Life of Wry

What’s not to love about an early morning walk along empty downtown streets?  This shot is looking east on Second Street at about 7:30am.  Not a [moving] car in sight.   The mean streets of Davis.. well, empty anyway, and so nice.

Definitely [planning on] shifting my go-to-bed time, so I can be up earlier in the morning, because I really, really love the earliness … but it takes some serious self-convincing at midnight, 1:00am, 2:00am, to finally turn it all off because, truth be told, I really treasure the quiet and solitude of the late night. When, exactly, is that sleep supposed to happen?!

And, man, not a napper, either.  To me, sleep’s gotta happen when it’s dark outside–too disorienting otherwise–so that’s out.

Damn, it’s hard to be a non-napping night owl and early bird at the same time. It’s either the best of all worlds or something’s getting short-shrifted.

[Yawn.]  I think I know what.

Side note: The above photo reminds me of a favorite Phil Gross painting that hangs in our living room.  It also captures an early morning view, this one looking east on 8th Street.  Nice, huh?  Yet another life imitates art moment..

Today’s photo: Bella in the early morning light, waiting patiently for us to be done with our stretching so we can all go for a walk.

No connection to today, other than it was taken on a Sunday.   Good enough.

Good night.

Ah, the District-64 Post Season All-Star Tournament, a summer tradition.

Our district includes teams from Davis (two teams), Woodland (two teams), Vacaville (three teams), Dixon, Esparto, Winters and Rio Vista–eleven teams in all who compete for district title in this tournament.  The winner will go on to play winners of other districts, then the winners of regions, and so it goes, all the way to Williamsport.  But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The D-64 tournament is the culmination of the season, and getting selected for the team is always an honor. For Peter, it’s his fourth post-season all-star team and this one will be the final hurrah in his Little League experience.

So.. our guys: Davis Little League, Nationals, 11-12s.  This post season’s been extremely fun.  We’ve got a colorful and experienced coaching crew, a wonderfully nice and talented group of players, easy to hang with parents, and, so far, some really good baseball’s been played.

Since Wednesday, they’ve won two games–decisively, resoundingly, impressively, and lost one, also rather decisively.  In the first round, they played Woodland National and beat them 16-0, and in the second round, they beat Winters 21-0.  Today, however, they lost to Vacaville Central 13-2.  Today’s drubbing kicks them down into the elimination bracket (or loser’s bracket), which means they can’t lose another game, or they’re out.  They’re now in the claw back portion of the tournament draw where they’ll play daily (as long as they keep winning) for a chance to face the winner of the winner’s bracket, and if they’re lucky enough to get that far, they’ll have to beat them twice (since it’s a double elimination tournament).  It’s not impossible to win the championship, but it’s a tall order… a must-win-the-next-five-games kind of tall order.

Darn if our district isn’t dominated, year after year, by the Vacaville Central team.  Every year, every age group.  Or so it seems. In fact, all Vacaville teams are powerful and always seem a notch above.  Not sure why that is.  It takes an extraordinary squad and a bit of luck to topple a Vacaville team.  The kids know this and it always seems to psyche them out a little.

As I said, though, the Davis Nationals are a competent and solid team; everyone is strong and contributing, so you can’t rule anything out.  After three games, they’ve got a team batting average of .380.  That’s impressive!

Tomorrow, they’ll play Woodland American and it should be a far more competitive contest.  Fingers crossed they can get in another win.  The Davis American team is also still in, also fighting its way through the elimination bracket; tomorrow they face Vacaville National.. and could pull it out… ya never know.  In fact, if both Davis teams win tomorrow, they’ll face one another… which would be a lot of cross-town fun.

Anyway, picture of the day‘s gotta be a tournament shot and may as well be Peter on the mound, you know, since it’s my blog and all.  Not his best outing today, though.  He was the second of four pitchers and he gave up only two hits, but he put too many guys on with 3 walks and a hit batter.. so that when that one guy got a home run and that other guy got a base hit, they were costly.  The little man wearing #7 gave up five earned runs in one inning.  Ouch.

On the plus side, he was two for two at the plate, with a nice double. So…yay.

Altogether, the Davis Nationals got five hits today, but couldn’t convert them to enough runs.  The end result: mercied after three and a half innings.  Yuck.

After today’s loss, the team went to Fenton’s for ice cream and a number of them have been hanging out and swimming.  Bad day, but not all that bad, ya know?

.. arrived this late afternoon, via UPS.

It’s an Easton Stealth Speed 2010, a composite bat that boasts integrated matrix technology with a carbon nano tube somethingerother for faster swing speed and lower swing weight. It has a blue handle, measures 32 inches in length and weighs 22 ounces.

I’m not to touch the thing.

This was shot at the creek yesterday.  Don’t know a lot about algae growth, but I think the heat and maybe some other factors generally contribute to the growth of massive amounts of the stuff.

