More Renovating, More Dodgers Blues

Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Another day on the home renovation front started

with . . .

. . . a stop at Rolling Pin Donuts

to buy some needed nutrients

for our hard working plumbers

This would get all of us through

another jackhammer filled morning

While our home was being renovated, our daughter-in-law Vanessa who is the Principal of Ventura's E. P. Foster Elementary School, was in some high level meetings.

Vanessa, on the right, with

Monique Limon

She is the California State Senator representing District 21 and also the California State Senate President Pro Tempore.

Vanessa travels in elite circles.

Meanwhile, back in Camarillo,

the trenching continued

I made the trip up to Floor & Decor in Oxnard to pick up our new vanity for the small bathroom located behind the wall in the photo above.

While at Floor & Decor, I also brought

home four possible new tile samples for

our kitchen, TV room and bathroom

Do you like any of them?

Laurie nixed them all.

I'll try again soon.

The Dodgers sent this lineup into the

breech today to try to right the ship

Our Dodgers, down 3-0 in games,

are on the brink of starting their

vacations in Tahiti

Despite the loss, a big THANK YOU to Brian and Koreen FitzGerald for inviting us into their home to watch the game.

As you may recall, the building of a mini-Suez Canal in our house has meant the disconnection of the dish feed to all of the TVs in our home for the last three days.

Hopefully for Laurie, the General Hospital soap opera will still be there if and when our renovations are over.

Finally . . .

 

Si lo sabes, lo sabes

VOTE BLUE!

Home Renovation Work Continues

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Phase I of the remodeling work on Casa Contreras continued today with more trench digging to replace our bathroom's pipes.

It meant another day of jackhammering

away at our concrete slab foundation

As it turned out, our 63 year old

pipes were both badly corroded

and clogged with roots

Not a good look at all

The trench digging was loud

and labor intensive but . . .

. . . our two plumber heroes cleaned

up nicely at the end of the day

In related news, we bought a new vanity to replace the ancient one in the bathroom that we are remodeling and we started the process of picking out new flooring for the kitchen, family room that you see here and the bathroom.

Of course, we are leaning on famed home decorator Koreen FitzGerald for advice.

It is going to be an interesting but much needed transition.

1-2

The current records for the Huskies (3-3, 0-3 BIG-10) final six BIG-10 opponents are:

at Purdue Boilermakers, 3-3, 2-1 BIG-10

at Nebraska Cornhuskers, 5-1, 2-1 BIG-10

vs. Penn State Nittany Lions, 3-3, 0-3 BIG-10

at Michigan State Spartans, 2-4, 0-3 BIG-10

vs. Indiana Hoosiers, 6-0, 3-0 BIG-10

at Oregon Ducks, 3-2, 1-1 BIG-10 

I'm looking for wins over Purdue and Michigan State.

Perhaps. 

The tedious life of an NFL

kicker for the Rams

Missing two Field Goal attempts in a Monday Night Football game is not a healthy career move.

On the other hand . . .

One man's poison is another man's meat

The Dodgers play again today

in the NCLS down 2-0 to the Brewers

The ALCS between the Cleveland Guardians and the Tampa Bay Rays is tied at 1-1.

We end the day on a health note . . .

Even worse at 79!

Of a House Renovation Project, the NLCS Dodgers and the Monday Night Rams

Sun. & Mon., October 11-12, 2026

After months (years?) of hemming and hawing, we finally pulled the trigger and started a long overdue renovation project in our TV room, small bathroom and kitchen.

We will be tearing off wallpaper and repainting the walls and ripping out the linoleum and replacing it with ceramic tiles, but first, we needed to repipe that pesky bathroom.

Just before the start of the project

Plumbers prepping

Cutting out wall sections to

access the pipes

We knew that they to also

break through our cement slab

in order to fix the pipes

This is going to take a few days 

It was really LOUD in our home today

The next two weeks will be straight out of the old 1948 movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."

The National League Championship Series

(NLCS) started on Sunday

Los Angeles Dodgers

vs.

Milwaukee Brewers

Sunday's Game 1 went to the Brewers

So did Monday's Game 2

Down 0-2 in a Best of Seven series, the two-time defending World Champion Dodgers are in serious trouble. 

This may be a potential reason why

Actually, Milwaukee's deep pitching staff is the main problem for all of the Dodgers so far. 

Rightfully so, the Huskies are

no where in sight this week

Huskies at Purdue this coming

Friday night at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time

Purdue is 3-3 overall and 2-1 BIG-10, coming off an impressive 41-13 victory at home over a Minnesota Golden Gophers squad that handed the Huskies (3-3, 0-3) a 27-24 loss in Seattle just two weeks ago.

More wins are going to continue to be hard to come by for the Huskies in BIG-10 play.

Michael D'Antuono messaged me today

Michael, who now lives in Seattle, still owns four UCLA football  season tickets in the prestigious Club Seat level.

He would not be able to attend this coming Saturday's BIG-12 game at the Rose Bowl between the Wisconsin Badgers (4-1, 2-0) and the home team UCLA Bruins (5-0, 3-0).

Michael offered his four ducats and prized Parking Pass to his two fellow UW Husky miscreants, Paul Sabolić and myself.

