California Trip

Hey there all my puckhead, hockey hood and little puckster friends.

Here’s a little shout-out:

WHAT'S HAPPENING????

Good shit, I hope. Ehh? It’s summer and as far as I’m concerned we all ought to be havin a good time.

I sure the shit am. I managed to get a little vacation in this past week and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to write it off as a job search expense on my stinkin income tax.

I’ve been looking for a new job and sending out applications all over the damn world. It seems as though its tough for a short little lopsided puckster like myself to find the appropriately rewarding employment that I seek. Such is life when you’re just a little ole party animal that otherwise likes the reclusive atmosphere of the backwoods, ehh. You guys know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I set up a few interviews for the week in the Sacramento and San Francisco area or as they say out there “Northern California.” I don’t know why the fuck they call it Northern California. Sheesh, look at a map folks, this is Central California. In my opinion Northern California’s got to be up at the end of the state near Oregon. Shit, I think most of the folks on the west coast have got their heads up their asses anyway. Kinda like most of the ref’s that we have had to deal with over the years, ehh?

I flew into Sacramento and I tell ya that area around the airport could pass for the wheat fields back home. Had an interview in town and hoped maybe I’d catch sight of the Governator. No luck on that. Sacramento’s a fairly big city I came to realize not just some farm-burg like I was expecting. Plus I kinda got lost tying to find my way to the interview on Q Street. Oh well, I was almost late but afterwards it was time to move on.

There was some Major League Baseball Allstar Game activities over in San Francisco that I wanted to see. So I figure out how to get outta town heading west on Interstate 80. It must be ninety to a hundred miles to get to San Francisco but I did have some time for a side trip or two.

There were some ice rinks that I wanted to stop in and see and then my girl back home always says that if we ever get married then we’re going to honeymoon in Napa Valley. She’s a bit of wino you know, so I thought I better check that place out in preparation in case hell ever freezes over, if ya know what I mean.

My first stop was the Vacaville Ice Sports a rink in Vacaville which was right off I-80. But what a pain in the butt trouble I had trying to find it. Damn, whatever happened to having streets organized in a nice square grid? Anyway, I found the rink. It’s a nice double rink but doesn’t have much spectator seating and shares its parking lot with one of those monster size movie theaters. I roamed around a bit outside and chatted with some of the local folks, most of which I came to realize didn’t even know the rink existed.

Californian’s???

I saw one of those Outback Steakhouses across the street and thought I get a late lunch but the place wasn’t opened yet. Kinda figure that chain’s probably going to go out business if it don’t open up for lunch. I settled on a Denny’s, which was OK cuz I figured that they’d have something I was familiar with then got back on my way again.

Checking my map, I see that pretty soon I’ve get off of I-80 and jog a bit north to get to Napa. Damned if in the next town, Fairfield, there isn’t one of those Budweiser breweries just south of the interstate. These places I’m told hold tours with some sampling activities. I got an idea that if me and the sweets ever come out this way, like she talks, then she can do her wine tour one day and I’ll come over here. Not bad thinkin ehh?

So I get through Napa and head over to Santa Rosa to see the rink there. That’s where Charles Schultz of comic strip fame always held his annual Snoopy Tournament. Doesn’t look like they hold it anymore since he passed on to that big rink in the sky. They were showing some announcements for a Woodstock Tournament but it was only going to host eight teams. Not the same I guess. Wished I’d been able to play in one of those earlier tourneys.

From Santa Rosa I head south on US Highway 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge, spectacular, into San Francisco. Here I’m going to hang out with one of Bronzy’s friends, Ricky, for a few days and try to see some Allstar Game shit. Well that didn’t really pan out cuz everything was sold out but I kinda hung around everything and toured about in this humongous city. Fuckin scary with all the skyscrapers and too damn many people. Traffic in this town absolutely sucks too. I don’t know why Ricky likes living here.

There’s a lot to see that’s for sure but I kinda wanted to be by the water so I spend a day walking the Embarcadero and had wanted to see the Sala Burton Maritime Museum again. It’s the only thing I remember from a visit here as a kid with my folks. But that place was fenced off and boarded up as some construction company was fuckin the hell outta the place. Sad.

