San Diego:  dry, sunny, mild; who could ask for a better climate?  Most can't.  Chargers, Trojans, Padres; who could ask for better sports teams?  Well, most can.  

But tonight's not about talent.  It's about the glorious American pastime of baseball.  The usually awkward San Diego Padres play at home in one of the country's (or at least the west coast's) newest and nicest ballparks, Petco Park.  Here's some of the views of the stadium, and one where you can see that some of the older nostalgic SD buildings were preserved, at least on the exterior, and they blend beautifully with the modern construction of the Park.

This ballpark is quite the work of modern architecture.  It also would have never been built if it were up to me.  As I posted on my Facebook page with one of these photos, to build a ballpark of this magnitude and with this level of luxury for a team like the Padres is at best ill-advised.  Maybe Kevin Costner would be proud (google "if you build it they will come") but I wouldn't have bet the California Vineyard on it.  

Obviously my rant means absolutely nothing without any numbers, but this isn't a statistics or analytical blog, so you will get none of that; in fact I'm about to point out all of the fun parts of my visit to Petco.

The bad side of sitting in west-facing seats?  For 3-4 innings you wish you had some sunglasses.  See Below:

I mentioned more beer, and I'm not a liar.  San Diego prides itself for being a Mecca of craft beers, and one is never short on options for a different flavor of brew.  My liquid-bread of choice for this evening was Karl Strauss' Pintail Pale Ale.   It won the 2012 California State Fair Commercial Beer Competition Gold Medal!  It's just a fantastic hybrid of crisp and dry hops and a full-flavored and yet-citrusy ale.  I love Pale Ales, and my favorite previously was Kona Fire Rock, but this one may be the new beer I lust for.  

Oh yea, San Diego actually beat the San Francisco Giants that night (this was Saturday, the 27th of April)!  I guess that didn't really help my case above when I was basically saying "the Padres suck".  Sorry Padres.  I had a great time at your ballpark.  Here are a few more pictures to prove it.

I promised you guys a post this weekend, so I won't disappoint all 3 of my viewers ;).  Where to begin?  I have several different topics to cover, and only so much time to hold your attention...

I'll start with how beautiful a day it was here in sunny San Diego.  I know, it's selfish and annoying that I get this beautiful weather while many of my friends and family  from the south are still dealing with rain and coldish weather before the summer... but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my beautiful sunshine!

Look right to the left and you'll see my view from my apartment balcony.  It's gorgeous, isn't it?  I'll talk about the pipe in a little bit.  But I woke up this morning and it was cool but bright and mild, so I expected it to warm up significantly, and I was right!  I really haven't taken advantage of my pool at my apartment the way it should be, but today I decided it was about time!  Looking below you will probably want to kick me, since it took me almost a year before I really enjoyed this gorgeous pool patio...

This is a nasty view from my apartment.  I don't really know how to talk about this without bragging, so if you're jealous, just get over it.  But seriously, part of the reason I don't get to enjoy this is that I work all the time.  Yea I know, cry me a river, you guys all work all the time too.  So we all are screwed.

The beauty of this summer-esque weather brings to mind several things, but not the least of which being cold, golden beers.  My local supermarket has good deals on alcohol when bought in large-ish amounts, which means bottles of liquor by the 6 and 6-packs of beer by the fours.  So I got four 6-packs yesterday as follows:

That's Beck's (mentioned in Beerfest!  Watch that movie!), Kona Longboard, a great Hawaiian Lager, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, a Hefeweizen, (pronounced "Heff-uh-vizen"), and Sam Adams Summer Ale.  Now, I'm open to more suggestions for great summer beers, but if you are looking for great beers to enjoy out in the sun, these are four fantastic choices.  Beck's is very light, a classic German-style, very light and enjoyable.  Kona Longboard is like Budweiser, but they put more effort into it.  That's all I can really describe for it.  It's a full-flavored lager.  Classic.  The 'Hef is light, crisp and citrusy, as are most 'Hefs, but some of them are too sweet, or too bland; Sierra Nevada did a great job creating something light and citrusy while still biting back a bit.  It has a crisp bite while giving you a refreshing flavor and feeling as it goes down in the hot sun.  And Samuel Adams Summer Lager is again light, crisp and citrusy, but it is very specific in that it tastes like an Ale, with a lemony-citrus flavor, and not as cloudy as the Hef.  All of these beers are different in their own right, but similar profiles that compliment the heat and relaxation by the water.  Enjoy!

The picture you see to the left is pretty standard for the employees at Racine and Laramie.  Don't ask me how to pronounce that name.  Also, I don't know if it is a requirement to sport a curled mustache like shown in the picture to work there, but let's just say that when I visited, I saw a similar mustache on an employee that is not featured in the photo to the left.  

