Well, we went to the semi-finals and finals of the 2007 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship. It’s one of those events I’ve always seen on TV and wished it would happen close to where I lived so I could see it in person. Well, it happened at Arco Arena in Sacramento this year.

Thousands of fans for the four teams–Stanford, USC, California, Penn State–converged on Arco Arena. College crowds are a lot different than professional sports crowds. Everyone’s excited that their team made it to the Final Four and the groups from the different schools try to out-do each other in school pride with cheers, chants, and banners. Most of the fans had to travel a ways to get there, the Penn State fans traveling the longest distance.

We were up in the nosebleed section because the bottom section seats were reserved for the colleges. But it was fun up there, surrounded by local people who, like me, wanted to go because it was close enough to attend. There were also a lot of fans of different teams up there with us.

We, of course, were rooting for Stanford.

In the semi-finals, Stanford played USC and California played Penn State. Over 13,000 people showed up, making it the second largest crowd for the semi-finals.

Stanford beat USC in a five game show down. They were evenly matched and the victory could have gone either way, making for an exciting game. We had a good vantage point because we were looking down and could see the whole court.

Here’s the photo gallery for the game. Not bad for shooting from the top of the arena:

Game 1 NCAA Division 1 Volleyball Tournament

I got a pleasant email this morning. My story “The Last Hero of Wodling” has been accepted by Sorcerous Signals. It’s a new market that’s good fit for my little story about a woman warrior who tries to lift a centuries old spell from her village.

I’ve been playing hooky from the blog. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from the computer, since I’m on it for work and for play. I have two big December events to post and I’m working on them now. Let’s just say, they involve lots of photos.

Here’s a photo I took December 22, from the back of an SUV, on a gazillion lane freeway, heading south to Palo Alto. I saw the shot, grabbed my camera, and prayed that the photos wouldn’t be too blurry because I was shaking all over the place from trying to keep the zoom lens steady in the moving car.

Yep, that’s the Golden Gate Bridge . . .

Tis the season to embrace peace . . .

“The Christians and the Pagans” by Dar Williams

Three unexpected things happened today . . .

This morning I went to a funeral for a cat. Mr. Whiskers belonged to a friend and was hit by a car this morning. He was a fun loving cat with lots of personality and his presence will be missed. He was buried out in the country on a horse ranch, between a pair of trees.

This afternoon I got an email informing me that my story “Harleys in Driftwood” has been selected for an anthology–A TIME TO … Volume 2 – The Best of The Lorelei Signal 2007. That was a nice surprise.

This evening when I came back from part 2 of my life list experience (you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it is) I got an email announcing that the December Special Issue of Coyote Wild is up. My story “Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe” happens to be in that issue. So that was a really nice surprise.

My life has been pitifully boring lately. That’s about to change tomorrow night. I get to mark something else off my life list.

Until then . . . enjoy this music video . . . YouTube won’t let me embed it, so you’ll have to click on the image to get to it.

Makes me kind of nostalgic for my old pairs of ripped jeans . . . When I looked like this . . .

Yep, I raided old photo albums when I visited my mom over Thanksgiving. This was my high school photo when I was a junior and I’m pretty sure the jeans I was wearing (out of sight of the camera lens) had rips in them.

Some of us don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday but rather recognize X-mas simply as a day of giving gifts. So as I mull over what to get everyone this year, I can’t forget my many furry friends . . .

Do you think they’d like one of these?

The Kitty Wig

We went to a sneak preview of The Golden Compass last night. The fact that it was a sneak preview was entertaining in itself. A lady in front of us stood with a clipboard, taking notes on the people coming in, along with counting them with a clicker. She said the film studio wants all kinds of information. The studio should be pleased that most of the audience arrived early and almost filled the theater. They were also a very attentive and respectful of the film. I suspect many were fans of the books. I thought it interesting the only time the audience really came alive and applauded was when the armored bear, Iorek Byrnison defeated the king of the armored bears.

I started reading His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman after I finished the Harry Potter books. These two sets of fantasy works will be forever linked since they became popular at roughly the same time. Although Pullman said in an interview, “I was quite happy for Harry Potter to get all the attention so I could creep in underneath all of it.” The book Northern Lights–known as The Golden Compass in the US–was first published in 1995 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone–know as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the US–was first published in 1997. Both gained popularity in England before crossing the pond for greater fame and fortune.

I wasn’t quite ready to commit to reading another series, so I’m only a couple of chapters into The Golden Compass. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I think I’m ready to read the trilogy.

I’ve read enough of Philip Pullman’s work to know he writes with a depth and intellectual awareness that is not found in Rowling’s work. Like the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, Pullman’s books have strong thematic substructures that are difficult to translate to a visual/aural medium. Since I’ve read only a bit of The Golden Compass, I can’t comment on the faithfulness of the film adaptation to the original text. I can say the screenwriters found a narrative thread that was easy to follow and made sense dramatically.

Having said that, two things I know aren’t the same as in the book. The whole opening sequence with the kids doesn’t open the book and the Master is the one who poison’s the wine in the book, not the scuzzy bad guy from the Magisterium in the film. Maybe I’ll understand these changes when I finish the book.

The director, Chris Weitz, “decided to move the final three chapters of The Golden Compass to the beginning of The Subtle Knife. To me, this provides the most promising conclusion to the first film and the best possible beginning to the second.” Pullman agreed to this change. A similar decision had been made in the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

At the heart of the series is a tough eleven-year-old girl, Lyra Belacqua. Dakota Blue Richards went to an open audition and beat out 10,000 other girls for the part. It’s a difficult role because Lyra is a tough, unruly, orphan who has basically been allowed to run free and raise herself. So it’s amazing they found a girl who has never acted before, so perfect in the role.

