rocky laber

Over the course of the last 7 days I’ve experienced some highs and lows, almost all highs, but one notable low.

Last Sunday night, after a weekend full of Little League baseball (Eric’s team won twice, I umpired a well played game Sunday afternoon), the surf band recorded a 5 song demo for our myspace page.  The performance was VERY crisp, great energy, great comeraderie with John Santos, a musician friend and bandmate of Danny’s in Braindozer.  John was patient, accommodating and altogether very generous with his time and effort.  I think he really busted his ass for us, by Tuesday he’d finished mixing and mastering the demo.  Gene dropped off a CD made to look like a vinyl 45 – very cool (one of John’s touches).

The week progressed, work went well, Nat’s team won 2 of 3 games, Eric had his practices, Friday night we enjoyed a great meal at Nama, a relatively new Japanese restaurant on Fruitvale.  Another weekend of baseball, Nat had a strong pitching workout Sunday morning.  Eric’s team, the Angels, after losing a sloppy game Saturday, came back to beat a usually strong Rangers team Sunday afternoon.  Home made pizza for dinner, I’m off to my weekly Sunday night rehearsal.

Gene greets me at the door and asks if I’ve spoken to Danny recently. “I have some really bad news,” he tells me.  In the ensuing second, a couple things run through my mind: did something happen to Danny or someone in his family? Was the house broken into and gear stolen? Is the surf band kaput? Is someone quitting? Then he tells me that John Santos died in his sleep day before yesterday.  Now, this is not someone that I’d known very well, or was necessarily close to, but we’d just been in close contact with him and the weight of the news was a little bit crushing.  Just 32 years old, John had treated us incredibly well, and we were looking forward to spending more time with him, away from recording and playing, him being part of our circle was something that was going to happen.

John, thank you, you’ll be with us all the way.  We won’t forget your easy going demeanor, your kindness and generosity.

We drove the van to Idaho for thanksgiving with the Maguires – that’s a story unto itself.  The weather was decent enough, fairly cold overnight and until about noon each day, so we spent a bit of time indoors.  I’d never played wii fit games before, and we all took turns at it.  I’m still amazed at how cool it is, we did  strength, yoga, balance games, the works.  I can almost see justification in buying one of those and giving up the gym membership – should more cost-cuting measures come into play.

This video surfaced recently. Despite the 22 years that have gone by since it was taken, I think I remember this as the night I got a speeding ticket going south on 101 somewhere around San Mateo. It was fun being there when the brothers got together, this was taken when Mike, Freda, Theresa and Helen came out from North Dakota.

my family spent a quiet new years eve at home, something we haven’t done in years. Played Eric’s Settlers of Catan board game after going out for a simple meal. I started 2008 off in healthy fashion by taking a bike ride down Redwood, across Monterey and through Butters canyon.
and hey, sold another shirt on redbubble! check it out!

So, here we sit at the edge of a year, about to slide into the start of a new one. Many memories of 2006, unfortunately I have neither the time nor energy to document all of them in a manner they deserve. However, among the notable include…

Work continues to go well. With my business partner Allan Miller, DSD Interactive has a number of interesting and challenging projects under its belt. We have office space near JL Square, some highly satisfied clients, and we’re involved in a few business networking groups. The outlook is good.

I had my first experience as Little League head coach. With support and resources that includes Chris Kyriakou, how can you go wrong? We made it all the way to the championship game in an exciting playoff run. I’d been looking forward to this experience for a long time. Worth the wait.

I became assistant coach on the OGSL 12U tournament team. After modest success, and our fair share of taking lumps, we finally won a tournament (the last on our schedule) in 100 degree weather in Sunnyvale.

Meanwhile, the OGSL board consists of people I really like. I will coach 12U girls this year and assist Chris with the boys – a reversal of last year’s situation.

My kids get straight A’s in school. Never too early for flashcards. Ask Eric & Nat.

My kids are smart, but they can still be knuckleheads. Bike and scooter accident aftermath: Nat with a fractured wrist, Eric with 8 stitches above his eyebrow. Kaiser Oakland at midnight. Not a real happy place.

The Maguire family moved to Boise and I’m managing their house. Found what are turning out to be very pleasant and conscientious tenants.

I started swimming for exercise in September up at the pool. After a little instruction, I became more comfortable and efficient in the water.

