One of Those Days…

Today has been “one of those days.”  A sequence of bad luck events has left me feeling drained, irritable and downright angry.  First is the ongoing saga that started when a drunk moron passed out at the wheel of his car and backed into the passenger door of my (previously) beautiful Crossfire after a Coldplay concert.  I took my car in today after battling with insurance companies for the last week.  He was uninsured at the time the accident occurred; therefore I have to pay my $500 deductible to GEICO and GEICO will go after him to collect.  I estimate the probability of GEICO collecting any amount of money from this “Moises Garcia” to be less than five percent.  But GEICO assures me they will pursue him and use a collections agency.  If he doesn’t pay up, it will adversely affect his credit (allegedly).  It still doesn’t put the $500 back in my pocket.  Argh.

The other major contributor to my gloom today is the death of my Mac Book as I know it.  Yes, the hard drive crashed yesterday and instead of an Apple logo, I had a very sad circle with a line through it (similar to a “No Smoking” sign) pop up on the screen…and then nothing.  Goodbye pictures, iTunes library, resume, etc.  I think the last time I backed up was like eight months ago.  I switched to a Mac because I thought they were supposed to be more dependable.  When I asked the Apple worker what caused the crash, he noted, “It was made on Planet Earth.”  A very precise and very insightful answer to my question which made me feel so much better.  Argh squared.

After I get my Crossfire back (I am currently driving a bitchin’ Chevy Cobalt) – hopefully before the weekend, I have to take it in again to repair the damage done by the overworked lawyer that backed into the bumper as I was walking out to my sad Crossfire several Thursdays ago.  My poor car is bruised and beaten and actually was attacked by a flock of birds who apparently decided to drop off Thanksgiving dinner on it a couple of days ago.  I have never seen so much bird poop on a car in my life and I didn’t even park under a tree.

My wonderful roommate Sara is abandoning me to move in with her boyfriend Todd.  Although I am excited about inheriting the parking spot and no longer having to co-habitate with a cat, I am terrified of who might move in.  Sara is considerate, friendly, business savvy, kind and a joy to live with.  She doesn’t have late night parties and we don’t have a third roommate despite the fact that she has a serious boyfriend.  She is pretty much the perfect roommate.  I think the chances of me finding a roommate as cool as Sara are about as high as GEICO sending along the payments they collect from Moises Garcia.  Argh cubed.

And that concludes my whining session for the day.  Please don’t call the whaa-bulance.  I still have my health, my family, a good job and hope that my bad luck streak is up for the time being.

Supply and Demand; Quality vs. Quantity

The singles scene in San Diego is much improved from my old stomping grounds in Cincinnati.  In Cincinnati, people tend to marry their high school sweethearts and start popping out kids in their mid-20s.  Definitely not my life model but not too atypical for things in the Midwest.

Friday night I had an epiphany:  there are a ton of dudes in San Diego.  I met a friend out for some drinks in a part of downtown called Little Italy.  I walked in, looked around and realized that probably 75% of the population in the bar was male.  After thinking more about it, I realized that pretty much whenever I head out downtown, the odds are heavily in my favor.  My roommate's boyfriend jokingly calls it the "Man Diego" effect.  Penelope Trunk also pointed out this phenomenon in a recent blog post.  Check this link out:  http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2007/04/the_singles_map.html

Summary findings from the map: very good to be a single female in Southern California; very good to be a single male in the New York/New Jersey area.

Clearly by relocating to Southern California, I have moved the supply of the single male population in my favor.  Then I started wondering: if there are so many more available single men out here, why haven't I found an abundance of good looking dating prospects yet?

  

This question was still swirling around in my mind when I went over to a co-worker's BBQ yesterday evening.  True to form, the party mix was probably two-thirds male to one-third female outside of the several couples at the party.  I looked around and concluded that several of the guys were pretty attractive.  Hmmm.  

As the party wore on and the drinks continued to flow, eventually the testosterone level began rising.  One guy, who happened to be quite an attractive lad, decided to put my co-worker's dog's shock collar on.  This shock collar is designed to administer a shock every time the dog barks.  So naturally, he started to bark to see how bad the shock was.  It drew a good chuckle from the majority of the crowd and, with the increased testosterone level, of course he encouraged the other males in the room to try it out.  When one protested, he used the fifth grade taunt of, "What's the matter, are you scared?"  Which of course got the other guy to try out the shock collar.

That's when I realized that although the supply of single males is now in my favor, it doesn't negate the fact that sheer volume doesn't translate into higher quality.  Perhaps this is further exacerbated by the fact that many people are drawn to Man Diego for the lifestyle.  Maybe the men that move to Southern California are the kinds of guys who prefer to hang out at the beach all day and then go to parties where they try on dog's shock collars to amuse their friends.  I will continue to explore and blog about this thesis as time goes on...

