Molly the Stylist and phone calls

Phone Calls
Tuesday was an interesting day for phone calls.

I had my usual one from the salon to remind me that I had an appointment to see Molly on Wednesday for a haircut. Natalie was in a good mood when we had a brief call. I was looking forward to concluding the call when I saw Natalie on Wednesday.

Then, I had my unusual phone call for the day around 7:00 PM or so. It was the colorectal surgery clinic at the hospital. I have never received a phone call this late from any of the clinics. The caller whose name I either didn’t hear or forgot wanted to know if I had an electrocardiogram on the 20th when I went in for all of my tests.

I said yes.

She asked if I had I a copy of the test.

I said yes.

She asked me to bring it to the colonoscopy on Friday so the doctors could look at it.

I said yes and then I said good night.

After I hung up, I started to wonder why they wanted me to bring the test copy. I was told by the technician who gave me the test that a copy was stored electronically. Why couldn’t the doctors just go online and look at the test results? I thought the request was unusual.

Then, I remembered the request was from the colorectal surgery clinic; the clinic that misplaces records and loses things and makes schedule errors. It all made sense to me now.

Molly the Stylist
“Oh my god, Charles! Those brownies were wonderful.”

That was how Molly the Stylist greeted me when I walked into the salon on Wednesday. I guessed that she liked them. She was also very glad that I gave them to her after her wedding.

Molly did; loved them actually. She liked all of the flavors. Molly said that she would nibble on a brownie while she was cutting hair, a nibble here, snip, snip, snip, and another nibble and so on.

I asked Molly if she took one home to her husband. Very proudly, she said that she did. Unfortunately for him, he was slow in getting to the brownie and Molly ate it all.

Molly said that my hair had grown so long since my last visit. I thought that was a good thing for me since I am a cancer patient and I am in chemotherapy.

Natalie was not working as a receptionist on Wednesday. Rachel took her place. Molly asked me if I remembered Rachel from before. I thought a moment and said, “Late Spring, Molly described you as a refugee from Newport Beach and you were cutting hair.”

Rachel was really surprised because she was almost speechless. I suppose that she felt good because someone had remembered her from a chance meeting six months earlier. I only saw Rachel once before Wednesday and that was when I was introduced to her. After that, I guess our schedules changed or Rachel when to work at a different salon.

It felt good for me to brighten Rachel’s day by remembering her.

Visitors
I got my weekly email from Sitemeter.com today that had the visitor count. This last week, the blog had 128 visitors who looked at 184 unique pages. The blog is the second most popular page among the viewers.

The blog seems to be attracting more Iranians. They are not reading about my life and what passes for drama in it. They seem to be attracted to photos of young women in skimpy bikinis. I do worry about their souls.

When I was checking to see who wandered into, I noticed that I had a Follower now. The Follower is one of my nieces; I guess she wants to see what Uncle Chuck is doing or not doing as the case maybe. I suppose that I ought to post more regularly.


Be well and stay happy.

Teaching

Teaching
I was at school on Friday for my evening class. I had a chance to talk to my department chair about my tentative teaching schedule for next quarter. One has to remember that teaching schedules at time have all of the permanence of sandcastles that are built at low tide on the damp sand section of the beach.

So far, I like my schedule. I am scheduled to teach three classes so far. I get to teach Economics and Change, an introductory economics course, Microeconomics on Friday night, and Research Methods, a writing class on Saturday afternoon.

I will be honest and say that I am not happy with the Friday night and Saturday afternoon classes. But, on the plus side, there are very few instructors who would want to teach those classes on those times.

Hopefully, I will have my final schedule before the end of the term, for me, on November 20th.

I had to go out to school on Saturday to prepare a lesson plan setup for my substitute teacher for this Friday night. Since I am going to have my colonoscopy with full anesthesia, I don’t know if I will be able to drive to school to teach. Thus, I have a substitute teacher. She was excited to get a fully prepared lesson plan.

While I was at school, I had a chance to speak to the Criminal Justice department chair. We got to talking about having me teach some courses in the school’s new Paralegal Studies degree program. I can easily teach in that program because of my law degree. He was thinking about a morning class for the term beginning in March 2010 which will be fine with me.

University of Utah Football and other football games
It was a good football weekend for us; us being the Princes, my Brother and me.

