So you might have heard that UCLA is in town, playing in the NCAA Tournament Regionals. You might ask yourself why I haven't tried to get tickets to Saturday's Elite Eight matchup and there's a good reason for that. I have to work this Saturday. In fact, I might not even see the game at all given that it starts at 3:40pm. Why you ask....what do I owe this indignity to?

It's budget season. More specifically it's negotiations time. But instead of spreading it out over a month or so, this time we may go straight through to April. The bright side to all this? If an agreement is reached, the majority of our work is over until the fall. Moreover, I knew working in policy could inevitably lead to some long hours and being trapped in my office.

But at least I'm not stuck inside because of this.

Do I really want a post a whole narrative of all the fun I have been having this week? Not really. The pictures I took should be sufficient. Duane and I went to a spring training game, then Andrew and I did the same the next day. Then he and I went out to a Brazilian steakhouse and hit my favorite Sunday night haunt...Dons-R-Us. I requested St. Patrick's Day off to catch up on my laundry and it was granted...but we didn't do anything fun except hike around the Buttes and eat at this Yelp event.

I left him to play tourist as I went back to work. And things turned intense just as the weather warmed up from our weekend rain shower. We did also squeeze in a hockey game last night, which was exciting even though the outcome was meaningless in regard to the playoffs. Andrew is now safely back at home, and...I get to take care of some errands. Dick Cheney? He's still on the road.

Well so much for introducing myself to Eliot Spitzer--back in August of '06 I visited a friend who was then living in New York City. I flew on a flight that arrived on the East Coast around midnight only to see a strange face awaiting me. Yep, it was Eliot Spitzer picking up his daughter. At the time with all my insecurities about work, I was tempted to go up and introduce myself and (seriously) talk to him. But as soon as other passengers began to note who he was I gave up hope...even though he was hardly mobbed watching the luggage carousel go around and around. That was August...a mere three months before he went on to be Governor of New York. I would have pegged him as a rising star (like a lot of people now say) who would have brought the White House back to the Democrats in 2012. (Stop screaming, okay....I know...I know...my Dem friends can't stomach another four years of Republicans...but I'll explain in another post.)

Now I feel as if it was good to show restraint. One my career turned out just fine, as you see, but also because now Spitzer will disappear and fade. And the best advice in a rapidly changing world is not to chase the flash in the pan. But it was all so surreal, one of the best post-Clinton era hopes for the Dems goes down the same day that Admiral "there will be no war in Iran" Fallon resigns? And the same day the media began to report about Dick Cheney's spring break trip to the Middle East?

Back here in Alta Sonora, the falling dollar is evident...at the gas station. I've never seen pump prices so high and even though my local favorite is only at $3.13 as of today...last month I was filling up for $2.89 at the same joint. Duane's already warned his wife that any roadtrip he and the family take this summer will include $4 a gallon gas.

To review though: it's not that gas suddenly became more expensive it's that oil is priced in dollars and our currency is weakening thanks to "stagalation" as Tree Fiddy would say. Moreover, because commodities can rise with inflation rapidly, investors who are watching the stock market tank and the dollar collapse are buying oil solely as a hedge.

After a couple days I figured I would here more about Dick Cheney's trip to "the region". But I didn't so I began to wonder what was going on. Turns out I can put the tin-foil hat away...he's not leaving until this weekend.

And Friday can't come a minute too soon. The local PBS station has been doing pledge drives for the last two weeks, preempting all the regular program. Other than Rick Steves' Best of the British Isles...I've been seriously bored out of my mind. I even watched American Idol last night. Okay so "watch" is a strong term..."left it on while using my computer" is more accurate. But you get the idea...

Traffic is noticeably lighter as many people have skipped out of town, apparently. With the budget in the situation it is, I'm going nowhere this week as you can imagine. Still, the weekend came as soon as I finished an online ethnic training course. (Which I passed with a score of 100%).

On Saturday, I had promised a colleague in the Department of Agriculture to attend the AZ Agriculture Day in Frontierland. It's one of one of the last working farms this side of the Indian reservations, having not yet been driven out by developers in part by making it a tourist attraction. The colleague though, (the same of Dive Bar fame) was busy doing much of the "entertainment" and didn't need me to help him in as much as come out and interact with the people at the event. Turnout though on the exhibitor side was minimal though, with the largest being the 4-H club and some federal agencies. Now I learned a decent amount, and enjoyed the $1 lunch they provided. (Which was done to emphasize what percentage farmers get from food sales.)

