The pictures from my San Diego trip are up on flickr (sorry, friends and family only).  If you think you are a friend or family, send me an email and I will give you access.

I figured to kind of round out the last post about San Diego, I would post the highlights of the last couple days of the trip—in list format (of course).

1. San Diego - We spent another day walking around San Diego.  We walked down to the pier and saw the ships, watched the birds dive-bomb fish, and did a little shopping.  And, we had lunch at the Kebab Shop where we had some Doners and Shawarmas (both, delicious).

2. Ocean Beach - After lunch, we went up to Ocean Beach to visit my friend Dan.  He lived in a nice townhouse a couple blocks from the beach.  He took us up to the strip where we had dinner at Nicks.  It was a pretty nice restaurant with amazing views of the ocean.  I had some sea bass which was delicious.  Sea food is so much better in San Diego.  We then hit up some bars (which I now forget the names of) and then headed back to the city.

3. Sea World - Our third day in San Diego was spent at Sea World.  The wait to get in was horrible.  We ended up in the line of possibly the slowest money collector in the world.  Their whole process could really use a process flow study.  It was definitely not lean.  Once we got in the park, it was a great time.  If you followed my twitters, I said it made me feel like a kid again.  And, that was really true.  My favorite part was the Sea Lions.  Nickie liked the dolphins.

4. In-N-Out - On the last day, we spent the day hanging out in the pool.  I think the most notable occassion, for me, was finally getting to try In-N-Out burger.  I missed it my last time through San Diego.  My review…simply delicious.  It is the best fast food going.  The burger and fries were both extremely fresh.  I was not let down.

So, that is about it.  I had a great time in San Diego.  You can check out the photo gallery to see all the sites, and even a picture of me at In-N-Out.

Wifflefest is almost here. You can get all the details here. It all starts at noon.  Try to get to the park as early as possible, because we are going to try to run a couple tournaments throughout the day.  If you want, you can meet at my house between 11 and 11:30 and we can head on out together.

Send me an email at matt@matthewsmith.com for address and directions.

To start off, I am a St. Louisan, and I think the InBev deal is bad for the city.  I do understand that for the most part, InBev plans to keep things “business as usual” for the city and the company’s breweries.  But, that doesn’t change the fact that the company has a responsibility to its shareholders, and as a result, will have to reduce operating inefficiencies to cut expenses.  That means job cuts where there is redundancy.  When choosing to cut jobs in St. Louis or Belgium, which do you think is more likely?  My money is on St. Louis jobs.

Moreover, I think this deal is bad for the US.  Sure, $70 a share seems like a good deal.  But, if you consider that the dollar has decreased by nearly 14% when compared to the Euro over the last year, InBev is actually paying the equivalent of $60/share (in last year equivalent dollars) by taking advantage of currency arbitrage.  And, the deal gets better day-by-day as the USD to EURO gap widens.  What is even more troubling is that for the most part, AB is not a struggling company.  AB is stagnant.  But, what company has not been stagnant in the current economy?  Allowing a foreign company to take advantage of currency arbitrage to purchase a perfectly stable US company is a bad precedent for our government to set.

Now, I am not a financial expert.  But, I do think that when you factor in the currency delta, this looks like a bad deal.  What do you think?

Wifflefest update from Jeremy. Let me know if you are coming. You could just leave a comment.

Date: Saturday July 19, 2008
Location: Boonslick Park Pavilion #2, St. Charles, MO
Official Start Time: 12:00 pm
Entry Fee: $5 per person (to help cover the cost of the pavilion rental)

Q. What is Wifflefest?
A. Wifflefest is a semi-annual celebration of the greatest recreational game ever created. Period.

Q. I’ve never played Wiffle Ball. What is it?
A. You’re either a liar or a commie. Anyone born in the U.S. since 1954 has played Wiffle Ball. A list of the rules for our game will be provided on site. No communists allowed.

Q. What should I bring to Wifflefest?
A. Your drinking shoes. You will also be responsible for your own food and drink. The pavilion does have a grille. I will provide charcoal. Park regulations stipulate that beer is allowed but kegs are not. The pavilion has several tables, but bring other chairs if you want.

Q. Do I need anything else?
A. Game equipment will be provided. If you’re as passionate about WB as I am and have your own specially crafted balls, feel free to bring them. Acceptable bats include the standard yellow bat, Black Magic, JMX and JTL aluminum wiffle ball bats. No taped bats. If you can’t hit a homer with a standard bat, hit the gym.

Directions:
From I-70, exit at 5th Street North. Left on Boonslick Rd. Right on Rosebrae Dr. Left on Dardenne St. Park is on the left. Mapquest lists the address as 1000 Rosebrae Dr, St. Charles, MO, 63301.

Nickie and I have been staying in San Diego’s downtown area for a day now. So, far it has been a lot of fun. It is nice to get away from the heat and humidity of St. Louis. It is like St. Louis spring here all the time.

On the first day, we spent most of the time walking around the Gaslamp district. The rental owner described it as a cross between Wrigleyville and Beale Street. Having been to both, I think it is a little more like Beale Street. I did not see a bunch of drunk Cub’s fans yelling obsenities, so it didn’t remind me much of Wrigleyville.

