Drew leaves for college today! He, Morgan and his mother are driving to Clovis to stay with his grandfather tonight. Tomorrow they will drive the rest of the way to the Univesity of California at Irvine. Go Anteaters!

2003 Back to School Night

Sharon and I attended back to school night at Jack's school. We listened to the Priest and the Principal talk about the role of the parent in education and his kindergarten teacher outline the structure of the class and the curriculum for the year.

While Sharon and her brothers are products of Catholic grammar and high schools, this is a new experience for me. I was raised a Presbyterian in a small rural farming town in Northern California. While we were fairly active in the Church (church groups were one of the few available youth activities), it bears no comparison to being involved in the local Catholic parish and the parish school. Even in a larger city, the Catholic parish is a much tighter community with more connections into day-to-day life.

There is a good article in the September edition of Healthleaders Magazine. The cover story is entitled All Together Different and covers the development of Sutter Health as an integrated delivery network. The lead-in notes that "Sutter's strong position reflects its focus on the standardization of business information and clinical systems." The article talks a lot about the EICU project that we have underway, the new data center and includes a number of quotes from our CIO.

Perseverance and Persistence

I have had the opportunity to have some interesting life experiences. Through all of the challenges, I have come strongly to believe in perseverance and persistence.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

One the other hand, maybe I am just a stubborn dutchman...

Today is Jill Wallen's birthday.

Sharon spent Saturday afternoon serving as the coordinator for a wedding at Good Shepherd. This was her second wedding as one of the wedding coordinators for the church.

We both got a kick out of the number one reason on Dave Letterman's list of the top ten reasons why Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck postponed their wedding. You can find the list at: CBS | Late Show Top Ten Archive: September 11, 2003

We worked Saturday and Sunday finishing up a project to dig out and replant the area in front of the pond and the fountain.

In January, we spent two weeks in the Philippines visiting Pat Funk and her family. I have made several attempts to organize the pictures with some diary entries, but could never get any momentum for the project. I am trying again to get everything organized.

One of the unique experiences on the trip was playing night golf in downtown Manila! Check out the of pictures of the 16th century fort walls.

Sharon met Mary Franklin for Dinner at the Zinfandel Grille in Folsom.

My fantasy football team won its first week by a score 81 to 62. Although I am now 1 - 0 on the season, four other teams in the league scored more than 81 point last weekend. It is going to be a long season if I don't get better performances from Indianapolis Colts Quarterback Peyton Manning.

At our August 25 Senior Operations meeting, the CIO tossed out a pile of books and asked everyone to take one and bring back a half page book report in two weeks. I choose The Art of the Long View.

This book was written by noted futurist Peter Schwartz and is designed to provide a toolkit for long term planning and thinking. The toolkit resolves around developing scenarios to alternative futures and using these scenarios to help plan. His scenarios are not technical presentations, but stories. The author draws the analogy of writing scripts for the theater as a way to think about the development of the scenarios.

My favorite section of the book was entitled Tactics: Where to Look in the Information-Hunting and Gathering chapter. His recommended sources for information to research scenarios includes: remarkable people; sources of surprise (reading outside your immediate specialty); filters (routinely pick up a dozen magazines from a newsstand and scan them); immersion in challenging environments (travel is the single best way to immerse yourself in unfamiliarity); and networked sensibilities (using technology to exchange and share information).

An interesting application of the tools can be seen in some scenarios developed by the Valleys Futures Project. As part of this project, four possible scenarios for the Sacramento area in 2025 were developed, including: Rios de Oro; Silver Lining; New Tech Mirage; and Paradise Lost.

If you live in Sacramento, I strongly recommend reading the Silver Lining scenario!

Sharon and Janie Diagle played the 9 hole executive golf course at Bing Maloney this morning.

Eightfold

Drew's band, Eightfold, played at the Coffee House in Placerville on Friday night. He and Kellen Gracia [the bass player on the left] have played together for four years. They have won their school's battle of the bands every year for the last four years. Although Drew's interest have morphed more to theater over the last two years, Drew is a talented musician who has written most of the material that Eightfold has recorded.

This was billed was the last performance of the group. With Drew heading to UCI in less than two weeks and Eric, the drummer, heading to UC Santa Cruz, it is possible that they will not play together again.

We spent most of the day working in the backyard planting a new weeping crabapple tree and replacing some ground cover.

