Dinner with the Horns…

On Sunday night, we were expecting to have our weekly dinner with the Greens at our house.  Holly and Shannon are both on the RAW food band-wagon whenever they can be and so Holly wanted to make a nice RAW food meal for Shannon with home made raw chips, salsa, beans, guacamole sauce, etc.  She also was going to put out the normal taco salad meal for the rest of us (with chips instead of salad).

She worked for a number of hours on Saturday and then also Sunday morning and made a huge mess.  She and I cleaned up most of it Sunday after the ball games.

And it was all working out fine for her until the Greens called in sick and canceled so Holly called up Margaret and asked if she’d started dinner yet.  They eat early often and were already underway so Margaret suggested she invite Ron and Jacquelyn Horn–which is a great couple for us to have over because Ron and I have cameras and computers in common and Holly and Jacque both love the benefits of RAW food.

The meal was great.  Holly did a wonderful job.  But I should also warn you that making RAW food is really messy compared to opening up a package of dried pasta and boiling it along with opening a can of tomato sauce and a few packages of greens.

While we were enjoying a post meal chat session.  Mark and Luke went off to play.  At one point, I went by the Utility room to get some water and noticed them in there quietly doing something, but didn’t bother to investigate because they seemed to be getting along fine.

After about ten minutes of quietude, Mark came into the living room with a big fist full of hair in one hand, tiny pair of scissors in the other hand and a big smile on his face.  Luke was trailing close behind with a big grin on his face.  Mark said, “I cut Luke’s hair, ” and stepped to the side so we could get a good look at Luke.

Luke smiled and waited for a response.  He looked like he’d got run over by a lawn mower that could only cut hair.

Needless to say, We were all quite shocked.

I was a bit sad, “Luke, your curls were so cute!”

Luke was not put off or repentant, “But daddy, I wanted to look like Kyle Fossman.” Kyle, the best basketball player the town has seen in many years recently shaved all the hair off his head and Luke just got back from the ball games this weekend.

I said, “But Luke, your curls were just starting to get real long and curly again after the summer trim.”

Luke was adamant, “But I don’t like it when the hair gets down in my face when I’m taking a bath.”

I said, ” But Luke, when people see you, what they often say is, ‘Look at those curls!’ They really think the curls are cute.”

He smiled, tilted his head to the side and said, “Besides, I wanted to look like Daddy too.”  We all laughed.

Well, what can I say to that. I mean really:  If my own son wants to propose that he wants to look like his daddy, I suppose I can accept that argument.

Another Pep Rally Video

Introduction of the Ball team by Ray Chapin, and beginning Michael Byer’s Speech.

I did not get the footage of Doug Olerud reading the proclamation by the Borough Mayor.  I had a miscommunication with the video man Jeremy Strong, and the camera was paused.  Oops.  That was a pretty cool part of the pep rally.

Pep Rally: Cheerleaders!

The Cheerleaders took first place at state in the largest division, beating out Service, Lathrop, Chugiak, Bartlet, Sitka, and others.

Go Cheerleaders!!!

Pep Rally: Ray Chapin

Here’s part three, after this will come the cheerleader’s presentation.

Pep Rally Part 2: Cheryl’s Welcoming Speech

This is Cheryl’s inclusive speech in the pep rally; She was the first speaker at the rally.

More of the Pep Rally

Please keep checking back for more video footage (filmed by Jeremy Strong this time, using my canon camcorder on a monopod).  I will get more of this pep rally up in the near future.  I have a three-wheeled tripod dolly that would have been great for this, if I would’ve thought about it.  Oh, well.  Jeremy did a fine job, all things considered.

Holly is singing John Caleb to sleep.  It’s been a busy day.  We had a nice day: the big-brothers-big-sisters fund raiser was today, then there was a party at Steven Galinski’s house, then a nap, then a nice evening at the Green’s house where Mark got to play outside a bunch.

