This weekend, I set aside time to explore the one part of my complex I hadn't spent much time in: the pool. But in a weird twist, I awoke Saturday morning (when I figured the place would be deserted) with a sign about a change in parking spaces. Now, this is actually good news for me. I actually get to park two spots closer to my front door and get more protection from the sun. But as a result, I had to go in and talk with the management before jumping in the water.

The truth is though, I had been discouraged from using the pool because of the various restrictions: no beverages, no outsiders, no using it after dark. But as I quickly found out on Saturday...rules were made to be broken. I took the extreme liberty of taking my water bottle with me and then bounding into the water with no glasses. The basin however is far from a normal design. It's shaped like a capital "H". But the depth of pool at each end is different, so that I literally had to wander around touching the bottom with my foot. The posted measurement never exceeds five feet...but at some points I thought I wouldn't be able to keep my head above water. (I'm 5'8"). Inevitably, I eventually found the precise area where the water graced my shoulders  but shade from a palm also covered my head so that I didn't have to feel the hot sun. And there I stood...until more people arrived.

One couple moved in and began sunning themselves with no introduction. They seemed genuinely uninterested in me, so I decided to stick to my spot and think about swimming. Yes, the real reason I was there was to swim. But the catch was that I didn't want to risk a large margin error after not swimming for years. It was something I did a lot in my early teen years to qualify for rank advancement in Scouting. (Two summers in a row I went to the swimming merit badge counselor;s house twice a week to improve.) But compared to to most boy I still sucked...because I feared drowning after an incident when I was about seven. (I felt as if I was going to drown, and I couldn't swim so luckily another boy pulled me to shallower water thinking I was just playing around.)  I also had poor motor control as a little kid...so I always was afraid of the deep.

Suddenly, the pool had even more people...but they were essentially a group of four: one girl and three younger guys. They also seemed eager to act aloof. But more importantly, they didn't attempt to swim. And it's rare to see people do that in the pool. On the one hand you could argue it's too small to do laps. But then you might ask...why did I want to? The answer is really simple: I need to exercise more and be less sedentary. Swimming helps increase muscle tone. This is important for me because of how sedentary I get at work. To build muscle, I am starting to do push up and sit ups. Finally, our workout room have treadmill I can use the cardiovascular component. As ambitious as this all sounds, it's also a response to a little bit of boredom and social connectivity around my complex. (There's always people it seems, at the pool.)

Finally it was time to go, and I decided that the pool's unusual construction meant I would need to invest in a pair of goggles. Later I would clear with my optometrist that I could wear my contacts underneath, thus allowing me lots of freedom in the water. Imagine my surprise though that the gal who was with the three other guys actually addressed me before leaving. Not to introduce herself, but to request politely that I leave the gate ajar. That's progress....I guess.

For a moment there...it looked like history was repeating itself.

There were absolutely four lights. They appeared to hover in the sky.

They looked red or white, and they flickered. They were visible for nearly 15 minutes on Monday night.

The lights were seen by, among others, a Phoenix police-helicopter pilot, air-traffic controllers and a reporter. There was even an extended videotape. [link]

You already knew we are in extraordinary times, but even I wasn't expecting this. The return of the "Lights". You probably already familiar with the story...so here's a link. What Wikipedia fails to mention is that later that year Governor Symington resigned after being convicted of bank fraud.

But before you call Mulder and Scully, you ought to know the following:

A Phoenix man says he caused the red light display that mystified thousands of people as it floated across the north Phoenix sky Monday night.

The man, who did not want to be identified, said he used fishing line to attach road flares to helium-filled balloons, then lit the flares and launched them a minute apart from his back yard. He said he believed turbulence created by a passing jet caused the balloons to move around. [link]

Needless to say this story died pretty quickly. So quickly in fact Valley astronomer Steve Kates didn't get his wish:

``Maybe the governor will proclaim the state of Arizona ``the UFO-sighting state" or have a new license plate. Who knows?" he said. [link]

While it's true I'd love to sign up for that license plate....somehow I think New Mexico and Nevada would not appreciate us encroaching on their turf like that. We already own the catcus, the Grand Canyon, and spring training. We gotta leave our neighbors with something...right?

