Entries categorized as ‘san diego’
I haven’t been blogging much here, but I’ve been doing a ton of blogging over at BeerNBikes.com Durango, CO (and the surrounding Four Corners area) is an awesome place for both craft beer fans and cyclists.
I still read up on things happening in San Diego every once in a while, especially all the wonderful beer being made.
I saw this post on Draft Mag’s blog about the SDCityBeat Festival Of Beer coming up in May, and their summary of San Diego pretty much sums things up for me:
Occasionally, we consider moving to San Diego. It’s warm. All the time. It’s beautiful. All the time. The people are attractive. All the time. Honestly, what’s not to like? Then you visit, however, and realize it’s essentially a city devoid of culture, unless you consider being a stop on the way to Tijuana an important cultural experience. We don’t.
They do have good things to say about the CityBeat Festival of Beers though.
Categories: beer · bikes · blogging · colorado · durango · san diego · tijuana
Tagged: beernbikes, beernbikes.com, draft mag, san diego citybeat festival of beers, sdcitybeat
There are all sorts of bars in La Mesa, the city I grew up in, that I’ve never been to. Places that I wondered about when underage, but just didn’t seem cool enough once I could get into bars. Last night Kinsee, Derrik and I rode our bikes to five of those La Mesa watering holes.
First up was Centifonti’s, I’ve walked past it a few times before and always assumed it was a restaurant or bakery, I was shocked when I saw a coupon in the Citybeat advertising their “Boot of Beer”. Why a place like this serves a boot of beer is beyond me, but we weren’t concerned with that, we just wanted our 112oz of cold, foamy Stella Artois. I felt a little out of place at first, most of the patrons were older than the three of us combined, but as we drank the boot I stopped worrying about La Mesa folks and started having a good time.
Pouring the Boot
Drinking the Boot
Finishing the Boot
Next up was Pete’s Place. Pete’s used to be one of two dive bars on La Mesa Blvd, but they both recently closed. Pete’s Place opened back up after some remodeling, Joe and Andy’s, the other dive hasn’t reopened yet. When tearing down the old walls they apparently found nice brick walls behind them, so Pete’s Place looks nice these days. Even though they got remodeled the bar tender said they still have the same people hanging out there and drink prices didn’t go up. $3.25 for a decently stiff whiskey and 7up was pretty good.
Brick Walls
After Pete’s Place we rode down the street, passing such places as Hoffer’s Cigar Bar and the Turquoise Room at the Riviera Supper Club for the tried and true Falcon’s Lure. They only serve beer and wine but we found some good local brews. We played the jukebox (I resisted putting on Alice’s Restaurant, three times), met a local who showed us a magic trick, he originally wanted us to buy him a beer before showing us the magic behind it. When we showed no interest whatsoever he decided to tell us free of charge.
Bikes in the Bar
We sprinted down University Ave to The Dragon Room at Wong’s Golden Palace. This was the most divey, and least fun bar of the night. We walked in and it was almost silent, no music was playing, and nearly dark. No one was behind the bar so I asked a guy sitting there if he’d seen a bartender around recently. He looked at me and laughed and said “nah”. Then he started yelling “MEATLOAF! MEATLOAF!”, shortly after that the bartender started walking over. We didn’t feel comfortable ordering drinks from someone that responds to the name Meatloaf so we went into the restaurant and order our Flaming Volcano drink. We downed the drink and got out as quickly as we could.
The Volcano
The Flaming Volcano
Last was Mr G’s Tavern. It was bright with loud but not too loud music and a decent crowd. One patron was apparently trying to make fun of us and our bikes but I didn’t let him get away with it.
Him: “So you guys ten-speeded in here huh?”
Me: “They’re single-speeds actually.”
We quickly became friends with him and another regular named Tim. By the time we left we’d earned his respect by riding around the hills of La Mesa with only one gear.
A Few of the Regulars -- We met Tim
A Couple of the Other Regulars
Photos mostly by Derrik.
Categories: beer · bikes · friends · life · photos · restaurants · san diego
Tagged: bicycle pub crawl, bike beer ride, boot of beer, centifonti's, falcon's lure, fixed gear, flaming volcano, la mesa, la mesa boulevard, la mesa ca, mr g's tavern, pete's place, pub crawl, single speeds, wong's dragon room, wong's golden palace
…I Love Santa Ana’s.
Urban Tumbleweeds
Categories: environment · photos · san diego
The REAL ID Act allows the Department of Homeland Security to disregard all environmental laws to protect our borders. I don’t think they’ve started filling in the canyon on the border near the Tijuana Estuary yet, something that will cause all sorts of environmental problems with run off, erosion and effect plenty of birds, but it’s in the works.
Today I just read a story about the DHS using the REAL ID Act to start building roads in designated wilderness east of San Diego in preparation of building the triple border fence. Wilderness designation is supposed to keep the land free of human influence, a road and border fence are definitely human influence. A couple of years ago a border patrol spokesman said the area wouldn’t need fencing because the rugged land was fence enough, but apparently something has changed and they’re going ahead with it anyways.
