The Jukebox at the Bar

I miss old fashioned jukeboxes. You know the kind--you hit a button and flip the 'pages' with pictures of album covers. You could play track 4 on side B of the album you bought because you liked the number one hit you heard on the radio, but track 4, side B became your favorite song. Years pass and you forget about that song, but on a jukebox, you could always find it again. The new high-tech jukebox at my favorite Irish bar is digital. Sure, it's pretty, it's fancy, it's new,and it has thousands of songs, but you basically have to know the song or artist you want to play. You can't flip through, see something you'd forgotten about, and think 'Wow, I used to love that song! I'll play it now'. It's just not as much fun, and it's a dollar a song!! So much for nostalgia!

Online Dating

Are you into the online dating thing? I'm not. Did it once maybe 10-12 years ago and went on one date--never again. Not that it was some horrible experience, but the guy was so damn irritating that I'd prefer to take my chances meeting someone randomly. But, sometimes when I'm bored, I'll look at some of the free sites for a laugh. Found a perfect one, NOT! This guy absolutely takes the cake. On this site you have to answer questions by completing sentences. Obviously not an easy task for some people. The sentence starts "I have a weakness for girls who..." He writes "women with intelligent." WTF!!! I almost want to fork over the $25 so I could write him and ask "Women with intelligent what? Pets, kids, what?" Anyhow, I doubt many women with intelligence want to date a moron. And if you are a moron who wants to upgrade to a higher caliber date, at least enlist the help of a friend to proofread your profile so you don't look like an idiot. He must have done that, after the fact, because he changed his answer. It now reads "are honest and wear there heart on there sleeve just like me." Good Lord--he went from bad to worse! Basic English, people! Isn't it 3rd or 4th grade when you learn the difference between there, their, and they're? Maybe he skipped school that year. Thanks for the laughs, guy--and good luck with that dating thing!

Rose Bowl Week and So Cal Weather

It's that time of year again--Rose Bowl Week. The tourists have already started arriving and the weather, as usual, has changed. It has become unseasonably warm. This is NOT normal. Everyone who is freezing in the rest of the country sits in front of the TV and watches the Rose Bowl Parade, the game, the sunshine and the t-shirts in January, and thinks "Let's move to LA!" DON'T DO IT!!! It's a trick! Don't be fooled! This warm weather and sunshine is an anomaly! Sure it's warm and sunny this week, but winter comes back when you aren't watching. No one who lives here actually wears a t-shirt in January--that's insane!! It's cold! My advice to you is to sit in your warm living room on your comfy couch, and watch our nice weather on TV--knowing that next week we'll be freezing and miserable. Happy New Year! And stay warm! ;-)

The Dogs on my Run

I run in the mornings at 6am before work each day. There is a lot of activity on the streets at that time, but my favorite part is the dogs I encounter along the way. The first one I meet, and Thank God he's not out very often, is a football-sized cotton ball: tiny, fluffy, curly white fur. He. Does. Not. Like. Runners. The thing goes absolutely APESHIT! The old lady who walks him holds onto the leash for dear life (mine). Fortunately, his mouth is too small to bite anywhere on my legs, and he is too little to jump high enough to bite my fingers. I assume it's a 'he' because I can't imagine a girl being such a vicious killer, which is my nickname for him. The second dog I see is a beautiful, well-behaved shepherd who runs and plays catch with his owner on the greenbelt at the college across the street from my house. I like this dog because he accepts runners and minds his own damn business. The third one is a gorgeous Golden Lab. He goes to work with his owner at the business complex near the end of my run. He is wide awake, rambunctious, and playing frisbee in the parking lot at 6:30 in the morning. He also lets me run in peace. The last dog I meet is Buffy. I heard her owner call her one day, so that's how I know her name. (I think Vicious Killer's name is "Stop It", as that is what his owner says to him all the time!) Anyhow, Buffy is an off-leash dog. I don't like meeting off-leash dogs as a runner because they usually don't like runners and you never know what they are going to do. Also, I think it's dangerous--we have a lot of coyotes near my house, who like to have pets for breakfast, so a leash is safer for both runner and dog. Buffy is not a smart dog. She is overly concerned with someone getting into a car on the other side of the street, completely oblivious to to a person quickly approaching on her side of the street. I could mug her owner and I don't think Buffy would notice. She is hell-bent on watching people across the street. And that makes me laugh on my final 100-yard stretch. So that's it: my four-legged morning gang. I love that they are out there--they keep me amused.