And here come these guys in a slow moving boat, wearing broad brimmed hats, skimming slimy green gunk off the surface of the water as they navigate carefully upstream.

Pond scum skimmers.  Great summer job, guys!

And wouldn’t you know, as we were walking along the creek yesterday, talking as we do, we came upon these pond scum skimmin’ guys at the precise moment we were talking about the Strauss-Kahn case.  Pond scum was the perfect thing to encounter at that very moment.. so apt a characterization.

Life imitates life.

Anyway.

Turns out pond scum skimming is a pretty effective technique for cleaning the surface of Putah Creek.  Here’s a shot of the same spot today, same time of day… no scum at all.

The technique–skim scum, dump it on the side, skim scum, dump it on the side–doesn’t seem to work as well on the Strauss-Kahns of the world.

More shocking than encountering a snake on the path along the creek in the quiet of the early morning, was my reaction to same.  If there had been a chair, I’d have been on top of it eeeking.. just like in the cartoons. Alas, there was no chair, so I eeeked and jumped and ran and shielded myself behind 6′ tall Lorilyn, all in the span of .00285 seconds.  I would not have guessed myself a screamer, but there ya go.

This was, by far, the scariest moment of the day (to this point), but I managed to regain my composure pretty quickly and snap a few pics.  This was the closest of the bunch.

For the record, the snake was about 3.5-4 feet long and perhaps 1.5-2 inches at its fattest point– a big and beefy guy. No rattles.

Hot early morning.  Incredibly lovely walk along creek.  Came upon, not unusually, this egret.  Playing with the photo.  Have a favorite?

And here was the original.  Shot, as usual, with my Blackberry:

Happy 4th.

Great day, here.

Went to Davis Little League’s annual 4th of July pancake breakfast.  Saw folks, had fun.  Went to Little League exhibition game.  Was asked (a few days ago, very flattered by this) to cover the game for the newspaper.  Did.  Wrote it up, sent it in.  Had some cake.  Went out for a cold drink.  Leaving soon for fireworks.

Since it took me four (yes, FOUR) hours to write up the game (ahem), decided it’d pass for today’s blog entry.  But, warning, it’s a lot of detail about a baseball game, so if baseball’s not your thing.. well, feel free to move on.

This experience does remind me of a time about 30 years ago (that’s weirdly long ago), when I applied for a sports writer position with the Davis Enterprise.  I figured my 1) 2-year stint as a high school yearbook sports co-editor, and 2) supreme athleticism (but, of course) were sufficient training for the job (I was wrong about this).  As part of the application process, I was to go out and actually cover a sporting event.  I think it was baseball, but I’m not sure (that is, I can’t remember, it was long ago).  I submitted the story (with which I struggled mightily) to Bob Dunning, who was the head of the sports writing staff at that time.  I got a big thanks, but no thanks from him, which kind of amuses me now, but wasn’t so funny back then, as I was seriously considering a writing career (journalism) at that point.  So.. consider that too, if you choose to read on… I’m not sure I’ve improved my skills in the intervening years, but today was still a lot of fun.

He, Bruce Gallaudet, asked that I submit the story by today at 6:00 (I got it in by 5:15) and asked that I come in around 500 words (I was over… at 700) (Who’s surprised?).

Here’s a sheet from my scorebook, and the story (at least my original draft.. not sure what will make the paper) follows.  There is a sad postscript after that.

This guest reporter could not be happier to be sitting among hundreds of friends and fans gathered at the Little League complex at F and Covell on a 75-degree holiday morning.

The Fourth of July is exhibition day at the ball park and inter-league games were scheduled on all fields.  I was assigned to cover the Majors division game on the west diamond, so took my spot beneath the shade of the giant mulberry to watch the American and National League face-off.

The Majors exhibition game draws strong talent from both leagues.  It is the highlight of–and for some players, the conclusion to–a long Little League career.  The game is a wonderful holiday tradition in our community, and this one did not disappoint.

National League pitcher Tanner Olney opened the game with a decisive pair of strikes.  Lead-off batter for the American League, Tyler Mundy, responded by drilling the third pitch to center for a single, letting fans know that a see-saw battle and a great game were in store.  Mundy scored on Tony Munoz’s line drive to left, and Munoz scored on Brandon Rael’s grounder to short.  Dylan Lee also scored, giving the American League a quick 3-0 lead.  Gabe Gutierrez came in to relieve Olney, ending the inning with a strike out on four pitches.  

In the inning’s bottom half, the National’s lead-off batter, Giant stand-out Alex Levine, sailed a ball into deep center, but Mundy was there for the catch. American pitcher Dylan Lee then walked one and struck out two to hold the National League to a scoreless first inning. 

