Ode to Hagar

Windan’sea is a really cool place to reside if you can get over the cost of living and are comfortable being a renter for the near-term future. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to ever get my head around paying $800,000 for about 1,000 square feet of living space with no garage. It’s a total bummer because the beach is close (and quieter than other beaches in San Diego), the neighbors are cool, and there’s an awesome dog park at Draper and Gravilla. Even though it’s not officially a dog park, all the locals bring their pups to the park to socialize in the evenings.

Little Reggie’s best friend is a 140 pound Newfoundland named Hagar. He is supercool and super laid back, which is fortunate because lil’ Reg isn’t shy about wrestling with him. His mom Jen is also super cool and has puppy sat for Reggie a couple of times. Fortunately, they live just a hop skip and a jump away, which is awesome for play dates. The downside is that Reggie gets so sad when we leave, she refuses to walk home and ends up choking herself. Last time she choked herself so bad, she projectile vomited water all over the place. It was very sad (and reminded me I need to invest in a Gentle Leader collar).

Hagar is the sweetest big dog I have ever been around. Here is a little ode in his honor:

A big black dog with a great personality,

His name is Hagar and he lives just up the street from me,

We met at the park and he immediately became friends with Reggie,

It’s been quite a joy to see,

Two dogs of such disparate size play together so gleefully!

Despite his great size, Hagar is very gentle,

With a puppy’s energy, it’s been instrumental,

To find patient and kind friends for little Reg,

Who can take a bit of abuse and aren’t on edge,

Because a six month old puppy can be quite trying,

But Hagar’s had no problems complying,

With Reggie’s mounds of energy,

And as soon as we go for a walk, she can’t wait to see,

Her best friend Hagar.

I Need New Music!

S.O.S.! My iTunes playlists and iPod Shuffle have been playing the same songs for too long. Most recently, artists like Sufjan Stevens and Ra Ra Riot have been added based on referrals from Pandora Radio. I’ve also recently purchased the new album from the Black Eyed Peas, “The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies).” However, it’d be great to get some new tunes to introduce to my iPods. My gracious little sister, Elle Belle, has been a great source of new tunes so hopefully she reads this blog soon and sends along some good suggestions.

American Express: The Worst Junk Mailer Ever!

After several days of not retrieving my mail, I was unpleasantly surprised by the wad of junk mail that I found waiting this evening when I finally opened my mail box. I don’t think I actually received one piece of real mail (which might actually be a good thing because a large portion of real mail is typically bills), but I did receive no fewer than five pieces of junk mail from AmEx. I’m a big fan of getting in on special offers based on a rewards program from a credit card company. American Express, however, pushes the limit and sends me so much crap that I no longer even take their mail seriously unless I know it’s a bill I have to pay.

So I pose these questions to AmEx: WTF? Why do you spam all your loyal, paying on time customers? Do you not know this will aggravate them and encourage them to consider switching to a new credit card company that doesn’t load their mail boxes with junk mail? Argh…so that’s my rant on AmEx’s junk mail. I would think AmEx would try to be a little more environmentally-conscious and stop killing so many trees with junk mailings that go straight to the garbage.

Weekend Update

This weekend I officially signed up for two big San Diego events coming up in August. One is the AFC (America’s Finest City) Half Marathon. This 13.1 mile jaunt begins near Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma, wanders on the coast line near the airport, through downtown San Diego and finishes uphill to Balboa Park. It should be a good time but I’ve heard the last several miles are killer. I’ve boldly claimed I would like to run at an 8:20/mile pace. Hopefully that’s not too ambitious.

I also bought my tickets to San Diego’s Street Scene, a music festival at the end of August. This year’s Street Scene features The Black Eyed Peas, Modest Mouse, M.I.A., The Dead Weather, Silversun Pickups, Band of Horses and Ra Ra Riot, amongst others. It should be fun. I’m excited for the return visit to show. Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed The National (and I’m sad they’re not returning), Vampire Weekend and TV on the Radio.

The SeaWorld Visit

SeaWorld San Diego…what a wonderful place to spend an afternoon! By purchasing a “SeaWorld Fun Card” for just $65, which, ironically, is the same price as a day’s admission to the park, I can return for free until December 31, 2009. I plan to go several times. There are some quality shows – including the Shamu show, the dolphin show, the sea lion and otter show, and the Cirque de la Mer Show, which I think is for aspiring Cirque du Soleil performers who didn’t quite make the cut.

The Shamu show is the highlight of the park for a good reason – it is truly amazing to see an 8,000 pound animal glide through the water and splash fans sitting in the “Soak Zone” on command. The show we saw featured four of the orcas performing although a SeaWorld worker informed me that SeaWorld San Diego has seven orcas. Wow. I had to fight the urge to dive into the tank and swim around with them because it looked like a ton of fun. However, I heard that one of them got angry with its trainer over the last year and pinned him to the floor of the aquarium. That would be horrifying.

The dolphin and sea lion shows were also very entertaining. Dottie the dolphin can jump like 16 feet and the stunt they pull with the little kid feeding the dolphin (and then wiping her fish-dirtied hands all over her shirt) is also a hoot. The sea lion and otter show featured spoofs on TV shows including American Idol, Rachael Ray and Survivor. All in all, it was very creative and entertaining.

In addition to the shows, we checked out the Clydesdale horses, the Manatee Rescue, the Shark Encounter, the penguin and beluga whale display, and got to observe the dolphins up close and personal. Although it is a fantastic place to spend the afternoon, it’s hard to believe that SeaWorld was started by a group of four UCLA graduates in the mid-1960s whose initial idea was to start an underwater restaurant. Can you imagine trying to pitch investors on the idea of building an amusement park showcasing giant whales and dolphins? Only in southern California…

I’m still a bit unclear to SeaWorld’s future. It is owned by Anheuser-Busch, which was recently acquired by InBev for $52 billion. I’ve heard that InBev isn’t too keen on keeping SeaWorld. Hopefully Shamu finds a new owner soon. SeaWorld San Diego is a great place to spend the afternoon and needs to be kept alive so that future generations can come enjoy the wonderment of the sea life there.

The Parents Visit La Jolla…

It was a wild and crazy end of last week and weekend. Mom and Dad flew in from Virginia to hang out for a couple of days and meet Reggie. Reggie, of course, was a huge hit. We spent some time at Fiesta Island and the Budman worked with her on her retrieving skills. Her skills are much improved but we still have work to do.

One of my favorite parts of their visit was our trip to SeaWorld. I will write more in a later blog on SeaWorld because there is just too much to write here. The orca is a fascinating creature and SeaWorld San Diego has seven of them. Each of the orca each eat 250 pounds of fish a day for a total of 1,750 pounds of fish a day. That’s 638,750 pounds of fish a year. Yikes.

My parents also checked out the San Diego Zoo, Fiesta Island, Pacific Beach, La Jolla, the Gliderport just south of Torrey Pines State Park, and Del Mar. It was quite a packed trip and by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, they headed to the airport and I headed to the couch. One note for visitors is that May and June tend to be gloomy in the mornings (which my parents thought was “cold”) but we actually had good weather for walking around in – not too hot, not too cold, but “just right.” It was great to get to spend time with them and hopefully they return to SoCal soon!

Are We Done Yet?

This is Reggie at City Dog after I washed her and dried her. She was relatively well behaved but is very scared of the stairs and not too keen on the drying machine. This is at the very tail end of the drying experience...