Ed from Ag invited me out on Friday night to join him and others at the Mill Cue Club in Pointy Rock. He picked the place because there was no cover. And because I had to drive, I didn't drink anything...sipping a Sprite and meeting more of his friends from school. He was real tired however and I thought my weekend would become as uneventful as his...asleep and resting.

Guess again.

Rita had heard about a Women's Expo that was to take place on Saturday and Sunday at the football stadium. She pleaded that none of her friends from the Mom's Club planned to attend and asked me if I would go with her so she didn't have the kids in tow. Chey stayed home with the children and watched the Lakers, Rita and I hit the road.

Her argument was that I should be eager to go, to be at an event with lots of women. But it wasn't a free event...you had to pay $12 just to get in. However they gave free samples of various things and you also received a free tote bag. (They seemed determined to make their money back by charging $4 for water.) I didn't expect to find love...no I expected to find the female equivalent of a "Star Wars" convention...kind of like being in your very own episode of "Oprah".

It was entertaining, but I was disappoint to find myself as far from the only heterosexual male. But that didn't mean that what I saw was any less entertaining (or disturbing). One plastic surgeon was giving away free breast implants but not the surgery. So many women entered the drawing, the jar overflowed with entries. Women clustered around a couple stages...not to see some heartthrob...nope to get a free cake or haircut from Rolf. And yet somewhere in the maze were cholesterol screenings, a huge inflated colon (to raise cancer awareness) and even Tupperware. Rita's courtesy bag overflowed...my was empty until I took a free bag of Miss Vickie's chips.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that I felt a little uncomfortable there. Not because of the focus on women's interests but because aisle after unsettling aisle was packed with weight loss clinics, plastic surgeons, pursues, handbags, and various cooking equipment and food samples. You sort of wondered where the nonprofit organizations were (until I found Planned Parenthood) or the bookstores for that matter. But it's just as well...at least I didn't win a car.

It was too good to be true. Yelp had secured free passes for a sneak preview of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" on Thursday. The weather was great, and things had been slow at work. I was so excited.

And then with mere hours to go, I too had to learn to forget Sarah Marshall. With little warning, the Legislature finally decided to vote on the fiscal year 08 budget. The Governor had already revealed on public television Wednesday that indeed she had an agreement with the House and Senate over 08. But no one knew when the bill would actually come to a vote. Meanwhile, the Legislature almost always adjourns on Thursday afternoon so that members that live far away can have extra time over the weekend to go home. That meant a "late night session" i.e. one drifting into the evening in which the compromise was passed through the various committees in both the Senate and House until finally...it was approved and sent to the Governor.

She signed it Friday morning, iceberg lettuce research fund sweep and all.

If you want to read the bill, click on the following link. It breaks down the reductions by agency and fund.

What's next you ask? Well, there still is that whole budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The deficit for 2009 is expected to be larger, and the state's reserves and other tools to handle it fewer. [link]

You know what they say, "all roads lead to Rome".

If you're a single woman in the Valley, it might be your own fault.

A new study shows that there are 65,330 more single men than women, ages 20 to 64, in Phoenix. In fact, the entire West is awash with single men, according to figures in a new book, "Who's Your City?", by Richard Florida.

In Los Angeles, there are 90,000 more single men than women. San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas and Seattle look good, too.

"In rapidly growing cities that have really boomed in the last few years, men move first for economic opportunity," Florida said. "Women catch up later when they realize there are a lot of catches out there." [link]

True to form...this weekend consisted of hanging out with the very married Rita and Chey and then hanging out down in Pointy Rock with Ed from Agriculture and a bunch of ... dudes. However, you ought to know it was pretty hot this weekend and even my complex's pool was deserted in the afternoon. So the last thing I wanted was to get pile-driven by Rich "I'm Not From" Florida. I have no doubt you probably have no idea who this guy is or why he's the last person I want to hear from these days, but hey...that's what this blog is for....

