Douglas E. Berry

Hey kids, it's an eye update!

After a long day sitting around at the Eye Institute (several doctors were dealing with emergencies which left them way behind) I finally got to see Dr. M. He was very happy that I don't have cancer, but as he pointed out, this still leaves us in the dark about the cause of the eye inflammation.

So we may be subjecting my poor eyeballs to a cyberpunk-ish horror called Electroretinography. Which actually, sounds pretty interesting, if a bit horrifying for someone as paranoid about their eyes as I am. But for now, we're stepping down the steroid eye drops over an eight-week period. If the inflammation is still under control at that time, we can start scheduling the removal of the cataract from my right eye.

The funny thing is they were so far behind that when I left the front office folks had all gone home. I'll have to call Monday to set up my follow-up.

In other news, I'm rather disappointed in our latest Giants store purchase. I take blood thinners, which means I do not react well to cold weather. So. as you can imagine, night games at Oracle Park are a challenge. What do you think of when you hear the word "anorak"?

As the child of a Brit, and having been raised on British TV, I think of a warm, hooded, bit of rain kit, usually with a half-zipper. So I was thrilled to see one for sale on the Giants' site. Folks, I have T-shirts that are heavier than this. I wore it out today, on a very mild day, and it provided no warmth nor protection from even the slightest wind.

sigh At least it looks good. I'll just wear it as the outer layer as part of my San Francisco Summer Evening arctic survival kit.

This weekend is the annual city-wide clean-up for our area, also known as "dump everything in the street weekend." Our pile will be small but interesting. I may take pictures of the more interesting piles of junk. After the visit from the plumber, and the need to clean out under the sinks, we are also heading over to the Household Hazardous Waste drop off. Busy times.

Next week we'll mark 31 years of marriage with a dinner at the one surviving Black Angus in the South Bay. Then next weekend we're seeing Dance with the Dead with Magic Sword opening. An evening of trippy instrumental music.

This has been your Eyes and More^TM update.

Well, here we are again. Reaching the end of the calendar year for all of us who use the Gregorian Calendar.Of course, given my druthers, it'd be Idibus Decembres MMDCCLXXIV Ab Urbe Condita. But I'm weird that way.

Where are my druthers, anyway? However has them, give them back post-haste!

Anyway, for me, 2021 was dominated not by the political upheaval in Washington, but by my ongoing eye issues. What started as a simple diagnosis of a cataract in my left eye has ballooned into a still-evolving investigation of which my body is showing so many inflammation markers. But getting here has been epic. Because for the first eight months of this I was seeing an ophthalmologist who was very hesitant and unsure of herself. When she finally referred me to a more experienced colleague, it was one visit and surgery scheduled. Everyone assured me that cataract surgery was super easy, barely an inconvenience.

I came out of the surgery blind in my left eye. It was like looking through a cloudy glass brick. This was not the result anyone expected, and I began a brief odyssey of being punted around to different eye doctors before getting a referral (an insurance approval) to the Stanford Eye Clinic. We were told that this appointment could take several hours, but what happened that Friday was, well, special.

After going through all the usual eyedrops, pictures, and tests, we were visited by a succession of escalating doctors, all of whom wanted to confirm that I hadn't eaten that day. Finally, the senior eye surgeon on duty came in and told me that my retina was detaching, and we needed to head over to the Stanford ER to check in for surgery that night. Of course, due to COVID-19, kshandra. couldn't come in with me.

Any ER on a Friday night is going to be an interesting place. Stanford did not disappoint. However, it was also the night the Giants were going for the 100th win of the season, and I couldn't see my phone to follow the game! (They beat Colorado 7-2.) Eventually, They roll me into the ER proper if only so I could charge my phone. After really geeking out over how the ER is run, I'm rolled up to the surgical theater. This is the first time I've entered one in a wheelchair, so I got to really geek out over all the cool shit. The anesthesiologist and I agree on a general, and the last words I hear are "I'm giving you the relaxing medicine now."

The next thing I know it's like 0400 and I'm being rolled out to meet kshandra at the car. The procedure lasted about three hours. What they did was absolutely fucking science fiction. Along with cleaning out the gunk from the failed cataract surgery and resetting the artificial lens, they used FUCKING LASERS to weld the tears in my retina, put a silicon band around my eye to force it back into shape, and injected a gas bubble into my eye to further restore the proper retinal surface. This was out-patient surgery!

What sucked was I had to keep a head-down posture for the next week or so to keep the bubble in place. I listened to a lot of Judge Judy and podcasts at my desk. Things are still not perfect, but we're getting there!

