2009 Laguna Youth Baseball Tryouts

Jack and I spent the middle part of the day at the Laguna Youth baseball tryouts for 10 year olds. This will be Jack's seventh year of organized baseball. Additionally, he played a season of summer ball and fall tournament baseball last year. It is the third year that he has gone to the tryouts.

There were more than 40 kids. They had each boy catch two fly balls in the outfield and throw to second, field two grounders at shortstop and throw to first and then take two throws at first. After the fielding, they lined up all of the kids, gave them three pitches against a pitching machine and then had them run the bases after the third pitch.

Jack looked very smooth taking balls in the outfield and the infield. The two grounders ate him up a little, but they stayed with both and made strong throws. At the plate, he swung at the first pitch, drove the second pitch in left center and fouled off the third pitch.

I was surprised how uncomfortable most of the kids looked. While Jack looks and moves like a baseball player, most of the kids acted like they had never seen a glove, ball or bat before.

I spend some time talking with one of the assistant coaches from the Gunners tournament team. He is planning on coaching majors this year and noted that most of the 11 year olds looked just as awkward. He also made the point that we have spent the last six months watching tournament baseball against the toughest teams in Northern California. As a result, our reference point for judging players has changed. I spent most of the rest of the tryout talking to Cunningham; his son was also participating.

This year, the league is starting a new division called Minor. It is between Majors and AAA. The Minor division is supposed to include 8 teams stocked with 11 year olds and some 10 year olds. I am pretty sure that this is where Jack will end up.

Camino de Cruces

As I have mentioned before, on the mornings that I drop Jack at school, he and I will often listen to PRI's The World Geo Quiz Podcast.

This morning's Geo Quiz titled the Gold Road talked about the Camino de Cruces. This is the shortest land route across Panama to get from the Caribbean to the Pacific. Built by the Spanish over 500 hundred years ago, Spanish conquistadors hauled off South American gold and other loot along this route to their awaiting treasure fleets. Pirates used it to flee to the Caribbean. It was even traveled by gold prospectors heading for the California Gold Rush.

It is also on the path that my Great, Great Grandfather took to get from Holland to Sacramento in 1868. I told Jack that someday we are going to hike on this trail.

Map of Royal Gorge Cross Country Skiing

Sharon and Janie cross country skied at Royal Gorge earlier this month. Using data from the Garmin Forerunner 201, I put together the following google map, topo map and screens shots from google earth. Sharon and I are planning to take a week day in early February to go cross country skiing at Royal Gorge.


View Larger Map

Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week - Emiliana Torrini - Big Jumps

The complete list of Starbucks iTunes picks of the week is here!

California Historical Landmark #614

Jack and I stopped here on the way back from Gunner's batting practice in Natomas.

Stanford-Lathrop Home
California State Historical Landmark #614
See this location on Yahoo Maps in Flickr
See this location on Google Maps
This landmark is located at 800 N Street, Sacramento, California. There are 57 other California State Historical Landmarks in Sacramento County. The GPS coordinates for this location are N 38° 34.584 W 121° 29.866.

You can log your visit to this landmark at waymark.com.


The house was originally designed in 1857 by Seth Babson and was purchased by Leland Stanford in 1861. It served as the state executive office from 1861 to 1867, before the completion of the State Capitol. It was later extensively remodeled and enlarged. In 1900 Jane Lathrop Stanford gave the house to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento to create the Stanford-Lathrop Memorial Home for Friendless Children.

 

 

 

Weather Station Back On-line

From late 2001 to the fall of 2007, there was a small weather station running in our backyard. Partly through neglect and partly due to the ravishes of the elements, the monitors started to fail. I eventually took the system off-line.

For my birthday, Sharon gave me a replacement system. I got everything back and up and running the following weekend.

The system posts data to the internet in two places. A summary page showing graphs for the last 24 hours is available here; it is updated every 30 minutes. Data from the weather station is also posted on a Weather Underground site here.

Big Tree at Cakeshop

[Morgan's band is appearing in the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Thursday night.]

Friends! Come hear Big Tree's first show of 2009 at Cakeshop this Thursday night. We're playing with Brooklyn indie rockers The Art of Shooting! This is the first NYC show where we'll have our new record for sale, so come by and check it out!

We're playing at 9 o'clock at Cakeshop, which is on Ludlow between Stanton and Rivington in the lower East side.

We're very excited for this show - don't miss it!

Also cake is tasty.

Much love to you all from Big Tree!

NBA Power Rankings 2008-2009 Week 13

At 10-35, these Kings are on pace to challenge for the worst record in franchise history that is held by the Cincinnati Royals of 1958-59 (19-53 in a 72-game season) and the 1959-60 Royals (19-56 in a 75-game schedule). They are also on pace to become the worst team in the Sacramento era – the 1989-90 Kings went 23-59.

