Jun 27 2012

Breakfast With Harriet

Met my long-time friend and one-time client, Harriet, for breakfast at the Encinitas Cafe in, of all places, Encinitas.

She had chosen the restaurant because it had been a few years since she’d been there and she remembered it fondly. I liked the history behind the place. From their website: “The Encinitas Cafe has been a fixture of Downtown Encinitas for over 20 years. There has been a cafe here since the 30s. First it was Fred’s Cafe in the 30s and 40s, then it was Zim’s Cafe in the 40s to the 50s. Then it changed to The Coffee Mill from 1960 until it became the Encinitas Cafe in 1989.”

We decided to eat outside and for most of our meal we were the only ones out there. By the time we left there wasn’t a table available. For breakfast I decided on the French Toast Special for $7.50 which included two slices of thick french toast, two eggs and I replaced the bacon with home-fry potatoes. It was a lot of delicious food which I unfortunately could not finish.

It had been a while since Harriet and I last caught up and boy did she have a bomb to drop on me. After living in San Diego for the last twenty-five years, she will be moving back to Virginia, from where she originally came from. And this will happen in just six weeks. She wanted to tell me in person, which I appreciated.

Moving back wasn’t her idea, and she struggles a bit with it because she loves San Diego so much and she has more contacts and connections here than anyone else I’ve ever met, but her husband had an incredible opportunity through his company (NASSCO) and had to take it. He has already been living out there since the end of last year, returning once a month to visit.

I will miss getting together with her. She is truly one of the good ones.

Jun 27 2012

Maria Rose

Got a nice shot of my mom with one of her prized rose bushes. All of a sudden it started to grow by leaps and bounds with rosebuds sprouting from almost every new stalk, and this made her very happy.

Wouldn’t be surprised if she turns this into a rose tree.

Jun 24 2012

First Onsite Meeting For Comic Fest 2012

Our fifth staff/volunteer meeting was held for the first time at the location of where Comic Fest is actually going to take place, the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in Mission Valley.

The meeting started at 2:00 and was held in the upper floor Garden Salon Two above the Garden Ballroom. Each meeting so far has brought more volunteers than the last and this was no exception. This time there was an impressive twenty-three of us. The meeting lasted about an hour and a half, after which we kind of stood/sat around and talked for another half hour or so, waiting for our Fest rooms to become available for a walk-through.

We headed over to the Regency Ballroom which is separated into the Windsor, the Hampton and the Sheffield. This will be the Exhibitors’ Hall. To me it appeared to be a fairly impressive sized room, but I’m sure it will seem quite a bit smaller when it’s filled with dealers’ tables and wandering attendees of various sizes.

Next we walked across the way and checked out the Eaton room, one of the five satellite rooms that will be used for panels. This room  seemed really small to me. But then I’m having a hard time trying not to compare it to Comic-Con.

From there we walked a ways, passed one of the pools, to the Regency Tower. This houses actual guest rooms but the very top floor has three function rooms that we will be using to create Café Frankenstein, an onsite coffee-house and hangout joint, as well as a room for an art exhibit/auction. The largest of the three rooms, Le Chanticleer, will house the café. The other side of the top floor, the Windsor Rose room, will have the art exhibit. Not sure what the central room will be used for yet. We learned that apparently this floor is haunted by a little girl in a blue dress who fell over the outside railing. Most of our people thought this might make an added good draw to the Fest.

With the Fest four months away (with Comic-Con looming in between) it’s finally starting to feel like it will be a professionally run event.

Town & Country Resort
Convention Center
Meeting building
Official event list
Garden Salon Two
During the meeting
Meeting’s done
After the meeting
Exhibitor’s Hall
Exhibitor’s Hall
Eaton Room
To the Regency Tower
The top floor
Inside glass elevator
Le Chanticleer room
Future Cafe Frankenstein
Future Cafe Frankenstein
View from Le Chanticleer
Le Sommet room
Windsor Rose room

Jun 20 2012

Night Skies

Stunning new time-lapse video with some really cool ways of displaying segments and detail information.

T-RECS – Night Skies from T-Recs (Timelapse Recordings) on Vimeo.

Jun 19 2012

Three More Food Expert Titles

So today I was notified that I became a Silver Expert in Mexican Food and Tacos, as well as a Bronze Expert in Barbecue on Foodspotting. I am appreciative of the recognition but find this a bit puzzling since I haven’t posted anything on Foodspotting since the middle of May, and that was a shrimp burrito, with sea bass before that. I do have a few foods still to post but like Tinkerbell’s rear end was once heard to say, “I’m just a little behind.” (I just made that up. That’s funny right there.)

I’m starting to get a sneaking suspicion that they might be using my Facebook masticating album entries or Twitter posts as a reference, although the last meal I posted about on Facebook was meatloaf, then tuna before that, fish tacos before that, and barbecue before that.

So basically I have no idea how they are keeping score any more, but I’ll keep taking the points.