Back in the Saddle

I've officially ended my soccer-less streak.  I joined two new teams, a Thursday night Vavi team playing on a full 11 v. 11 field just outside downtown and a Sunday afternoon 7 v. 7 team playing at the Mission Valley YMCA.  Our first YMCA game was a bit rough and I was thinking maybe I shouldn't have come out of retirement.  However, Thursday's game was an improvement and our Vavi team is undefeated after having dominated the Booz-Allen team we played.  Okay, we didn't dominate the first half but we are a team of "free agents" that have never played together before, and we picked things up considerably in the second half.  Although the level is not quite where I'd like it to be, it's a start and hopefully things will be much improved by season's end.  The plan is to assemble a team from work and selectively augment it with strong players I find through these two leagues...we'll see if that pans out in a couple of months.

Keep Your Keys Away from the Crack...

Yesterday turned out to be a lovely morning in San Diego.  I woke up early and putzed around the apartment for a bit, keeping my fingers crossed that the clouds would clear up before I went for a run in Balboa Park.  I headed out around 10a and by the time I was wrapping up my run through the museums (I finished at the foot of the "Museum of Man"), it was beautiful - in the mid-60s and sunny.  I made it through eight miles at a slower pace than I was hoping for, but still not too shabby for having abandoned long distance running while I do aerobics six days a week with Debbie Siebers.  I was running at just about a nine minute mile pace.

I was relieved to get back to the apartment and chill out.  However, after finding rock star parking and getting into the elevator, I dropped my keys and they went right down the crack of the elevator.  This nearly brought me to immediate panic.  Having just run for over an hour, I was a bit more sedated than usual and I headed down to P3 to see if they were waiting at the bottom.  No such luck.  

I then proceeded immediately to the front desk of Icon to summon help from the doormen.  Luckily some very strong looking handyman was there as well and he volunteered to help me.  He turned off the elevator that swallowed my keys, and we rode down to the bottom of the other elevator.  Using a credit card, he pried open the doors to the closed elevator, then climbed inside and hopped on a ladder attached to the wall, climbing all the down to the floor of the room below the last elevator level.  He retrieved my keys, and I thanked him profusely.  He also informed me that if I would've had to call the elevator company (who apparently doesn't work on the weekends), they would have charged me $400 to recover the keys.  Good thing he was working...

Ugly Day in the Financial Markets

President Obama has done a great job of rallying previously apathetic Americans to get excited about politics. It is truly inspiring to see President Obama succeed and also get so many people energized about change in our great country. Unfortunately, the financial markets are not as exuberant about his leadership. Okay, it’s not fair to completely blame today’s market shellacking on Obama; however, it sure doesn’t start things off on the right foot. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down just over 4% at 7,949. The technical market analysts are probably ranting about the market breeching the psychologically critical 8,000 mark. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a large rally tomorrow (continuing through the rest of the week, month, year, etc.). A weekly close below 8,000 would really be a blow to investors’ psyche.

Not only did the public markets get a big smack today, but I also read just how dismal the IPO market was in 2008. A measly six companies went public in 2008, producing less than $500 million in total market value. Ouch and ouch on the performance of public and private equity markets. Hopefully things will get better soon. Otherwise, investors will be sticking all their money underneath their mattresses (where returns probably won’t be as bad as -35% annually). At least it’s not Monday…

The Return of Jack Bauer and 24

I’m not sure if any loyal blog followers are fans of the TV show 24, but I was previously a huge fan and kind of lost track after the first two or three seasons. I mean, seriously, how many bad days can one CTU agent have?

Although I can’t specifically point to what re-piqued my interest in the show, over the long weekend, I watched the first two episodes (both were double episodes, meaning four aggregate hours) of the new season of 24 and was fairly impressed. Jack Bauer is still a bad ass and the President of the United States is now a woman. As an aside, during one of the last seasons, I remember a family member of a friend commenting that 24 was completely unrealistic because it featured a black President. At the time I was forced to grit my teeth and hold back the comments that bubbled up in my mind. After the Obama election, I can now say, “touché,” or welcome to 2009 (slash the real world)!

At any rate, the new season of 24 thus far has been exciting and worth watching for those who like an action-packed drama filled with lots of chase scenes and close-ups of suspected double agents. Hopefully the rest of the season will continue to be as interesting and exciting.

Two Down, Four To Go

I have a newfound respect for aerobics bunnies. As previously blogged about, my sister introduced me to a six-week aerobics program. The first two weeks are a bit of an introduction called "Ramp It Up." Today, I moved onto the third week, where the program moves up to a workout called "Burn It Up." Ouch. The workout was difficult and I haven't been feeling great the past couple of days. I was a bit sick to my stomach and ended up laying down and conking out for three hours after the first day of "Burn It Up."

I am hoping this is a result of a touch of sickness but I have to say that the aerobics program is challenging (even for an ex-marathon runner/professional soccer player). Four more weeks of six days a week burning it up. Keep your fingers crossed for me!