Degree Confluence Project

Brun sent me a link to the the Degree Confluence Project. The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world and to take pictures at each location. There are some very cool pictures of different parts of the world!

Kings Depth Chart

With the signing of Ostertag and Songailia, the Sacramento Kings depth chart for next season looks like this:

	PG	SG	C	SF	PF
1	Mike Bibby	Doug Christie	Brad Miller	Peja Stojakovic	Chris Webber
2	Bobby Jackson	Kevin Martin	Greg Ostertag		Darius Songailia
3	Ricky Minard
4

No Training Wheels!

After dinner, we took the training wheels off of Jack's bike and spent some time working with him. I was amazed at how well he did. By the end of the evening, he was riding a hundred yards by himself on two wheels. I was also impressed at how tenacious he was; when he fell, he would pop right back up and want to go again!

Kevin Martin in Summer League

From ESPN.com - NBA - Ford: The Boys of Summer:

"Martin was one of the most dominant scorers in college basketball over the past two seasons. Scouts were concerned whether Martin's skills would translate to the next level once he faced more athletic, physical defenders. They can start putting those fears to rest. Martin, by all accounts, was the most polished rookie in the L.A. summer league. He's got a smoothness to his game that is deceptive, and his ability to get to the free throw-line should guarantee him some playing time in Sacramento next season. He needs to get stronger and improve defensively, but it looks like the Kings got a steal late in the first round.

Songaila remains with Kings

Songaila will remain with Kings. The team will pay the second-year power forward $1.6 million this season. With Songailia's signing, the King's have ten players under contract for 2004-2005 season. There are still two empty roster spots that need to be filled.

Morgan's Solo

Morgan's Solo at Sugarloaf

Launch in external player

Tour de France

For the last three weeks, literally the only thing we have watched on television has been the Outdoor Life Network's coverage of the the Tour de France!

It is mostly Sharon's fault. She was rooting for Lance Armstrong to win his sixth and wanted to watch the race so we started Tivoing it. By the middle of the first week, we had live coverage in the morning and at night. Jack now knows the names of all the major riders and all about the yellow, green, white and poka dotted jerseys!

Sharon finished reading Lance Armstrong's first book, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, last night. Jack and I got his second book, Every Second Countsfor her to read.

Chorale Ensemble Performance

Sharon, Jack and I went to Morgan performance in the Chorale Ensemble at the Sugarloaf Fine Arts Camp. They performed six songs: Obwisana; All Ye Who Music Love; Friendship Song; Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go; Down by the Riverside; and, I I've Got the World on a String. Morgan sang a solo on Down by the Riverside. I have a video clip of Morgan's solo that I have downloaded from my DV camera and edited. I will probably post that tomorrow.

click on the picture for a larger copy!

On the way home, we had lunch at the Zinfandel Grille in Folsom. Sharon is shopping for a new touring bike. After lunch, we went into Bicycles Plus; Sharon looked at bikes, while I wrestled with Jack...

1975 Columbia Rugby Photo

Wandering across the web, I stumbled across this photo of the 1975 Columbia University rugby team.  Based on the picture's legend, Rob Nooter is second from the right in the back row!

click on the picture for a larger copy!

Additionally, Rob is also mentioned in a brief history of the Columbia College R.F.C.

 

Wallen and I were trying to remember on the phone today when we first saw Nooter wander across a rugby field in Northern California (January 1978 in Colusa?).  Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I have some strong recollections of Rob wearing the blue and white striped rugby jersey.

2004 Sugarloaf Fine Arts Camp

For the second year in a row, Drew is spending two weeks as a counselor at the Sugarloaf Fine Arts Camp. The first session Session ran from Sunday, July 11 to Saturday, July 17, while the second session started Sunday, July 18 runs to Saturday, July 24.

Morgan is spending a week at the camp during the second session. She is majoring in Chorale.

Setting up Airport Express

The Airport Express that I ordered from Apple showed up while we were in Washington State. There is a good review and overview of the unit on the arstechnica.com web site.

I have struggled to get it configured and set-up over the last two nights. The Airport Express Assistant utility had a number of error messages when I tried to start it. Finally, I resorted to using the Airport Admin Utility, but still got not get it working. After digging through about 60 pages of documentation titled Designing Airport Extreme Networks for Windows XP and Windows 2000, I found a note that said that you had to enter the WEP key in with a preceeding $ sign. When I tried this, the Airport Express started working and iTunes on the Media Center PC could see it. I am planning on setting it up with some speakers under the cabinets in the kitchen.

It rarely get over 100 degrees at our house; we are within about 1 mile of the main channel of the Sacramento River and we get a delta breeze that keeps things cooler. Today was one of those rare days where it topped 100 degrees!

Interesting Links

A couple of interesting multiple media links:

• A Parody of Woody Guthrie's This Land
  


• Animated GIF depicting stick-figure people running amok

Greg Ostertag?!?

When I got into the truck after work and turned on the Sports 1140, they were playing a series of highlights of Greg Ostertag's play against the Kings. At that point, I realized that the Kings had signed Ostertag.

If you believe the Salt Lake City Tribute article, Ostertag's new deal will be worth $4 million next season. He will also own an option on returning to the Kings in 2005-06.

