Jack and I scooped up Morgan and headed to the Bell's. The Bell's have started a tradition of hosting a barbecue on the Saturday before Father's Day. They have a group that heads to the Crawdad Festival on Friday. They barbecue and hang out by the pool on Saturday and finish up the weekend recovering and watching the last round of the US Open on Sunday.

Sharon did her first wedding as a wedding coordinator and then met us at Matt and Sherry's. Anyone who gets a chance should ask Sharon about her first time as a wedding coordinator; it was a unique experience.

We swam in the pool and enjoyed a Matt's barbecue!

2003 SHSS IT Golf Tournament plus preschool graduation

Friday was one of those days where everything seems to fall on the same day. Sutter Health Support Services IT Department held its annual charity golf tournament. In the past two years, Sharon and I have played in a foursome with Donna and Kevin Gainsley. Sharon had another commitment so we recruited Jayne Wong, Sutter's IBM account rep and the wife of someone (Randy Wong) who I have gotten to know personally and professionally over the last sixteen years. We started off pretty well; we were 1 over after six. Then, as Kevin aptly described, the wheels came off and we bogeyed six straight holes... The weather was wonderful and we had a great time.

I bolted from the golf tournament to attend Jack's preschool graduation. Jack has gone to daycare at the same place for more than four years. There are a number of kids who have been together since they were six months old. They are all starting to spin off to kindergarten.

Finally, Sharon enlisted to be a wedding coordinator for the church and today was the first wedding she was coordinating. She spent the afternoon working with the Priest and the wedding party at the rehearsal.

A ranking by net patient revenue in Modern Healthcare shows Sutter Health as the tenth largest healthcare system in the United States.

Elk Grove is the fastest-growing city in Sacramento County and the second-fastest in the six-county region, behind Lincoln in Placer County. In particular, Elk Grove Boulevard west of the old downtown is being developed rapidly. There was a good article titled: "Elk Grove Boulevard: Fields today, dreams tomorrow" in the Sunday Sacramento Bee that outlines the planned growth. We live at the western end of Elk Grove Boulevard and about two miles west of the intersection of Elk Grove and Franklin.

We took Sharon's mom and dad to church at St. Marys this morning. Afterwards we stopped by Kim and Brun's and saw their one month old baby, Velta.

After a number of hectic weekends in row, we stayed closer to home today. Sharon, Jack and I went to see Finding Nemo this afternoon at the UA Laguna theater. Afterwards we wandered across the street for a graduation party that our neighbors were having for their daughter who just graduated from UC Santa Cruz. We ended up staying a couple of hours and having a great dinner and a nice time.

Their house is on the lake and it fed some discussions that Sharon and I have had about wishing we had brought a lake lot! After going out to dinner on Friday night, we had driven around Laguna West looking at houses on the lake.

Sutter Health is pursuing several IT initiatives that stress patient safety. We are working on two very rewarding projects: building electronic ICUs and a system to reduce medication errors. Both of these projects are outlined in a recent article in InformationWeek.

We finished up a quick trip to San Diego by wandering around the Zoo this morning for a couple of hours.

Sharon successfully ran the Rock and Roll marathon in San Diego today as a fund raiser for the American Stroke Foundation. She did great! Here is a copy of the message that she sent out afterwards:

From: Sharon Heringer
Subject: I did it!

Well it was a long day – starting at 3:15 am and finishing around 2:00 pm but it was a wonderful, hard, and great experience. Thank you again to all my donors and emotional supporters. It was an honor and an incentive to run for my mom and all my other stroke heros. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Attached below you will find a link to a website with pictures from throughout the day. Mark and Jack met me at mile 10, 19 and the finish line for support.

http://www.heringer.org/marathon/index.html

Drew's High School Graduation

Drew graduated from Union Mine High School this morning.

Sharon and I have had some ongoing discussion over the last six months about where to send Jack to Kindergarten. Sharon is a product of Catholic schools. She attended grammar school at St. Mary's and high school at St. Francis. We had tried to get Jack into St. Elizabeth Ann Seton at Good Shepherd where we have been going to church, but got a notice about two months ago saying that he had not been accepted. We got a call yesterday afternoon telling us that a space had opened up for Jack at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Drew and I had dinner at Steve's Pizza in El Dorado Hills. We talked mainly about jobs for summer and college in the fall. In some ways, it is hard to believe that Drew's high school graduation is Saturday morning.

As part of her training for the marathon, Sharon ran 8 miles this morning. When she was done with the run, Sharon called and said it was "a piece of cake." After four months of training, including running 22 miles last weekend and 19 miles three weeks ago, she is definitely ready for the marathon a week from tomorrow.

