My favorite business card

I hope that when I'm a parent I'm as awesome as their parents must have been.

Putting down roots?

Every summer for the past 6 years I've packed up everything I owned and moved. I found that a yearly move pretty much shaped my mindset on materialistic possessions in two ways. First, everything I owned had to fit into the back of a car. Second, I couldn't ever become attached to anything. Everything I owned was temporary and I only owned what I needed.

This is the first summer since I was 17 that I won't be moving. It's a strange feeling knowing that I can purchase furniture and expect to still own it in 5 or 10 years. In my parents house they still have furniture that my dad owned when he was in college. It's a little bizarre thinking that some of my possessions could follow me that long.

I think that at a certain point people become so bogged down by what they have that they can never escape. It's more than just furniture and shit on the walls. When people stop moving and settle into a house, a job, and relationships they eventually become bound by the same things that make their lives comfortable. Item by item, paycheck by paycheck, date by date they slip into the routine.

What scares me is that I can see myself slowly falling into this settled down life and it scares me. Yesterday I bought an ice cream scoop. I don't even have any ice cream in my house. It just makes me think of a scene from the wire where Dennis "Cutty" Wise goes to The Deacon. He sits down and says "I've had this feeling for a long time and it's like I'm standing outside myself watching me do things I don't want to do." Now he was probably talking about murdering people and whatnot. But I see my life falling in this rut where 20 years from now I'm sitting in the same office, driving down the same roads home and wondering how despite all having everything I want, why I still feel like my life was a little too predictable.

Before Cutty says that line above he starts out the conversation by saying "The truth is I don't know what I want. I know I'm looking for something but I can't even tell you what it is." In a certain way that's how I feel. I have a good job, lots of nice things and a pretty awesome girlfriend. So it bothers me that I feel like I'm not living this life to the fullest. Last weekend when Dave was here he told me that I'm going through a quarter life crisis. I don't know about that but I think I need to keep mixing it up before it's too late.

Baseball Cities

I've always lived in cities with AL baseball teams. I prefer AL baseball and there are some great cities with AL teams. I've been thinking the past couple of days about which division in baseball has the best cities in it. If for some reason I had to choose one division in baseball and I had a random chance of living in any of the cities within that division, what would be at the top of my list? I went through and ranked them all based on my perceptions of each city as a place to live not considering being a fan of baseball.

6th - AL Central (Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis)

The AL Central is hard to rank last growing up a Tigers fan, but straight up there are a few cities in the AL Central that I really wouldn't want to live in. Kansas City is lifeless, Cleveland is Cleveland, Minneapolis in nice when it's not 10 degrees outside. I grew up near Detroit but it's still not a city that I would be excited to live in. The only great city in the AL Central is Chicago.

5th - NL Central (Milwaukee, St Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, Chicago)

With 6 teams the NL Cental is nice if you like manufacturing cities located on rivers. None of these cities would be horrible to live in but most of them lack the glamour of a great city. The only cities I'd be excited to move to are Houston and Chicago.

4th - AL West (Dallas, Seattle, Oakland, LA)

In contrast to the NL Central, the AL West only has 4 cities making it a bit easier to rank. It seems like nothing good ever happens in Oakland. Dallas still strikes me as a city stuck in the 1990's. LA is LA, and as much as I hate to admit it would be a really cool city to live in. I live in Seattle so I know that it's a fine place but I honestly feel that it's lacking the character of some of the better cities in the US.

3rd - AL East (NYC, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, Baltimore)

The AL East has 4 cities that I would totally jump at living in. NYC, Boston and Toronto are amazing cities and Tampa is really nice too. But the AL East also has Baltimore. Baltimore really drags it down the list. Maybe I've watched too much of The Wire, but no one wants to live in Baltimore.

2nd - NL West (San Francisco, San Diego, LA, Phoenix, Denver)

There are some great cities in the NL West and I like all of them. The last time I was in Denver I didn't really get a chance to appreciate the city but what I hear/read about Denver is that it's pretty decent. All the other cities I really love. Beautiful cities with great weather and lots of fun things about them.