Here’s the first clip of the Pep Rally video. It’s all on my HD right now, but it needs to be split up like this in 3-6 minute sections.  YouTube has a 100MB file size limit which is pretty small for video.  It helps if it’s already compressed and if it’s 320×240 at 30fps.  YouTube then recompresses it which reduces the quality.

First day after Spring Break: Huge Pep Rally!

This is a four day week at school with early dismissal each day.  a very busy week.  The sun is shining down on us here in Haines, both literally and figuratively. 

(Stay tuned for some YouTube video documentary footage shot by Jeremy Strong.)

At 11 AM we had a HUGE pep rally.  We got out the pep band, called in anyone from town that wanted to come, and really did it up right.  We’re proud of our boys.

A ton of people were there from around town plus all the students in the k-12 school.  We heard from the former Superintendents via email: Woody Wilson and Charlie Jones.  Ray Chapin spoke, as did Cheryl Stickler, and Doug Olerud read a proclamation by the Mayor, who gave the boys team the keys to the city.

In essence, we were celebrating the success our basketball team has had by sticking  with their basic philosophy: no matter what the score is, never, never, never give up.  This has been their approach to all their games and it has served them well. 

It’s a great philosophy to have in life and will serve you well, providing you’ve done the ground work and prepared yourself for trial at hand and it’s one of the essential ingredients to success

But it’s not the only thing that needs to happen: talent, vision, practice, hard work, proper personnel, being in the right place at the right time, and attitude all play a huge role and all contribute to mental and physical readiness.

I really can’t say enough about the basketball team’s performance at state.  They did what it took to get the job done. 

First, we were glad that they even made it to state, because they were not expected, by many, to beat Wrangell, as they had had a terrible time beating Wrangell’s full court press when they were played their games there away from home. 

Then the question was, if they got to state, how would they beat Petersburg.  I’m thinking that all the hard work the boys put in on beating that press paid dividends when it came to beating the presses the other teams showed us when we got to state.  I think many of the teams we played there were used to scoring a lot of points on steals after scoring, during the transition and then they were a bit suprised by their inability to more than score a few isolated points and wear both themselves and us down a bit.

Normally, I think of a team making it to state when the bulk of the team is sophomores and juniors then making it back to win state as seniors.  This team had a fair amount of seniors but we’d never been to the tournament before at all and were not really expecting to become the champions.  Of course, I think a big part of it was the coaching: there is the expectation with them that they are going to win a more games than the other guys and Steve is very good at adjusting to the looks the other teams give us.

I still can’t really believe that Haines won the State Championship.  It sill is hard to believe. But it’s undeniable.  They played a very guts tough game against a very athletic Eilson team, coming from behind to beat them in overtime without Ame, they played Heritage’s slower tempo game, not forcing up shots near the end but being patient (although still not as patient as Heritage was).

Of course we can’t forget that the Haines Girls won state back in 1985 (If memory serves, this was a tough one for Barrow, as I recall: Helen Albert, Gretchen Charles, Kirstin Bagne, and others were a bit down at the time, as I recall).

Of course we celebrated the success of the Cheer team, the dance team, and the individual success of Kelsi Gloyer in her solo performance. 

They did an excellent, first rate job, and came away with first places in their events.

And we also recognized, from the crowd, the excellent showing our JR High teams had at Juneau this past weekend, and also gave a nod to the Merchants how came in second at Gold Medal.

Haines defeats Eilson in OT by 6!

This was, by far, the most intense and emotional game of the tournament for the team, going into overtime to win, after coming from behind without their big man, Ame, who fouled out with over 5 minutes to play in the game, the Bears showed that they know how to fight, clear through to the end, and never give up. 

Kyle Fossman scored 31, including 6 in overtime to edge out Eilson in the closing minutes of overtime.

The game was played in the smaller court where often the smaller schools play their semifinal games.  ASAA tries to get as many schools as possible a chance to play in the big arena and so this is about as far as many of the teams go.  The big black curtain is an odd thing to have as a background. 

