PrivateTim

I know there is a topic on "Why I love Mark Arbour" that we are not supposed to respond in (although I don't quite get why not), but why I love GA is part of why I love Mark and his writing and being into the story as he writes it. I love reading and read a lot of non-GA stuff. Patrick O'Bryan was a favorite, which is one reason I loved the Granger series, as was Bernard Cornwell with his Sharpe series. Alexander McCall Smith is one of my current obsessions and I am reading three of his series, rotating through books. What is frustrating is that I can't provide feedback to Mr. McCall Smith as he writes his stories and get feedback back from him. I would love to give him feedback on his characters Isabel Delhousie and her niece and lover (two different people) and Bertie and his father and mother and get an idea of where his head is at. It is so nice to be able to dialogue with Mark and get an idea of how and why things happen the way they do and even cooler, I think Mark takes the feedback seriously and makes changes in his stories because he has considered the feedback. That is so unique in the world of literature. I wonder what it would have been like to have chatted online with Dickens online as he wrote his serialized stories.

Josh has dimples, he can't be evil.... that is a well known fact.

Wow, such Machiavellian machinations. Yeah, yeah... big scene coming up with mommy, I am more ready for the big scene with Josh

I simply think Mark hasn't concentrated on that part of the story. Darius didn't have bad grades or SATs, he would never have gotten into an academy if he did and Santa Clara isn't for slouches. We really haven't seen Will and JJ's inclinations to school and studying etc. Having parents like Brad and Robbie and JP for a grandfather they have grown up in the environment of rarefied universities. They don't have to be all panicky like the poor kid from Montebello High School or Bell High School whose parents probably did not go to college or probably did not go to an elite university. Again, that is an oversimplification, but I grew up in an environment not unlike Will and the kids. It was never a question of were you going to college, but where. Everybody in my family went to college. All my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc, not one isn't a college grad and several went to prestige universities. The point I am making, is that because of that, it wasn't something you dwelt on. It just was what it was. College was the next step of your life. I stressed more about where to go to grad school that I did undergrad when I was 15. Bringing it back to Will and JJ. I think the academic environment at H-W will keep them in line and keep them focused. And again, just because Mark doesn't talk about it a lot, doesn't mean that Brad and Robbie don't take an acute interest in the kids academics. Their simply isn't time enough to go into detail about every aspect of their lives. It is likely that the boys went with Brad and Robbie on trips back east where they went to events at Princeton and Yale. It is likely that they have been to many Stanford football games with JP as would be expected due to JP's standing at the university. It is also THE thing to do in Palo Alto in the fall so even if JP didn't go (which he would) Will would have gone with Jack and Claire and John.

The way it works in CA is that the the UC has the mostly useless undergraduate majors (Art History, Philosophy, Statistics, etc) and the state universities have the practical undergraduate majors (Accounting, Physical Therapy, Engineering, etc). It is a gross oversimplification, but largely true. If Tiffany were to be an agent, she'd do the combined JD/MBA at UCLA or she would take Integrative Biology and Physiology for coaching. Long Beach State is where people go for physical therapy, etc. It has one of the finest schools in the country for it. What I would call the practical programs, Management, Engineering, Architecture, etc kick in at the graduate level. The School of Nursing is a legacy program.

Wow, who pissed in Jeremy's Cherios? It might be frowned upon to go to the same school for law school as you did for undergraduate, but not that much and certainly not at top tier schools like Harvard, Yale. Columbia, Stanfurd, Cal and not even at the USC, Duke and UCLA tier. It hasn't been easy to get into Cal ever, not even in 1960's or before, it has always been an elite school and if you were not a top 2% student at your high school and didn't have SATs to die for (1500+ in the old system) you weren't getting in unless you were a football or basketball star. I think it makes sense for Wade to stay in the Bay Area for law school and I would love to see him at MoFo for an internship because Mark Arbour could just have so much fun with that name. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe could be an interesting one too for its West VA connection I feel badly for Tiffany, she has to be having postpartum blues and feeling like just a breeding cow with nothing going for her. She isn't a trophy wife for a rich guy so she can just go to Pilates and plan cocktail parties in their fabulous house, she doesn't have a great career and I forget her level of education. I think Wade needs to motivate her to do more, maybe go back to school As to JJ and his future, in general I say it would be hard for a Malibu kid to move to a place like NYC, but while we haven't seen a lot of JJ, I do recall any attachment to the beach of lifestyle that Will has. I think it will be impossible for Will to leave CA because of how important surfing is to him. JJ on the other hand I can see in NYC because it is an amazing place when you have the money to pay $8 million for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment on the upper east side. But I can also see JJ in Paris just as easily or maybe more so.

Interesting. Lots to chew on. One thought on the club team. Most clubs teams don't even have paid coaches, the club president is kind of the coach. The big time schools like Stanford and USC that do have paid coaches, the coaches are there for support and to handle the administrative details of the clubs. It isn't like the NCAA program where the coach is God.

Yes they would notice he was gone, you are as much a little DQ as he is And are you kidding? Europe vs AZ? If I had to choose between a water polo (or wrestling) tour, do you think I'd take the European one, even Bulgaria, over a state every time. While H-W is in some senses strict about not missing school, they are also used to dealing with world class athletes and world team members. Many H-W water polo players have been on USA WP world youth, world cadet and world jr teams and have probably even missed some school over it. Coaches too. The old H-W water polo coach was the head coach US Olympic team at one point while he was coaching at H-W and I know he missed time for that.