My job continues to be fantastic. The mini-session they had in April-May last spring was weird and sparsely attended as many parents elected to continue distance learning. The new school year is back to regular days and hours, and with the exception of the six-week hole the eye problems blew in my ability to work, I've been happy to get back to my corner and shout in German at my kids. My boss was amazing, finding that I still had hours left in a special COVID-relief time bank, and a few PTO hours, so at least a little money came in during the time off. I'm so happy that I took the chance on becoming a Crossing Guard.

It was a good year for me in baseball. The San Jose Giants, now a Low-A club, won their league championship. The big league team was predicted to finish no better than 3rd in the National League West. What followed was one of the most amazing divisional races in the history of baseball. The Giants won a club-record 107 games, and still only clinched in the last game of the season because our rival Los Angeles Dodgers won 106 games, also a team record. We met in the NLDS and it went to five games, of course. LA won, and I'm not going to make excuses. But what a fucking season!

Due to the pandemic, we didn't get out much. We did make a long-planned trip to Los Angeles to see Avatar at the Wiltern Theater. We made a mini-vacation out of it. We went to the Rainbow Bar and Grill and spent too much money at Lemmy's Lounge. Hey, I'm an old Motörhead fan! We also were able to have dinner with isomeme and her lovely wife and with kshandra's halfsister and her lovely wife and kids.

We also visited the Getty Villa.. I killed my phone taking pictures. It's that amazing.

Then, just a couple of weeks about, we went to the first night of Metallica's 40th Anniversary concert. THEY PLAYED FIXXXER! AND KING NOTHING!!!

So, those are the highlights of 2021 for me. The whole eye thing dominated and continues to shape my life. But there are big changes and events coming in 2022. Which will be the next post! Stay tuned!

(There should be a picture celebrating the San Francisco Giants winning the National League West title. It's hosted on Facebook. Oops.)

MLB Hall of Fame denies political firebrand and ex-pitching star Curt Schilling's request to be taken off ballot

I have no love for Curt Schilling, he's a right-wing asshole who fucked over Rhode Island when his game company failed. He was also a jerk on the mound.

On the good side, he did save Advanced Squad Leader

But I have to agree with him here. An athlete should have control over their name and if they decide they don't want to be on the Hall of Fame ballot for any reason, the Hall should honor it. In this case, Schilling is in his final year of eligibility and doesn't want the humiliation of being rejected again.

On another note related to Cooperstown, HOF plaques show the player wearing a team cap. This made sense when players tended to spend most of their careers in one place, but since free agency came along, even the best players can move around a great deal.

Right now, officials at the Hall of Fame determine what cap an inductee is wearing on their plaque. This is bullshit. The player should have the final say on what their HOF plaque looks like,

OK, let's be clear. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a baseball fanatic. I live for the Giants. I have preseason rituals that I adhere to religiously. I believe Opening Day should be a national holiday. I own about seven Giants hats.

Knowing all that, you'll understand the gravity of my thoughts here. Shut it down. Five days into the abbreviated season and we have the Marlins with 14 players testing positive, and games being canceled due to the need to clean the clubhouses used by the Marlins! You're going to see more and more big-name players opt out of the season.

And frankly, the season is a joke. 60 games? We can't play four without the plague breaking out! This is not going to work, and even if it somehow reaches the World Series, the winner is going to carry a huge asterisk because of the number of star players sitting out and the shortened season.

Shut it down. Save lives. And as always, wait 'til next year!

#OTD in 2014 - Game 7. pic.twitter.com/wNQXohLZm2

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) October 29, 2019

(click the link to see the video)

The Evil Empire has gone down in flames, leaving us with a Houston v. Washington World Series. Good.

I'm rooting for the Nationals. First of all, because they are repping the National League, home of real baseball and the Giants. Secondly, because absent other factors, I always want to cheer for the city that hasn't had the joy of a World Series parade for the longest time.

The last time D.C. won the Series was in 1924.

Go Nats!

Last night was Metallica Night at the ballpark. I wish I could say we had a great time, but the fact was a variety of factors, not the least of which being the Giants' inept play and the bone-chilling wind, led us to give up after five innings and head for home.

But there were highlights. We did get this year's goodie, a reversible Metallica/Giants wool cap. One side is digital camo, the other black with a big Metallica M and the Giants' SF logo. We ate pizza, I had a beer, and at the Junior Giants' table, they were selling mystery autographed balls. I took the plunge at got reliever Mark Melancon.

But the mind-boggler of the night was the lady we met in line outside Oracle (still getting used to the new name) Park. She was one of the more clueless people I've encountered in a while. We were at the park earlier than planned thanks to kismet providing us with an express train up. This lady was stressing about missing the band's "pre-game" activities. Folks, the pregame activities are the following. James Hetfield and Kirk Hammet play the National Anthem. Lars Ulrich throws out the first pitch. James heads up to the PA booth and does the Giants' starting lineup introductions. That's it. She thought she was missing out on a show, or a meet & greet. Nothing we said could convince her otherwise.

