Let’s see…. In March went to San Diego for the World Baseball Classic; that was cool. Driving through LA sucked, but, you know, it was a nice reminder of why not to live there. I had a nice lunch with Chris Gandhi in Pasadena, which was the main reason I failed to get the car back before the rental office closed. It was pretty much worth it.

I’ve started on my own version of the South Beach Diet. For the last 3 weeks or so, I’ve cut out virtually all starches and sugars, relying on meat, cheese, eggs, and vegetables to make up the bulk of what I eat. Lots of Caesar salads. Mixed nuts. No beer (though I have allowed myself to graduate to the very occasional glass of red wine or scotch). And I gotta say, excuse my language, but I feel fucking great. I haven’t felt this way in a long time. My mood and energy don’t go up and down based on what and when I eat. I would recommend it to anyone. (I won’t go into it anymore for fear of coming off like an evangelist.) And I may even be losing weight, if a little slower than advertised.

I went to two of my scheduled 22 A’s games this week. (I bought a partial season ticket package with three friends.) It was great getting back out to the ball game, out with the crowd. I root, root, rooted for the A’s on opening night and the night after. They split the first two with the hated, hated Yankees, pulling out the third game on Wednesday. Hurrah. I did not catch a foul ball, but one bounced off my hand Monday night. Another one went right between my glove and Scott’s on Tuesday. Quite unfortunate. One of these days I’ll get one. Next games: April 14th and 15th vs. Texas.

Tonight I decided to bike to Pub NightTM, my weekly gathering of friends to simply eat, drink, and, you know, have fun. Quinn’s Lighthouse is on the Embarcadero in Oakland, just across from Alameda and only 2 miles from my place. Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of the BART tracks and Interstate 880. That wasn’t the main problem, though. The main problem was that Google Maps made 16th Ave look like an underpass. It’s actually an overpass. So I went beyond it and had to do a bunch of backtracking to get to where I was going. I got there fine, but the map was definitely deceptive. I took an alternate route home (Embarcadero to Oak St., which I should have done anyway).