With the end of baseball last weekend, Jack is switching sports! He went to basketball practice this morning.

Sacramento Kings Roster at the end of '02-'03

                            Under contract until     Annual Salary

Mike Bibby, G                    '08-'09               $    11.4

Doug Chrisite, G/F               '05-'06               $     6.5

Scott Pollard, F/C               '05-'06               $     5.1

Geoff Petrie, GM                 '05-'06

Peja Stojakovic, F/G     '05-'06 with Player Option    $     7.5

Chris Webber, F          '05-'06 with Player Option    $    17.5

Bobby Jackson, G                 '04-'05               $     2.7

Vlade Divac, C                   '03-'04               $    10.4

Lawerance Funderburke, F         '03-'04               $     3.4

Hedo Turkoglu, G/F               '03-'04               $     1.4

Rick Adelman, Coach              '03-'04

Gerald Wallace, G/F       '03-'04 with Team Option     $     1.1

Keon Clark, F/C           Player Option for '03-'04    $     4.8

Brent Price, G                    Expired              $     2.6

Mateen Cleaves, G                 Expired              $     1.4

Jim Jackson, G/F                  Expired              $     0.8

Damon Jones, G                    Expired              $     0.6

Source: Analyzing which players are in the Kings' future

The first day over 90 degrees since September 25, 2002, almost eight months ago.

After church and kinderchurch, Jack, Sharon and I went to Susie Connelly's 40th birthday party at Cameron Park Lake. There are some pictures on the web at: http://www.heringer.org/susie40/index.html.

As part of her training for the Marathon, Sharon ran 22 miles this morning! This is the last long training run before the marathon two weeks from tomorrow.

After as many rain-outs as games, Jack finished his first T-ball season today. This is my first experience with four year olds playing organized baseball. Drew was seven in 1993 in Woodland when he played his first year of organized baseball. The game that Jack and his team, the Rookies, played this year bears no resemble to any organized sport that I have ever seen, but they sure enjoyed themselves.

Velta and Sarah

Velta and Sarah DiGiorgio

Larkin and I went to game 6 of the second round NBA playoff series between the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks at Acro arena. It was a great game! The Kings won 115 to 109 forcing a game seven on Saturday night. ESPN has it right; The crowd was deafening!

Straight from Winter to Summer

When I was talking to Pat Funk on ICQ about week ago, she was asking about how Sharon was handling training for the Marathon in the heat. So far, Sharon has spent a lot more time running in the rain than in the heat. We have had a very cool damp spring; much colder and rainier than anything I can remember.

The average temperature for first week of May was 58.8 degrees, compared to 55.3 in both March and April.

The weather finally changed this week with the temperature hitting more than 88 degrees on Tuesday.

Evita

Sharon, Jack and I went with the Tom Frame's (Sharon's Brother Tom, his wife Rebecca and their two boys, Eric and Kevin) to see Morgan and Drew in Evita tonight. Morgan, Drew and Kaylen all did a great job!

Joe (Brun) and Kim DiGiorgio had a baby girl at 7:51 p.m. tonight. She is named Velta after Brun's mom and was 7 pounds 14 oz. This is their second kid; Sarah will be two in August.

And it is all Sharon's "fault..." Kim was in charge of the infant room at Jack's day care. After spending lunch's with Jack and Kim every day for several months, Sharon thought that Kim might be a good match for Brun. After some haranguing by Larkin, Boone and I over beers after playing golf at Mather, Brun asked Kim out. A trip to Paris, a wedding in Alaska, three and a half years and two kids later...

Morgan is 16 today!

Morgan is 16 today! She took and passed her driving test this morning and now has her driver's license!

She is modeling the cell phone that she got as a birthday present.

Sharon ran almost 19 miles this morning! She is training for the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon on June 1. Sharon is running the marathon as a fund raiser for the American Stroke Association; her mom had a serious stroke in January of 2002. We want to thank everyone who has contributed! You can still make at donation at her web site

As part of her training, Sharon, Jack and I ran the Run Against Pain 10K last Saturday morning. Jack rode most of the race in a jogger, but insisted on getting out occasionally and running along side.


This afternoon, we went to a lunch in celebration of Eileen's first communion; Eileen is Sharon's niece. Sharon and Brun are Eileen's godparents.

The lunch party included Sharon's two brothers and their famlies, her parents, Brun and Jim Dunn.

Drew and Morgan are appearing in Evita. There is a review of the play on-line in the Mountain Democrat. Drew plays Chi Guevara (the Antonio Banderas role in the film), while Morgan is in the Chorus. Kaylen, Drew's girlfriend, plays Eva Peron (the Madonna role). Evita runs May 1 to 3 and 8 to 10 at Union Mine High School. Curtain is at 7:30.

