SoCal Bad Luck Streak

I don’t know what it is about traveling to Southern California for me… but the last 4-5 trips haven’t been so lucky… My little sister, her husband and new little baby Lauren, live in Orange County so I like to visit often… but check out these statistics for my last four trips:

1) Getting out of the car from the airport, I step in a grass covered hole and twist my ankle.

2) While at a popular theme park, a bee flies in my mouth and stings my lip (see previous blog, including pictures of my Angelina Jolie lip)

3) A week prior to another visit, my sister thought she got food poisoning a few days later with her we discovered it wasn’t food poisoning, but a really bad case of the flu… how did we find out? I woke up at 2AM one morning with a really bad case of her “food poisoning” – ugh.

And the latest adventure? The night before I’m took my niece and nephews to Disneyland, we were eating pizza and chomp! Ouch! It felt like rock in my mouth! Shooting pain went through a tooth… “Ouch! What is in this pizza?” I exclaimed. When I thought I was going to fish out a rock, out came a gold nugget! Now I guess some would say with the rising price of gold these days it was good luck, but seeing it came out of my mouth at random, that wasn’t my immediate thought. I quickly figured it out… it was a gold filling I had. Or used to have!

Let me explain, back in the early 90’s a friend of mine was in dental school and begged me to come in so he could practice cleanings. During my cleaning he said, “Ooh I see a cavity I better fill it!” I knew I didn’t have a cavity, but he was just eager to practice. I told him “No way!” I can’t believe he talked me into it by saying he would make it a gold filling. (I guess as a poor college student I thought I’d be more valuable?). It was nothing like you’re thinking.. Not Dr. Teeth from the muppets or anything.

It was a little gold filling on a bottom back tooth. You really couldn’t see it unless I pointed it out. Anyway, it was making its grand appearance now at the dinner table, leaving in its place a gaping hole! Too late to find a dentist, I called my own in the Bay Area the following morning. I told her of our packed agenda of Disneyland rides and my lack of pain. She said to keep the foods soft and opposite side, and if it began to hurt at all, she gave me the number of a recommended nearby dentist. I never had to call, but I did have a tough time finding soft food at the park. I was reduced to the “toddler meal” of rice and chicken and applesauce in critter country. This brought a lot of laughs to my niece and nephews as they chomped their bacon burgers and fries. Long story short, I’m going to the dentist this afternoon. By the time you read this I will no longer have the extra hole in my head I once did, and perhaps a shiny gold nugget around my neck. (I really don’t think so, but this is what my nephew Matt suggested).

Laura Garcia Cannon
NBC11 Anchor

Shout Out To My Peeps

Yo! A shout out to my Peeps.

Yeah, you got it. Those cushiony, multicolored little sugar coated puffy marshmallow confections.

Peeps, Peeps, Peeps. I love

Peeps!

I’m not sure when or where the love for this treat began but as far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved the little bunnies and chicks. (I guess it’s not tough to imagine what a kid would like about a marshmallow covered in colored sugar but I hear not everyone likes them.)

Theory 1: emotional

Being from California, we don’t really have a pronounced change in the seasons but we do have the changing of the seasonal displays at the stores. I always knew spring was approaching because the Peeps would make their appearance at the grocery store. Perhaps I associate Peeps with the great weather and activities that come with spring here in the SF Bay Area.

Theory 2: chemical

As mentioned, these creatures are made up of sugar, sugar and sugar… and air. It could be that my giddy “anticipation of Spring” is actually a “sugar rush” that is mis-associated with said emotion (see Theory 1.) If so, this love for the treats could be more chemical than emotional. Hmmm.

Theory 3: visual

Maybe it was just a surface-deep attraction. The only colors I used to see were yellow and pink. Yellow is often associated with positive energy, joy, happiness and friendship. Pink is often the color of friendship, love and romance. Maybe my romance and love affair was something influenced by the colors after our initial friendship. Did my eyes lead my heart in this matter?

Whatever the source of my fondness for the treats, I now take tremendous pleasure from their arrival each year to search the stores and determine whether or not they’ve added a new color for season. The lavender was okay but the robin’s egg blue and the orange (very similar to the ‘International Orange’ of our Golden Gate Bridge) were truly exciting discoveries. And now, thanks to this extensive research done in the course of writing this blog entry, I’ve found a number of other seasonal variations to keep me happy year round. Ah, the Internet!

These little guys have stood the test of time, and a whole lot of other tests as well. Click here to read up on some pretty rigorous research that has been done on them.

If you want to find out more about these guys, here’s a Big List of Peeps Links. I swear, that’s what it’s called.

