Family

While Hannah was away at camp, we were given free tickets to the Padres game. These are perhaps the best seats we've ever had. They are right next to the field, with only the wall separating you from the field. The opposing team's bullpen (in this case, the Marlins) is less than 20 feet away. Here are a few pics I snapped throughout the game.

Growing up with a father who worked at Caterpillar Tractors, our family vacation schedule was set by the company. It wasn’t until I was in junior high or high school that I realized summer vacation wasn’t called "Cat vacation." Entire plants would shut down for weeks at a time as the employees went on vacation.Cat vacation affected everything in and around Peoria. Businesses would experience slow downs and our church would have a combined Wednesday night Bible class in the auditorium, instead of the normal age-graded classes.Part of our family ritual every summer was to pack the car -- either a Bonneville or Impala, depending on the summer -- and head for southwest Missouri. By the time I was born I had only one living grandparent, my grandmother Grace. This meant that we would spend at least one week visiting my dad’s mom and his family who still lived in…

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... or "table tennis" as the sophisticated like to call it. After meeting Adrian Gonzalez and taking a three hour tour of the outlets in San Ysridro, we went to Balboa Park where the Southern California Table Tennis Tournament was being held. It was incredible! It was inside the Activities Building and had three long rows of ping pong tables. Men, women, children, young, old, and even a guy in a wheelchair were playing!It took me back to my days when I worked in the student activities center in college. As part of my work study program, I would operate the activities center for a few hours each day. This usually allowed me ample time to play a few games of ping pong. There were several of us guys who were pretty hardcore ping pongers -- nothing quite like the level I saw today but not too shabby either.Some of…

OK, most of you are probably saying, "Adrian who?" That's understandable unless A) you like baseball and B) you live in San Diego. Adrian is the first baseman for the San Diego Padres and was born and raised in Chula Vista. I noticed in the the San Diego Reader that he would be signing autographs for two hours today. Hannah and Hope were excited to shake his hand and get his autograph; they even left with an autographed picture. Here are a few I shot myself ...