In A Giant's World

Lindsey's and her giant-sized champagne bottle.

Lindsey came for a visit to do some wedding preparations, and she related how she's always been intrigued by items that are far larger than their normal size. It makes her think of being in a giant's world. This may be the cause or the effect of her love of Disneyland.

When she and I were walking back from brunch at the Mission, we popped into a wine store in the East Village. In the basement, Lindsey spied an extremely large champagne bottle, and she got very animated. I might have to use this information to plan something special during her wedding. Hmmm.


Lindsey at Extraordinary Desserts.

Besides playing 'Human in a Giant's World,' we also checked out possible wedding cakes at Extraordinary Desserts and visited the restaurants where the rehearsal dinner and reception will be held. We're quite lucky that Lindsey and Jason will be getting married in San Diego, as Lindsey will be making another wedding prep, pre-ceremony visit in May.


The 10-years-apart twins, and Lindsey and Titchou did quite a bit of bonding over the weekend.

Matt and I Actually Do Spend Time Together

although he is working all the time (at work till 9pm last night, then worked till 1:30am at home). Here's a picture from my delayed birthday dinner at Romesco, a Baja Mediterranean bistro. One thing we have not found is a lack of San Diego is good restaurants.



We learned about this place from an article in Edible San Diego, a new quarterly magazine. The article mentioned that the chef is a proponent of the Slow Food movement, so we weren't too surprised that they were giving us quite a bit of time to peruse the wine list. Finally our grinning broadly at any server who passed us by caught someone's attention. We then discovered that they hadn't assigned us a server. After many apologies, we had our bottle of Malbec and a delightful, unhurried meal. The violin player who performed fostered the relaxing atmosphere. It would have been a different experience if the flamenco dancers who were originally scheduled had not gotten ill.

Before we left we were tempted by their homemade desserts, and I'm thrilled to report that I've finally found a flan that I like. This is probably because it had a tapioca-ish, not a jello-y, jiggly consistency. I'm glad that I hadn't give up hope and my habit of encouraging someone else to order the flan so that I could try a bite.

We Were Going to Get A Honda Fit

TH!NK City

...but maybe something from TH!NK will be our next car: all electric, available by 2009, 110 miles to a charge, under $25,000. Of course, we would have to buy a house first so we'd have somewhere to plug it in. Perhaps we will stick with the Fit—or buy a really, really, really long extension cord.

CLOSED

Went for a quick visit to LA, and Shawn took Wednesday off to hang out with me. We tried to go to BCAM at LACMA, Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles, and Kiriko, a sushi restaurant in West Los Angeles. All were closed. LACMA is always closed on Wednesdays, which we forgot, but A+D Museum was closed for installation of an exhibit and Kiriko was closed for no reason.

While I'm not a fan of the recommissioned street lamps outside of BCAM, we had fun posing amidst them.


Well Shawn and I had enjoyed the day anyway--hanging out around the museums, visiting the mastodons in the tar pits, shopping on La Brea (cards and cheese were within my budget) and having dinner with Nico at Echigo, a stand out sushi bar in West LA with the most memorable sushi rice that I've had.

La Brea Tar Pits: methane bubbling to the surface and Shawn tired by the Sisyphean task of waiting for the mastodon to free itself from the tarry pit of death.


A+D Museum closed for installation of After the Flood (pink house is part of The Pink Project brought to you by Brad Pitt's Make it Right foundation). Me and Shawn at Echigo.

A Little Help With 64 Across Please

My sister has been doing the Washington Post Sunday crossword puzzle for years—our grandmother was a crossword enthusiast, and we do seem to enthusiastically embrace all things related to the time we lived with her. I started doing some online last year, and during our time in the DC area I looked forward to the weekly challenge of the WP puzzle (I'll have to wait until I hone my skills more before attempting the NY Times Sunday one). What I really enjoyed is getting hints from my sister, as she always finished before I did. I was bummed that moving to San Diego would mean the end of this interaction—I asked her to scan and email me the crossword, but the likelihood of this happening, with regularity, was low. After she pointed out that I can get the Sunday puzzle online, our routine of her helping me learn the favorite, obscure puzzle words or making me realize that 'seating option' is 'booth' not 'aisle' is reestablished. Just one of those little things that makes family seem closer.

Back On The Guest List Again

Much easier to get a decent photo of our tickets than Mark Farina.