One of my favorite things about much of the designated wilderness areas east of San Diego on the border are that they’re not wilderness for humans. There are few trails, few natural wonders for people to visit, but plenty of wide open space for the environment to be left alone. What wilderness designation was meant for. But no longer for the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area.
The blog post linked above (and here it is again in case you missed it, because I think it’s important to get the word out) is the first mention of this I’ve seen. Nothing in the newspapers, no other press. The DHS is doing a lot of stuff with very little public input.
Categories: environment · news · outdoors · politics · san diego · tijuana
Tagged: border politics, otay mountain wilderness, real id act, us mexico border, wilderness
Straight Razor Shave. Photo by Kinsee Morlan
Last night I went down to Two Roses Inc, a tattoo parlor, barbershop, and cafe in Barrio Logan for a full service haircut and it was amazing. The place has a good feel to it, everyone was friendly, at least three or four tattoo artists introduced themselves to me and chatted while I was waiting including the owners.
By the time I got in the chair Carlos the barber was chatting and we were having a good time, looking back on it, I’m not sure why I turned down his offer of a glass of Scotch while I was getting trimmed, but there will always be a next time.
After the cut he started prepping me for a shave with a straight razor. I was really looking forward to this because I hate shaving, so someone else doing it for me seemed pretty nice, and because of the old-time-machismo-getting-shaved-with-a-big-ole-sharp-blade thing. He started by putting some moisturizer on my face. Then wrapping me in a hot towel. He did this about three times to soften my skin and get it ready to shave. He put on some warm shaving cream and started shaving. By this time he’d been chatting it up and built some rapport so I wasn’t nervous about the blade at all.
he shaved all around, taking extra care around my beloved moustache. When done he toweled me off, put some sort of after-shave on that burned, but as he said “it doesn’t quite hurt, just makes you feel alive”. He put some more moisturizer on there and then toweled all the hair of my face, back and everywhere else it ended up. I was feeling great, in a sort of relaxation-haze, about to stand up when I pulled out a massager and gave me a little back and neck massage. It was already the best haircut of my life, but that just put it over the top.
He even recomended some waxy like stuff for styling my moustache, I’m gonna give that a try tonight to see if it holds up better than the Clubman’s wax I’ve been using.
Not only was this the best, most relaxing haircut ever. It was cheap too. The haircut was just a bit more than Supercuts would charge, the shave was $16 as well. The best part about it was the comfortable, old time feel they’ve got going.
Categories: san diego
Tagged: barbershop, haircut, old time feel, straight razor shave, two roses, two roses inc, two roses san diego
Santa Ana winds are my favorite weather phenomena. Santa Ana winds happen in Southern California (I wonder if they happen other places in the world?) in the fall and winter, the wind blows in from the east towards the ocean, usually getting warmer closer to the coast. They’re unseasonably warm and windy. I’m not really sure what causes them, scientists say it’s a misconception that it’s hot air from the desert, something to do with adiabatic compression but ya got me.
Santa Ana winds are coming back to San Diego this weekend and I’m excited. Most people hate them but I love it. I heard on the radio this morning that it would be in the 80’s this weekend, but this weather report says only low 70’s. Either way it’s going to get dry, windy and warm. A bad combo for fires, but otherwise nice and balmy weather.
Categories: desert · san diego
Tagged: adiabatic compression, desert, santa ana, santa ana winds, southern california, warm weather
I finally saw Joel P West live last week. After months of listening to his new album, his live show didn’t disappoint.
He played the final show in the Adapta Project vs Sezio art shows at Cream Coffeehouse in University Heights.
Kinsee first introduced me to his album Dust Jacket which can be downloaded by trading something with him. Most people send pictures, poems or songs, I sent a poem and he sent me a link to download the album. A few weeks later I saw the poem posted on the Dust Jacket Project blog. I downloaded the album and was immediately hooked, its catchy and fun, one of the best new albums I’ve heard in a long time. So I was a little afraid the live show wouldn’t live up to the greatness of the album, thankfully it did.
Just a guitar and a cello, the music was soft and quiet and beautiful in the corner of the cafe. The PA wasn’t up to task though and the music couldn’t be heard over the chatter of the crowd. After a few songs the show moved outside onto the sidewalk. A smaller, quieter crowd followed and we were treated to a few more songs. It’s not often you see a musician decide to move their show outside so the people that really want to hear the music can, but thats what we got that night.
There are some pictures and commentary from the whole night at Sezio.
Categories: music · san diego
Tagged: adapta project, cream coffeehouse, dust jacket, joel p west, new music, sezio, sezio.org
There are two types of bars I care to frequent. Both need to have friendly bartenders and a good vibe.
The first type is the beer bar, it should have good draft beer and at least a decent selection of bottles. A good example of this type of bar in San Diego is Hamilton’s Tavern.
If a bar isn’t a beer bar, with an excellent selection, then I don’t really care about the beer at all, but they better have some decent whiskey. Most bars will have at least one or two good bourbons, so the way I measure these bars is very simple. Do they have ginger ale? I don’t always like to drink whiskey on the rocks, and no other mixer compares to real ginger ale (don’t try to give me seven-up and coke please).