Our Utes won another game and moved up a space in the BCS rankings to No.16 while BYU fell out of all of the rankings after a crushing loss to Texas Christian University. Utah has two more home games against Wyoming and Nevada Las Vegas before heading out on the road for games against TCU and BYU. The last two games of the season will be the most challenging for our Utes. Although, if they are able to win out. Out Utes will have a good chance to play in a very nice post season bowl game.

My Brother was happy because his University of Southern California put together a solid win at home. Next week, the Trojans will play Oregon in a Halloween game in Eugene Oregon.

The Princess was happy because the original USC, the University of South Carolina, won its game. The Gamecocks are raked at No. 23 in the BCS standings.

Lastly, my Brother and I are very happy that San Marino High School where we both played on the football team crushed its cross town rival, South Pasadena, 41 to 14.

As the Princess might say, “What lovely scores Daddy; winning is always so very nice.”


Utah Wins OT Thriller Against Air Force 23-16
A big defensive stop in overtime preserves Utah's victory.
Oct. 24, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)--Stevenson Sylvester stuffed Connor Dietz on a fourth-down quarterback keeper to preserve No. 19 Utah's 23-16 overtime victory over Air Force on Saturday.

On fourth-and-2 at the 7, Dietz pulled the ball from the fullback and tried the same play that had worked all game long. This time, Sylvester appeared in the running lane and brought Dietz down for no gain.

Dietz rolled on the ground in misery as the Utah players flooded the field from the sideline to celebrate the Utes' fourth straight win.

Dietz rushed 28 times for 98 yards, but the Falcons (4-5, 3-3 Mountain West) lost for the sixth time in seven games in the hard-fought series against Utah (7-1, 4-0), with many games coming down to the last play.

On the first possession of overtime, Eddie Wide, who had 121 yards, scored on a 1-yard plunge that was the eighth play of the 25-yard drive. Joe Phillips' kick made it 23-16.

The Falcons' methodical drives kept the clock running and wore down the Utes' defense. Air Force had almost double Utah's time of possession and outgained Utah 300-242 yards in regulation. Erik Soderberg kicked a 22-yard field goal at the end of the third quarter and a 48-yard boot with 6:29 remaining to knot the game at 16.

David Reed, who had seven receptions for 149 yards, took a slant pass, broke two tackles and then sprinted 90 yards for a touchdown with 9:39 left in the third quarter. Reed's catch-and-run marked the second-longest pass play in Utah history and gave his team a 13-10 lead.

Boo Anderson's big hit on the ensuing kickoff caused Reggie Rembert to fumble and Elijah Wesson recovered for Utah. Rembert stayed on the ground for five minutes but walked off the field without assistance. The play led to a 31-yard field goal by Phillips for a 16-10 Utah advantage.

The Utes scored on their first possession when Terrance Cain fumbled on a keeper and Wide, who was trailing the play, picked up the ball and ran 44 yards for a touchdown. Phillips pushed the extra point attempt wide right. That was all for the Ute offense in the half as the Falcons held the Utes to just 107 yards of total offense.

Underneath cloudy skies and intermittent rain, Cain was harassed all day by a blitzing Falcon defense and passed for a season-low 167 yards. Utah only managed eight first downs and fumbled five times.

In the first half, Wide was tackled and bent backward while his legs were pinned. He had to be helped to the locker room for X-rays midway through the second quarter. He returned in the second half to notch his fourth 100-yard rushing game since taking over for Matt Asiata, who was lost for the season with a knee injury.

Air Force has lost 13 consecutive games against ranked teams. The Falcons' last top-25 upset was at No. 23 California, 23-21 in 2002.

Nokia cell phone charger
I tested the Nokia cell phone charger and my solar powered radio. It appears that they will work together but the charging rate for the phone is too slow for me. I think I will take a look at a straight solar panels that can be dedicated to charging the cell phone only. If nothing else, this will give me something to do on the weekend.

Visitors
The blog is still getting visitors. We had 133 visitors who viewed 175 unique pages last week.

As with the last few weeks, we had some more visitors from Iran again. They were looking at a page that had a number of photos of young women in skimpy bikinis and that led to other similar pages. I do worry about their souls since a good Muslim would never want to look at a young Western or Asian woman in a skimpy bikini.

I would look and so would a lot of young and not so young men that I know look and that is why one of those pages draws around 70% of all blog traffic.

I wonder what the mullahs would say if they knew about this decedent, morally depraved activity.

That kind of makes me feel very good all over.


Be well an stay happy.

