Hungry in San Diego

I went to San Diego for a weekend last month and didn't do a lot of cooking. In fact, I ate out for every meal. Here's a list of the restaurants where I ate, in order:

I got off the plane and went straight to this place for lunch. It was excellent and I also liked the view of the bay or harbor or whatever they call it there.

My high school chum Patrick and I scheduled a big night for Saturday, so we did a low-key excursion to a Thai restaurant on Friday night. It was good. The place looked like it used to be a Sizzler many years ago. This restaurant is in a neighborhood north of downtown where Asian establishments line the streets for blocks.

I grabbed a bagel and coffee to go on Saturday morning, so I'm not going to try to find the California Bagel place where we went.

No complaints about this place either. Big portions, the retro-deli atmosphere, and a hip clientele.

Down to Pacific Beach where we squeezed in at the bar in an otherwise packed restaurant on the sea. I had the fish tacos. Wonderful.

It was father's day on that Sunday, so I didn't see the regular menu, but this place was fun. Upscale breakfast with mondo portions.

I only scratched the surface here. San Diego has no shortage of good restaurants. In case you wondered if all I did was eat, I did not. I also went here, here, and here, and I stayed in the shadow of this place.

I Didn't Dream it

The in-laws are in town and I'm sleeping on a futon in the basement this week. My daughter woke me up at 2:30am to tell me that she was awake. Thanks! I was in that super-deep state of sleep, beyond REM sleep, and her cry at the top of the stairs woke me from the dead. It took me a long time to realize what was going on, what time it was, why she was upset, and where I was. It turned out that my wife was asleep and declined her request for a hug and a kiss. I offered a hug and she ran back to her room. Must have been my breath.

I couldn't get back to sleep so I turned on the television and PBS ran a special about sharks. A shark expert from South Africa put some attractor (chum?) in the water on a string and bent down on a platform at Ocean level. When a Great White shark came calling, he reached out and put his hand on the underside of the shark's nose. The shark had some kind of instinctive reaction where it opened its mouth and fell over backward into the water. The website described it as momentary paralysis. Here's a picture from the special. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it, sleep-deprived as I was.

Barrett Obit

Here's one Syd Barrett obit - from legacy.com.

R.I.P. - Syd Barrett

The Associated Press reported that original Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett has died at age 60. I'll link to a full obit when one is posted. In the meantime, read his biography from Wikipedia.

X-Ray Shoes

Thank goodness I'm too young to remember the shoe store X-ray machine.

Rembering the Glassblowing Barn

The Chamney House glassblowing barn was a unique feature of the K.U. campus. It was situated in a remote section of the western reaches, by the motor pool, out past Iowa street near the par-three golf course on 15th street (AKA Bob Billings Parkway). My friends Steve O'Holleran and Dierk Van Keppel spent many hours there creating original works of art. The old studio is no longer used for glassblowing; it's part of the center for design research studio, but Dierk continues to work with glass. Read Edie Hall's story in the Kansas City Star.