Saturday is the traditional drink till your sick day. It’s another one of those amateur nights when “everyone’s a little Irish!” – at least so the bars say because it’s a good excuse to drive drink sales. In my younger days standing in line to drink green beer was something to do with a group. Being an adult now means that I’ll enjoy a good corned beef and cabbage, but that’s about rowdy as I’m likely to get this coming Saturday. I imagine there will be more than a few sobriety checkpoints operating across the southland to try and capture the drunk drivers before they do something that ruins their and someone else’s life.
Thankfully more and more people are relying Uber, Lyft, and Bird these days, which is a good thing in reducing the numbers of drunk drivers on the road. Drinking and driving is an attractive thing for many an impaired person. The euphoria that is caused by the liquor also reduces the self-preservation voice that says it’s a bad idea to get behind the wheel.
I’ve looked around and tried to see if the Automobile Club of Southern California or the taxi companies are offering free rides and I wasn’t able to find those programs this year. Hopefully, someone is offering free rides beside the Free Ride, which is based out of the hotels like Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, the Doubletree, and Shutters. The Free Ride though only does a short circuit around the downtown area and doesn’t go east beyond 4th street I believe.
The good news this weekend is that many of the streets will start closing early since the L.A. Marathon is happening on Sunday the 18th and will be concluding along Ocean Ave. maybe this year I’ll actually break out the camera and go take some pictures like I always swear I’ll do, and then I decide to sleep in that day. The Marathon is a tradition that is an indicator that the first day of Spring is not far off and this year is no different.
Spring begins a week from today and that means we’ll have the onslaught of more tourists soon enough. I love Spring and the sense of renewal that comes along with it. Putting Winter behind us, which I realize is not that big a deal compared to the frigid East Coast as they dig out from their third Nor’Easter a week, just makes me feel hopeful.
This is also the indicator that the first quarter of 2018 is almost over and if you’ve found yourself not having accomplished those New Year’s Resolutions with the vigor that you wanted to muster – now is a good time to get back on that horse and focus on y our goals for the year. Remember, it was probably this time last year, that some of those people who are crossing the finish line of the L.A. Marathon said to themselves, “Next year, I’m running that race and I’m going to complete it.”
Training for some of the participants probably took at least a year’s worth of commitment, so what’s your excuse for not doing it next year? If you have a big goal like that, then get started with some baby steps. No one runs a marathon their first day they are running, but if they don’t do their first day, they’ll never do the marathon.
I have zero motivation to run that race. But I do have goals that I’m working towards. I want to be a professional speaker who speaks to a global audience and reaches tens of thousands of people. So to do that, I started small. At my local Toastmasters club. Then I’ve worked up to bigger clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis, and Elk. Next month I’ll be speaking to the Professional Speakers Association in South Africa. It’s a 5-hour flight to Atlanta, then a 16-hour flight to Johannesburg where I’ll speak. It’s all part of putting in my dues and gaining the experience and connections I need to build the profile that I need and want. It’s hard work. Grueling hours on planes but if it gets me where I want to be it will be worth it.
What’s the goal that you’ve been putting off? Get back on the horse and make some movement towards your goals.
David Pisarra is a Los Angeles Divorce and Child Custody Lawyer specializing in Father’s and Men’s Rights with the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or 310/664-9969.You can follow him on Twitter @davidpisarra
