Photo of the Week (May 24, 2009)

Greetings from Irvine & Huntington Beach, California, USA!
Photos taken on Wednesday & Sunday, May 20 & 24, 2009.

UC Irvine held a “campus celebration” on Wednesday to honor its men’s volleyball team for its national title and I went. The Anteater band performed until the coaches and players arrived via victory bus. A few brief speeches later, they posed for pictures and my FIRST photo shows the trophy hoisted above the team. Indoor volleyball may be over…

…But beach volleyball has already begun. The Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) Tour crisscrosses the USA but Southern California, a beach volleyball hot spot, has 5 host cities – Hermosa Beach, Riverside, Manhattan Beach, San Diego and Huntington Beach (HB). It also has volunteer and paying jobs at each site.

I got a paying job – statistics at the HB event, which has a qualifying round on Thursday. Stats are not done then but it is a good time for paid training. The job is to track the play-by-play, especially who and how points are made. Usually statisticians work in pairs – a “caller” announcing the action and a “recorder” tallying it onto a stats sheet. Example call: Dahlhausser serves. Gibb attacks. Rogers digs, attacks and errors. Rosenthal blocks.

The main competition started the next day and I was kept busy all of Friday and most of Saturday. At women’s courts both days, I had no complaints about watching bikini-clad fit females jump, run and dive. But their rallies last longer than men’s so you do more work on calling and recording. Oh, well.

In the AVP Tour teams play a brackets-style double-loss elimination tournament. Starting in the Winners Bracket, victorious teams advance and defeated ones move to the Contenders Bracket. There too winners advances but losers are eliminated. Also indoor and beach volleyball have differences. Indoors: 6-man teams play a best-of-five series, games won at 30 points. Beach: 2-man teams play a best-of-three, games won at 21.

I did not work on Sunday but came to watch the two finals. The top teams – women’s Nicole Brannagh & Elaine Youngs and men’s Phil Dahlhausser & Todd Rogers – continued their dominance. My second photo shows both Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal leap to block as Dahlhausser lunges for an attack. The shot – sand kicked up as players jump towards the ball, palm trees lining the sky (a recent trend in my photos), scoreboard and giant volleyball filling the background – is now my desktop picture.

Despite abundant sunscreen my forehead, nose and ears were all sunburned by Sunday. Hot sand and concrete also scorched the soles of my feet. Nonetheless I went to a barbecue afterwards, played an impromptu Texas Hold’em poker game, and finished 2nd of 6 – losing to the only woman, winning some cash – a near perfect end to a great week.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (May 17, 2009)

Greetings from Claremont & Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photos taken on Saturday & Sunday, May 16 & 17, 2009.

On Tuesday I watched my second movie of the year, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The title superhero originated in comic books from Marvel, one of the two veteran publishers – DC is the other – in the “graphic novel” industry. I avidly read comics while growing up and preferred DC – home of Superman and Wonder Woman – over Marvel – home of Spider-Man and Iron Man.

I am more familiar with DC’s canon of characters (Quiz me on Batman!) and more critical of those translations from page to screen (Dark Knight was awesome!). Thus my expectations are fewer for Marvel’s menagerie of mutants. In fact my only major point of reference of Wolverine was the X-Men trilogy and, like that film trio, this latest movie thoroughly entertained me.

On Saturday afternoon I attended another crawfish boil. Although my friend stands firm on his retirement from cooking these feasts, others may use his knowledge and equipment. His coworker did just that and in trade my friend was able to invite his own guests. As if the crawfish were not enough, another attendee brought shrimp – actually giant prawns. Between the two crustaceans, I easily ate beyond capacity.

I must have tripled my normal daily calorie intake and was still attending another event that evening. Fortunately it was the Newport Beach edition of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Participating for a third straight year, I had an ulterior motive this time around. I stayed up all night and, mostly in two shifts between midnight and 8 AM, walked the track for over 3 hours – a great way to burn off the calories from my seafood feeding frenzy.

On Sunday the Relay ended at 10:00 AM and I went home, ate, showered and was sleeping by noon. Circa 8:30 PM I was semi-consciousness when an earthquake literally shook me wide awake. As a veteran “quake-rider” I felt that the shaker, a 4.7 on the richter scale, was mild. One roommate was home and actually excited. From Oklahoma but in California for over 8 years now, he had yet to experience a quake. During the last noteworthy tremblor in July 2008 he was driving his car and felt nothing.

Though centered within the metropolis area, the quake left little damage. So no pictures of shattered windows or collapsed buildings. In consolation this week has two photos, both sequels to shots from last year. In one an eager hand stretches towards just cooked and still-steaming crawfish. In the other a graphitti-like “LOVE” sign is framed by grass below, palm trees above and Relay walkers on both sides. That’s all we need – food and love… And comic books.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (May 3 & 10, 2009) Part 2 of 2

Greetings from West Covina, California, USA!
Photo taken on Sunday, May 10, 2009.