I am no longer the bass player in the Bob Claire Orchestra. I have decided to take some time off from being in a band, and instead have started helping with the Montera Jazz Club, under the direction of Khalil Shaheed.

My mom has colon cancer. We found out right after Thanksgiving. It was scary first learning about it, but so far she’s done incredibly well. It’s early, but we have every reason to be optimistic.

What’s on tap for 2007?
I need to sell the motorcycle
I may sell the van and start driving the Honda wagon so Mary Ann can get a new car
Plan for Mary Ann’s 50th birthday
Start taking a closer look at high schools for Nat
Coach girls softball and perform player development tasks for the league
Assist with boys, with Chris’ help
Grow DSD business
Cultivate more illustration business, maybe through selling online
Continue swimming, be in shape
Read and write more

happy new year!

2005 has been a year to remember. A good year all in all, but one that has marked a number of transitions. Unfortunate as it is, we have experienced yet another passing. I look over some of the posts I’ve made here and almost think of renaming this RL’s Grieving Blog (jokingly), but that only tells part of the story.

My first pet, I mean my own first pet, the one for whom I was solely responsible, was my golden retriever Lester. That was the animal that really touched peoples’ lives, my own and many others. He didn’t exactly touch everyone in the right way, but that’s another story.

Lester was mellowing in his years, it was 1990 and he was about six at the time. Mary Ann and I had lived together for about a year, I was so blinded by love that I agreed to let her bring a long one of the cats from Snowball’s litter to live with us. All the kittens at Mary Ann’s parents’ home had been snatched up or given away, leaving the last two, Max and Callie. We ended up with Callie, I was OK with one but not both. Callie had an annoying habit of kneading. She would jump up on your lap and sit quietly for about a minute. As soon as the warmth transferred comfortably from her own body to your lap or stomach, she’d start to gently knead her paws into you. It was kind of cool, almost a sign that she felt comfortable enough to do this. But gradually, paw stroke by paw stroke, the claws emerged from beneath the fur and you were soon her personal scratching post. Shortly thereafter, Callie would fly from my lap, often propelled by yours truly. I believe that cats do this instinctively to stimulate milk from their mother’s nipples. Was this a sign that Callie didn’t breast feed enough as a kitten?

Mary Ann had always maintained that you can’t just have one cat (a claim I later found to be completely baseless), and had worked on me from the beginning to take in a companion, perhaps to ease Callie’s neurosis. Up came a situation where a negotiation was called for, and to this day I can’t imagine what I stood to gain from it. She agreed to something from which I might have benefited, my concession to her was that we could get a kitten from the pound to keep Callie company. Even though I have no idea what she agreed to, I’m quite sure I never received it. But soon enough, there I was, looking into the cage that held the one cat with the tiniest meow. Out of all the cats we saw, this tabby was clearly the cutest. I was soon won over, even though he wouldn’t have been my own first choice. I had my eye on this big fat gray striped male with green eyes. I wanted a big lazy cat that sat like a lump in the corner, maybe taking the occasional swipe at Callie.

It was October, and while his orange markings bore a resemblance to the color of pumpkins, he became Jake, derivative of jack o’lantern.

Jake and Callie ruled the roost on Harrington Avenue, came with us and seemingly adjusted well when we moved to Rhoda. One of my favorite memories of Jake is from the lawn in the back yard. Lester was about eight years old and Jake was two, but a very naïve and protected two. The back yard was the dog’s domain, and God help the animal that should stray in there. One of Lester’s things (not really a trick) was to hold up a treat and make him refrain from eating it until you gave him the OK. It was a similar situation when Mary Ann brought Jake out to say hello one day, and fortunately, the image was captured on film. (I’ll post it as soon as I find it.) Jake, cautious, yet curious about this hulking animal sitting on the grass opposite him, sniffing the air in front of Lester’s nose. Lester, sitting patiently, drooling as though being tempted with a Milkbone, as if waiting for me to give him the go ahead to lunge.

Callie disappeared right when we were about to move into our current residence in ’95, I had Lester put down within about a year. His size and his age had left his mobility severely limited, this wasn’t the way I wanted to remember him. Jake became the one family pet, the survivor of all these years.

Jake now rests quietly in a corner of the yard. The kids helped me bury him, we poured a concrete slab yesterday and embedded decorative rock in the surface, spelling out his name.

