(no subject)
Where we last left our hero, I was sitting in hober's office at UCSD on Thursday. That night we went over to Northpark (or as we Boston natives kept calling it, "northpaahk") and watched his friend Dan play box soccer. Even though it was outdoors (like everything in SD), they played on an "indoor" field (namely, astroturf and boards and the dimensions thereof). Brought back some fun and not-so-fun memories of my summers playing box lacrosse. Afterward we loaded up the rental with twentysomethings and headed downtown to the Field, home of a number of perfect pints. hober's friend Dan challenged him to an irish pentathalon, which had to be called after four events because hot whisky was unobtainable that evening. Instead, hober bought a round of potcheen for everyone, which seemed to terrify all of them but us. "Don't shoot it! Don't shoot it!" and then hober tips his glass. Oh the woes of being designated driver.
While we were there, Dan's new roommate ran into some old friend who was in town, along with some strange Iggy Pop-looking dude who loved Spinal Tap just a little too much. We conjectured it was because he was actually a roadie for them. But anyway. Not long after we left the Field, the combination of jet lag and Guinness proved to be too strong for my social constitution and I slipped into near coma mode whilst I shuttled a carload of rambunctious yoots to some late night mexican joint up on Genessee. That was about all I remember of that night.
Friday hober and I duked it out with heavy traffic on the 15 to visit one of my personal meccas and get some tasty, tasty brew. Let me tell you, ABA is good, but it's even better fresh out of the tanks. The smoked porter nearly made my knees buckle. The instant agreement was that we needed a growler of this stuff to take home.
On our way back we met up with Erik and Catherine Christensen up off Mira Mesa, for dinner and drinks. Catherine's been a massive advocate of me out in San Diego and Erik wanted to check up on the kid he knew best charging around the house in diapers. (Erik and my pops were old navy buddies, and right after he and Catherine got married, they spent a little time getting cash together and living in a spare room of our house.)
Erik and Catherine are just a few years younger than my parents but they are some of the coolest old farts I know. Erik gave me the straight dope on how he got the navy nickname 'Skid' (it involved his sleeping through a GQ drill that simulated a man overboard) and also told some pretty funny stories about he and my dad - As well as some damned poignant ones (like my dad being literally dragged out of a phone booth in the philippines for the last liberty boat of the night while he was trying to get information on my older sister's birth).
After dinner, we cruised back down the 15, parked at his place and proceeded to drain the growler of porter. As tasty as it was it had a mildly sedative effect, and our normally out of hand carousing took on a subtler tone. Lacking in action, we headed over to La Canasta and scored the hoochies walking down Garnet to the fizzy yellow beer bars. Of course no trip would be complete without some tasty mexican food so I had me some more cali beef tacos and we called it a night.
Saturday we got up sorta late and went to the Broken Yolk for breakfast. We insisted on refilling the growler and so afterwards it was back to Stone Brewery. This time we managed to get there more than ten minutes before closing and we chatted up the barkeep and a nice english fellow living in SD about beers and such. We brought a cooler along this time to keep the growler ice cold, and on our way back we opted for the scenic route. We took the 78 over to the PCH (US 101) and cruised our way back to PB. Some of the traffic sucked but it was nice views (and nice scenery) and lots of Dropkick Murphys to keep us company. The evaluation of the new album: fuckin good. Especially the new Bruins fight song. Go go black and gold!
After we dropped off the growler in the fridge we went down to the beach to throw a frisbee around, but it was entirely too hot and the water was entirely too warm for that. So we spent the afternoon bodysurfing in the sizable waves and dodging seaweed. This was one of my favorite times of the trip. The water was perfect, the waves big enough to make it occasionally interesting. I was pretty amazed with what I could do with a big enough wave.
I had charged hober with putting me in front of a sunset over the ocean, and so that night we got In-n-Out and headed back to Crystal Pier to watch the sun set. Alas, clouds far out to sea made a full-on sunset nearly impossible, but I will say mission accomplished. We watched some surfer girls for a while then headed back to tap that growler.
We hit up Cafe 976 for a bit and then headed home. hober had apparently called in a ton of people because within an hour we had a rollicking party going on the patio. hober killed the 16 year Bushmill's that night, to my dismay, and as is always a bad idea, he started pouring the cheaper stuff as the night wore on. We had fun, as always harping on Boston accents and trying to teach San Diegans the proper use of the term "wicked pissah". One of hober's friends asked us each what the other was like in high school and we had fun with that. It's wild to think that ten years ago was high school (at least for me). But even in my addled state, I remember hober had some very nice words that made me blush.
The party went on for a while until DRAMA reared its ugly head. I don't know the backstory, but then, I didn't want to know. This effectively killed the party. I was in a lawn chair and I ended up dozing a few times -- when I woke up again two people were arguing, and from the transcript I could tell a lot of it was posture posture posture. Dammit people, there's enough real shit to get worked up about, bad relationship skills is not a member of that set.
When I woke again it was myself, hober and his roommate. I went to sleep but apparently they stayed up til 6 and woke me at 7 for breakfast at the Broken Yolk. Despite my BAC I had one of those strange un-hangovers, where after 4 hours of sleep I spring right up, ready to face the day. Which was good because what a long strange trip it would be.
We got our breakfast specials on and I was glad that despite the alcohol taste in my mouth I could enjoy the tasty meal. We headed back to their house and since I only had about 90 minutes to kill between breakfast and airporting we just bullshit for awhile, again mainly about BC High and Boston accents. I left their place around 11:30am PDT.
Got the rental back and was in the departure lounge by 12:15pm. I hopped on my Pittsburgh bound Airbus 321 and my fucking god are the engines on those things overpowered. The Rolly Royce V2500 turbofan generates up to 33k lbs of thrust. Slap two of those on an airframe about the size and less the weight of a 737 and watch the hijinks when you open the throttle. Holy living fuck. We must've climbed out at 75 degrees.
Unfortunately I was stuck on the airplane with rosemary's baby. He was either crying or yelping all through the flight, with this crazy screechy sound that sounded nothing like any normal child. At least the people changed his diapers in the bathroom, which is more than I can say for the parents of the youngster on the last flight I was on. Sitting next to stanky diapers on an 8 hour flight is not fun. At least that kid kept his yap largely shut.
The connecting flight out of Pittsburgh was even weirder. First I got stuck next to a couple of morons who can't seem to think without talking, and most of the time saying stupid shit at that. The obligatory baby was four rows up but some twatty metrosexual two rows back brought his fucking chihuahua on the plane and it was making even freakier noises than the baby. Eventually it shut up, if for nothing else but to DROP A HUMUNGOUS FUCKING TURD that made the cabin stink of cheese and cracker handi-snacks. My childhood memories are now forever tainted.
It was nice to fly into Boston again and see the city from the air, even at night. Though our pilot was a bit of a hotdogger on this flight -- had to S turn off base leg onto final approach and still came in hot over the threshold. Though those trips are fun because most of the time they flare like a mofo to bleed airspeed, until the aircraft stalls and effectively drops onto the runway like a 180mph brick.
I was at the back of the plane again so it was another fifteen minutes to get out. Even then by the time I got down to the baggage claim it wasn't until about 45 minutes after we were at the gate that our bags came out. Ugh. It was now about midnight and my ride had encountered unforeseen problems. So I just took the train home. That was a long walk, but it was nice to be home.
And that's my San Diego trip. It was great to meet all of the cool people I did, see faustin's wedding, do the interviews and bum around southern California. The jury's still out as to whether I'll go out there, given the choice -- but if not given the choice, there are worse places to end up.