Continuing with Judy Fridono, 52, certified professional dog-trainer focusing on service dogs and training service dogs for disabled people. Or used to be. Nowadays, it’s philanthropy. Fridono’s new career came by way of a homemade …
One year ago I wrote a column about Judy Fridono, a North County certified professional dog trainer, and Ricochet, a golden retriever, canine surfer, and philanthropist at large. Fridono acquired puppy Ricochet to train as …
Thanksgiving is thought of as family time. But, we all know Thanksgiving is more than family, bigger than family. Thanksgiving means the NFL is coming at you with three rock-’em sock-’em football games running from …
I’ve never met a gun enthusiast I didn’t like, which is strange and probably means I haven’t met many. Even so, I’m still surprised when mouth-foaming, flag-waving, gun-emblem T-shirt-owning, gun-show-booth-manning true believers turn out to …
Had to smile at what was happening on one corner of the big split-screen TV. I’m talking about Sunday’s game, specifically, the last Oakland Raiders drive, the one in overtime, the one that set up …
This began with a telephone call from an old friend in Vegas. Brian is a lifelong degenerate sports bettor and so his conversation inevitably buzzes around the topics of “How I won the bet” or …
Here’s a brief catch-up for last week’s truants: Patric Douglas, 42, is CEO of Shark Diver, a shark-cage-diving enterprise that will hook you up with a 20-hour boat ride to Isla Guadalupe, one of the …
“We never know who the client is until the last possible second. Their front men contact us.” On the phone is Patric Douglas, 42, CEO of Shark Diver, a commercial shark-cage diving outfit offering five-day …
My cable service went out and stayed out for six days. I loathe cable companies as much as the next man, but if cornered, I‘d have to admit this has never happened before. I was …
AFC West: Kansas City (3-0). Not bad for a team that’s only racked ten wins over the past three seasons. Is Kansas City worth a 3-0 record? Chiefs head coach Todd Haley says, “We’re still …
“I didn’t know there was a problem.” That’s me speaking. “Surfboards are toxic — they’re incredibly toxic. The nature of surfing is, you have a board, you break it, you chuck it, and then you …
Every long once in awhile the story of one human being frames a national issue with such fierce honesty that even the hardest-hearted sports fan has to stop and pay attention. This happened Thursday night, …
Do you remember Mike Riley, Chargers head coach from 1999 through 2001? His was a short, dismal captaincy, compiling a record of 14-34 and a .292 winning percentage. I wrote at the time: “Lashed to …
You don’t often see large institutions eat each other in public; they usually like to enjoy their meals in the library with a goblet of good port. But, things got desperate last week, and if …
It’s a strange-weird sight to raise binoculars and look out to a vast boneyard of dead professional football leagues. And weirder still to see, over there, in the far distance, a file of new professional …
I’m scouting the Other Side, which is the portion of Abadiânia that lies south of the highway that bisects the town. The Casa (John of God’s healing center) and its service industry are on one …
Picking up from last week. Tai Chi Teacher, Her Spouse, Their Friend, and I made our flight on the second try. We caught up with our baggage in Chicago, changed planes, and endured the long …
I haven’t been on an airplane since aforetime 9/11 or taken an international airplane ride since 1995. No reason, no plan, just the way the cards were dealt. Still, it is strange: prior to 1995, …
Doesn’t take much to take your eye off the ball. It could be something like...I don’t know, say, a World Cup. Or a Tour de France. And then a month passes and the biggest sports …
My guess: You don’t live the life Lance Armstrong has unless you have a godly amount of will power, self control, pride, and the ability to hold a grudge. Last year Armstrong was dissed by …
I’ve known…I’ll call him “David,” for 32 years. Like most people, I have several circles of friends. There’s a circle of artists/writers/actors, a circle of blue-collar Alaskans, and a circle of tai chi practitioners. David …
I grew up in a religion that loved everything I would be taught to disdain in graduate school: America, authority, marriage, motherhood, and divine revelation. My father was a history-reading intellectual who treated me like …
Mediaweek reports, “Through the first 14 matches of the World Cup, ESPN and ABC have delivered an average crowd of 3.35 million viewers, marking a 64 percent increase from the same period in 2006....” The …
I’m busy, you’re busy, nobody wants to rip a month out of a busy life watching foreign-made sports on American TV. I’m talking about World Cup soccer, known to American sports consumers as men-in-short-shorts-fetishizing-a-pockmarked-ball-while-prancing-about-in-what-could-have-been-a-perfectly-serviceable-NFL-stadium. Still, …
In terms of money, college football is an East Coast game. In the latest “College Football’s 20 Most Valuable Teams” list from Forbes, only one college west of the Continental Divide made it into the …