1st - NL East (Washington, Philly, Atlanta, NYC, Miami)

The NL East really has it all. Each of these cities have been great places every time I've been. I've driven around Philly, but I haven't ever spent the weekend there. The other 4 cities I've been to a fair amount and they are all terrific. There isn't one city on this list that I would be unhappy living in.

I guess I hate on the midwest but with the exception of Chicago most of the cities are depressingly banal. From the view of a 24 year old LA and NYC beat out Milwaukee and Cleveland. Another note, whilst compiling this list I realized that the only MLB City I haven't been to is Toronto.

What do my readers think? Agree, disagree? Just a reminder to keep the comments reasonable. With all the comments on my last few posts I guess I need to remind you guys to not go overboard.

5 Reasons Why Safeco Field is Awesome

In my 2 years living in Seattle one of my favorite activities has been going to Mariners games at Safeco field. There are a lot of reasons I like watching games at Safeco. The good views of the city, the retractable roof, legalized scalping, the airplanes flying overhead to land at SeaTac, the sounds of the trains rumbling outside the stadium. All these are nice but as I continue heading to games I've found there are a few other things that really make going to Safeco enjoyable.

5) No Bad Seats - I've sat in every part of the stadium and so far I haven't found a spot with a crappy view. The cheap seats are still close to the action, and the outfield bleachers are at the perfect height to see the game. There is a great mezzanine level that features a full-service bar which I find to be quite special.

4) Park Location - Safeco is a 15 minute walk from the heart of Seattle and 10 minute walk from the Ferry terminal. It is on the south end of one of the prettiest neighborhood in the city. Right outside the stadium are bars and brewpubs. The stadium is only a couple of blocks from the International District (The PC term for Chinatown). For people not familiar with Seattle taking a walk to Safeco can highlight all the best parts of Seattle.

3) The Beer Garden - In center field there is a terrific beer garden right at field level. Often when the opponent was terrible we would purchase $8 bleacher tickets and just spend all game hanging out in the beer garden. Essentially those games were like going to a decent bar with an $8 cover which by the way happened to have a live baseball game going on inside of it. Like any stadium though you have to mentally get past the fact they you will pay $9.75 for a 20oz Microbrew.

I stole this picture from someone's Flikr. Fair use or whatever.

2) Fan Giveaways - The Mariners organization has typically provided great giveaways. Everything from a Franklin Gutierrez Fly Swatter to free compost (keeping Seattle one of the greenest cities in America). Yesterday was Irchiro replica jersey night and today is Felix Hernandez knit cap night. But every team does giveways. What makes Safeco special is that you can go into the stadium, pick up the free giveaway and then leave the stadium with it. In most stadia fans who arrive early enough for the giveaways resign themselves to waiting in their seats for an hour before the game. At the Safe fans can get the giveaways and then leave the stadium and go drinking before the game.

1) Food - Safeco has always had really good stadium food. The Garlic Fries make the entire concourse smell vampire proof and the Seattle Dogs (dog with cream cheese and grilled onions) are legendary. But that's not what makes food the number one awesome thing about Safeco. The number one thing about Safeco is that you are free to bring in any foodstuffs that you please. You can literally walk into Safeco with a shopping bag full of food. Usually I walk in with a completely unconcealed Jimmy John's sub in my hand. I've seen a guy bring in a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly and makes sandwiches for his entire family inside the stadium. I have no idea why they let people do this, but I'm not going to ask any questions. Letting people bring all the food they want into the stadium is totally awesome and is the biggest reason I love Safeco Field.

This amused me

Every once in awhile they send out these security newsletters at work. They are usually filled with stuff warning us about terrorists and shit. Whoever puts them together is either a 40 year old lady who wears Mickey Mouse shirts or a really high 17 year old sailor. Usually the last couple pages are filled with LOLcats, 90's clip art and random crap. I have no idea how they get sent out via official Navy Channels. The last page of the one they sent out today was simply this:

The image of a drowning sailor whose final thoughts before being consumed by the bosom of the ocean was someone blogging. Now consider all of the levels of irony that comprise this blog post.

Vegas

I spent Memorial Day weekend down in Vegas, doing Vegas-y things. It was about as much fun as ten 24 year old men can have in Vegas. Most of the trip will stay in Vegas (like how I came back missing a toenail), but I did want to share the events of our first night.

