Back From California

I have something heartbreaking and shocking to reveal to all of you. Are you ready? Ok. Here it goes.

Sometimes, once in a while, I will take a trip that does not include a sporting event. Of course, I should note, it is not for lack of trying. This past weekend I made a swing out to San Diego for my brother's bachelor party weekend, where we celebrated bachelordom like all men do: at a Comic Book Convention.

This was a pretty interesting experience with more wild costumes and crazy comic book obssessees than you can shake a stick at. I enjoyed myself even if there were no baseball games to go around, but the lesson should be taught that sometimes you're going to have to accept that not every plan will come to fruition. For this weekend in San Diego and Los Angeles, that was certainly the case. I had accepted the fact that the Padres would not be in town the weekend I was there -- and after arriving it became painfully obvious that Comic-Con so takes over the city that hosting baseball games is a ridiculous idea -- but I had not yet given up hope that I might catch my Amazins, who were going to be in Los Angeles over the weekend.

But, of course, it didn't work out that way, nor did I get to catch the Angels in Anaheim the next night due to a number of mixed signals and confused schedules. Not that this is the worst thing in the world. As I have explained, Los Angeles isn't a city I don't expect to go through again, like, say, Oklahoma City. I will be in Los Angeles again, though after the 45 hours I spent there, I'm not sure how many times I can be there.

That isn't a slight against my hosts, who were phenomenally generous and fun, but L.A. just isn't my kind of city. And in many regards, it's a total fantasy land.

At least I did get to take more than my fair share of looks at Petco Park in San Diego, which was literally next to our hotel, and came within walking distance of Angel Stadium in Anaheim. Whether or not you can view these things as cool sightseeing or cruel teases is up to you.

In the meantime, a valuable lesson was learned about how sometimes things just won't work out. And I'm probably just going to have to cope with that. And unlike when some best laid plans fall through, I won't always have a Russian oligarch to bail me out.

And so, with that, I have come to accept that I will have to knock the Dodgers, Angels and Padres off the list some other time, but considering the Mets were in L.A. to polish off a season-torpedoing 2-9 road trip, it may be best for my health that I avoided the situation all together.

Plus I got a totally awesome production drawing of Wolverine from the X-Men animated series that I'm going to frame and hang up. And once I arrived home, I found my tickets to September's Giants-Colts game in Indianapolis had arrived.

Until the next stadium some cardboard and a drawing of adamantium will have to keep me satisfied. I think my brother would be proud.