Happy Holidays Everyone

I thought it might be nice to look at some nice Holiday pictures. To get the full effects of the picture, click on it.

The Manny Faces of Maddie

There are 2 babies that I totally adore in my life right now. One is Irelan Rose and the other is Madison, or, she also goes by Maddie. I got a chance to help babysit Maddie on Saturday and here are some pictures that I took. She is very picturesque and plays the camera.

Good Morning San Jose!

I've been watching the sunrise and noticed how red the sky was at sunrise. I finally decided to go up to Mt Hamilton, early in the morning, and get some shots. The sky didn't turn as much red as I've seen it before, but nevertheless it did turn red and I did manage to get some nice shots.
There are also a couple photos of oak trees. They are pretty spectacular looking when done as shadows. Also, I noticed this plane flying across the horizon and creating a trail. I also got a shot of that.

Hello! Chicago

Well, I made it to Chicago. My daughter Shimaine and I left San Jose at 6:45 am and got in at 12:31 pm Chicago time. The plane ride was smooth and there were no incidents, just the way I like it. The picture above is the terminal at Ohare Airport. I tried as hard as I could to get everyone to stop for a photo, but they wouldn't listen, oh well, I guess they're in a hurry to get to their destination.

My brother Ray and nephew James picked us up at the airport in their van. Now, let me talk a little about the ride from the airport to my sister Jove's house, where we were heading for her annual Thanksgiving feast. My brother's van is not a bad looking van, the interior and exterior are in great shape and the engine sounded great for having 240 thousand miles on it with no major work having been done on it. I didn't mention anything about his 3 speed automatic transmission, that's because it's a 2 speed transmission. His transmission in the van is going out and it now only has 2 speeds, 1st and 2nd, and every now and then it would kick into 3rd gear, but then it would drop to 2nd for no reason at all. Let me throw out a couple of adjectives that describe the ride to my sister's house: jerky, hopalong, possessed, bull-riding and oh yeah, slow. Note to self - find out if my medical covers chiropractic treatments. Because we hardly ever got out of 2nd gear, we had to travel 50 mph or less, and I emphasize less, in the slow lane. We were traveling so slow that one time, this guy on his 10 speed bike pulled up next to me and asked if we needed help, I just told him we had transmission problems and that we would be ok, he said fine and sped up past us.

We finally arrived at our destination and let me tell you, my sister had a spread out. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, 3 different dressings, Lumpia - that my sister Rita made, brockley, vinaigrette, bread, kugele - Lithuanian potato pudding, buns, gravy and a few other dishes that I didn't recognize. There were close to 30 or 40 people in her basement feasting. The basement was wall to wall with people and was setup like a banquet room, the food was on one table and the people were seated at their own tables with name tags. You walk up, get your food, then go back at your table and eat. Since I already had turkey, from my daughters party that she had last weekend for some of her friends, I only ate kugele. I figured that I can get turkey whenever, but I only got kugele when I visited Chicago. Oh, I didn't mention that upstairs in her kitchen, was were the desert was kept. She had the kitchen table filled with cakes, cookies, breads, cookies, muffins, jello, brownies, cupcakes and oh yeah, cookies. She must have had 5 or 6 different plates of cookies. All in all it was a great dinner. Kudos to Elaine - my brother-in-law's sister, who I understand did a lot of the cooking.



The above picture is my niece Erika and my mom relaxing in the atrium.

This last picture is my nephew Michael and his wife Allison (cute couple).

After the feast, my sister Rita drove me to my mom's house, were I was spending the night and Shimaine went to my brother Ray's house, where she was spending the night. I got to my mom's house in time to watch "Ugly Betty" and "Gray's Anatomy" after which I went to bed.

