Wakeboarding on Father's Day - June 19, 2005

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Today, we all met at Leanna & Jeff's house to have breakfast and then the guys (me, Rusty, Mike, Uncle Dan, Marcus, Jeff and Art - Jeff's Dad) went to the Delta for some male bonding while the women (Shawnna, Leanna, Madonna, Aunt Gayle, Heidi and Vicki - Jeff's sister) stayed home to do what they do best, cook and clean (oh, I could get my A$$ kicked for that comment :-).

Wakeboarding at the Delta was a ton of fun - for the most part. I got on the board and felt very comfortable.

After several runs, I jumped off the wake and when I landed, I didn't keep the front of the board up high enough and it clipped the water and dug in. The result was a faceplant that made my entire face go numb instantly. After feeling my face to make sure my nose was still intact, I got back in the boat to a sympathetic hero's welcome.

Mike had a big milestone. After trying and failing to stand up today and over the last few years

He finally stood up and was able to ride the wake for a little bit. Good job Mike!

While it was Jeff's turn, he became parched and didn't want to come back to the boat, so he decided to partake in a refreshing libation on his board.

Next was the backflip contest off the boat between Jeff and Marcus.

While Marcus looked like he had done this before, Jeff did a semi-backflip with a twist which didn't look pretty. After viewing the peaks one last time we headed back to the house.

We ate dinner - tri-tip, chicken, twice baked potatoes, potato salad, spice cake, ice cream... and opened presents.

All in all, it was a great day that left quite an impression on me. So, when do we do it again?

Oakland A's vs. Philadelphia Phillies - June 18, 2005

Today was my birthday and I decided I wanted to go to the Oakland A's game vs. the Philadelphia Phillies. The people that went were me, Shawnna, Leanna, Jeff, Mike, Uncle Dan, Aunt Gayle and Marcus. We got there fairly early so we could tailgate in the parking lot prior to the game. We BBQ'd hamburgers and corn on the cob and also ate potato salad, chips, birthday cake, etc and just hung out until game time (12:15pm).

The game didn't start the way the A's would have liked. The first pitch to Jimmy Rollins (below - the ball is circled in yellow) was smacked over the right field wall for a home run.

Click for larger size

That ended up as the only run that the Phillies scored as the A's went on to win 2-1 with RBIs from Scott Hatteberg and Dan Johnson. It ended up being a great day for a game and was nice to hang out.

Shawnna and I went to Chevy's for dinner and while I was washing my hands, she told the waiter it was my birthday, so of course I got the song and sombrero. It was the perfect end to a fun day.

Def Leppard / Bryan Adams Concert - 6/3/05

I went to the Def Leppard / Bryan Adams concert on June 3rd at Municipal Stadium in San Jose with Shawnna, Dan and Liz. This is the stadium where the San Jose Giants play, so it's not that big of a venue. The stage was relatively small, so there weren't any elaborate set designs - just enough room to rock. The weather was perfect (sunny, but not too hot) and there were about 8,000 people there.

Since the show was general admission, I was able to get fairly close to the front. During Def Leppard, I was about 10 people from the stage. Def Leppard looked just like what they are - aging rock stars from the '80s, but they still sounded great. Since they were promoting a new greatest hits album (Rock of Ages: The definitive Collection), they played all of their classic songs - Pour Some Sugar On Me, Rocket, Hysteria, Love Bites, Photograph, Foolin', Too Late for Love, Women, Rock of Ages, Armageddon It, Have You Even Needed Someone So Bad, Bringin' on the Heartbreak, etc. They seemed to be having a good time and the crowd was fairly responsive. Rick Allen was great on drums as usual - who says you need two arms to play drums? Joe Elliott sounded good, but not great. He kept putting his hand up to his ear to find his pitch during some of the "high" songs. They played for about 1 hr 15 minutes total, including 1 encore.

When Def Leppard finished, a bunch of people in the crowd left (probably to go pee) so I was able to move up to about 5 people from the stage for Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams played his straight up rock 'n roll music for about the same amount of time as Def Leppard and the crowd seemed to respond even more than for Def Leppard. It could have been because he was closing the show and people tend to get a little less inhibited (and more drunk) as the night goes on, but the crowd really belted out all of the classics he sang - Summer of '69, Heaven, Straight from the Heart, Run to You, The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, 18 'Til I Die, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Can't Stop This Thing We Started, etc. He sounded great and put on a good show, but I thought it was a little strange that all the members of the band looked the same - 5 white guys, short haircuts, tight black shirts, dark blue jeans. Anyway, when they left the stage prior to the encore, the drummer (Michael Curry) threw one of his sticks into the audience and I got it :-)

Overall, I had a blast and was very glad I went. Although the stage was small and the sound could have been better, I thought it was a great show. Of course, being close to the stage makes the experience that much better.