I have enjoyed many British television series. Whenever dog-sitting for one friend at his house, I watch the BBC America cable channel, which I do not get at my own home. Fortunately some British shows appear on other networks like Doctor Who and Torchwood on SciFi. Yet other series have their premises adapted for American audiences and the results are a mixed bag. Footballer/Football Wives did not pass the development stage while Coupling was short-lived but Queer as Folk had a solid run.

Currently The Office has a small, faithful fan base while Dancing with the Stars (Come Strictly Dancing in Britain) is a big hit. I have watched the occasional episode of the latter and appreciate its charms. In fact I look at it as part reality competition and part variety show, a much-missed television genre. I even signed up online for audience tickets of its live broadcast. Because of its huge popularity, I did not expect to get in anytime soon but got an email regarding a special taping of a performance.

On Sunday in Los Angeles at CBS Studios, a friend and I went to the Dancing special. I have gone to a few TV tapings previously and typically the wait to get in and seated is longer than the actual performance. This was no exception. There for three hours overall, We were on set less than an hour to watch two takes of the special performance.

Told ahead of time that it would not include any of the show’s celebrities, professional dancers or hosts, I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. Afterwards my friend and I went next door to lunch at Farmer’s Market and shop at The Grove before I left to meet some high school classmates to plan our 20-year reunion.

The following week was uneventful until Saturday. That evening another friend hosted a birthday wine tasting. I arrived late, choosing to watch the volleyball championship at home undistracted beforehand. I still had fun. In fact I finished six bottles of wine but I am not a lush. They were already open and close to empty. I just finished them. Honest!

The following Sunday was Mother’s Day. For the occasion my weekly photo is an orchid, one of many growing in my parents’ backyard. My folks had friends from the Philippines visiting for the past week but left on Sunday morning. Otherwise it was a mellow day capped by takeout dinner from my mom’s very short list of preferred restaurants. Then I headed home just in time to watch Strictly Come Dancing with Doctor Who on BBC. Oops. Sorry, that was the wine talking.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (May 3 & 10, 2009) Part 1 of 2

Greetings from Irvine, California, USA!
Photo taken on Saturday, May 2, 2009.

Over the past three weeks, college men’s volleyball had both the regional conference tournaments and the national championship. In the conference quarterfinals, the 1st-ranked UC Irvine Anteaters beat the 8th-ranked UCLA Bruins (3-1) while my other alma mater 5th-ranked USC Trojans defeated the 4th-ranked Stanford Cardinals (3-2). This meant that my two schools would face one another in a semifinal match.

As the top team in their conference, UC Irvine earned home court advantage throughout tournament play and would host the last two rounds of matches. At the campus’ Bren Event Center I watched the 2nd-ranked Pepperdine Waves defeated the 3rd-ranked Cal State Northridge Gauchos (3-1) in the first semifinal. Next was Anteaters vs. Trojans. The match was a 3-game sweep, the victor was USC and I was shocked.

Two nights later I watched the regional finals: Pepperdine vs. USC. The match lasted the maximum five games and the last one went pass the 15 points needed to win because of the 2-point lead rule. Final score was 21-19 and the Trojans beat the Waves.

The national championship was held in Smith Fieldhouse at Utah’s Brigham Young University. Despite hosting, BYU was not competing, its team eliminated in the regional quarterfinals. The three conference winners were the 4th-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes, the 3rd-seeded USC Trojans and the 2nd-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions. Also the top-ranked team nationally, the 1st-seeded UC Irvine Anteaters received the wildcard spot.

In the semifinal matches, Trojans defeated Lions (3-1) while Anteaters defeated Buckeyes (3-0). USC and UC Irvine would be having a rematch but it was not a repeat of the Trojan sweep. The finals lasted a full five games with USC taking games 1 & 3 and Irvine taking games 2 & 4. Game 5? Cable network ESPN broadcasted the matches and, watching at home alone, I yelled “YES!” as the winning point was made. Anteaters won, earning its second national championship in three years!

Soon after I was on the phone talking with a friend. Because I had gone to both UC Irvine and USC, he asked whom I really wanted to win. With the Trojans dominant in football and the Anteaters not even competing in that sport, USC has me as a pigskin fan but UC Irvine has me for volleyball. Also I preferred the ‘Eaters to win both the regional and national titles, but if forced to split the two, this year’s results – conference champs Trojans, national champs Anteaters – reflect my own choices.

Slightly blurry this week’s photo shows the Trojans with their conference trophy. Mostly glass and hard to see, it’s in the lower middle of the shot. FIGHT ON, USC!

Angelo