I accepted the package on behalf of Paul and myself and immediately called Paul to confirm that he and his lovely bride, Joanne, would be joining Laurie and I in the Arroyo Seco for the game.

Paul declined.

Thus, we invited our son Michael and his sidekick Jacob to join us.

They both gave us an enthusiastic, "YES!"

After attending Jacob's Frosh football game at Royal H.S. on Thursday and an as yet undetermined Varsity H.S. contest on Friday, our 2026 football game attending mania will reach 25 and still growing after the Wisconsin-UCLA joust.

The Buffalo Bills (3-1) at

the Los Angeles Rams (2-2)

on Monday Night Football

It would turn out to be a dandy, just like we all expected.

But the Bills (4-1) won in Overtime

thanks to a botched FG by the Rams (2-3)

Drat!

NFC WEST STANDINGS

San Francisco 49ers 5-0

Seattle Seahawks 3-2

Los Angeles Rams 2-3

Arizona Cardinals 1-1

It is safe to say that the Rams are underperforming on all of their pre-season hype.

Time for EuroBall updates . . .

Our old coaching buddy has a new

job with Bart Iaccarino's American

Football League of Europe club, the

Firenze Red Lions in Italy

If you want to play American football

in Europe, the Amsterdam Crusaders

are recruiting new players

Finally, from the net . . .

Could this really be Doug in Camarillo

who owns the cannon that Michael and

Jacob fire at local Civil War reenactments?

More investigation is definitely needed.

Enjoying the Azusa Pacific at Cal Lutheran DIII Football Game With Old Friends

Saturday, October 10, 2026

The main thing on the agenda today was watching mass amounts of college football on TV.

In the evening, I would join old comrades at a DIII football game in Thousand Oaks.

Let's start this post with a recent photo from last Thursday.

At The Hat in Simi Valley last

Thursday before Jacob's football game

Michael took this photo which I just received and really like of these two young ladies.

I received a phone call earlier this week from our former Westlake H.S., All-C.I.F. Defensive Lineman, Nick Kormanik.

Nick lives in Montana and was going to be in town with his brother Greg from Seattle to visit their mother. He wanted to know if we could meet at Saturday's Cal Lutheran game against Azusa Pacific, a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) contest.

YES!

Azusa Pacific Cougars

1 Win - 2 Losses, Overall

1 Win - 2 Losses, SCIAC

at

California Lutheran Kingsmen

2 Win - 2 Losses, Overall

1 Win - 1 Losses, SCIAC

Azusa Pacific has resurrected their football program this year. They had "permanently" shut down their NCAA DII program after the 2020 season.

Not only is Cougar football back in 2026, they are scheduled to open a new, on campus stadium next week.

On my stroll across CLU to the stadium, I took in some of the school's interesting campus art.

I've always liked this small fountain

A boxy Martin Luther statue

 

CLU's stadium loomed

CLU's NCAA DIII Championship Trophies

Football Tribute

Back in the 1960s-80s the Kingsmen

enjoyed a Golden Age as an NAIA school

That era included an NAIA National Championship in 1971 and a whopping 14 NAIA District III Championships.  

When I got to the stadium I quickly made contact with Gary and Gail McGinnis, dedicated CLU alumni working in CLU's 5th Quarter Football Club tent.

Gary was an outstanding Line Coach at Westlake H.S. and also held that spot for a few seasons at CLU as well. 

L. to R.: Greg Kormanik, Nick Kormanik,

George Contreras, Gary McGinnis and

Gail McGinnis

I enjoyed a fun evening with this group and even met Gary and Gail's granddaughter who is a Junior at CLU.

CLU Kickoff to start the game

The Kingsmen Defense came to play

CLU did a good job of mixing up

a potent run game with an efficient

aerial attack

The Kingsmen out gained the Cougars in Total Yardage, 330 to 184.

FINAL SCORE

CLU (3-2, 2-1 SCIAC) - 24

APU (1-3, 1-3 SCIAC) - 3

Meanwhile, the net was having a field day with the plight of Washington Huskies football.

A sign that the rats are jumping ship?

Indeed we do . . .

. . . are these some of the answers?

I love Service Academy football

That's admiration for ALL of the academies, not just Army.

And then there is our exalted Secretary of Defense . . .

He is calling for a public execution

via a live streaming service 

This is in connection with the execution of former U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who was convicted of the 2009 mass murder of 13 people and the attempted mass murder of 32 others at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.

His sentence was indeed the forfeiture of his life for his horrid crimes. I have no issue issue with this man's sentence but a public execution?

The last public execution in the USA occurred 90 years ago with the public hanging of convicted rapist Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1936.

What are we doing and why?

The Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca,

4 BC - 65 AD, had an interesting

moral view on public executions

He expressed strong disapproval of public executions.

Seneca argued that these events served as violent spectacles that desensitized the public to suffering.

According to him, such displays were morally corrupting and reflected a decline in societal values.

Seneca further stated that witnessing executions could erode the moral fabric of a civilization.

While I agree with Seneca in general . . .

I would have no qualms with some

members of the current regimes

Defenestration sometime in the

near future

Google "Defenestrations of Prague" if you do not know of what I speak.