Cal, Soccer and Other Things

Lots going on as usual. Just wanted to mention a few.

We have had a good time going to the Cal games. It is a bunch of fun to go there, find a place to eat, and watch the game. We always get a bonus either bringing Anthony there (after his coming home to see Lynbrook play) or after the game.

This week, if you are a Cal fan, it was painful. Not a home game - but rather one up in Oregon. Cal got hammered. Why is it that they have a tendency to do this to us. Get rated and then lose. They have to fix the poor play, and resulting record, when they are away.

Nick has a tournament this weekend up in Pleasanton. He has played REALLY well, even though he is sick and has been for the last 4 or 5 days. He was having a hard time breathing, so asked to come out to catch his breath, then went back in. They need him. In the second game, he got an elbow to the mouth. Ripped up his lip on the inside. But went back in and SCORED!. His game is really stepping up!

I rode my bike home after the first game. LONG ride, and it was really hot. Took me about 4 hours. Stopped a few times to refill water. Poured a lot on my head to stay cool. Really nice ride through the mountains.

Fun Couples Sports Weekend

We spend the weekend in Truckee with Craig, Dina, Brian and Sheri. We had planned to do a guys sports weekend but for scheduling reasons it turned into a couples sports weekend.

The goal of these is always to gain the most points playing a bunch of different games. This time the games in general were worth 3 for first, 2 for second and 1 for third. Here are the games we played.

• Horse shoes
• Chipping
• Bocce
• Guys Golf
• Girls Shopping
• Cards
• Couples Frisbee Golf
• Guys Frisbee Golf

Not bad for arriving after 10pm on Friday and leaving Truckee at 1pm on Sunday. And we did manage to eat:) Including a really nice dinner at the Cottonwood Lodge hilltop restaurant in Truckee.

After it was all said and done, Julie and I tied with Craig and Dina for the win. A ton of fun!

Dropped my kid off, sent the other to school

After a fun visit with Mom and Curt - played golf and went to Hot Summer Nights, we drove to Berkeley to drop Anthony off. Actually, he has been there working, filming the football team. So we were just picking him up from the Clairmont (rough, huh?!), taking him to his dorm and delivering the rest of his stuff.

Here is Anthony in his dorm as we helped him set things up and then took off so that he could get to know everyone before heading to work and then back to the dorm for their first hall get together.

The next day was Nick's first day of school. A sophomore already. A really important year for grades, so what does he do, plays two sports at the same time. Soccer with his club team and now kicker for the football team. Should be a blast!

Summer Coming to an End

This has been a very different summer. Guess I say that every year. But I really mean it this time. From the vacations that we took to my job to the economy to the amount of golf that we played to Anthony taking off to Nick signing up for football. Completely different.

Some highlights.

• With the economy being in the tank, we decided on Pacific Grove for a MONTH. For various reasons, all of us spend different amounts of time there, but it was a blast. Something that we have never done.
• We played a LOT of golf. Everyone loved it. Using handicaps, we played a lot of "Captains Game." A great way to team up and make it competitive. We played a couple times in PG, a couple of times at Laguna Secca, at Seascape and Tilden.
• We did some cool hikes. Played frisbee golf. I even managed to get Nick into road bike riding.
• At FreshBrain, we ran a Summer Virtual Technology Camp. This is the first time we have ever done anything like this - the first time anyone has. We got around 40,000 visitors and over 2200 teens participating in our 8 learning paths. All of this was supported by 15 interns of which Nick was one.
  
• The middle of the summer was all about Anthony spending time with his friends - preparing for the big change that was about to take place.
• Then Anthony took off to UC Berkeley to start his job filming the football team practices. His way to stay connected to football, big time football, and to make some money.
• And now Nick is not only going to play soccer, but will be kicking for the Lynbrook JV football team as he heads into his sophomore year.
  

So that's where we are. An unusual summer, but we really had a good time together.

Maybe Time To Get Back to Updating This?!?!

I was looking back at the posts that I made in the past and realized there was some good stuff in here - kind of a record of things that I or we have been doing and the things that have happened to me or us.

So I am going to try to get back to using this. I expect the first update will be a combination of FreshBrain, summer and what the boys are up to. I will do this shortly!

Nick Futsol

Quick picture of Nick at Futsol this evening.

Their first game. They tied 5-5.

