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My Cubbies are in the postseason.  I have fond memories of returning from a sucsessful White Mountain summit and driving back down that long road listening to my other team (the Giants) lose to the Angels in game 6, back in 2002.  Kari, GJ and I trying to translate the game from Spanish into English and Kari being an Angel fan made for a sour ending to a great day.  Don’t get me wrong, that was a great game and a beautiful comeback but it came at the cost of my team.

Now, another LA team is beating up on my team.  I’m not going to say they’ve lost yet but it is the bottom of the 8th and the Cubs are losing 6-2.  I really hate LA teams, if I have to wind up cheering for the White Sox in the post season I’m going to vomit.

In other news, I just finished a book called, “The Cactus Eaters” by Dan White.  I love that book, it’s funny and inspiring.  He’s a clusterfuck on feet and he attempts to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail, starting with a girlfriend.  I won’t say anything more about the book outside of the fact that it was a great read and makes me want to through hike the PCT myself.

I don’t know exactly how I’d swing 5 consecutive months off work, and the portion of the trail that appeals to me most would be the Sierra Nevada section, it’s even covered in his book most extensively.  Seemingly by a ratio of 70-80 of California/Sierra pages to 1 page of Oregon/Washington.  Now that could be due to one other major event that takes place at the Oregon border, thereby making the California story a more appealing one to read, but that’s speculation.

Either way, this goes up there with, “Touch the top of the World” by Erik Weihenmayer for purely inspirational adventure books, though in different ways.

It’s always hard ending a good book.  You want more, you’re forlorn without the friends you’ve made in the book but you can’t get any.  It’s a hopeless feeling, like being in jail while those new friends are out living their lives and unaware of the people they left behind.  I need something else to read now

This isn’t the first time someone’s run from me at work.  It’s not even the first time someone has just completely gotten away from me, but it was fun enough to want to write about.

To set the scene, my partner and I had a juvenile driver with alcohol in his system detained and waiting for his parents.  While we were waiting, the juvenile’s younger brother walks up to us out of nowhere.  By out of nowhere, I mean there are no pedestrians around here, ever.  There are no cities within 10 miles and nobody just walks around out here.  So, he walks up, eyes red and puffy and a little disoriented, he may have had the munchies as well.  We detain him and take his driver’s license for identification. 

My partner cuffs him and places him in a caged vehicle as he’s a mouthy little guy.  He complained of being claustrophobic and unfortunately my partner lowered the windows for him.  So, now I’m way up at the front of this situation, explaining to the juvenile driver that his license is suspended, blah blah.  All of a sudden I look up and my partner is sprinting away yelling, “STOP!”

So, here is this young punk, with a stupid little eyebrow ring who is high as a kite who managed to get one hand out of his handcuffs, opening the door of the truck by reaching out the rolled down window.  He gets out and starts running for the hills (and there are alot of hills around).  He’s waving his one cuffed hand around above his head yelling, “I’m running!”

My partner gives chase for a couple hundred yards until the suspect jumps down a 10 foot cliff into a sandy wash.  I had to stay with the other suspects to make sure they didn’t boogie.  Now, remember that we have his driver’s license and backpack in our possesion still and you’ll see the big picture problem with him actually getting away.

I read a great book recently called, “The Last Lecture” which I highly reccomend.  There’s one line in there this is very apt, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”.  That’s true.  Based on this one here, I’m sure my partner will not ever roll down the windows of a caged prisoner.  One of the other times that I had people boogie on me I learned how to better position my dirtbike when I make stops with it.  That was a good long term experience gainer for me.  This one was just funnier to watch.

Yes, the young man does now have a warrant out for his arrest, so good for him.

I feel physically sick after reading a portion of a book for the first time. The book is Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner. The portion of the book in question recount the water wars that the city of Los Angeles waged during the earlier part of the 20th century. Physically ill indeed, I’ve always known about the story and it’s general outlines but the devil is in the details. Simply stunning, what LA was able to pull off, legally or not it was completely unethical. I need to go for a run, I hate this feeling.