Then the conversation turned to S&M2. She was complaining about getting "screwed out of tickets" for both shows. While everyone got screwed out of the first show due to ticket bots, the second show was handled by Metallica and was fair. The venue holds 18,064 people in its concert set up, and there were millions of 5th Member fans vying for the tickets. We were lucky to get the second chance draw.

But no, that was getting screwed. After that, she thought that she could score tickets on the secondary market. Um, no. Tickets for the September 8th show are linked to your name. Oh, okay. she'll just wait for the public sale. There's not going to be a public sale! The reason you didn't get tickets in the lotteries is they sold out!

Thankfully, she left the line when we started heading in to look for a friend. But seriously, Metallica sent out emails detailing all of these for both shows; step by step instructions on how the sales would work.

*sigh* At least people complimented our battle jackets.

Thank Halford for the extra hour of sleep we were given last night. I so needed it as Saturday was a very busy, fulfilling day.

( A Tale of Two and a Half Parks )

Last night was nearly perfect. Kirsten and I headed up to San Francisco to see our beloved San Francisco Giants play the Washington Nationals. As always, we took Caltrain up. That was great, we caught a northbound limited and were early enough that the train was mostly empty. Even though it had been in the mid-80s all day, I was wearing layers, because as Mark Twain is alleged to have said, "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

The City by the Bay didn't disappoint, greeting us at the 4th & King station with cheerfully howling winds and temperatures in the mid-50s. We walked the long city block to AT&T Park in an ever-growing throng of fans clad in orange and black along with a few Nationals fans in red and white. AT&T Park is one of the best ballparks in baseball, and it's a joy just to be able to pass through the gates.

Once inside our first goal was redeeming our special event merchandise ticket. For tonight was Metallica Night, an annual event where the Bay Area's legendary thrash metal gods team up with the Giants. Lots of Metallica music between innings, lead guitarist Kirk Hammet played the national anthem and Take Me Out To The Ball-game, drummer Lars Ulrich threw out the first pitch, and bass player Robert Trujillo read the Giant's starting line up. A lot of fun, and we got cool new hats.

The game itself was fantastic. Chris Stratton pitched 6-2/3rds innings, allowing only two runs to score and recording five strikeouts. The pitchers and defense got out of a jam when the Nationals had runners at 2nd and 3rd with only one out. The offense was provided by Mac Williamson's laser-shot home run in the 6th that gave the Giants the lead and they never looked back. That shot traveled 464 feet and landed right about where Barry Bonds’ record-breaking 756th career home run landed.

Giants win, ballpark food and goodies, beautiful, if cold. night at a baseball game. We found the seats we want from now on. Section 136, Row 25. That's the bleachers closest to the left foul line, and the top row. There's a section of disabled seating right behind row 25, so there's a wall. We had a space to store our stuff. This would have been a perfect night of baseball except for one thing.

The Wharton Executive MBA program. Several rows in front of us in our section had strips of papers with WEMBA printed on them. OK, a group reservation. It wasn't until midway through the 2nd inning that they started showing up. That's when things turned ugly. Because while there were 39,000 people at the park for a ball game, these idiots couldn't care a whit about the game. They were networking.

There is an established set of rules of behavior for attending baseball games. There's even a video shown before each game explaining how to be a good fan. One of these rules is don't block the line of sight for other fans! Standing when something exciting happens, or standing and cheering for a big at-bat or pitch is expected. Standing in a group and talking about financial issues? No. Sit down. If you are seating in your ticketed seat it is expected that you show courtesy to the people around you and watch the game!

The sad thing is there is an area designed for non-game socializing a few steps away from where we were sitting. Behind the main scoreboard is a big dining area with tables and chairs and some of the best food options in the park, No one gives a fuck if you stand there for twenty minutes discussing mutual funds or whatever.

It got so bad that Kirsten had to get an usher to tell this group to stay seated during play. I was tempted to ask the person who appeared to be a group leader if he could, without looking up, tell me the score of the game he was attending. He had spent the entire time he was at the game glad-handing people and incessantly talking. And blocking the stairs, blocking views, and being completely clueless about his surroundings. In the top half of the 9th inning, with one out already recorded, he expressed surprise that the food vendors were closing. The game is going to be over in five minutes, dimwit. Most of them start shutting down in the 8th. Another guy expressed shock that he couldn't buy a beer. No alcohol sales after the 7th inning has been the rule for decades.

But the worst offense, the thing that made me want to call the cops to eject the entire crew, the thing that should get them banned for life is this: THEY PUT KETCHUP ON THE GARLIC FRIES! Garlic fries are perfection already! Fries, Parmesan, and garlic. Nothing else needed! Blasphemy! Burn the MBA heretics!

No, really, we should have set them on fire. It was cold in the bleachers.