Proud Parent ...

This week was proud parent week. Two big things happened.

The first was Anthony's football awards dinner. Julie and I are really involved. She worked with another parent on team dinners as well as the awards dinner. I helped out and made the highlights video. But I digress, this is about Anthony.

He had a great year. He played soooo many positions, it was cool. He played running back, full back, tight end, reciever, inside linebacker, outside linebacker, long snapper and did kickoffs. He was a captain and called the defense plays. But the highlight was the awards he received at the dinner.

There are three big awards the coaches give: Leadership; Coaches Choice and Hustle. He got the hustle award - for someone who was tireless in practice and games! And the award he is most proud of, all league first team outside linebacker. It is great that your coaches say nice things about you. It is even better when the league recognizes you.

Now on to Nick. Not yet as much to say since soccer just started, but he made the JV team (as a freshman). That was pretty expected. The big thing is that has been asked to play center mid. That is kind of like the quarterback for the soccer team, the person who runs things on the field. This is a big honor and a nice reward for all of the hard work with his CYSA team. His coach there recently moved him from defender to mid field, and his skills have improved significantly!

So proud parent week (sorry to brag a bit!).

The disaster that is Al Davis

I usually don't write a blog entry that is like this, but just listened to the interview of Al Davis after he fired Lane Kiffin. What a complete and total disaster.

"We will be back. We will be back."

Right. Who would work for the man. He doesn't pay for coaches. He doesn't let them coach. They have to do what he says. And in the case of Kiffin, when he didn't resign as Davis asked him to do, he goes after his character. This is a firing for cause. That means he will do everything that he can not to pay him for the remainder of his contract. I hope Kiffin goes after him, gets what he is owed and finds a way to get more, lots more.

I use to be a Raider fan. That was before the debacle of moving to LA and back. When they returned, I always wanted to be a fan but just couldn't return to those glory days of old. I have still made a point of watching games and cheering for them. But this does it. Until they replace Davis, I am done. And until he is gone, they will not be worth cheering for.

2x4x8 Guys Multi-Sport Weekend

Just back from a fun weekend in PG with Craig, Ian and Brain.

It was what I am calling a 2x4x8 (x16) weekend. That is, 2 days, 4 guys, 8 games and 16 scoring opportunities. What? - you say:) Let me explain. So what do guys love to do when they get together. Come up with a game they can play that always includes some friendly competition. That is exactly what we did over the weekend.

We played golf, frisbee golf, bocce, cards, dice, horse shoes, basketball and sac toss. We had multiple games within some of these creating a pretty busy couple of days. The winner of each received 5 points, second 3, third 1 and fourth 0.

The champion was Craig. He got a huge lead and wasn't seriously challenged after that. The battle ended up being for second. I pulled it out in our last game - frisbee golf.

We all had a great time. The games were fun. The drinks were good. We had some good food. And lots of time to hang out, BS and get away from work. We will definitely be doing this again next year, maybe up in Truckee.

Been a while - anyone listening??

I have not posted in a while. But since today I nailed one of the items from my bucket list - thought that it was time to post again!!

I got to drive a race car today. Julie gave me Introduction to Racing at the Skip Barber school of racing at Laguna Seca. And it was awesome! Check out the rest of my pictures on Picassa Web.

For those of you who have raced before, you already know this. But it is way cool!! I wanted to drive in one of these open wheel cars because they are so different. And I think I made a great choice. You kind of lay down, are tight in the compartment and really feel and hear the race noise.

I don't know if I was the fastest. Kind of think I was in the top two (they moved us around a bit to put similar drivers together). I did manage to spin the car all the way around on one corner and ended up in the dirt, but restarted and was on my way. But in the end - definitely recommend it. What a blast!

Cool Cars!

Julie and I went this morning to check out a Euro Car Rally. Here are a few pictures of the cars we saw.

Vintage Lamborghini.

Lotus.

Matching Porsche's.

Totally custom!

Great trip to Arizona

We just got back from Arizona - great trip with our neighbors the Staffords!

While there, we kept busy. We took 4 hikes - two of which were in Sedona. We went golfing twice. Hung out at the pool. Rented ATVs. Went to some nice restaurants. And in general enjoyed the nice weather!

Is Jason Castro ... IZ or Tiny Tim????