Cool chapter as always.... it is funny though, the first few paragraphs felt like the first chapter of a book, not the 19th. Just like the old saying goes in law, "a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client" so it goes in money management. Wade needs a good trust company (may I be so bold as to suggest TCW? , and then a specialty consulting firm to help evaluate, hire and manage managers (Callan Associates?). An ordinary accounting firm, even a Deloitte & Touche or PWC, doesn't have the level of expertise that a Callan, Russell or Hewitt does. Wade would do well to hand that off as soon as is practical. Will we get to see Wade's little brother in this book or at least get an update via a phone call? Maybe Wade can enlist him to help with his wicked sister

I am in RJO's camp, just because we don't see all or much of JJ's interactions with Brad and Robbie doesn't mean they are not close to him. Yes Jeannie was all involved of the skating part of JJ's life, but the skating is recent and Brad and Robbie would have been involved in his life in different ways before that. It just isn't credible that the Brad and Robbie characters that Mark has painted would be neglectful of one of their kids. We've seen how they pull in complete strangers, I can't believe those same people would be "enh" to one of their kids.

Toronto, it makes all the sense in the world because I feel the same way. Wade isn't some one who does casual sex easily, I can see him falling for Sean and Sean falling hard for him. It is just a complication in their lives. I was going to bring up the same point. And I'd have gone to the Fairmont. Much nicer

..... would be 13 years old in Palo Alto in 2001. Isn't that John's age?

There is nothing more wholesome and Americana than Disneyland.

Except you forget I am around high school and college peeps all the time because of water polo and I was an advisor at my fraternity house at USC in the early 2000's through 2008, and no one I knew or saw did the upturned collar thing. Anyone who did would have been derided. I wouldn't take David's ho of the week as representative of anything. In 2000 he changed boy toys more often than I changed socks.

here is JJ in his mid-20's or this Drugs are bad JJ

Not in my social circle. Maybe in {cough} Delaware.

No spoilers on the "George" stories, because once I got onto CAP I put George on hold.

Popped collars were gone from CA by 2000. Long gone I would think. That seems more like a late 80's, early 90's thing in CA.

Cool chapter. I still think your average teen boy would be more discrete than Andy is when it comes his longing looks at Joey that instantly tell anyone paying attention that he is a love struck puppy. I am kind of curious what happened to Timmy. His character floats into the story and floats right back out again before getting too relevant or advancing the story.

So I haven't read the next chapter yet, I'll do that next. I do get the need to create drama, but hello..... right after the talk about "hey watch your backs" they say "hey let's go in the woods faraway from help where our cellphones probably won't work". Hmmm. And a minor point, again, I get poetic license and the need to create drama, but if JT was suspended from school, he wouldn't be allowed on campus and certainly not to a school activity like a football game. I am sure the judge gets threats all the time and I am sure that is part of what is going on behind the scenes, maybe even bad blood going back generations as can happen in small towns.

I agree partly, I would modify "only parent he really knows or cares about him is out of the picture" to "the parent we have seen interact with him the most". Just because Mark hasn't had the inclination to write more about JJ due to limitations of time, space and not wanting to have too many storylines going, we don't know what JJ's day to day inteactions with Brad and Robbie are. We've seen a lot of conversations between Will and Brad, a couple where Robbie was involved. We haven't seen such conversations with JJ and I am sure they have existed, maybe different , but I am sure they are still there. Brad and Robbie are simply not the type of men who would completely ignore one of their children. I get that Brad or Robbie wouldn't go to his ice skating practices, but I find it highly unlikely, based on the character of Brad and Robbie that Mark has painted that they would miss too many of his competitions. I know he said something to the effect that they didn't go to JJ's competitions, or maybe it was implied, but that would at odds with the characters he has created. Certainly more than just Jeannie would have gone to St Gervais, that is how the entire Schluter-Crampton clans are. Certainly Stef would never pass a chance to go to France. As to Will's reaction and actions. That is more of what I am talking about as to how this family really is a tight family and why it would be inconsistent for Brad and Robbie to be too competely detatched as some people would paint.

I disagree completely. Just because you are not as close to one child or show special attention, or even pay attention to them, doesn't mean when push comes to shove that paternal instincts kick in. Look at how Will's fraternal instincts kicked in. Ryan is behaving the way I would expect a Harvard-Westlake kid to behave. Not every kid at H-W is a saint, but they don't stay at the school long if they don't behave properly. 99% of the kids I've known from there were very high quality individuals. Granted I knew mostly athletes and those involved in drama, music, dance, etc., but even so I knew a lot of their friends who were not involved in those things and they too were pretty solid kids.

Hot.

I meant "good look", not "luck". Been around a while.

Hun, it is 2001, not 1950..... you could never keep a skater's parentage/family story that tightly under wraps not matter how much USFSA would like to think/pretend they can. People in the local skating community would know who JJ was and who is family is and the fake stories would be a bigger scandal/story than the partial truth that his parents are Brad and Robbie.