Zack's, Sausalito California

Zack’s
Zack’s was the bar that Julie Ann Jeremy took me to in 1967. Zack’s was located in Sausalito, another small town in Marin County on the north side of San Francisco Bay. My Brother sent me an email this morning after he read the blog. He has been living and working in San Francisco since 1968 and knew a lot of the bars. He said it was located near the water and that Zack’s had long since closed.

My Brother also told me that he googled Julie Ann and found that she was married in August 1969.

I was serving as the Operations Officer on the good ship Lucid. We were high and dry in the shipyard dry dock in San Diego as the ship underwent a major overhaul. At the time, I was thinking about making my third deployment to the Western Pacific and the Great Pacific Fleet. I was not looking forward to a 45 day transit from Long Beach to Da Nang, assuming the ship suffered no major breakdowns along the way.

Me and the Cancer
I had a typical visit with the colorectal surgeons on Monday. I am convinced they do not like me and go out of their way to make my life miserable. I saw a new surgeon on Monday; that was to be expected. One of the first things she said was that I was having the pre-colonoscopy visit early since the procedure was scheduled for November 30th. I quickly corrected her and said the procedure was scheduled for October 30th. She said she would check the schedule later at the end of the consultation. She checked and her notes were wrong.

I hope that was all that was wrong.

The last time I spoke with Dr. Karen I referred to the colorectal surgeons as being her friends. She declined that association and suggested that they were doctors in the hospital that she worked with from time to time or words and thoughts to that affect.

The consultation was routine. It was a warning about everything that could possibly go wrong with the procedure up to and including death.

I didn’t have much choice with the decision if I want to have my colon reconnected anytime soon. No colonoscopy, no reconnection surgical procedure.

I think we had a term for that I law school; we called it a contract of adhesion.

Anyway.

Then on Tuesday, I had the tests. I got x-rayed and an electrocardiogram. I was pleased to see that the ECG showed that I still had a functioning heart. Having been a banker for so long, I had a slight fear that it might have atrophied.

I had six blood tests run and luckily for me the lab only needed three vials of my blood. The lab has sucked out so much blood that I sometimes am surprised that I still have any left in me now.

bing.com
When I checked the visitor log, I noticed that between five and ten percent of the referrals to the blog are now coming from bing.com. It is nice to see that bing.com is doing well.


Be well and stay happy.

I got busy

I got busy
I was going to post all of this yesterday but I got busy. I book that I had ordered from Amazon.com arrived yesterday and I got totally absorbed into it. I finished it off today. It was a paperback book with only 235 pages long. The novel read very fast.

Utah Football
Our Utes, that would be the Princess and me, won on the road in Las Vegas on Saturday, beating UNLV 35 to 15. On Sunday, our Utes moved up in the polls and were placed at Number 19 in the BCS poll.

Perfectomundo.

The story is by Lya Wodraska of the Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 2009.

Las Vegas. Revenge, payback, retribution. None of those words were spoken publicly by any Utah players this week as they prepared to play UNLV.

But the embarrassment that the Rebels handed the Utes here two years ago sure seemed to be in the minds of the Utes on Saturday as they routed the Rebels 35-15 in front of 26,315 in Sam Boyd Stadium.

The win nor the margin of victory was much of a surprise coming against the Rebels (2-5, 0-3, who have to rank as one of the worst teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Nevertheless, the victory was a particularly satisfying one for the No. 24 Utes (5-1, 2-0) not so much for the way they played but for avenging the 27-0 loss they suffered here two years ago.

That year, Utah's defense gave up 340 yards to the Rebels and were mocked in the days following the result by UNLV coach Mike Sanford for being afraid to tackle running back Frank Summers, who rushed for 190 yards.

The Utes handled Summers better last season, holding him to 87 yards on 23 carries in their 42-21 win, but the revenge just didn't seem quite complete until the Utes beat the Rebels on their own field Saturday.

Fitting that the Utes' defense led the way with the offense struggling most of the night.

"It was a win, which was much better than the last time we were down here as far as the result," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "But it was not a clean game. We didn't play very disciplined at times, very smart at times but we did enough to come away with a victory."

Safety Robert Johnson, who had three interceptions a week ago against Colorado State, came up big for the Utes again Saturday. He returned an interception 31 yards in the second quarter to set up one scoring drive, then on the next UNLV possession he returned a fumble by teammate Christian Cox 70 yards to give the Utes a 28-6 lead with less than two minutes to play in the first half.