Divac, an unrestricted free agent, received a two-year contract that will pay him the Lakers' full $4.9 million mid-level exception next year.

For additional $900,000 a year, the Kings are much better off with Divic! It is very difficult for me to understand what the team is trying to accomplish with these two moves. There was some speculation during morning sports talk that the team hopes Peja will take more of a leadership role if he does not have Vlade to hide behind.

Photo Albums, Divac and iPods

I posted two photo albums from the Wallen's 25th Wedding Anniversary Party. A collection of photos from my digital camera can be found at:

http://www.heringer.org/WallenAnniversary/index.htm

An assortment of pictures taken with my camera phone are at:

http://heringermr.textamerica.com/?_ctgry=7071

Divac is ready to return to the Lakers. Talking to Mike Lamb on KHTK tonight, Divac said that this was all about the money. The Lakers are essentially willing to offer Divac twice as much money and a two year contract. I think that the Kings are making a mistake; Divac presence in the clubhouse has been very important to the success of this team.

Apple has announced new iPods! While they don't appear to come in different colors, the new models are smaller, cheaper and have some new features. I think that I am going to break down and buy one of these in a 40GB size.

Jaguar

Sharon has been talking about getting a BMW or Jaguar to replace the Camray. When I was making the reservation for the rental car on-line with Hertz for this trip I noticed that they had Jaguar Type-S's which is the model that she has been lusting after. We rented one on this trip to see how we would like it!




After driving it for a couple of days, my comments are that you are a little disconnected from the road and as a result the car drifts if you are not paying attention. Additionally, I did not like the way the automatic transmission shifted at times, but this could just be this particular vehicle.

Sunday morning, we slept late and then packed. We had breakfast at the Family Pancake and Dinner House on Kitsap Way.  I do not recommend the restaurant; I was underwhelmed by the food and the service.
 
We flew this trip on Southwest.  Normally, when I fly to SeaTAC I fly Alaska or United.  I am not sure that I have ever flown Southwest to SeaTAC; I will not do it again.  There was about a 200 yard long line to check our bags that took about 45 minutes to navigate.  At the end of this line was one of the rudest counter clerks that I have ever encountered.  I think that I saved about $10 a person by flying Southwest and it was not worth it!
 
Overall, the rest of the trip home was uneventful and we were back in Elk Grove before 5:00 p.m.

A Great Time!

Nathan picked a group of us up at the hotel about 4:30 p.m. and we headed over to the Wallen's for their 25th Wedding Anniversary Party. We left Jack and Jim Wallen's daughter at the hotel with a friend of Becky's. The Wallen's held the celebration in their backyard which overlooks Phinney Bay and looks West towards Olympic Mountain Range and the sunset. It was a great setting for a party; it would have been difficult to rent a more perfect spot!

click on the picture for a larger copy!


The weather was fantastic. They had a open bar with a bartender and caterers serving appetizers for about two hours while everyone arrived and mingled. There was a Jazz duet playing downstairs under the deck before dinner.  In total, there were about 65 people. John and Jill then renewed their vows in a short ceremony overlooking the water.

Dinner was a great meal of New York strip steak and salmon. Sharon and I had the honor of sitting at the same table with John and Jill. After dinner, there was a DJ and a dance floor; we partied and danced until after midnight.

It was after 1:00 am by the time we got back to the hotel and almost 2:00 a.m. by the time we got to bed. It was a wonderful party! Over the course of the evening, I took more than 100 pictures and will work on a photo album over the next couple of days.

Morning run

Wallen and I went out for a morning run covering a little over seven miles in about 59 minutes for about an 8:30 minute mile pace. We ran from John's house out to Kitsap Way and then out to near the end of the point between Oyster and Ostrich Bays. Afterwards, Sharon, Jill, Molly and Allyn went out for a run. Sharon and Allyn ran about 3 3/4 miles along Chico Way, while Jill and Molly walked.

After the runs, Sharon, Jack and I headed over to Silverdale to get a present and have lunch at the Red Robin. A big group then met at the Wallen's to finish setting up for the party. We spent a couple of hours putting on the finishing touches.

To Bremerton Washington

Sharon, Jack and I spent most of the day traveling to Bremerton, Washington for John and Jill Wallen's 25th Wedding Anniversary Party on Saturday night. We flew Southwest from Sacramento to the SeaTAC, rented a car and drove around to Bremerton. We got a room for two nights at the Oyster Bay Inn (The Pearl of Bremerton!?!).

Jack has been playing Chess in the extended day during summer school. I went Thursday night and got a chess set to take with us on the trip. Jack and I played our first game against each other on the plane and he beat me fair and square!

Once we got check into the hotel, we went by the Wallen's. After having a drink or two on their deck, a group that set off for dinner at the Yacht Club Broiler in Silverdale. The group for dinner included John and Jill, John's brother Jim, Jim's wife Allyn and their daughter Bailey, Jill's friend Molly, Jill's Mom, Sharon, Jack and I.

Financial Planner

Today is Matt and Sherry Bell's 15th Wedding Anniversary!