Drew has returned his SIR (Statement of Intent to Register) to UC Irvine and is planning to go there starting Fall of 2003!

I exchanged e-mails with Devan Hunter and Robbie has decided to attend Sonoma State.

Shopping Colleges and Kindergartens

Drew has been accepted into a number of colleges for next fall, including UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, Sac State and San Diego State. With many of the UCs requiring a commitment by May 1, he and I made a quick trip to Southern California to check out UC Irvine on Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18.

Drew and I took an early morning Southwest flight from Sacramento to Orange County's John Wayne Airport. A quick ten minute cab ride from the airport got us to the campus. We spent an hour and a half in an overview and sales pitch for the school followed by an hour presentation by the School of the Arts. Drew has applied to UC Irvine as a Drama major.

After a quick lunch, we had a guided walking tour of the campus. I was very impressed with the campus; it is laid out around a central park with lots of trees. Next, we took a tour of the on-campus dorms. The dorms are very different than my experience at UC Davis. At Davis, I lived in an eight story high-rise in a group with three other eight story buildings on an open flat wind blown plain. All of the dorms on campus at Irvine are small, two or three story buildings on hillsides. The overall feeling was very intimate. After the dorm tour, Drew attended a class--Drama 35, Speech for Theatre--for an hour and a half, while I sat in the coffee house at Arts College and read my book.

The parents and kids in the morning sessions and on the tours could be roughly divided into four groups: young girls who were physically attached to their mothers; kids who were engaged with their parents; kids who were indifferent about their parents; and, kids who would clearly rather have been anywhere rather than on the tours with their parents. I am pleased to say that Drew fell easily into the second group.

At the end of the day, we caught a shuttle to a nearby hotel and rented a car. After checking in, we drove to Newport Beach which is literally about ten minutes from the campus. Heading south to Laguna Beach, we ended up having a leisurely dinner at an upscale Mexican food restaurant. It almost 10:00 p.m. by the time we got back to the room. With a 5:00 a.m. start to day to catch the early flight, it was a long day.

Friday morning, Drew and I took the rental car and drove around the campus to get a feel for the area and the surrounding neighborhoods. There is a lot of open land east and north of the campus.

I ran into Kurt Snipes in the last month in the wireless networking aisle of Fry's. It turns out that Kurt did his undergraduate work at UC Irvine. When I ran through the list of colleges that Drew was considering, Kurt said "you know, I was an anteater." The school's mascot is an anteater!

We had breakfast, dropped off the car and hopped the flight back to Sacramento. Getting back into Sacramento, Drew and I picked up Jack at daycare.

Jack is four and will be five at the end of August. He is starting kindergarten this fall. Sharon and I have been debating the relative merits of a number of different schools: the Elk Grove pubic school system versus various catholic schools and other alternatives (Waldorf?!).

It feels more than a little incongruous to be evaluating colleges for one son, while looking at kindergartens for other...

Teatro Zinzanni

Pat Funk, Sharon and I at Teatro Zinzanni in San Francisco

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 15

We got up at 3:30 a.m. Jack and I left for the airport at 4:30 a.m. Sharon stayed and traveled to Thailand later in the day with Pat.

Jack and I got to the airport a little after 5:00 a.m. We spent the next two hours going through the most intense security screening I have ever seen. Jack and I were pulled out of the check-in line. They went through all of the bags that we were checking; we had to empty the bags and repack them. Once we checked the luggage, Jack and I got in the line to pass through the metal detector and have the carry-ons x-rayed. When we passed through this check point, we were met with another long line. In this line, they were having everyone completely unpacked their carry-on bags. They examined the contents. They also took our shoes away from us. We had to stand in another line to get our shoes back and then were allowed to board the plane. All of this took over two hours. They closed the doors on the plane and it took off about 20 minutes after we boarded.

The next twenty two hours were relatively uneventful. Jack was more subdued on the trip home than he was on the trip out; there were no episodes of him bouncing off the seats and walls.

The only melt-down on the way back was in the Tokyo airport. We had a two hour lay-over. While wandering through one of the shops, Jack saw some toys that he had to have. When I would not let him have a toy, he went berserk.

The oddest part of the whole trip was the time change. Jack and I left Manila on a 7:30 a.m. flight on Monday, January 27. After traveling sixteen hours, we arrived in San Francisco about 7:30 a.m. on Monday, January 27.

By the time, we drove home from the airport, we had been traveling almost exactly 24 hours.