I read that James Doohan, Mr. Scott of Starship Enterprise fame, recently joined Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s final resting place – the final frontier if you will – when his ashes were transported via rocket into space. I’ve never given much thought about my own resting place, be it in a box buried in the ground or thrown to the winds of the cosmos, but my family did have to give the matter some consideration when our dad passed away in July. A few ideas were tossed around right after his death, but it took a short while to physically receive the package that contains his ashes. There are several ideas that still hang on among the family, but our first real opportunity to carry out a plan transpired yesterday, Friday the 16th of September, 2005.

Those that knew my father well were aware of his main hobby and the source of much of his satisfaction in the world of sports – thoroughbred horse racing. Now it just so happens that his next-door neighbor of the past several years has been horse trainer of note Greg Gilchrist. Greg, his delightful wife Patty and my parents became friends because of their mutually amiable nature, the fact that they’re just plain old good folks, and their common interest in the ponies. Not so much my mom, but she’s been in the know about the who’s who of racing through my dad.

I’m not sure if my brother Mark gets the credit for thinking it up, but I recall him mentioning that one appropriate place to have my dad’s ashes scattered would be on the home stretch at Golden Gate Fields, a venue with which he was intimately familiar. I don’t know a lot about when he first became so interested in horse racing, but some of my own richest memories came from times when we accompanied him to the track, and how he would alternately study races and a horse’s history, consult with his buddies on why a pick was good or not, and act as a kind of apostle of the Daily Racing Form – also known as the “bible.”

A golden opportunity arose one week ago tonight. My mom, now living in the house of my childhood all alone, was invited to dinner with her neighbors, the Gilchrists among them. My mom shared with Greg our idea of having the ashes disbursed at the track, and Greg graciously agreed to arrange an event that will live forever in my memory.
As I write this, the thoroughbred Lost in the Fog is the probably hottest race horse in the U.S. He’s a 3 year old, undefeated in 8 major races, and set to run in the Breeders Cup next month. Greg is the horse’s trainer, owned by an absolute gentleman by the name of Harry Aleo.

Apparently, when he works out there’s usually some kind of media circus that shows up, workouts are filmed, interviews with Greg and Harry are commonplace. This particular week, Greg had been somewhat secretive, not announcing the workout until Thursday evening, when he’d apparently been planning on it all week.
So arrangements are made to have Russell Baze, 1999 inductee to the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame (and second only to the legendary Lafit Pincay in career wins) in the saddle for this session, and to have Russell spread a small container of ashes as he crossed the finish line at Golden Gate Fields.

Friday morning comes along cold and gray, a steady breeze sending cool air and a blanket of fog through the Golden Gate, directly in line with the track at the foot of Gilman Street. Jeanne and Drake were right behind me as I pulled into the stable parking lot, I entered the stables and with the help of the gate attendant I located Greg who introduced me to Russell. We soon encountered Mark, Suzanne and Elizabeth parking their cars when my mom showed up with Patty and we were all set to witness the event. Within a half hour we found ourselves in the box seat section of an empty grandstand, perched directly across from the red and white pole that is the finish line, below us the finely manicured winners circle. In fact, the infield is just as meticulously manicured, the preparations for the upcoming meet are well underway.

Thoroughbred horses are magnificent animals. I haven’t had too much opportunity to spend time around horses, we occasionally go riding at Bonnie and Jeff’s ranch in Yuba City, where they board about a dozen at a time, more when a polo match is taking place in their arena. There the horses are fit and healthy, but just common horses. The animals at a track on par with GGF – even the ponies the trainers keep for work out assistants – are powerful and athletic. They’re all high strung, but some horses are trotting out to the track with a herky-jerky nervousness, their mounts doing all they can to keep the animal in control until it’s time to do what they were bred for – run with all out abandon on the soft dirt of an oval course. But with Lost in the Fog there’s a difference, he’s got a sort of sophisticated and confident presence on the track, a little bit like a veteran slugger calmly making his way from dugout to on deck circle. Not a tall horse, but sturdy and somewhat thickly muscled.

