The Pink Slip

I didn't get a pink slip per say but I got the boot...February 2nd is my last official day working for the Ashworth, Inc/Taylormade company. It feels very eerie, I've never lost a job before and well, it kind of sucks to be honest. The unsecure future and uncertainty of whether I'll have enough money to even pay the bills is quite scary and very real right now.

Anyone know of anyone hiring?

I'm feeling LUCKY!

As you may know, I'm a midwest girl and from time to time, especially during the fall/winter months I get a little home sick...until I look at the weather!

BRRRRRR.........

I love you guys but seriously, I'll take this any day!

Until Spring Dear Family/Friends of the Midwest! <3

It's Officially...Close to Home

MICHAEL STETZ
A toast to the end of beach booze

December 3, 2008

So the other day I had a beer on the beach with Jeremy Malecha, one of the guys who fought – and lost – the battle to keep drinking legal there.

One quick disclaimer: We drank root beer. Civil disobedience has its time and place, but that $250 fine for downing a cold one on the sand in San Diego is too much of a risk, particularly this close to the holidays.

If I want to drink at the beach, I'll buy a six-pack . . . and a sandbox.

It's tough not to feel for Malecha. He worked hard against the ban, and he really didn't seem to have a stake in the outcome. It's not like he owns a liquor store at the beach. He's in marketing.

“I don't like seeing our rights taken away for no reason,” he said.

His battle appears to be over, though. Proposition D, which bans alcohol at city beaches, Mission Bay and coastal parks, received 52 percent of the vote Nov. 4, effectively ending Miller Time on San Diego sand.

The two of us met at Reed Street in Pacific Beach, where a melee broke out on Labor Day 2007. That sparked the one-year ban, which sparked the permanent ban.

We opened our root beers and clinked them. I toasted him with a simple, “Sorry.”

“Actually I feel relief,” said Malecha, 31, who's from Eugene, Ore., but moved to Pacific Beach about 10 years ago after falling in love with the wide beaches and lively party scene.

We sipped our root beers and looked at the surf and talked about the future of San Diego's beaches now that the ban is permanent. What will it look like?

“It'll be empty,” Malecha said, scanning the beach and shaking his head. Even in July, he added.

Beach attendance did fall this past summer, while the temporary ban was in place. Some say it was because of the economy and high gas prices. Malecha scoffed at that.

“The beach is free.”

He says the ban eventually will hurt tourism. A lot of vacationers like to hit party spots, he said. They're on vacation, after all.

Oh yeah, then why is Vegas so popular then?

Oh, wait, never mind.

What about New Orleans? Hmmm. Another town that lights it up? Maybe he has a point.

But Malecha figures his side didn't have a shot at the ballot box. Those against booze at the beach had more money and momentum, thanks to the trial ban.

Malecha would have championed a compromise – no alcohol on big holiday weekends, which is what Mayor Jerry Sanders proposed – but that never was put on the table.

It was a total ban.

Or no ban.

The proponents, he said, “were very adamant about it.”

Both sides were locked in, said Scott Chipman, of Save PB, which supported the ban. Malecha's side didn't want any changes to the existing rules. “It was clear there was no consensus,” Chipman said.

It would take another ballot effort to reverse the ban, something Malecha acknowledges is unlikely.

We sipped on our root beers some more and kept talking, with me agreeing with some of his points. But I couldn't bring myself to share how I voted.

That said, I have a confession to make here. In the past, I have indeed enjoyed a beer – and not the A&W kind – at the beach.

But I voted for the ban.

I didn't mind the college kids whooping it up. They're kids. Whoop it up before you have a mortgage, children, a stressful job.

For me, it was another reason.

I live near Ocean Beach, where some crazy things have gone on when it comes to drinking on the beach.

The beach ban wasn't just about young people losing their Bud Light playground. A problem in O.B. was the older drunks, hanging at the base of Newport Avenue, drinking at the sea wall.

They didn't whoop it up; they got drunk.

One time, while at the beach with my 2-year-old son and wife, I saw two of them get into an argument.

People were milling about, looking at the setting sun or the surfers bobbing in the ocean, trying to ignore the whole thing.

It was a sick, sad scene. Two drunks, now standing and weaving and getting ready to throw punches.

One did.

He hit the other man hard and good in the nose.

That drunk dropped to the knees, blood oozing from his nose and running down his shirt and dripping into the sand.

He seemed to be crying.

That's the image of beach drinking I couldn't shake. It's the one I took into the voting booth.

---

Michael Stetz: (619) 293-1720; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com

I borrowed the article from here.

Big Bear Getaway '08

Recently "the group" packed up and went to Big Bear for the weekend. Why you ask? Well, two big reasons 1) it was Chad's birthday and 2) Chad and Mande got engaged! "The Group" is big on celebrating so what better way to do that than rent a house for a weekend in Big Bear!

The House

The View

We missed out on the hiking...
And the drunken fun-ness...

But we made it finally and participated in a Gator Tradition

"The Group"
But the fun isn't over...we went sledding...kinda...

The End.