For the playoff game, though, the coach's daughters who played club volleyball, who seldom appeared at that team's practices or regular-season games, showed up ready to play and dominate. Our girls eventually won their next playoff game before losing their last game.

On the whole, Kelly had a great season. As an eighth-grader, many of the girls were automatically deferential to her; the fact that she was among the best players on the team made them even more willing to fit their games to hers. She encouraged players to work together for sets and spikes, even though the team did not practice that at all (I attended all of the practices, and there was not a single setting drill all season). She also led the way in setting positions on the court so that players with complementary games could be next to each other (I may have had some influence of that).

One moment halfway through the season helped chart a new course for her in volleyball. After a special practice with several students and graduates of the local high school as coaches, Kelly and I "peppered" the ball back and forth as we usually did before and after practices. One of the student coaches noticed and uttered the most complimentary words to Kelly she could have said: "do you play for a club team?" Kelly didn't, of course, but was deeply flattered that she played well enough that someone thought she did. The coach then asked her where she'd be going to high school. We then got into a brief discussion about the structure of the high school's volleyball program, the freshman team, and how to make the team. The coach was enthusiastic about Kelly's play and her chances to make a roster at the high school, and encouraged her to take part in the summer "open gym" program. Both of us went home from that practice very excited and encouraged.

Kelly has followed through. Since the beginning of July, she has been attending open gym volleyball sessions at the high school three days a week, which also include an hour of conditioning work. In a major step of independence, she has used her bike to get there and back. That has led her to visit the library several times, and even go out of her way to stop at the ice cream store to buy herself a treat once. She has had the opportunity to play with very skilled volleyball players, nearly all of whom have far more experience than she does. I have not seen any of the practices, but by her description it sounds as if she is holding her own. She is critical of herself when she makes mistakes, but I know she is already a much better player than she was two months ago. Just a couple of weeks into the open gym sessions, we played a little pepper at a local park, and she was already dramatically more capable in all phases of the game.

Kelly has had very few auditions or tryouts in her life. Making the freshman team is an extremely high priority for her, which is why she has gone to the lengths she has two attend the open gym sessions. A weekend minicamp begins in a week, and then tryouts. I can feel the tension rising in her. We just have to trust that she will do her best during the tryouts, and that by her participation in the summer workouts the coaches will know how dedicated she is.

Even if she doesn't make a team, the work she put in the summer will bear fruit. The independence she has developed from riding her bike across town three times a week has been invaluable, and the necessary step out of the home as she prepares to become a high schooler.

Still, she really, really wants to make the team. Truthfully, we do too.

Spring Sports In Review: Baseball

With summer half over, now seems as good a time as any to take a look back at the busy spring sports scene in our household. First up, baseball.

Coaching the team, even as an assistant coach, ended up being one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I want to say it was also one of the most rewarding, but I'm not sure I can go that far. I lost an awful lot of sleep thinking about game situations, practice methodologies, lineup strategies and the unhinged psychologies of both some of the kids and the parents. We had our challenges, as did all the teams, but I would like to believe the boys learned something about baseball and themselves over the course of the season.

Overall, our season was characterized by consistent inconsistency, punctuated by memorable triumphs. We finished with a 4-2 record against non-league opponents from Orinda, including a tense 1-0 victory in the last game of a mid-season tournament. In that game, in the top of the first extra inning in the scoreless game, an Orinda player drilled the ball deep into right field with a runner on base. Right field, of course, is the traditional home of every team's weakest player, and we were no different. Just as we saw a long weekend of baseball games about to come to a dispirited end, our right fielder stuck his glove out and made an excellent catch of a very well hit ball, ending the threat. Unfortunately, the bottom of our order was coming up. Happily, Michael, who had gotten his first hit of the season the day before, led off with a ringing single to left field. He managed to get to third on ground outs, and scored on an infield single off the bat of another of our weakest hitters. It was a memorable and thrilling win, with the players enthusiastically yelling and hugging each other.

Another high point of the season was knocking off the best team in the division, the team that went on to win the championship. They had lost their first game only the week before after starting the season with 10 straight wins. It was a close game throughout, with both teams playing well. We managed to hold a lead going into the last inning, but their big bats would not be denied. They went up by two runs in the top of the sixth, with their ace on the mound poised to shut us down. Once again, we found ourselves at the bottom of our batting order, needing two runs to extend the game and not knowing where we would find them. Fortunately, their ace pitcher was in his third inning of work. He started having trouble finding the strike zone, then had to be pulled because he had reached his pitch limit. The next pitchers couldn't find the strike zone either, allowing our two weakest hitters (who had only one hit between them by that point two thirds of the way through the season) to get on base. That got us to the top of our lineup, and they came through. A double tied the game, and a single wanted in walkoff fashion.

