Take a Whiff...It's Springtime...Almost.

So it seems it's always springtime or summertime in San Diego. It's how we roll on the left coast. Isn't that why we all pay the extra sunshine tax to live in our little niche of Nirvana? Putting up with state legislators refusing to come to grips with astronomical budgets and playing to our sympathies because the poor babies had to catch their zzzzs in chambers. But it did make for auspicious photo ops. The Herculean efforts of these long-winded martyrs. I am giving them my personal one-handed applause. Why not furlough these State employees rather than DMV clerks? At least I'd still be able to get my license and they'd still be able to collect their paltry $110,000 yearly salary and $138 per diem minus one day a week. But fahgetabout all that. These hard working salt-of-the-earth types pressed on in one of the longest sessions in the history of the world Part II and passed a budget. Funny, I wonder how long I'd last if I merely pushed my home budget process aside and filibustered my creditors? Mayhaps I'd be writing this diatribe from the sanctity of a debtor's prison lockup. But then again, would it matter? Most likely not because it's springtime (almost), I'm feeling better physically after my doctors performed my mid-life tuneup, checked the fluid levels and the pressure AND the Padres have reported to Peoria for spring training. It makes me feel warm all over. Just like when I was a kid in Monterey Park trying out for Little League at Barnes Park. Hey I got drafted by the Fireballs! First practice is Monday. Wow, I'd better re-lace my glove with new shoe strings (who needed cow hide). Maybe this year I'll replace the white ones with waxy black laces. Get out the Shinola and put a dozen layers of polish on the rubber cleats--that were more rubber than cleat. And with my size and girth...well, like cleats would even make a difference. Ever see anyone try to run while carrying a Steinway Baby Grand on their back? I might beat them by a step or a step-and-a-half (if I just visited the Rotary Club Memorial Restrooms.) Little League was my yearly renaissance--my reason for putting up with school work, home work, yard work the rest of the year. It was a simpler time. And maybe that's why Major League Baseball spring training means so much to me. A simpler time. Time spent in the dirt, on the grass with friends and my dad--who dearly loved baseball. A kinder, gentler and healthier time in my life. Here's hoping I can regain that threesome again...I'm trying. But there are some things that truly are genetic; that being, the Steinway Baby Grand on my back. I never could run that fast and I don't think I ever will be able to. Now I'm satisfied with a 3 mile power walk and a fresh, new look at a healthier life. Play ball!

Two "Construction" Workers Saved My Life

So throughout my life I've experienced many landmark events. Getting a driver's license at 16; registering for the draft at 18; my first (legal) drink at 21; first time doing a radio show on the air; first tv appearance; marriage; births; deaths; awards. I'm not braggin'...I'm just sayin'! My landmarks are of no less or no greater importance than yours, his or the guy walking down Main Street (to quote Sister Veronica Rose, St. Stephen's Catholic School in Monterey Park, California.) I experienced another such landmark January 22 at 2 A.M. My first, and hopefully my last, heart attack. A 100% occluded left anterior descending coronary artery. Yep, the cardiologist (Dr. Nassir Azimi at Grossmont Hospital) cheerfully told my wife he'd never seen the "widow maker" blocked quite like this one. And that he'd remember it for the rest of his career (and he's only 38.) He, along with Dr. Hassankhani, surmised they needed to perform an angioplasty and see if they could unclog this bugger. Why two doctors? Because I'm so damned important! Thankfully they think ALL their patients are so DAMNED important. So it really wasn't an "egotastic" moment. You see, Dr. Hassankhani is "the electrician" -- he's an electro-cardiologist who had performed two cardiac ablations on me in the past 24 months. Dr. Azimi is "the plumber" --he's the guy who unclogs the pipes. So together these two journeymen tradesmen set out to make me better. I didn't need to look for their union label, I simply needed to have the chest pain stop. And they did. And now, two weeks hence, I am planning my return to work to the KyXy Morning Show, Monday February 9th and a lifelong struggle against weight gain, salt over usage and consistent exercise regimens.

Along with a heart attack and it's subsequent physical recovery (glad I can use both those words/phrases in the same sentence) come psychological mending, too. Will I wake up in the morning? Will that artery clog again? Will I need a transfusion if I nick myself shaving (damn blood thinners)? What's that little pain in my chest? Oh, it's nothi....beeeeep...flatline!

So this is one of my landmark landmarks. Unlike my first "legal" cocktail, I could have done without this episode helping define my pretty much ordinary life. I could have done without the stress it had shoveled onto my Florence Nightingale wife. I could have done without the card I now must carry saying I belong to the "two stent gent's club." I could have done without all this had I only done without salt, sugar, excess calories and sendentarianism (not to be confused with Libertarianism, vegetarianism or disestablishmentarianism.)

I am thankful for all the landmark events in my life but none greater than this one. For along with this one comes the landmark opportunity to truly become "renaissance man" literally. In some regards a lot like Benjamin Button who grows younger and smaller with age. I'll never get younger, but I intend to grow smaller.

I am thankful to my electrician and my plumber for the chance to be reborn.