Monday, August 28, 2006

Sorry It's been a While

I have not been able to post due to five million things going on at the same time. Two weeks ago Christina and her children needed to escape a bad situation in Missouri and have put them up in the house until she can get on her feet.

Work wise, we just finished our major scoring project for applications for next year's fiscal year. We have a statewide appeals meeting in on Sept. 13 at HQ to see if any changes need to happen to the scores. Once that happens, we can finalize the scores and send them to the CA Transportation Commission for approval and then send it to the FTA.

Football is finally here (Thank God!). We open Thurs. night at Boise State. Unfortunately its not being televised in Sacramento (darn it). Will have to rely on the radio for the game, just like the old days when that was the only way. Home opener is on Sat. Sept. 16 vs. Cal Poly.

Work trip to SLO and Santa Barbara is three weeks away. There is another item that I should know about in a few weeks that might be some good news, so stay tuned.

One last thing, the Comair crash yesterday has hit me kind of hard. I flew on jets that are very similar to the one that went down when I was with Eagle. The training I received to evacuate an aircraft is very thorough, though, the FA probably never knew what happened as the plane fell back to Earth. My heart and prayers go out to my former flying colleagues and to all the families that lost a loved one in the beautiful Kentucky countryside.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Some Thoughts

~So, I am trying to figure out our wacky weather. First, we had 12-straight days of 100+ temps. Now, its been in the mid to upper 80's for the last 3. Don't get me wrong, I love these cooler temps, but our summer weather is all over the board, except, we have not had any rain (hey its Sac, what do you expect?!).

~The State Fair opened up last weekend and planing on attending it during Labor Day weekend. Caltrans has a booth in one of the California Buildings so I might volunteer to man the booth for a few hours next week. We'll see. I'm not sure I am going to try the newest food creation: Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich . Hey, its fair food, not like its supposed to be diet food!

~Saturday is my first athletic event of the year as the Men's Soccer team is at home in exhibition against Cal State Stanislaus (who?). They are our fellow D2 CSU brothers from the happenin town of Turlock. A few years ago, we played in the regular season and whooped them like 5-0 or something like that. Men's soccer had a great year last year, plus the fact we have New Mexico in our conference and they lost in the National Championship game in 2005. In fact, we tied them at home the last weekend of the regular season, which was their only blemish until they lost the final to Maryland......Go Hornets!

~Band camp is still two weeks away. I will be instructing marching fundamentals and helping the drum majors with their conducting. Plus, as being on staff, have to help cook food for the End-o-Camp BBQ.

~Football opens two weeks from tomorrow night on the Smurf Turf in Boise. I hope we can keep it close like we did for 3 qtrs vs. Cal last year. I hope we can open the year 2-2 at least, or it will be another long year.


~That's all for now. Hope you out there in cyberspace leave some pithy comments!

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Random TV Show

So last night, I watched this new show on ABC called One Ocean View. Its kinda like Real World meets Friends out in the Hamptons (not too far from my cousins who live on Long Island, albeit they live in Nassau County!).

Basically, it is soft-core porn meets Animal House partying for a bunch of Gen X'ers (hey, I'm one too :-p) who are attempting to find either love or lust, or both, while they try to move up the corporate food chain during the week in Manhattan.

Last night there was this couple on there who I take it were a couple before this show started and now they are no longer together, and they are fighting amongst all these people. It was actually great comedy to sit there and watch. The guy seems self-absorbed while the gal wants to have her cake, ice cream, diamonds and chocolate all at the same time.

Then there was this new gal who could not come out for the previous weekend (which they never really explained why) and she ends up hooking up with one of the guys who was there the weekend before. They ended their night shaked up in the cabana (but hey, every house in the Hamptons has a cabana!), and then they proceeded to tell the others that, eh, no big deal.

Finally, there is the token girl-next-door who also showed up for the first time on the second weekend where she proudly brags that she posed for Playboy. She then sets her sights on this one guy who seemed pretty mild until she laid eyes on him. Then they end up making out in the bathtub while giving each other a bubble bath and all the others get sort of jealous because they seem (especially with the previews for next week's show) to have made a love connection, the first one during the show.

Then of course, since that was right before the 11pm news, what is the first story after the show ended, a murder story. After that, I clicked off the TV and fell asleep.
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On a side note....yesterday seemed like the first day of fall because the temperature fell to, you guessed it, 79 Degrees! You would have thought hell had frozen over. The Delta Breeze was great all day, plus we had the marine layer come in from the Bay Area. This wacky weather though gets better because the weather guessers think it will be 94 today. Nothing like a 15 degree turnaround in one day.

Oh, BTW, the A's won again and beat the Rangers last night, 7-4 at the Coliseum. The good guys, lead by Mark Ellis, who homered and had 4 ribbies, have now won for the eighth time in their last nine games. Jen, your team is going down again tonight and tomorrow!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Education

So I have thinking about going to grad school and getting my masters degree. Caltrans is a partner with the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State (wish it were Sac State, oh well, at least it isn't at the People's Republic of Davis-Sucks!).

The degree is Masters of Science in Transporation Management. The great thing about this program is that its run as a cohort, you take a class once a week at night at your building via video teleconference, and each class is 10 weeks long. You can finish in just over two years! And, Caltrans will pretty much reimburse all of your fees and tuition costs!

I am also looking at another masters program thru the Institute of Transportations Studies at Cal. I recently took an extension course on Land Use Planning and Transportation thru them for work and I enjoyed it.

It would be great to get both degrees, at least then I could say that I went to Cal!

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Football is 30 Days Away!

The season opener is now 30 days away as my Sacramento State Hornets travel into more unchartered territory as they go to the Smurf Turf and take on the vaunted Boise State Broncos on Aug. 31, in Boise. Unfortunately for me, since the game is on a Thursday (stupid Thursday games, college football is meant to be played on Saturday's only!), I will not be making the trip to the Treasure Valley.

However, I have been hearing from some low friends in high places that it might be televised on Comcast SportsNet. Either that, or I just tune in to listen to Jason and Steve on 1380. Those guys are two of the best in the business and its my honor to work with them in my side job in Hornet Athletics.

I will have more about the upcoming football season, as well as volleyball, our Nine-Time Defending Big Sky Champion Hornet Volleyball team!

Go Hornets!!!! Can't believe its already August!