Wow, what a game! The suspense is killing me. In the last 2 minutes, Belmont losing 18 to 25 evened out. What a game! Now we have an extra 2 10 minute.
URGH!!! They lost! 31 to 28. I can't believe it. What a game. They lost to a penalty! What a game. Darn! Wait until next year…
I hope to see as many of you as possible tomorrow at the Huntington Beach old car concours.
I will be bringing my Milano and it will be entered in the daily driver concours.
Click 
here for information and directions.
This is our 1989 Alfa Romeo Milano. It's a verde and has 96,000 miles. When I bought 3 years ago, no one had ever sat in the back seats. It is completely original, unmolested and its previous owner took care of it as passionately as I do now. It is the last one sold in the LA area and probably the last sold in US. It is also most likely the nicest well kept Milano in the US. There were three cars at the Santa Monica dealership, a red one, a gray one and this one. Last I heard the red was somewhere in the vicinity of Pasadena. It was rumoured to have also been well kept. I have no idea what happened to the gray one. All three were floor show models. It would be terrific to bring them together again. Anybody knows the others?
Today, our local team plays in Denver against New York Athletic Club, NYAC. And it's a big game!
For those of you who have ESPN Classic, the Rugby Super League will be on at 5 p.m. PST. You can always catch it on ESPN360.com. Read more about 
here.
So why is this game so important? Short of it being the finals and, by the way, congrats to our team for making thus far, they are playing against a team that got stronger and stronger this season. Even though they won against that team, Belmont Shore has had to deal with a lot of changes this year alone. "Belmont Shore Head Coach Jonnie Cox said. “They will be a formidable opponent.""
So the prognosis? "…the mere mention of the Belmont Shore side evokes a long-standing
tradition of success over the course of 12 years in Super League
competition – appearing in a whopping nine finals out of those seasons."
"“It has been a little bit of a rollercoaster season for us, but we have
battled our way through early losses, injury, illness and generational
change in the club to the final.” Cox added.
This is THE game of the year. Belmont Shore has always been a very strong player and gone to the finals regularly. It is high time we acknowledge our team by watching them and telling people about what is happening in our backyard. Some of our local rugby boys will be playing for our national team.
So stay tune. I will use my iPod Touch to keep scores. And remeber: "the Belmont Shore club who have reached the Super League final in 9 of the past 12 seasons"
I read somewhere we only hear 8% of what is said to us. 8%! What
do we do with the other 92%? In order to grow spiritually, and to
receive the guidance as to the best moves to make, we want to commit to
listening to everyone, no matter how boring, no matter how much we
disagree. You never know when the cosmos is trying to get a message
through to you.
One of the resounding topics most clients want to work on is who they are in respect to this world.
I like to call it, what are your true colors? In a society where we are coaxed to be a certain way, match our times through advertisings that are molded on skinnier than life models, it can be hard finding out your true uniqueness. I really enjoy working on that. What makes you, you. What makes you the unique individual you are? What does that person add to the world?
The very first step is to take a step back and imagine yourself without ay outside influences. How would you be? How would you dress? What kind of entertainment would you have? How would you reveal yourself to the world?
After this, we go and see how the world appears to you. What opportunities are there for you to be yourself and still live a fulfilling life. Now we are touching the integrity part which once fully understood is very empowering to chose to follow.
Once you have a greater sense of you are and keep that image crystal clear in your mind, it becomes easier to say no to situation that do not fulfill you. It becomes very easy to chose a path that is completely centered with who you are and what you would like to do on this planet.
As I've mentioned before, I meeting more and more people who don't get a great sense of personal fulfillment from their current professions. An overwhelming majority are choosing to do "something worthwhile", "something good for life". I feel empowered just hearing this. It is fun coaching people like that.
So the real question is, what are your true colors? And if you do know them, what is holding you back from fully shining them to the world?
Everybody knows I love Long Beach but…
Most people also know Long Beach is one heck of a quirky city. It's the perfect in between city. At 500,000 population, it is neither big nor small. As a growing city, it is in between two worlds. It is still managed like the smaller city it was yesterday but has big city aspirations. The problem for cities like these is making the transition to big city management as soon as possible.
One example of this is the well known, rarely addressed fact that residential parking in and around the Belmont Heights, Belmont Shore and Park area is out of control. With every block corner painted with ten feet of no-parking red curb lines, people have to fend for spots. With 90% of the population illegally using their garage as storage, other than cars, there is not enough parking outside. If you try to park after 8 pm, you have the choice of looking three to five blocks away or risk a ticket because you have to use the red lines. And they come as early a 6 am to ticket you. We all complain, nothing gets done.
So why am I writing this? I just found out Long Beach is building a cricket field. Yes, cricket. Don't get me wrong, I like cricket but do we have a champion team playing in our city? Not to my knowledge.
When you think that our local national rugby champions have to borrow fields as far as Lakewood middle Schools just to play international and national scoring games, it really makes you wonder about the enlightenment of our city.