Peep ya later,
Mike Inouye
NBC11 Traffic Anchor

Herrera’s Hooligans

Who Are You Calling A Hooligan? You can call me a hooligan, and Paul, Jean, Gary, Julie and Mitch. We’re Herrera’s Hooligans and we’re riding our bicycles from San Francisco to Los Angeles June 1st through the 7th. We’re a team riding in AIDS/Lifecycle 2008 to help raise money for people living with HIV and AIDS. NBC11 is a proud sponsor of the event, and last year I was in the ride solo. But this year great friends and weekend ride buddies signed up and asked me to lead them. How could I say no, what an honor!

We each have to raise $2500.00 to ride. So, we recently had a fund-raising party in Almaden, South San Jose, and we had so much fun! Some our best friends and family were there to eat wood oven pizza, have a good time and support a great cause. I actually had so much fun surprising my team the day before our party. I came up with this fun logo for Herrera’s Hooligans, and I put the logo on t-shirts, tote bags and sun-visors for the team.

We only have about ten weeks before we hit the road with about 2500 other cyclists. It’s such an incredible experience! We usually have about 200 to 300 volunteers who help with everything from bicycle repairs, to preparing meals and setting up camp sites for us along the way. It is a physically and emotionally challenging week.
As a team, we are training and riding often. I will keep you posted on our progress and I will blog along the journey. I hope you can follow along and if you’d like to check out our web site or make a donation, here is the link to Herrera’s Hooligans:

http://www.aidslifecycle.org/149.

Craig Herrera
NBC11 WeatherPlus Meteorologist

Chase

I start many mornings with a good game of ‘chase’ – at 3:15 a.m.We have a little Yorkie who is not quite two. He loves to play. Every morning, just after my shower, but just before I shave – Chip comes into the bathroom, carrying a toy in his mouth. I always like to see what he has selected each day. Most of the time he has his chicken. It used to be a fluffy red, stuffed chicken, but now it doesn’t have any stuffing, no legs and no face. But it is Chip’s favorite. In the picture he has his hamburger.

He comes bounding in – toy in his mouth – and looks up at me with his big brown eyes. If I even glance his way, his little nub of a tail starts wagging a mile a minute. Sometimes he is down on his front paws with his rear end up in the air – tail wagging and big brown eyes looking so hopeful.

I am late for work – but how can I resist. So I chase him. He can’t get away fast enough. He is usually falling all over himself – dropping the toy – trying to scoop it up – and run as fast as he can. He usually darts into the kitchen. I cut across the living room and intercept him at the other end of the kitchen – en route to the dining room. He loves that. He slides as he tries to reverse direction. Back the other way he goes. I cut back to intercept again. He’ll do that two or three times. Then he’ll make a mad dash. He tries to run out of the kitchen before I get to the doorway – scamper across the living room and up the stairs. I like to stomp my feet to make it sound like I’m right behind him. That really gets him going. I think he could play for hours – but I have to call it quits and get ready for work. Plus – its 3:15 in the morning and I’m chasing a dog around the house!

Anyway – people want to know what I do to get ready for the newscast everyday. At some point it usually involves a game of chase during the wee hours when most people are fast asleep.

Brent Cannon
NBC11 Anchor

Thin Mint Junkie

I am addicted and I have a regular supplier.

There, I said it. Isn’t admitting you have an addiction the first step to the cure? The trouble is, I don’t want to get over my addiction. It’s good for my taste buds, but bad for my hips I suppose. I’m a Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint junkie, have been for years. When those little green overpriced boxes of minty goodness show up, my temptations are raised to mow down a whole row! But that’s a big problem, because I love cookies so much, I usually give them up for Lent, and guess what shows up right during every Lenten season?!! Those little adorable girl scouts with their lists of wares! There is no escaping them. They are in front of your supermarket, and your drug store. While I mentioned I have a regular supplier, I even got an ‘offer’ while taking my dog for a walk the other day. A girl scout I didn’t even know, but I couldn’t write my order down fast enough, she was offering home delivery! How big is your Mom’s minivan? My delivery arrived this weekend, now I have green boxes stacked up and ready to rip open, Hallelujah Easter Morning!

Laura Garcia Cannon
NBC11 Anchor

Hats Happiness

I was going through some old boxes in the garage the other day and came across some of my childhood books. I had hundreds of books – I really liked to read as a kid – including the entire Hardy Boys series and a set of Bible stories called Arch Books. One reviewer called them “the greatest story ever told”; I thought they were pretty good.

I also had nearly every Little Golden Book, which were short stories like The Poky Little Puppy and The Little Red Caboose. Poky Puppy has sold more than 15 million copies, according to the publisher.

Looking at the company’s web site, it would appear most of the books I read are now out of print. Many just did not hold up to the test of time. Freight trains no longer have cabooses, red or otherwise; the Little Taxi That Could was a story of a taxi delayed by a coal truck – what’s a coal truck? Meanwhile, the cigar chomping (smoking? In a children’s book?) taxi driver struggles to get to the train station (what’s a passenger train?) while the little boy in back has great fun bouncing around because, of course, there are no seat belts.