As the day wore down I ran into Ed again and his friend Paul who has the equivalent of his job at Corrections. We ate snow cones before I helped them with a few final chores and they left for the day. I wasn't far behind them, but decided since I was already in Frontierland I should hit ... the Flatiron.

Yes, if you come to Alta Sonora you see the Flatiron. It's a famous mountain that ends up plastered up on many a postcard. But the only view that isn't occluded by development is within a state park. And I had already used up all the cash in my wallet, so I decided to park outside and take a few pictures. Well as luck would have it, I conferred with the ranger inside if I could park outside without paying and somehow she decided to give me a courtesy pass. Of course, had I said who I was...well...I didn't want to go there. But the views proved so phenomenal I took some shots which you will see below.

I tend drove around to several bookstores looking for a copy of Stiglitz's Globalization and It's Discontents. I found it after some searching. I spent a quiet night at home, realizing even I don't have unlimited energy and wanted to conserve in light of next weekend.

But then there was Sunday. And that you could say was the real eye-opener. All I did was head to the shopping center with the closet Costco to buy more bottled water. But I also bought an ironing board and paid my wireless bill. Now as for the strange part of the story. The wireless store was empty when I walked in, but I got the third degree from an older guy working there for some reason about having to help me pay my bill. The thing is, Sprint has yet to figure out where I live. (Even though I had another store clerk change my address in the system.) They also destroyed my online account which means I cannot check my account. Now before you get the wrong idea, this all goes back to the merger between Nextel and Sprint and the "integration" of the two over the past couple of years. We Nextel people probably all wring our hands at the honor of joining Sprint.

Ironically though, this guy was quite miserable about the whole thing. He went to all the trouble of telling me that the reason he didn't want to help me with my bill is that he works on commission. But there are automated machines there which also take payment (unless you happen to need to pay by a means other than cash, say). Thing is though I couldn't pay my bill once with one of those machines recently and I explain this to the guy. He's still sore because even though the company puts the bill pay stations in the stores, the hope is that lures people into the stores to get new phones and the guy swoops in. But of course, at this point the store is empty and it's around 3:00pm or so. I say to him that given how bad the economy is, I'm surprised he not happy to have customers come in for any reason at all. Remember, at this point no one is in the store but his manager, myself, and the guy.

Naturally he doesn't acknowledge this and I walk or realizing where I'm not going to buy my next phone. I hate people who (no more how they are compensated) don't value existing customers as much as new ones. But if you ever wonder how our great nation might end up hopelessly doomed, talk to this guy. I'm sure he can tell you, right after you ask him to do anything other than ring up a sale.

I got home to fold my laundry and then it was off to a tapas bar to meet the Yelp team. As you might know I was encouraged by Rosie to start writing reviews on Yelp. New to town, I also learned that the regulars staged events. But this had been the first time since the bowling night that I had a chance to attend with the group's core. It was a totally uneventful night. I ate some escargot and pomme frites before heading home. But I had a chance to talk to the local Ambassador about the one review I did in the style of haiku. Not that any of this really matters to you. Yet bit by bit, my life is becoming more like everyone else's, believe or not.

And the winner is....the Kansas City Royals! Who knew that I was destined to spend a whole weekend with them. But alas the result of both the Duane and Andrew primaries is that the Royals can't be beat. Well actually no...it's been a slow week really and the major development was that Duane decided that he wanted to watch the Royals play the Brewers on the Saturday his family is out of town. The Brew Crew actually play in Maryvale Stadium, which is for the eponymously named neighborhood, one of the most historic and notorious in all of Alta Sonora. Once again we got excellent seats and had a fantastic time on our lunch break trying to negotiate our way to the box office to and from work.

But I know, you were thinking...what about that other primary?? You know the one in the state of NAFTA. The awful reality is that by the end of the night it began to be meaningless, and not because of Pennsylvania. Instead, it's clear the race is coming down to the superdelegates. But beyond that, there's precious little to say. The Republicans have this thing in the bag.