Too Cute

Our little Irelan Rose

Happy Birthday Mr Umberto

Today I'd like to write about Mr Umberto Ambrozino, who pretty much started soccer in Santa Clara. His birthday is today and he was born in 1919 which would have made him 87 years old. I met Mr Umberto in 1978, 1 year after I received my referee license. He asked me to referee in his adult league but I hesitated fearing that I was new to soccer and the adults would eat me alive. I eventually relented and started reffing for him. What an awakening that was. It was bad enough reffing youth leagues and having parents and coaches yell at you for calls that didn't go there way. In the adult league, you had to deal with the actual players, whose testosterone level was high and all of a sudden they had to stop play because of a call against them. There were a few times when I had players come face to face with me yelling and letting me know what my IQ was and that maybe I should get my glasses checked... and those were the nice ones. It didn't get any nicer when they got thrown out of the game either. What was really hard is that the players could come up and unload on you and you had to stay your ground, not say a demeaning word, and calmly pull out a card and book the player. This player was able to let out his emotions on you and meanwhile, you want to go and knock this players lights out for calling you every name in the book, but you have to be professional and calmly take it. Through it all, Mr Umberto would counsel me and always say that once I leave the field, all my penned up emotions should stay in the field and that I should never take it home with me. It was hard and it took me a little while, but eventually I was able to go home and not dwell on the game.

After a few years into refereeing, I started going to Mr Umberto's shop to get my hair cut and that was always a joy for me. We always discussed referee war stories and I would always get a good haircut. His little barbershop had papers stacked from wall to wall. But he always knew where everything was and always went to the right stack for any paperwork that he needed.

On the field, Mr Umberto was supreme leader and most players respected him. I once refereed a game with him where he made a call on one of the players, and this player started walking towards Mr Umberto, ready to unleash verbal abuse, when all of a sudden, some players from his team literally tackled the player down and talked some sense into him.

In his later years, Mr Umberto, in his 80's, would still referee. He pretty much stayed near the center line and called the plays from there. During one game , Mr Umberto called an offside about 30 yards from where he was standing. The team that was called for the infraction asked him how he could possibly call an offside from where he was located. He would look at the players, and very politely tell them, "I have great depth perception"....end of argument.

I miss getting my hair cuts from him and his head massage that he would do after every haircut. I made a point of always calling him at his shop and singing Happy Birthday on his birthday. I'll also miss the great cakes that I received from his wife on holidays.

Pretty much, to sum it all, I will miss Mr Umberto.

Dick Butkus

I just received my Chicago Bears Jersey that I ordered for my birthday, #51 Dick Butkus.

This is what was written about him at the Football Hall of Fame:

Dick Butkus possessed with a desire to excel that few have ever equaled. He played as the Chicago Bears' middle linebacker for nine years with only one goal in mind – to be the best, and from the very start, he was just that. In his rookie season, Butkus, a first-round draft choice had only one challenger for National Football League Rookie of the Year honors, teammate Gale Sayers. That same year Butkus was named first-team All-NFL, an honor he would record five more times. Butkus also played in the Pro Bowl following his rookie season and in each of the next seven years.

He even figured in the career statistical columns with 22 interceptions and 27 opponents' fumble recoveries. Dick had drive, meanness, a consuming desire to pursue, tackle, and manhandle – anything he could do to thwart the enemy on every play. Still he was a clean player, totally devoted to his career, a man who by his own admission played every game as though it were his last one.

Butkus had the speed and agility to make tackles from sideline to sideline and to cover the best tight ends and running backs on pass plays. He had instinct, strength, leadership and, maybe most important of all, anger. “When I went out on the field to warm up, I would manufacture things to make me mad,” he once said. “If someone on the other team was laughing, I'd pretend he was laughing at me or the Bears. It always worked for me." It was inevitable that injuries would eventually come to someone who threw himself so completely into a contact sport such as football. For Butkus, it was a serious right knee injury in 1970 that didn't respond completely to surgery. Three years later, he retired. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility

Birthday Surprise

On Saturday, Nov. 11, my family threw me a surprise party. Most of my family was there including some dear friends. Pictures are courtesy of my longest friend, Don Prince. Good job Don, in taking some nice photos.