Another highlight of the season was winning our first playoff game against the number two team in the league. That game proved to us what we knew all along: when all of our players were focused, we could beat anybody. Our final highlight of the season came in the last inning of our last game. Our weakest player had not gotten a hit all season. He, along with only a few other players, came out to our optional practices over Memorial Day weekend, working hard on his game. We were down by a bunch of runs, needing to get something out of the bottom of our lineup yet again. We managed to get some runners on base (Michael was on third, as it happened). Thrillingly, our batter dropped down a perfect bunt, something he worked on diligently in our extra practices, earning his first hit and a critical run batted in. Even in the midst of a difficult game when some of the kids had started to tune out, seeing them go bananas for their teammate’s first hit helped me appreciate them again.

What we were unprepared for was how fragile the psychology of some of these kids was. Some days, some of them just could not get it together mentally, leaving us with gaping holes in our lineup, our pitching mound and on defense. When our best overall player was fully engaged, he was unhittable as a pitcher, unstoppable at the plate and on the base class, and flawless in the field. He proved the point at a late-season all-star tournament, where he was the undisputed star of the team, batting around .900 for the weekend. Yet there were some days when his head was not in the game and his performance fell off substantially.

In the end, we played about .500 ball overall (albeit our in-league record was not as strong). We learned that the mental makeup of a player is far more important at that age than we would have guessed, and not just in terms of discipline. Desire and intensity turned out to be extremely important, and surprisingly lacking or inconsistent with some of the players. What wore me out by the end of the season was a sense that, with many of the boys, I felt that as coaches we were constantly pulling them along toward a goal that we constantly had to point out to them, rather than riding alongside with them, guiding and molding their enthusiasm in pursuit of that goal that they grasped and sought on their own. There were some issues with a couple of parents as well which dimmed our joy to some degree, but for the most part our parents were enthusiastic and thankful for our efforts.

I never had to worry about Michael's enthusiasm or focus. He was the model nine-year-old player. He worked hard, always wanted to improve, struggled at the beginning of the season but finally figured some things out toward the end. He did not collect his first hit until the mid-season tournament, but by the end of the season was our team’s median player for hits – five players had more, five had fewer. He had a number of opportunities to pitch, where he performed relatively well, particularly considering his age and size. On the whole, it was a good year of development for him. By the end of the season, we started having him practice at shortstop, anticipating that he will be expected to play that key position at some point next season.


It looks unlikely that I will coach again next year, mainly because my co-coach’s son is not likely to play and he probably will not coach as a result. I will be quite satisfied to return to the sidelines, offering support when needed but willing to leave the sleepless nights to others.

Before the season began, when Michael first found out I would be his coach, he said he was so happy, it didn't matter how our team would do: "we are going to have fun!" In the end, he was exactly right. It did not matter that our team did not go undefeated, did not win the league championship, and lost (slightly) more games than we won. We had our triumphs along the way, we won some big games in memorable ways, and we learned a lot about the sport we love. In the end, as I reminded myself many times throughout the season, we had the opportunity to go out and play baseball together three or four times a week. What is not to love about that?

Hot Enough For Ya?

While the Bay Area continues to enjoy relatively mild temperatures this summer, much of the rest of the country has faced oppressively hot conditions for weeks. How hot? Hotter than you think. From the AP:

"Northeast Braces For Temps Near Boiling Point."

The headline is not misprint; they really mean it: "The extreme heat that's been roasting the eastern U.S. is only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point... Washington, D.C.'s 103 degrees may seem the same as a melting 116 degrees."

In other news, the AP has modified its hiring practices to require its writers to demonstrate a grasp of the differences between the Celsius and Farenheit scales. Applicants may be granted a waiver of this requirement if they can demonstrate proof of possessing at least a fourth-grader's understanding of the boiling temperature of water (or any other liquid they care to discuss).

Last Flight

The Space Shuttle will launch for the last time in a few moments (11:26 am EDT). I got up early to watch the first shuttle launch on TV. Thirty years later, I'm sitting in my office, mid-career, watching the last launch on my computer screen.