Cox picked off UNLV quarterback Omar Clayton then fumbled the ball into Johnson's hands as he turned to avoid a hit.

"I was going down field to make a block and the ball just popped into my hands," Johnson said. "I did what I could do."

Johnson's dramatic plays gave the Utes some spice the offense couldn't provide. The Utes finished with just 327 yards against the Rebels, who have been yielding 476 yards to their opponents.

The Utes had only 166 yards through the first three quarters, then added another 161 in the fourth quarter when the running game finally got going.

Running back Eddie Wide finished with 111 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries for his third straight 100-yard plus game.

He scored the Utes' only touchdown in the second half when he broke a tackle and scored on a 37-yard touchdown run in the opening minutes of the final quarter.

Quarterback Terrance Cain finished 17-of-24 for 174 yards and two touchdowns and rushed eight times for 22 yards and a touchdown.

The Utes did show some variety offensively, with quarterback Cain throwing a 6-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ben Hendy for the only the second completion to a tight end this season.

"We work on that play call every week," Cain said. "It just happened to come up and he made the play for us."

Utah also debuted receiver Luke Matthews in the ever-evolving "Asiata package" with receiver Shaky Smithson sidelined with an ankle injury.

But for all the new looks, the Utes had familiar woes of struggling to put together drives.

"It was a weird game offensively," Whittingham said. "We weren't in synch. We never got into a rhythm."

In addition, the Utes had five fumbles, losing two, and were penalized 10 times for 110 yards.

Clayton finished 23-of-44 for 223 yards and showed the Utes remain vulnerable against the deep ball.

While beating the Rebels gave the Utes another conference win and put more distance between themselves and the bad memory of 2007, Saturday's performance still revealed the Utes have plenty of areas in which they must improve, particularly with their toughest games ahead of them.

"We are playing aggressive, but we have to be smart," Whittingham said.
lwodraska@sltrib.com

My high school football
I have been following my old high school football’s season so far by noting the scores in the Los Angeles Times. It looks like my school lost its first game of the season on Saturday. I played a year on the varsity team until I had a seasons ending knee injury and my brother played on the varsity team for two years. I think their record is now 4 and 1.

Sweet.

Visitors and
We had another slow week last week for visitors. We had 138 visitors who viewed 198 unique pages. I sometimes look at who or where the visitors to the blog come from. It is curiosity more than anything else.

a Memory from my Past
Last week, I had a visitor from Greenbrae, California. For those of you who may not know Greenbrae or even where it is, Greenbrae is a small community in Marin County. It is on the north side of San Francisco Bay. I have no idea who the visitor was and I doubt that I could find out since the visitor records only show the most recent 100 visitors.

My Greenbrae visitor reminded me of Julie Ann Jeremy. She was a year behind me at Utah and a member of a sorority that was cross the street from my fraternity house. We got to know each other fairly well; I’m not sure why since we weren’t all that compatible.

Anyway and more to the point, we had agreed to go out over Christmas Vacation, that’s what it was called in 1966. I drove Julie to the airport to fly home for the break and then I followed her by car a couple of days later.

Julie’s mother answered the door. She knew I was coming and told me that Julie couldn’t go out because she was contagious with mumps. That seemed to be a stretch since Julie was fine when I drove to the airport in Salt Lake City.

Just as I was about to leave, Julie came to the top of the stairs in her flannel nightgown and fuzzy slippers. Her cheeks were swollen like a chipmunk with a mouthful of nuts. All she could say was, “I’m so sorry.”

I said, “That’s OK; we can talk back at school.”

Then, I went back to the hotel where I was staying and had a quiet dinner alone. I drove home the next day and managed to get pulled over four times, the first one just after I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, by the California Highway Patrol. I had a burned out fuse that was causing by backup lights to go on. I got that fixed the next day.

In January when Julie and I caught up with each other, we talked about our non-date. Julie felt particularly sad because I drove 400 or 500 miles out of my way to see her. Gasoline was only USD$0.30 a gallon then.

I knew that I would not be around for too much longer, just over five months or so. I had my orders to active duty in the Navy. I also knew that my ship, the Leonard F. Mason, was going to be gone as in far, far overseas for most of the next three years. This was hardly the best foundation to build any sort of relationship. I viewed Julie as a friend I guess, recognizing what lay ahead for me.

But, Julie wanted to have a make-up date.

I suggested that she wait until July when my Midshipman Cruise would be in San Francisco. Julie would have a car and she could show me around the city. Julie thought that was one of my best ideas ever.

