Every Day an Adventure

In an effort to keep getting up early, I came up with a perfect excuse to get up at 9am today... to go to the Mariners game at 1pm! Yeah. See, baseball is good for me.

Seriously, though, the game was scary. It was sold out thanks to father's day -- I got the Safeco shuttle down from Northgate and got to the park around 12:30pm -- and there were huge lines at the ticket windows, and the lady's like "I only have single tickets and only in Field and Box". And when I got up there and said I wanted a single ticket, she basically said "35 bucks, and you'll be in the far parts of Field". Now I personally know that those are SUCKY seats because you can't see the screens and you're at a bad angle. So I asked about the 50 dollar seats. She had one that was 26 rows straight behind home plate. No shit, I took that one in an instant. I guess I'm starting a job tomorrow, I can afford it.

It was a HOT and SUNNY day out today, and the shade didn't actually cover me until somewhere in the 5th inning, although I did bring a hat so I don't think I'm sunburnt at all. The game was really a very good game, lots of fun to watch, high-scoring. The Mariners really hit up Tom Glavine for a ton of runs early on (it was 6-1 as of the third inning). It's kind of weird, since I mean, it's Tom Glavine, the guy could reasonably reach 300 career victories and is almost a shoe-in for the hall of fame. Meche pitched admirably for the Mariners, but when he hit the 100-pitch mark, he practically just fell over, loading the bases and then hitting Woodward to knock in a run. Well, we put in Matt Thornton to take care of the loaded bases, and all of the people scored. It's ridiculous that it inflates Meche's ERA like that and Thornton gets off with barely anything. 6-5. Fortunately the Mariners countered by exploding for 4 runs in the 6th, mostly due to Mike DeJean walking a bunch of them -- even walking in a run. The final score was 11-5. nickjong called me during the final out to express his extreme sadness that the Mariners had swept the Mets.

It really wasn't all bad. Mike Piazza went 3-for-5 after going hitless all through the weekend. Ichiro was also 3-for-5, scoring two runs. The "new kids on the block", Morse and Rivera, combined for 5-for-8 and three runs scored. It's looking more and more like our middle infield next year will be Jose Lopez and Mike Morse, at this rate, given the hitting tear they're both on.

I sat around too many rude Mets fans though, who insisted on yelling and screaming a lot, especially things like "HEY BELTRAN, YOU SUCK, WE'RE NOT PAYING YOU 119 MILLION DOLLARS TO SUCK LIKE THIS, LOSER."

I noticed that Kazuo Matsui and Kazuhisa Ishii pretty much stood together leaning on the Mets dugout rails for most of the game. I guess Ishii pitched the other day and Matsui doesn't get played, so they can just chat in Japanese together.

Oh well. Mets sweep aside, I came home after the game and went out to Big 5 Sporting Goods because I'm running out of space in my scorecard book. I also picked up stuff for swimming, like a cap and goggles. Go me. After that I walked around Greenlake. I called my dad for Father's Day and talked to him for like two miles... er, like 35 minutes. The lake was nice. There weren't ducklings out today, I think it's too late for them, but there were goslings. They were with the big geese, and were fairly big themselves, but they were all fuzzy, which is how you know they're goslings.

On the way back from Greenlake I decided to drive past Megan and Josh's house and see how far they'd come with the fence. The really funny part is, I was about a block away from their house and my phone rings. It's Megan, asking if I'd want to go to dinner at Mashiko. So I'm like "Dude, I'm a block away from your house. No joke. I wanted to see the fence." So I get out and admire the fence (they have done a TON, almost completed the entire side that they needed to get done first) and we make plans for dinner... except since they're yucky from the fence building and I'm yucky from sitting out in the sun and then walking several miles, we decide to reconvene in a bit. A little later they pick up me and then Eli and we all go to Mashiko. (I finally gave Eli the socks I knitted him. I started those socks in like... Christmas 2002, and finally finished them a few weeks ago)

Mashiko is seriously good. We got the omakase, and M&J said they were picking up the tab for me to celebrate me starting my job tomorrow. So, I have no idea exactly what level of omakase we got or how much it costs, but I decided to be group secretary and write it all down, so here is what we got (in order, we got one dish at a time):