The fans seem to love Jason Castro from American Idol. I am not sold on him. I think he is a combination of IZ (who I actually like) and Tiny Tim (who I can't stand).

You be the judge ... Here is Jason.



And this is IZ.



And the beloved Tiny Tim.

Catching Up

It has been a while since the last update - so this one will be pretty long.

First off, a quick picture of Julie up at Burrell School winery up off Summit Road at the top of Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz mountains. Beautiful place, beautiful March day enjoying a glass of wine:)

Next Nick and his Yosemite trip. The eighth graders go every year on a week long field trip. It is one of the highlights of the year. Nick and his buddies had a great time. Excellent weather. There was snow all around them. They did a bunch of things including a number of hikes and some cross country skiing.

Other than the first of these, Nick took all the pictures.

And last but not least - Anthony had his Junior Prom last night! I could go into lots of detail around the full learning experience (from who to ask, the asking, buying the "bid", using Fred's tux, Julie helping to buy flowers, the restaurant, who should drive ...). Anyway, he and Tiffany looked great and had a good time.

And boy am I feeling old.

SLAP Lesion - Planning Surgery

I have had my shoulder looked at every way now. I had the following done over almost a two year period:

• Five doctor visits
• Two doctor calls
• Three x-rays
• Two MRIs (one with an Anthogram)
• Six weeks of rehab

The last Anthogram and MRI did it. You could see clearly (or at least the doctor could see clearly) that the Labrum had pulled away from the Glenoid. They call this a SLAP Lesion. I have a pretty significant tear. It basically goes around the Glenoid counter clockwise from 12 o'clock to 7 o'clock!

So what to do about it. Two choices. Do nothing. It will not get any better, it will not get much worse and it is certainly not life threatening:) Surgery. This will basically reattach the Labrum to the Gleniod using basically molly bolts and sutures.

I am pretty set on the second option. What I have is limiting, sometimes painful and it will ultimately cause faster degeneration. The only questions now is when - the recovery and rehabilitation will take nearly 4 months.

College Visit Week ...

We just got back from a week of Southern California college visits. This was both fun, a good learning experience and a chance to hang out together (a bit of a vacation!).

We drove to San Diego Sunday. Long drive but we got there early enough to drive in to La Jolla for dinner. We ate at Jose's Courtroom restaurant. Good start. The town is really quaint and the food was GREAT!

Monday was San Diego State University. This really isn't on Anthony's list, but while in town we thought that we would check it out. And who knows, might be right for Nick who is thinking of nice weather together with a good school:) Well - we were pleasantly surprised. The school was impressive. Definitely moved up on everyone's list!

In the afternoon we made a quick swing through the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala and then to old town. And that night we went to Hotel Del Coronado for dinner. The weather wasn't great , but didn't stop us.

Tuesday was on to UC San Diego. We all had high hopes for this visit as it is in the top 3 UC schools in terms of entrance requirements. None of us were impressed:( It didn't feel like there was a theme to the buildings or any kind of consistency. The feel was just odd.

That night we traveled back to LA swinging by UCI (where we decided we needed to go back on Friday for a visit). We stayed in a Courtyard Marriott. It was excellent! Wednesday was UCLA. We all liked it. Better than UCSD for sure. Took Anthony a bit of time to feel comfortable, but then fine. It is the smallest UC campus but the space is well used and the layout makes for some good open space.

Thursday was open. Santa Monica beach and pier (rides mostly closed), Hollywood Blvd where we saw preparation for the Oscars and went to the wax museum, and then a basketball at the famous Pauley Pavilion. UCLA vs Oregon State. Cool being there but a blow out.

Friday was UCI. Kind of backtracking but well worth it. Nice feeling campus. Big open park in the middle with a simple layout of buildings around it. Ate across the way, checked out the book store, etc. and then drove home.

Overall - well worth the time. More for Anthony to chew on. The ordering as of today is something like UCB first, fall back is likely UCI in close with UCSB. UCLA is good but if he doesn't get into UCB, then he would likely not get into UCLA (all goes well, this should not be an issue:)).

Check out the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/daleferrario/20080218SDSUAndMission

What a Superbowl!!

I think Nick and I were the only ones rooting for NY. So not only was the game great, but the team I was rooting for won. And after watching most of the commercials again - they were pretty good as well.