Naturally all this started with the publication of a book: The Rise of the Creative Class And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure and Everyday Life in 2002. Now the thing is, the book is not that remarkable. The thesis of ANY social science book can be summed up this way: Things are changing in the world, it's probably caused by changing who gets what. In other words, there's an inherent bias that even if certain social developments are not intentional, they are the product of actions which are. The reason why Florida's book didn't impress me was his perception of what was really changing and more importantly, what he saw as as the impetus. He did not actually identify a situation which would turn social science on its head.

So first, let's talk about what Florida saw as a new and exciting development: the knowledge based economy. In other words, the realization that the most of the new jobs being created in America (and therefore economic development) was based in workers who were not reliant on either exploitation of the natural world or manufacturing. This is crucial in understanding why he thinks that classes are "creative", because the only product of these new workers was intellectual property. But more importantly, Florida looked at start ups and new media companies and argued that these places were far less vulnerable to say intellectual conformity and inefficiency than say a John Deere factory in flyover country. Florida got this opinion, he has said, from watching recruiting by tech companies at his old institution, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This of course seems fishy to me, since I know lots of colleagues who ostensibly work at "open-minded" technology companies, law firms, and for that matter hospitals who have to tow the company line like myself.

As a result I disagree with Florida that he what he saw was "the rise of the creative class" and much more the American tradition (from our colonial days) of chasing economic opportunity wherever it is...be it New York City, Austin, or Cougar Country. But unavoidable in that acknowledgement is that the economy has become dangerously dependent on intellectual property as "product" and utterly addicted to natural resources and manufactured goods from outside the US...ring any bells?

But you simply can't trash his research by arguing that what he calls the "creative class" is really something else. Instead, it's necessary to look at who he thought were the biggest contributors to the knowledge based economy. And that would be: gays, artisans,  minorities,  tech workers, and the "high bohemians". Now this is a problem because I believe Florida used a regression model to prove this. But if you have been to Echo Park lately (or just seen the movie "Quinceanera") you would know that cities with large gay populations actually have done a great job of gentrifying rough neighborhoods to the point that they become less diverse. Secondly, even though Florida loves to talk about Austin, most of the big, hulking tech firms are headquartered in suburbs like Redmond, and Cupertino, and Reston, Virginia.

Nevermind the fact also that Florida was using all this to justify fewer investments in costly "public infrastructure" to buoy economic development and instead focusing on keeping the creative classes happy. (I'm going to make a wild guess and say somewhere he argues that this can be achieved by keeping lowering taxes and making more local programs fee-for-service.)

Meanwhile, I've mentioned in earlier posts that there's a obvious reason why cities in the Southwest seemingly have so many more men than women: illegal immigration. But that hints at a far more ominous topic which I don't think Florida ever discusses: race. The article in newspaper instead decided to focus on a slightly different tact. I'll leave it to you to make a smart-ass remark in the comments:

Florida, a national economic and population expert, wrote the book using U.S. Census Bureau data. He says he most commonly hears complaints about dating quality, not quantity. Tempe's Kim Culver, 33, sees plenty of single men at bars.

"But I don't know how to connect with them," said the school psychologist, who has read six dating books and tried online dating. "They don't talk to you."

But it could be worse. In Greater New York, single women outnumber men by more than 210,000.

In the deep sea dive that is high-level public finance, it's easy to lose your bearings and forget about the outside world...even if you are running out of air.

Luckily, the lull which began late last week has held firm long enough for me to head to the surface for a bit. Given that the weather is about to warm up...significantly...I called up Chey and Rita to see if they would help me transport a new TV from the hotel consignment store I bought my couch at. (The TV I bought looks almost exactly like the one I left behind last year...one which I used for ten years no less.) That was not the problem. Chey actually heaved it up the stairs by himself and I thanked him profusely. After all, the UCLA game against Memphis was only a couple hours away.

So you think to yourself...okay...so you invited him to lunch and had them watch the game at your place...right?

Well...no. Chey had to get home by 1pm for his baseball rotisserie draft. And even though they wanted to come back by 3pm for the tip off of UCLA-Memphis, it was almost 5pm when they arrived...kids in tow. So they had to watch the Bruins suffocate...right out of the tournament. Now understand, I picked Memphis to win it all. (And really, I think that pick has been vindicated.) I love my Bruins though, and it was hard to take watching it all. In fact, it's been hard to take for a while.