Sharon and I spent a couple of hours with our financial planner in the afternoon reviewing the revised plan.  This is the third year that we have gone through the planning process with this group.  The major issues that we talked about included buying long term health care insurance and getting all of the assets structured into the trust.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings...

Today is John and Jill Wallen's 25th Wedding Anniversary!

This is one of those weeks that flies by with every day filled with meetings.  Monday included a 4 1/2 hour senior management meeting and a two plus hour budget meeting.  Tuesday afternoon was spent in a session working on the 2005 to 2007 Strategic Business Plan.  On Wednesday, we hosted almost 80 people in a Lawson Summit for more than six hours.  The Summit was designed to get some forward momentum on customer satisfaction and system utilization issues.

click on the picture for a larger copy!

iPod or iPod Mini?

I got to see the iPod Mini that Larkin ordered from the on-line Apple Store. He thinks that he ordered in late May or early June and got it Monday. Morgan spent the last two weeks at our house loading her CDs on to the iPod that I had gotten her for her birthday. Having seen and handled both model, I am not sure which one I am going to buy. I like the size of the iPod Mini, but would love to have a 40GB model!

Maybe I should wait for the new models of iPod in August; reportedly, the top end of which will use a 60GB hard drive and be offered in purple, orange, and yellow!

I ended up having to put a new transfer case into the Explorer; it has just short of 140,000 miles on it. Interesting, Rudy has a 1998 Ford Explorer with just over 140,000 miles and he had to replace the transfer case about a month and a half ago. Lew also has a 1998 Explorer, but with only 120,000 miles. While Rudy and Lew were talking the problem Lew noted that his is making a funny noise! I recognize that a AWD (all wheel drive) vehicle puts on a tremendous strain on the transfer case, but wonder what the useful life of the transfer case should be?

Raising Kids--Who's Easier: Boys or Girls?

The article notes that when it comes to raising kids, gender matters. But our own personality and expectations may count even more. The bottom line is that raising children is hard work, regardless of gender. Some kids are just more challenging than others. Other bullets include:

Girls are emotionally high maintenance.

Girls talk back more.

Girls' bullying can be emotionally harsher.

Boys are aggressive and physical.

Communication can be challenging with a boy.

Stereotypes Don't Always Hold Up

Wine Tasting

Sharon and Janie spent the day wine tasting in Napa. They stopped at the Trefethen and Robert Sinskey vineyards. They had a long, late lunch at the Martini House in St. Helena.

We have had our cat Peja for one year

Morgan's Ear Ache plus Bike Riding

Morgan started complaining of her ear hurting on Saturday. By Sunday morning, the ear canal was swollen and she could not hear out of left ear. Morgan was originally scheduled to play the piano to accompany the choir at her church on Sunday morning. While Sharon served as eucharistic minister for communion during Mass at Good Shepherd, Jack and I took Morgan to the emergency room at Marshall Hospital in Placerville. They diagnosed her with "swimmers ear," an outer ear infection. They gave her a prescription for steroids to treat the problem. Morgan had swam laps each night while Jack was getting his swimming lessons.

In the afternoon, Jack and I went for a couple mile bike ride on a trail around the Stone Lakes development in Elk Grove. He spent the whole time pretending that he was racing in the Tour de France.

The Wizard of Oz

Saturday afternoon, Sharon, Jack, Morgan and I went to the Music Circus' performance of The Wizard of Oz. This is the first time I have been to the new facility; it is a very nice set-up. Everyone enjoyed the show, although Jack got a little scared during a couple of parts.


After the show, we went to Sammy Chu's for dinner. Morgan chose a great Thai BBQ Chicken dish, but we don't recommend the Miso Soup. The restaurant is located in an odd part of town at 15th and R.

The Living Room Candidate

The Living Room Candidate is an interesting web site that includes presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2004.

2004 Best Places to Work in IT

For the 2nd Year in a row, Sutter Health System Support (SHSS) Information Technology has been rated as one of the top 100 places to work for IT professionals.

The honor is part of the weekly newspaper Computerworld 11th annual Best Places to Work in IT survey, which ranks the top 100 work environments for technology professionals using the categories of benefits, diversity, career development, training and retention.

Out of the top 100, Sutter health ranked with an impressive 34th place! This is up from 64th in 2003.

The lists are compiled based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, diversity, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings.

Ordinary People

After having dinner at Logan's Roadhouse, Sharon, Morgan and I watched Ordinary People on DVD. Sharon ranks this movie in her personal top ten list.

2004 Tour de France Pictures!

The grahamwatson.com site has some great pictures of the 2004 Tour de France. It has been updated every day with pictures from each stage.

Jeff Boone

Jeff Boone, July 1983

Technorati tracks 3 million blogs

Technorati tracks 3 million blogs: "On an average weekday, we're seeing over 15,000 new weblogs created per day. That means that a new weblog is created somewhere in the world every 5.8 seconds."

Tour de France

Sharon and I have been TIVOing the Tour de France on the Outdoor Life Network every morning from 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m and then watching a condensed version at night.