National pitcher Gutierrez got out of a tricky situation in the top of the second, leaving three Americans on, but gave up only one hit–another single by Mundy–and no runs. His teammates answered with a definitive showing in the bottom of the inning, scoring four runs on a double by Connor Bunfill, and singles by Ian McIsaac, Kevin Blanc and Olney. The inning featured heads-up base running by Bunfill and Blanc, who both stole home, and Gutierrez who stole second.  The Nationals went ahead 4-3. 

The American League came back in the top of the third with a grounder to center by Dylan Lee and a well hit line drive to right by Charlie Stephenson to tie the score, but the Nationals responded with another big bottom half, scoring three more runs on two hits–Trevor Hewitt’s sharply hit grounder past third base and Gutierrez’s 2-RBI fly into the gap in deep right.

The National League held its 7-4 lead going into the fifth, after both teams went scoreless in the fourth inning, thanks to sharp defensive plays by both teams.

The National’s Cooper Hosley, who relieved Gutierrez in the fourth, started the fifth inning with a walk to Kelsey Forrester, her second of the game, and gave up a home run to Munoz who slammed it over the left field fence to drive in Forrester. Hewitt relieved Hosley, gave up a hit to Dylan Lee, drew a fly ball from Stephenson and struck out two to end the inning.  That brought the Americans to within a run.

Taylor Lee held the Nationals in the bottom of the 5th, but Hewitt answered with another scoreless inning of his own in the sixth.  Teammates McIsaac and Hosley displayed impressive defensive plays, ending the threat… and the game.

The American League, coached by Tom Forrester and Dyke Mundy, was led by hitters Mundy (3 for 3), Munoz (2 for 3), Dylan Lee (2 for 2), Stephenson (2 for 3), and Dylan Schmidt who ripped a line drive into center in the sixth.  Pitchers Dylan Lee, Forrester, Mundy and Taylor Lee gave up seven runs on nine hits, striking out three. Rael, Kayden Hoal and Arvand Trillo rounded out the squad, providing solid defensive support.

Coached by Martin Smith (with assistance from son Landon) and Bob Thompson, the National League was led by Bunfill and Stephenson at the plate, each going 2 for 3, including a double by Bunfill.  Singles by Ronnie Lemaster, Hewitt, Gutierrez, McIsaac and Olney provided needed insurance. Pitchers Olney, Gutierrez, Hosley and Hewitt combined for nine strikeouts, and gave up ten hits.  Levine, Chase Jones and Tyler Babcock also contributed to an error-free defense.

Postscript: A few minutes after submitting the article, I got a call from Bruce.  He said, “It’s great, thank you.  Do you know the question I’m going to ask?”  I said no.  He said, “What was the score?” 

While it’s implied and figure-out-able within the context of the story, I completely forgot to report on the final score of the game. 

Cub reporter fail.

[Hangs head.]  

Today I made not a Fourth of July cake. It’s actually a birthday cake for Peter, a late one, since we were on the road for his birthday last week and I didn’t get to make one then.  And, but, it’s berry season, and the season of red, white and blue, and he likes white cakes.. so.. this one seemed a good choice.

It was a good idea, poorly executed.  Let’s see what went wrong..

Working backwards…   here is a close up of the end product.

Here it is from on high.  Looks pretty, huh?  The frosting was exceptional and the berries were pretty good, but looks and good frosting don’t tell the full story.

Not as pretty coming out of the oven.

First problem: it’s way over done; I left it in too long (forgot to factor in that I’d cut the recipe in half, and convection ovens still give me baking challenges).  But here was another problem:

That is curdled sour cream…no idea why, maybe the 100+ temps today.  Not sure what effect that had on the cake, but it couldn’t have helped.  I ended up over mixing in order to smooth this stuff out (which never happened) and that’s never a good idea for a cake.

I also didn’t have white sugar on hand, so used brown.  I’m sure that was a problem, I’m just not sure if it was a color, taste or texture problem.

In any case, in the end, it looked ok but the cake part was dry and tough. A Fourth of July dud.

Sorry, Peter.

Back in Davis–sizzling hot, July Davis.

Happy to be home, walking around the arb, as my friend Vicki calls it.  Not my walking friend Vicki, but another Vicki.  Vicki II, I sometimes refer to her as.  This was a very lovely early morning and THAT is a pretty shot… better blown up, but ok here.  I have more, wanna see them?  Hang on..

(Also, not such a good idea to have a martini AND a glass of wine.  Related, Our House is a nice addition to the downtown restaurant scene..)

(Soo buzzy..)

(Maybe it’s the heat… I think it’s still in the 90s out there at nearly 9pm… perfect for a post-dinner walk home.  That is the ONE thing that is great about our hot valley in the dead of summer..  those nighttime walks.)

Anyway, here are another few wonderful photos of the arb from this morning’s relatively cool walk:

It’s not the gorgeous Pacific Ocean, but, it’s a near 5-mile walk that I can take right out my door… can’t really complain.