1. Rockfish sashimi with ponzu sauce, shiso oil, red shanghai peppercorns, and cucumbers in the middle
2. Oysters with spicy sauce and daikon sprouts
3. Skipjack and tuna tartare, with capers and sprouts and onions I think, and a raw egg yolk
4. Nigiri sushi: albacore, opa, scallops with prosciutto, and troll caught wild alaskan king salmon, or something like that.
5. Grilled swordfish with badass plum sauce potatoes. (I was specifically told to note that they were badass)
6. Some sort of awesome roll - it had unagi, avocado, sweet potato, walnuts, and was in a soy wrapper of some sort.
7. More rolls - dynamite rolls, amaebi rolls, atomic tuna rolls, and some spicy crab roll
8. Baked fish - halibut, we think, and some sort of pink fish that wasn't salmon
9. Dessert -- Plum wine sorbet, mochi ice cream, green tea tiramisu, and creme caramel (sorta like flan)

It was craaaaaazy and everything was very good. I even was brave and ate an oyster (my first ever -- they kinda gross me out). I will have to find an excuse to go back there sometime.

Okay, well, now it's 12:30am and I should go to sleep since I want to get up at 7 or so. I hope I can get to sleep despite nerves... we'll see.

Today, it was nice out, so I walked around Greenlake. I think I'm still hitting my goal of 10 miles for the week. I only hope I can keep it up once I start working.

I battled the traffic and went down to the airport hotels, and picked up my brother Danny and a friend of his from work Aaron. They were in Yakima for the week doing some stuff for work, and were flying back out of Seattle tomorrow morning. Coincidentally, tonight was a season ticket night for me at the M's, so Danny and I had made plans to hang out and go to the game. Aaron didn't want to get stuck down by the airport, so he came into Seattle with us. He wanted to go to Uwajimaya, so we did that first for a bit, and then went down to Safeco. Oddly, despite that usually my section at Safeco is full of empty seats in front of me, there weren't any unsold seats for tonight's game. So he got a third seat a few rows above us. Now, the two seats to the right of my seats are taken by these two guys who are also season ticket holders and also had the same seats last year, but I don't know the people on the left. When they hadn't shown up by the end of the first inning, we told Aaron to move down and sit with us, and he did. Then the people on the left showed up at the start of the 4th inning. How lame!

I actually spent most of the game talking to the guys who sit in the seats to my right. It occurs to me that even though I've been sitting next to them for a season and a half, I still don't even know what their names are. But at least we can boooo-urn Boone together, much to the horror of the little kids in the section who think Bret Boone is god.

Oh, and the Mariners won, 5-0. Jamie Moyer stayed in for most of the game, but he was taken out in the 8th with two down, after he walked the bases loaded. Amazingly, Jeff Nelson came in and struck out Marlon Anderson to end the inning, and he ended up getting a save after also taking down the 9th inning scorelessly.

Dobbs was optioned to Tacoma and Jose Lopez was called up. Lopez played 3B tonight, but it's possible he may threaten Boone into not sucking at 2B, if we're lucky. The Pat Borders Fan Club reports that Borders was 2-for-3 with two doubles -- the second double would have been a triple for anyone under the age of 40, even. He scored two runs. Ichiro hit a three-run homer, two, which was pretty sweet.

As far as the Mets go -- Ishii did a pretty poor pitching job. And sadly Mike Cameron wasn't playing! They did have him come out at the beginning of the game and bring the lineup card to the plate, and he got a huge ovation from the Seattle crowds. I was also sad that Kazuo Matsui wasn't playing, because I wanted to see him, but they put him in as a defensive replacement at 2B for the 8th inning, at least. He looks so weird since he cut his hair.

Oh yeah. And let me tell you that no words have sounded more odd than "Centerfielder Willie Bloomquist", but it turned out it didn't matter -- of the pop outs to the outfield, only one went to center; eight went to left field, and two went to right field. I guess it's because so many people were hitting righty against Jamie Moyer, maybe.

(I am really looking forward to seeing a Mets-Phillies game in New York, though. And I'm pretty sure the Mets will win tomorrow. Pedro Martinez has never lost a game in Safeco Field, or against the Mariners EVER for that matter, and Ryan Franklin is pitching for the Mariners. So the only question of course is whether Pedro will get a no-hitter or not.)

My brother wants me to come visit and see a Nationals game with him. I'm thinking Labor Day weekend actually looks perfect -- they're playing the Phillies, and the Mariners aren't in town here.