How come our local national rugby champions don't have a field right here in their own city? How come the Press Telegram is incapable of writing about our very own team who has just made it to the national finals? Remember, this is the newspaper that writes about our city?
You have to love our city. That's why a lot of us live here because despite its dreams of grandeur, it is still a quaint little neighborhood city. Congratulation Long Beach's Cricket team! And for you, our local national rugby champions, maybe the gods of downtown Long Beach will grant you a field next year where you can play and continue your ascend… who knows?
A great teacher of mine at CoachU forwarded us this 
It's a great little flash website that reminds you of some very basic principles you should remind yourself of in your life, such as to treat yourself well. After all you are well worth it.
It also makes me want to go ahead with the idea of writing more a bout the 7 basic guiding hermetic principles found in the Kybalion. The Kybalion is one of those books if I knew I would get stuck somewhere without anything, I would take it with me.
These 7 principles, even though esoteric are quite simple in their essence but ever so subtle in their applications. Every time I re read the book, something else gets uncovered.
A few words on the presidential candidate speeches.
I watched Clinton and Obama talk on TV at the gym. It was interesting to see the difference and the similarities between the two. Something must have happened since last I watched them a month ago. They are more civilized towards each other. That is a good thing because the last thing we need to see are vicious and mud throwing president candidates in the current state of things. We need maturity and for once, these two, and I think all three, have shown more than previous ones in the past. I haven't seen McCain speak yet.
What it boils to however is that we love sports in this country. We are raised to "pick a team" and cheer for it. The problem is that we view politics in the same way. Knowing the consequences, this is very dangerous. It isn't about picking a team when it comes down to choosing our country leaders. It is our future and how we, as intelligent civilized people can put aside our silly selfish beliefs and work together to regain control of a situation out of order.
This is exactly what scares me about our candidates. None of them have a team to present. It is disturbing because we are not in high school voting for the Senior Queen and King anymore. We are voting for a team of people who will lead our country. We are surely mature and aware enough to understand that the world of politic is all about subtleties and strategic alliances. No one does it alone. The days of John Wayne are way long gone.
So who is the team behind the candidates? Who will be secretary of defense? Vice-President? Secretary of interior? These are my fundemental questions that so far, no one has answered. Yes, there are hints but I need more than hints before I make up my mind. Until then, it is all talk.
It feels scary that people still vote according to what one person says when we know it takes a tight team to lead a country (or not). It's sad to hear these candidates say all the things they know people will want to hear, general economy, healthcare and the war. My real questions are what will you and your team do about it and how? What can you show us now to convince us? Who is in charge? Certainly you don't think we are naive enough to think one person does it all? No, I'm sure you don't, right?
So instead of doing what every politician has done since the begnning of time, tell me who will be in charge of what and how will you all work together. Before you cater to my dreams, let me know how you will work together to make it happen. Give me the names of those you will pick to fill the important roles in your administration. Like millions out there, I have seen through your speeches how words are cheap, actions are worth more.
Coaching is one heck of a subtle profession.
We are not consultants. We are not advisors. We are not mentors. We are not therapists. We are coaches. Somehow I wonder if the word coach incapsules everything a coach does and is. Is there such a word for what we do? I remember writing about this in the very beginning, maybe we need a word that really describes what a coach does.
There are two general types of coaches you will find out there, the purists and the rest. The purists will ONLY ask questions and that's it. They will never give their opinion, nor share their intuitions. The others will share their opinions and intuition hits once in a while if the client wants to hear and if it is relevant. Though I have a lot of admiration for purist coaches, I wonder about the effectiveness of the overall sessions. How long does it take for a client to be fully empowered without direct feedback? How long will it take them to embrace their uniqueness on their own?
Most other coaches find the incredible subtleties of coaching is when is the right time to give your insight, when do you share your intuition and when is it alright to refer to outside sources. It is very subtle. Have I said it was subtle yet? It is! You don't want to influence your client, yet you want to check in to see if something that came up could be of importance. You need to present it in a neutral way and by asking if it is important to them at all.
All in all, I love it! It's like dancing an intricate and fascinating tango. It's genuine curiosity, care and interest in someone else's life. It's one step to the right, three to the left, one forward and sometime two backwards. It twirls and whirls and somehow you eventually get to the Holy Grail, the deeply rooted aspiration, that magical "Ah ha" moment. After that, it's time to custom build a personal strategy on how to achieve those goals.
Ah the subtleties of coaching. It makes me smile to think how obvious the value of true coaching will be in a few years.
Schipske To Host Lakes, Ponds And Wetlands Task Force Meeting
Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske will host the districts
Lakes, Ponds and Wetlands Task Force meeting on May 28. Community
members are invited to help organize the Lake Clean-Up Day, which will
be held in June, and to learn more about the Do Not Feed the Duck
educational campaign. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the El Dorado
Branch Library, 2900 Studebaker Rd. For more information, call
562/570-6932.
Source: Long Beach Business Journal