Laura is a big fan of the band, Bones UK. (Don’t worry, I had never heard of them either). They were the opening act for Smashing Pumpkins.
Laura had bought tickets for us on the very edge of the amphitheater because she knows I don’t like being smashed in crowds. I thought that was considerate of her. And they were good tickets, quite far forward.
It turns out there was an unanticipated benefit to our tickets on the far edge – it was the same night as the eclipse of the moon and we were on the correct side to see the moon.
I took more pictures of the moon than of the concert. Of course it was terrible lighting for viewing the sky with all the concert lights. But it was still very cool to see.
I did take one or two pictures of the concert.
But mostly I took pictures of the eclipse.
I have no idea why I wore a pink flowered shirt to a Smashing Pumpkin’s concert. I wasn’t thinking I guess. I looked quite out of place, but I didn’t care.
I’m so far behind on my posts. Here’s some more San Diego pictures from over a month ago. I’ve need to just plow through last month’s events because now I’ve got June stuff to write about. We’ve been doing a lot!
Here’s John and Biska at sunset in San Diego. That dog is getting almost too big to be carried around. She’s 25 pounds now, and we think she’s about done growing. She’s long, so she looks bigger than 25 pounds.
I took far too many pictures of the sunset. I love the sunset over the ocean.
One morning we went to the Safari Park outside of Escondido.
John really likes that park. I was grumpy because it was colder than I expected that far inland. I wanted a hot coffee, so we went to the unbranded coffee shop in the park. There was only one barista that early in the morning and she didn’t even know how to make hot coffee – only iced. I did not want iced coffee – I was freezing. She couldn’t make most of what was on the menu and refused to take instructions.
I ended up with a lukewarm “coffee” that tasted like the chocolate milk that we used to get in little cartons in the lunchroom when we were kids. The only possible value there would be for nostalgia; but not in my case.
John kept trying to take my picture but all he was getting was scowls. He was failing to coax a smile out of me. Eventually he tricked me into laughing. I look like I was having a great time!
Later we went on an afternoon walk around a reservoir northeast of San Diego. I had been there before with my brother and knew it was a nice walk. The fog finally burned off that afternoon, plus we were some distance from the ocean. I was finally warm enough.
Here we are at a neighborhood park near the lake.
We found some excellent Thai food in the suburbs.
There’s nothing like a cloudless sky to improve my mood. Ocean and lakes and good food – at moments like this I’m like wow, we could have moved here! But houses in this region start at about a million and a half, and go up from there. Plus I spent most of that trip cold. I think we’re a much better fit for Tucson, even though there’s no ocean.
Heading down to say good-bye to the beach on our last morning.
Brrr! Next time I want to walk on the beach, I’m going to Mexico. It’s closer! Not to mention warmer.
Yep, there’s our van on the cliff on the left. All things considered, it is a fairly spectacular place for a campsite.
There’s a dog beach on Coronado Island where the dogs can run free in the ocean. Biska had never seen anything like it!
John says for once my videos aren’t boring, but don’t take his word for it. They’re just as boring as all my other little home videos of dogs and rain and games and floating trees.
While Biska was having the time of her life, I got distracted. This little puppy was there with his foster mom, looking for a new home. Now in my defense, I don’t actually want MOST puppies I see. But every so often it’s just love at first sight. I did not want to put this little guy down. The perfect playmate for Biska!
I don’t remember what the foster mom was calling him, but clearly his name should be Juan. Doesn’t he look like a Juan? Luckily, I don’t really want a boy dog. If this puppy had been a girl, I don’t know how I would have managed to let go.
As I stood on the beach possessively clinging to this puppy, John was giving me a look that meant, “It’s him or me babe, you choose.” So hmmm, Juan or John? I chose John, but it was a close one!
At the beginning of May, John and I camped at a state park at the beach north of San Diego. It’s very difficult to get reservations for camping at the beach, so I had made them sometime last year, having no idea what we would be up to during May.
We almost decided not to go because John’s been quite busy at work and having to go to Albuquerque frequently. But we didn’t want to give up the reservations that are so hard to get. So off we went to California!
Biska appears to be getting too big for her bed between our seats in the van.
We’re here!
I always like to take a view shot from the open van door everywhere we stay. Oceanfront!
The obligatory crooked-camera selfie in front of the ocean to send to my friends:
Yes, I’m wearing a jacket over a sweater because brrrr, I’m used to Tucson!
We arrived on a Sunday in the late afternoon, and the first thing we did was visit with my brother and his kids, because once the week got going they would be busy with school and activities. It was getting dark, but I still tried to take a photo. I wanted to take a picture of just them, but Katherine insisted on me taking a selfie with them. So unfortunately, there I am not helping the photo out any.
I was super happy to see them, lol. Me the dorky aunt. This is Katherine and Alex; Jonathan is off to college now.
The next day John and I went to Balboa Park. It’s great they allow dogs.
We were curious about these pretty little fig-like fruits.
I had to tell John not to try to eat it! We did not know what it was and I think spotted things look particularly poisonous. Usually it’s Biska I’m shouting to, “Don’t eat that!” She is a doggy vacuum cleaner. I don’t usually have to implore John to not eat things. I don’t think John would actually have eaten it…or maybe just a nibble? Hopefully he was just teasing me, but you never know.