Tour de France 2004 Blog

Tour de France 2004 Blog

Spiderman II in Lego's! This requires quicktime.

sad news

From: Tom Richards
Sent: Tue 7/6/2004 5:33 PM
Subject: sad news

I just heard some sad news and I thought I would pass it along to each of you. Jim Seth just informed me he heard that Dennis Cleveland passed away suddenly on July 4 from a heart attack. Dennis was one of the kindest individuals I knew. To me he was one of those people who always expressed an upbeat and cheerful attitude that made working at the old Bank a real joy. I believe he was married and I’m certain he had a son who he always took fishing at his annual bass fishing tournament. Dennis was just 49 years old.

Tom

Steve Nash, Michael Moore's Blog and Fahrenheit 911

I had previously noted Mark Cuban's Maverick Blog. The latest entry talks about how the Mavericks lost Steve Nash to the Phoenix Suns.

Micheal Moore has also started a blog.

Speaking of Michael Moore, the Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 911

CNN.com - Kerry names Edwards his running mate

Although the New York Post reported on the front page that Gephardt had been named as Kerry's veep pick, Kerry names Edwards his running mate

Swimming Lessons and a dead truck

As far as I am concerned, few things are as important as making sure that kids can swim and are comfortable in the water. This is one of the few things that my parents did right; making sure that my sisters and I could swim at a very young age. I have lots of memories as a kid of going during the summer to the old public pool in Gridley to take swimming lessons. Jack has taken some group swimming lessons the last few years. We have not been happy with his progress, particularly last summer. We have put him in some private swimming lessons at Sharon's sports club all this week. Morgan and Sharon swam laps while Jack had his lesson.

On the way back from the hike yesterday, the tranmission in the truck started to act up. By late afternoon, it would not go into reverse. We spent Monday morning finding some place to get it looked at and getting a rental car.

Lake Jenkinson at Sly Park

Sunday morning, Sharon, Jack and I headed towards Tahoe on highway 50 for a hike. We met Drew and picked up Morgan. We went to Jenkinson Lake at Sly Park. There is an eight plus mile hiking trail all the way around the lake. We went past the main entrance, across both of the dams and parked just across the second dam. The trailhead for the south side of the lake starts just across the road. The south side of the lake has no campgrounds and is a much better hike than the north side of the lake.

We ended up hiking more than 2 miles before stopping for lunch. The trail is relatively flat. Jack lead the way and sent a good pace; he kept wanting to run. For the day, we probably covered about 4 1/2 miles. This is the first hike that we have done that I did not carry Jack part of the way. He did great and did not start to ask about how much farther we were going until we were almost back to the truck.






Sunday night, the four of us sent off some fireworks in the street in front of the house.

Boat Parade, Terminal and Eightfold

Sharon and Janie Daigle have started a new tradition by going out on July 3 the last three years to watch the boat parade on the river from the Virgin Sturgeon.

Saturday afternoon, Sharon, Jack and I went to see the movie Terminal in the theater. Although a little slow in a couple of spots, I would recommend it. I particularly liked the fact that they stayed away from formula endings and did not tie up all the loose ends. You can find the trailer for the movie here.

Drew's band, Eightfold, was the featured act for the Placerville Open Mic at the Cozmic Cafe in Placerville last night. Here's a picture of Drew on guitar and Kellen Gracia on bass from a blog of someone who was there.

2004 Rivercast versus Sidewinders

Sharon, Jack and I went to the Rivercats game with the Bowers. Their son Jeffery goes to school with Jack and Jack and he have gotten to be good friends. The Rivercats beat the Tucson Sidewinders by a score of 8-7 in the 12th. We actually stayed until the game ended about 11:10 p.m. The game included 30 hits and 5 errors.





It was one of those nights that you run into people you do not expect to see. While we were talking the boys to the play area, I ran into a family that we had known for five years from Jack's first daycare center; they eventually came and sat with us for the last couple of innings. Right after that, a kid comes up to me and says "Heringer." It was Craig Snipes. He was at the baseball game with a group for a birthday party.

Test of Audioblogger

Amplify, Hillary and more

After a dinner of cornflake chicken, Sharon and Morgan went to see The Stepford Wives. I can remember seeing the original in a theater in Marysville in 1975.

There was an article in the technology section of the Sacramento Bee about a new web service called Amplify. The site allows you to collect information from the Internet and create your own web page from a number of different sources. Using the service, I created a page of some information about Peja Stojakovic, including some pictures of the Greek model that he is marrying.

The Drudge report is quoting a top D.C. insider that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be picked as Kerry's VP.

sacbee.com -- Technology -- New Sony Walkman to rival Apple's iPod

Larkin sent me a link to a New Sony Walkman to designed to rival Apple's iPod. The NW-HD1 will be the smallest 20-GB player on the market. It is slightly larger than a credit cardm less than half an inch thick.

Kurt and Joy's 20th Wedding Anniversary

Today is Kurt and Joy Snipes' 20th Wedding Anniversary!

I sent them an electronic anniversary card from Blue Mountain and then called and talked to Kurt on the phone at the end of the day. Today is also their son Keith's 15th birthday.

Wednesday night, Morgan, Jack, Sharon and I went to dinner at Romas Pizzeria. When we were in Logan's a couple of weeks ago, the person making a balloon animal for Jack told us that this was the best pizza place in Sacramento. The pizza was excellent!