One of the perks of working at KCRW was getting on the guest list for music and other events. The not waiting in line was nice, but the real benefit was not having to layout money for acts that I wasn't sure I would like. If I buy a ticket, I certainly feel pressure to get to the venue earlier and stay long enough to see my money's worth–even if the event isn't entertaining. So being on the guest list made me more adventuresome, knowing that I could stay for as little time as I wanted.

Well, I was certain that my guest list days were over--except for the occasional KCRW Presents show that I'll put posters up for in San Diego. However, two weekends ago Matt's coworker got us on the list for an Om Music event—which we were denied entry to because we arrived after the guest list closed and Matt was wearing a sweatshirt. Whatever. Then last weekend, I met two of my classmates (Intro. to Sustainability at UCSD Extension) who promote GIANT events in San Diego. They kindly offered to put Matt and me on the guest list for Mark Farina last Friday night. Even though we arrived at 1am (Matt was working--blargh), the guest list was still open. We were able to enjoy an hour of Farina's set before we admitted that we were tired. Luckily his selections were much more danceable (upbeat, housey) than the last few times we saw him.

Oh, the title of this blog should be sung to the tune of Steve Winwood's 'Back in the High Life Again.'

Subscribing to Music Podcasts Through iTunes

Another Peter Welling original--the post needed some color.

I subscribe to a few music podcasts in iTunes: Diplo's mad decent worldwide radio, KEXP's Song of the Day, MPR: The Current Song of the Day, and KCRW's Top Tune. I try and listen to each song--deleting the ones I don't like (I hate clutter even on my iPod) and giving the ones I do like a rating. The thing I don't like about music podcasts in iTunes is that they never appear in the Music section--they are relegated to life as a podcast even when you change the genre to music.

In the past I had tried moving the files out of their podcast directory in the iTunes folder and then re-importing them into iTunes. iTunes always put them back in the podcast directory. Argh! After a little Googling this morning, I found a reasonable fix that is not too time consuming since the steps can be done to multiple songs at one time. (I never knew that you could drag and drop a directory of songs into iTunes--such a PC girl I was/am.)

Hope this helps some of you out there, and if anyone can recommend more podcasts, do share.

"A better suggestion I think. 1. Select the podcasts you wish to convert to normal audiio files.
2. Go to the advanced menu, select convert ID3 tags.
3. Change the ID3 tags to version 1.0.
4. Drag the podcasts out to a folder
5. Delete the originals from iTunes
6. Drag the files back in to iTunes (I recommend using a playlist)
7. Change the ID3 tags back to the highest version available.
8. Fix any missing tags."
posted by Jeremy on http://opensoul.org

Our First Visitor

My sister arrived for a five day visit.

The mattress for the guest bedroom was delivered just in time for my sister's visit. Since Matt's been working so much, it was fun to have someone (and a super-fun someone at that) to explore more of San Diego with. Carlyn and I discovered that San Diego restaurants serve large portions (at Hash House A Go Go the pancakes are the size of a 14" pizza), our balcony is good for sipping cocktails, cute shoe stores are closed on Mondays, the beaches on the Pacific provide an excellent selection of stones for use in gardens and accessorizing potted plants, and the culotte steak (top sirloin cap steak) is an amazing cut of meat. Can't wait to experience further adventures with our next set of visitors.

A Quick Review of Carolyn's Visit (click for more detail)

First stop: Rose Garden at Balboa Park.	The Star of India is parked right down the street from us.
Had to rent a convertible to sport sis around San Diego.	The Old Point Loma Lighthouse.
There was some rock hugging at PL.	And self portrait taking (sadly, Matt was working).
Ventured to the OC to visit with Dom.	Carolyn couldn't resist dipping her toe in the cold Pacific waters off Laguna Beach.
Matt could spend all day gazing into tide pools.	We also happened upon some seriously large kelp on Torrey Pines State Beach.

Sunset Cliffs, San Diego

Heard this was the place one needs to experience the sunset. We heard correctly. People just gather around—some arrive quite a while before, set up chairs, have a cocktail and listen to music; others arrive a few minutes before and leave as soon as the sun dips below the horizon. Having people come together to enjoy something as beautiful, natural, ephemeral and free as the sunset leaves one with a (slightly) better view of humanity.

People waiting for sunset on the beautiful, red cliffs.

The sunset does funny things to Matt's hair. I like it.

Here is my first sunset series--reminds me of my first sunrise series that I took in Belize (sigh). Click to enlarge the photos.