For his commencement speeches this spring, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef hitched a ride with the hit Disney-Pixar movie Cars. He noted the movie's theme, "The journey in life is the reward," and offered this bit of advice to graduates: "Along the way, roll down the window, turn up the music and enjoy the ride."

The Sacramento Business Journal found itself ahead of history in a June 26 article on JRP Historical Consulting, a Davis company that worked with UC Davis on the relocation of the university's historic hog barn. The article noted that the two-story, 91-year-old hog barn, at its new site, "became an office building." In fact, the restoration is still in progress. The building, near the Silo, is destined for use for staff training; the project is due for completion in April. The article, a history of JRP Historical Consulting, notes that UC Davis history professor W. Turrentine Jackson hired two of his former graduate students as consultants in the business 25 years ago, when it was Jackson Research Projects. Those students, Rand Herbert and Stephen Wee, are now principal owners of JRP, according to the article. Jackson, a leading scholar on the American West, died in 2000.

Dateline editor Clifton B. Parker came home a winner recently from Las Vegas — not from gambling, but from a two-day gaming tournament that was all about baseball. Among 16 players from around the world, he emerged as champion of the second annual Las Vegas Strat-O-Matic Tournament. In Strat-O-Matic, players form teams of major-leaguers past and present and compete in ballgames in which dice dictate the action, based on the ballplayers' real statistics. Parker's prize: a statuette of legendary Jackie Robinson sliding into home plate. The prize is another piece of baseball history for Parker. He is the author of two baseball history books: Fouled Away: The Baseball Tragedy of Hack Wilson, and Big and Little Poison: Paul and Lloyd Waner.

Rhoda McKnight, director of communications for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is retiring after 10 years on campus. McKnight, who has a design and writing background, developed a wide-ranging communications program for the college during her tenure. She also was well-known for having many friends and contacts throughout UC Davis. "I'm leaving my university career feeling really good about my successes and grateful for the relationships I've developed," McKnight said in an e-mail thanking those who attended her June 28 retirement celebration. "Think of me sitting in my backyard each morning reading my newspaper and listening to the birds tweet."

Sheri Canevari, the advertising and marketing manager at the UC Davis Bookstore, reminds readers that Microsoft Office Select is now available at the bookstore's computer shop to all UC Davis staff and faculty at the student prices of $69.99 for Office Standard and $79.99 for Office Professional. This is 53 percent and 84 percent off the retail prices respectively, she noted One needs to show a valid UC Davis ID when purchasing the software.

Brian McCurdy, the former Mondavi Center director, is leaving his position as executive director of the Gallo Center for the Arts after nine months on the job. In September, he begins a new job directing a performing arts center at Purchase College, which is in the State University system of New York. McCurdy, who arrived at the Gallo Center in Modesto last October, is the second executive director at there to resign after less than a year.