Anyway, I came across this Golden Book, called The Happy Little Whale, which is most certainly out of print. In the book the main character is a little
whale, “nine feet long from nose to tail.” In the book, the whale is captured by a passing boat. As we can see in the illustration, she is sad. Sad, sad, sad as she is ripped away from her family by a net.

But then the whale is placed in a pool and fed squid. And then – and this is very exciting – someone gives her a hat and puts her in some sort of show. Now she and a fellow whale “roll and blow spray when they wish, and they do all their tricks for treats of fish.. And squeak for joy, those two happy little whales!”

So, children, we learned that you can make captive animals happy – just give ’em a hat.

Scott McGrew
NBC11 Business & Tech Reporter

Spring Forward!

Brent recently posted a blog about spring and some of his favorite spring spots. Spring is one of my favorite seasons as new life blooms, we have more daylight and oh yeah, ah, er… the time change!

It’s time to transition from standard to daylight saving time already. Spring forward one hour. This year we move our clocks forward one hour on Sunday, March 9th at 2:00 AM. So many people I’ve talked to about this say something like, “oh, already” or “so soon?”

Have you ever forgotten to set your clocks ahead, missed a meeting by an hour on Sunday morning or maybe missed it all together because you slept in? I’m famous for it and I have missed so many brunches, Sunday services, events, etc. My friends now know that if we have something planned, they will call me early to wake me up. I guess the bright side is I have a personal wake-up service on Sunday.

Another question that often comes up when we change our clocks… “is it spring already?” The answer is… we are very close! Spring begins at 10:48 PM (PDT) on March 19th, 2008. But sometimes your calendar will indicate that spring begins on March 20th. Technically it does, but that is only for the Central and Eastern time zones. As many of you know, the day begins in Greenwich, England. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is also called Greenwich Meridian Time because all time zones are measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. Spring begins at 5:48 GMT this year. When we are in Daylight Saving Time, we subtract 7 hours from the GMT to know our time. So if spring begins at 5:48 AM GMT on March 20th, locally spring begins for us at 10:48 PM on March 19th.
Also, spring begins at 1:48AM on the U.S. East Coast, and 12:48 AM in the Central Time zones. That is the reason your calendar may indicate that spring begins on March 20th. If your calendar was published on the East Coast, spring does begin for them on the 20th, at 1:48AM; hence the marking on the calendar.

Happy spring to you and remember to set your clocks forward one hour on Sunday, March 9th at 2:00 AM.

Craig Herrera
NBC11 WeatherPlus Meteorologist

Seuss on the Leuss

In celebration of Read Across America week I was asked to join Mrs. Nakano’s kindergarten class. They invited me to read my favorite Dr. Seuss book in the spirit of “Read Across America Week” which is observed right around Dr. Seuss’ birthday each year. Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) was born on March 2 which was Sunday.

As soon as they set me free from here I zipped up the road (minding the speed laws) to Santa Rita Elementary School in Los Altos. I had a great time meeting the girls and boys, seeing their classroom, watching them work so well together and (perhaps the biggest treat of all) I got to sit in the TEACHER CHAIR!!! In addition to reading the book, we also talked about how very important reading is no matter what you do for work or play.

Thank you all so much for inviting me into your classroom and for sharing your time, and letting me read this story.

What book did I read?

“Green Eggs and Ham”

Truthfully, this was much more of a treat for me than for the kids. I love Dr. Seuss’ use of rhymescheme and how he creatively combines words, or simply makes them up, to get the message across to his audience.

In fact, his style inspired the beginning to one of my first blog entries. Click here for that blast from the past.

Oh, and by the way… check here for the recipe if you ever want to try them.

AH!

You can’t “not like them” unless you’ve tried them.

Mike-I-Am Inouye
NBC11 Traffic Anchor

Stop and Smell the Roses

I thought I’d take a moment to stop and smell the roses – or the blossoms. With so many trees and flowers in bloom right now I was reflecting on my favorite spring scenes.

I remember how my dad enjoyed spring when I was a kid – “spring time in the Rockies”, he’d say. I recall the green wheat fields across from our house and the sound of Meadow Larks singing on a sunny Saturday morning. Of course the spring wildflowers in the mountains are sensational.
I worked several years in the Central Valley and I remember how early spring came. Acres and acres of pink and white orchards in bloom. In fact, in the Fresno – Visalia area people come from all over to tour the blossom trail. I also like the snow capped Sierra with the green hills in the foreground and maybe a palm tree or two.

While doing sports in the South, I loved dogwood in bloom in Atlanta. Fallen blossoms covered the roads like a light dusting of snow, and kicked up behind your car as you passed by.
While in Arizona I found a bloomin’ desert to be spectacular. Many people think of the desert as a hot, forbidding place, devoid of much life. But there are so many plants and animals, and in the spring the desert truly comes alive.

There are so many wonderful blooms in so many great places across our country, but these are just a few of my favorites.

Brent Cannon
NBC11 Anchor