Jobs more interesting than you thought

The cumulative hiss of thousands of wings

In some years, when the desert flowers are blooming, Alan Mikolich takes his bees into the Borrego desert. But the heat can be a problem. He sets out barrels of water with floats in them, so the bees can land and suck up the supply they need to cool the hive. Inside, they lay drops in spaces and fan them, a kind of air conditioning. One year in Borrego, a bee yard consumed two barrels of water — 110 gallons — per week.

By Douglas Whyknott, May 15, 1997 Read full article

Vacancy is to a landlord what daylight is to a vampire

Ogden’s three P.B. houses are nine, seven, and six bedrooms, which make them attractive to students who need to split rent. “I rent mostly.. .well. I’ll rent to anyone, but in Pacific Beach there is a big demand by college students,” he says. “For instance, now I have six guys that all knew each other that are going to UCSD and then one gal that’s from their hometown in the Los Angeles area as well, and then two foreign-exchange students — two gals from England."

By Ernie Grimm, June 19, 1997 Read full article

San Diego's panic buttons

While Marion does this, she is talking into the phone. “How do you support yourself, Tina?... Unh-huh. And what's your disability?... What is the disability that qualifies you? What’s your disability? Unh-huh... And do you have a psychiatrist that you see?... When do you see that person next... So that's not till... You're not happy with your psychiatrist?... Well, let your psychiatrist know that."

By Mary Lang, July 23, 1992 Read full article

Long-necked bonanza

We had reached our first destination, about two miles due west of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the semirural home of a pediatric dentist who’s been raising ostriches as a sideline for a half-dozen years. Stonebreaker explained that the dentist keeps about 100 of his birds on some property in Ramona, but he incubates the eggs and raises the very youngest chicks in back of his home, where he also maintains his best breeding pair.

By Jeannette DeWyze, May 12, 1994 Read full article

An austere unlikely place

“I was way ahead of the game when it came to malolactic fermentation; in fact, I was the first, and now everyone in Napa does it. I was the first to experiment with hand-painted bottles, now 60 percent of vineyards up north do them. Now I’m trying to show the wine business, which is always out of tune with the world, that frugality is the essence of the ’90s and that upscale wines will not really sell in the current climate. Expensive wines are finished now."

By Lawrence Osborne, Feb. 11, 1993 Read full article

"Back off, just back off"

“Recently I drove by the Red Lion in Mission Valley. The same thing hotel people do, we do. Hotels are real easy to survey. We go out at night, about 8:30, 9:00 o’clock, count the lights that are on in the rooms, talk to the employees and find out the occupancy. Pan Pacific is down the toilet. The new Hyatt is doing well ’cause it’s the new guy on the block, but that will only last a short time. To remain competitive now it takes a service-oriented hotel, where people keep coming back. And nobody beats Hotel Del at that."

By Patrick Daugherty, Feb, 3, 1994 Read full article