Volleyball replay and Networking

Well, I didn't really like today's assignment.

I don't often say that, but it was true.  Not a fun day at the office.

The Toreros hosted the Portland Pilots in a West Coast Conference volleyball match.  I was assigned to be the replay official for the match (today as well).

Got to the arena around an hour early.  Went and made sure that the equipment was working correctly.  At the time it did....I'll explain later.

First set, everything is going ok... then late in the set (22-13 San Diego), Portland thought the call of in was wrong.  The assistant coach went crazy thinking that it was out.  He damn near ran on to the court and said "You'll see in just a second that you were wrong!"  I really wanted to find an angle that proved the referee correct.  On the angle that I saw and showed to the down referee, it looked to me like the ball was out.  The down referee looked and said nothing to me (I have to fill in some paperwork on the screen when there is a review).  I wait to see what he signals and he signals that the ball was out (Gee, thanks for letting me know what was going on).

Second set, we had two reviews, one for each team.

For San Diego, they thought the ball was in.  The problem was that upon looking at the video, only one of the two angles that we were supposed to have at our disposal was working.  The one angle was skipping over the two to three frames that we needed for confirmation, so the call "stood" because it was inconclusive.

Portland had another review late in the set (I'm noticing a trend....).  It was another in/out call.  On the opposite side of the benches (and the table).  Looking at the video again it looked in to me.   However, the original call was out and that is what the referee confirmed.

In the fourth set (as it turned out the final set) San Diego on the bare eye looked like they just missed a pancake (slipping your hand under the ball and having it bonce off the hand).  That call was confirmed that it did hit the floor and not the hand.

The final set scores were: San Diego 3-1 (25-15, 28-30 (nothing like over points), 25-14, 25-14).

On Tuesday, I was invited by my friend Callan to join him as we went up to Burbank to meet up with Sean Pebbles.  If you don't know the name, you might know the position that he holds.  Public Address Announcer for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Sean is in SoCal doing something with Warner Bros.  He said that he could tell us, but then he'd have to kill us.  We kinda like living, so we just let it lie.  Really cool guy.  After we had dinner at BJ's Restaurant in Burbank.  After dinner, we went back to his hotel and talked for a bit.  He offered us drinks but I just took a water as I was driving (do your own thing, but if you drink and drive.... don't expect me to be at your funeral).  Hope to hook up with Sean again when his plans are to come back out to San Diego in August.

What a day

Greetings to all in Internet land.

This has been a very interesting day. As usual, I worked the overnight last night, and therefore "got off" at 5:00 am (didn't leave the office until 5:30). So I got home around 6 and got to sleep. I woke up thanks mom at 12:15 and did the normal moring routine (shower, shave, etc). I then went out to the car and cleaned out the front seat.

After making sure that everything was good to go, I went back into the house to put on my shirt (I had on an undershirt) and out my shoes on. I went over to Sarah's house and picked here up as she was teh reason for the trip. She had a coupon for a purse store that you will hear about later on. As we were beginning our journey to the O.C. we called Matt to see if he would like to join us. As it turns out he did want to join us, so we swung by his house and picked him up.

Our first stop was, brace yourself, Sonic in Fullerton for lunch. After lunch we went over to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. That was a culture shock for me as I have never been in, let alone heard of, at least half of the stores in the second largest mall in the US. I went into the Porsche Design store, and was floored with some of the prices (an all leather laptop bag - $575, a key-chain $185). I did end up buying a CD at the USC spirit store. I almost bought a $150 shirt for only $40.

The ride home was interesting as I waa talking to my good friend Tom about what Matt bought. Keep in mind that Tom & Matt were roommates at one point. Matt took his fandom of the USC Trojans to the next level today. He bought of all things, a toothbrush with the USC logo on it. Yikes!!!!!!