Still, I haven't exactly been sleeping in my office. This article caught my eye. [link] Believer or not, I had seen the author, Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents at the book store many times. I passed it over because it was published in 2002, and seemed yet another post September 11 knee jerk. Still, the op-ed linked above is amazingly noteworthy. The American media hasn't talked about Northern Rock, and it's an ominous sign. The British bank suffered liquidity problems after buying subprime mortgages from the United States. The Government chose to nationalize the institution when it was clear other options wouldn't work. And in so doing caused an major uproar (or as the Brits like to say "row") that has cost the Prime Minster credibility.

The fact that Stiglitz is saying this is the better of the two approaches (the other being what the Fed is doing) is enough to give me pause. But the reality is that many American lenders never held on to their mortgages and therefore nationalization would have a different effect. The Feds wouldn't need to nationalize Countrywide, they'd need to buy those domestic entities that bought up collateralized debt obligations (CDO's), right? Needless to say if that's not true, I have plenty of debt I'd be happy to let the Feds pay for.

My weekend was shaping up to be totally uneventful. And then I got the phone call I was waiting for. My friend Andrew informed me that he was coming into town for spring break after all. He's a big baseball fan, so I suggested that he come into town for spring training...given that I live only about half a mile from where his favorite team, the San Francisco Giants, train and play. But as luck would have it, all the tickets were sold out for the Sunday he planned to be in town. There was an upside; weekend games have split squads, so you actually can watch half of the team play somewhere else.

And as luck would have it, the Giants other players were scheduled to play the Royals, in the stadium which is farthest from good ol' Cougar Country. Most of the time of course I find myself either in the former, Pueblo Grande, the Silicon Desert, and occasionally Frontierland. It's rare that I might go to the Menudo Valley, but I have driven through it before. This time though, I was headed for Exurbia Maxima, the most remote province in the Sonoran Empire with one goal...get the best seats possible.

Now, I went to the website of the Kansas City Royals (who the Giants are playing that day) to try and look for tickets. Amazingly the remoteness of the stadium seems to affect demand since I found excellent tickets. But there were convenience charges and handling fees tacked on...so since gas is still only $3 a gallon, I made tracks out there on Saturday morning. The place was crowded (but not impossibly so) because another  game was about to start. So I waddled up to the ticket window and investigated. It turned out my hunch was right. I bought tickets that were outstanding. (You'll see how good they are from the pictures I will take.)

I then headed back to Cougar Canyon with the need to remedy a fashion emergency. I had bought a new dress shirt off the discount rack for $10 only to find out the reason it was there was because it had no buttons on the cuffs. However, the sales at Macy's were lacking so I took a chance  and headed to Dillard's. Unbelievably, I found a much better deal there...for reasons which I do not understand...but they had $75 dress shirts marked down almost 75%. I bought a replacement and then tottered home.

Earlier in the week, I had spoken to one of my contacts at the Department of Agriculture about going out this weekend. (While this guy had been friendly with me all along, it wasn't until recently that I got on the ball to set up a lunch with him.) Originally we played to hit a live music venue in Pointy Rock. But it appears the band his girlfriend wanted to see wasn't on the playbill anymore so I figured that was that.

But as luck would have it, he did call and said alternate arrangements were being made. We (and a good number of his friends) were off to a local dive bar. It was supposed to be an intermediate step before going dancing, but the club was outside the Dirty so I demurred and instead walked into Old Town. Still I'm glad his girlfriend suggested what I affectionately will call the Dive Bar. For just as when I think the universe of decent nightlife options can't get any bigger, it does.

Dive Bar has a castaways theme but the bar doesn't specialize in tropical drinks. Instead it focuses on drinking games, loud music, and a bar staffed by a midget. And hey they serve Negra Modelo...which is a plus. (On a side note, NM is very easy to find in this town I've noticed.) The conversation was nothing more than me meeting some of my man at Ag's posse. But fear not, it all went well I thought, and he and I are due to meet up again for a even this weekend.

On Sunday, I decided to investigate if something was wrong with my brakes...but I got nowhere. I managed to get food poisoning after dinner and stayed up late drinking lots of fluid. I was hoping to get lots of sleep though, as I knew a deal on the budget might be near....