Before getting into my favorites, I want to give another plug for the Sports Business Radio podcast. On his most recent podcast, Brian Berger did an awesome interview of Denny Galati who is the VP of Creative Development for Anheuser-Busch. They discussed the company's $18M expenditure on Super Bowl XLII TV commercials - explaining how the cost of reaching their customers is actually fairly reasonable (this was a surprise to me!).

And one last thing. I was impressed with Jordan Sparks rendition of the National Anthem. Pretty traditional with just a bit of flair. Very nice.



Now back to the commercials. I like the AOL sports site to view these. My top five are:

• Audi, Godfather - nice mix of old and new, and a VERY COOL car!
• Budwiser, Rocky - engaging and fun, first time I have seen the story applied to a horse:)
• GoDaddy.com, Danica Patrick - the only one that got me to their website
• E-Trade, Baby and Baby II - cracked me up, especially the comment about the clown
• Victoria Secret, Model - duh!!
  

On the other end, a couple I didn't like.

• Energy drinks in general
• Amp, Jumpstart - painful

How about you?!?!

The Bucket List

The movie by the same name has inspired me. I have yet to see it, but found an article in a magazine also talking about your bucket list. Thought that I had better create one so that I can check them off. This is starting as a block but will end up as a block on the side of my blog.

By the way, I have already checked off a bunch of them including: falling in love (a bonus - marrying my high school sweetheart); having a great family; starting a non-profit; visiting Italy, France, England; Playing golf at Pebble Beach; etc. These are just the ones that are left.

• Visit the great US National Parks (Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc.)
  
• Parachute
• Drive a race car (maybe Laguna Seca?)
  
• Complete the swim from Alcatraz (escape from Alcatraz ...)
• Visit the Alps
• Tour Japan
  
• Oktoberfest in Munich
• Golf enough to get my index under 10 (been there before :()
• Meet someone really famous that I respect (Oprah, the President, Warren Buffet, ...)
• Get involved in local, regional or state politics
• Get a patent
• Spend New Year's in an exotic location
• Buy a car in Europe, drive it there (including the Autoban) and have it shipped home
• Leave a lasting youth related legacy
• Go up in a hot-air balloon

Some that I still need to decide if they actually make my list ...

• Visit a pyramid (Egypt?)
• Taj Mahal
• Machu Picchu
• Write a book

I will add to this over time, but that should get me started:)

Skullcandy and Sports Business Radio

Two things that I just had to blog about.

The first is Skullcandy - a company that makes headphones. Anthony just purchased a set of these. They are the full on headphones so that he can listen to good music and hear the full range of sound. He loves them. And the company is really cool. Great styles and some really awesome marketing. Even down to the guarantee that they have for their headphones.

If your product should fail in your lifetime, Skullcandy will replace it free of charge, but that's not all, if your product gets damaged by aggressive music listening, sliding a rail, running into a wall, sky driving, road biking, in fact just about any way (they say this means you were using them as they had hoped you would) Skullcandy will replace the product for a 50% discount from retail.

The second is a podcast that I just LOVE. It is called Sports Business Radio. You can get it from their website or from iTunes. It is totally entertaining and looks at sports from a completely different perspective. Check them out. And check out the clip from an upcoming documentary on Nike that they discussed on the last podcast.


That's it for now:)

After Christmas ... Back to WORK!

It is three days after Christmas. Back to work!!!

FreshBrain is about a month from our Beta release. There is a LOT to do. Just to give you an idea:

• Complete the development of the new freshbrain.org website
• Complete the work with the legal firm to create our Privacy Policy, Website Terms and Conditions, Copyright and IP Policy, Website Usage Policy and the Student Consent form.
  
• Populate the website with Activities, Projects, Tools and Training for the Students
• Find our first set of Advisors
• Create training for the Advisors and train them:)
• Complete background checks on all Advisors
  
• Create an invitation program for Students
• Implement the invitation program - get the first set of students for projects on freshbrain.org
• Market FreshBrain and freshbrain.org in order to get lots of visitors (note that ALL students will be able to do activities, use the tools and use / take training - but only those with an invitation will be able to do projects)

All the while we need to be building our pipeline for donations and increasing the number of partners that we are working with.

Of course once we get the Beta release out, we will take a day and get back to it. We need to make an update to the site no later than March and then provide new features no later than June!