When I enrolled in Westwood, we had another coach you may have heard of...Steve Lavin. He was a young guy, and his teams played fast and loose and he managed to find himself going to the Sweet Sixteen each year or maybe the Elite Eight only to get laughed out by some more formidable team. And then the one season the NCAA didn't select UCLA for the Tournament...Lavin was fired. Howland was sold as a savior...as a guy who succeed where Lavin failed.

Five years later, we are still waiting. Of course, given how dominant UCLA was under John Wooden it's easy for the Bruin Nation to have unrealistic expectations. Players don't stay long enough to build true dynasties. But that being said, I'd be ecstatic if the Bruins found their way into a national championship. But I am not holding my breath.

Chey and Rita decided to get some "snacks" before the second game started. So I took them to the local supermarket and before I knew it Kansas was already delivering a serious beatdown to UNC. My bracket was getting shredded like a strawberry daiquiri. I figured I would have a quiet night and run some errands the next day, basking in the glow of my television. Rita had other ideas. She wanted to go out with me, on the prowl in Cougar Country.

Oh boy. At first I target this one happy hour...but we couldn't find a seat. So I then suggested we head to a place I'll call "The Mexican Embassy". It's a outdoor/dive bar with no cover or any sort of pretentiousness. One can go there on a Friday and drink to your heart's content.  Rita though, wasn't having it. We ended sitting in a corner and ordering some food along with our drinks. At one point she said, "I can't believe you would want to go to a place like this." As if someone had just sprayed us with Super Soaker filled with stale beer. So I had to break it to her and you perhaps as to what this whole thing is about.

Women seem to not appreciate boisterous, tentative men. They seem to gravitate to the calm, hulking type. And as a man, the easiest way to be nonchalant is to expose yourself to it. Over and over and over and over and over again. Until you really are detached, and bored with it. Until you couldn't care less. And that's when you no longer have to think and you can just be.

So imagine my surprise how much this frustrated Rita, while at the same time made me feel content. I may not always get to my life before it leaves me a voicemail, but I always try to return the call.

So much for Havasu. At least we'll always have Paris.

The plan originally was for me to attend a special boat tour of Windsor Beach State Park today with the State Park Board, go to dinner with some local officials before spending the night and attending the monthly State Park Board meeting there tomorrow. But alas it was not to be. What, you ask, caused me to delay these plans?

As President Bush might say, "it's a defining moment in the budget crisis. There have been other defining moments up to now, but this a defining moment as well." In any case, things are finally falling into a lull after ten days or so of almost nonstop activity and buzz.

It's all just as well, though because my sister needed help. I had a document that she needed sent overnight via FedEx. But for the fact that I was stuck at work yesterday for twelve hours...I was happy to oblige. Given the significance a meeting today however, I didn't want to promise her anything. As luck would have it, the meeting ended in time for me to use my lunch hour to run just such an errand..but I had to go far away from the Crunk Factory and downtown to find a FedExKinko's with free parking.

Too bad that's only the beginning of the story.

So I walk in and prepare to fill out the slip to send the document...as my sister sent me the address and a FedEx account to bill. But I look at the document and realize there's FAX printing on it. Now I think to myself, oh ---- this is the duplicate not  the original. So I get into an extended conversation with them about which locations are open late and which ones have the latest pickup. I drive to my favorite teriyaki place and get an order to go. I get back to work and jump in the elevator. There happens to be two contractors from IKON who see me flustered and I explain that I am not sure if this is the original and they look at it. They tell me it has to be the original. I proceed to look around my office some more, until at last I go upstairs to the notaries and have them tell me if they can recognize what is the the original stamp looks like. Hilariously, the notary turns the paper around and points at the ink bleeding through the page. It was so obvious, and yet I missed it. So I go back to my office, fill out the FedEx form and head to the basement and drop it in the slot hours before the end of the day pick up.

Any minute now, the flight should land in Oakland where the envelope will get shipped again...south to Los Angeles and it's ultimate destination.

As for Basra... I told you McCain would win....