Another Orb!!

This was taken a couple of nights ago...I took about sixty shots and

only this one had an orb in it! Cool! Just as Zen's name was called as a starter

Basketball season has began for our High school boys!

Thia (mamathia@gmail.com) thought you would be interested in this:
	BOYS BASKETBALL: Santa Cruz Overpowers Harbor to Open SCCAL play Maki’s offense and team’s pressure too much for Pirates to handle.... By Joey McMurry Read more >

The Score: Santa Cruz 62, Harbor 53

The Star: Santa Cruz guard Zen Maki led the Cardinals in points with 21 and made three key 3-pointers to keep the momentum in Santa Cruz's favor.

The Turning Point: Santa Cruz turned up the pressure to begin the second quarter with a full-court press and never looked back.

The Quote: "Zen got it going. He's our man. We've been telling him to attack, attack, attack and that's what he did." —Santa Cruz head coach Bill Domhoff, about Zen Maki's big game.

What's Next? Harbor heads to Scotts Valley Friday for another Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League showdown. Santa Cruz hosts SLV Friday in its first league home game.

Bottom Line: In a showdown between two teams that will compete for the SCCAL league title, Harbor came out strong to start the game with the energy of its home crowd behind them. But Santa Cruz's pressure was too much for the Pirates to handle as they took the lead and never looked back.

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In the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League opener for both teams, the Santa Cruz High boys basketball team shook off a slow start to outlast its cross-town rival.

The Cardinals got 21 points from senior guard Zen Maki, helping their cause in a 62-53 win Tuesday night at Harbor High.

Santa Cruz looked outmatched in the first quarter, but that changed very quickly.

Harbor came out strong behind three 3-pointers from point guard Jon Bogaard as it amassed an 11-2 lead before Santa Cruz called its first timeout.

The Cardinals had difficulty against the tight Pirates defense and missed multiple shots. Their first field goal did not come until there was only 2:47 left in the first quarter; all their points came from free throws prior to the bucket.

Harbor relied heavily on the three-ball to gain a 21-13 first quarter lead, but that changed in a hurry.

To start the second quarter, the Cardinals came out in a full-court press led by the hustle of guard Johann Schmidt. It was clear the Pirates were not prepared for the pressure.

"It was our plan to turn up the pressure from the start of the game," Santa Cruz head coach Bill Domhoff said.

Harbor looked uncomfortable facing the speed of the Cardinals' press and turned the ball over frequently.

"A few of the kids had trouble with the quickness," Harbor head coach Mike Gruber said.

The Cardinals also tightened up their 3-2 zone defense and put more pressure on the outside shots from Bogaard and Colin Gruber.

Bogaard and Gruber entered the game averaging 10.1 and 26.8 points per game, respectively.

Domhoff said Santa Cruz usually runs a 2-3 zone, but changed it up for this game to stop the strong shooting of the Pirates.

The momentum quickly swung in Santa Cruz's favor after Maki followed-up a shot gave Santa Cruz the lead at 22-21.

They never looked back.

Santa Cruz propelled themselves to a 31-27 halftime lead with strong offensive rebounding to go with their improved defense.

The Cardinals out-rebounded Harbor 19-10 in the first half.

Ty Demeo played strong down low for the Cardinals with 13 points and 10 rebounds and made a number of baskets at the end of the first half to pad Santa Cruz's lead.

Clayton Conroy also added 10 points and seven rebounds playing the post with Demeo.

Santa Cruz kept up the pressure in the second half using a full court press and taking advantage of their team's depth to combat the Pirates.

Bogaard went cold in the second half and did not score. Gruber, however, picked up the slack scoring 14 points after only scoring seven in the first half.

Gruber led a fourth-quarter surge, but each basket the Pirates made was countered by a  Maki 3-pointer. Maki also finished with 21 points.

Despite Gruber catching fire, Santa Cruz continued to force turnovers, and the Pirates could not get anything going consistently on offense. Harbor turned the ball over 19 times.

"We missed a lot of threes," Gruber said.

The three-ball is a key part to the Pirates' offense, but Gruber acknowledged the Pirates' post game was absent as well.

"I think we are team-oriented where anyone can come in and play and help us out," Domhoff said. The Cardinals' team play definitely showed on the defensive end and ultimately gave them the victory at a packed Harbor gym.

The two teams will square off again Jan. 25 at Santa Cruz High in what should be an exciting game, as both teams will make adjustments and improve over the next month.