Running Amok

Morgan got into a confrontation with her mother on Monday night and started walking with nothing more than a cell phone that died just as she got coverage. Before the cell phone died, she had sent me an SMS message to pick her up, but I then I could not get in touch with her to find out where she was. By the time, she sent me a message she had already been walking for almost an hour and a half. Coordinating with Drew, he eventually picked her up after she had been walking for more than two hours. Drew took her to a friend's house where she spent Monday night. I picked up Morgan up in the middle of the day on Tuesday. I talked very briefly to her mother letting her know where Morgan was.

Although I do not agree with Morgan's strategy of hiking away from her mom's house, it is difficult for me not to be somewhat sympathetic. The events surrounding her mother's life over the last nine months are bizarre and have resulted in them moving three times in the last six months.

Cisco Executive Briefing

A large group from Sutter Health spent the day at the Cisco Systems Executive Briefing Center in San Jose. The agenda topics included: Sutter Health's environment and expectations; Cisco Systems' Storage Networking Current State, Direction, and Value for Customers; a Case Study: Cisco Systems' Information Technology; a tour of their data center with a focus on Storage Architecture, a review of management processes and tools; and a design discussion.

I came to two miscellaneous conclusions from the presentations. First, we need to be looking at technology that will allow us to use iSCSI connectors to access the SAN. Second, Sutter needs to incorporate more low end storage like NAS into our storage model.

Lazy Sunday

We had a lazy Sunday. Sharon spent part of the afternoon buying and taking food to her parents.

After helping get Jack to bed, I took off for the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in San Jose. We have another meeting with Cisco in San Jose at 8:00 a.m. on Monday.

By going down on Sunday night, I hoped to avoid the traffic. I surprised to find myself in stop and go traffic going through Tracy and the Altamont Pass at 10:00 p.m. at night!

Hulquist's

We went to a graduation party that Larry and Jeana Hultquist had for their daughters. The oldest graduated from Humboldt State, while the youngest graduated from high school.

Waxy.org: Daily Log: InfocomBot for AOL Instant Messenger

Waxy.org: Daily Log: InfocomBot for AOL Instant Messenger

Public Toilet

A public toilet with one way mirrors in Basel, Switzerland!

BBC NEWS: Art's glass toilet tests courage (include video footage)

Las Vegas SUN: VegasBeat -- Timothy McDarrah: O'Neal may find deal fit for a King

From the Las Vegas Sun, O'Neal may find deal fit for a King.

Another Marathon?

I still have some notion of running another marathon. I have been starting to think about running the California International Marathon in December 2006 and then taking another shoot at the American River 50 in April of 2007.

I had a strong run at lunch today. After a mile plus warm-up, I run successive miles at 8:56, 8:48, 8:38 and 8:20 followed by a mile plus cool-down. Running with Wallen last weekend was good for working on my speed.

Larkin July 1983

Joe Larkin, July 1983

Kings Update

According to today's Sacramento Bee, the Kings have only six players under contract: Chris Webber, Brad Miller, Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, Bobby Jackson and Stojakovic. The Kings are in the process of formulating a qualifying offer for Darius Songilia that will allow them to match any offer he receives. The Kings hope to re-sign unrestricted free agent Vlade Divac, but that it is not a given.

The Sacamento Bee article went on to say that the Kings could have their sights set on guard. In the NBA draft tonight, the Kings drafted two guards: Kevin Martin and Ricky Minard.

Right after the Kings drafted Martin, ESPN was showing film of him and the analysts were comparing him physically to Doug Christie.

Here is a summary on both players from ESPN:

Kevin Martin
SHOOTING GUARD (6-7, 185) WESTRN CAROLINA
SELECTED BY SACRAMENTO, ROUND 1, PICK 26, OVERALL PICK 26

Notes: One of the best scorers in the country both his sophomore and junior seasons. Averaged 22.8 ppg as a sophomore. Ranked second nationally in scoring this season with a 24.8 ppg average.

Upside: An explosive scorer that gets it done from the perimeter and by relentlessly taking the ball to the basket. Averaged nearly 10 free throw attempts per game shooting at an 82 percent clip. Has a long wing span that allows him to defend multiple positions. A very good athlete.

Downside: His thin, rail-like body concerns some scouts. His build reminds some of Detroit's Tayshaun Prince. He takes a lot of three pointers but doesn't shoot them with much accuracy. He shot 33 percent from behind the arc last season; 31 percent the year before. His assist-to-turnover ratio is awful.

Ricky Minard
SHOOTING GUARD (6-4, 198) MOREHEAD ST
SELECTED BY SACRAMENTO, ROUND 2, PICK 19, OVERALL PICK 48

Notes: Led the Ohio Valley Conference in scoring (21.8 ppg), and was fourth in rebounding (7.3 rpg) and assists (5.1 apg). Originally declared for the 2003 NBA draft before withdrawing.

Positives: Great athleticism. Does a little bit of everything. His 5.1 assist average have some scouts wondering if he could be the second coming of Ronald Murray. Has a nice shot from midrange. Creates most of his scoring opportunities off the dribble. Good defender. Tough.

