What’s With Players Sporting Tattoos?

* Has anyone noticed that the number of major league baseball players sporting tattoos is increasing lately? Why take a multi-million dollar property and deface it? I’m hardly uptight but still don’t get the foolishness of it all! It may seem “macho” now but just wait until you’re a senior and the tattoos on your back sink to your butt and those on your legs to your feet.

* There is a pelican-shaped and -painted wooden mailbox in front of a house on 18th Street in Costa Mesa. Now if everyone in Newport Beach would do the same, we could call our neighborhood “The Pelican Flats of Newport Beach.”

* West Coast Arborists (WCA), Newport Beach’s tree maintenance contractor, received a $120,000 increase in its 2012 contract. WCA and the city are being sued for negligence in the tragic September 2011 death of Haeyoon Miller who was crushed by a falling blue gum eucalyptus as she waited to make a left turn at Irvine Avenue. The extra payments to WCA are for the removal of other blue gum eucalyptus trees on Irvine Avenue and elsewhere in the city. This may be the first time a contractor ever received a raise for an allegedly negligence-caused death.

* A friend is moving from Mountain View (Silicon Valley) to the Newport Beach area. The realtors and staging professionals rapidly moved in and threw out 13 years of junk, totally cleaned up the property, built a redwood fence and reorganized the remaining furniture. The house had six offers on day one and sold the same day. It looked so good my friend considered buying it himself!

* The above individual has moved many times during his career as an electrical engineer and engineering physicist. His interests took him from Ohio to Minnesota, Michigan, Marina del Ray, Culver City, Sandy (Utah), the Berkeley area (El Cerrito), Mountain View, and now to Orange County. While recently throwing out junk he came upon a plant that had survived 40 years. His wife only lasted 17 years. They split in Utah, where she took one ski trail and he another. In his case it seems that a green plant is man’s best friend – and is lower maintenance. Maybe the tree huggers are right after all.

* Let’s close with a few funny words of wisdom from my 4-year-old granddaughter, Brooke. While visiting Newport Beach a few weeks ago we took her for a swimming lesson. At dinner that night my daughter asked Brooke what she had learned that afternoon. Brooke’s response was, “I learned that the goggles hurt a lot less when you take them off.”

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., Newport Beach, is an ornery and cynical curmudgeon who writes “Deep Thoughts from Dr. Mike” for the NewportBeachIndy.com. He is on the National Advisory Board of The Physician Patient Medical Association and State Advisory Board of California Citizens Against Law Suit Abuse.