CAA Visits Philly

Today, 18 Cal Alums devoted the better part of a Sunday morning (and some of the afternoon) to reading applications from prospective Cal students for the prestigious Alumni Scholarship Award. Our guests from the Scholarship Office were making their East Coast swing and we were their second stop after New York - tomorrow in D.C.

A few facts that I learned today:

1. This scholarship has been in existence since 1934
2. This year over 6400 applications were received
3. Only 250 scholarships ranging from $1500 to $2500 will be awarded.

I personally read through about 70 of these applications and was impressed with the quality and thoughtfulness demonstrated by these students. Sometimes it was hard to remember that I was reading the words of high school seniors. Some of the stories were impressive, others were moving and others made me laugh - for a variety of reasons ;)

It was great to have some new faces in the crowd of local alums! A great event all around.

So the next step will be to interview the local applicants once the first wave of applications have been scored and the acceptances have gone out (March 27). See the website www.calphilly.org if you are interested in being an interviewer.

It's days like today that make me so proud to support the work of Cal in bringing in the best and the brightest!

Random moment of the day: We had lunch brought in and who shows up to deliver but my wife's cousin Paul! He is the owner of Pikkles Plus (18th & Market) in Center City. He serves up a great meal so if you go, make sure you mention you know me.

State of the Club Address

Since this is the time of year where presidents seem to give speeches about the condition of this or that country, I thought I'd try my hand at doing the same for our Cal Alumni Club in Philadelphia.

I have been a proud member of this group since I arrive in town in 1999 and in that time we have been able to modernize our communications, expand our membership and establish a calendar of recurring annual events to which all members can look forward.

So here's the year in review:

• In March, we host the Cal Men's Octet as part of their East Coast tour. It was two fun filled days of hijinx and song as we visited several Philadelphia landmarks and even got a plug on TV (Thanks Aditi!)
• April brought us our annual New Student Reception where nearly 30 people braved extreme weather conditions to gather and talk about student life at Cal. We also awarded our Club's Alumni Scholarship to Megan Beale from Avon Grove High School.
• In May, we participated in the annual Main Line College Fair at Villanova University where Cal is always a big draw. Long lines at our table and lots of interested prospective students and parents.
• Over the summer, we listened to a carillon concert at Princeton University by own of our own, Laurel MacKenzie.
• In the Fall, we watch a few football games together. Some great (Tennessee) and some not so great (The Big Game) and some downright dangerous (Oregon State, not the game but the bar!),
• We ended the year by hosting the Cal Women's Basketball team in their visits to Princeton and Rutgers.

A lot to look forward to for 2008!

• Our own web domain http://calphilly.org !
• On February 16, Cal co-sponsoring a banquet event with the Organization of Chinese Americans featuring two Cal Alums (Aditi Roy and Joan Pfaelzer) - see the website to sign up!
• The annual student reception on Sunday 4/13 2-4PM
• The Main Line College Fair on Tuesday 4/29 6:30-9PM @ Villanova
• IRA Rowing Championships 6/5 - 6/7 @ Cooper River Park, Camden, NJ
• Cal vs. Maryland football on Saturday, 9/13 @ College Park, MD
• The Big Game 11/22, viewing location TBD

Keep an eye on our website for these and other great events in 2008.

2008 will also be a year in which we get our house in order membership-wise. We plan to initiate a database cleanup project that will merge information from multiple sources and allow us to more efficiently stay in sync with the CAA in Berkeley. We would also like to do a better job at maintaining the ties with local students who go away to Cal (and come home, eventually).

The Cal Alumni Club of Philadelphia Alumni Scholarship Endowment Report

As of June 30, 2007, I am proud to report that our club's endowment stands at $29,545.46. In the year preceding, we added over $5,000 to our account. 90% of this was due to investment gains. We also transferred $500 from the club's checking account to the endowment as a result of money collected at various events and direct contributions from members (Thank you!).

