XXX: San Diego, Pt. 3

And the day arrived, inevitably as they must, barring accident or plague or the like. We quickly distracted myself from the stabbing pain that was the contemplation of the implications of my 30th birthday and headed down the beach for a looooooong double-u with the dogs. The sun was just rising and made for a slew of nice pics, like the following action shot of seagulls in the sunrise:

The surfers were out in full force, as were the fishermen. We headed up and down the beach and even illegally took S&W along the pier. They are not huge fans of this whole "ocean" concept, and I will post pictorial evidence of that hilarity in a bit. But for now, enjoy some of the shots of Ocean Beach on a sunny Sunday morning:


We made the long trek back to the hotel and left the pups in the room so we could head north along the coast for a birthday brunch. We drove up through Paradise Beach toward LaJolla to a restaurant overlooking the sea that Beck had learned about from her handy tourist guide. The drive was beautiful - the coast is lined with what we can only assume are lovely cost-efficient houses - I mean, seriously, with the risk of falling off the cliff and into the sea, they would have to mark the price down, right? There were also parks galore (more on that in a second) and the general lush green scenery that the Pacific Coast is famous for. Sweet. Beck and I were a little nervous about making it back in time for the Pats game because, without the beloved internets, we had no real way of figuring out what time the game was. And since we were in the PST zone ,there was a chance that things might be starting at 10. We figured we should probably just ask someone when it dawned on us that WE WERE IN SAN DIEGO! And the Pats were playing the Chargers! After our big DUH wore off, we overheard the hostess at the restaurant say that they shouldn't have many people coming at 1 o'clock because of the game, so we knew we were safe. Here's a snap of me enjoying a scrumptuous b-day omelette and a snap of the view from the restaurant:

We ate up our delicious seaside breakfast (after a small scallion-related SNAFU by the cooks) (I had ordered my usual special-occasion cheddar-bacon omelette which came stuffed with gross onions; it was quickly replaced, but the odd thing that was our waitress explained this by telling us "the cooks are all Mexicans, and they're always throwing crazy stuff in omelettes." Ah, hilarious Mexican hijinks! I should have known) and, with plenty of time before kickoff, took a stroll down the beachside. Those pics are coming in the next post, but just be forewarned that Beck started off our journey with "Look at those weird looking rocks..."

Don't the Brakeman Look Good, Mama: San Diego, Pt. 2

Beck and I got back to the beach in time to watch a bunch of surfers riding waves in front of a gorgeous Pacific sunset. I'll post all of the pics below in a table, but I highly recommend clicking through them and checking out the big versions. Note that Beck is using the sweet binoculars gifted to us by M and G and wearing a GPGDS hoodie to keep out the chilly pacific air. It's a veritable iPXmas!!!


And one more that I shot vertically:

Nice. We capped off this evening by going to a yummy hamburger grill place that played crazy thrash metal music and had a ton of vanity plates from all over the country on the walls. We walked pretty much everywhere around the hotel which was great; good to traipse through the neighborhoods of many an ocean bum and work off the burger/ice cream calories. Capped the evening with a cutthroat game of Scrabble and fell asleep with visions of Patriots dancing in our heads.

Untrustable: San Diego, Pt. 1

The Beck got home a little late on Friday night; we eschewed a gym trip for a night of hanging out and conducting the afore-posted Risk battle (which ended tragically for the Madagascarans, may their memory never die). This wasn't the usual weekend in the Nyetverse for one very tragic reason; it was Nyet's Quinceañera por dos, the ritual loss of Nyet's ability to trust himself. While a tragic, depressing and ultimately soul-crushing event in and of itself, Beck had decided to celebrate this mini-chapter in the ever-elongating bildungsroman by taking Nyet for a weekend vacation to San Diego. SWEET!

After again-eschewing a gym trip on Saturday morning in favor of an earlier departure time, Nyet and Beck packed clothes, board games, books, beach blankets, flip-flops, gates and dogs - yep, dogs! - into the Prius and headed toward the place they oughtta be (for Beck's first trip to CA). Beck quite smartly bought a tourist book for SD which proved invaluable, and she also loaded up her iPod with episodes of This American Life, which proved hilarious. The dogs, still recovering from the last time they piled in the car for a multi-hour trip, found the situation dubious. But hanging in the car with those who feed us is preferable to the alternative - being left in the apartment by those who routinely leave us - so the pups hopped in back and settled in. Or, rather, Sparkle settled in, a WD commenced the usual panting / Prius humidor service. First stop: Pet Smart. Why? Because StD had developed the bad habit of licking at her incision scar (from last week's minor surgery). Beck decided to punish the Sparklinator by making her dress like an idiot:

