| Whole new ball game for South Salem's Haugen
Terry Haugen has more to learn about coaching. You might think that in his 25th year at South Salem -- 23 in baseball, including 15 as head coach, and eight as head football coach -- there wouldn't be many more tricks you could teach him. Haugen retired as baseball coach in 2005, his son Aaron's senior year. But then South Salem softball coach Scott McCormick, after having Haugen help out at open gyms before the 2006 season, got the bright idea to ask Haugen if he wanted to help out. You see, Haugen's daughter, Kristen, is a standout third baseman on the softball team. "I kind of talked to his daughter first. I said, 'I want to ask your dad to help out,' " said McCormick, last year's national softball coach of the year. "He's old school like me. He's got a lot of the same ideas." Haugen said yes to joining the varsity staff that also includes Kellie Powers.
White Sox outmatched from the start
CHICAGO -- Following Cleveland's 12-5 shellacking of the White Sox before an Opening Day sellout of 38,088 on Monday at U.S. Cellular Field, the first postgame question asked of catcher A.J. Pierzynski was whether Jose Contreras' horrific start stemmed from location issues. "You can start with that," said Pierzynski with an uneasy smile. Simply put, anything that could go wrong did for Contreras during the first Opening Day trip to the mound of his career. All the excitement and frenzy built up around what figures to be a promising 2007 season for the White Sox was put to a sudden halt on the second pitch of the game, when Grady Sizemore became the first Indians player to hit a leadoff home run on Opening Day since Julio Franco did so off Charlie Hough in Texas on April 8, 1984.
Children's festival is more than free fun
In a time when it costs a small fortune for family entertainment, there's a local event coming up that will really pay off. It's the 26th Annual Northern Colorado Children's Festival on Saturday at Island Grove Event Center, and every family is invited to attend. Best of all, it's free.
No doubt you're wondering what the catch is. Is someone going to try to sell you something? Is some group going to try to convert you to a religious belief? The only goal of this event is to help families interact and have fun together in a positive way.
Positive fun? What does that mean?
In our multimedia society, sometimes families forget that the true source of learning is one-on-one interaction with their children ... and that means playing together! At the festival, there will be dozens and dozens of booths where children and parents can participate in activities that help develop a wide variety of skills.
Our schools: The real makers of lethal weapons
Soon after the school shootings at Jonesboro, Ark., and Springfield, Ore., were reported, the American media began rounding up the usual suspects: guns and, by implication, the National Rifle Association and the parents who allow their children access to guns. Since then, school killings in the U.S. have become a common occurrence, and both the national media and gun control advocates keep chanting the mantra that access to firearms is the main reason for the killings. The killings, they claim, are a reminder of the terrible price we all pay for the lax gun control laws in our nation. It is interesting to notice, however, that the self-appointed "gun control advocates" are actually "selective gun control advocates." When they talk about gun control, they don't have in mind controlling the guns in the hands of the government, only in the hands of private citizens.
THE PAPER'S 2007 BOYS BASKETBALL PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: Feeding off ...
But that hasn't stopped the two North Montgomery High School boys basketball players from remaining the best of friends. Sutherlin, a junior, is reserved and workmanlike. Byrd, a sophomore, is more outgoing and talkative. But when you talk to them together, they become one - even finishing each other's sentences. But besides feeding off each other's personalities, they also feed off each other's play. With the combination of Byrd's dynamic scoring and defensive abilities along with Sutherlin's consistency in the post, they have earned The Paper of Montgomery County's 2007 Boys Basketball Co-Players of the Year. "As a tandem, we're pretty hard to guard," Sutherlin said. "When you have two guys on the same floor who can do the same thing, it makes us pretty tough to guard.
Mental Health Department sets up center to deal with computer game ...
The Mental Health Department sets up a center to prevent children from being addicted to computer games. VCDs on how to look after children in the cyber age have been distributed to parents. Director-General of the Department of Mental Health, M.L.Somchai Chakrapan ( ѡþѹ) says obsessive computer game playing affects childrens learning and health. The children who play too much computer games also have a tendency to aggressive behavior. He says the main cause of this kind of addiction is the childrens lack of discipline and responsibility. To solve the problem of excessive computer game playing, the Mental Health Department has assigned the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Rajanagarindra Institute to set up the center for the prevention of addiction to computer games in children. The institute has given out 30 minutes-long VCDs to give advice to parents on how to deal with obsessive computer game playing.
19 years later, son of highway killing victim seeks justice
PETER PEREIRA/The Standard-Times Donald Santos Jr. wants the district attorney to exhume the body of his mother, Mary Rose Santos, one of nine women murdered and dumped along the highways in Southeastern Massachusetts from 1988 to 1989, for DNA analysis, which he hopes will lead to her killer. A book about the highway killings, Killing Season: The Unsolved Case of New Englands Deadliest Serial Killer, is open to a page with photos of the victims.PETER PEREIRA .
The Game Plan 04.20.07: The Death of Exclusives, Part One
As third-party exclusives become a thing of the past, what are the console companies doing to convince gamers their system is number one?
I have committed a heinous oversight that must be corrected before this column can continue. I need to give a big shout-out to good friend and loyal reader Ryan Holliday for cluing me into the fact that 411mania.com was hiring in the first place. He's part of the reason I'm even writing this columnso direct all hate mail to him. Thanks for the tip-off, buddy (and for a great idea for a future column). When I was a kid, there were two video-game powerhouses: Nintendo and Sega. Unless you had really cool parents who would buy you both systems, you had to make a difficult choice between the two. Aside from a few exceptions (most of them published by Acclaim, interestingly enough), it was rare to see a game appear on both the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis.
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