For dinner, we went to Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge. It had a Hawaiian Tiki feel to it—hence the name.  We had a couple Mai Tais, some appetizers, and the Pink Cadillac roll.  Which, is by far, the best sushi roll I have ever had.  I am not sure if it is the freshness of the fish or the combination of spicy shrimp, crab, avocado, cream cheese, and eel sauce (which is suprisingly good).  But, it was great.

We finished the night off with some live music at Patricks II.  It was a nice blues bar in the Gaslamp.

Just a quick update, I added the Twitter widget (thanks, Doz) to my blog.  It is in the sidebar on the right of the page under “Twitter Updates”.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows you to post quick blog entries under 140 characters from the Web or cell phone.  It is like your status update for MySpace—but, less lame.  I really don’t update it often, but that might change if I get an iPhone or Bold.  I am an extremely slow text messager.

Anyways, if you are bored, check it out and follow me.

Having one of the most common names in the world is tough.

While doing a vanity search, I found an article concerning Pennsylvania House Bill 1900.  This bill is meant to prevent “political cyberfraud” which includes:

A knowing and willful act concerning a political website that is committed with the intent to deny a person access to a political website, deny a person the opportunity to register a domain name for a political website or cause a person reasonably to believe that a political website has been posted by a person other than the person who posted the website, and would cause a reasonable person, after reading the website, to believe the site actually represents the views of the proponent or opponent of a ballot measure.

Apparently a Pennsylvania State Representative, and fellow Matthew Smith, was one of the signers of the bill.  At face value, it appears that the bill tries to restrict the registration of domain names that are also the names of political officials.  As noted in the article, the Pennsylvania State legislature probably does not have the authority to enforce this bill, but it is troubling that this is on the minds of lawmakers.  Hopefully, with the future influx of new Top Level Domains (TLDs), domain name problems will be a thing of the past.

Regardless, I wanted to make it clear that I am not that Matthew Smith.  And, I wish him the best in his political career.  Although, I do not look forward to having to pay the hosting fees for bandwidth if he runs for President in the future.

Apparently, John McCain hates me and a bunch of my friends, as well.  Harsh.  And, I was naive enough to think that he wouldn’t even be reading this.  This stands in stark contrast to Barack who has a twitter and flickr account.  I see little wrong with anyone (well, anyone that can use a computer) being able to voice their own opinion via a blog.  Freedom of speech is a founding principle of our country.  Now, I am not going to make my voting decision based on the candidate’s acceptance of social media, but I do think that his track record so far on technology is pretty concerning.

Note: It is possible that this quote could have been taken a little out of context.  John McCain himself does have a blog.  He could have been talking just about political bloggers and pundits.  Regardless, McCain needs to be a little more cautious about what he says if he wants to get any younger voters to vote for him in the fall.

What do you think, Mike?

The redesign for matthewsmith.com is live now.  I probably should call it a design (as Dozier suggests), because the first version did not really have much thought put into it at all.  For this design, I really wanted to experiment with fixed positioning and alpha transparency, so I am not supporting IE6.  So, if you have been putting off upgrading (for the last year or so) or are forced to use it at work—I am sorry.

Expect more to come in the future.  I definitely am going to add flickr, last.fm, xbox360, and twitter widgets when I get around to it to make this thing feel more like a blog.

Anyways, let me know what you think.  I am sure it will be constructive.

I spent much of last week studying for a finance midterm, and I ignored everything else (including this blog).  But,  I am back and I will try to throw a few posts up this week.  So, to start out the week, here are a few things I learned over the weekend.

1. The 4th of July in St. Louis is really fun - There are few places to enjoy the 4th of July that are better than St. Louis.  You can watch the Cardinals, hear music at Live on (off) the Levee, shoot off fireworks in the county, and see fireworks down by the Arch.  It is a great time.  I am still recovering from the festivities.

As an aside, the picture above was taken of the fireworks by the arch.  Apparently, the “fireworks” mode of my camera did not work as advertised.  But, I thought the light trails from the long exposure seemed kind of cool anyways.

2. Apparently, bedazzled shirts are in (even for guys) - I don’t care how trendy it becomes, I will never own a shirt that has glitter or jewels bedazled onto it.  This officially goes on the list of things I will never wear; which now includes: bedazzled shirts, crocs, bluetooth headsets, popped collars, and sunglasses at night.

3. The Blackberry is definitely better to type on than the iPhone - I did a side-by-side test at the bar on Saturday night.  The Blackberry was the clear winner.  With that said, the iPhone still has the better browser and some pretty cool Apps.  It will be a tough call between the Bold and the iPhone if I ever decide to get a new phone.

4. Mario Kart Double Dash seems a lot harder than it use to be.  Nickie has got me back into retro gaming, and the first thing I played was Double Dash.  I use to be dominant at 150cc class, but now I can barely place.  I forgot how much it would piss me off that everyone in front of you shot their shells backwards instead of trying to win the race and take out the leader.  Regardless, playing Double Dash really makes me want to get the Wii version.  Now, if I could only find an ethical retailer that has them in stock.