My boots clomp against the concrete of the garage, and a gravelly paste falls from the arches to mingle with the oil patch in the center of the floor. I light a cigarette, blow the …

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. -- Voltaire I shivered with cold, or was it nervousness? Every object in the dark room was bathed in the red …

Denomination: nondenominational Address: PO Box 78268, Corona, CA Founded locally: January 9, 2002 Senior pastors: Mike Foster and Craig Gross Congregation size: n/a Staff size: 4 part-time Sunday school enrollment: n/a Annual budget: $60,000 Weekly …

'A few months back I had this amazing music dream," says local acoustic soloist Kim DiVincenzo, sitting with her laptop at Hot Java before going onstage to play. "It is kind of that cheesy famous …

Museo de las Californias, a permanent installation at the Tijuana Cultural Center depicting the history of the Baja California peninsula, leads museumgoers on a regional time-trek beginning 73 million years ago and ending in 1935. …

Along the canyon walls of Anza-Borrego's Arroyo Tapiado ("Mudwall Wash"), weathering and erosion acting on friable sedimentary rock have produced a strange kind of topography known by some geologists as pseudokarst. Like karst topography, which …

'In the beginning, I was just a mom." Speaking is Candace Conradi, Poway resident, former law-firm administrator, wife, mother, and author of Diamond Moms: A Mother's Guide to Raising a Baseball Player. Conradi is talking …

“I loved the no-frills aspect of it. I felt it was a shop for everybody.”

Two years ago, Steve Goldberg paid seven figures for the Belly Up Tavern, which included the rights to the name. Last year he opened a second Belly Up in Aspen with his brother Mike. Within …

Singer/keyboard player Danny Castro fronts Long Live Logos and runs an all-age music venue called the Selah Building in Escondido; it's in the same space as his father's nondenominational Selah Ministry church. Castro usually hosts …

"We didn't tell a lot of people that it was just a rehearsal for our Casbah show," says George Vidaurri, bassist for Uncle Joe's Big Ol' Driver (and, currently, The Johnson Account). Vidaurri says the …

After 1 a.m. in O.B., I left Winstons and walked down Newport Avenue to the beach. I spotted a sealed Drunkin Punkin Idiots CD on the sidewalk, recorded by a band of the same name. …

"Yeah, there was a rumor on MySpace that we were doing [Vans Warped Tour] 2006, but we had nothing to do with that, it was just some dingdong posting." Former Miniskirts guitarist Roxy says she …

Echo and the Bunnymen played the last show of their tour at House of Blues on December 9. The band started later than expected. A group of five Latino guys who left at 1:15 a.m. …

John Bertrand has been in the karaoke biz since 1984, when the singing machines ran on eight-track tapes and video screens were years away. With two local retail shops and an online store, his company, …

Father Joe Carroll and his charity venture, St. Vincent de Paul Village, have deservedly good names. But if the promotion-minded Father Joe strays too far, he risks besmirching those reputations. It could happen in North …

In early September the plan to build the Pacific Coast Office Building into Mission Valley's southern hillside sounded innocuous enough to community watchdog Randy Berkman. Then the building's developer, Robert Pollack, sent him a mid-October …

The care and feeding of Lamont Ewell San Diego's Ethics Commission has released notes of interviews conducted earlier this year during its investigation of San Diego Data Processing Corporation honcho Roger Talamantez. Talamantez was sanctioned …

Movies reviewed this week: Breakfast on Pluto, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Family Stone, Fun with Dick and Jane, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, andWolf Creek

Heymatt: My girlfriend has a hamster, which I consider to be a stupid animal. He constantly runs on his wheel. Hours and hours and hours. I watch and think, "Does he think he is actually …

Dear Matt: What's the origin of the peace symbol-- the circle with the "bird's foot" in it? -- Peacenick, the net England, 1958. At the request of peace activist Bertrand Russell, an artist was doodling …

“It’ll fill you. Don’t worry.”

Billy Collins Live: A Performance at the Peter Norton Symphony Space. Random House Audio, 2005; $19.95 The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems by Billy Collins. Random House, 2005; $22.95; 112 pages FROM THE DUST …

Rowdy honky-tonk stomps into the room from a monolith speaker in the corner. Piano keys jangle. Drum skins are slapped broad with flat sticks. Disconcerting. The whole damn atmosphere is intentionally disconcerting."Do you remember Molly …

An Actual Waist I'm formerly fat. There once was a book entitled A Thin Book by a Formerly Fat Psychiatrist . I went to therapy from the age of 13 until 40 and the bulge …

My day got off to a bad start. As a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I was asked to help set up a play set for a child in Santee. I'm useless at things like …

If this were February, I'd be writing about a Valentine's Day destination. But don't overlook the romantic A.R. Valentien as a stunning in-spot to take special guests during the holidays. Set in a Craftsman-style lodge …

My husband Patrick is a teacher, and it's holiday time at his school. The teachers are drawing each other's names and exchanging gifts this year, and in an effort to keep everyone's feathers unruffled, people …