I was driving to work this morning and was reading the writing on the road as I approached the intersection at Broadway and 16th in downtown Oakland. It read: TURN LEFT NO. Of course, if you read it beginning with the furthest word away, it would say “no left turn”. It made me chuckle because “turn left no” is so much more fun. It reminded me of the time I was at Baccali Rotisserie on Valley Boulevard with some friends.

I can’t remember the circumstances for our visit to Baccali, but I do remember that most of my party was ordering small dishes or dessert. April and I decided to be adventurous and ordered a banana split. That’s not something I recommend people order at Chinese cafes, by the way. About ten minutes later, our drinks and desserts began to arrive. The waiter went up to my friend James and said, “Hello, hello. Chocolate; no.”

We all sort of looked at each other in amazement before James realized what the man was trying to communicate. Eventually, I realized that he must have forgotten which one of us had ordered the banana split. When the waiter came back, I asked what other ice cream flavors they had and I believe we decided on two scoops of strawberry and one of vanilla for our banana split. Nonetheless, sometimes, I still repeat to myself “chocolate, no” for a good laugh.

I’m actually very impressed with the efficiency with which my waiter was able to communicate the restaurant’s lack of chocolate ice cream. I mean, it took a moment for the information to set it and make itself clear, but I got it eventually. Two words was all it took. Chocolate, no. Hello, hello! Chocolate, no.

There really is no fall season when you live in the Bay Area. A couple of weeks ago, it was unbearably hot in Haas Pavilion; and this morning, it is unbelievably cold. I can’t complain when it comes to getting set up for volleyball matches. The cooler weather will certainly help curb the sweating that occurs from all of the regular set-up activities but there are plenty of negatives that come with the drop in temperature.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing is how quickly we went from hot to cold–but that’s not matter at this point. I have to deal with deciding when to allow April to turn on the heater at home. I’m all about putting on more clothes or bundling up on the couch but it’s not quite as easy for April. She needs to have the thermal underwear with sweat pants and a sweat shirt and she wraps herself up in a flannel or jersey blanket. I’m not opposed to turning on the heater because of the cost of running the thing but more so because of the particularly loud noise that emanates from the electric coils. The noise itself isn’t even all that bad but it becomes a real nuisance when we have to turn the TV up louder in order to hear anything. Not only that, we constantly turn the TV volume up and down depending on whether the heater is running at the moment.

Now that I think about it, I believe that is my only real gripe about the heater. Of course, the increased electric bills through the winter months is no fun to receive either but that’s lower on my scale of worries. Nonetheless, this sudden winter weather is still quite a wonder to me. One of the nice things about living in Alameda though, is that the extra humidity actually hasn’t become a problem on our cars. When I was living in Union City, I’d wake up and have to deal with a layer of frost on my windshields. I thought I was living in Canada all over again.

Even though I miss Southern California an awful lot; and even though I hope to eventually live in a warmer climate, one of the things I like about living here is the generally cooler weather. I’ve always felt that it’s easier and more fun to warm up when cold than it is to try to cool down when it’s sweltering hot. For now, I’ll deal with this winter wonderland we’ve got going on.

There’s no turning back now. The fall collegiate athletic season has arrived and it doesn’t really care if you’re ready or not. By all accounts, this is the least prepared I have been for my season to begin since I arrived at Cal. The funny thing is, the longer I do this job, the more I feel like I’m ready to be better than I was the year before. I’m not quite sure what it is that has kept me from being able to get as soundly prepared as I usually am, but this is really damaging my self-esteem to say the least.

Between commitments today, my plan is to issue the first volleyball news release of the fall. That’s a very hopeful plan if I might say so myself. I sat in on an NCAA women’s basketball teleconference meeting this morning for about an hour and a half and then have to be down on the gym floor for a photo shoot with one of my volleyball players in another hour. Not to mention that I got roped into taking photos at a student-athlete welcome event from 3:30 p.m. through 5 p.m. I don’t even know where to begin with the silliness that is my schedule on a critical day for work productivity.

What’s worse is that I head out to Reno, Nev. on Thursday evening with the volleyball team. I still haven’t quite grasped the reality that I will be packing my bags for a four-day trip tomorrow night. I really haven’t come to grips with the fact that I will soon have real statistics to deal with and full-on stories/recaps to be writing on a regular basis. It really hasn’t hit me. We return from Nevada on Sunday evening and will be in town for Monday and Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, I hop on a plane to go to Honolulu for six days.

I won’t be back to a regular home-schedule until Monday, Sept. 7. That is really hard to believe at this point, in my stressed-out state of despair. Luckily, after that, for the home-opener, I’ll be home for a weekend that includes some football watching from the comfort of my own couch. The following weekend (Sept. 18-19), April and I head down to Southern California to attend Kenny and Leslie’s wedding in Industry Hills. When we return, the Pac-10 volleyball season begins with Stanford visiting Haas Pavilion on Sept. 25, which is a televised match; and then we’re off to the races.