Starting in 1997, I played an increasing number of different fantasy sports games on the ESPN web site. I actually won a baseball and a basketball league in 2001. I decided in August of last year that I was spending too much time on too many different games and too many teams in each game and quit cold turkey.

Over the last year, I found that I enjoy the football and basketball season a lot more if I have a group of players that I am following so I decided to put my toe back in the water. I participated in a live draft for a NFL fantasy team, Sacto Rare White Tigers, on Monday.

I spent most of the day driving to Lakeport and back for a Lawson go-live readiness assessment at Sutter Lakeside. Leaving Williams in the morning and heading up highway 20 into the Coastal range, I headed straight into a series of large thunderstorms with lots of lightning and rain for almost 50 miles. It was pretty impressive to watch the lightning strikes on the hilltops.

We spent Labor Day at Tom's house, Sharon's oldest brother. Jack had a great time swimming in the pool with his cousins, while the adults barbecued, had a few cocktails, debated the appropriateness of the recall election of the California governor and reviewed the merits of the 135 candidates for governor.

Sharon's mom, Rosemary, had a major stroke in January of 2002. Rosemary and Sharon's dad, Jack, have continued live in their home with a live-in carekeeper. Sharon and her two brothers have been taking turns making meals for the week and taking them to church. We went over on Sunday afternoon. Sharon made dinner and got a couple of other meals organized for the coming week.

By the time we got home and got Jack to bed, it was almost 9:30 p.m. Digging through the pile of DVDs that we have been wanting to see, we decided that we were too tired to make it until midnight. Instead, turning on Showtime, we got sucked into watching one of the worst movies I have ever seen, Rules of Attraction. The film's writer-director is Roger Avary, who directed "Killing Zoe" and co-authored Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."

Jack's 5th Birthday Party

Today was Jack's fifth Birthday. We had a very successful birthday party with five other kids from Jack's old day care plus Andrew, Jack's godfather and godmother, his cousins and the DiGorgio's.

We had planned a number of activities for the party, but one of the biggest hits was unplanned. After lunch, the kids all started wading in the pond and climbing on the waterfall. They were playing with a boat the Lee Ann and Dean had given Jack as a present for Christmas in 2001. I would never have expected the kids to start doing this on their own; Jack has never really had any interest in wading in the pond.

There is a photo album from at the party at:

http://www.heringer.org/jack5/index.html

Drew's class schedule for the 2003 Fall Quarter at UCI includes:

Crse         Crse     Sec      Grd 

Code  Dept   Num  Typ Num Unts Opt  Days    Time          

----  ----   ---- --- --- ---- ---  ----    ----

02050 DANCE   30A STU   A  2.0  PN   M W F  08:30-09:50   

03025 DRAMA   30A STU   D  4.0  GR    T T   08:00-09:50   

03088 DRAMA    65 LAB   B  2.0  GR   M W    04:00-04:50

44011 MATH     1A LEC   B  4.0  GR   M W F  02:00-02:50

44012 MATH     1A DIS  20  0.0  GR    T     02:00-02:50

 

 total units enrolled 12.0       2.0 p/np units

I expressed some concern to Drew that he was not taking one more general education class.

Over the last three weeks, the Kings have made three moves.

On August 5, the Kings traded the forward/center Keon Clark and two future second-round picks to the Utah Jazz for a second-round pick.

On August 15, the team made a move to replenish their depth by signing veteran free-agent guard Anthony Peeler. The signing of Peeler could signal the end of Sacramento's pursuit of G Jim Jackson, who revitalized his career after joining the Kings early last season. Several teams are interested in Jackson, and owner Joe Maloof has said the team probably can't afford to keep him.

Finally, August 22, the Kings, moving to replenish their frontcourt depth, signed journeyman free agent Tony Massenburg to a one-year deal..

With these moves, the Kings have twelve players under contract for next year.

                                Under contract until

 10 Mike Bibby, G                    '08-'09

 52 Brad Miller, C                   '08-'09 

 13 Doug Chrisite, G/F               '05-'06 

    Geoff Petrie, GM                 '05-'06

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

  4 Chris Webber, F          '05-'06 with Player Option 

    Rick Adelman, Coach       '04-'05 with Team Option

 24 Bobby Jackson, G                 '04-'05

 21 Vlade Divac, C                   '03-'04 

 51 Lawrence Funderburke, F          '03-'04 

 44 Tony Massenburg, F/C             '03-'04

 44 Anthony Peeler, G                '03-'04

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

 99 Darius Songaila, F               '??-'??