Negatives: Size is an issue. He's turnover prone. A very streaky shooter with questionable NBA three point range.

An ESPN analyst grading the draft gives the Kings a "B-". The analyst actually prefers Minard to Martin.

The Condensed Bill Clinton

The Condensed Bill Clinton - Slate reads it so you don't have to.

Larkin's Birthday

Joe Larkin's Birthday

Sharon took off for San Francisco in the late afternoon. She is staying overnight in the city and attending a seminar on intellectual property rights on Thursday.

The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman

American Express is producing short films starring Jerry Seinfield and Superman. The second webisode titled "Hindsight is 20/20" can be found on the web at The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman.

Funeral Services for Jennifer

I attended the funeral services for the employee who died in an automobile accident last week.

Sharon and her two brothers took her parents out to dinner at Silva's Sheldon Inn for her mother's birthday; her mom will be 83 tomorrow.

The Kings lost swingman Gerald Wallace in the expansion draft. The team has also been informed by guard Anthony Peeler that he will not exercise his contract option and will become a free agent July 1.

Orinda Country Club

I spent the day playing golf in a Sutter Hospice and VNA Charity golf tournament at the Orinda Country Club with John Hummel, Todd Peterson and Debbie Sleigh. We were eight over with nine boggeys, eight pars and one birdie. I putted better than normal (sinking a couple of long putts to help us save par), but could not get my drives going off the tee.

Father's Day 2004

We had a very lazy Father's Day. After working on the house and yard for big parts of the last three weekends (plus lots of weeknights), we did as little as possible. Sharon and Jack got me a new pair of sunglasses for Father's Day.

A precious few you should hold on...

The Wallens took off early Sunday morning to go to his parents in Redding. Having the Wallens stay with us for a couple of days, talking about their upcoming twenty fifth wedding anniversary and going to Connor's wedding made me think of the lyrics to a song:

"Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young."

Photo Album from Connor's Wedding

I put together an on-line photo album from Connor's wedding at:

http://www.heringer.org/connorwedding/index.htm

Brunch and then off to the Wedding

After our morning run, Wallen, Nathan, Jack and I took off to go to the grocery store to pick up a couple more items for brunch. We stopped by the hotel where most of the wedding party was staying. Everyone was recovering from the rehearsal dinner and trying to figure out where Mikey was; he disappeared for over an hour claiming that he was working out in the fitness room.

Eventually winding our way back to the house, we had a brunch for a number of the people going to the wedding. In addition to the four Wallens, Greg Chabrier stopped by with his two youngest, Hunter came by after Loren's basketball game with a brief appearance by Danny, and Drew and Kaylen stopped off on their way back from Irvine.

Wallen, Jack and I ended up running Hunter out to where the groomsmen were getting ready. This turned out to be fortuitous. Geselbracht had gotten his signals crossed and was not where the limo was picking up the groomsmen. Unfortunately, Geselbracht had Mikey's tux! We took Mikey back to the hotel to meet with Geselbracht.

Afterwards, we rushed back to the house with just enough time to get ready to go to the wedding. Leaving Jack with a babysitter, Sharon and I followed by the Wallens took off for the wedding about 3:40 p.m. The wedding was held at the Wheeler's home just off the River Road. It was a very nice wedding and reception. There were a number of people at the wedding that I have not seen in years, including Pete Bradley, Tib Belza, Ray Perez, Paul Salisbury and Steve Wiley. Sharon and I had a great time. We headed up getting home a little after 10:00 p.m.

8:08's

Wallen and I were up and out for another early run. We were about 20 seconds faster through the first three miles, running the third mile in 7:58. I faded a little in the second half and we ended up running 6.4 miles in 52:01 for a an 8:08 pace.

Dinner

Jill, Becky and Nathan flew in on Friday night. Sharon made cornflake chicken, scalloped potatoes and asparagus for dinner.

8:03

Up early, Wallen and I went out for an early run. We covered 6.4 miles in 51:30, an average pace of 8:03! Wallen was talking and laughing the whole time, while most of my responses consisted of grunts. I am sure that I will not be able to walk tomorrow...

Dinner at Moxie's

It is going to be a busy weekend. With Connor's wedding on Saturday, a number of people are coming into town. Wallen flew in Thursday afternoon. He, Sharon and I went out to dinner at Moxie's. The food was excellent.

Apple Macintosh 128k

As part of getting the guest room cleaned out for the Wallens, I came across an original Apple Macintosh 128k. I got this computer in September of 1984 about two and a half months before Drew was born. It is almost twenty years old!





The guest room closet also included an IBM Thinkpad 765 that I used from 1996 through 1998 and an Apple Newton Messagepad 2100. I have started saving some of the documents from both of these machines. The documents include a long letter I wrote in August of 1991 detailing the break-up of my first marriage over the first nine months of that year and trips notes from my trip in April of 1995 to visit the Nooter's in Moscow, our honeymoon trip to Italy in October of 1996 and our first anniversary trip to Grand Cayman in October of 1997.

Financial Plan

Sharon and I met with our financial planner this morning, Adam Andelin, to work on the annual update to our financial plan. This is something that we started in 2002. I have been very pleased with the work that they have done for us. Adam is an associate of David Stone and I would recommend them to anyone looking for a financial planner.

