San Diego Magazine / December 2009 / Not Over Till It’s Over?

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Not Over Till It’s Over?

JANUARY 18, 2010

WELL, IT’S OVER: Okay, we’ll get on with real life in a moment. But first, let’s talk about what went right at Qualcomm Stadium on Sunday. The Chargers? Don’t be ridiculous; nothing went right there. I have this ineradicable mind picture of Lucy snatching the football away from kicker Charlie Brown yet another mind-bending time. Charlie never learns either. But the Metropolitan Transit System had a helluva day. Clean, on-time and wide-open seating were available at my San Diego State trolley stop Sunday afternoon. And, at the 11th home game of the Chargers season, someone at Qualcomm Stadium finally found the secret to getting 69,498 fans into the debacle in time for the kickoff. They opened more gates. Go figure. Oh, and one minor annoyance: The Miller beer cart outside my Loge level, Section 27 seat, was stocked with Lite beer only. We definitely could have used something stronger on Sunday. Anybody want to buy a round-trip plane ticket to Miami and a room reservation in Fort Lauderdale for February 4-7? Cheap?

REAL LIFE: When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Scripps Health trauma surgeon Brent Eastman got a call from Washington. Could he help organize a trauma team to provide aid in the disaster? Eastman and Scripps CEO Chris Van Gorder put together two teams: SMRT (Scripps Medical Response Team — including doctors, nurses and technicians) and HASU (the Hospital Administrative Support Unit — made up of administrators and managers). Those two teams, and a cloned one from the University of Texas, took over the convention center at Houston for refugees from New Orleans. Last week, the call came again. On Saturday, the two Scripps teams of 100 medical personnel were on standby, awaiting final notice for deployment to Haiti.

ITEMS INFINITUM: HBO is talking with Supervisor Greg Cox and our city’s Film Commission about a screening of producer Tom Hanks’ new war documentary, The Pacific, aboard the USS Midway as a benefit for the Veterans Home of California in Chula Vista ... San Diego Magazine contributor and former Union-Tribune sports editor Tom Cushman will be at D.G. Wills in La Jolla February 20 to autograph copies of his new book, Muhammad Ali and the Greatest Heavyweight Generation ... Loss leader: Five days before the Chargers’ heartbreaking first-round playoff defeat, Sees Candies introduced its new Chargers box of chocolates — “A sweet gift for every Charger fan!” ... Clarification: Lady Gaga, booked for an appearance at Stingaree nightclub’s fourth anniversary party after her Sports Arena concert here, was a no-show. But her booking agent refunded the nightclub’s $15,000 advance ... Just how bad is the economy? “So bad,” says Rich Acello, “I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.”

VERBAL ASSAULT: For the 19th straight year, the indefatigable Bob Arnhym emceed San Diego Rotary Club’s annual “Law Enforcement Salute to Heroes” on Thursday. Arnhym’s wit and playful pokes at our county’s top law officers are always a high point of the proceedings. But this year, Arnhym got as good as he gave. Introducing SDPD’s citizen heroes, Police Chief William Lansdowne took time out to cite some positive crime stats: the lowest homicide rate in the city since records were first posted in 1950, and the lowest crime rate since 1969. “One of the reasons this has happened,” quipped Lansdowne, “is because we have more people like Bob Arnhym — it’s an aging populace.”