Ballot initiative for 49ers Santa Clara stadium

With an estimated 7060 valid signatures, the ballot measure to support the building of a 68,500 seat modern stadium in Santa Clara may likely be added to the June 2010 ballot, according to a letter from Registrar's Office to the Santa Clara Clerk's Office. With this little bit of news, the effort for the new stadium moves ever closer to being successful.

Now, it should be noted that if the ballot measure happens to be rejected by the voters of Slara Clara city, that may not necessarily end the move to build the stadium. The bureaucratic process to get approval for the stadium seems to be a mostly city hall affair. The ballot measure is just meant to reinforce efforts (assuming it is approved).

49er's Stadium: What does Cedar Fair really want?

Perhaps there is some legitimate concern for proper bureaucratic process over at Cedar Fair, owners of California's Great American theme park. Why else would they file a lawsuit against the City of Santa Clara complaining about how paperwork was recently handled in the process to approve the new 49ers stadium? (Santa Clara County Superior Court Case number 109CV158836.) Well, maybe they seek to take advantage of the delicate phase in the planning of the new stadium?

Given the lack of enthusiasm for the new stadium previously expressed by Cedar Fair, I'm guessing this is more of a ploy to legally extort conditions and concessions from the City of Santa Clara. Cedar Fair may feel it needs more money from the city simply because the new stadium site is a direct neighbor to the theme park. Here's the funny part. Even though Cedar Fair does own Great American, the City of Santa Clara actually owns the land upon which Great America rests. The City of Santa Clara is the landlord to Cedar Fair. Santa Clara has already bent over backwards to make Cedar Fair feel at home. Cedar Fair now seems to be abusing their position as our guest and interfering in our business. Is there a San Francisco connection, as SF City Hall tries to buy yet even more time in their uber-pathetic effort to keep the 49er's in San Francisco? They've already had over 1.5 decades to do something.

Frankly, there could also be a Sac connection, since some big names in our state and even the Federal government are against the 49er's moving to another city in the Bay Area. Again, there is another funny part to this. If the 49er's do not find a new home in the Bay Area, they have suggested that the will leave the area completely. So, all this effort to pin the 49er's down in San Francisco could backfire by slingshotting our team to another state altogether! How embarrassing would that be?

And now a new wrinkle. Cedar Fair was just bought by a private firm that has yet to comment on their position. My hope is that they do not interfere with local economic endeavors, and instead help boost the local economy by supporting the new 49ers stadium.

Recently back!

Well, I might be getting back into rock climbing. I’ve been wanted to for awhile now. Elvis and I hit up the climbing gym Friday night for a belay lesson. I totally forgot how to make the proper knots for the climbing rope, so it was a good refresher. It seemed to click better for me this time too, for some reason. I remember before always forgetting how to do the knots, but this time, I think I have it down.

After the gym (and me going home for a shower), we meet up with some other friends at California Billiards. It’s been forever since I’ll played pool, and it’s been forever and a day since I’ve been to California Billiards.

On Saturday, I visited Miriam for her daughters birthday. It was a pretty tame crowd. I had a good time.

Da Bearrrrszz

Corus "It's Da Bears!"

Robert Smigel "Bill, what is your prediction for Super Bowl 41?"

Bill Swerski "My prediction for dis Sunday's big game is Da Bears: 171.5, and da utter guys: Forfeit due to dair entire team being seriously injured on account of dair fancy team bus being accidently leaned upon by a 10 year old girl."

Todd O'Conner "Really, are da Colts so weak dat dair'll injured by a 10 year girl leaning against dair bus? Is dat possible?"

Robert "No, Todd, but it is possible if dat 10 year old girl is Coach Dikka's daughter!"

Bill "Of course"

Robert "Not Coach Dikka's eldest daughter, but his youngest daughter, because we all know what Coach Dikka's oldest daughter would do to da Colts!"

Pat Arnold "Oh, yeah, of course!

Todd "So why is the score only 171.5 and not just 172?"

Bill "Well, actually da score will be a dominating 171, but on account of Da Bears shear mightiness, the N-F-L will award dem a bonus 1/2 point."

Pat "No, I think the score will be 172, but dee N-F-L will deduct 1/2 a point because Coach Dikka is not longer coaching the team!"

Todd "Yes!"

