Cal Wins Big Game!

 Cal 41, Stanford 11

Go Bears!

124th Big Game Today

 Go Bears!! 

Here's to my team mates on the 1973 JV/Frosh Team under Coach Carl Van Heuit

Good News from our Rep. Barbara Lee

This week's good news from our representative in Congress!

Preparing for 20-plus mile Kayak Voyage around Alameda

 I am preparing for a repeat of my 2013 SF Bay kayak trip around Alameda. In 2013 I paddled my Perception "Sparky" kayak on the 'round Island route accompanied by Keith McCoy of Alameda and his brother. 

Perception "Sparky" 9 ft. kayak
(now 19 yrs old and still going strong)

Our journey, as marked below, took a little more than 5 hours.

Yesterday's (Sunday) training session, still in "Sparky", launched on the Oakland side of the High Street Bridge and went into San Leandro Bay against an ebb tide.

High Street Bridge launch site in background

Channel Marker 1 in Estuary Channel 

I plan to make the trip on favorable tides during the last week February or second week of March. Several dates will be identified in case of weather delays.

 

Veteran's Day 2021

 

Retired from the Pharmaceutical Industry

After 41 years in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industry, I have retired. I entered the industry as a technician at Cutter Laboratories plasma center in Oakland before moving to Bio-Rad Laboratories where I worked for 10 years in manufacturing and quality/regulatory. Cetus and Chiron were my next assignments for 12 years. With these biotech companies I had the privilege of being part of the Proleukin, Betaseron and Menjugate vaccine product approval and manufacturing operations. 

In 2004 I began to provide quality and compliance service to start-up development companies, traveling the world working with contract manufacturers, laboratories and distribution depots for a wide range of new drug product. 

I am extremely thankful for the good people with whom I worked across the US and around the world.

Good News from Oakland's St. Elizabeth School

Students at St. Elizabeth's are coming back into the classroom after a year of COVID-19. The return of in-classroom learning is rolling out thanks to the hard work of Principal Lynne Mullen, her hard working teachers and staff and staunch support from parents!

94601 was hit particularly hard by COVID-19 but recent months improvement in controlling the virus' spread have allowed for a return to in-classroom learning. The empty school yard will hopefully return to the once bustling play area as students return to 34th Avenue. Here is a message from Principal Mullen from this last week.

We are sailing along! Our reopening is going extremely smoothly. We now have students in grades K-4 back in class. Next Monday, Grades 5 and 8 will return, and Grades 6 and 7 will return the following Monday. We have held three parent meetings (K-2, 3-5, and 6-8) and have shared our plan and answered parent questions. Our parents have been wonderfully supportive. 

Thanks to a generous donor friend of Sr. Regena, we have an air purifier in every classroom. 

Thanks to the Dominican Sisters' Vision of Hope Book of Dreams and donors like you, we have two water-bottle filling stations which have replaced water fountains in the school for more sanitary dispensing of water. 

We also have been able to purchase desk shields for teachers and students, outside sinks for hand-washing, hand sanitizer dispensers for every classroom, an electrostatic sprayer for sanitizing the classroom every morning, and crates for students to keep their backpacks and lunches in so they don't have to use their lockers or cubbies. 

We have placed yellow dots marking 6 feet all around the campus, on benches, in the cafeteria, and in the hallways, to help students keep their physical distance from one another. We have hired additional staff to supervise recess and lunch so that the teachers can have their break. We have about over 100 students planning to or already have returned to campus, and we have more than 80 student who have chosen for the moment, to remain home for remote learning.

St. Elizabeth has been providing Catholic education to Fruitvale area children (including me, back starting 60 years ago).

St. Elizabeth still follows that mission today, meeting the challenge of serving its students even in the most trying time.