Updates from the Nooter's

Barb Nooter has posted a number of letters describing their experiences living in Tanzania at:

http://nooter.blogspot.com/

She has also posted a number of pictures from their safari, of their house in Dar es Salam and of their day at the goat races! You can find these pictures at:

http://nooter.textamerica.com/

Unsettled day at work

Monday was a difficult day at work; a woman who works for one of the teams that reports to me was killed in an automobile accident. I found out from human resources shortly after I walked in the door and before anyone on any of the teams. I spent most of the morning talking to the managers that report to me and getting them to talk to their individual teams. Donna has largest group of employees, including the team where the woman worked; she spent the most time talking to groups of employees.

Another day working on the house

We spent a long day working on the house, including finishing up the painting, power washing the front entry and working in the yard. I ended the day after 11:00 p.m. getting a new window shade hung in the guest bedroom.

Miscellaneous Links

Jack enjoyed playing Railroad Tycoon this weekend!

Another animated Beatles video!

How AirTunes Works

end of the season party for baseball

With Connor's wedding next weekend and the Wallen staying with us, Sharon and I are making a push to do a few more things around the house. We worked in the morning cleaning up the guest room.

In the afternoon, we went to a party for the end of Jack's baseball season. The kids swam and played in a bouncy house. After a barbecue, the coaches passed out the trophies.


After the party, we spent the rest of the day painting two more walls RED!

Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004

The campaign has begun; check out the Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004
web site!

Make sure that you read the Frequently Asked Questions!

2004 SHSS IT Golf Tournament

Three out of the last four years, Donna and Kevin Gainsley, Sharon and I have played in the SHSS IT Golf Tournament. Last year, Kevin, Donna and I played with Jane Wong. This is the first time I have played golf since Rudy put together the group to play with the CEO last November!

Given how little Donna, Sharon or I have played, we did pretty well. We were +4; +1 on the front nine and +3 on the back nine. Although we failed to get a birdie, I think that this is the best score we have posted in the tournament. Rudy, Lew, Dave and Sam Samms posted a 56, -10.

Jack's last day of kindergarten!

Today was Jack's last day of kindergarten!

Apple - AirPort Express

One of the things that I have looking for over the last year is a device that would let me distribute music within our house using the 802.11 wifi network. When Larkin and I toured the Intel's Information Technology Innovation Center, they had one piece of hardware on display for distributing music using wifi, but I could never find the vendor on the web.

Airport Express

Apple has announced a piece of hardware that comes close to what I think I want. The AirPort Express with AirTunes brings your iTunes music in a PC into wherever you have a stereo or a set of powered speakers. Based on the documentation, you connect your sound system to the audio port on the AirPort Express Base Station using an audio cable and AirTunes lets you play your iTunes music through your powered speakers wirelessly. iTunes automatically detects the connection of your remote speakers, so you just have to select them in the popup list that appears at the bottom of the iTunes window and click play. The Airport Express is not shipping until July; I have one on order.

I am a big fan of iTunes. I have bought about one album a month from iTunes since the windows version was released. More importantly, I have not bought music from any other source during this period.

Monkey Bar

Rudy organized a going away party after work for Dave Hamilton at the Monkey Bar. Dave is leaving Sutter to start his own consulting firm.

10k plus at lunch

I have a 6.4 mile out and back that I will run at lunch when I am at Mather and can create a hole in my schedule. About 2/3's of this course is on an old bike trail that loops around the east end of the Mather airport. Today, I cruised out running about 8:30s for the first four miles and then carried a 7:52 over the fifth mile. This is a pretty good time running by myself; normally, I have to chasing a rabbit like Wallen to have that kind of split!

Exchange mail server down!

Jack played in his sixteenth and final baseball game of the season!



About 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, we lost one of the exchange mail servers that support about 700 people, including the CEO, COO, CFO and CIO. We have a number of distributed exchange servers that support almost 25,000 users.

It is amazing how important e-mail has become as a tool for communicating and documenting. The level of angst that senior management started to exhibit after only a couple of hours without email (sent real time to their blackberries!) is intellectually interesting.

Not only does this team report to me, but I was executive on call for the week. With the system still down Tuesday evening, I ended up heading to the data center about 11 p.m. to run incident command. Working with Microsoft, the team finally got the server up and running a little after 1:00 a.m. By the time, I got back home and in bed it was close to 2:30 a.m. Unfortunately, I had meetings at CPMC in San Francisco. I dragged myself down to the bay area for the meetings and then back to Jack's game, LONG DAY...

Morgan's schedule for her senior year in high school

When school starts in August, Morgan will be a senior at Union Mine High School. Her schedule for next year includes:

jazz band - zero block;

ap literature;

ap statistics;

choir;

drama 1;

theater tech;

dance 1 & 2;

italian 3 - independent study;

intermediate instruments (for practice time); and,

gov & econ - graduation requirement.

The class schedule from her just finished junior year is here!

Mazatlan February 1988

Moving some stuff around in one of the bedrooms, I came across a box of pictures, including these pictures taken in February of 1988 during a trip to Mazatlan.

