Monday, 18 March, 2019
Today was our grandson Jacob's seventh birthday.
Obviously not being physically there for his big day is depressing but we did talk and see each other via a FaceTime phone call.
Thank goodness for technology!
Let's take a look at Jacob's doings this past trip around the Sun.
He was a Ghost Buster
for Halloween
He was one of the three Magi
for the Santa Clara Christmas Pageant
Jacob played soccer again this season
Who the heck is that barefoot referee wearing the Thun Tigers American football t-shirt running next to him?
Jacob the Elf during his dad
Mike's Santa to the Sea Half Marathon
in Oxnard near Christmas
Jacob is playing baseball
for the first time this Spring
for the Cincinnati Reds Triple Z
affiliate club in Camarillo
Speaking of baseball . . .
Jacob with Mike for one of his
Redondo Beach Wharf Rats'
1880s rules baseball games
Nice period costume for this
little baseball fan
At the Washington-UCLA game
GO HUSKIES!
With Poppo at the Rose Bowl
for the UCLA game
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB!
Today marked the end of my second full month living in Italy this year. Sixty great days of solid American football, fun friends and amazing cuisine.
Speaking of that cuisine, in these past sixty days I've actually lost weight.
How much weight have I lost, you ask?
Why merely 7.1 kilos (15.7 lbs.) as of my weigh-in this morning!
I LOVE ITALY!
One of our die hard blog followers, David Lassen, asked a good question based on the pictures that I posted yesterday from our flag football games at Skorpion Field.
What is Simply Man Match?
Frankly, I did not know so I asked Enzo Petrillo. The answer was simple enough, they are the Skorpions #1 financial backer.
Ok, but what does Simply Man Match actually do or sell?
The sell all sorts of grooming products
for the discerning Italian male
This being the case, I'm guessing that the Skorpions may have some extremely deep pockets indeed!
As for the bulk of my day, it was all about Skorpions' football.
As you can see, we have a big game
this coming Saturday morning,
Palermo Sharks (1-1)
at
Varese Skorpions (1-1)
That meant a full day of working
on HUDL to breakdown the Sharks'
game videos and try to find tendencies
Task accomplished!
In the evening, I drove about an hour east of Varese to the city of Cantú to be part of a concert.
Remember David Lassen who asked the Simply Man Match question?
Well, David has been a long time friend who I first met when he was a rookie reporter for the now, unfortunately, defunct Thousand Oaks News Chronicle newspaper back in the early 1980s and I was the Head Football Coach of the Westlake H.S. Warriors.
His very first assignment was to cover all of our Westlake H.S. football games and he did a splendid job by covering some pretty good teams both fairly and honestly in those long ago seasons.
David, besides being a great sportswriter, is also a huge music fan. One of his good friends in the music world is Bob Malone who was playing said gig in Cantú tonight.
He urged me to go see him, so I did.
Again.
He played in this same venue last
year with me in attendance
It was great fun last year, so I was looking forward to tonight's musical experience featuring Bob and his three outstanding Italian musicians.
Timing would be the only issue.
Bob's website said that the concert started at
8:00 p.m.
The Concert Venue is in the atmospheric
large basement of a building
The venue's website said that the concert started at 9:00 p.m.
Thus I arrived in Cantú at about 8:15 p.m. to eat a good, spicy pizza at the pizzeria next door to the venue in plenty of time for the concert's 9:00 p.m. start.
After another Italian fine dining experience, I sauntered into the All'1,35 Circa concert venue at about 8:45 p.m. to find the place fairly empty this close to the start of the show.
The man at the door selling concert tickets said that the concert would start at 10:00 p.m.
Oh my Italia, how I love your quirky ways!
That gave me time to walk to a nearby bank's ATM as All'1,35 Circa is a cash only spot and I was a tad low on Euros.
What the heck, I might as well fill up the car at the gas station across the street too, I had lots of time to kill.
Finally, ticket in hand, I entered the venue and hooked up with the star of the show.
With Bob Malone before the show
He is really a good guy, a fine musician and easily approachable.
He said that he has given up trying to figure out the real starting times of his EuroGigs.
He predicted that the concert moguls would ask him to take the stage at about 10:15 p.m. start.
Keeping David Lassen in the loop, via FaceBook Messenger, he predicted a 10:30 p.m. start.
The moguls basically split the difference and at 10:22 p.m. Bob was on stage with a ROAR.
Bob is HIGH ENERGY!
The band did an amazing job during their 90 minute, non-stop session.
It was well worth the trip to see this performance and I was glad that I attended Bob's concert again this year despite the starting time issues.
Reading Is FUNdamental!
A good one with another
fun plot twist at the end
1 comment:
Glad you were able to go see Bob again ... if he's back next year, a nap in mid-day might be a good idea.
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