Category Archives: Basketball

Minnesota Lynx

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

No, not four footed creatures but a team in the Women’s National Basketball Association. If you are not US based, you are excused for not knowing that there has been professional women’s basketball for several decades. The Minnesota Lynx date from 1999 as an active team. I have friends in St. Paul who have been fans since the team’s founding. Since there was a game tonight, it made total and complete sense (ok, as much sense as anything else I do) to attend this evenings game with them.

After all, flying from SFO to MSP is not enough to totally wipe me out for a day even given BART on the home and dealing with a rental car on arrival.

Since it is not winter but rather the season known as road construction, I was not surprised to find that the basic driving route that I had planned provided a few challenges. Never the less, I made it safely to St Paul in plenty of time. Time enough to see that the apartment that I occupied in 1978 across the street from the Commodore Hotel is still standing. I heard it went condo a couple of decades or more ago.

Back to the Lynx – it was a pretty full arena. The fans are loud. Now this is Minnesota and – Garrison Keillor aside – people are pretty polite. These folks were LOUD. Nice, but loud. Not the bad language and name calling that has come to be associated with professional sports (men – baseball and US style football. We will completely ignore the UK’s soccer) but high levels of positive cheering.

Of course, winning does help.

Zumba?

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

half-time at the Cal Women’s Basketball game

I don’t think so.

What it was – a joyous bunch of people jumping and dancing around. To include little kids, dozens of us old farts and a goodly number of the Straw Hat Band.

The Cal Women won – but it was close. Interesting thing that I noticed – Utah didn’t have one player from Utah on the team – 3 Canadians and a Finn but not one person from Utah.

Cal is mostly Californians + a Kiwi, and Aussie and a fabulous player from Phoenix.

Balls

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

In this case, basketball was fine. The Cal women won on Friday evening although they struggled a bit in the middle. The Cal women won again this morning. The game, being at 1030 in the morning was better attended than I expected. Since there was another apparently important game scheduled this afternoon – they had moved the time up to accommodate the men’s team needing to get in their game against Colorado. TPTB were so concerned that they offered free admission to the afternoon game to anyone who came to the women’s game.

We stayed to watch the men. It was a good game. They won. The Straw Hat Band was more than entertaining

This was followed by errand running and back to the house. I never did get back to the cross stitch but spent sometime figuring out my next stitching project while starting another knit hat.

I’ve house clean up to do, more boxes to sort and perhaps some socks to match up.

Gee – isn’t my life so thrilling?

No news

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2

I’m sitting here thinking about heading to bed. I have heard nothing out of the VA today which actually doesn’t bother me a bit. Bad news travels rather rapidly. Stable conditions and good new take a bit longer especially when one is dealing with results from a radiology department study. So I am assuming that everything is ok unless I hear otherwise.

No, I don’t consider this being an ostrich. Or chicken.

So instead, I had a chance to talk to the EBMUD (East Bay Municiple District) men working in front of our drive. They have been dealing with emergencies secondary to all the rain. Since the next four days are supposed to be clear, they are trying to proceed as fast as they can. What is important is that they should be finished in front of our garage by the end of today. After that, it won’t be making my life hard since I will be able to get in and out of the drive way again.

Tower in the full moon

A friend with a scheduling conflict gave us his tickets to the Cal Men’s Basketball Game tonight.  We parked and walked across campus.

They won. But still, I think I prefer the women’s game. There was just too much hype, replay camera work and glitzy type of competitions. Plus, I am sorry, but “media breaks” which stop play because the TV folks need to stick in a commercial or three really disrupt momentum. Plus there were twice as many cheerleaders. Seriously, how much hair flipping do I really need to see?

Haven’t done a whole lot more on the cross stitch.

12 Jan 17

 

But did manage to get the band finished on the beret and most of the crown.

Oregon State 66, Cal 56

Holly Doyne Posted on by 20

It was not a great night for the Cal Women’s Basketball team. It wasn’t that they weren’t active and out on that court. It was more that they just weren’t sinking the baskets.

Why am I telling you this? Senior tickets (when they are available) to the men’s games are ~$18. It cost $5 to buy a ticket to the women’s game. Besides, to be honest, the women look like they are having more fun. Yes, the game is taken seriously but there isn’t some announcer talking potential and scouting and distracting all of us from watching the play on the floor.

With tickets in general admission, our choices were wide open on either end of the arena. I could have easily lived without the cheerleaders. I mean, really. What in the world does one need with six (yep, 6) skinny long haired girls wiggling around with pom-pons. On the floor are two teams of serious athletes while on the sideline are ladies specializing in hair twirling… The half-time entertainment consisted of dancing out on the court by just about any one (mostly kids) who wanted to be there.

kids doing their own dance thing

But I digress. The other fun thing was the Cal Straw Hat Band. Yes, as you guessed it – they wear straw hats along with vests covered in pins and buttons.

The Straw Hat Band

and some of the hats – which are obviously personal choice

George and I had a good time and probably will go to more of the home games. I’m thinking the only game where the attendance will be significant would be the Cal-Stanford game later this year. Sorry to say, but I think there will probably be more Stanford supporters than Cal.

On the other fronts – the Klimt Virgins is done

the last 18 rows

and the final with my choosing to replace a few of the original color choices

As is Bill’s Hat.

warm hat knit of merino sock wool. Goes in the mail tomorrow….