This week has been nuts. Opening Day is tomorrow here in San Francisco. Monday through Wednesday the Giants beat the Astros all 3 times, creating some serious buzz to an already highly anticipated season. As my phone is usually calling out, I had a number of inbound calls this week, giving me my best week yet. All the build up, everything we have worked for since I got here in January, is going to make sense tomorrow. The Giants host the Braves for our Opening Day at 1:35 PST.

While I have had several late nights at the office this week, I have also had some of my favorite nights since I arrived in SF. I haven’t really exercised much since I got here. I walk a lot, so that has kept me trim, but I have not put shorts and tennis shoes on hardly at all. Tuesday, I had this weird desire to go get a basketball and check out this park that is two blocks up the hill from me.

I have seen George Sterling Memorial Park as I walk by, but it is on the very top of the hill, so I really never knew what was up there. As I approached, the sun was setting, and this place has one of the most beautiful, unique views that I have seen in the whole city. From the basketball court, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, all of the North Bay, the financial district, and last night I even saw the lights at The Coliseum, where the A’s play across the bay. It confused my brain when I saw that it wasn’t crowded.

There was a 13 year old boy up there and I asked him if he wanted to play HORSE. I played PIG to make it easier on him. In the middle of our game, a guy came up and asked to join, I said sure. Derrick, on business from NYC had randomly seen this park and wandered up to it. The little boy left, as he could obviously not hang on my court, and Derrick and I played 1 on 1. We exchanged numbers and actually met up again and played round two tonight. I am 1-1 in my 2010 basketball season.

Look closely, that’s the Golden Gate through the fence there.

I would like to introduce two of the latest guests at the Mize Hotel in San Francisco… William Griggs and John Michael Capps earned some face-time on kinda local after their recent visit to the city on the bay. Enjoy.

Introduction
First things first, I must communicate how honored I am to have the opportunity to write a guest piece for KindaLocal. I have been following KindaLocal since its creation and feel a special connection to not only the author, but the content and the loyal community that comment so frequently too.
Thank you Hunter for all you do to enrich the lives of your readers. You are truly an inspiration.

The Heart
A wise man once said, “Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking;”

Please take a moment to ponder what the quote means and how it can be applied to your own life.

The truth is this quote really has nothing to do with what I’m about to say, but I did think that inserting this quote would provide John Michael & I some much credibility in the intelligence department.

Anyways, our 10 day journey to San Francisco was chalked full of physically and intellectually stimulating activities. I won’t bore you with our itinerary, but would like to share eight interesting facts I learned about Hunter during my stay in San Francisco.

8 Facts You May Not Know About Hunter Mize

Bonus: Hunter Mize will be in Nashville in the month of March!!!

- Bill Griggs (twitter.com/billgriggs)

First I want to say thanks to Hunter for allowing me to get kindalocalized and also to all of the loyal readers of kindalocal out there for reading this far down on my post. Proceed with caution.

Well me and Griggs journey started in Chicago together and then somehow we wound up in San Francisco…a perfect place for me and Griggs to wind up. Our days were filled with sightseeing, bikng in the rain, walking, riding trolleys, drinking wine, eating crappy Indian food, shopping, and of course gazing at Hunter Mize. Really it was not about what I did though but more about who me and Griggs came to see. Even with a busy work schedule, Hunter reaffirmed to me why he such a stud and such a hot commodity in the bay area. To go along with his boyish good looks and charisma he is also a kind and loyal friend and for that I am very appreciative of. If you have read this far (which I am not sure why you wouldn’t have) and you want to hear about what we actually did in San Fran then too bad. This post isn’t for you. You can call me if you want details on that. This trip was about Hunter and the gloriousness of him. If he wasn’t so awesome I would not have gone to San Fran in the first place. Short, sweet and to the point.

One Love,

John Michael Capps

I gotta get better about bloggin. These weeks go by so fast, and each weeknight I either stay at work late, have something to do, or I just sloth out on the couch all night. When that happens, my brain turns to standby.

Yesterday’s lunch was a great experience. It was the annual front office and players luncheon. All the staff gathered in our Field Club Lounge and grubbed off of a delicious buffet. We took our seats and there was a reserved seat at each table. All the players and coaches entered the Lounge and one sat at each table. I sat with Jeremy Affeldt, a relief pitcher with the Giants. He was hilarious and really fun to get to know. The team owner and president spoke, as well as some players. Very cool. After the lunch, I went and spoke to Matt Cain, one of the best pitchers in baseball, who happens to be from Memphis, Houston High School.

