San Francisco (Day 8): The epitome of laziness

One of the biggest challenges of major league baseball executives has to be how to keep 30,000 fans (minus the 5,000 who have gone to the concession stand to buy beer) happy during the long breaks between innings in baseball games. One typical diversion is to stage a pseudo-race between cars, trucks, or even sausages. The fans will arbitrarily choose a racer of their choice and frantically cheer it on to victory (or helpless defeat). Anyway, this evening at the Oakland Coliseum, I had the opportunity to cheer on my choice of white, orange, or blue dots as they races around a race track. I know it's difficult to program computer animation for a stadium jumbo-tron, but dots??? C'mon! You could have at least tried! Not only this, but I was definitely watching baseball being played in what is truly a football stadium. My students would call this discrepancy "bootleg" (using less adolescent jargon, this term could be translated "makeshift", "substitute", etc...). Anyway, I had a great experience, even though the A's couldn't pull off a victory. And with that, my road trip is nearing completion and I leave for Los Angeles tomorrow morning! For as much fun as I've had this past week, I'm looking forward to being home and even looking forward a little to beginning planning for my kids this coming year!

Also, enjoy my final pictures from San Francisco here!

A Surprise Visit

So today, I got to hang out with my friend Dennis, who was my freshman year roommate at Wheaton College. Dennis has been out in Los Angeles this week visiting the UCLA business school, which I am hoping he will decide to attend. Anyway, it was great to spend the evening catching up, exchanging stories, sharing memories, and then taking in a Dodgers game. Luckily, the Mets defeated the Dodgers 4-1, thanks mostly to a Carlos Beltran home-run in the 8th inning. Anyway, we had a fantastic time! And now only two more days until my road trip begins!!

4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July to everybody! The 4th of July in Los Angeles was HOT, but being surrounded by great people, and doing fun things made it all worthwhile! In the late morning / early afternoon, I attended the annual Mosaic 4th of July barbecue at Elysian Park, a park which incidentally, I had never been to before! It was set up and organized this year by a group of interns, a group of individuals I've been getting to know over the past few weeks! They did a great job making the BBQ fun and exciting, although I have to say that after playing some very intense volleyball and ultimate frisbee, I was glad that I had brought along an extra t-shirt! After the barbecue, my friend Kent and I went to Dodger Stadium and watched the Dodgers lose to the Atlanta Braves. Despite the gloom of the Dodgers losing (especially to Atlanta), it was a great way to further celebrate the 4th. There was an Air Force flyover by the largest plane I've ever seen in my life, and the game was followed up by one of the best displays of fireworks I've seen as well. I guess that makes sense, given that it was sponsored by AAA, and I know they've been making tons of money off of people like me, who subscribe to membership and then only use their service to bail out friends! Tomorrow I hope to finish carpeting the garage!!! We'll see how it all goes down!

It's HOT out here!!!

Coming back from Atlanta last Thursday, I thought I'd enjoy the much cooler weather here in Los Angeles...WRONG. The past two days have seen temperatures in the mid 90s with no relief in sight. With this kind of a heat wave going on, it 's hard to me motivated to even leave the house when I can work up a sweat simply walking to where my car is parked across the street!
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to return to Mosaic (which I had missed the previous week due to NECC), and I was reminded just how cool it is to be able to be part of a community that is so vibrant, so alive, and so willing to simply love each other! Some of you may know this, but at Mosaic I co-lead what's called the "Connection" team, which basically means that we are the folks that try to make sure that guests feel welcome and are able to "connect" (hence the clever name) with small groups, ministry teams, or other opportunities (boy, that was a run on sentence!!!). Anyway, fairly frequently I feel tired or not in the best of moods when I arrive, but over the course of the night, I am inspired and completely blown away by my team members and how they serve each other and serve God in this context! It's a constant reminder to me as to how by simply giving of ourselves, we can really make a difference in people's lives! I know they make a difference in mine.
Anyway, this Wednesday is Independence Day, and I'm looking forward to a BBQ with some folks up at Elysian Park and then a Braves-Dodgers game at Chavez Ravine! I definitely know that summer is now here!

Turner Field

As you can see, tonight I finally attended a baseball game at the stadium home to the Atlanta Braves, a team that I have grown up learning to despise. From 1991 to 2005, the Braves have won the National League East Division (which means that my team, the Mets, have not). However, the tide is now turning and my Mets won the NL East last year and are going to do the same this year!
Anyway, it was fun going to the game, seeing a new stadium (which was pretty cool) and enjoying a huge part of Atlanta. As much as I hate the Braves, I've got to say that I love baseball and had a great time at the game. [It actually wasn't much of a game. The Braves won 13-0 over the Washington Nationals in less than dramatic fashion].

Summer 2007

Finally! After 10 longs months of teaching, summer is finally here! As much as I'd like to say that I took my first two days of summer to sleep in, this didn't happen. Yesterday, a good friend of mine, Eric, hosted a barbecue/fund raiser for his summer mission trip to Bali. He, and a team of other from Mosaic, will be serving a group of missionaries who are already in Southeast Asia as they rest and recuperate from their work. The BBQ was tons of fun and they raised almost $2000 for their trip!
Today, I fly off to Atlanta to attend NECC 2007, an educational technology conference. It should be fun and informative. I'm looking forward to spending some time perusing the various forms of ways to implement technology in my classroom next year. Plus, I'm looking forward to seeing the Atlanta Braves lose to the Washington Nationals either Monday or Wednesday, thus allowing the New York Mets to increase their ever widening lead in the NL East.
Anyway, I am starting this blog as a way to keep track of myself this summer. I'd love to hear from any or all of you so feel free to post comments to anything that gets updated here!
Peace