The following weekend (Oct. 2-3), I go to Los Angeles again for volleyball matches. By that time, I’ll probably have a solid routine and pretty much be awaiting the end of volleyball season (even though it really has only begun). It’s about that time that tennis tournaments begin to happen and I’ll have a whole plate of other stuff to deal with. Really, right now, at this moment, I’m looking forward to Christmas. That will be a good, restful time for me. It’s somewhere out there; somewhere in time. But I know I’ll arrive in one piece; alive. Even though I’m stressed about all of this coming down the pipes, I’m certainly excited. Being able to worry, fret, and wonder; that’s what life is all about. I know I’m alive because I go through these trials. What blessings they are.

We’ll see you on the flip side.

The fall season means different things to different people but for a sports fan, it’s often either the end of baseball or the beginning of football. There aren’t many experiences that rival the one you get from going to a packed stadium of 80,000-plus fans all yelling and screaming.

One of the reasons I decided to drop my career in the music industry and head back to school was so that I could make the move to a career in sports. One of the reasons I wanted to get into sports was to have a chance to work with the USC football team in particular. I used to get the new media guide each summer and read a couple of pages each night before I hit the hay. I knew players numbers on the roster by a glance. I could even spot what running back was in the backfield just by their stance.

While I suppose some would (and some do) categorize me as a fanatic, I still maintain that I’m on the lower end of the fanatical spectrum. Yes, I have been to a USC vs. Notre Dame football game in South Bend, Ind. and yes, I have paid for BCS Championship Game tickets in Miami, Fla. But I’m a sports fan. That’s like going to see a Lakers vs. Celtics game in the Boston Garden or experiencing the Olympics in some other part of the world. I just happen to have a team to cheer for. It sure as heck beats not having a team to cheer for. The haters are just jealous.

The reason this is on my mind today is because we are about a week from the first college football kick-offs of the 2009 season. The NFL has already had two dozen exhibition games and we’re really entering the home stretch of the Major League Baseball season. I’m usually very excited about this time of year. It’ll be fun to finally see those collegiate colors and pageantry on network television again but I don’t have that same fervor like I used to. Five or six years ago, I would have been counting down the days, hours and minutes leading to the first USC football game. These days, I’m trying to lengthen the countdown to the beginning of my own volleyball season; which is also just seven days away.

Being in the line of work that I’m in, it’s hard to have a moment to just follow the teams I like. In fact, with so much of my sports communication coming in the form of e-mail and numbers on a PDF file, the end result is almost more important than the athleticism and sport that took place on a field, rink, pool, court or whatever. I can appreciate a good, detailed write-up about a match because otherwise, all I have is the 30-second SportsCenter highlight to watch.

Living up in the Bay Area, it’s not easy to catch the Lakers unless they’re on national television. Thankfully, USC football is always on, but with the volleyball time conflicts, I have to watch nearly every match on some sort of a time delay. It’s really just not the same. I wish things could go back to the way they used to be. There was a time when I would watch a game from beginning to end. I would watch the open where the color commentator sets up the scene and sit through commercials in anticipation for whatever tidbit of information the play-by-play guy would offer coming back. Things move so fast these days and with all that I worry about for the other sports I work for, football has really taken a fall on my list of priorities.

One day, if the stars align, football shall rise again.

There are some days in a persons life when time just seems to crawl along. Usually, I see people complain about how it’s only such-and-such time of day when they want to leave work already. Today is one of those days for me. I woke up at 7 a.m. and packed to leave for Las Vegas and got ready to go to work before it was even 7:40 a.m. I couldn’t believe I had done all that I had in such little time. Then I got to work after dropping April off and I thought for sure that it was already 9 a.m. but it was only 8:25 a.m.

I sat in the car to kill a little time before coming up to the office because all I needed to do here was drop my stuff off and then I’m off to University Hall for a CSS training. So I’m sitting here, and I keep thinking that it’s time to walk down but every time I look at the clock, it’s still earlier than I thought it was.

Well, unlike the people who complain about slow-moving clocks, I actually really like this. I’d much rather have a longer day than a shorter one. I can’t deal with short days. Every day is a gift – why wouldn’t you want to enjoy it as slowly as possible? I understand the whole griping about being at work but I think people should look on the bright side of things. If you don’t like your job, get out. Life is too short to be upset about being where you are at any point of the day, anywhere.

Take your time, day. Take all the time you need.

I was driving down the ramp onto the northbound 980 this morning when I noticed some cop-car lights flashing in the right shoulder. I slowed down just to be cautious; and partially to avoid catching the eye of the police officers. As I approached the parked cars, I noticed a tow truck and then as I drove by slowly, there on its roof was a minivan. Glass was all over the place and someone was in a stretcher with an ambulance further up the way.

There were no visible signs of traffic slowing and no debris anywhere else on the freeway, which led me to believe that this driver had somehow lost control of the van up above and fallen over the side of the freeway overpass from 14th street or so. I tried to look back and see if the fencing up top had been damaged but I couldn’t make anything out as I drove away. What a scary sight to behold so early in the morning. I hope whoever was involved in that spectacle got away in decent shape.

I’ll be heading into the city after work to meet up with April for a Wednesday-night concert today. We’re going to see our friend Wendy, who is touring with Priscilla Ahn. This might not fit into the wind category, but nonetheless, I figured it was a good post to begin my wind category with. More to come later. If you want to see hear some of Priscilla’s music, check it out at: www.priscillaahn.com