Funny 4 da day

Saw this on myspace and just had to share it.

New Website Provider

Do not, I repeat do not use ACCUBURST as your website provider. I gotta believe they are going in the dumps. They ignore my emails and phone calls. I have now changed to a new provider and I am hoping everything will be honky dory - I can't believe I used those two words "honky dory".

About the elections, I am elated. That's pretty much how I voted right down the line, all Democrats. I guess I wasn't the only one. We are in such a quagmire in the middle east. I supported the attack on Afghanistan but not on Iraq. I just don't see any quick solution to the problem. We have opened up a Pandora's box and now we have to fix it and or deal with it.

Web site down

I'm not sure what's going on but my website has been up and down for the last week. I am having problems contacting customer service because I keep emailing them and leaving them phone messages and the only thing I get back is an email letting me know that my site is up now. If this doesn't get resolved in the near future, I'm going to be shopping for a new web provider.

Photos on my web page

Well, I finally put up my fall trip photos on my web page. I think there are a little more than 90 pictures. Hey everyone, if you get a chance, check them out.
I'm really curious as to how much money "Borak" will gross. Almost all movie critics gave it a thumbs up. If anyone has gone to the movie, let me know what you think of it.

Van UP!

Well, I got my baby back. My van is up and running. The problem was that my oil pump went bad. It cost me 4 bills to get it fixed, but now it seems to be running great. The mechanic, who worked on my van, said that I should be using better oil filters. I had a Fram filter and he noted that all that filter contains is some tissue paper and not much more to help filter the oil. He recommended I use Mann filters, more expensive, but better filtration. Note to self - dump the 4 or 5 Fram filters that you bought on sale.

Not much excitement during Halloween night. I had at most 10 trick or treaters. That's 2 more than I had last year. For some reason not too many kids going out at night. I guess there are enough church and school functions which enable the kids to get their fill of candy.

I recall my 1st Halloween in California, that would be in 1967. I lived with 3 other roommates and for some reason I don't remember them being home so I was by myself that night. I knew, as a child, how I didn't care for some of the small candy that people would give out on my Halloween treks. So I picked up 2 big boxes of Hersheys chocolate bars. I believe there was 40 to a box. These were the large candy bars that you pay 75 cents now. I figured, if I had any left over, great for me. People that know me know what a chocoholic I am. So, it's Halloween night, I have my candy ready and my six pack and TV, I was set. I lived in an apartment complex and knew most of the kids. I spent a lot of time in the pool and that's were the kids hung out. I figured that there would be a couple kids and that would be the end of it - wrong. The only thing that I can figure out is that there must be some sort of underground network communication that goes into effect during Halloween. I had so many kids come to my apartment. I swear there was a line formed to my doorway, and I lived on the second floor. After a few groups of kids, I noticed that some of the costumes were familiar and actually, some of the costumes didn't match. Those rascals were going downstairs and changing articles of clothing. I figured this out when I noticed that there was a policeman costume with a pirate mask. I quickly started taking note as to who I was giving candy to. At the end of the night, I had maybe 5 bars left. The next day, talking to my neighbors, they asked me if I had a party going on because of all the kid traffic at my doorstep. I just smiled and said nope, just a typical Halloween night for me.

35 mm scans

Well, I had some time this weekend to scan and download some slides that I did from my fall trip to Death Valley and Eastern Sierras. You may ask, "Well Algis, how is it that you, a very busy and hard working individual, have time to scan and download slides on a gorgeous weekend when you should be doing a photo shoot somewhere". Well, let me answer that, do the words "van down!" mean anything. Let me explain, most of you know that I drive a 88 vanagon and maybe now you can surmise as to my answer. Yes, my van is in the shop. Saturday morning, my van started spewing oil all over the ground when I started the engine. Not sure how serious it is but right now it is in the shop and I will know more Monday. I'm just glad that it went down while I was home as opposed to being in some foreign area on a photo shoot.