The shuttle was more expensive and cumbersome to operate than was promised. But it was always a magnificant machine. Here's hoping that sometime in the future we will get back to designing, building and using machines that are even more extraordinary and inspiring.

Ask A Pilot

I love airplanes. I generally enjoy air travel, and as a kid entertained the notion of becoming a pilot. Of course, becoming a pilot requires a lot of time, effort and money, none of which I cared to part with when it was so much easier to just go off to college like all my friends, so I never pursued flight as a vocation. I remain fascinated by aviation, however.

I recently stumbled across a very interesting discussion thread in the most unlikely of places. A Delta pilot, who happens to be a gambling enthusiast, started an "ask my about being a pilot or flight in general" thread in the off-topic section of a gambling website. He started the thread a year and a half ago, and is still contributing to it. His online persona is exactly what you would hope for from a pilot of a major airline: knowledgeable, methodical and thorough, with a sense of humor and good cheer.

The discussion thread now numbers over 3600 separate posts. I'm not sure what it says about society, but the first questions all seemed to focus on the salacious: how, and how often, do flight attendants ... attend ... to the flight crew, and so on. However, once the frat boys in the audience got that out of their system, the thread settled into a wide ranging exploration of piloting techniques and practices, aerodynamics, airline industry protocols, and analyses of specific air disasters. (It was a post on another internet forum discussing the Air France 447 crash that alerted me to this one.) The feedback the pilot received from his thread was so positive, he was invited to start a blog with the Smithsonian's Air & Space online magazine. Several readers have also gone on to take private flight lessons as a result of the enthusiasm generated by the pilot's discussion.

If you have even a passing interest in aviation (and can slog through the sophomoric early questions about stewardesses), the discussion is an incredibly interesting and comprehensive peek into the world of pilots and flight.

Summertime Tour

As of this moment, Kelly is here:


She is on a trip to Philadelphia and Washington DC (via a connection through Atlanta) with a gaggle of her recently-graduated classmates. This is a trip the school has been making for many years. Coming on the heels of a year spent studying American history, it should be a prime opportunity to make that history come alive. Their schedule over the next six days is packed with visits to all of the historically significant points of interest in Philly and DC.

I delivered her to the school parking lot at 3:15 this morning. A couple of the kids were running late, but most were there ready to board the charter bus to the airport. The four girls on the trip took a row of seats near the front of the bus; the twenty or so boys all piled into the back. Just when you think they are growing up a little, they let you know that they are still kids.

Kelly is not close friends with anyone on the trip, so she was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but we know (and she does, too) that it will be an experience well worth having. Our kids will link up with students from other schools for the tour activities, so there will be opportunities to meet people from all over the country.

In the meantime, I'll spend my time watching flight trackers whenever Kelly is in transit.

Overprotective parent update (10:30 am PDT):

Kelly's flight has now landed in Atlanta. The flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia will depart in about 90 minutes. I don't envy the two chaperones (teachers at the school) who must herd their young charges to the right locations at the correct times for the next several days.

Paranoid parent update (3:15 pm PDT):

Our intrepid Moragan youths are learning the harsh realities of air travel. They ended up stuck in Delta's Atlanta hub for three extra hours. They are now boarded on the flight to Philadelphia, due to arrive around 8:30 pm local time rather than 5:30 pm. Kelly called home during the delay; it sounds like all is well. By the time they arrive in Philly, their west coast stomachs will be crying out for dinner, so I hope they can work a late dinner into the schedule. It will be nonstop action for the next few days, once they eventually get to the City of Brotherly Love.

Endings, And Beginnings

This spring has differed little from recent prior springtimes in form. The weight, the sheer mass of the season, however, overwhelmed those that came before. Work was busier. Coaching baseball exacted a substantial cost in time spent on the field, awake at night, and, during most other waking moments, in puzzled contemplation of the psychology of 10-year-old boys and their parents. The pastor of the church we attend retired after 29 years of ministry, in the same season that I added the challenge of playing guitar to the singing I was already doing during the services. Volleyball kept up its familiar twice-weekly pace. Cheryl's tutoring business turned into a 10 hour per week (afternoons only) job. Over at all, the skies cast the gray pall, raining throughout Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend of June.

The baseball and volleyball seasons have now ended (more on those to come in other posts), and swim season has begun. The school year ends this week, and with it the departure of most, but not all, of the tutoring clients. The ponderous sense of finality that has loomed over this season comes from one of those endings. Kelly graduates from middle school tomorrow.