Julie always looked stunning except maybe for the mumps time. She was stunning when she picked me at the ship; several of the other midshipmen asked me for her name and phone number. One of the officers that I stood watch with on the good ship Perkins asked me as well. The Perkins was scheduled for a long overhaul in San Francisco a few months after the cruise ended.

The only place that I can remember Julie taking me to was a bar in Greenbrae that featured turtle races. The turtles were the small ones you find in pet stores and each had a number painted on its back. The turtles raced, if you care to describe their movement in that manner, across a track. The first one to reach the finish line was the winner. Race fans had lots of opportunities to drink during the race.

The next day, the good ship Perkins along with the other ships in the cruise sailed from San Francisco and pointed their bows towards their home ports. We were bound for San Diego.

And so gentle readers, Julie Ann Jeremy sailed out of my life just as I sailed out of her life; Greenbrae and San Francisco and the turtle races was the last time we were together.


Be well and stay happy.

it rained in Southern California

it rained in Southern California
We had a brief rainstorm in Southern California this week. I live along the coast and generally seem to miss a lot of the rainfall that comes from the usual storm tracks.

I think the rain started on Tuesday night; I can’t say for certain because I was asleep when it started raining. I went out on Wednesday morning out of necessity. I was about out of food. I still had my earthquake supply of food but I don’t like to go into that cache because I may forget to refill it in a timely manner. Earthquakes happen when you least expect them.

My drive to the market plus a couple of other errands in the light rain was enough to really make the Prelude look sad and rain spotted. I should have taken it to the car wash this weekend and had it cleaned and waxed.

Oh well, that’s something for me to do this week.

New flannel shirts
I ordered some new flannel shirts from L. L. Bean a while ago. The shirts arrived when the temperature at the beach was around 83F/28C. This was hardly the ideal time to put on a flannel shirt. But, with the rain, it was a great time to see how they fit. The shirts fit fine and they were very nice to wear in the rain and to the cinema.

The only thing that I don’t like about flannel shirts is their tendency to pill up into little fuzzy balls of yarn. This seems to happen when the shirt is new. I can overlook this inconvenience and pick the fuzzy balls of yarn off as they develop. I know this process will only last for one or two washings.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS
I went to see this film during the week. Doug had recommended it to me when we last talked on the phone. He said that he and his girl friend had both enjoyed it.

This was an unusually high praise from Doug because he is not that much of a cartoon fan. As a film studies major in college, he had a marked preference for live action films. I normally agree with him.

I do have a fondness for classic and Pixar animation and particularly for anime. I think I have around forty or so DVDs that are cartoons or anime including all of the Pixar films and nine anime films from Miyazawa.

I saw the film in 3D and in IMAX projection. I think this was a bit much. I could feel the bass sounds vibrating off of my chest during the film. I doubt the extra sound volume added to my viewing enjoyment. I found it to be annoying and a distraction. I suppose that with a full or close to a full house some of the sound would have been absorbed by others. There were only five or six people including small children in the theater that could have held several hundred comfortably.

When I talked to Doug after the film, I said that I enjoyed it and thanked him for his recommendation. Then, we got off on a discussion of the somewhat derivative nature of films. I felt the last twenty minutes or so of the film reminded me of A NEW HOPE and RETURN OF THE JEDI. He sort of agreed with me. He said that every film writer seems to want to borrow from someone to help make a better film.

If you haven’t had a chance to see CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, I would recommend that you give it a chance. I think you will enjoy the film unless you happen to sit next to a crying baby or someone with a cell phone who is unable to shut it off during the film.

strange visitors
I was looking at the visitor logs during the week. I noticed that there was one visitor from Iran who managed to spend just over twenty minutes on the blog.

Normally, I would be happy with this type of a visitor. But since the visitor was from Iran and he, I am assuming that it was a male visitor, spent the time on a page that featured lots of photos of young women in skimpy bikinis, I am worried about his soul. I don’t think that good Muslins should be viewing photos of young women in bikinis.

Of course, I could be wrong and the visitor could have been an Iranian Christian or Jew or a Buddhist from China who was working in Iran. Then, the viewing would fine and not a danger to his soul.


Be well and stay happy.

The Nokia Charger

The Nokia Charger
My new Nokia charger for my cell phone arrived today. It fits in my Model 6126 cell phone just fine.

