I wanted to invite everyone to come join Cheryl and I in Portland, Oregon. We have found it extremely difficult to find suitable housing in San Diego, a city we both love and hate. We grew up here too, we both have family here, we both have jobs and friends here. We can find new jobs, we can make new friends, but honestly the entire thing would suck if we left all of you guys behind.

With the projected future of San Diego, along with most of California, few if any of us will be able to afford a life here. We work to the bone to pay our rent/mortgage, we live next door to homophobic hippy baby-boomers who have children in college and fear going to Hillcrest, we live in a city where police are notorious for killing people, we live in a city where everyone is getting very very old, where young people are moving to Temecula, Hemet, or Arizona to start a family. We live in a place with the highest gasoline prices, electricity costs, water costs, state tax, sales tax, and most importantly cigarette tax. We live in a place where our ocean is constantly polluted from rivers and poor sanitation, our air is filled with smog from LA, Tijuana, and San Diego combined, and these problems made worse by the recent fires that swept through the few areas of town where we would ever afford housing.

Cheryl and I, with our full time jobs and masters in our fields, can afford a $350,000 home. The median house price in SD is $450,000. The market shows no sign of slowing down in the next few years either. We can afford a 2BR condo in a decent area (Penesquitos, Poway), but not a house. After looking in Portland, Cheryl and I could afford a big house in one of the nicest areas of town. So could you.

Portland has a population of 500k in the city and 1.5 million in the outskirts. It's not that much smaller than SD. It rains more. It's colder. The ocean is colder and further away. It's not as nice as San Diego. Few places are. I know we all have an attachment to this city and leaving it won't be easy. All I ask is that you think about joining us and check it out.

It was a vicious, unprovoked attack.

Well, maybe not unprovoked. Or vicious. I was drunk and I spilled a drink at Victor's house. That is my heinous crime. I am, as I was then, unimpressed. I didn't mean to do it. Other people got up to clean it, so I sat back down. And got punched in the leg. It was weird. I still think it's funny how scared and upset everyone got over a spilled drink. Everyone but Ray. He didn't even get off the couch. If more people could be like Ray the world would be a kinder place.

Bob said to me last night, "Yeah, but you weren't even gonna clean it up." Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I enjoy fucking people over. In your face Victor. That's what you get for being cool. Yeah.

Last week Ray spilled something on my carpet. He didn't mean to do it. I didn't mind. I cleaned it up for him. Quid pro quo.

Then there was Saturday night. We were going to the AMC theater in Mission Valley. Dominic got mad at me. He yelled at me. Made me feel dumb. In front of people. He was freaking out. He was scared. It's happened before. Does he have a problem? I don't know. What did I do? I tried to help. At first. Then I started taunting him. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do. I'm sorry. At first he seemed to know where he was going, then he asked for directions. I started guiding him along the route I would have taken. Shortly after that things went wrong, tragically wrong.

Why do people who know me well ask me for directions? I usually fly by the seat of my pants no matter where I'm going. The journey is more important than the destination. I think Dom thought I was trying to trick him. Why would I do that? We had 10 minutes to get to the movie, a movie I really wanted to see, a movie that I got everyone together to go see. Maybe instead of asking me for directions he should have asked me for moral support. I can give that.