Weekend Notes

We had a busy weekend with several special events, and a few things stood out that I thought I'd touch on here. Friday night the Mrs. and I attended the Angels game at Anaheim Stadium. I should have known we'd be in for a long night after our starting pitcher walked three in the first inning, including one with bases loaded . In a later inning he walked a couple more just in time to give up a grand slam. The guy that threw the ceremonial first pitch before the game had more control than John Lackey did.

I never stay all the way until the end of the game because I hate sitting in traffic. Friday night was different, though, because on Friday the Angels put on a great fireworks show after the game. We stayed, along with about 40,000 others, to see the show, and the price we paid for a 10 minute fireworks show was an hour spent sitting in our car in the parking lot trying to get out. I'm not sure I'll do that again.

Saturday we attended a special event put on by our home city which was celebrating its 40th birthday. In a park near our house the city set up a big festival which included a free performance by the Pacific Symphony, Orange County's top professional orchestra. My hat's off to the city for a great event, and to the sponsors who gave out a lot of free stuff and made the whole thing possible. The Symphony was outstanding despite the challenges of performing outdoors.

Sunday morning I sang in the Traditions service at church for the third time this summer, and after lunch we decided to head over to Disneyland to walk around for awhile. They have a bag check area before you get into the park which is supposed to provide for some level of security. Unfortunately, we got in the line run by a guy who takes his job way too seriously. If you're not carrying a backpack or other bag you can usually just walk right on through past the folks who are being checked. This guy made all of us wait while he spent way too long searching some tourists backpack.

This really doesn't provide any significant level of security. The fact is you could tuck a handgun in your waistband, pull your shirt over it, and walk right in. They don't have any kind of metal detectors like they do at Magic Mountain, and it will probably take a real shooting before they do.

The park itself was jammed full and it was pretty warm. We walked around a bit, rode one ride just because the line was short (the Jungle Cruise), and headed out. When the park is that full it just isn't much fun to stay there. I feel sorry for the folks who are paying full price to attend on a day like this.

Oh well, the weekend's over and it's back to the grind.