I bought this charger because it plugs into a USB port instead of a regular outlet. In and of itself, this is not a significant deal. When you couple my solar powered emergency radio that has a USB port that is in my earthquake emergency kit, it starts to make a lot of sense.

I live in earthquake country. My flat is no more than two miles from a major and active fault line. I know that Southern California is long overdue for a major earthquake; a major quake is something more than 7.0 on the Richter Scale.

I am expecting that some cell phone towers will survive the quake and will remain operational. There will be limited access to the cell phone network as the few remaining towers are initially overloaded with calls. The call volume will die off as batteries die; residential electricity will be slower in restoration. I, on the other hand, will be solar powered and will be able to make calls.

Perfectomundo.

My plan was to test the charger when it arrived. Since it was raining and overcast all day long, I decided to postpone the testing until it is sunny. Sunny is a normal condition in Southern California. This weekend, when it should be around 73F / 23C, will be a perfect time to test the charger.


Be well and stay happy.

Dr. Karen and the Nurses

Dr. Karen and the Nurses
Friday was my regular, once every three weeks visit with Dr. Karen or in her absence with Dr. Michelle. I also saw Nurses Wendy and Vhrunda. The nurses wanted to know why blood pressure was on the slightly elevated side. I said it was because I was with them.

Wendy and Vhrunda did not appear to have suffered greatly from the Hershey’s miniatures and the Fairy Tale brownies. In fact, I thought they looked better than they usually do. It was nice of Vhrunda to not say that her scrubs were fitting her too snugly because I had seen her in the hall when I was waiting for my blood testing on Thursday. She looked remarkably nice. Wendy reminded me that I could still bring them some more candy since I had an appointment with them on October 30th.

Dr. Karen went over my regular lab tests and said they were all normal and that there was nothing that gave her any great concern. We didn’t discuss my slow and gradual weight loss.

I asked Dr. Karen about the cell blocks she had me get from the other hospital. She said she wanted the pathologists to review the tumor cells to see if my tumor had a specific mutation; don’t ask what it is or was because I didn’t care to ask. The important fact was that I do not have the mutation. Dr. Karen said this is good for me because it gives her a wider range of treatment options and medications.

We talked about the rescheduled colonoscopy procedure and agreed that the colorectal surgeons were not our friends. I told her that I would not be able to be there for our regularly scheduled visit on the 30th because of the colonoscopy. Dr. Karen wanted to schedule my next appointment for the week after the colonoscopy. I suggested that we move the next appointment until November 20th which would be on the regular cycle and give me four weeks off of the Xeloda.

I started my 16th cycle in the Second Round of chemotherapy on Friday. I never realized how much of the Xeloda I have consumed over the two Rounds.

She said she would ask her supervising physician about going off cycle for the four weeks and then stepped out of the small examining room.

I waited as I have grown so accustomed to doing by now.

Dr. Karen returned with a smile, she was smiling an awful lot on Friday, and said that my next appointment would be November 20th.

Perfectomundo.

I could have hugged Dr. Karen except that would have been a rather nasty breech of doctor – patient protocol. It probably would have been the end of seeing Dr. Karen. That would be very bad for me so I just mentally hugged her.

University of Utah Football

Our Utes did well playing on the road in typical Mountain West Conference weather conditions, freezing at kick-off for example. Today’s report is from the Salt Lake Tribune. Even better our Utes moved up to Number 24 in the AP Football Poll but remain unranked in the Coaches and Harris polls.

Utah overcomes big deficit, and safety Johnson picks off CSU's hopes.
By Lya Wodraska
Fort Collins, Colo. Down two touchdowns with all the momentum in favor of the Colorado State Rams, the Utah Utes remembered their loss at Oregon three weeks ago and had one prevailing thought Saturday -- not again.

Not again would they allow a game to slip away and suffer a plane flight home made worse by the gnawing thought they could have won if they'd only tried a little harder or executed a little better.

Put in a similar situation Saturday, the Utes used their determination plus some nifty defensive plays from safety Robert Johnson to avoid such disappointment as they came from behind to beat Colorado State 24-17 in front of 30,499 at Hughes Stadium.

"Us experiencing that loss at Oregon, we knew we were a better team than a lot of other teams but we needed to show it," said Johnson, who ended CSU's last three drives with interceptions. "We beat ourselves in that game and we know we are better than that."

[It would seem that Robert Johnson should pay more attention in his English classes.]

The Utes nearly did it to themselves again Saturday, struggling with third down conversions, fumbling three times and giving up several big plays.