As for the religious controversy surrounding these books . . . It’s fantasy fiction with the same moralistic and thematic weight as those other monumental fantasy series that has drawn some sort of religious controversy. Works such as the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Narnia is usually criticized because it’s too allegorical and LotR for not having any religion at all.

The funniest part of the whole controversy is that the ringleader for the controversy, William A. Donahoe of the Catholic League thinks, because The Golden Compass is the least religiously offensive of the books and the filmmakers supposedly have been careful to keep the offending elements from the film, parents won’t find anything wrong with it and buy the books for their kids to read. Only too late will these parents learn that these books, according to Donahoe “promote atheism for kids.”

An article posted today in the Los Angeles Times puts this so-called controversy into perspective. Laura Miller states in “Religious furor over Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ ” :

Most preposterous, of course, is the idea that anyone would make a $180-million movie with the purpose of tricking children into reading a seditious book. What self-respecting kid ever needed that much encouragement to ferret out whatever the adults are trying to hide?

 

Also — whoops! — no one’s been hiding “His Dark Materials.” To date, 15 million copies of Pullman’s books have been sold worldwide. “The Golden Compass” won not only the 1995 Carnegie Medal, a prize awarded by British children’s librarians, but also the “Carnegie of Carnegies,” as the public’s favorite book in the prize’s 70-year history. The final novel in the trilogy, “The Amber Spyglass,” won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2001, the first children’s book ever to do so. It’s safe to say that copies of the trilogy reside in every decent children’s library in the nation. If there is indeed a “deceitful stealth campaign” afoot to lure children to Pullman’s books — as William Donohue, spokesman for the Catholic League, insists — it’s remarkably short on stealth.

I enjoyed the film. It’s visually stunning, well-acted, and goes along at a good pace. All the critters surrounding the people–their dæmons–are fun to watch and the bears rock. For me, that’s all I need for a good time at the movies.

Well, I’m going from this–taken last weekend at Bodega Bay . . .

to this . . .

for a week, while I do the family thing over Thanksgiving in Tucson.

I really can’t get into a holiday that celebrates eating a defenseless bird, so I spend the day mourning the slaughter of all those poor turkeys. For the record, the last time I had turkey for Thanksgiving was 32 years ago.

The USA Basketball Senior Women’s National Team ended their two-week eight-game college tour Thursday night at Stanford.

It was an amazingly beautiful day, sunny with no fog and mild down there in Palo Alto. It was so clear, we could see the fog drifting over San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. We had dinner at Hobee’s, a chain of restaurants south of SF. It has a nice mix of carnivore and herbivore food.

We got to Stanford about quarter to six and as the faculty and staff were escaping campus, we got a parking place right across from Maples Pavilion. People were already there waiting to get in and by the time they opened the doors at six, there was a nice crowd waiting. That was a good sign–people were there an hour before to see the warmups, etc. Showed real interest in women’s basketball.

A teenage girl in line in front of me had a UConn sweatshirt on. The woman sitting next to me had a Seattle Storm shirt on. Then the Monarchs fans showed up. Quite a few like us came on their own, but three bus loads arrived from Arco Arena and suddenly purple competed with Cardinal red as the dominant color.

The shoot around was very relaxed. The coaches and players stood around chatting. Something you never see in a WNBA game–a player chatting with the coach of the opposing team. Taurasi, who talks to everyone at any time, chatted with Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer.

All of a sudden the players gathered at mid-court stripping off their warmups for a group picture. The teams also exchanged gifts before the game. I wonder what they were.

It took a little getting used to having Lisa Leslie and Diana Taurasi introduced without any boos. Or them making points without any boos. In fact, both teams got equal applause and cheers, showing appreciation for good plays, no matter who made them. That was the best part about the game. It was a friendly and everyone was relaxed and just having a good time.

The three bus loads of Monarchs fans were there to see Kara Lawson play. When she took the court for the first time, she got the loudest cheers of any player. When she made a basket the mob of purple clad yelled her name, beat thundersticks, and one woman rang her cow bell–just like at a Monarchs game. The Stanford fans looked a little bemused by these displays.

Monarchs Ticha Penichiera, DeMya Walker, and former Monarch and Olympic gold medalist Ruthie Bolton also hopped the buses at Arco, so it was a mini-Monarchs reunion of sorts.

The anarchic Stanford band and the infamous Stanford Tree entertained during timeouts. The halftime entertainment were Irish dancers, who did a good job.

The game itself was one of the best I’ve seen in person. USA played like a well oiled machine. It was fun seeing in person Bird and Taurasi on the same team together. They ran a couple of fun plays they’ve probably been doing since their UConn days and could do in their sleep.

Bird played a perfect game. She had a game-high 19 points, plus 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals. K-Law didn’t disappoint her faithful following with 15 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal. I think she’s done a good job of pleading her case for a permanent spot on the National Team. The final score was 97-62, USA all the way.

Something else you usually don’t see in a game–USA player Jamie Carey was called over to the Stanford bench during free throws in the second half, where Tara had a few words with her. Just like the old days for both of them when Jamie Carey was the point guard for the Stanford team.

The USA team went its separate ways after the game. Bird and Taurasi are off to Russia to join LJ, Tina Thompson, Izi Castro Marques, Kelly Mazzante, and Kelly Miller on the Spartak Moscow Region team. Pokey Chatman is now an assistant coach on that team. Wow that’s some team.

I ‘m starting something new. I’ve created a secondary blog for photo galleries and other things that are related to the posts here.

So here’s photo gallery for the USA-Stanford game.