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 14

This was Jack and my last day in the Philippines. We spent a lazy day at Pat's house. Sharon and I worked in the morning repacking all of the suitcases. After breakfast, we hung out in the backyard and lounged in the pool with Steve and the kids.

In the late morning, Steve took me through the upscale shopping mall under the freeway to the local dry and wet markets. The variety of smells in the wet market were amazing, if not a little overwhelming.



Afterwards, we wandered into a mall that catered to Philippinos rather than Westerners. It was Sunday afternoon and this mall with packed. Steve and I were the only westerners and really stood out; we were both about six inches taller than everyone else. We went down into the basement and bought some DVDs for about a dollar a piece.

We wandered back to look for Pat and Sharon who were having a manicure and a pedicure. While they were finishing up, Steve and I went to the San Miguel Brew Pub. After they were done, we went back to the 31 story tall hotel for a drink at sunset.


Pat's cook made Mexican food for dinner.

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 13

This was our last day on Boracay. We packed everything in the morning. Sharon, Jack and I walked up to the beach to Pier One where we had drinks on Thursday night. We had to stop and get a picture of Sharon and Jack in front of the Boracay "Land Bank!"



We had a long leisurely breakfast. Jack had a continental breakfast, while Sharon and I had American Breakfasts. We caught a tricycle from there back to the Red Coconut. Near the Red Coconut was a law office sign that we had seen during the week for another photo op.



After that we ran into Pat on the beach, the hotel had told Pat that awe needed to leave at 11 a.m. rather than 12 p.m. because of another regilious festival along the way. We caught a larger banca back to Catilin and then a large air-coniditioned bus to Kalibo. Unlike the little minivan that we were stuffed into on the way to Boracay, this was a modern greyhound sized bus. The end result was a much smoother, faster and cooler ride than the previous week.

We did not run into any regilous festivals. As a result, we got to the airport very early. Unlike the previous week when the airport was packed, this time the airport was absolutely empty. After checking in, we herded the kids across the street to a very funky bar that looked out over the rice paddies.



Sitting in this rundown establishment, trying to keep the kids from impale themselves on rusty nails and looking out on the rice paddies, it was one of the times on the trip that it felt like we were in Asia.

After a quick flight back to Manila, we were back at the Funks. Pat's cook made Chinese food for dinner.

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 12

We had breakfast (Mango French Toast) at Staples near the hotel. This little restaurant was owned by Carol, a woman that Pat had gotten to know on previous trips to Boracay.

After breakfast, Sharon, Jack and I caught a tricycle to the Taipapa shopping district. We wandered through the shops and ended up buying some t-shirts and a gecko hanging for Jack's room. There were a number of shops selling fresh fruit, meats and fish.


We stopped at the Calypso restaurant , had a couple of beers and wrote postcards.

Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and started to bargain to rent a sailboat for a couple of hours. We rented a catamaran for two hours and had them take Sharon, Jack and I to a resort at one end of the island called Balihi. There was a very cool cove with a grass hut. The resort was actually on a cliff above the cove. They had rigged a rope and a large bucket to send food and drinks down from the resort into the cove through a hole in the roof of the hut.


We had planned to have lunch in the cove, but got another taste of local service. After a long wait, my Balhi mix sandwich and Jack's spaghetti showed up, but not Sharon's order. We asked several times about the status of Sharon's order and got noncommittal responses. Finally, after probably close to an hour and a half, we gave up and took the catamaran back to the hotel. In spite of the bad service, it was a very cool spot.


This was our last night on Boracay. Continuing the tradition, all of us sat on the beach in front of the Hey Jude bar and watched the sunset.

Sharon, Jack and I had a great dinner at a Portuguese restaurant called Place Banza. Dinner included shrimp curry, chicken kabobs and Portuguese style steaks. I think that this was the best meal that I had on the trip.

After dinner, we ran into Pat, Ryan and Briana at an ice cream parlor.

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 11

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 10

Every night that we were in Boracay, we would sit on the beach in front of a bar called Hey Judes, drink Mai Tais and watch the sunsets. The kids would play on the beach and in the surf.


Wednesday morning, Sharon, Jack and I wandered down the boardwalk looking for somewhere different to eat. We ended up eating at a more upscale resort that primarily cartered to Koreans. After breakfast, we sat and talked to a guy from Houston about Boracay.

Sharon and I went on another dive with Watercolors. We went to a dive spot called the Coral Garden with Randy again as the dive master. The dive was only down to 40 feet and lasted about 30 minutes. The diving was not particularly good; the water was not very clear and there was not an abundance of marine life.



