“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give any information.” Speaking from his Coronado Cays home, Miguel Crespo sounds tired and shaken. His wife, Georgina, was kidnapped over a month ago. “All the family are concerned about …

Climb to South Fortuna Mountain in Mission Trails Regional Park via Oak Canyon and its trickling stream.

“Bump,” “The Bomp,” “El Bompo,” “The Bump,” “Bompy,” “The Cigar.” Nobody who knew Frank Bompensiero called him by those names. “If you were a friend or family member,” said Bompensiero’s daughter Mary Ann, “you called …

Don't replace your lawns and hedges with a native-plant garden to eliminate watering. "It is relatively low-water gardening for the amount of plants, but not no-water gardening," says Encinitas native-plant landscaper Dave Buchanan. Tearing out …

To Jay Lacny, it was a simple plan designed to promote his new financial website and "raise the eyebrows" of his online competitors. The effort succeeded in raising eyebrows, all right. Unfortunately, they belonged to …

Popular online-auction company e-Bay is currently offering a made-in-Tijuana, $50 black-velvet painting of Monica Lewinsky. "I am auctioning off this Black Velvet Painting of Monica S. Lewinsky," says the pitch from the Los Angeles seller …

Dear Mr. Alice: Top of the Mulligan t'ye! Can ye be tellin' me what be an Irish pearl? I am the missus of the leprechaun who hoards that legendary pot o' gold at the rainbow's …

Matthew: Why does my fingernail grow faster than my toenail? I smashed one of each at the lumber yard last August, and the fingernail's grown back but the toenail hasn't. -- Bob, telephonically The science …

Dear Know-It-All: Why are there so many Jacks in fairy tales (Jack Be Nimble, Jack & Jill, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack Sprat, etc.). -- Not Jack, the net Hey, Joe/Bud/Mac/Bubba/John Doe. See? Lotsa general, …

I don’t know how in the first months of 1955 Frank Bompensiero managed to get himself out of bed to face the day. I don’t know how he slept at night. Frank and Thelma and …

Wasn't that ponytailed Gateway Computer billionaire Ted Waitt, currently La Jolla's most famous resident, seen loading the family aboard his executive jet parked at Lindbergh Field's private terminal last Friday night? He pulled up to …

It’s now 10:00 a.m. and the rabbits are more scarce, so Faircloth decides to quit for the day. “We’re just not having any luck today,”

Flat Cat Canyon is the curious name given to a rugged gorge southwest of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park visitors' center and not far outside the town of Borrego Springs. Park rangers once found a …

It's eight o' clock on a Wednesday night. Outside Tijuana's cathedral, the priests close the giant doors. The street darkens. The beggars pack up. But in a nearby shadowy parking lot the light shines out …

The American symbol-turned-subculture, the cowboy, owes its existence to beef. Before they wore tight jeans and gaudy shirts and played concerts in Central Park, cowboys were men who herded cattle across the great open spaces …

Contra Costa County library officials were all set to hire political consultant Fred Register to run their campaign for voter approval of a new library tax, but that was before the defeat of San Diego's …

When 44-year-old Frank Bompensiero awakened at 5878 Estelle Street on the first morning of a new decade, he must have felt optimistic. He must have felt hopeful. He padded on his bare size-ten feet into …

Matmail: I have passed a building near the corner of India and Ivy for years that has this painting on the wall and have wondered forever what happened to this product. -- Bob, downtown The …

Dear Matthew Alice: Do fish fart? -- Ian Lewis, age 7, San Diego A mighty fine question, and one that could only have come from a 7-year-old. A kid will imagine what might be and …

Matt: Here's a question that might give you fits. Can you make fire with ice? (Good luck.) -- Doubtful Tim, Shelter Island We suited up half the elves in parkas, half in flame-retardant pajamas and …

Where can you go to do some fat-tire bicycle riding after the winter rains come? Certainly not on many of the county's backcountry dirt roads and trails, which turn slippery when wet. Instead, try out …

Proposition L, the quarter-percent increase in the sales tax that would have been earmarked for libraries, is dead and buried. And for the county's business, political, and newspaper establishment -- which until Prop L had …

Mark McGwire, the Cardinals slugger who hit a record 70 home runs last season, isn't scheduled to visit San Diego until mid-May, when the Padres host St. Louis in a three-game series. But McGwire's lawyers …

Just in time for what would have been Dr. Seuss's 95th birthday last week came the latest controversy over his widow Audrey's marketing of the late child author's image and work. During his life, Seuss, …

With only two avenues of ingress — Kensington Drive and Marlborough Avenue — it remains secluded, quiet, and difficult to locate. Which is fine with its inhabitants who joke, “We’ve never left because we can’t find our way out.”

“They’re like squiggles with different colors.” Anita, from Nashville Tennessee, is squinting into the middle distance of Horton Plaza trying to summon an image of exactly what was hanging on the wall of her room …

To: Matthew Alice: Every time I drive down Sixth Avenue to 163 north, I see a strange pinkish building on my left on the grounds of Mercy Hospital. It's strange because the highest five or …

Your Mattness: The other day I was reduced to making myself a cup of (ugh!) instant coffee. I put a cup of water in the microwave, zapped it for a couple of minutes, took it …

“During World War II,” a retired San Diego policeman told me, “the hoods in the downtown bars made plenty of money. Don’t let anybody fool you. The reason they made more money than anyone else …

After flowing across the pristine, oak- and sycamore-dotted Pamo Valley north of Ramona, Santa Ysabel Creek cuts southwest down a steep gorge and finally emerges on the flatlands of San Pasqual Valley. In the '70s …

Until his junior year of college, when he decided he needed to save the world, my dad wanted to be a sportswriter. His career began when he didn’t make the cut for his freshman basketball …

Anyone who has passed through the San Diego Union-Tribune during Gene Bell's stint as publisher has heard the mantra, the talk of management's intention to take things at the paper "to the next level." Harmless …

Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, Minneapolis; these are the places that come to mind when one thinks of fur clothing, places where the temperature can drop below zero and stay there for weeks. But since last April, …

When John Simpson, a 53-year-old vacationing music teacher from Birmingham, England, was found strangled to death last month in his room at La Mesa's Rodeway Inn, the Union-Tribune was most circumspect. The paper's plea for …