DVD Rentals: Frank Sinatra, from Tony Rome with love
Scott Marks 4:19 p.m., June 19
Blog Winners for 2010
December
I Live in Linda Vista
When I went into the Reader's website to blog about my neighborhood, I was marketed ingeniously by the computer. Once I typed in my neighborhood, Linda Vista, the Reader showed me an ad that asked me if I needed to get off drugs. I get it! Linda Vista is not ...
Friday Night Rant
I'll start with the thing i can't get out of my head. A co-worker had apparently, partly witnessed that poor kid commit suicide on the 78 this week in Vista. We had all started work that day, Thursday morning getting our coffee and such, when I hear him talking about ...
Beggars in the University Heights Library
Do I look rich or like an easy mark? I guess so because oftentimes when I am in the University Heights library applying for jobs on my laptop, someone targets me looking for a handout. Once while I was sitting at a table job searching on my laptop, a woman ...
November
Midnight Poopers
We Tierrasantans love our dogs. We’ve given over our parks, our streets and even some of our restaurants to them. One local man and his fluffy friend hit the streets daily, riding on a Segway, hair and fur flying freely in the wind. I can't tell which one of them ...
Freeway Side Revelations
The judge had sentenced me to many hours of grueling hard labor... He hadn't mentioned the complete lack of intelligence that I would be subjected to. It would be in the manner of 19 year old white kids talking about how "gangsta" they are; each word that followed would grow ...
October
Packing heat and granola
After a year of San Diego coastal fog, pollution, traffic noise and the night sky obscured by light pollution, I anxiously anticipate a week in the solitude of the wilderness. A brilliant blue sky by day, only the sound of the wind in the pine trees, the scent of sage ...
Confessions of a South Bay Baby
Book Nerd Nirvana
I’m standing in line for the big sale. There's about forty of us here, waiting breathlessly for the event to begin. I only have five dollars in my pocket, but it should be more than enough. That’s because this place has some amazing discounts – with prices slashed by as ...
Redefining my Birthday
I’m done celebrating my birthday with others. Next year, the finger to everybody. I’m taking my aged self to the day spa to get a mani-pedi, a massage, and plenty of Jacuzzi time. Ahh, pure bliss. My horror begins at twenty-two. As I am finishing up my last year of ...
September
Wild Birds of Lakeside
The White-breasted Nuthatch has his head and jet black beak pointed up the Jacarunda tree as he scurries from trunk to limb, to the hanging bird feeder. I’ve seen him in our yard almost every day this summer, along with numerous graceful Western Bluebirds, a flock of mini “cheeping” birds ...
The Point of Why I Ride a Bicycle
After a month-long hiatus, I decided to hop back on my bike this week. I rode Bike the Bay on Sunday (39 miles door to door), and it reminded me how much I love to bike ride around Point Loma. So, Tuesday we took a 22 mile ride that we ...
Cowles Mountain Night Hike
Cowles Mountain Night Hike About a month ago I was first told about Cowles Mountain by Derek Loranger (100Peaks.com). I had told him about my videos and he said, "if you want some good hits you should do a video on Cowles Mountain." So I took Derek's advice and 2 ...
August
Voyage with mother on piggyback
Ever since I decidedly dropped out of my university on the east coast to migrate to Hillcrest, my life has been put on a pedestal with stark lighting to allow all the voices in my mind to appraise it. The peanut crowd in my head is full of all sorts ...
Flicker of Recognition
I moved to San Diego eleven days ago. More specifically, I moved to this area they call North Park. I learned quickly to identify my neighborhood when asked what part of SD I live in. It reminds me of when I lived in New York. I said I lived on ...
MY FAREWELL SPEECH
Work at the Census Bureau all but came to a dead halt on the last Friday of July, and most of us clerks were, in official parlance, “terminated for lack of work.” The counting was completed and there was little left to do. We had known for weeks it was ...
July
Raccoon Wars
1:43 a.m. I wake up. My dog is pacing, wants out. She's standing with her head cocked, listening at the open window. I listen too. There is splashing coming from the back yard. I feel in the dark for my flip-flops with my bare feet, connect. Rush downstairs, careful to ...
Pardon the Interruption
Summertime….ahh, lemon-aid stands, Slip-and-Slides across the lawn, family get-togethers and psychotic security guards working at Lake Miramar over the 4th of July. For years now my wife and I have enjoyed getting our pyrotechnic fix for Independence Day from atop the dam at Lake Miramar. Before 9/11 we were able ...