Russell is riding him from the stable gate on the southern end of the oval with a training assistant riding alongside. They’re part of a small procession of horses heading out for a morning workout, deliberately make their way heading against the grain on the home stretch. They turn around before the end of this straight segment of track and embark on a warm up trot as if they’re heading home toward the finish line. Russell reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a plastic medicine container, deftly flips the lid open with his thumb and empties its contents in a short white puff of dust.

It’s pulled off perfectly, we’re both content and proud to have witnessed this, but there’s still the matter of the workout. Now the horse continues a moderate trot around the first turn and ramps up to a gallop and full sprint around the back stretch. To see this orchestration of man and beast is awe inspiring. To a casual observer, one might think that a horse race is littlle more than a dozen horses breaking free, running full tilt to the finish, but a closer look reveals much, much more. The combination of grace and power was a beauty to behold, both Russell’s and Lost in the Fog’s head are almost still as the horse glidingly streaked alongside the same ground where my dad had just been honored.

Here’s the synopsis, some day I’ll go back into my notes and transcribe to this blog, but for now…

Day 1
Highway 92 to Half Moon Bay, south on 1 to Santa Cruz. Play Frisbee on the beach with Eric, Nat plays in the sand and Mary Ann naps. Beach boardwalk, all the cool rides – Eric is now fearless when it comes to roller coasters and his enthusiasm is unbridled. We run into the Gotch family and hang for about our last hour there. Spend the night in Seaside with Will.

Day 2
Breakfast, some shopping, visit Will’s office and take mom with us to lunch. We’re on the road around 2pm and heading south on 101. Traffic in Santa Barbara gets us off the freeway and onto the beach for an hour or so. On the road again, we land in Claremont around 10:45.

Day 3
Leisurely start, early afternoon we’re on our way to the San Dimas water slides where we soak up sun and stand in line with the pierced and tattooed masses. Back to Claremont, Marjie has made us a salmon feast for dinner.

Day 4
Rohan is accompanying us to San Onofre, Nancy decides it’s too cold out for Citlali, who is recovering from a cold. Surfing lessons for the kids, Ro and I take a couple shots at it as well. Drive back up to LACMA, the girls have tickets for the King Tut exhibit. We’re back in Claremont by 11pm.

Day 5
Early start, we meet up with Zan and Julia at Disney, spend the next 14 hours on rides, watching parades, and taking in fireworks. Back at our Claremont home away from home by about 11pm.

Day 6
I fly home with the kids at 11:30, Mary Ann drives back to the bay area with Marjie. Subbie is in San Jose on business, he and Marjie will return together.

There it is for now, all in all a great trip, made enjoyable, memorable and affordable through the generosity of our hosts!

My sisters were up from LA for my dad’s funeral a week ago, now they’re on their way back down south. For a few occasions, the entire family was on hand. I feel very fortunate that my family is so close knit and close by – 4 of us live within a couple freeway exits of each other.

When we were much younger, dad used to take us to A’s games on family night when tickets were half price. I soon discovered family night on my own, a night where the money saved on admission was spent primarily on beer, it made for some memorable times.

Wednesday night was the eve of my wife Mary Ann’s birthday, and Suzanne suggested celebrating it at the ballpark, since everyone was in town. Only it wasn’t the Oakland Coliseum this time, no, it was Laber Field (Owen Jones), and it truly was Laber Field on this particular evening. My entire family (with the exception of my own kids!) was on hand for a night of playoff softball. First some background: a couple years back, Mariano asked if I’d be interested in playing on his men’s league team, comprised historically of guys whose daughters played fast pitch softball in the local league (originally Bobbysox, which then became OGSL). I couldn’t say no, the games were played at my neighborhood park, the last time I’d played in a league there was on a co-rec team in the summer of 2001. In my first game with the Dads Club, we beat the other team by about 15 runs and I’m thinking, it sure feels good to play again.

Now our team, the Dads Club, has had our share of ups and downs, but regardless of outcomes, this is a group of guys that just plain enjoys playing ball. We’ve crushed teams as many times as we’ve been crushed. We’ve scratched out wins, we’ve given up winning runs at the end when we were certain that we’d come out on top. A few faces are bound to change from season to season, but the core (or what I recognize as the core over the last couple years) remains loyal.