The Kings dropped two spots to 30th in Marc Stein's weekly power rankings of NBA teams; they are ranked as the worst team in the league.

NBA Basketball Power Rankings - National Basketball Association - ESPN

The good news: Brad Miller hasn't done his trade value any harm by averaging a passable 13.4 points and 9.5 rebounds in January. The bad news: Kings opponents in January are rumbling for 113.8 points per game.

2009 PAL JV Rec Basketball Game #3

Jack played in his third JV Rec Basketball game of the 2009 PAL season. They played against Our Lady of Assumption (Blue). All of the games this year are played at the Our Lady of Assumption school in Carmichael.

The Eagles won by a score of 32 to 16. Jack continues to play the 2 in the first line. He played the first and third periods and had 4 points on 2 for 5 shooting. Jack missed his first three shots. Several of these were nice looking wide open jumpers that were down in the cylinder and bounced out. The last two baskets that he made were runners in traffic. The last basket climbed up and over the rim.

The first line spread the floor a little better this week. On a number of plays, the ball actually got swung back to Jack on the weak side of the court. Jack had a couple of nice rebounds, passes and assists.

It appears that the other team was made up of all sixth graders (Jack's team is all fifth graders), including three very large kids. Jack spent the first quarter guarding a player that was at least six inches taller and 35 pounds heavier.

At the end of the first leg of the tour

From Heringer's Blog

Celebrating Sharon's Birthday

Tim, Kathy, Erin, Tom, Becky, Eric, Sharon, Jack and I went to Rudy's Hideaway for dinner to celebrate Sharon's birthday. I have driven by this restaurant for more than 30 years but had never been to dinner there. Sharon said that she liked it well enough that she would go back again.

Afterwards, we went to Tom's for some German chocolate cake.

Pale Rider

Running on the treadmill, I watched the second half of Pale Rider as an HD rental on the AppleTV. The title is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of a pale horse is Death.

Life of Brian

Running on the treadmill, I watched Monty Python's Life of Brian as a rental on the AppleTV.

Disneyland!

Sharon flew to Burbank Thursday night. She and Janie spent Friday at Disneyland celebrating Sharon's birthday. They had a great time in spite of pouring rain in the morning and larger than expected crowds.

Updated Reading List

I posted an updated version of my reading list. My goal is to read at least one book a month; I have reached this target every month since I started the list almost 17 years ago.

Since August, I have been posting a short weblog entry for every book with some comments and observations.

Flowers for Sharon's Birthday

Flowers for Sharon's Birthday, originally uploaded by heringermr.

California Historical Landmark #613

Site of the Congregational Church
California State Historical Landmark #613
See this location on Yahoo Maps in Flickr
See this location on Google Maps
This landmark is located at 915 6th Street, Sacramento, California. There are 57 other California State Historical Landmarks in Sacramento County. The GPS coordinates for this location are N 38° 34.942 W 121° 29.904.

You can log your visit to this landmark at waymark.com.

 

Sacramento's first church was built across the street from this site in 1849. It was replaced at this location in 1854, when the original building was destroyed by fire. Services were held here until the 1920's.

The Pioneer Memorial Congregational Church is presently located across the street from Sutter's Fort.

The founder of the First Congregational Church was the Rev. Joseph A. Benton. He began his long career in Sacramento in July 1849. Rev. Benton's interests included education as well as religious activities. He taught at one of the first schools in Sacramento.

Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week - Jennifer O'Connor - Always In Your Mind

The complete list of Starbucks iTunes picks of the week is here!

5th Grade: Art Lesson E

Sharon spent last Friday afternoon working as the art docent for Jack's class. The lesson examined how artists tell stories with art. The class examined the works of several African American artists, including: Banjo Player by Henry Tanner; Domino Players by Horace Pippen; and, Boy with Tire by Hughie Lee-Smith.




The art project focused on creating texture in a picture. Jack drew a picture of two boys playing marbles.

Skiing at Northstar Video #1

For Christmas, Jack's uncle Tim gave him an Oregon Scientific video camera that includes mounts to be used on bikes and helmets. We used it when he was tubing with the boy scouts.

When I went to North Star, I mounted the camera on the top of my helmet and skied with it all day. I have about 20 minutes of video from four different runs. One of the four runs in embedded below.

The video is rough in spots. I tend to wear the strap on my helmet a little loose. I think that the video would be steadier if I tightened my chin strap.

We run into Hunter at the end of the video. Meeting Hunter starts in motion a chain of events that leads to our biggest excitement of the day!