She will be leaving the only school she has known in this town. I feel the evening before her first day of sixth grade on my fingertips, when she and I walked around the unfamiliar campus charting out her route from class to class, a new habit at a new school. Even though she quickly learned the layout of the school and the location of all of the classrooms, we repeated that reconnaissance every year the night before school began, just the two of us. I would share knowing smiles with the other parents wandering around the school grounds doing the same thing. We were easing our own fears for our kids as they stepped out further away from us under the guise of helping them quell their anxieties about finding their way around the school.

And now that is over. The next scouting trip we take will be at the high school, where parental guideance will be even more conspicuous and awkward than before. Kelly is looking forward to the next level already, though. She has been drawn in to the volleyball program, which will hold thrice-weekly practices throughout the summer in preparation for an August minicamp and tryouts. She is eager to challenge herself against better players, and in tougher classes.

Kelly did fantastically well in middle school. She was a straight-A student, a video star, a two-year volleyball player, and a valuable aide to several teachers and administrators. We could not be more proud of her. When her name is called tomorrow night at the graduation ceremony at St. Mary's College, it will mark time well spent and accomplishments well-earned. We hope for the same for her as she starts high school in a couple of months.

It breaks my heart that she has to keep growing up, out and away from us to do it.

Dateline: Moraga

My new sideline career as a griping busybody stringer for the local virtual newspaper has dawned. In this fine piece of investigative journalism, I help expose the seamy underbelly of our fair community, where people (presumably rogues from other towns, of course) engage in roadside trash dumping.

It doesn't paint our community in a particularly flattering light. But we hardened, veteran jounalists know that although the news - yea, the truth - is seldom pretty, we will not shy away from our solemn duty to lay bare the soiled fabric of our society, that it may be washed clean in the light of day and the firm conviction of our citizens.

Cue "It's A Grand Old Flag" ...

The Professor on TV

My college roomate, the erstwhile Professor, left academia recently to return to government work in his field of human factors analysis, with a particular emphasis on driver distraction. This is a big deal these days, what with the proliferation of cell phones and GPS devices. California has passed a law banning the use of cell phones without hands-free capabilities while driving, and our local police made a concerted effort last month to crack down on texting-while-driving.

The CBS national news caught up with the Professor (the dapper fellow sending texts to the correspondent driving the simulator) and his team to report on their analysis of the effect of texting on a driver's capabilities behind the wheel. (Alternate video feed here.) We will continue to hear about more studies of this nature. Much of the data that will be cited in future discussions about driver distraction issues is likely to come straight out of the Professor's labs.

By The Light Of The Moon

Took a couple of interesting pictures today. One of the northern tip of the Upper San Leandro Reservoir:


Another of my car:


Fun fact: both pictures were taken about three hours after sunset, under a nearly full moon. By playing with shutter speeds, apertures and "film" speed, I was able to take some curious photos. Having now seen them on the computer, I have some ideas about how to make them better. The basic exercise, however, reveals how the light the camera takes in from the moon is a little different than the way we see things by the light of the sun. The colors are just a little different somehow. (That's an airplane outbound from San Francisco streaking over the hills behind the car.)

I even received a friendly visit from our local constabulatory (and his megawatt spotlight); I resisted the urge to rebuke the policeman for ruining my shot with his lights. He was satisfied that I was out after dark in an unlit hiking trail staging area to engage in legal, if odd, pursuits.

The Rollicking Skies

The sturdiness of airliners is in the news these days, what with a Southwest 737 recently shedding a few pounds of fuselage over Arizona. In a related way, I imagine the same unpleasant thought comes to most travelers' minds when their aircraft shudders through turbulent air: how much can a big airliner take before it, you know, can't take any more?

Consider this video from Boeing, showing some of their flight testing for the new 747-800. They subject the airframe to repeated positive 2.5 G loads and negative 1 G loads, a true roller coaster far beyond what most airline passengers will ever experience.

I used to think being a flight engineer or pilot for Boeing would be an incredibly great job. The prospect of five hour flights of endless high-G loads in a windowless cabin, though, is enough to satisfy me that I made a reasonable career choice to sit in front of a computer monitor that is not trying to escape to the ceiling only to clout me over the head a moment later.

At least we can be reasonably sure that the air sickness bags are flight-tested.