This is a story about the summer of ‘79, but it starts a year earlier, circa mid-’78. That’s when I first drove into San Diego. Within minutes of my arrival, I was almost murdered — …
March 23, 2022
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Ocean Beach summer of ’79
DaVita HealthCare drops $62K on Toni Atkins
Toni’s kidney cash With another bitter initiative battle over the regulation of kidney dialysis coming up soon, the so-called ballot measure committee of state Senate Democratic honcho Toni Atkins picked up a hefty $62,000 from …
March 23, 2022
My Filipina mom always said I was too American
When I was nine years old, just a year after my dad died, I choked on a sharp fish bone. The bone became lodged in the back of my throat, stuck behind one of my …
March 23, 2022
San Diego tow truck, Uber, semi drivers watch their gas prices
Courtney and Leon Copeland of San Diego Scoop Squad, a pet waste removal company, felt the highest spike in gas prices over the weekend. "We are spending about $60 more per week on gas between …
March 22, 2022
Best uses of dead trees in San Diego?
A tree falls in an urban forest. Then what? It is chipped, hauled and disappeared. In the best case, it becomes furniture, art, mulch. The worst: its lifetime of carbon capture goes up in smoke. …
March 22, 2022
Migrant pregnant mothers don't feel welcome in TJ
For Honduran Anabel Guzman, 35, and her husband and three kids, it was impossible to pay up to 10,000 pesos ($500 USD) to give birth in Tijuana’s Main Hospital. Anabel and her family were living …
March 22, 2022
Omelets by day, Al Pastor Town by night
It’s after 4pm, and I’m sitting in a booth at the Omelette Factory, the egg-centric breakfast restaurant that’s been operating in Santee for some 28 years. Of course, nobody’s eating omelets at 4pm, and no …
March 21, 2022
Freebies flooded Assembly offices in 2021, as usual
It’s March, the long-traditional time for an annual accounting of the previous year’s gift receipts by California legislators. Assembly Republican Marie Waldron of Escondido indulged her passion for golf courtesy of the Association of California …
March 21, 2022
Sun rises due east along the horizon and sets due west.
Vernal Equinox on Sunday, March 20, at 8:32am Pacific Daylight Time heralds the beginning of the spring season for Earth’s northern hemisphere. At the instant of vernal equinox, the sun lies in the plane of …
March 21, 2022
The power of San DIego's Port Authority
Port authority Don Nay can look down and, if he had the inclination, marvel at the sheer dimension of his domain and its power. San Diego’s biggest and most prosperous companies lease their ground from …
March 21, 2022
Full moon is the enemy
Dock Totals 3/13 – 3/19: 1,668 anglers aboard 76 half-day to 1.5-day trips out of San Diego landings this past week caught 2 bocaccio, 18 calico bass, 2 halibut, 21 lingcod, 6 lobster (18 released), …
March 20, 2022
Os Almendres: Portugal's Stonehenge
In Portugal’s southern Alentejo province, near the town of Evora, in the incongruous midst of a vast cork plantation, stands Portugal’s Stonehenge. It is called Os Almendres. Around 6,000 years ago, for no obvious reason, …
March 20, 2022
Three San Diego chefs talk, Olympic swimmer Mike Stamm
Chef salad ‘‘I can still smell the stock pot working, maybe sixty quarts of it. During the early Thirties, we had no refrigerator. We preserved food with salt and curing, and in the mine on …
March 20, 2022
San Diego pound's soft hearts, local knee industry
Down, Boy “Steady, Yucon, it’s okay boy, calm down now Yucon.” Rich and DeGroot croon. The difficulty of the job registers on both their faces. DeGroot forces most of the barbiturate through the needle and …
March 19, 2022
Will Oceanside get a stealth Amazon warehouse?
As Amazon’s business skyrocketed during Covid, the company became America’s largest private occupier of industrial real estate. There are some 23 Amazon distribution/warehouse hubs in Southern California including Otay Mesa (six-million square feet) and Vista …
March 18, 2022