Yet somehow the Utes (4-1, 1-0) managed to put together drives when it mattered most to win their fourth straight over the Rams (3-3, 0-2) and start conference play with a victory.

"Going 0-1 would have been devastating," linebacker Stevenson Sylvester said.
Instead the win was made that much more satisfying by showing the determination and character of a team that really hadn't established much of an identity through its first four games.

Now they have an idea at least of the mentality of this year's team. The way the Utes battled back, scoring three unanswered touchdowns, reminded Coach Kyle Whittingham of the never-say-die attitude of the 2008 team. "Hopefully it gives us a lot of confidence to win a game in that fashion," he said. "We don't want to make a habit of it, but to win a game like that gives us a great learning experience and it's similar to how our team operated last year in those tense situations."

Quarterback Terrance Cain had a steady game, completing 24 of 32 passes for 248 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, and running back Eddie Wide had 17 carries for 102 yards and a touchdown.

However, it was Johnson who provided the most highlights, ending CSU's last three drives with interceptions. “We knew we had to get the ball back to the offense so they could put it in the end zone," he said.

His offensive teammates did just that, scoring touchdowns after his first two interceptions.

"Nothing was said," offensive lineman Zane Beadles said. "We just had a
collective thought that 'We're not going to lose this ballgame. We have some adversity staring us in the face so let's go beat it.'"

The first of those final touchdowns capped a 17-play drive that went 73 yards and burned eight minutes and 45 seconds in the fourth quarter. The Utes converted three third downs on that drive and scored on another with Wide rushing in from a yard out to tie the game at 17-17. Previously the Utes were just 2-for-7 on third downs.

After Johnson's second interception, the Utes put together another 73-yard drive that ended with Cain throwing an 8-yard pass to Wide with 3:40 remaining.

Johnson's final interception came with 2:20 remaining, allowing the Utes to run out the clock and celebrate a game that might have changed from disastrous consequences to defining moment for these Utes.

"It took us a while to get going offensively," Whittingham said. "But to get down 17-3 and the way our guys responded, I couldn't be more proud of a group of guys. They rallied up, stayed focused and found a way to win at the end."

Cell Phone Troubles
I had the truly rare privilege of spending two and a half hours on the phone with AT&T Customer Care [?] and Technical Support representatives on Saturday. I’ll bet that none of you had as much fun as I did. I’m glad that the call didn’t last too much longer because the batteries in my cell and landline phones probably would have died off

This non-happy event started out as a call to AT&T about what would happen to my calling plan if I dropped one of the three lines. Nothing happens it turns out.

Then, I asked about not being able to receive inbound calls. I did complete a simple test on Saturday morning using a non-AT&T cell phone. The call went straight to voice mail with no message greeting from me.

One of my Friday night students called to leave me a message that she was not going to be in class. Perfectly normal; her brother said she had called me. I checked my phone and I had no messages. I thought that was odd but I was in the middle of class and had other more important things to do like teach.

I certainly wasn’t going to call AT&T at close to 11:00 PM after I got home and had a light dinner. Calling any time is a test of anyone’s courage and strength.

I dialed the carrier on Saturday afternoon when I was out on the balcony. I could sit in the sun while I was on hold; you almost always end up on hold it seems when you call the phone company.

It seems that AT&T had an outage ooopsie thingie [or insert the technical term(s) of your choice here] happen that changed the tower registration information on my cell phone so that I couldn’t receive any voice messages. The cell phone towers were not able to recognize my phone.

I will say the AT&T workers did their very best to solve my problem. I think the task took so long because all of the information that showed up on their terminals showed my phone as operating normally

The problem started a week ago Friday I think or it could have happened earlier but the first unheard message was from a week ago Friday. I guess that I am lucky because I do not get many phone calls.

Lunch with Vivian and Lisa
I had lunch with Vivian and Lisa on Sunday afternoon at the L. A. Food Show. It is our favorite meeting spot. We originally started meeting for lunch after I left the bank. We went here because it was conveniently located for Vivian and me. We both live on the Westside and it was about equidistant between our homes. Lisa lives out in the O. C. like Doug.


From left to right, Vivian, Lisa, and me.

During the extended conversation, lunch was only two and a half hours long, I learned that Vivian has moved again and this time she is Santa Monica with her boyfriend. It would seem logical that the next lunch will have to be at a different location. We agreed to meet again in January since the holidays are almost here.

