A-Rod...or should I say A-Fraud!

Ever since A-Fraud left the Mariners, he has become the most hated baseball player to M's fans. Griffey held that title for a little while, but time has healed the old wounds and now Seattle would welcome him back with open arms. No so for A-Fraud. Seattlites still throw fake money and boo like mad whenever he comes to the plate and now that he is a free agent, Seattle isn't even looking his way. I don't blame them. Especially since the latest report puts Arod asking for a paltry 32 million over 10 years AS A STARTING POINT in negotiations!
Sure, I understand that athletes are overpaid. I even understand that at his previous 22 million a year with the Rangers and Yankees, he probably help those teams generate twice that in publicity. That being said.... 32 million a year for 1 player?? That is more than a few team's ENTIRE PAYROLL. The latest word has his agent, Scott Scam-ass screaming collusion saying "owners are purposely teaming up to keep his salary down and are working against him".

REALLY? Are you serious?

It wouldn't have anything to do with the 320 million/32 mill a year over 10 yrs starting block salary that would be keeping teams away would it? Oh no. Not that. It must be collusion.
Whatever.

So where does this leave A-Fraud? Yankees could offer arbitration for 1 year and allow A-Fraud and Scott Whine-ass to save face, however, if I was a betting man, I would give the following odds:

LA Dodgers: 2-1
Only realistic team with needs and enough $$ to sign him for a long term deal. They desperately need a power bad and LA's laid-back lifestyle would appeal to him. Add in the Torre signing and this is the best bet...That and the plethora of strippers on Hollywood Blvd he could cheat on his wife with.

Yankees (1 yr arbitration): 5-1
A saving face move for A-Fraud and his agent. This would allow A-Fraud to try again for FA next year.... Even though I am very much anti-Jeter, I have a feeling this would be a no-go for him and this is one time we are in agreement!

LA Angels: 8-1
Arte Moreno could come in and really give this team a boost behind Vlad with A-Fraud, but Moreno has already said that he won't pay anyone over Vlad and his 15 mill salary out of respect. Probably a smart move!

Boston: 15-1
Boston could step in at the last minute and give him a short term deal just to screw the Yankees (say 1-3 years for around 28/29 mil), but my money is that they resign Lowell...who is much better in the post season anyway and has a less stripper fascination.

NY Mets: 25-1
No way they pay A-fraud for SS or 3B with Wright and Reyes there. Sure they have the money, but they need pitching! Plus NY is way too media-scary for A-fraud.

Deja Vu': 65-1
Plenty of strippers for him and they probably have the cash. However, it will probably all be in $1's and the "3 ugly ones" strippers would probably be the downfall of that deal.

Marlins: 76-1
Sure he is from Miami but come on... Their entire payroll in 2007 was 31 million. Next.

Rangers: 100-1
I think the Rangers have had their fill of A-Fraud, especially considering they still owe him 8 mill and have been paying over 20 million total to him since he left Texas. However, you can never count out Tom Hicks drinking heavily, listening to Scott Dumb-ass's "you need A-Rod" speech, reading that ridiculous A-Fraud pamphlet, and signing him to another stupid, overpriced salary.

Hooters: 245-1
Plenty of stripper-type chicks but they wear too many close for his tastes. Plus the hot wings would ruin his svelt figure.

Mariners: 10,000-1
A cold day in hell....

Sixth sense? Why not something good?

PREMONITION:

1 : previous notice or warning : forewarning
2 : anticipation of an event without conscious reason : presentiment

I'll tell you what's crazy today! So, there Jen and I were walking back to the car from a birthday dinner for Michael (Jen's stepbrother) and on our way back, I just stopped in my tracks about 100ft from my car. "What's wrong?" Jen said. "Something is wrong!" I said. So as I approached the car from the driver's side (which was parked properly between the stalls), I headed to the passenger side of the vehicle (which was impossible for me to see from the direction we were walking). Jen thought I was walking past the car like I have been known to do. "The car is here." She said. "I know. Something is wrong with my car! I don't know what but its something" I responded. As I came around the back end of the car and checked out the passenger's side, there it was, plain as day. A giant "Key scratch" from the right real panel of the car ALL THE WAY to the front panel. Basically, along the entire passenger side of my Chevy Tahoe. SSSHHHIIIITTTT!!!