This is the smoke shop in Old Town, San Diego, CA.  It is located in an historic district (yea I pronouned "historic" as 'istoric', sue me) which looks like an old western village.  There are lots of old museum-esque buildings as well as refurbished restaurants and modern cigar bars.  This particular establishment, however, is particularly awesome.  The clothing that the man to the left is wearing isn't because his style is queer, it's because the smoke shop is not just a shop, but a sort of museum!

The above photos shoe the smoke shop, Racine and Laramie (I still have to read it every time in order to spell it, and I can't even feel confident while saying the name out loud, so don't feel bad if you can't either...)

The shop is amazing for smokers; they have a walk-in humidor and cigar section where one can smoke a delicious cigar in-house.  They have glass cases where they display not only gorgeous ancient artifact-type pipes that aren't for sale, but also expensive-to-cheap pipes for purchase and smoking.  The best and most customer-friendly aspect, is the in-shop blends of pipe tobacco.  One of the photos above shows some jars with labels; these are filled with said tobacco for pipes.  The shop allows a customer to walk in, pull out his own pipe, and grab tobacco from the jars and sample a smoke!  They provide matches, ashtrays and everything!  It's a really great shop and a great experience if you like cigars or pipes!

Knob Creek.  I've talked about it before.  Tonight I am drinking it after coming in from the heat and those delicious beers above.  It's just a classic bourbon.  Smoke and vanilla, oak and just a hint of cinnamon, this is a whiskey man's whiskey.  From Kentucky.  I find myself listening to a combo of country (Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Brooks and Dunn, Eric Church, etc) and Rock, such as Third Eye Blind and Mission South.  My taste in music is sorta eclectic, but my favorites are similar styles.  Where are your favorite smoke shops?  Do you have favorite bands or musicians to listen to while smoking or drinking?  Do you have a favorite bourbon or whiskey that I haven't mentioned yet in my short tenure?  Do you have suggestions for music?  Post, share, talk, anything!

The photo above is from the Kentucky Wildcats Facebook page.  It also shows a record-setting attendance for a University of Kentucky Blue and White spring scrimmage.  That's right.  50,831 attendees for what has easily been described as a "glorified practice".  We haven't even begun incorporating our #29 recruiting class; they don't come until the fall!  Granted, freshmen aren't nearly as influential in football as they can be in basketball, but it doesn't matter at this point.  

For some comparisons, only Alabama had more than 46,000 attendees in 2012, with 78,500 according to this UK football blog.  Alabama's record (for spring games) is just over 92,000.  But the key here is that Mark Stoops came to Kentucky with a mission, and it looks like the State of Kentucky is behind him!  Last year our spring game attendance was no more than 4500.  No, I didn't miss a zero.  And our previous record for a spring scrimmage?  about 20,000.  This is a pretty big number for SEC norms, but surprisingly even some of the stand-alone (meaning they rock their conference basically every year) teams such as Ohio State, Michigan, Boise State and the like, turn out under 40,000 and even less than 20,000 most years.  

Again, I can't stress enough that this number alone doesn't mean anything for the future of Kentucky Football, except that the fans are ready.  We want football.  We aren't content with "just" having a great basketball program, and we will support Mark Stoops as he attempts to build Kentucky into a legitimate SEC football team.  I for one am excited.  

Spotify, if you haven't heard of it, is a music streaming software, similar in function to iTunes but very different in its structure and use.  The general use is free and allows users to listen to music, streamed from the internet, without limit.  Many users have realized how awesome this is, and then wonder "wait, isn't that like that illegal music giant that collapsed years ago, Napster?"  Well, you can stream the music, i.e. listen to it, with an internet connection, but you can't download the music to your computer or other devices, among other features, unless you are a subscriber.  

Turns out its a great deal; at $10 a month you can download and listen to as much music as you want, as long as you have the data to store it.  In my opinion, this beats the pants off of iTunes' prices (I believe the going rate for a single song requires a donation of your kidney, and they will usually sell you a full album if you sign a contract to deliver your first born child to them along with a small processing fee of $1.29 per song on the album).

The reason I'm bringing up Spotify is that I just read a great article on CNET.com, titled "The future of music, according to Spotify's Daniel Ek".  Click the name for the link (if you haven't figured out yet that's how I generally do business here).  The article is a bit lengthy and digs a little bit into statistics of the modern music industry, but if you love music there are some really great highlights.  For example, Ek, Spotify's co-founder and leader, was excited to talk to CNET reporters about all of the possibilities that technology is bringing to our near future.  He imagines being able to control music by waving your arms and/or fingers around in the air, and for the music and programs that control it to be integrated in smart houses and in our cars.  It's really pretty neat.

