In Fine Fettle ...

I on San Diego

LIFESAVER: Chris Stokes recently signed up at the 24 Hour Fitness in Pacific Beach and took an immediate interest in the club’s promotional activities. Lately, the workout facility has been running a series of posters with testimonials from members — happy stories about how exercise has changed their lives. But there’s one poster Stokes sees every day that, he says, “makes me worry about whether I’m doing the right thing.” The testimonial: “Fernando says, ‘It Saved My Life.’ ” And below that, the disclaimer: “Results may vary.”

THE POKING NOSE: Red County, the Tustin-based Web site promising “Grassroots Politics from the Center Right,” spreads the rumor that former San Diego city councilman Uvaldo Martinez is considering a run to regain his council seat. And the site quotes this 13-year-old item from San Diego Magazine for background: “Booted out of office a decade ago for charging lavish personal lunches and dinners on his city credit card, Martinez keeps a low profile these days.” Low but rising, apparently ... After a triple whammy of editorials in The San Diego Union-Tribune eviscerating the San Diego Airport Authority for plans to redesign an ultimately obsolescent Lindbergh Field, one principal in the project doesn’t seem worried. “I have a feeling,” he says, “that we’ll see the demise of the U-T long before we see the demise of Lindbergh.” ... When union leaders and opponents of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, asked Bill Clinton to cancel a speech at Proposition 8 supporter Doug Manchester’s downtown Grand Hyatt, the former president wouldn’t budge. But after the fact, Clinton did send a letter to Unite Here Local 30 president Bridgette Browning saying he was “a big opponent of Proposition 8 and now supports its reversal.” There’s a definition of “politician” in there somewhere.

SAN DIEGO STATS: A new survey by Men’s Health magazine ranks San Diego among the top 10 U.S. cities when it comes to recycling. Men’s Health? Okay, but what do the editors think of our abs? ... Meanwhile: San Diego ranks third in a Travel + Leisure magazine listing of airports with the fewest flight delays ... San Diego State University’s Joni Mayer, researching the relationship between tanning and melanoma cancer, notes that San Diego — with an average of 300 sunny days a year — has more tanning salons than it has Starbucks or McDonald’s ... Sunny San Diego, meanwhile, is doing a test run with solar-powered parking meters — replacing 1 percent of its 5,100 parking meters with solar versions. Yeah, but what about those 65 days a year that aren’t sunny?

THE ECONOMIC FRONT: A UPS driver shared his own sad recessionary tale with a retailer looking to lease space at Seaport Village. In small talk, the driver mentioned he’d made deliveries to four stores in the shopping complex the month before. When he returned to the complex a month later, he said, all four stores had gone out of business ... And then there are those out there doing everything they can to keep the business from dying. A recent newspaper ad for Singing Hills Memorial Park invited San Diegans to an “open house.” Not my idea of a picnic, but the cemetery’s advertisement did promise guests a barbecue and a tour of the property, with this tasty lure: “Come join us for a hamburger.”

SAN DIEGO SHUFFLE: Developer Fred Maas may have signed on for the mother of all jobs when he took the reins as interim executive director of the troubled Centre City Development Corporation. But he’s still a good daddy. The Father’s Day Council just named him 2009 Father of the Year ... The New York Times has been turning its attention to San Diego quite a bit in the past few months — most recently with a piece on the Quarry Falls redevelopment project in Mission Valley. The story gives Mayor Jerry Sanders credit for overseeing “a turnaround that’s helped restore the city’s fiscal health and encourage new commercial and residential development.” So that’s a done deal now? ... Meanwhile, the outtatown Times is picking up some spare San Diego change with an advertising insert in West Coast editions for our Old Globe Theatre’s summer 2009 season.

BOOK BEAT: Cop-turned-author Tom Basinski’s scheduled signing party for his new murder book, Cross Country Evil, was a near-disaster when the manager of the host store, Borders at Plaza Bonita, informed him no books had arrived from the publisher. Fortunately, Basinski himself had a small supply, and the store manager was able to buy up some copies — at retail — from neighboring stores. “Probably the first time,” says Basinski, “that a store manager hoped for a low turnout at a booksigning.”

THE BOTTOM LINE: As the season approaches, fan Terry McArthur shares Dave Barry’s last word on baseball: “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life — without even considering if there’s a man on base.”

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