Tuesday, March 11, 2008

March 9, 2008

Gift Receipts: At first I thought that it was me – I gave a gift (durian – reference 2/4 post), and it wasn’t received with the appreciation I had expected. With the presentation of my most recent house-gift, I am starting to think that Caleb isn’t prone to accepting gifts with grace and humility. When I was off-roading in AZ, I took a chance to wrangle some Teddy Bear cactus buds so Caleb could start his own garden – to no avail as he attempted to ditch the little guys at his first opportunity.

We spent the day running errands (grocery, farmer’s market, sushi, ineffective carwash for caleb's whip) and heading to Mission Beach to meet up with Dave and Julia – to keep the effort of meeting up with and enjoying friends wherever we can find ourselves. It is not a lot of effort when it involves sitting on the beach in the San Diego during late afternoon enjoying the sun, the sand, the people-watching, and good friends who have interesting things to say. While it was only about half an hour of sitting on the beach, it was an injection of happiness to the being.

The only caveat to sitting on the beach – it isn’t what it used to be. I’m not just being a curmudgeon, San Diego had a voted referendum to enact a one year booze ban on the beach. When I spent a few months here a million years ago, Luis and Bryan and the gang would bring a cooler to the beach and spend hours lounging and goofing off, the only harassment from the authorities was when a glass bottle was produced. Now all alcohol is banned on the beach – and the campaign included a radio announcement to the potential spring breakers when I was in Phoenix.

Portal: It would be a shame to drive cross country to sit in front of a television playing a video game, but Caleb shamelessly introduced me to this small (and potentially overlooked) component of The Orange Box game… it is a first person game that is a great logic and problem solving game. Warning: There is the opportunity for some frustration as the logic is progressive and impressively challenging at certain points (I had caleb who had beat the game to hassle for hints periodically). The total gameplay depends on the logic abilities of the player, but for 4 to fifteen hours of mentally stimulating entertainment, the $60 bucks is on par with the 2 hours of intellectually numbing ‘semi-pro’. (I will refrain from saying how long it took me to complete the game – and disavow any assistance from Caleb)



Pics: a) Give your new houseguest a hug (note potholder used to handle plant); b) tilt your head to the right a little



Fillets in 2 lbs of Tilapia: 11
Person Meals provided: 5
Number of unique shoppers discovering strawberries are on sale: 2
Containers of strawberries purchased: 5
Number 1 producer of strawberries worldwide: USA
Number 2 producer of strawberries: Spain
Como se dice ‘fresa’ en ingles: Strawberry
Word of the day: Gewgaw
WOTD usage: 3

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Brian has not visited you, now you know why:

No beach, no sun, no sand, people-watching is unavailable, you have nothing interesting to say, you do not have fun friends, no beer, no injection of happiness to the Bri being or you reject gifts. The remedy is simple, buy beer.

Anonymous said...

Free-for all on the comments.... can we go back a few weeks (months)- I have SOMETHING to say !!

Anonymous said...

Now we can talk about him and he will not know who it is...... muuuah

Sean use your spell checker otherwise .... oops

Anonymous said...

No beer on the beach - how un-American... oh wait your in California, now it makes sense.