The Tiger Woods story has turned interesting again, which, given the attention span of news consumers, is remarkable. In fact, you could argue Woods’s story has gone on so long, has been renewed so many …
You’ve read that recent San Diego county resident and convicted dope cheater Floyd Landis announced — by way of e-mails to sponsors, media, and sports officials — that he used banned drugs during his cycling …
The Tour of California (TOC) has been the preeminent cycling race in North America since its first go-around in 2006. The eight-day, 810-mile route attracts the best teams and best cyclists in the world. Andrew …
Coming back from Point Reyes, in no hurry, and decide to turn left toward the Sacramento River delta. As river meets greater San Francisco Bay at Carquinez Strait, there lies the unincorporated town of Crockett, …
I mentioned last week that I was on my way to Point Reyes. There’s a birding festival headquartered in Point Reyes Station, a small, unincorporated town set next to the park. Bird festivals are everywhere, …
If you’re driving north on I-5 and make the left turn onto I-580 heading toward the Bay Area, you may notice, just before you climb the last slight grade into Hayward, a prosperous suburb by …
Comebacks from illness, comebacks from addiction, comebacks from a broken heart, comebacks from lousy parents… Then, there are sports comebacks, and more rarified still, professional, big-time, sports comebacks. A great comeback requires a great fall. …
Today marks 20 years writing this column. Follows is where it started, taken from a column I wrote in April of 1990. *** The jukebox plays, I had a girl, Donna was her name, followed …
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has been called the most successful women’s professional sports organization in the world. Founded in 1950, it’s one of the oldest. On Sunday, the LPGA finished its first 2010 …
I read the NCAA is thinking about changing its postseason basketball tournament to a 96-team format and mutter to self, “The Rapacious Evil that is the NCAA.” Said Rapacious Evil has a working monopoly on …
Let’s see if I can reconstruct the fantasy I was operating under. It starts with a friend of mine, Philip Burns (landscape architect, retired Cal professor, Harvard Ph.D.), and a book he praised, Up and …
Continuing with Tiger Woods, sex therapy, and David Peters, a marriage and family therapist working out of Mission Valley. Peters was born in Peoria, Illinois, raised in California. His dad worked in broadcasting, mom was …
Tiger’s apology lecture probably did more good than bad with sports consumers. Saying that, I did smile when he said “I don’t get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone …
The first time I visited Vancouver was in the late ’60s. I was living in Fairbanks and decided to spend the winter outside, which is what we called any place not in Alaska. Since it …
Bedtime, Super Bowl Sunday, marks the conclusion of the sports year for committed NFL fans. On Monday morning, the still engorged NFL fan arises from bed, walks out to the front porch, feels the pain …
An NFL placekicker has his own world. For him, the word “placekicker” is another way of saying “no contact.” Contact, for a placekicker, is referred to as “roughing the kicker.” A normal day at the …
The United States Mass Media Directorate is housed in a Washington D.C. secret facility often rumored to exist but never acknowledged by our government. This is where journalists, magazine editors, filmmakers, television producers, cable-news executives, …
Last fall, the story made its way around the media fish tank to the North County Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Orange County Register, Orlando Sentinel, Honolulu Advertiser, and Anchorage Daily News, to dog websites, surfer …
It’s probably impossible to know the truth of it now. I’m talking about Michael Oher, starting right tackle for the Baltimore Ravens and subject of a hit movie titled The Blind Side (said film cost …
I’ve been scrapbooking 2009 sports stories. Let’s see…Yankees win the World Series, A-Rod admits taking steroids, Michael Vick signs with Philly, Kobe wins one without Shaq, and so on. Here’s one that might entertain: Serena …
This column is for readers who will do their shopping on Christmas morning for the first time. Hold your heads high, people! Remember the three noble precepts: you can’t be picky, you can’t care about …
The letter read, “You’re on your own.” It was typewritten on blank white paper and undated. The missive was from my magazine editor. She explained that if something happened to me the magazine was not …
Incredibly, Tiger Woods may not have enough money to buy his way out of this. Or, to put it another way, how many degrees of fucked can one man be and still find somebody to …
One looks heavenward and cries out, “What have I ever done that deserves having the Detroit Lions thrust upon me every Thanksgiving?” No answer. Has Detroit ever fielded a watchable team? If so, has that …
Continuing with our colleges of San Diego road tour. Moraga, California, is 20 miles, 20 years, and two climatic zones east of San Francisco. Moraga has a population of 16,000 rich white people and is …