However, the most interesting thing of all, was reading about how Spotify is so heavily focused on data; they claim to have the most data of anyone else in their industry, and they need it not only for research into how to carry the company into the future, but also for leverage to gain rights for music.  I'll try not to take the thunder away from CNET's article, but Ek went so far as to call the rules controlling the music industry "outdated" and that is one of their biggest obstacles in their endeavors.  He makes a good point.  I touched on the topic earlier in my post "Download Controversy", and I'm a firm believer that men like Ek will eventually change the complex and ridiculous nature of the music industry.  We can make music more accessible (because who doesn't love music?) while still supporting the musicians that are making it.  Thoughts?  Counterpoints?  Spotify users, either satisfied or not?  (I'm a very happy Spotify user!)

So what do all of these guys have in common?  Well, all are coaches of teams that had supremely disappointing seasons last year.  And all are gearing up for big statements next year.

The idea for this post came to me as I was (kind of pathetically) looking at next year for my three favorite sports teams.  As I read a very sobering but still cautiously optimistic post about Kentucky's upcoming football season, I ran across sentences such as "Kentucky fans have a hard time coming to grips with the idea that Vanderbilt is no longer the bottom dweller in the SEC.  What was once an assured SEC win has become two embarrassing losses over the last two years."  This was all a tough read, (more thoughts on that post and Kentucky's future in a minute) but then when I looked at the New Orleans Saints' upcoming schedule I noticed similar statements to the tune of "In a preseason rematch of a 2012 regular season game we'd all be better off forgetting.." - From http://www.canalstreetchronicles.com/2013/4/6/4189560/nfl-preseason-2013-new-orleans-saints, in reference to the Saints' first preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

I immediately noticed the two teams are in similar situations (I actually thought I was still reading the SAME article for a minute!):  Mark Stoops is a new coach with high expectations placed on him, specializes in defense, and the team is coming off of one of the worst records in recent history (not that Kentucky has ever been a powerhouse in Football but that's not the point); Sean Payton is returning from suspension this season, again with high expectations, hired a new defensive coordinator in Rob Ryan, and is trying to pick the team back up from the worst season since his arrival with the program in 2006.  Coach John Calipari looked very similar to these two coaches, though on a slightly different time frame, with his arrival in Kentucky in 2009.  

All three of these men are going into their respective 2013-2014 seasons with a lot to prove, but all have been dealt a better hand than last year's.  The Saints have their head coach back, and they still have a powerhouse offense spear-headed by Drew Brees.  Their defense really has nothing to lose, so it should be very exciting.  Mark Stoops comes to Kentucky in extremely high regard and was able to put together a #29 recruiting class (Kentucky's incoming class last year was #60) in just 6ish weeks at being with the school.  This is the first testament to his ability, and while #29 is still low compared to the rest of the conference, it is a notable improvement and it appears to be a foundation on which Mark will begin to build a program Kentucky fans just might get excited about.  Finally, John Calipari and his most recent batch of freshmen disappointed the most spoiled and awesome fan base in the country, the Big Blue Nation.  Our last coach was fired for making the NIT, though he never won a national title and he also wasn't dealing with a completely new team, losing all five starters and some change to the NBA draft.  But I digress. 

The Wildcats' basketball season is already getting hype, with arguably the strongest recruiting class in college basketball ever (Kentucky has 6 McDonald's All-Americans committed for the 2013-2014 season), the possibility that Andrew Wiggins, the number 1 overall-ranked incoming freshman, chooses to come to Kentucky and more returning "veterans" than Calipari is likely to know what to do with.  Kentucky will have a strong upperclass leadership in Kyle Wiltjer and Jared Polson, talented returning sophomores, and ridiculously good freshmen talent.  The depth of this team gives Calipari more tools than he's ever had at Kentucky.  I don't want to get caught up in the hype until I see them play, but #9 would be nice...

The important thing for all fans to remember is that there is never a sure thing in sports, but this next year should be a lot more fun to watch than his past year.  Two of these three teams are contenders to win it all, while with the third we are really just looking for solid improvement throughout; the writer of the article I referenced above estimates a 4-8 season for Kentucky Football, and points out that people have a wide-range of expectations for the Wildcats, anywhere from no improvement to an 8-win season.  I think 8 wins is pretty far-fetched for this young team and new coach, but I don't think 6 is out of the question.  Only time will tell.

This photo is one of Maker's Mark's official ads, and it reaffirms their attitude throughout this ordeal.  They didn't want to take less-aged whiskey to the bottle early, because that's not the same thing they always bottle.  They also didn't raise the price, because they believe their bourbon should be enjoyed by the most amount of people possible, and in order to do that, it has to remain somewhat affordable.

For the record, I tried both bourbons, side-by-side, and although it wasn't a blind taste-test, I could tell a slightly-less-full flavor on the 42%.  I would still say it matched the flavor profile, but I wasn't happy with it.  I am definitely grateful they went back, and I would have eventually stopped drinking it if it was a permanent move.  What do you guys think?  Have you tried it?  I always look at the red-waxed bottles in liquor stores even if I'm not buying, just to see if they are the temporary 42% or a full 45%.