Right after dropping off our bags at the MGM we went right down to the casino floor. As a matter of tradition I put $100 on black to test my luck for the weekend. Sure enough it landed black and so it began. We gambled a little bit and drank at the MGM and then went off to dinner at 9 Fine Irishmen in New York New York. We ate a big meal and had a couple of rounds of Irish Car Bombs and Guinness's. Afterwards I think we went back and drank some more in our rooms before deciding to head out. Our destination was O'sheas, for the midget bar pour. In was the first of a fresh weekend tradition where we had to drink beers every time we walked down the strip.

We drank for a couple hours at O'sheas and before long it was 3AM. Being our first night in Vegas, Dave and I went to go gamble for a bit at The Flamingo before calling it a night. Everything after this point is pretty much a blur. At some point we decided to head across the street to The Mirage, and I remember it was still dark. We found a great dealer, and settled in for the long haul. We drank and gambled for hours and at some point decided it was time to go home. When I cashed out I was up $1200. I was elated as I walked out of the casino. I really didn't have any idea what time it was until I went out side and it was sunny out. We grabbed a cab back to the MGM.

I think at this point it was about 7AM by the time we got back into the MGM. Still feeling the high from the big win I thought it best to let the heater ride. I convinced Dave to join me and we spurned sleep to keep gambling. I can't recall how we decided it was a good idea to keep gambling but I'd like to think that it was because we could keep our 14 hour drinking bender going.

Dave and I spent the next 4 hours having the dealer push money across the table to me. I started switching from Red Bull based drinks to Irish Coffee's, Mimosas and Screwdrivers. I can't really remember many of my bets but Dave said at one point I put $350 up and won. By now I was up another $1600 and Dave was starting to get hungry. I started asking the Pit Boss if I could get some breakfast, and really started hounding him to comp me a Bacon Buffet. It was all I talked about for like half an hour. Eventually the pit boss comped Dave and I a meal at the buffet and suggested that I get some sleep. I couldn't argue with him as I was a hungry/wasted/sleep deprived mess. I finally colored up and the dealer gave me a $1000 chip and a handful of $100 chips as well.

On the way back to the room I had so much cash on me, I kept thinking it would fall out. I burst into our hotel room where everyone was sleeping and made it rain. By the time I collected it and counted it, I had cleared over $2800. I wouldn't eat or sleep for another 3 hours and then only a small nap before starting to drink for the next night.

Needless to say, that night in itself was pretty trip defining. I managed to hold on to what I made and came home with a free trip and a few extra bills in my pocket. And that was just the first night.

The fall of the website

You know what really slams my salami? Every 2-3 years I like to go online and check out my old website I made freshmen year of college. It was pretty simple given that I did all the HTML coding by hand. And I don't know how to code in HTML, so it was just a (2x2) table with 4 links. There was an About me, a Music and a Other. But the only page that really mattered was the one that listed all my old High School Newspaper articles. I had meticulously scanned and uploaded every article I wrote for my High School Newspaper, The Lahser Page.

The quality of the scanned images wasn't great but the articles themselves were downright hilarious. Since the newspaper advisor was usually high during the class, we had pretty much total creative control over the articles that got published. The articles were read by the teachers, students, parents and administration. I included in one article how a member of the marching band touched a stinky poo at band camp thinking it was fake. The best part was that it had nothing to do with the actual article. I wrote some really bad stuff, but in a really good way.

Apparently after you graduate you can keep your @umich.edu email, but they remove all your MFile documents. This effectively wiped out the best archival collection of angst-riddled writing I ever curated. I have no idea how to get it back. Even if I can find the original files somewhere, I will forever lose the pithy one line descriptors of each article. That is unless any of you happen to have taken a screen shot of my webpage and filed it away in case this very scenario unfolded. So I ask of my readership did any of you happen to archive my website for me? No?

I'm very distraught that Michigan decided to delete my entire body of work without consulting me first. They can't bother to keep my tiny website hosted for a few years, but Comcast is still hosting the website I made when I was a 14.

http://home.comcast.net/~rusty7887/index.htm

(I will try to find a copy of Cucumber Man and put it on the blog)