That's the Sparkle monster wearing a little t-shirt that deprives her of access to her upper forepaw, with the added bonus of humiliating her publicly. Beck comes from the tar and feather school of parenting. The shirt says something like "I heart you," which on the surface seems kinda cute, but upon further inspection reveals all kinds of commentary on the inherently obscuring and wasteful act of symbolism. I "heart" you? We've replaced a symbol with a word that has more letters and requires more ink than the original word! Egad. Sparkle nodded smugly and continued to read French philosophy. Wrigley merely looked like her usual uber doofus self:

The car ride to SD, all 5.5 hours of it, was quite pleasant and filled with the stylings of Ira Glass (we went through about 4 episodes on the way up) and a little DJing from Nyet and the infinite iPod. Western arizona is full of desertscape and all kinds of terrifying rock-formation mountains that look like they will collapse onto the road at any moment:

In southeast California there are some huge sand dune parks:

full of RVs and, allegedly, illegal immigrants, the former happily permitted and the latter checked for at various points along route 8. The Beck and I were happily waved through said immigration checkpoints and at the last one, oddly complimented on our "scrappy play" and "Wes Welker-like ability to get open on third down." Huh? Regardless, we thanked our DNA and relative aversion to tanning salons for our quick passage. One bumper sticker we read in this general area read that "America is full." We didn't know that.

Other highlights - people setting their farmland on fire, and a huge set of windmills that had a very Pink Floyd The Wall feel, if Roger Waters had grown up in Southern California (which would have made for some very different emphases in that album, one assumes. The Wall may have fallen via earthquake, for example, and we all would have been spared a lot of psychological drama. And pudding.):

We finally rolled into San Diego and headed toward the beach. En route, we were fairly appalled at how poorly Californians spell:

Tragic. No child left b-hind. Anyhoo, after a long journey and a stop or two at Smackdonalds, we rolled into a parking spot directly outside our Beachside Motel room. Excellent. Beck and I took the pups down to the beach for a double-u, but quickly figured out that a Sparkle in a land of leashless pups is not a serene combo. Took the dogs back to the room, separated them and gave them dinner, and then headed back out ourselves.

A Toppling of Fists Iron

And General the Beck duly noted her options: surrender, or fight on. The People's Liberation of the Nyetverse Army had gathered off the Madagascaran coast; the single Beckian army was outnumbered 10:1. Reports had been pouring in all day of the powerful Nyetian forces' tear through the African continent, blazing through the Sahara as though a comfortable Scottsdale resort. Lives could clearly be spared by the simple utterance of any sort of "I surrender" category words or a symbolic laying down of arms, or waving of white hankies; the reconstruction effort would be that much easier, and relations between the person-states that much simpler to reconcile. Drop her sword? Ha. Nay. The Beck placed dagger betwixt teeth and rolled her lonely die in an outlandishly odds-unfavored attempt at last-stand success. She rolled: 4.

6, 6 and 5 for the attackers. And the Beckians were no more.

Let us ne'er forget that sad day, when the stubborn-actions of a once chess-board flipper cost so many imaginary beings their imaginary lives. On the plus side, General the Beck, with the help of words like "Hedgehog" and triple word score spaces, is better at Scrabble.

Son of Hockey Face!!!

Beck points out that if she has to look like a goofball on the internets, I should emphasize that I, too, look like an idiot whilst playing Guitar Hero. (That zenmaster face of concentration has scored a top shelf goal or two in its day as well).

More descension into dog-gazing limitations

Before any of the normal self-disparaging comments, it should be noted that my dogs rock your face. Earlier this morning, Wrigley huddled against the stereo while some rather raucous Dead Kennedy punk rock played; right now, Sparkle is huddled against the speakers meditating to some Bob Dylan protest-era music. So these are pups of not-good-looks-only; there's some real content going one here. Remember their message as you embrace their aesthetic:


The poor Sparkle, it should be noted, actually underwent anesthesia, a teeth-cleaning and a minor surgery to remove a benign lump in her forearm last week. The rough life! Fear not; she stands in sternly:


Of course, despite sutures, she manages to prance around the neighborhood in style:

Wrigley? Stares longingly, yawns, waits.


More days in the lives of the two best pups ever.