Most of the conversation was catch up about what we had been doing since the last time we had lunch. I thought I hadn’t seen Vivian since before my operation. Vivian said that we had lunch when she was dating another boy friend. Not wanting to argue, I accepted that claim.

The only real complaint that I have about the Food Show is the portions are excessively large. The food has always been excellent and the service, for the most part, has been very good. I had a Show burger with avocado and French fries and two scoops of vanilla ice cream. We split an order of Avocado, Bacon, Chicken, and Cheese egg rolls as we usually do.

I was feeling bloated around dinner time last night; that would have been close to 7:00 PM. I ended up having a slice of toast for my dinner.

Lisa brought up the subject that I should be in a solid relationship by now. Being alone was not a good idea. Vivian agreed with her. I pointed out that I am not opposed to being in a relationship per se. It is just that I have not found someone yet.

Vivian and Lisa discussed their roster of single women that are in my age range or what they thought was my age range. I think one of my concerns about meeting someone is that I have become more restrained and socially conservative when it comes to being with people.

In the end, I think I agree to meet one of their friends who lives in the O. C.. The friend is divorced with a teenage daughter. I should probably follow up with Lisa and find out what I committed to if I committed to anything.


Be well and stay happy.

No Utah Football

I started to write this blog entry on Monday afternoon. I was interrupted by a call from school asking me to substitute in a class that night. I was also called in on Tuesday and Wednesday to substitute. The extra money is always nice to have and I had taught the classes before so it was easy for me to fill in.

No Utah Football
Our Utes had a bye weekend so that left a void in my sports life.

I see my Brother’s school, the University of Southern California, did very well playing against the University of California at Berkley. I don’t think I will talk about that game when I see Dr. Karen on Friday; she did her undergraduate work at UC Berkley.

Molly the Stylist
I went to see Molly the Stylist on Thursday. She was happy to see me. Molly remarked that my hair was long. I said it had been a while since she last cut my hair and that it tends to grow between cuttings.

Judging from the look on Molly’s face, I don’t think she was thrilled with my hair growth comment.

Molly was thrilled with the Fairy Tale Brownies, they were an early Halloween gift. As the Princess would say, “Daddy, you can never go wrong with a box of Fairy Tale brownies.” The Princess would know as she has enjoyed more than one box.

It turns out Molly loves chocolate. That was good for me since the brownies are mostly all chocolate; she even likes the ones with nuts. I don’t care for the ones with nuts because the nuts take up space that could be better filled with chocolate.

I said, “Aren’t you glad that I waited until after your wedding to give you the brownies?”

Smiling as she always does, Molly said, “I would have killed you if you did.”

[Note to self: always beware of women with sharp things in their hands.]

Hershey’s Candy and the Princess
The Princess called to say she received her Halloween can of Hershey’s Miniatures. She had already broken into the can and said the contents were just fine. I do wonder, however, just how much of the candy will remain by the 30th.

Running out of candy before the 30th is not my fault or problem.

Theater
I went to the theater to Saturday to see “Steel Magnolias” with a friend of mine who enjoys the theater about as much as I do; she used to be a dancer on the stage. We both enjoyed the play and used the intermission to catch up on what has happened in our respective lives. We had great seats in the center of the fourth row.

I wish I had had the Princess sitting next to me at the play; she could have given me a California English translation from the Southern, having spent several years in South Carolina and Georgia. Some of the dialogue was delivered in a really heavy Southern accent that was impossible for me to follow at times.

Visitors
It seems that the blog traffic has drifted lower on a permanent basis now. Last week, we had 54 visitors who viewed 57 unique pages.

I am fairly certain that I could build the traffic levels up if I restarted the Woman of the Moment feature. I will ask the Princess what she thinks about a relaunch when she comes home over the Christmas holiday.

Looking Ahead
Tomorrow, I get to see Dr. Karen and Nurses Wendy and Vhrunda at the oncology clinic. I know my weight will be up because I visited Fatburger for my dinner after my substitute classes. I will also hear how they liked the candy I left them three weeks ago. I wonder if any is left by now.

Doug suggested that I go see CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. Hopefully, it will still be playing at my local multiplex cinema on Saturday.

My Nokia USB phone recharger may arrive on Saturday. I bought the USB recharger so I can recharge my phone with my solar powered radio. This is part of my earthquake preparations plan. I want to be able to recharge my cell phone after an earthquake at a time when electrical power may not be available at my home. I am highly confident that the sun will be shining.


Be well and stay happy.