My Hometown

Yesterday, the Brookings Institute named my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, number one in percentage of poverty concentration, the poorest of the poor among 100 larger cities in the United States. I didn't expect the article and the story on The Rachel Maddow Show to affect me so much, but it really made me want to cry. I admit, even as a little kid, I wanted to leave Youngstown. All I ever wanted was to live in a huge city by the ocean with football and hockey teams. I wanted it to be New York City but I ended up in Southern California. There's no football here, but I've got the beach, hockey and futbol (soccer), and I can play golf year-round. I'm happy here, but I'm so sad for Youngstown. It was fun growing up in the murder capital of the US, alongside the mafia. Although that looks like childs-play compared to the situation now. It was a far more innocent time then. Regardless of the fact that I wanted to leave, part of who I am is because of the place I'm from. Youngstown helped shape the person I am today. Every day, on the TV, in the papers and on the internet, we get news about the Occupy Movement in cities across the US. The place I'm from, and place I live, point out Occupy's premise of the extreme and growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. There is a house for sale in a city near me on the market for $32 million, and Youngstown has nearly 50% of their poor living in extreme poverty: neighborhoods with no jobs, no stores, no hope, nothing but blight, and no way out. Where is parity, where is fairness, where is the middle ground? Where is the American Dream? Does it exist anymore for the dwindling middle class? I don't think I live as well as my parents, and my generations' children probably won't live as well as I do. How do we get back to where Youngstown is the place of my youth--a place with world-class medical facilities, a great university, a vibrant downtown, a place where you could skate at an ice rink, swim at a public pool, cruise through a beautiful park, live for Friday Night High School football, and eat the best Italian food ouside of Italy? How do we regain that ideal? I don't know the answer - I wish I did.

A Great Day Off

I took a day of vacation today to volunteer at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands first kayak clean-up of the season. I used to do the clean-ups and the educational tours when I was unemployed, and I really miss everyone there. It is a great group of people who both work at the conservancy and volunteer there. So today was a good excuse to get out of the office, see everybody, get some exercise, and do good for the environment. And it was a flawlessly perfect Southern California morning: clear blue skies, high tide on glassy waters, and temperatures in the high 50s. We had eight volunteers who had never kayaked before, so I taught them the basics and set them on their way with plenty of trash bags -- and life jackets! I got to take off by myself in a 2-person kayak. That gave me a lot of extra room in the boat to load up trash. I gave myself the prize for the best thing fished out of the water: a 4-foot long traffic pylon thingy (technical term) probably used to mark a race route or block traffic from tree-cutting, along with the yellow caution tape that was wrapped around it. It was full of water and really heavy, and after a few tries, I finally hauled it into my kayak, without tipping over! WooHoo!! The really weird thing was tennis balls--tons of them! I must have picked up at least thirty balls. I'd see one floating in the middle of the bay, and I was hell-bent on getting it. I was kayaking in circles chasing after these damn balls. Another kayaker told me he picked up at least 25 tennis balls. I wondered where the tennis tourney was--and who dumped all the balls. Other than the trash, it was beautiful out there. There were lots of ducks, a great egret who made a sliding water landing right in front of me, and a bunch of jumping fish. I love being out there on these clean-up days--the only time humans can be in the restricted waters of these protected nesting grounds. It was so much better than being in the office!!

An Evening in Minneapolis

I arrived in Minneapolis with zero airline issues—which is a miracle for me! And both my flights were arrived early. My $17 shared-shuttle ride into the city only took 20 minutes and I was ready to explore a new destination. Minneapolis is a great city, friendly, walkable, international, and small enough to easily get around. I strolled down Nicollett Mall from my hotel—basically to get some exercise after sitting on a plane all day. Love the art and sculptures in this city—took a picture of the Mary Tyler Moore statue and figured out the route to the sculpture garden for tomorrow morning. Didn’t find the Brownsbackers bar, but that was because I didn’t take the name of it with me on my stroll, although I did find the street, so it should be easy to find after my river cruise tomorrow afternoon. After my walk, I stopped into a British Pub and got a Guinness. The best way to make friends when you are alone in an Irish or British Pub is to drink a Guinness. I’d only taken one sip when a gentleman came up to me and said “Are you drinking a Guinness?” I said “I am—it’s good for you”. He said “It’s the drink of champions!” I agreed. Then I met another ‘on a business trip’ person and chatted with him for a while. My Guinness was finished and the bartenders steered me toward the French restaurant next door for dinner. Steak au Poivre was the special, and I even ate the roasted brussel sprouts! The entertaining part was that my window seat afforded me a view of the Rolls Royce parked on the street, and the guy who was checking it out. He peered into the window, walked to the corner, then came back and circled the car. At first I thought he was casing it, then I came to realize, he was guarding it. He stayed within 20 feet of that car the entire time I was eating my dinner. Nice work if you can get it, I guess!! More to follow later on the rest of my time in the city.