Mmmmm…grass. Lovely, thick, long, green grass. We don’t get a lot of that in Tucson.
Hmmm, what’s this? Some sort of trumpet vine except dark pink instead of orange? I want to grow that!
This huge hedge of star jasmine smelled amazing.
Clouds again, but still beautiful.
Here we are walking near the campground. It was definitely colder than we’re used to in Tucson!
I just read an article about a weight loss app that turned out to be a more interesting article than I expected, given that I’m not particularly interested in weight loss.
Although the primary topic is about weight loss, the underlying topic is about human psychology, and specifically, how easily we can be manipulated by apps. In this case, an app manipulated the author to lose weight. But so often the apps and websites and the algorithms they use are designed to make us click on dumb stuff on the internet, resulting in us believing stupid shit designed to get us all riled up, or sending them our money for junk that we don’t need and probably don’t actually even want.
I’ve seen it in my own life. I’ll go onto Amazon to buy a couple of kitchen hand towels or something reasonable, and then what the hell happens to my mind? The scary thing is, the folks at Amazon don’t really know how it works either. Their software collects data about what we (hundreds of thousands of us) click and when we click, and pretty soon the data shows crazy minute detail such as that we’ll buy more if the background page is one shade of beige instead of a different shade of beige and the “buy” button is turquoise, or whatever inscrutable insights the data shows. They know it works but they don’t know why. We are being tricked by people who don’t even understand themselves how the trickery works!
Meanwhile similar algorithms can now beat all humans at our most challenging games like chess and go. Not only are we being tricked, but we are being tricked by algorithms that are smarter than we are! Algorithms will soon be beating me at the game of who-gets-my-money, just like how the algorithms manipulated this author into losing a truly huge amount of weight in what sounded like a potentially unhealthy amount of time.
It’s such an interesting article that I used one of my 10 per month free share options to generate a link that doesn’t have a firewall so you can read it if you want.
You might remember back in March, Laura and Alex came to Tucson for Alex to compete in a bike race here. He did very well until the last day when a couple of people ahead of him collided, creating a pile-up. Alex broke his clavicle and had to fly home the next day in a temporary splint, and get surgery later that week.
After his surgery he worked hard to stay in shape. At the time I wrote, “We’re happy he’s feeling better, but sorry about an upcoming race in Sacramento he was really hoping to have a shot at winning in May of this year. He came in second back in 2019 before the pandemic closed it down. Well, maybe next year.”
The upcoming race was scheduled for the last weekend in April and he just had surgery in March – it didn’t seem possible. I was assuming he was going to have to sit out the Sacramento race this year. But he trained hard all through April with his arm in a sling.
Finally, a week before the race, his doctor said he could take off his sling. That was all Alex needed to hear – he was determined to win that race in Sacramento.
Here he is, warming up.
He did really well the first day on various timed trials. Here’s the big race on the second day: https://youtu.be/Bh7HOA2vDwI
In the video you can hear them announce Alex’s name as the front runner (and that’s Laura screaming). But did he actually win?
Alex is the one on our right (left from the point of view of the bicyclists). You can’t get much closer than that. Impossible to call!
We waited tensely for the results. Finally the results posted, but Alex’s name was nowhere. Surely that wasn’t right. He was either first or second. Or there was a tie for first.
After some discussion, they reposted with Alex in first place! Whooo-hooo! But wait. Controversy ensued. Lots of people showed the referees the videos on their phones. And the call was reversed! Alex was second.
He took it well.
Turns out he had good reason to not mind being second. It was just one race of many timed events and he knew he was likely still going to win the whole thing. And sure enough, when all the points were totaled over the couple of days of racing, Alex was the champion for the weekend!
Yay, Alex! Eight weeks after breaking his clavicle.
You know how when you’ve been asleep dreaming that your spouse does something that makes you mad, and when you wake up you’re still mad, even though they didn’t really do anything wrong? It was just a dream!
I don’t usually talk in my sleep, but in the middle of the night last night I shouted, not mumbled, but shouted so loud that I woke myself up. In my dream I was so frustrated with John that I yelled, “FUCK! YOU DON’T LISTEN!”
Apparently my shout woke him up too, because the next morning he was like, “Well, I heard that.“
It’s allergy season in Tucson! Luckily neither John nor I are very susceptible to hay fever.
This huge beautiful tree is near our house.
There are about 5 different kinds of yellow-flowered trees and bushes blooming right now. Our canyons are full of something shorter, with pale yellow flowers. And then there’s this crazy fuzzy thing near my house.
I want to find out what this one is, with the fuzzy yellow flowers. I was on my bike when I first spotted it, and even riding by quickly I was startled by how heavenly it smelled. It’s clearly a messy tree, but it would be worth it. I would just need to not plant it near the pool!
I also wish I knew what this amazing pink tree is, at the St. Phillips Plaza on River and Campbell.
Up close it looks like oleander, but I didn’t know oleander could be trained into a 25-30 foot tree! It’s significantly taller than the two-story building next to it!
I hope you’re having a beautiful spring wherever you are.
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