Anyways, the weekend came fast this week, but it’s not really a normal weekend because the Giants FanFest was today. It started off strange, I would say bad, but that’s a lame way to look at it. I have realized lately that not much really ever bothers me too much. I think that is good most of the time, maybe not sometimes. I had to be there at 8:00. Earlier than normal. It is a Saturday, busses don’t run as often. I missed the bus that I needed to catch, so set a record for my earliest taxi ride of my life at 7:30. Nothing like paying $10 to go to work on a Saturday. None of that sentence sounds good.

FanFest is the first day single-game tickets go on sale for the 2010 season. 20,000ish fans come down to the ballpark, line up blocks around the stadium, and wait to see players and buy merchandise and tickets. These fans are nuts. I have never seen such a passionate crowd in baseball before. I’m talking orange pants (beautiful), Giants shoes, and kids in full team apparel (they will outgrow that in 3 months, but who cares? let’s buy it). These fans will buy anything that has to do with the Giants. I joked to a co-worker that I wanted to see if I could sell the toilet paper out of the Giants clubhouse. Guarantee I could get someone to pay at least $10 for a roll. People want any and everything free.

It was a really neat experience, as it was the first time I felt the vibe and energy of working for a professional organization. So far, I have been in my office, in an empty stadium. It’s hard to realize there is a team that plays there, and that 40,000 fans come to every game. Today, I got to feel and sense that.

The sun came out during the middle of FanFest, and it was one of the most beautiful days I have seen since arriving here. I went home, found a queen bed on craiglist. He was charging for it, but I helped him move some stuff in his house, so he gave it to me for free, and loaded it in his truck and dropped it off with me.

I watched the end of the Vols game. Domination. V, B. Gabe met me at my place and we went for a bike ride. We went straight down the hill to the Wharf. Everywhere you turn, there is a beautiful view of something, its really not fair. Riding along the Marina Green is too pretty, and finally I made it all the way to the Golden Gate. He showed me some roads and trails that were incredible. Unashamed, I stopped a couple times to take a pictures. Yes I live in this ridiculous place, but I can still enjoy and share it, and for sure not take it for granted… thinking back to my post about being a local. We made it around to the west side of the city, and saw a minute of the sunset, pretty cool site. It was windy, excuse my squints. TraditionalState, sorry my hat is backwards.

Today started after sleeping through my alarm and waking up at 9:47, when I was suppose to leave my apartment at 10ish for church. I hate that feeling of being groggy for church, so I tried to wake up at 9. My body said no sir. To get to church, I have to catch a bus down the hill, then it connects to another. I timed the first one up well, however the second bus was ready to leave me before I got to the stop. I saw it catch a red light, so I sprinted up the hill to beat it there. Up the hill I realized that it skipped that intersection and picked up at the next. Luckily, the bus caught another red light, I dashed again and made it on time to get on the 3-Line. I sat down and found myself half awake, sweaty and cotton-mouthed. Great way to start the morning.

Little did I know that the sermon would be themed by a man covered with leprosy dashing to Jesus for healing. A leper in this day was considered much more than a sick person. They were outcasts, not allowed in the cities, and for sure were not to be touched. They were a symbol of the world’s brokenness. As people of the city scattered as far away from this man as they could, he ran to Jesus, and said to him “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Jesus could have easily cleansed him without doing anything, without saying anything, and for sure without touching the man! The man was immediately cleansed as Jesus reached to touch him.

This can be seen from two different points of view.

The symbolism of the most high, most perfect man to walk the earth, reaching out and actually touching a man who was known as the lowest of the lowest humans alive was an incredible message to me showing however successful I become, there will never be anyone too low to show love to. It bothers me so much to see people put themselves above the homeless and the needy in today’s society. It is our privilege as followers of Jesus to love and reach out to these people.

From the leper’s point of view, we can see that Jesus wants us to come to him dirty. He does not want us to put on a clean face, or try to clean up our act before we face him. He wants to see us vulnerable, surrendering and honest. Jesus shows he can clean the man who is viewed as the most filthy man in the city, proving that his cleanliness becomes our cleanliness the moment we dash to him.