So, this brings up 2 interesting points. First, how in the name of Nostradamus did I know that something was wrong with my car? and how did I know it was on the passenger side? To this day, I have no idea how. I just knew. I sensed that something was not right. It's like when parents have a feeling that something happened with their kids. What's strange is that I was joking with Jen and talking about who knows what...when it hit me all of a sudden. Call it a 'sixth sense', call it whatever, but it freaked me out when I felt that way and freaked me out even more when I was right! What's strange is that this is not the first time I have been able to predict something happening.

This brings me to my 2nd point. WHO KEYS CARS ANYMORE? What is this? 1984? What kind of juvenile, low-IQ, drunk, no-life having, fu#%nuts feels the need to key someone car for no reason whatsoever? I mean seriously. Who does that? Are you that big of a loser that you need to do this for no reason? I just don't understand people who do this. The good news is that Jen put a "Bad Chi" curse on them so hopefully what comes around, goes around.

Lastly, I have to ask: "Why could I have not 'sensed' when this was going on so I could have taken a maglight to this loser's forehead?" or even better, "Why can I not channel this 'sixth sense' into picking the Mega Lottery numbers?" At least then it would ease my anger...

Contained?

That is the word we are hearing from the local media. It is not fully contained but its getting a lot better. A lot of the evacuated people have now been allowed to go back home.

For us, all we have to worry about is black lung from the 'air quality' that they say is "VERY POOR" and will be that way for a while. Oh goodie! Like being cramped in a small apartment in San Diego surrounded by a fire isn't bad enough.

Gettin' better... kind of...

So, things have cleared up a little bit in the city. You can no longer smell smoke nor see it as clearly. There is still some lingering fog-like smoke lingering in the hilltops, but overall things are ok in downtown. Elsewhere, the fires are slowly being contained and things are improving. Tomorrow, my work is open, so I will be heading back in. Let's hope La Jolla is not as smokey as it was yesterday.

Unfortunately, elsewhere, its still pretty bad. Fires really aren't that contained and flare-ups could still happen. Radio is telling of as many as 1000 people, who aren't evacuatees, are going to the stadium and stealing shit from the people staying there. People standing in the street looking at the charred rubble of their home are being pestered by tourists taking pics of the devastation. What kind of a world do we live in where this kind of shit happens during a crisis? This really pisses me off...

We're surrounded

Thankfully we are far enough away (in downtown) to just get black lung, but 1 MILLION people have been evacuated and its getting worse. It has almost made it to the sea and is starting to surround us. Better get that raft pumped up.

Today, we gave supplies to people going to the stadium to help the evacuated people. If work is closed again tomorrow (day 3), we will probably head down to the stadium or other evac centers to lend a helping hand. 600 sq. miles, 1300 destroyed homes (68,000 threatened), 1 million people evacuated!
Santa Ana winds aren't helping much. Word is that we are in for at least another day of these winds before this dies down. I never thought I would miss the Seattle rain so much; We could use a few drops here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21436901/

But hey, HELP is on the way in the form of Prez. Bush... so we are all saved... :-O

Firehazard!

After spending a leisurely day on Saturday checking out a few of San Diego's many suburbs to scope out potential areas for future house-buying, we felt even more comfortable and excited by our new surroundings. We were also pretty beat due to a lunch margaritas and morning dips in the pool and hot tub. So, we headed home to chill out and discuss our shared enthusiasm for the neighborhoods that we just explored. We had heard on the news that there were some fires in the east, but this was nothing new and relatively small at the time. We had heard of fires in the state pretty regularly over the last several weeks since moving here. On Sunday morning, Jason was focused on making a comeback with both fantasy football teams (he had 50% success, with a loss in the second league by 1 point - typical of Jason's 2007 fantasy sports luck). I was doing a million things around the house and hadn't left except for a morning run to Starbucks. We still didn't realize the scope, mainly because we Tivo everything and never watch the news.

