Pump, Pump, Pump It Up!

Force's Pre-Game Cheers
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

There are many differences between the boys' sports and the girls' sports. The biggest one would have to be the cheers. In girls' sports, whether it's soccer, softball or something else, you see them do a lot of cheering during the game. Sometimes I wonder whether they use more energy for that, or for the game.

There are many different cheers. Some are ridiculously funny. We know that we've seen too many of our children's game when we involunteerly humming those chants. I've never seen any boys' team do any cheerings, ever.

The picture is what the girls did for cheer right before last Sunday morning game. I didn't have a camcorder, but I found a clip on Youtube with the same chanting. Enjoy. :)

Foster City Force - Redwood City Tournament

Foster City 8U Softball Team "Force" finished our Redwood City tournament over the last weekend. We played 4 games during the series. Other than the game with Redwood City Wicked, in which the experience and skill gap was a bit obvious, other 3 games were really fun and interesting. The girls had a lot of fun and so did many of the parents.

Abby had not been very focused during the games since the San Mateo tournament. So, I decided to bribe her with some rewards for good performance. Man, the difference was significant. On Sunday's game, she struck out one player, gave 2 trikes to 2 other players before giving to their coach pitcher with 4 balls. She caught the infield fly as a pitcher and almost got a foul tip as the catcher. Her batting was also more aggressive. I guess a pro doesn't do things for free. Hahaha.

It was a good tournament and should get the girls ready for the upcoming Burlingame tournament in the father's day weekend (6/19 - 6/21), in which they'll play 5 games in 2 days. As a father, I'd just enjoy some bbq on the sideline.

Wicked Birthday

Wednesday was my birthday, I took Abby to San Francisco to see Wicked - the Musical.  It was quite a show.  I would say it was probably the most entertaining one I've seen, even though I have been to only four other musical performances.  It was a very satisfying evening.

We took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Francisco so that we wouldn't need to worry about the parking.  Even though it took twice as long to get there, but we got to really chat and play a bit on the way.  The station exit was right in front of the theatre, very convenient.

There were quite a few kids, I'd say about 10% of the audiences were children.  Abby was the only one wore a blue check dress and two pig tails.  Even though not quite the same as what Dorothy wore, but close enough.  She even wore her sparkling shoes.

On the way back, Abby said, "dad, thank you for taking me to the show.  Wicked was awesome!"  Believe or not, this is the first time ever she thanks me for taking her to any performance and no need to remind her to appreciate it.  I guess she was really entertained.

I am in the middle of the book and I enjoy it a lot.  The musical is quite different from the book in many details.  I am not a fan of the happy ending (sort of) in the end of the musical, which I know is different from the novel.  Other than that, I had a blast.  Teal Wicks (what a last name) did a great job as Elphaba, and Kendra Kassebaum was just hilarious as Galinda.  Teal has such a strong and powerful voice, which carries the show beautifully.  Kendra's voice has an interesting "perk" that suits the character quite well too.  In my opinion, Kendra has a similar style, and look, as Goldie Hawn.  She puts a natural and funny goofiness on the Galinda character that stands her out from other Galinda actresses.  It was a good story but a bit confusing to kids, I guess.  Abby asked a lot of questions for the things that are "different" from what the Wizard of Oz described.  I think that's great because she doesn't just believe everything in the book anymore and start to use her brain.  :)

I had a good time and am officially one year older now...

Mobile Suit Gundam

For most fans of giant robots, Mobile Suit Gundam is definitely one of the must-seen series. Robot fans are pretty series about this series. It's setting and the details of the merchandise has been phenomenal. It's like the robot world's Star Trek.

This year is the 30th anniversary of this series. What's better to celebrate it than building a life size Gundam? That's exactly what they did in Japan - a scale 1:1 statue for the RX-78 Gundam. The details of this construction are unbelieveable and when it stands in the rural Japan, it just looks like it's gonna move for real.

There are more photos can be found in the Mainichi Daily News site. I wish that I were in Japan right now...

Foster City Force - San Mateo Tournament

Foster City - Force
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

Foster City's 8U Softball Tournament Team "Force" has finished the San Mateo tournament over the weekend. It was the first of the three tournaments that our girls would play this summer. We will have the Redwood City one this weekend and the Burlingame one the weekend after.

