San Diego eats and then I can move on

Lots to catch up on - Sonny's visit, birthday fun, roofing, books.... but I HAVE to finish San Diego!

San Diego eats:

• In-N-Out Burger - fast food, yes, but excellent service even at the drive-through at midnight. Excellent shake.
• Victor's Greek - A little place walking distance to the office - good tasty gyros meat.
• Jake's - On Del Mar Beach, we watched beach volleyball and surfers as we ate. I could sit and watch the water for a very, very long time. Excellent HOT rolls and Mahi Mahi wit a mirin glaze, ginger buerre blanc, and sweet chili sauce - oooh, and mini-squash - so cute!
• Jamba - Couldn't pass it up! Had a Mega Mango (all fruit) with an energy boost. Great start to a busy work day.
• Spices Thai - Spicy spicy noodles, but they brought the check before I could get mango and sweet rice - my fave Thai dessert.
• Cafe Luna - Excellent small Italian joint. My waiter was from south of Syracuse, of all places, and knew the author I was reading. Chocotini made from a rice wine - very tasty. An incredible, simple mushroom soup. Manicotti with pasta made crepe style - excellent and light, but simply too much for my belly.

San Diego thoughts

From my San Diego journal:
Wondering if I'll ever spend a full day awake [ie alert], or rather how long it will take me. Not much time for sights, working in a burb-like area. Did get to Chuao Chocolates. Very friendly lady tending shop and so many yummy options. Samples of dark, spicy hot chocolate and truffles (I chose goat cheese, balsalmic vinegar)made it an extra treat and I think the local members of our team may be hooked. [The nutmeg pods are incredible!]

I love driving towards downtown San Diego on the 163 (I think), where the expressway is engulfed by trees and you drive around curves and under high, elegant arches of overpasses. I feel transported from the greater desert scrub and suburban plaza atmosphere into a forest realm.

Rounding out the SF portion of the trip

Returning to SF via the Bay Bridge from Emeryville was a traffic revelation for my East Coast, country-raised self. 16 lanes of traffic emerge from the toll booths in one direction. To narrow these to 4, there's a metering light system that lets one car through at a time for each pair of lanes. I thought this was quite brillant. I guess it's a standard type of system in CA.

Treasure Island is halfway across the bay. I need to look up how it got its name. It's very lush and looks like it could be a park area.

In SF itself, the narrow, boxy house roll over the hills in shades of white, yellow, peach, and pink.

Good SF eats this time:
- Scala's Bistro - dark & calming, though bustling, pretty good food.
- Crepe o chocolat - a small French cafe, frequented by locals for $1 coffee refills - marvellous crepe and homemade honey chai.

An evening at the movies...

So, last night I went to see Stardust. It was a blast! Such an awesome flick that garnered tons of audience response, which is tres cool. As a big Neil Gaiman fan and reader of his blog, I've been following the work on the creation of this film (though I still need to get the book and read it). Jenny was a bit disturbed by all of the rabbit people had hanging around for food, but otherwise also really enjoyed it. Stellar work. Loved the cast - Charlie Cox and Claire Danes are very cool, DeNiro is awesome, Pfeiffer is great. I highly recommend watching this many many times. Definitely appreciate that a fireplace fell on Claudia Schiffer's foot to get this to the big screen, though it would have been nice if it could have happened less painfully.

Sonny went to see "Speedy" - a silent film from the 1920's, accompanied by a live trio. Very cool.

BTW - the boys are busy, too

artscape sonny
Originally uploaded by cw_roelle


Sonny had a booth at ArtScape in Baltimore and is busy busy making cooler and cooler stuff. (He and Pam will be visiting us around my birthday - cool!)

Danny is insanely busy in, like, 10 bands or something like that. I believe he plays a private party in Cambridge today, breakfast with Sonny tomorrow am, then a gig in Herkimer, NY. In addition to all of the bands, he still has his "normal" job and he's cooking at Buffalo Bills many weekends. It tires me out just to look at his calendar!

More from San Francisco

Flying into SF, I noticed how unmarred the mountains appeared, hardly even marked by roads, at least from the perspective of the plane. Just as I was thinking this, we passed over one "hill" with a hole on the top. Rectangular, it resembled the shape of a swimming pool (though that would be quite a large pool), but was a deep, empty cavity. Wonder what's in there?

The San Francisco MOMA is very cool and the store is great. I'd spend more time there if I had it (meeting someone soon) and if there was someone with me to talk to. Walking from the MOMA to the Hotel Nikko, I passed the Museum of Craft & Folk Art - a place it seemed Jenny and Sonny would really appreciate.

Walked through IKEA in Emeryville - what a cool place! Lots of neat things and I like the "example" rooms that lay things out. Spurred lots of ideas, but I knew I had no room in my luggage (trying not to check anything) for anything. Only afterwards did people suggest I could have something shipped from the office. Darn!