The fishing on this trip was a very different experience than the recent Cabo trip. Rather than a big, comfortable boat in the middle of the Cortez Sea, we were in little tubs just outside the harbor. While the boat with Connor, Geselbracht and Bachman actually caught a couple of nice fish, the boat with Chabrier, Hunter, Nooter and I caught nothings but eels. We ran our own contest for most eels and biggest eel!

Clicking on the photo will open a larger copy!

More painting

I spent a couple hours after dinner taping and painting. Unbeknownst to me until this weekend, the project also included painting the niche four different colors.

We spent all day working on the inside of the house.

One of the books that I have read over the last month is My Losing Season by Pat Conroy. The story is mostly about Conroy's senior year playing basketball for the Citadel with flashbacks to other parts of his life. The book is very well written. It makes my realize how poorly written some of the other books I have been reading are. I need to stop wasting my time reading books like Tom Clancy's Op Center, Net Force and Power Plays novels!

My reading list from the last twelve years has been updated and is on-line at: http://www.heringer.org/books.htm.

Logan's Roadhouse

Jack played in his fifteenth baseball game of the season. With one game to go, he has definitely made a lot of progress with his hitting and fielding. Like the rest of the team, he is still a little unclear on the situational stuff (i.e. which base to throw to).



We spent the rest of the day making a run to home depot and working on the house. We went out to dinner at Logan's Roadhouse. The chain claims that the restaurants are modeled after 1930's and 1940's roadhouses.

I have included a couple of examples in the past of google bombs, including miserable failure, waffles and Jew. Now someone has turned the whole idea into a contest. DarkBlue.com is giving away an Apple Mini iPod and a Sony Flat Screen Monitor to anyone who can take their page to #1 for a non-commercial, nonsensical search term - currently with no search results. In my feeble attempt to help someone win, I am linking to Nigritude Ultramarine.

Still working on the Upstairs Hallway

I spent another hour plus after dinner working on the upstairs hallway. All of the moulding is now in place. I have gotten everything to the point where I can finish the project tomorrow by touching up the paint. With house guests coming in two weeks, Sharon has plans to paint and repaint parts of the house. We will start on these projects tomorrow.

At work, we kicked off the budgeting for 2005 over the last two days. It is hard for me to start thinking about next year already. In the same breath, it is hard for me to believe that it is already June. Morgan finished her junior year in high school a week ago, Jack will complete kindergarten at end of the coming week, and Drew comes back from his first year at college in two weeks.

Generic Names for Soft Drinks by County

Generic Names for Soft Drinks by County

sacbee.com -- Sports -- Questions all around: Q&A with Rick Adelman

Larkin sent me a link to an interview in today's Sacramento Bee that Mark Kreidler did with King's Coach Rick Adelman. It is excellent. There are several quotes from Adelman that ring true to me, including:

And I think we obviously need one more big guy [me too!]. You look at our team, and I think it's pretty obvious that the area we got hurt in was people attacking the basket on us. So I think if we can become more athletic and become more of a factor at deterring people attacking the basket, it's certainly going to enhance our defense.

From my standpoint, I'd certainly like for him [Divac] to come back. I think he's so valuable to this team, on and off the court. He has had a huge impact on this team, and if you didn't have him, not only would you be missing a skilled player, but also the glue - a major part of the glue that held this team together.

you start with Mike Bibby and Doug Christie, and Peja, Webber, Brad (Miller) and Bobby - that's six solid, very solid NBA players who all are proven. That's a heck of a lot more than most teams have...

sacbee.com -- Sports -- Divac isn't ready to quit

There is an article in today's Sacramento Bee titled Divac isn't ready to quit by Marty McNeal. In the article, Divac says:

I'm going to play one more season... At the end of next year, I'll see how I feel. My first choice, like I've always said, is to play with the Kings. I want to retire here if possible. I love the town and the fans.

More Baseball

Jack played in his fourteenth baseball game of the year.

There are some pictures on Drew's web site from his appearance at the Cosmic Cafe on March 28th. Drew has an album of five songs that he worked on over Christmas break. He recorded a couple of more songs during spring break. Once school is out in June, Drew will be pulling together an album of 10 or 12 songs.

Morgan's SAT scores

Morgan got a 720 verbal(!) and a 510 math on her SATs. The SAT test will be changing in less than a year. The perfect score will rise from 1,600 to 2,400. The extra 800 points cover a new, third section designed to evaluate writing prowess adding 45 more minutes to the three-hour exam. The new section includes a a 25-minute timed essay.

I spent most of the day at Glen Cove for the SOMA Meeting; this is the steering committee for Sutter Health's outpatient electronic medical record project.

Multimedia Links

Here are a couple of interesting multimedia links from the web. The first is a flash cartoon video of the Beatles' Come Together. The second is a movie trailer for The Incredibles, a Disney/Pixar animated film coming this fall.

Divac to the Lakers or Clippers?

At the end of Mark Heisler's column titled In the East, There's No Guarantee of Offense in the May 30 edition of the Los Angeles Times, he says that:

"Clubhouse leader Vlade Divac is telling friends he'll be a Laker or a Clipper next season."