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)

Phew, I'm glad I can have my life back

Sorry guys, I passed out for a minute. What happened? Has it really been a month since my last post? I wanted to write a post on my position regarding the role of government in supporting innovation in the field of biotechnology. But unfortunately I'll write about something much more intriguing. No, not recaps of online risk games, or Age Of Empires III. Tonight's topic regards my outwitting of the law.

It is hard to believe that I am finally reaching the point where I can no longer be charged for any of the petty misdemeanors I committed in high school. Michigan's statue of limitations for non-felonies is only 6 years so whatever misdemeanors and frauds I committed before April 26th 2005 I got away with sans punishment. So that time I parked in the handicap spot on November 3rd, 2004 - unconvictable. That one time I got drunk in a friends basement - off scot free. The other time when I killed that guy in the dead of winter just to see the steam rise up from his wounds - actually, I could still go to prison for that one. Statue of Limitations don't apply to murders.

I think I'll receive the biggest relief when 2015 rolls by and I am free of all my rowdy college tomfoolery.

Justice System

Last week I received my settlement from the year and a half long legal battle with my old landlord. Despite the indeterminately large amount of damage we caused to the house over our 2 years, I still got $320 of my security deposit back. It ultimately rested on my landlords terrible record keeping meant they couldn't prove what damage occurred when. They were unethical and terrible landlords anyways. Everyone remembers me dominating them during the door fiasco of 2008 right?

I was throwing out all my old files relating to the case when I came across all my other legal items from college. I kinda forgot how many legal problems I had and subsequently weaseled out of. Student Legal Services is the best $7 of tuition I've ever been charged. I came across speeding tickets from Oklahoma and Iowa, MIP's, Noise Violations. There was the unpaid parking ticked from Chicago. The notice to appear on a trash violation. But then I came across this.

This is a judgement by the 15th district court to reduce a noise violation to a civil infraction of blocking a sidewalk. Around that time noise violations were running us $600-$800 because we were repeat offenders. I'm not sure exactly how I managed to get a loud party reduced to me blocking the sidewalk but I'll take it.

The Roommates: Bricky Bear

Brick moved into our house halfway through my Junior year. He was only a Sophomore but I instantly liked Brick. The main reason was because his nickname was Brick. I never really knew why we called him that but I always liked it.

This is the picture in my phone for when brick calls.
(Note the willingness to go barefoot in BOX)

Normally brick would be looking a little more faux fratty than that image. You see brick came from the marvelous world Michigan greek life. He wasn't very good at being in a frat because they didn't let him go on their date party. So to retaliate he threw a huge party at the frat house while his "brothers" were all out at their date party. Then he proceeded to get hammered and pile all the furniture in the front yard. Somehow a fire extinguisher got thrown against a wall and exploded. The brothers returned from their date party about the same time the Ann Arbor Fire Department showed up to fight the smoke billowing out of the house. The next day Al helped carry his futon down State St. and directly into our basement.

Brick lived in the unfinished basement of the box house for the next 4 months in a tent. He had the tent because of all the rodents and insects down there. And I'll be dammed if he didn't manage to bring a girl down there. He often lamented about his "Box pledge semester" on the Box blog.

At heart Brick was a small child. He marveled at everything in awe and his favorite TV shows are re-runs of The Wonder Years. Often after a Michigan loss he would go to his room and watch them or his other stand-by the 1997 Red Wings Championship Season VHS tape. His youthful unrequited love for all sports Michigan would often have him screaming in a childlike rage after losses. He drank heavily and often did shot challenges with himself. He was one of the best drinkers in Box. Though I did once beat him in a Camo Silver Ice drinking contest.

In March of 2009 we embarked on FLASB09. Brick endured 21 hours of sitting bitch seat in Al's G6 all the way to Florida and back. He spent most of the trip wimpering like a small dog and wooing beached whales. He can be seen in the Dirty Sanchez post picture which was taken on the trip.

Brick brought many things to the house while I lived with him. Mostly girls. But also an innocents that was sometimes shocking. Like the time he put a metal can in the microwave and upon roommate protest said "what? that's what I've always done." Brick was notorious for eating half a can of beans and putting the other half back in the fridge.

Brick never took part in the best things about Box. I think I only saw his penis about 5 times, by far the lowest in the house. He didn't relish in the movie Gettysburg, and he definitely was not hanging out in my room playing AOEIII.

The summer between my Junior and Senior years brick embarked on a quest to win the 1996 world series in Ken Griffey JR Baseball. He played all 162 games and on the day he won the final game we threw a big party. It was the happiest I've ever seen Brick. I even posted about it.

Brick was the best person to play pranks on. His normal response would be something along the lines of "Oh no! Aww shucks fellas." One time he was in Chicago and we decided to fill his room up with unused Keno Cards. It took us many days but but we pretty much covered everything in his room.

I'm writing this because today is his birthday. I could think of 100 more stories about Brick, but I'm pressed for time. Even though I only lived with Brick for a year and a half he still remains one of my favorite roommates. I wrote most of this in the past tense but he is not dead. Unless of course he died tonight.