Our girls did well in the San Mateo games. The result was W1 L3, but there were many good plays throughout the tournaments. For a team that was assembled 10 days before the games, we were happy with the result. The girls danced and cheered in the dugout all the time. Sometimes I wonder whether they used more energy in the dugout than on the field. They seemed to have a lot of fun though. Look at those smiles. :)

Lost & Found

Over the weekend, Abby had the softball tournament in San Mateo. In the 8U division, Foster City sent a team "Force" to participate. At this age group, even though no elimination rules, the competition is still intense. For a team that was put together 10 days before the tournament, our result were W1 L3. Two of the lost games were quite close.

Over all I think they did well and the most important, they the girls had a lot of fun, probably a bit too much fun. The girls did a lot of cheering, dancing and playing in the dugout. I cannot help wonder whether they used most of their energy in the dugout instead of on the field.

Anyway, we had a game (game 3) at 5:00pm Saturday evening. There was another game within 10 minutes after our game ended. So, we had to clean up the area and leave after the game. I helped the girls pack and make sure they got all their equipments.

Sunday morning around 9:00am, when we were about to head to our last game, I popped the trunk to put Abby's gear in and realized something was missing. I stood there thinking and suddenly, I realized that I left my camera bags and gears in the field the evening before. It has all my photography gears in it with estimated value over $5K. My face wouldn't look too good because I could see that Abby got worried and thought she did something wrong. Poor thing.

I rushed to the field and found the tournament staffs, asked them where the lost & found was. They asked me what I was looking for. I told them that I forgot my camera bag the day before. They asked me to describe it. I gave them a detail description of the bag. They smiled and told me, "the lost & found is across the street next to the big field. by the way you have a good camera."

I was really surprised that it didn't get lost. It gives me hope for the humanity though. :)

What A Season

We had our last game of the softball season on Wednesday. The Panthers were facing our arch rival, the Jaguars. The girls were on fire during the last game. In this age group, the inning ends when the defense team makes three outs on the field, or when the offense team bats the entire rotation. Our girls managed to make 3 outs in each of the first two innings, and 5 outs (we kept on going since it was the last inning of the season, literally) in the last one. The girls also did a great job batting. Almost everyone had some singles, and some managed to get pretty solid doubles and even triples. As a (assist) coach, I cannot feel more proud.

Abby also did a good job as the pitcher in the 2nd inning. Thanks to the help of our unofficial pitching coach Darryl, our pitchers had the most well developed mechanics among all the 8U teams. Abby had some consistancy issues that she needed to work on. But she fired some pretty decent strikes too. Even though she had only about 30% strikes (if there was an umpire), she managed to pitch about 75% of the ball over the home plate line. The practice really paid off. Abby, you should be proud.

I am glad that I signed up to help coach the team. It was a lot of fun and all the girls were such a joy to work with. There are so much more that I wish I could have done, but I am proud of them as is.

Watching the girls enjoy activities such as softball and soccer makes me feel that I make the right decision staying in United States instead of going back to Taiwan. I guess in a way it is a self compensation for what I wanted to do as a child but couldn't because we didn't really have the environments. I still remember going to the neighborhood Tai-Ho Elementary with some of my classmates to have pretend baseball games. We usually didn't have enough gloves and would be lucky to have 2 bats. It was still a lot of fun even though we usually could only get 5 - 8 kids to do some pseudo plays. Seeing that Abby can enjoy the softball as it should be, with well maintained fields, sufficient equipments, and enough friends, I cannot help feel part of my childhood void fullfilled in some way.

The spring season is over, but Abby's softball is not. Abby signed up for the Foster City Force, the Foster City 8U softball tournament team. We will have 3 tournaments to play before the summer ends. This weekend, we will play at the San Mateo tournament, next weekend at the Redwood City tournament. The week after the next, which is the father's day weekend, we'd play at the Billie Sue tournament in Burlingame. The girls get pretty cool blue uniform this year instead of the teal color one. They are also more ready this year than the last year, which we only had less than 10 days to recruit and be ready. I wish Abby and the team can have lots of fun in the tournaments.