I would like to set an ambitious goal over the next five years to increase our endowment to $50,000. This will allow us to offer either an additional scholarship or to increase the amount of the existing one. In order to do this, we will be asking members, where fiscally possible, to contribute $15 per household per year. Although we have had our own membership fee in place for many years, it has fallen off most folks' radar! If each of the 140 or so members of the Yahoo group contributes $15/year, that gets us nearly half way to our goal! See the website for the membership form.

As always, we could not do this without your support which reflects your dedication to Cal and the work of this club. If you would like to get more involved, please do not hesitate to contact me or any other board members.

Thanks and Go Bears!

A New Year in Boston

Hey, it's only 5 hours away! Why not load up the family and head north to Boston. A great opportunity to visit my cousins and my aunt.

Before we headed out for the festivities, my son and I watched the first half of the Armed Forces Bowl. Not too encouraging until the end of the first half. At that point, we had to go but I kept track of the Bears' inspiring comeback on my BlackBerry.

So Boston has this celebration each year called First Night. It is a day long event filled with ice sculptures, music, art, museums, fireworks, performances of all kinds and a parade. After 8:00 PM, all the public transportation is free.

But, damn, it was cold! We took the Red Line in from Alewife and exited the Park Street station right into Boston Commons. Hey, I said, lets walk over to the Old South Church to hear the organ concert! Not the best walking weather, but on the way I did come across this:



Go Bears! Of course.












The Old South Church and the organ contained therein are magnificent. Check it out: http://www.oldsouth.org/ The concert (in between checking the Cal score) was great. We were invited up to try out the organ and I was tempted to play "Hail to California" but I couldn't get close enough. Would that have been cool or what!

Here are a couple of pictures I took:
















After a tasty dinner at Uno's, we watched the parade, some fireworks and then headed over to the Hynes Center for some entertainment. By far, one of the most bizarre performances I have ever witnessed was that of the group "Uncle Monsterface". Very odd, by most standards, terrible, but strangely compelling. Check out the my video. Note the sock puppet in the back.
Here is their MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/unclemonsterface

After that, we were ready to call it a night - but it was only 9:30! So we headed off to Harvard Square and a tasty little place called "Finale". Check out the menu: http://www.finaledesserts.com/

We pulled into the hotel in Waltham just as the clock struck 12. All in all, a fine way to ring in the New Year. 2008 is going to be awesome!

A New York Adventure

As has become tradition in my family, for our wedding anniversary each year, we take the kids and go to New York City. Celebrating an event such as an anniversary at this time of the year is a bit challenging given the other festivities going on and the fact that the kids are off from (and home from) school. So we just decided to make it family affair.

The plan this year was to stay over (using hotel points accumulated from my years of travelling as a consultant) and see Avenue Q. So we got into town about 11:00, checked our bags with the bellhop and headed over to the Stardust Diner. Food was average, entertainment was exceptional. All the servers are Broadway hopefuls and they put on quite a show taking turns singing/performing (karaoke style) for the patrons. Made the $$$$ food a bit more palatable.

So after checking into our room, we set out to see some sights and kill some time until the 8:00 show. The city was packed. In all the years I have worked and spent time in New York, I have never seen it this crowded. This would be a theme that would repeat itself over the next two days. Ughh! NBC Studio Tour, forget it. Empire State Building, no way, Jose. The sidewalks, the stores and all the attractions and even Central Park were crammed with people. I did happen to get the above shot of the me and tree in Rockefeller Center.

So, we ended up at the AMC Theaters on 42nd Ave. and decided to see Walk Hard. Great movie, lots 'o laughs. There is even a section where the main character (Dewey Cox) is living in Berkeley circa 1966. There you go, my Cal reference!

Avenue Q was great. Funny, clever, great performances, puppets and more. Just a notch below Spamalot, IMHO.