Robert "Da Bears"

Corus "Daaa Bearssszz"

Random Bonds

I ran across this message on a bulletin board on myspace at 5:00pm. The title was like "available Giants tickets for tonight" and the body was "anyone interested?" The message was left at almost 4:00pm.

Well, Barry Bonds just might've met and even broke Babe Ruth's home run tonight, so I figured that this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. At first, I tried to just send a reply message via myspace, but then figured that was not the best way. I didn't have this person's direct info, but I know who did, her cuzins. So I called up one cuzin. No answer. I called up another, yes, Kim answered. The funny thang is that Kim has just moved to San Diego and was in the middle of unpacking, so I did feel a little funny about asking a favor to contact her cuzin and find out about the tickets, but hey, I did it anyway. hehe

So after about 1/2 hr's worth of phone tag (from Silicon Valley to San Diego to San Francisco and around again a couple of times), I finally was in direct contact with Kate who had the extra tickets. Note the plural. Time was ticking. The game was set to begin at 7:15pm, and it's already like past 6pm. My first choice: I call up Allie and (with really explaining what was so important about this game) I head over to her place. Unfortunately, I made a bad request to take her car instead of mine. Well...

...she was almost out of gas. Arg. So, we had to go to the gas station. tick tick. Ok, guess what? The attendant had put someone's cash payment on our gas pump! Allie and I always use credit cards, so when the pump stopped at 10 dollars, we both got a bit confused. It took like 10 minutes for the attendant to sort out the mess!! tick tick tick ARG!!!!!

Hey, we made it to the game just at 8:00pm. The seats where about 10 rows up, in field and near 1st base. GREAT SEATS, especially for the price Kate offered!!! Allie and I did miss a couple of Bond's at bats, but no homers yet. The score was Cubs 3, Giants 1. Allie and I went to the food court. When we came back, the score was Cubs 6, Giants 1. I went to get a beer refill. When I came back, the score was Cubs 8, Giants 1. Pattern here? LOL Hmmm... I did get to watch Bonds at bat twice. Let me give Kate a big thank you for making these tickets available!

Kate her b/f headed out at the end of the 8th after Bond's popped out. Allie and I stuck around to the end of the nineth. I don't like leaving games early. We waited for traffic to die down at the nearby Borders and then at Amici's Pizzeria, then headed back to Silicon Valley. ::yawn:: I did some work online and now here I am at 2am thinking why didn't I post the story when I didn't have to get some sleep. :) It has been awhile since I've been so completely random, but I'm glad I did, even if Bonds didn't get this record when I was there.

Winter Olympics IMHO

So, the Winter Olympics might be better renamed to the European Olympics. No wonder the Winter Olympics lacks popularity! Most of its sports are very European centric. How much Bobsleighing or Ice Skating is possible in places like Nigeria or Costa Rica? Sure, China and South Korea have been welcomed into the mix, but these two are from regions that are winter sport friendly. At least they add snowboarding. That's actually exciting to watch, since they allow contact and there's a good chance for at least one big wipe out! The woman's Snowboarding Cross final had three wipe outs, and one of those was from the #1 contender celebrating before she crossed the finish line! lol Anyways, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! hehe
Oh, and one comment about those South Korean speedskaters! Speed Skating is not a team sport unless it's Team Pursuit! The South Koreans are pretty much just outright cheating by playing as a team instead of individuals. It's legal right now, but if they keep it up, I'm sure the rules are going to be changing to not allow that sort of team work in the future. They screwed a couple of better racers out of gold medals because they were working together. If a racer isn't going for the gold medal, they don't belong in the finals! The teamwork strategy is not in the spirit of the Olympics for non-team competitions.

A's Game

Tonight's A's game against the Angels was a lot of fun. Dave and I headed up pretty early to make sure we got tickets and I'm glad we did cuz the game sold out! We had a seats in a good spot that allowed us a look down over right field. We tried our best to harass the Angels players, but I'm not really sure they heard anything cuz we where kinda high up, but once in awhile, it kinda seemed to have an impact (ok, sure, over statement). A's did give the crowd something to cheer, and in return, we cheered even more, and the A's scored even more! An Angels batter throw his helm down in disgust after ending their inning with his strike out. That just made all of us fan cheer even more. In the next inning, another Angels player got pissed when he was struck out to end that inning. He throw his bat down in the direction of the ump and got thrown out of the game while all the fans where cheering. Of course, that made all of us go even more crazy. It was a pitch perfect moment. It was a very entertaining game to watch. Oh, and the A's won!