It was an edge of the seat game with Haines trailing

So, we’ve really made it to the big time.  Championship on the big floor.

Victory: Glacier Bears Return Home

The town threw a welcome home party for the State Champion Basketball Team when they got home today at 11AM on the ferry.

Of course I was there taking pictures with Mark in tow.  There were great banners made by the fans.  The band played the school song and Final Countdown.  It was great to see our boys get home again and see the smiles on their faces that only success can bring. 

It’s still hard to get my mind wrapped around the fact that they won the state Championship!  Wow.  I find myself holding up my index finger and yelling, “NUMBER 1!!!” as if I did anything.   When we left the ferry termial, I wanted to get in front of the parade so that I could shoot back at the parade as it went through town, but it was being led by two police cars with flashing lights and I thought it would be bad form to pass them.  So I waited until I got to town and then took a side street and made it down to main street before they could get there.  The only downside was that my camera settings got bumped to shutter priority at 1/30.  Bummer.  In a moving vehicle 1/30 is not a good speed.  I’d rather have 1/250 or 1/500.

Here’s a video shot by Mark Jones which I posted on YouTube.

Haines Takes the IIIA Boys State Title!

Yesterday was a great day for Haines Basketball!

The game was played on KHNS live, and also on channel 3 TV.  The ultimate experience in Haines was listening to the radio while watching the game live (except for the two seconds of synch difference.

Here’s a clip from the ADN.

I watched the game live at the Fire Department with the Badgleys, Bachmans, and Stouts.  It was a rip-rourling good time for us.  And, I’m afraid to say, I lost my voice yelling & jumping into the air after great plays.  Heritage played a very controlled game and took us out of our transition game for the first quarter or so but for some reason stayed with that type of tempo even near the end of the game when they were down ten with a few minutes remaining.

In many respects, it was TENSE game with so much on the line and yet so little scoring from either team.  They were playing tough defense on Kyle, and were able to get a surpising number of buckets down low in the paint before we were able to adjust our defensive coverage to seal up the gaps.  A few early time-outs gave tine for Coach Fossman toput a stop to that as did a few key blocked shots under the bucket. 

Haines had very few turnovers from the team in the game, and really looked like they stepped it up a notch in the tourney, and played very well.

It was really cool to see the boys playing live with such good video coverage.  They had nice floor coverage with two cameras, one on each end, then a regular high angle shot.  I’d rather not see the score all the time at the top of the screen and see the score game a little closer in, but hey, that’s nitpicking.   Really great camera work.

The announcers really didn’t do their homework on the teams (how could they really? with so many teams to potentially cover).  It’d be nice if they had season stats to rattle off during the color time, instead of taking about the inherent value of the 3 point line an dhow it changed the game (that was in the 80s fellas, it’s not really news anymore).  think it would be nice if each team that made it to the final four would provide summary season stats and brief bio of each player.  I think I’m going to buy a copy of the DVD of a few of the games. 

Ame, a monster on the boards, really gave us what we needed inside!  Ame had a VERY impressive block on their tall post player that kind of quieted him down for the rest of the game.  The guy really had a very quick catch and release and Ame got his number, so to speak and brought him down.  He had a few great post moves inside where he scored even while triple teamed.

Orion really earned his spot on the all-tourney team in the second half.  Heritage didn’t really seem to expect that Orion could take the ball into the paint and be productive, and were left with having to foul him to stop the inside shots. 

Of course one of the big things a team has to do when they play us is figure out what they’re going to do with Kyle.  They played good denial ball when Kyle didn’t have the ball, not giving Kyle really many looks at the basket, then they’d double up on him when he got the ball on the perimeter.  Of course it’s best if you can just get on top of Kyle and hold him down so he can’t move, but then the ref is likely to point his finger at you (see above).

Olsen really stepped up his game and was a considerable presence on the inside.  He played a solid game and was right in there mixing it up near the rim contesting shots and making room for himself.