We had lunch at a place called Hamburgers. I stopped an internet cafe and actually ended up exchanging instant messages with Lew Gasper at work. Sharon and Pat had to find a place to get copies of their passports made in order to finalize their arrangements to go to Thailand the following week.

Sharon went to yoga in the afternoon, while I hung out at the pool and on the beach with the kids.

All of us had dinner at a Chinese place called Mrs. Moon.

Heringers in the Philippines, Day 9

I got up early and ran north on the beach for about 30 minutes.

Pat, Sharon and I went to the Fairways and Bluewater Golf Course to play 18 holes. One of my problems with golf is that the more I play, the worst I seem to get. This was the third time in a week that we played golf and it was the worst that I played. Like the previous two times, we had three philippino women for caddies. We walked the front nine. Along the fairways of the front nine, there were a number of condo projects that had been started in the late 1990's and then abandoned. By the time we finished the front nine, it was getting pretty warm.


We got carts for the back nine. This was a good thing; the back nine was much steeper than the front nine.


After golf, we sat on the patio at the country club and had beers and appetizers. The view of the coast was spectacular.

In the evening, we loaded up everyone (Pat, Ryan, Briana, Sharon, Jack and I) on a catamaran called the Tequila Sunrise and did a sunset cruise. We sailed from one end of the white sand beach to other.


Timely service was not one of Boracay's strong points. Tuesday night all of us went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Manana. While we waited for our food, the adults drank mango margaritas and all of the kids fell asleep. It literally took and an hour and a half for us to get all of our food. It appeared that they only had one grill and were cooking the meals one at a time and were not starting on the next plate until they had finished preparing one.

Manana means tomorrow in Spanish. We were sure that it was going to be the next day before we got all of our food.

Heringers in the Philippines, Day 8

Sharon, Jack and I walked down to a place called the English Tea Room for breakfast. We had a pretty good meal of cinnamon rolls and mango and banana pancakes.

We had a 9:00 a.m. dive. Sharon, Pat and I went out for a morning dive with a dive company called Watercolors. The dive master's name was Randy. He was an American who had lived in Boracay for 20 years.

The dive was to 58 feet at Friday's rock. We fed the fish, including a cool orange Napoleon Wrasse. We swam against the current to a sponge with a clown fish and a crab. We finished the dive by drifting back and heading up the rope.



After the dive, we wandered pretty far down the broadwalk to a place called Calpyso for lunch. Afterwards, we walked with Pat all the way to the end of the broadwalk to another dive shop. Pat went out for an afternoon dive. Sharon, Jack, Ryan and I took a tricycle back to the Red Coconut.

Sharon went to a yoga class at a spa, while I laid around the pool with my book and had a few beers. Jack, Ryan and Briana had a great time playing in the pool.


All of us had dinner at Gashoffs. This was kind of an interesting place; you picked your meal out of a big display case and then they cooked for you. Sharon and I had grilled fish and shrimp. The scene on the beach in front of the restaurant where we were eating was bedlam. They were setting up for a bikini contest. It got very loud and packed with people very quickly.

Heringer's in the Philippines, Day 7

I got up early and ran for 30 minutes on the beach. The hotel offered a free breakfast. We made the mistake of taking the hotel up on the offer. It was not very good and included rice and some very odd looking meat. After breakfast, Sharon, Jack and I walked up and down the broadwalk exploring. Ryan, Briana and Jack swam in the hotel pool.

Mid-morning, Pat, Sharon and I took a tricycle over to the other side of the island to check out kite surfing. Pat was interested in checking out the cost and availability of lessons. We wandered around for a while and talked to a few people about lessons. Eventually, we found a little shack called the Surf Kite Bar serving lunch and beer. After lunch, we sat and watched the kite surfing. Kite surfing is pretty amazing. Essentially, they were a wake board, a climbing harness and a cut down kite.


We walked several miles down the beach checking out a couple of different resorts. Unlike the other side of the island where we were staying, this side of the island was not very developed. We caught a tricycle and went to check out the horse back riding and a couple of possible places to eat on Sharon's birthday.

We picked up the kids and went back to the horseback riding. It took an hour ride up to the top of Mount Luho. It had an amazing panarama view of the island.



On the horseback ride, we passed one village which looked extremely poor. The house had dirt floors and there appeared to be no running water. It was definitely poorer than anything I have seen thus far in Mexico.

Sharon, Jack and I had dinner at Mango Ra's. Of the places we ate on Boracay, this is not one that we would recommend. We had Shrimp Tempura and Barbacue Chicken. This was the first of several nights in a row that Jack crashed during dinner and did not wake up until the next morning.