Another Action Packed Sports Week

Friday, September 20 -

Sunday, September 29, 2019

As has become the norm, this was another week that revolved around all sorts of sports.

It started Friday night with

the Hart vs. St. Bonaventure

game at Ventura College

It was our Ventura County Star's Game-of-the -Week podcast that I had a lot of fun broadcasting as the color commentator along with the Star's Joe Curley.

Hart (2-2) won a hard fought, entertaining game over St. Bonaventure (3-2) by a final score of 34-28.

On Saturday, the morning was all

about Jacob's Blue Sharks

Go get it Jacob!

 FINISH!

 Nearing the goal

Keeping the scoring

opportunity alive

 RUN!

Meanwhile, Mary suffered

an apparent attack of rabies . . .

. . . nothing that watching some

college football couldn't cure

In the evening we were off to the

Glendale College at Moorpark College

game with long-time friends

We met Paul and Joanne Sabolic and Mike and Susan D'Antuono for dinner before the game at Simi Valley's Cienfuegos Cuban restaurant.

GREAT place!

After our wonderful shared dining experience we headed over to Moorpark College to watch the home team Raiders win a penalty filled match against the Vaqueros. 

The final tally was Moorpark (1-2) 34 - Glendale (0-3) 7.

It was a double edged sword for us as we were there to root for the Sabolic's son, Jason, who coaches the Moorpark offensive line while at the same time both Laurie and I attended Glendale a few years ago.

Sunday reunion at Cronies

Our longtime next door neighbors Cindy McArdle and her brother, Rick, who now live in Washington, were in town for the weekend.

It was good to see them and catch up.

At Simi Valley H.S. doing prep

work for the next Game-of-the-Week

podcast on Friday night.

Two days later while doing more prep

work at Moorpark H.S. for the same podcast

I discovered that if I was a lineman at

MHS, I would be a size MEDIUM!

 Jacob and Mike at the Santa Clara

Elementary School Roller Skating

Night in Ventura

Mary was having fun

Laurie skated, I ate pizza,

Jacob did both

Laurie and Mike

Shades of the old Moonlight Roller rink in Pasadena.

GREAT helmet on this

custodian at Simi Valley H.S.

I ran into one of our former Rio Mesa H.S.

players, Diego Renteria, who is now an

up and coming referee, before our podcast

THE Simi Valley H.S. Pioneer

looked worried at halftime

Another good game for us to podcast,

the Moorpark H.S. Musketeers at

the Simi Valley Pioneers

I had a lot of fun again working this game with Cameron Molina. The game was another nail biter with the Pioneers (4-2) outlasting the Musketeers (1-4) 37-34.

 Another Blue Sharks Saturday

GO GET IT!

Father-Son bonding

Shark Power!

The Blue Sharks trailed the Mighty Cobras 4-nil at one point but rallied back to win 6-5!

Of course, no one was keeping score as is the rule in AYSO.

Jacob reading the comics during the

Washington Huskies-USC Trojans telecast

The Huskies (4-1) beat the Trojans (3-2) 28-14.

WOOF!

On Sunday, the long awaited

arrival of two Varese Skorpions

finally happened!

We ate dinner at, where else, Cronies Sports Grill in Camarillo with QB Giacomo "Jack" Micheli and DE Nicola "Baffo" Ruiggiero.

BENVENUTO IN CALIFORNIA!

The recruiting continues for our

Europe WarriorsWomen's game

in Mexico City in December

  

I will be quite busy coaching on the road

with the Europe Warriors

in the coming months

Reading Is FUNdamental!

Interesting adventure novel

A more interesting non-fiction read

See you down the road soon.

A Weekend in Seattle for the Washington-Hawaii Game and a 25th Wedding Anniversary

Thursday, September 12 - Thursday, September 19, 2019

A great American Football weekend and a fun wedding anniversary party for two of our dear friends was in the offing in the Pacific Northwest this past weekend.

We just had to make the trip!

The game was between the

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (2-0)

and the 

Washington Huskies (1-1)

Hawaii, though unranked, had beaten two PAC-12 teams to start their season. At home, they had defeated Arizona 45-38 and Oregon State 31-28.

As for the Dawgs, after beating Eastern Washington 47-14, the Huskies suffered a tough PAC-12 opening loss to California by a final tally of 20-19.

The Huskies needed to play a much more inspired game to get their season back on track.

On Friday morning we arrived

at Sea-Tac Airport

  

We were staying with our long time friends Mark and Susie Johnson who had also been hosting some friends of theirs named Joy and Bruce who are from the United Kingdom.

In the afternoon, while the ladies decided do do a little shopping, Mark, Bruce and I headed about 30 minutes north of Seattle to the Boeing plane factory that is housed in the world's largest building.

It was a fascinating tour but no photos were allowed in the building.

Dinner at Ray's Boathouse

FABULOUS!

GAME DAY!

The Johnson's home sits on the

Montlake Cut that unites Portage Bay

to Lake Washington

 Up goes the Montlake Bridge

House Boat Culture

The Johnson's own several properties throughout the general Seattle area including a house boat.

