What a finish!

After Saturday's atrocious beating at the hands of the Gaels (come on, is that any kind of name for a mascot?) the Williams family was pretty certain that last night's home finale against Conference leading Santa Clara was going to be ugly.

In fact, Matt and I decided not to go to Firestone Fieldhouse for it.  We stayed home and tuned in online.  I wish we had gone to the game.  What a finish!  The Waves came back to tie it in the final minutes and won by seven in overtime.   It is sure fun watching games with Matthew (when he's interested). 

A Big Day for Matthew (and me!)

 

I taught Matthew the basics of chess about four years ago.  We've played on-and-off since then.  However, he was in chess club this year and really improved.  We played last week and I just barely beat him.  So, yesterday he spent several hours reading this book about chess.  We played again this morning and he killed me!  It was the first time he's ever won when I played my best (of course, my buddies PAV and SN will tell you I'm not very good...).  Anyway, it's a big day.  I'm going to write it in his journal.

In other big news for Matthew...we've been wondering about sports camps for the summer.  But, Matt is just not that into sports.  So, today we found a terrific alternative...Internal Drive Computer camps! They host camps for kids aged 7-17 where they teach game programming, robotics, and video production using world-class equipment and software.  We found the site today and he is SO excited about it.  The best part is that they have these camps at 50 "prestigious locations" such as Brown, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Georgetown and Pepperdine.

Some homecoming photos...

Here are some photos from homecoming.

2007-Q1-Homecoming Vacation

More on Basketball...

Matthew finished his second season of B-ball this year.  I was so proud of him.  He had a great attitude all season, never complained about practice, or the games, and improved a lot over the course of the season.  Way to go, big guy!

 

2006-Q1-Matthew Basketball

A bad night for basketball...

My good friend DMS put together a wonderful night for faculty and staff at the b-school.  After a very pedestrian dinner (provided by the most utilitarian of providers) of hot dogs and hamburgers, we went down to watch what had to be the ugliest basketball game I have ever seen.  After the rousing victory last week against Loyola Marymount, I expected a decent showing tonight.  Holy cow...the Waves played awful.  I suspect they missed at least a dozen layups.  Wow.  At least I enjoyed visiting with JM, NG, DMS, TP, PP and others.  I feel awful for these kids on our team right now.  It must be hard to suit up each night and go give it your all when the odds of pulling out a victory are so low.

Many of us at Pepperdine are from the midwest, or have Ph.D.'s from Big 10 schools.  So, the Michigan State/IU game was on our minds tonight too.  Well, my Hoosiers collapsed in the second half and gave up an 11-point lead to lose by 8 in Lansing.  Hard to believe the Waves gave up nearly as many points in the first half as the Spartans did all night. 

Definitely, a bad night for basketball.

This ones for your, Sammy...

The following story is a shout-out to my buddy SLS to whom I've made similar accommodations over the past months...

Ping-Pong Rules Adjusted For Girlfriend

So long to wisdom...

After nearly 25 years, and saying "NO" to at least 11 dentists, I finally agreed today to have one of my wisdom teeth pulled.

I've found that there are at least two kinds of dentists...those who think you should have all of your wisdom teeth extracted as a right of passage into adulthood, and those that think these teeth should be kept until they begin to cause other problems.  And let's be clear...they will start to cause other problems.  Actually, there has been long-standing debate about the efficacy of preventative removal of third mollars with equivocal findings.

In my past 25 years or so I've used a dual-pronged heuristic for selecting a dentist...a) do they take my insurance (or if I didn't have insurance, would they give me a good rate) and 2) do they recommend I take out my wisdom teeth.  Anytime a dentist recommended I extract my wisdom teeth for ideological reasons I assumed he would recommend other unnecessary dental expenses.  Thus, I would find a new one (I'm on my fourth dentist since moving to Malibu!). 

Well, apparently, one of the fillings that I've had since I was about 12 is starting to rot and needs to be replaced.  Unfortunately, since the filling was the size of South Texas it requires a complete crown.  Also, apparently, the wisdom tooth behind that tooth is obstructing the crown.  So, I had one extracted today. 

Right now, I'm at home "recovering".  Recovering from an extraction like this can be compared to what it must feel like to have 1,241 bee stings inside your mouth.  OUCH!  My whole face is swolen, numb, uglier than usual, and bleeding like one of the steaks my brother routinely eats after letting it thaw to room temperature.  The bad news is that the surgeon suggested today would be the easiest day of the next 10!  Goodness...