Welcome to Championship Plaza

The Oakland A's started something to enhance the experience of the fans. They turned the area between the Oakland Coliseum and Oracle Arena into what is called Championship Plaza. It is a place that people can go and have fun before and during the game. There are food trucks and games for fans to enjoy. You do need a game ticket to enter. It pays homage to the great teams in both Philadelphia and Oakland:

They also have plaques up of the great players that played in Oakland:

And if you do want to watch the game while enjoying the fun, you can:

But the coolest thing is that you never know who might show up:

A's legend Rickey Henderson

Championship Plaza is a great thing that A's management is doing to make the fans experience at the Oakland Coliseum better. Everyone knows the A's need a new ballpark but at least they doing something to make the old place better.

The AVP Return to San Francisco

The AVP-Pro Beach Volleyball returned to San Francisco this year for the second straight year. It was a fun and exciting event to see:

Litara Keil setting up her teammate

Reid Priddy serving

Avery Bush serving

Caitlin Ledoux  serving

Ricardo Santos

I am so glad that the AVP has decided to make San Francisco a regular stop. It is fun, the price is right (free) and they have it in a perfect location in the city with great views

Music Monday: European Groups

For this Music Monday, we are going to go across the pond and I am going to not feature anything from England as it is too easy but going to explore the continent:


From Norway:

From Germany (or in the 80's West Germany):

From Austria:

From Sweden:

From Greece:

From Czechoslovakia:

The last two may be cheating but they were Number One of the Billboard charts. Hope you have a wonderful week.

The Work of Roy Purcell

I forgot I had these pictures on my phone. When I was at the Lieb Library on the campus of UNLV, I saw a group of paintings on the wall. I found out they were the work of Roy Purcell has lived and worked as an artist in Las Vegas since 1970 and has created a large body of work in various media. He is famous for western themes, desert scenes, but also the symbols and imagery of Native American and world mythology:

Roy Purcell is an amazing artist and I so glad that I got to see his work.

A Return to the Old Stomping Grounds

When I graduated high school many years ago, I had no clue to what I was going to do. So, I decided to enroll at the junior college in my town of Hayward-Chabot College. Chabot was considered a good stepping stone at the time for kids like me. Well, let's just say that my first attempt at college was horrible to say the least. I spent two years there and the only thing I got decent grades there were the mass communication classes I took. Mostly, everything else I dropped or got C''s, D's or F's. Way to go. Anyway, I needed some discipline and went into the Navy for four years, got out and went to Cal-State Hayward and got my B.A.  I was over at Chabot College recently and decided to take a look around and see if much had changed. The only really new thing  was a new administration building, other than that the buildings were mostly as I remembered:

The new admin building

The preforming arts center

The Planetarium

The library

Besides the new admin building, there were a few new touches like the Athletic Hall of Fame:

And some art work spread out on the campus:

As much as things change, there were two staples that I really remember and they are still there:

I was a DJ on the campus station back in the day

I wrote for them

It was strange walking around, I remembered a lot of things and people that I encountered way back in the day. I also thought about how I screwed up but then I thought like Tom Hanks, I got my start on a wonderful life journey at Chabot College in Hayward.