Their friend Joe and his wife and his daughter currently reside in the Johnson house boat.

Since our game didn't kickoff until 4:30 p.m., we took Joe up on his offer to show us around Portage Bay and Lake Union in his boat in the morning.

 Joe at the helm

Ivar's Salmon House

Good seafood here, but not today.

Multi-level boat parking lot

The Seattle skyline

The house boat used in the movie

Sleepless in Seattle

 A hot tub boat,

GREAT IDEA!

A touch of Cuba in Seattle

Sea planes use

Lake Union quite often

 Native American Fishing Rights

in action!

Joe did a great job as our tour guide, THANK YOU!

On to the game . . .

Tailgating is a HUGE part

of any college football game day

 At Washington, we also have Sailgating

Lots of boaters take advantage of

Husky Stadium's lakefront location

Laurie and a random Sailgater

We all loved his jacket!

The view from our perch

 The attendance was disappointing

Regardless of their 2-0 record, Hawaii just is not a big draw when they play on the mainland.

 With Mark Johnson

Laurie and Susie Johnson

Joy and Bruce from the UK

Lake Washington behind Husky

Stadium's east end zone

 Mark and Susie after having their

25th wedding anniversary announced

on the stadium's scoreboard

in the second quarter

With Dan Spriesterbach

I was a teammate of Dan's at both St. Francis H.S. and the University of Washington back in the day.

Dan was an excellent DB who went on to continue his love affair with the game, working as a PAC-12 referee for many years.

Other than a sluggish Third Quarter,

the Huskies dominated

QB Jacob Eason had a good day

Eason was 18 of 25 passing (72%) for 262 yards and three TDs.

After the game, Mark and I were joined by his daughter Mallory to celebrate the Husky win at . . .

. . . One of Seattle's top late night

dining experiences

We opted to share their famed

12 egg omelet with hash browns and

toast of course

We erred on the side of sanity and took about 40% of it home.

We weren't all that sane . . .

We'd never had a milkshake at Beth's until tonight.

As it turned out, they went GREAT with our omelet.

Who knew . . .

On Sunday,

Mark and Susie's

25th Wedding Anniversary Bash

On Sunday, we were invited to recreate the magic that we shared with Mark And Susie a quarter of a century ago when they got married during a Husky bye week of course.

Susie and her bridesmaids

who were able to make it

 Dallas and I were part of Mark's

Groomsmen all those years ago

The Johnson Family

Mallory, Mark, Susie and Sophie

The day's gala took place on the same island ferry which was converted into a party venue, the Skansonia.  It was where the Johnson's held their reception in 1994.

With Jon Kadletz

Jon was a fine LB for the Huskies more than a few years ago and was also one of my college roommates.

GREAT GUY!

The evening view of downtown Seattle

from the bow of the Skansonia

Everyone had a great time celebrating the Johnson's specials day.

Monday in Seattle

 Of course we went to the

Pike Place Market

We were tourists after all.

What a show!

Mark and his salmon

Old meets new in downtown Seattle

 More seafood

Colorful carrots

More colorful veggies

 What Laurie does best

 Red flowers were everywhere . . .

. . . including the art

Beautiful Blackberries

Sunset in Seattle after a busy day

During the day we journeyed to Camano Island to eat lunch and take a peek at the Johnson's new, fixer-upper cabin.

Great fun but I didn't taker any pictures for some unknown reason.

After a delicious dinner

at the Johnson home

This group was fun over the weekend and . . .

. . . at times a bit crazy too!

We flew home Tuesday morning to Burbank and stopped in Simi Valley for lunch.

We dined at this spot that our friend

Martha Jimenez-Ito once recommended

Laurie was happy with their excellent

soft street tacos

No rest for me as I needed to get over to St. Bonaventure H.S. to interview their Head Coach Tony Henney in preparation for Friday night's Game-of-the-Week podcast for the Ventura County Star.

On Wednesday, I was at Hart H.S.

interviewing Head Coach Mike Herrington

for the same reason

On Thursday,

School Started

Christie was a student at Westlake H.S.

when I taught their in the 1970s and 1980s

Her father, Lance Erie, was our Athletic Director at WHS too.

Good people!

Christie and I are both enrolled in the Conejo Valley Adult School's Italian Conversation class that started today.

Today's 90 minute class was dedicated to using our varying levels of Italian competence to discuss various topics that would introduce us to each other.

One question dealt with telling each other about a dream that we had that we hoped to someday come true.

The first three ladies responded with the same dream, someday living in a home in Italy, one near Genoa, one near Sienna and one on the island of Sicily.

When it got to be my turn, all I could think to say was that Laurie and I are living their dreams.

Back on the EuroBall Scene

The Skorpions have begun their

preparations for the 2020 season

A week after returning from our U18

game in Vienna, we take off for

Mexico City for our first ever

WOMEN'S Europe Warriors game! 

Still enjoying the moments that EuroBall provides!