By virtue of finishing the season in second place, we played the third seed team in the playoffs in a 6:45 start. The Base Hitters are a talented group, they hammered us about a month ago down at Allendale park, we returned the favor just about a week ago. We figured that they were out for blood this time, they were taking infield and BP 45 minutes before we started. But not all their team showed on time, we had all ours at the field by 6:30, they had a couple straggling in close to 7pm – in light of playoffs, the umpires were pretty lenient with the forfeit rule.

So with my mom, sisters and nephew in the stands, nieces hanging out and watching the young ones, my brother playing first base and nephew in right field, there was a real nice feeling that settled in over the park as the sun slowly set beyond the trees on the third base side, and beyond that, over the bay on a beautiful summer evening. In my first at bat I hit a ball over the left field fence to put us ahead 2-0. I usually don’t consciously try hitting home runs, I just try to hit the ball hard and if it goes, it goes. It wasn’t until after I made it back to the dugout that I started thinking about my dad and how he used to come see Mark and I play Little League, then even as adults if the field was convenient. I suppose the standard thing for big leaguers is to cross home plate and point to the sky in tribute to a loved one, but I missed my chance and would have felt funny anyway – after all, this is just Oakland rec league softball. Miserable hack night as I fondly call it.

The lead changes hands, we’re back on top and close them out in their final at bat, game over. So we sit around, eat some Church’s chicken (Suzanne had arranged food for the family) and patiently wait our turn to see who we play in the championship game at 9:15. CC Company jumps out to a big lead, their third baseman yanks a huge homer about half way up the hill in right field, and the tone is set. The Dogs scratched out some runs and made it somewhat respectable, but still lost by about 10. I could sense that a couple of our guys were getting nervous, but on this night I was relaxed and ready to simply go out there and play – let it be a game. Earlier in the week I’d told Mariano that I probably wouldn’t play, I’d developed some swelling in my right knee and the ice, rest and ibuprofen hadn’t really helped yet. Wednesday afternoon I called him again and told him I’d be good to go, but maybe he should be available by phone just in case we needed him to run up there.

By now the Laber family is gone, except for Mark, Nils and myself. Jennifer is there with Piper and Gigi, Taylor Warman is hanging tough and that’s all we have watching from our side, a far cry from the number we had attending the early game. CC puts a couple balls over the fence and in the second inning they’re up 10-1. We gave them too many outs in the first couple innings, it should have been closer, but they’d still have been up by about 5.

The sign of a great team – no, let me rephrase that – the sign of a team on a great night is that they refuse to quit. We had a few shut down innings, played improved defense (Nils made an incredible shoe top catch in right) and were aided by the fact that CC had to play 2 in a row, while we earned a rest during the middle game. Whatever the case, we hung in there, scratched out a couple here and there and found ourselves within striking distance in our last at bat with the top of the order coming up.

When your leadoff batter delivers, you are buoyed with confidence. Blaze started us off with a single and Dan (years ago shunned by the CC team and his fellow parishioners) followed with a hit of his own. Gary looped one into short right along the line to score a run and there are runners on for Mike, our legitimate power threat. I’m thinking, this is time for Mikey to hit one out. But instead he singles and drive in another, comes around to score the tying run on Mitch’s single. Now it’s up to Nils to keep things alive, but perhaps in anxiety, he hits a grounder to the left side of the infield, forcing Mitch at second for the first out.

My turn. I wanted nothing more than to hit one out right then and there. Their pitcher likes to work fast and I’m sure he’d quick-pitch me if I wasn’t paying attention, hoping to sneak a strike past me. My ritual is to fill in the holes in the batters box with one foot out, then keep an eye on him until I’m ready to step in. Down the lines at Jones are the deepest parts of the park, I’m thinking that the ball has lost a little bounce and my best shot is center field. His very first pitch was right where I’d been looking for it, but instead of lofting it (which probably would have resulted in a fly out) I hammered a slicing line drive to right that took the right fielder on an unexpected visit to the corner – they were playing me to pull, my last time up I froze the left fielder for a double to the fence. As I’m rounding first, I see the blur that is Nils out of the corner of my eye, streaking for home, easily beating the throw.

Ball game.

We hung at the park for a short while, all the guys from CC were in their cars in scant minutes. Mariano was there to stake claim to the trophy, there was much joy among those who lingered around the first base bleachers. Mark, Nils, Mitch, Dan and Gary came by the house ever so briefly, as Mark sat in the driveway waiting to cart Nils off, we agreed, this one’s for pops.