San Diego baby

Had a good trip. It was kinda lonely the first couple of days there, all by myself... but I eventually connected with a few cool peeps from the conference, and we got to do some exploring over a couple of days.

At one point, we were taking some pictures and somebody asked us where we were from. We went around the circle quickly: Canada, Oklahoma City, Montana, Springfield, Illinois, Chicago and Indianapolis. We got a strange look from that.

I didn't realize that San Diego was a major military port:


I also didn't realize it was a cruise ship port, nor did I know that they would be parked outside my hotel window:


I got up close and personal with an aircraft carrier.. it's permanently docked there as a museum now:


There was also a cool monument of that famous photo of the navy dude kissing the nurse... you know....this one:

Note the size of the kid in front of the statue. It's big.

While the weather was mostly cool during the week, the sun came out on Saturday, and I got to see my favourite type of tree:


Finally, there is a ship docked in San Diego harbour called the Star of India (www.sdmaritime.com/contentpage.asp?ContentID=48). It is the oldest active sailing ship in the world. Well, when I say active, I mean that it only sails one day each year. And it just happened to be on Saturday, while I was looking out on my balcony. Here it is:


I also made it to Old Town, and crossed the bay into Coronado for a bit of exploring. Overall, a very nice trip. Next time I'm on the west coast, I hope to see some of you bloggy peeps too :-)

I'm goin' back to Cali....

...to Cali, to Cali. I'm going back to Cali.... I don't think so. (an old LL Cool J song reference).

Here I sit, overlooking San Diego Bay (and the cruise ships) all by my lonesome, having been awake for the past 22 hours. I am going to bed soon.

I got in okay this morning (I left my house at 3 a.m.), but since my conference is at the hotel I'm staying at, I have no car. So I explored a good chunk of downtown by foot today. (note for Puffy: I haven't been to see the Dead Sea Scrolls yet... I'll see how the week pans out).

I'm here until Sunday, with sessions starting tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Shiver me timbers...

Whatever that means.

Here is the biggest (or shortest), baddest (or cutest) pirate on the high seas.