The Ghost Of Ma Joad
In attempting to define the normal childhood, whatever that might be, I think that perhaps we begin by examining our own and then try to use it in some meaningful way. I therefore insist that mine was a normal childhood, with nothing conspicuous or particularly outstanding, because it is necessary ...
June
A day in the life....of a thought-filled wife.
Eat Fruit....
I started writing on The Reader blog recently, simply for fun and to put out some fun little fiction and non fiction stories and some that had more depth. I am not a trained writer or the type of writer that has to take on the system, (I do that ...
Oddball Friendships are Forever
Earlier this month I spent over two weeks on the road. It was a 2,400 mile circumnavigation of Northern Arizona, Western Utah, Central Nevada, and the California Sierras. It started out as a TCB (Takin' Care of Business) trip; my places in Arizona always need attention and tenants can't be ...
Padres Baseball
Well, I think I may be right about the Padres and the fact that Mr. Moorad or whomever is in charge, has some sort of BIG payment due in August. First of all he sent notices to all current season ticket holders about renewing in August for next season. Though ...
May
Confessions of a One-Time PB Bum
Vomiting near a loading dock on a rainy night in a Pacific Beach alley isn’t the best feeling in the world. In fact, just the thought of it brings back the acidic, post-puke taste in the back of my throat. With a healthy beard and a dark hooded sweatshirt on, ...
THE PROJECT
THE PROJECT BY CHARLIE BATSCH It was a beautiful April Sunday. Today was the big day. We, meaning my friend Kent and myself were making a small trip today out of the city hopefully not to far. We decided to drive out towards Lake Otay near Chula Vista, California. We ...
Your Tax Dollars are Being Used to Destroy Irreplaceable Historic Structures for More Housing. Help Save These Buildings!!!
You would think since the housing market has crashed that developers would not be building right now, right? Wrong, now is the best time ever because of something called a "redevelopment agency" and YOUR property tax money. The biggest obstacle to these new Walmart style condos going up everywhere with ...
April
Confessions of a South Bay Baby
Old Men in Chula Vista are Different Now
I’m sitting alone in the Chula Vista library, reading a book about Jimi Hendrix, when an old man approaches me and begins to stare. He’s one of the library’s morning regulars. Most of them are older, retired gentlemen with no place better to go. They still get their news the ...
Shift's End
The Star Bar starts to get a little crowded by noon. I went back in and all I knew was two things. I knew that Hank was broke and he would ask me for money, and I knew at some point there would be a fight in there, sooner rather ...
I don't know where I live.
I don’t know where I live. I may know my street address; my city; my zip code, the color of my house and its location relative to the other houses on my block. I don’t know what neighborhood I live in. Most would say I live in the “ghetto” or ...
March
My Friday Night Adventure in La Mesa
My neighbor is a sex offender. I stumbled across this information Thursday evening. I have not been the same since. When I search my mind for the number of men like him, who have hurt me, I cannot come up with an accurate number. At least ten men sexually abused ...
Found a Peanut
I love walking the path in Ocean Beach that runs from the end of the stairway on Orchard Street to the pier. This particular path is a microcosm of Ocean Beach life at its finest. There are kids cutting school and getting stoned, then jumping off the rocks into the ...
February
Sometimes, You Can Go Home
I moved to Clairemont in October, 1959. Technically. My mother was five months pregnant with a creature that was to eventually become myself, third in line below a sister and first-born brother; a relocation from Albuquerque, New Mexico. My father was in the Navy, an Airedale; an aircraft mechanic with ...
Postcards From the Purple Buddha
Quinn in the Middle
Quinn scoffs when I ask him if he worries about getting hit by a car. "They (meaning his fellow panhandlers) get run over 'cause they get drunk," he says, "that's why they don't like it." He, however, thinks he's too smart to be struck by a careening car; besides, he ...
Tijuana bars new hours
Tijuana's municipal police force recently began cracking down on the hours that bars can stay open. By law, they should close at two am and not open again until ten am. These hours were routinely ignored or circumvented. Clubs that were willing to pay could stay open longer. If I ...
January
Road Rage on Horseback
This is a true story of the male ego and road rage on horseback. I love the quiet solitude of a Saturday afternoon horseback ride. The clear blue skies in rural San Diego County. The warm breeze. The smell of sage and lilac watered by the winter’s rain. Hawks soar ...
Why jogging on El Cajon Boulevard keeps me centered
Second-Place Winner of the January 2010 Neighborhood Blog Contest!