Anyway, late in the afternoon we walked out to the deck to get some fresh air. Unfortunately, the air was anything but fresh. I asked why it was so hazy, since we are used to bright blue skies. I thought it was just overcast or maybe some of LA's smog had reached us. Of course after taking a few whiffs of the air, it was reminiscent of many a college bond fire. This is when I realized that the sky and horizon wasn't overcast, it was filled with smoke. At this point we turned on the news to realize that the fires had spread due to the high heat, low humidity and extremely powerful Santa Ana winds. The next morning (Monday), we were woken up by a call from Jason's boss. She said that the office would be closed and asked Jason to contact his teams to spread the word. We later found out that some of his team had already been evacuated. From there, we realized just how bad it was.

Here is a link to the map shown on our local news indicating the fire zones: http://www.signonsandiego.com/firemap/

Long story short, early Tuesday, about 500 homes have burned and I think about 500,000 people evacuated from these areas in San Diego county. We feel so lucky to be living downtown and close to the water. Of course, looking at the map, our evacuation would seem to involve asylum in Mexico (yikes!) or floating on a raft in San Diego bay. After finally agreeing on a move to San Diego, we are hoping that our stay will be longer than two months :). Otherwise, we are going to need another decade or so to agree on another city and come to a compromise - although, we both really like Aruba. Even though everything we have encountered here so far has been on the bad luck side, we do feel very lucky to be outside the fire's path and are trying to do what we can to help out others during this crisis.

Anyway, just to let everyone know that we are safe and well. We are pretty much hunkered down and keeping an eye on any new developments. The air quality is pretty poor, so it's not a good idea to be outside too much right now. So, of course, we did just that and ventured out to La Jolla (San Diego's mini Bev Hills) to see what it was like near Jason's work (and get some must have sushi - although we had to settle for Red Robin, since Sushi Edo was closed). The air was markedly worse in La Jolla and so we held our breath and closed our eyes (our eyes burned a little) as we walked through the parking lot. We are expecting about the same tomorrow, although things are slowly improving (so they say). The Santa Ana's have died down, and we have more support due to state of emergency status. We even had our first Schwarzenegger press conference, which was pretty weird. I could hear Arnold repeat the word "California" all day! Gotta to give it up to Arnold and Cali, though, - they know how to handle natural disasters in this state. Guess they've had some practice. Well, if Nostradamus got it wrong and the "big one" doesn't hit next week, we look forward to seeing you all soon - here or where you are. We miss you all!

Welcome to San Diego, Stinson Family!

Living in Seattle, you unfortunately sometimes forget to take time to stop and smell the evergreen trees. You don't appreciate what you have and only what you don't have. You want the rain to go, the weather to get hotter, and the drivers on the road to take lessons. This, among the many hundreds of reasons, led the Stinson Family to San Diego, California, where the rain is laughable, the weather is just right, and the drivers...well, we'll get to them in another post.

So here we are. The weather is a sunny 75 degrees in the city every day. Yes, EVERYDAY. We get a nice ocean breeze and the low humidity helps big boys like me....that is, until we arrived on our first day. When we pulled up to our palatial apartment, we noticed it was very hot and humid for a morning in San Diego, or at least from what we perceived on our visits here. It was over 90 degrees at 11am and the humidity was greater than that! After we finished unloading, we looked like we had just went swimming in our clothes. Drenched, exhausted, and second guessing our decision to come here, we made the best of the situation...by, of course, complaining about how hot and humid it was and wishing we could have a little of that Seattle rain. This went on for about 2 weeks. For us non-adjusted people, it felt like a lifetime.

After a while, we got settled and the weather returned to what we had envisioned when we drove 1257 miles to get here. This of course, lasted for a whole 2 weeks before it started to rain. Yes, that is not a misprint. RAIN! Overcast and rain was the recipe for the next 2 weeks. I couldn't believe what I am seeing. I was told it rains about 3 days a year here. Overcast a lot (especially in the city) sure, but not RAIN?? What in the name of all that is holy is going on here???

Finally, the rain has gone, the streets dried up, and the 75 degree, low humidity, cool ocean breeze days has returned. Life is finally good for the Stinson Family...

...until San Diego started to spark.