Like I said I did hang out around AT&T Park for some baseball stuff. My kinda people partying over there. Thought maybe I’d see some stars or famous folks walkin around but was just too blasted to notice, really. I met this dude, Jason, while wandering about. Bumped into him actually and thought that we were going to throw down and go at it at first off. But he said he caught my accent (what accent) and it reminded him of his bud, Bobby. He says to me, “Do you play hockey, stud?” Hell, if we didn’t hit if off from there. He had played baseball and football in high school and college, but I’m tellin ya this tough little shit would a been one hell of a grinder on the ice if he’d had the opportunity that we just seem to take for granted. This dude walks with wood guys. He said that he’d been to the home run event and was going to the big game too. It was a good deal for him, being a Giants fan and all. But, damn, if we didn’t get rowdy drunk and Jason knew some of the honeys where we were at that hung with us (I think the rest of the night????). Don’t know where we were and I don’t know how I found my way back to Ricky’s, but the next morning I woke up in front of his front door. He let me in to crash while he headed off to work. Some good time ehh?

The next day I had a couple of interviews scheduled south of San Francisco. Got my act together and pulled them off OK I think. And from there I went further south to check out the rink in Cupertino. The Cupertino Ice Center is where the California Cougars youth hockey club skates.

I pull into the parking lot off of Wolfe Road to park and go inside and give it a look see. The parking lot was pretty full and I thought it was a little odd to be so packed this time of the afternoon. Most of the ladies’ coffee skates are over by one or two o’clock right? But it just didn’t seem right. I noticed that some of the cars were limos and there were a whole bunch of AT&T vans in the lot too. Curious, it didn’t stop me, so I went inside.

Oh lordy folks. You’ve never seen such a mess. You know how you set the cones out across the redline so that ya can run a half-ice practice for both Squirts and Mites at the same time? Well they had sort of done the same thing here.

What they had going on was on one half of the ice they were testing out the I-Puck and its system requirements, so Apple and the AT&T folks were networked all over the rink connected to Versus Cable Network equipment. Cables, wireless shit, cameras and video systems all over the fuckin place. And all these f’n tech heads with only three or four guys laced up out on the ice. The other half of the rink was being used to simulate the Zambooma ice cleaning/intermission entertainment system. Seems as though Apple and AT&T are married together on this little project too but with the boys at Zamboni. I’m telling you though, there was one hell of a lot of activity going on in this place.

I gotta tell ya that all of this was one big cluster fuck in my opinion. I talked to one of the tech heads a bit and he said that they wanted to see how the Zamboomba and I-Puck system interfaced with each other. You know, were their operating frequencies going to mess each other up and that sort a shit. The cones were out there to delineate the boundaries for the Zamboomba test but as we all know those cones never stop all the pucks from crossing over to the other side of the ice. (Hell, from my experience they don’t even stop Mites from wandering.)

I don’t know what was happening technically but I gotta tell you guys I saw the Zamboombas chew up about six or seven I-Pucks while I was in there for my short visit. Figuring that they’re prototypes, yet, both the Zamboombas and the I-Pucks, their manufacture hadn’t realized any cost economies so they were awfully expensive little units. It was like the Zamboombas chugged and puked and the I-Pucks got spit out as slivers of rubber and crushed electronics. I’m thinking that it’s a good thing I’m not seeing any NHL lawyer types or we would be seeing another lockout season for 2007/2008. Scary again but fuckin hilarious.

Come on guys, lets bring back some old time hockey.

I look at my watch and its coming on to about 5:00 pm and I’ve got a red-eye out of Sacramento later tonight. I gotta hit the road. Get some dinner. Shit, I’ll probably get lost trying to find my way on this crazy freeway system that they have here in California.

Its like that there in California. Too much innovation is making everything so ding-dang complicated. Give me the woods. Give me a frozen pond and a good old wooden hockey stick. Let me enjoy life and walk with wood.

California? A road trip or vacation - it can be OK. They got some good folks, like Jason. But I don’t know if I could work there. Wonder what’s going to happen with those interviews?

Later guys. Jasper here, signing off ‘til next time.

Skate hard!