Last night I finally made it to Starlite. I’d been wanting to check it out since they opened last year and I saw this picture on the cover of the Citybeat. (In fact, it was this fella that inspired me to start growing a moustache last year, which made it all the more funny when someone jokingly asked me last night if that was me in that picture).
So I knew Starlite was a good bar when I saw they had ginger beer (I’m really not sure what the difference is between ginger beer and ginger ale). They had a specialty drink, the Kentucky Colonel, which was bourbon, ginger beer, lemon and bitters. It was good, but the bourbon and ginger beer alone was good enough.
If I’m not drinking whiskey on the rocks I prefer the Whiskey Pres (short for Presbyterian apparently…). Whiskey with half ginger ale half club soda. In Santa Cruz where I was first introduced to the Whiskey Pres ($3 at the Rush Inn) they made them with Seven-Up, I never realized how wrong this was until I had one properly made.
I really wish more bars would have ginger ale for mixing drinks.
Categories: san diego
Tagged: bars, bourbon, ginger ale, ginger beer, hamiltons tavern, kentucky colonel, moustache, starlite, whiskey
Full moon rising 6/6 by Jeremy Stanley. Creative Commons 2.0
Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest and brightest of the year. In fact there won’t be another full moon this bright for eight years. Because the moon orbits the earth in an elliptic orbit, not circular, there are times it is much closer to the earth than others. Tonight’s moon will be approximately twenty-eight thousand miles closer to earth than normal. A moon this bright hasn’t been seen for fifteen years.
The moonrise will take place around sunset and will appear fourteen percent bigger and thirty percent brighter than most other full moons. As the moon rises in the sky it will appear smaller and smaller. However this is just an optical illusion, the moon stays the same size throughout the night. No one can fully explain why this occurs, but it is believed that it has to do with the way we perceive objects near the horizon.
Unfortunately for us here in San Diego, the weather forcast calls for partly cloudy skys becoming overcast throughout the night. Hopefully the clouds will stay at bay long enough for us to see this once in a decade bigger, brighter full moon. So head to a highpoint at dusk and watch the moonrise.
You can read more on NatGeo.
Categories: outdoors · san diego
Tagged: bigger brighter moon, creative commons photo, full moon, moonrise
I went camping at William Heise County Park in Julian this past weekend. It being December and all, I was a little worried about the cold, but when I looked up the weather forecast I realized that December in the Cuyamacas is like July in the Sierra Nevada. I’d never been to William Heise Park, I guess the fact that it is so close to Julian and a county park rather than state park always kept me away. I was a little bummed we weren’t driving the extra hour out to Anza Borrego, but was looking forward to checking out the area around Julian.
Driving east on I-8 we decided to stop by the new(ish) Liars Club in Alpine. I always liked the Liars Club because they had a ton of good beer on tap, but I didn’t like the bar itself. It was pretty small and in Mission Beach. Well, the new location in Alpine isn’t much better, but the building itself is a lot better. There was plenty of seating and the same friendly bartender serving good beer and giving samples of stuff he thought I’d like.
Back on the road we were heading up Highway 79 past Lake Cuyamaca when I drove over a newly paved patch of road. I realized this is where there used to be a grate in the road. What I always assumed was a cow grate. Cows won’t walk over grates, so this was an easy way to keep them from moving too far. It made me wonder if those grates are now unnecessary because no one is raising cattle out there any more, it made me wonder if it’s becoming suburbanized. I was a little disenfranchised by this. But what happened later more than made up for it.
We got to the campground and met up with Kinsee’s friends. As we were sitting around the slowly dying fire before calling it a night, we some movement in the distance. As our eyes adjusted from looking away from the fire we could tell it was a group of deer. About five of them only 10 meters away in the meadow watching us. They moved around for a while but kept their eyes on us for quite some time. Even though we could hardly see them it was exciting, this was only the second time I’ve seen deer in San Diego and it made me hopeful that maybe the San Diego backcountry is still a little wild after all. There was no cloud cover the first night so the stars were quite the sight as well. Nothing like the dessert of Sierra’s, but a lot more than we can see in the city nightly.
The next morning we were awoken by a lot of loud birds and even some wild turkeys. My brother warned me that they were mean, but when trying to photograph them they just ran away from us.
We went a couple short hikes, one to a desert viewpoint above highway 79. It was a clear day and we could see all the way to the Pacific Ocean to the west and to the Salton Sea to the east. The view of the desert wasn’t as good as from some of the mountains off Sunrise Highway were the drop from mountains to desert happens, but it was a great view.
That night we were supposed to go to the Observer’s Inn, a home made/DIY of sorts observatory outside Julian. I was told it’s a two hour lecture/show by a retired engineer that loves astronomy and has five telescopes setup in his observatory. Sadly the weather turned bad and clouds rolled in obstructing the view, so we didn’t go. It sounded like a good time though.
The camping was good at William Heise, we had almost the whole campground to ourselves. There isn’t too much hiking from the campground, but it made for a relaxing weekend.
Categories: environment · outdoors · san diego
Tagged: camping, cuyamaca, julian, julian observatory, liars club, observer's inn, san diego camping, william heise county park