SANTA CRUZ

Zen Maki – 21 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists

Clayton Conroy – 10 points, 7 rebounds

Ty Demeo – 13 points, 10 rebounds

Johann Schmidt – 4 points, 6 rebounds

HARBOR

Jon Bogaard – 11 points

Colin Gruber – 21 points

Ramos Coss – 7 points

R.J. Espinosa – 6 points

Random Days & Friends over the Holidaze

In Japanese: BONENKAI!  An end of the year party. With some of the great women I've gotten to play tennis with!!! Betsy from Santa Cruz, Lisa from Australia, Val from England, (me) and Polly from Louisiana? with the SOUTHERN twang! xoxox

Hey, and then the 23rd...THAT'S how I got Zen to smile- "for my BIRTHDAY!"

Christmas Eve, Grandmom, Uncle Lynn, his wife Lorraine, her daughter Grace came for sushi dinner.

December 28th-30th we spent most of the time in San Francisco. Zen's High School team had a tournament there. One of those nights Taka and I got to spend at Jeff's!
 In Jeff's new house which he's been renovating~ It was the BEST!

Going to the corner, not even half a block away from his house, we can look to the right and see the ocean at the end of the road.

AND Jeff cooked GUMBO for us~ In his spankin' new kitchen!

I love men who can cook! Like they say, the way to one's heart is through the tummy.

By the way, we met Jeff the first time in Japan, and only since then usually only at reggae events. So this was fantastic to catch up with him in S.F., which is ONLY an hour and a half from Santa Cruz. I'm sorry it wasn't sooner~ but then again, the timing was good with the comfy home (and bed!!!)

So, back to business! Before our boys LEFT for San Fran they had this shooting practice, but mainly they had to write notes...which the Coach had for them about the first team they were to face in the tournament.

And it was an incredible game. One I've copied to send to colleges for Zen. He played incredibly and his team won by ONE point.

Zen did get his new sneakers in time for this tournament!!!

Lookit~ MY foot next to his shiny, new equipement.

The boys do seem to get in some good stretching

Zen did get ALL TOURNAMENT! Meaning voted out of eight teams...the top 10-14? players.

Lastly we got to have lunch with Mako and Gerhardt from Oregon, in SF for the GratefulDead-(that's 'minus') -Garcia..."Further" they go to every New Year's! AND not only see them, but follow them to another new friend's home we never had the opportunity to go to~ Junko and Mark's

many FRIENDS and FRIENDS of FRIENDS!!! Not only them but we also caught up with Victor and Eiko, Aria and Rue AND Nalu and Kaya in SF...crazy!!! AND FULL ON!!!

And my Beloved~(the photographer) with me through it all! Taka-my-hero!

Winter in Santa Cruz

Hey, check out our "Christmas Tree"!!!

 I got so tired of using potted Christmas trees and STILL having them die, so I gave up, but our new style is so cool!!! I just need to buy something with the SMELL of Christmas Fir Trees!

  The Autumn colors were fantastic about ten days ago. And I saw these two kitties in this window~

The old cat on the right...he watched me, leeringly! The few minutes I took photos he just WATCHED me! The young one was oblivious, SO cute! playing around~~

I wish these photos did justice... I'm afraid not tho!

The 55th Dad's Club Basketball Tournament

Losing to this team, from Salinas,who would end up winning the tournament, was a hard one.

..."hard" cause Santa Cruz High had a chance to win. The team knew it, so it was a seriously tough blow to come back from. They did take third place. And this photo of Zen which covered the whole half of the front of the Sentinal's Sports page, helped to a degree.

The Kids~ Calendar for 2011

It's been a tradition of mine to make these for family over the years~

Grandmom had these from over the years~the oldest was 1995!

TAKOYAKI and home brewed beer by Ischin Maki

TAKOYAKI!!!! Ohhh after not having eaten takoyaki for such a long time, and on this cold, windy afternoon, when my Takahiro and I were so hungry having circled Nagoya for more than an hour around a marathon being run~ these tasted HEAVENLY!!!

True, it did take me a number of years to get used to the sight of octopus legs, and eating them.

500 yen equals about $6.00 today for those eight takoyaki balls, which we could choose to have KAGOME sauce put on them (like worcestershire sauce) or Soy Sauce. Also we can have mayonnaise added, or not...and then spicy SHICHIMI "7 spices" (or was it ICHIMI? "ONE spice"?) also added.

Below you can see this little space heater with a pot of, probably water, heating. The heater is supposed to help those workers feel some warmth!

Now, one new production has been going on!

Good ol' Ischin~ he is now a beer brewer!!!

He knows how to make his mom happy too! In our little kitchen I got to watch some of the production. His careful cleaning and measuring~

And then in this tank, he next has to watch that it ferments properly. He bought a little hot carpet to keep it sitting on top of~ and wrapped a warm blanket around the tank. The beer he'd capped and served to us had been GREAT!!! His father is a coffee roaster, now Ischin is a beer brewer! I'll take the beer over the coffee any day!