Jun 18 2012

Bigboote’s Birthday

Today is my younger brother, Tommy’s, birthday. He was born in 1960. That makes him 52 years old. He is now a very successful pediatrician in New Mexico. Through a bizarre series of quantum causality time-shift events he was teleported back in time to Banning, California in the early 60s and is now a patient of himself.

When he gives his child self a shot no longer can he say, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you.”

M' Bro

Jun 17 2012

Familiar Dinner

Had a chunk of the family over for dinner tonight, including my older brother, his daughter and my sister. My mom made delicious Hungarian gulyás (goulash) but with rice added for some extra thickness. First time I’ve had it this way but I liked it.

Another first: my sister brought over three tiny watermelon looking things. They were Mexican sour gherkins and I had never even heard of them before tonight. They looked like toy watermelons on the outside and tiny green tomatoes with relatively giant cucumber seeds on the inside. They tasted like slightly bitter cucumbers, but not unpleasant.

And that’s how I spent my Father’s Day evening.

Jun 16 2012

VS House-Sitting: Day Three

Other than the regular alien abduction and prerequisite probing, day three of house/pet-sitting for Heather brought no surprises. No cats disappeared, no birds flew away, no FBI agent knocked on the door, no two-foot wide tarantula crawled out from the fireplace, and no neighbor came over to “borrow a cup of sugar” from this virile and available young man. (Insert vomit here.) None of that happened this time.

For the short time that Gordon and Theo were actually at the house, they did what cats do best.

Jun 16 2012

Tapias’ Garden Harvest

I was at the Tapias’ house when they harvested some vegetables from their amazingly fast-growing garden. The bounty included three Cherokee Purple tomatoes and four pickling cucumbers.

Even Lilo, who showed amazing self-control since she absolutely loves tomatoes, joined in on the home-grown excitement.

Jun 15 2012

VS House-Sitting: Day Two

Started my second away-from-home day with getting some shots of both Gordon and Theo before they disappeared into the Chula Vista wilderness, a.k.a. the neighbors’ yards. Ended my day by partaking of some fantastic trifle that Heather had made for me to enjoy. I shared it with the Tapias when I visited with them. And being makers of great desserts themselves, they enjoyed it at least as much as I did.

Thanks, Heather.

Jun 15 2012

Fall Webworm Larva (Hyphantria Cunea)

As I was doing my daily watering while house-sitting at Heather’s house, I came across this Fall webworm larva (Hyphantria cunea) casually munching away on a large zucchini leaf. Since it is neither my plant, nor my problem (and partly because its such a cool looking insect), I left the caterpillar to keep eating away.

Fall webworm larva (Hyphantria cunea)

Jun 14 2012

VS House-Sitting: Day One

Began my cat/house-sitting stint in Chula Vista for the Vander Schurrs. Since I didn’t really have much time for taking pictures of either Theo or Gordon, I decided to try something different: one anonymous hiding behind my camera shot showing way too many fingers, the other of me being a silly, emotive model.

At least the house is nice.

Jun 12 2012

Surprise Guests During Lunch At The Village Grill

After finishing going through “The Horse” exhibit at the Natural History Museum my mom and I decided to walk across the way to sit and have a nice al fresco sandwich lunch at The Village Grill. I had tried their tuna melt before and liked it quite a bit. Unfortunately they didn’t have it any more but they did have a Tuna Salad Panini on the menu. Ordered that along with a side if fries. Turned out to be a really good sandwich but the bread slices were so huge that I ended up not being able to finish it. My mom ordered a simple grilled cheese sandwich that she really enjoyed.

A nice surprise was running into my friend Bethany and her two kids, Taylor and Cooper. We sat with them while my mom and I ate our sandwiches. Even shared our fries with Taylor.

As we were walking back to our car after lunch we had a fun encounter with the San Diego Zoo Train. Cute way to end our Balboa Park outing for the day.

Jun 10 2012

Bacteria To The Rescue

Since finishing the ten-day Amoxicillin regimen for my tooth infections and after the resulting two weeks of…abby-normal…occasionally urgent…um, evacuating…and after discussing my oft-seated situation with my medically-trained brother, I cheek-clenched my way over to a nearby CVS to pick up some probiotic tablets to battle this unfortunate…Game of Thrones.

Here’s hoping that in a few days my newly arrived, microscopic tenants will help wipe away this condition and turn me back into a socially adept masticator with balanced intestinal flora.

Jun 09 2012

Cucumbers Corralled and Tomatoes Tied

Helped my friends, Sylvia and Rodrigo, tidy up some of the more aggressively growing vegetable plants in their garden. We started by added a plastic mesh to a portion of fence to coax a fast-spreading cucumber to grow upwards instead of outwards, some more mesh to surround another cucumber plant, and some clothes-line rope to string up some ever-expanding tomato plants.

Lilo and Stitch were the job foremen barking out orders and waiting for the errant tomato to drop.

The whole operation turned out really well and the garden looks less overrun and a lot more kempt and organized.

Before
After
Before
After
Garden variety
The foremen
Tie line
Stringing tomatoes
Strung tomatoes
Content Protected Using Blog Protector By: PcDrome.