april 2003
One wedding and a funeral
Dead Grandfather Attends Wedding Ceremony.
30 april 2003 
Hiatus
OK, I surrender. I’m taking a break for another week or so, as I’m about to buckle under the weight of several massive school projects. It just never lets up, and the last thing I need after a 14-hour day in front of the computer (at work and school) is to sit down and stare at yet another screen. It’s simple triage.
I shall return.
15 april 2003
Slow
Yeah, I know.
Patience is a virtue, you know. Sheesh.
13 april 2003
Some places to visit
Excellent photos of 70s Swedish pop combos. Huge collars and tangerine flares will never go out of style.
Lazy Cinema brings you “spoof movie listings and lies.”
In the spirit of beef for teen girls and beer for Asians, we are happy to bring you Pork for Kids!
4 april 2003
Man about town
Yesterday I headed south again, on a not particularly eventful ten-or-so-mile walk through Golden Hill, then along a very strange industrial strip called Commercial Street (huge, silent concrete buildings and disused train lines, but all very clean, as if maintained scrupulously) to the eastern edge of downtown. Only a few blocks away from the massively successful, revived Gaslamp Quarter, the area just east of 10th Street is a whole different world, with its crumbling “hotels” (read: expensive permanent housing for those unable to rent an apartment, for whatever reason), seedy bars, and deserted sidewalks.
I stopped at 7th and Ash to admire the beautifully restored El Cortez building, which used to be a hotel but now contains some rather expensive apartments. Then west to 6th, up which to Hillcrest, where I paused for a refreshing lemonade before making the trek east along University and south along 30th, home. Not terribly interesting, all told, but jolly good for expanding the lungs and firming the thighs, et cetera.
I think that’s it for walking this week, though. My blisters are giving me gyp something rotten now, and no erring.
3 april 2003
Grand canyon
My walk yesterday (Tuesday) was cut short, but I did manage
to get some photos this time. I set out to explore what I think is called Juniper
Canyon, though I may be wrong. It’s a canyon system that extends both north and
south of Juniper Street, just east of 33rd Street. This unspoilt area of wilderness
is only about two miles from downtown San Diego, which is pretty amazing.
First, I headed south from Juniper. It immediately became apparent that few people know about this canyon: there is no real path to speak of, and the rutted “track” that is there is crammed with weeds. The trail winds between the steep canyon walls, which are covered with trees and new growth (it rained so much this winter that San Diego seems much greener than usual right now). Here’s a photo of this southern part of the canyon, and another of an interesting plant I saw there. Strangely, the trail ends suddenly in someone’s back yard. I suspect that it might continue on the other side of that private property, but I didn’t want to walk across it (in full view of their windows) to find out, without being sure beforehand.
I headed back to where I had started, and scrambled down a dusty slope into the northern part of the canyon. There is a lot more open space on this side, with large open areas of sand and gravel. I walked north about half a mile, but again I seemed to be encroaching on private property, so I retraced my steps and headed down a western branch of the canyon into an area thick with bamboo. I forced my way through it, then clambered up a steep, crumbling bank, at the top of which I found these flowers (with a bee in one of them). I found myself at the end of Felton Street, which juts out aimlessly into the canyon, so I followed it back to 30th Street, where I took a photo of the canyon, facing west toward downtown San Diego. Here, the canyon runs seamlessly into a golf course, which is itself part of Balboa Park.
At this point, my phone rang and I had to go home, so that was it for the day, but given the blisters on my feet from the day before, it was quite enough.
2 april 2003
Happy birthday to me
Wow, it’s two years to the day since I wrote the first entry in this weblog. Two whole years! That’s back when this site had a “delightful” fudge-brown and orange interface, swiftly discarded and deliberately unarchived for the sake of your retinas, dear reader. Don’t say I’m not good to you.
1 april 2003
It would be so nice
It’s Spring Break, and I almost went to Palm Springs for a few days to sit by a pool and sip Mai Tais, but it fell through at the last minute. Papers due, and all that, darn it. So, to make the best of things, I’ve decided to have a “holiday at home,” here in charming San Diego, by going somewhere I’ve never been before every day. And why not combine this with some much-needed exercise by going on foot?
I started yesterday by exploring one of San Diego’s military areas, the 32nd Street Naval Base (beware poorly compressed JPEGs - you get the general idea). I left home and headed south, passing through some very strange residential areas: almost empty streets, no one in their yards (despite it being a beautiful, sunny day, in the 80s), a surreal quietness. I can only presume that a lot of the housing just north of the base is owned by military folk, and they’re simply not here right now (obviously). However, I did encounter one person on my trek, though I’m still not sure what gender it was; it was either a man with a large beer belly, or a pregnant woman, though the face gave no clue.
Me [thinking]: Whoa. What’s that walking towards me? I’d
better say hello as we pass.
Me [speaking]: Hello.
It: Do you want
some?
Me: Sorry?
It: Do you need some?
Me: Erm, no thanks.
[shudders]
It: You got a cigarette?
Me: No, I don’t smoke.
It:
OK. Bye.
Me: Bye.
So, that was nice. Heading on through Stockton, Grant Hill, and Logan Heights, I approached the naval base, decided against trying to go anywhere near the actual entrance to the base, given the current situation, and took a sharp right on Harbor Drive. I immediately passed over Chollas Creek, a revoltingly filthy stretch of water loaded with plastic bags, soda cans, and lava-like mounds of foaming scum. Interestingly, an entire sofa, complete with throw cushions, was visible just below the surface of the water. So, if you ever feel the need to cool off and have a nice sit-down at the same time, you know where to go.
If you get the urge to walk from the naval base to downtown San Diego, don’t bother - it’s extremely dull. It’s about three miles of industrial and military complexes surrounded by fences and razor wire, interspersed with vacant, dusty lots and railroad depots. You can’t even see the docks or ships from there. The high point is passing beneath the Coronado Bridge, which I had never seen from that perspective before. That thing is vast. Amazingly, there is a walkway suspended beneath the main concrete bulk of the bridge, so presumably it’s possible to walk the two miles from San Diego to Coronado just a few yards beneath all the cars passing overhead, with nothing but a steel walkway between you and a huge drop down to the water. I wouldn’t want to try it.
On to downtown: nothing very exciting there. Just lots of people in suits having lunch, tourists gawping into storefronts, homeless people lying inert in doorways to escape the fierce heat of the sun. I made a beeline for Balboa Park, cut through the Fruit Loop, up the Prado past the museums, over the bridge into the Old Cactus Garden, down the trails into Florida Canyon and up the other side (it’s a good ten degrees hotter down there, and you have to watch for rattlesnakes - I saw a diamondback over there once), and finally back home through the eastern half of the park.
Total distance: 11½ miles.
I’m off again today, for a slightly shorter walk (my aching feet!), and this time I’ll take the camera.
1 april 2003