Welcome

Welcome to the home page for Jo Chiti and Tim Graf, appropriately named chiti-graf.net. We'll try to keep our home page updated so that friends and family can keep up to date with our goings on. Since this is the site for all things Jo Chiti and Tim Graf, if you are not a Chiti or Graf, or you are not related to a Chiti or Graf, or you are not a friend of a Chiti or Graf, well then, this site will probably bore the hell out of you. Even if you are one of the above I can not grantee that this site will interest you at all, so peruse at your own discretion.

So I moved 2007 news to a separate page. See the link at the bottom of this page. How much scrolling should someone do on one page anyway? I like the new layout of our web site. It does make it easy to keep previous content while updating the site.

I'll have more content to come and hopefully more frequent updates in the future.

News

7/27/2008

We've had a visitor for the past couple of days. He or she has been hanging out on our patio and doesn't seem to be bothered by us much which is pretty obvious given how close I was able to get to take this photo.

6/24/2008

Well there has not been much news lately. Stanley is still a tennis ball obsessed Labrador Retriever. Jo has braces, in her on-going quest to improve herself. I am still working, loving my job, and playing soccer as regularly as possible. My co-ed league is off until the fall. My men's team is finally starting our summer season. We had to forfeit our first game while we were trying to finalize our roster. Our team manager found it difficult to manage a soccer team after having a new born daughter so the responsibilities have fallen on me. So in honor of the new season I updated our team logo. I don't do much for an artistic outlet these days so soccer team logos will have to do.

5/31/2008

Well the East Bay Men's Soccer League has ended for the spring season and our team the Red Devils finished with 4 wins and 6 losses. We won our last three games, defeating the best team in our division in our last game today, so I think our team really started to come together near the end of the season. Given we were a new team this season I think we did well. We'll see how the summer season goes. The following two team photos were taken from our last two games. We had folks missing in both games so a complete team photo wasn't possible.

3/13/2008

Well thank god someone came to their senses and brought back Major League Soccer to Northern California. The San Jose Earthquakes are returning for the 2008 season of MLS and we couldn't be more excited. The pictures below are from one of the pre season games against the Houston Dynamo at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

This is our friend Justin enjoying a pint or two before the game at the Kezar Pub. That pub was busy and packed with soccer fans. The 1906 Ultras, a rabid fan group, just made the scene that much more crazy.

Jo and I at the game. Yes it was a bit cold that night.

2/21/2008

Oh happy days. There is nothing better, at least in Stan's mind, than finding a tennis ball while out on his evening walk. Not that he's deprived or anything. He has more tennis balls than he knows what to do with.

2/11/2008

It's funny how the odds work out isn't it? I borrowed this from Wikipedia for the game of roulette which Jo and I played exclusively while we were in Vegas.

The house average or house edge is the amount the player loses relative to any bet made, on average. If a player bets on a single number in the American game there is a probability of 1/38 that the player wins 35 times the bet, and a 37/38 chance that the player loses their bet. The expected value is: -1*37/38 + 35*1/38 = -0.0526 (5.26% house edge)

The house edge should not be confused with the hold. The hold is the total amount of cash the table changes for chips, minus the chips taken away from the table. In other words, the actual "win" amount for the casino. The Casino Control Commission in Atlantic City releases a monthly report showing the win/hold amounts for each casino. The average win/hold for double zero wheels is between 21-30%, significantly more than 5.26% of all players' money because players are making repeated bets after winning and losing portions of their total money. This is known in the casino gaming industry as "churning".

So Jo and I took $1,000 to gamble with in Vegas and we came home with about $700. So Vegas got their 30% from us on this trip. Not a bad business, right?

Now the real question is what are the odds of finding really good Sushi in the middle of the desert? This picture was taken at a Sushi restaurant in Harrah's, ... hands down some of the best sashimi I have ever had.

2/4/2008

The big game on the big screen. Well the game projected on an 80" diagonal screen in high definition was impressive enough but the game itself was just amazing. That had to have been the best Super Bowl game I have seen and that last drive by the Giants was just legendary.

So back to the home theater, here is the technical information if you are interested and a couple of more photos of the screen and projector.

1/9/2008

So I couldn't resist this when I saw it. This is my attempt at creating Jo and I as Simpson's characters. Create your own at www.simpsonsmovie.com.

1/3/2008

Happy New Year! So we brought in 2008 at our friend's house Lori and Neal. They are such a riot to hang out with. Neal kept Jo in stitches most of the night with his crazy stories. This is Jo, Neal, Ramsey, and Robin.

Our hostess, Lori, and friends roughly around midnight as they were toasting the New Year.

Those crazy Midwesterners and their shots of well ..., who knows what these were. They came after the Jager Bombs.

If you are interested in stuff from 2007 then check out the following link. 2007 Chit-Graf News