This morning, my son and I headed over to the Today Show to mingle amongst the throngs vying for airtime in the background of Ann Curry and Matt Lauer. Well, we almost got it! We may have actually been behind Willard Scott as he was dong the weather. The world may never know... I took the shot above during that momentous moment.

We went to breakfast this morning at the world famous Lindy's. My advice, stay away from this tourist trap. $85 for lukewarm eggs, oil soaked potato chips and watered down OJ. We spent the next hour walking off the fat in Central Park.

We left the hotel and began our oddysey back to Penn Station. Via Grand Central - to meet one of daughter's friends and the Empire State Building (see above). When we boarded our train to Trenton at 2:01pm, I think we were all relieved the adventure had finally come to a close.

All in all, though, a great but suprisingly exhausting trip - even for experienced NYC-hounds such as me and my wife. Family togetherness - no better way to spend our 21st anniversary!

Cal Songs for the Ages

I just treated myself to the latest product direct from the Cal Alumni Association. "Songs of California" contains the piano (and ocassionally voice parts) for your favorite Cal songs. The book is well annotated with the history of each song (plus other fascinating tidbits) plus a bevy of great photos, both new and old. A must have for any Old Blue, especially those such as myself, who are musically inclined.

The book can be purchased directly from the CAA at: ShopCAA.com. Right now, it looks like the site is down until January 7. But I encourage you to check it out at that point!

Wear Your Colors!

I have this superstition about wearing my Cal colors on game days. So today, I am decked out in an outfit reminiscent of the yell leaders on Fridays on Lower Sproul. Tan khaki Dockers, light blue button down shirt, blue and gold tie.

My work colleagues, for obvious reasons, don't take notice. There's more orange and black in these parts than blue and gold. In fact, my staff just gave me a lovely Princeton scarf which I will proudly wear to football and hockey games. An interesting tidbit of info is that both Cal and Princeton have roots at Yale. More on that in a future post.

So, a busy weekend for Cal Basketball. Glad to see that the men easily handled Delaware St. last night 74-57. Maybe we'll get a home and home series with them? Keep dreaming. The women are in action tonight against Kansas and the men take on Utah tomorrow. You can watch all the games on-line on the Cal All-Access Broadband network! The women's games are free and there is a monthly or annual subscription for the men's games. Go to http://www.calbears.com and check it out.

Go Bears!

Living in a Virtual Bay Area

I'm a pretty adaptive person. Wherever I live or travel, I have always been able to find something fun to do and I try to experience life like one of the locals. Still, to some degree, I am always a bit reminiscent of my former life in Northern California.

The first time I lived in Philadelphia was right after I graduated from Cal as a newly minted MBA in 1986. I had two unsatisfying and unsuccessful interviews for jobs in the Bay Area and figured I would try my fortunes on the East Coast with my then fiancee (and now wife of almost 21 years) who is a Philly native. I remember desperately clamoring for sports scores and feeling so disconnected from everything California. I had a CompuServe account but the technology was slow and the content was pretty thin. Three years later, via Northern Virginia for a year, we were back in good old El Cerrito. Complete with a new baby.

After 10 years, we made the move back to Philadelphia into a much improved situation. Thank goodness for the Internet, satellite radio and cable TV. I can still listen to KFOG, hear Joe Starkey call the Cal games, view the webcams of Sproul Plaza. My computer screen background is a great shot of the Golden Gate my uncle took when my son and I went out to visit last August (see above).

I know I am deluding myself. Nothing beats the fog, Zachary's pizza, a ride on BART, my family and my friends or a Cal home game (any sport) but I have to take what I can get.

It is a bit extreme when even a trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joe's reminds you of home. But that's how we expatriates survive! We all know what it is like when we see that random Cal hat or shirt around town. 95% of the time, when I dare to ask (and I usually do), they have no direct connection to Cal. My son makes fun of me for that.

I'd be interested to hear what others do to bring the flavor of Berkeley or the Bay Area home to Philly. Please comment!