Opening Day for "42"

Today I took my boys Jonathan and Caleb on "Opening Day" for the new movie about Jackie Robinson, "42". His jersey number is the only one to be retired for all of baseball, but that doesn't keep my boys from wearing it. Caleb has worn it every year in all-stars, and it is his regular season number in Juniors this year. When Caleb was young, Robinson was the subject of one of the first book reports that he did, a small book I had in my collection. On April 15th, 2007, the 60th anniversary of his rookie year, we went to Dodger stadium for the game. He has always been one of my favorite baseball players. The movie was really good, though a bit 40's cheesy at points, but very accurate at least according to my knowledge of baseball history. I even teared up a few times over the great triumph that he had in his life. But I am also known to tear up in other baseball-related moments (World Series win in '88, visit to Cooperstown and getting a custom bat made, heck I even teared up on opening day this year as Sandy Koufax came out to throw the first pitch at Dodger stadium). The movie even referenced one of my favorite episodes of Jackie Robinson's life outside of baseball when he was in the army and nearly court-martialed that I posted HERE. It was great to share the movie with my boys, it made us proud to be Dodgers and baseball fans. 42 lives on.

Medieval Times 5-6 Jan 2013

We have our annual tradition over the holidays of making graham cracker houses for Christmas, and then when New Years comes we stage a large battle scene with fire and soldiers to destroy them. This year we had a Medieval theme for which I built a castle that ended up pretty cool, and others gave it a more castle-type theme. Brittany & Matt were down for the holidays, and even my son-in-law  made a miniature Minas Tirith from LOTR. The fire that rains from the sky (napalm in our army scenarios) we determined was dragon fire and flamed ordinance from catapults. In reality we use a lengthy piece of plastic to drip the flame down from a ladder with a zipping sound - our whiffle bat worked quite well and we also mixed in a plastic sand shovel. An old set of Weapons and Warriors that we were going to throw out served well for our red & blue medieval soldiers, and the catapults and ballista added a nice touch along with some trees. We didn't use any fireworks this year, but Hannah, Jonathan, Caleb and Sarah all got to drip the fire to cool effect. The fire raged pretty quick and my castle was reduced to complete rubble and few soldiers survived. But with the glow of the flames I captured all the carnage with my camera.

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Gaming Session: Dreams of Splat!

So this week my son Caleb came to me in a dream and said, "Dad, I have an award-winning design" and proceeded to explain a game concept to me. The game was about a board with paths, and some type of hunter moved along the paths eliminating subjects. When I awoke the concept quickly evolved to a person stomping around a room killing cockroaches, and Splat! was born. I made the game in about a day and actually playtested it tonight for game night. A variable tile set-up created pathways with nodes for the cockroaches to follow, and every player had a number of cockroaches. The hunter, or "big shoe" was played by each player on a rotating basis, and each player would play a card from 1-5 each turn representing the number of movement spaces they could move the shoe or their cockroaches. You got a point for each cockroach you smashed and collected, and you get points for how many of your cockroaches survive. I haven't got the end game completely figured out, but there is a ball that can be kicked by the shoe to also turn over some cockroaches to make them easy prey. It was kind of fun to play it, we'll see where it goes.

We also played Tobago tonight, that game is never a bad time. I finally played some of the reverse side boards which made for an even better experience. I would say that Tobago is easily in my top 25, it has strategy, replay value, is not long nor difficult to learn. And you make really cool grinding noises whenever you rotate the idols on the island.

Ronald LeRoy Holbrook - 20 years - 10-11-12

Twenty years ago today my father passed away. I put together some pictures in a slideshow (it is at the bottom, my daughter Hannah the tech wiz helped me to embed it) to commemorate his life, and to remember what I had forgotten. I have some great pics of him growing up from his parents, some neat ones when I was young, none of him from my teenage years, and scant few later. My last picture of him I have was from my wedding, he never did get to meet any of my kids. I remember playing some classical Rachmaninoff for him one time, and telling him how amazing the piano was. He told me, "you want to hear piano, listen to this!" and put on some of his favorite jazz, by Keith Jarrett. He would say, "you need three hands to play that!" I added some smooth KJ to this slideshow for him. As you watch and listen, you can imagine him, as I do, leaning back in his chair in his home office as the jazz piano fills the air. Listening to it reminds me of him. I do find myself trying to be like him at times, wanting to relive some of my experiences I had with him.

Seven years  to the day after his death, my boy Caleb was born. Today he turned 13, on official teenager. He is getting to be such a big young man. We caught the momentous occasion this morning officially at 7:08:09 on 10-11-12 as he turned 13. Pretty cool. You can see that he's got a bit of grandpa in him.

Can you see some of his inheritance? Its all in the dimples

Ron L. Holbrook from Brett Holbrook on Vimeo.

 

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Rockets Red Glare

Our family has always enjoyed doing our own fireworks show. It reminds me of when I was young and we did them in front of our house. We have made it a tradition since we moved back to California to do a family fireworks show in my work parking lot in Costa Mesa. We did it mainly because fireworks have been illegal in HB/FV, but even though they are legal in HB this year, we like our traditions. A few families join us for our small celebration, and as our kids get older they have taken the reigns from dad in lighting up the event. So I got to sit back and take a few pictures:

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Surf and Turf

Believe it or not, there are other activities my boys are involved in besides baseball. Today was a great day in which I was able to see both of them involved in other things that they enjoy. This morning I took Jonathan to one of his last classes for the FVHS surf team at the beach. The swell was not too big, but it was a beautiful morning. Jonathan is growing up way too fast. At 14 he is nearly my height.

Then today I went to the Middle school track meet, where Caleb was competing in the 100. Because Caleb attends the K-8 school Moiola, it is usually dominated by the other 6-8 middle schools. You can see how much smaller he is than the other runners (he hasn't hit a Jonathan-like growth spurt yet), but he has heart and determination and held his own.