Carlsbad Flower Fields - The People

 The Flower Fields are becoming well known as a good spot for family photos. Here is a mother and her two daughters.

 Three kids on another approved pathway.

 A woman in a saree.

Her bf/hubby sat up an auto-snap camera and joined her.

 This group of women also came prepared for pics.

 A little later on, I caught them from a better perspective. They even thanked me for taking their photo!

 Another couple. Those are "service" dogs - the only dogs that are allowed in the Flower Fields

 We toured the fields with Neal and Debbie.

Here they are with my wife.

Music in North San Diego County

It used to be that we would go out for the nightlife only on Saturday nights. But starting about six months ago, we added Friday nights to the list. Typically, we go to a place like the Elephant Bar for dinner and drinks on Fridays. But we also like to go where there is live music if possible. We had thought that there were only three places with live music in North County (that is what San Diegans call the northern part of San Diego County): Coyote's, Jumping Turtle, and Carver's.

Coyote's is a very nice place, but the problem is getting a seat. Outdoors around the live band, seating is practically nonexistent. Indoors where there is a DJ, seating can be found around the great bar, but you had better not get up to dance or your seat is gone. Jumping Turtle catered toward heavy metal twenty-somethings, and it is VERY loud. We would sometimes go in there for a nightcap for about an hour before heading home. Yeah, we were the oldest people there, but no one seemed to mind and we enjoyed listening to the bands. This place got into a bit of legal trouble which they are still in the process of sorting out, we'll probably wait a few months before going back. Carver's has excellent live bands and a great cozy atmosphere. It is mainly a steakhouse but the bar area is great. So we typically rotate between those three places - down to 2 with Jumping Turtle in a state of flux.

I've tried searching for more places, but most websites are close to useless in searches for dancing and/or live music in North County. But yesterday, I tried the search in Yelp and was much more successful! I came up with about 15 places within 15 miles of our house! Some of them really aren't nightlife capable (like the center for the arts), a few are dive bars, and a few we already knew about but really aren't crazy about. But there are plenty we hadn't heard of that will be fun to slip into the mix now and then. And so I don't forget, I've added them to the right in the new "Music Venue" category. I'm betting we have a great time exploring these new places on weekends...

Poncho Sanchez

We went to see Poncho Sanchez with our friends Scott & Jenny a few Fridays ago - what a great night! We went to the late show, and had time for dinner in Little Italy beforehand. Poncho played at Anthology, which in my opinion is the best venue in San Diego. Big yet cozy, excellent seating choices, and a very modern ambiance. People were ready to dance, and for about half an hour the tiny dance floor was packed. Here's a snap of it with just a few couples out there. If you like Latin Jazz at all, you really should go see Poncho Sanchez. We've seen him twice now and have really loved each show. Sorry about the quality of the photos. That's apparently the best my new HTC Evo Shift can do in the low light of a nightclub.

Troy's Ready For Dinner

 We usually take David, Lucy and Troy out to eat once each weekend.

 Last weekend, we decided to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory - and Troy was excited!

 He ran to his Dad's car...."I'll drive, Dad." OK, Troy. As soon as you learn to open the door. Ha ha.

Racing back to me, the camera man, trying to build enthusiasm for making the trip RIGHT NOW!!

Answer

Here is the display that is brought up by pressing the button in the prior post. Thanks to those who submitted guesses - both were very good and better than I did!

What Does This Button Do?

This is a button on the dash of the new Jaguar XJ. Anybody care to guess what it does?

Guesses I've heard so far: (1) prints a ticket to the Gun Show, (2) turns seats face-to-face for texting.

Friends In Low Places

It's funny the things you discover when poking around the net at random. I'm not sure how it started, but I started looking at the last place I lived in Stillwater, OK, on a map.

In my college years, I was trying to save a little money so a few friends and I rented a trailer out in the country, just outside of Stillwater, OK. It was on Lakeview Road and it was waaaaay out of town. The road was barely paved and there were about 5 to 10 trailers in this plot of land that must have been two acres or so.

It was cheap, full of mice, and so far out of town that we rarely got visitors. But it was our place. My life started to spiral out of control about this time, and I can definitely remember laying in bed in that trailer, asking myself what I was doing out in the country in Oklahoma. I hated my major at OSU. I hated my job. I had no girlfriend. I was just plain unhappy. So I decided to move to California. I decided I would be gone by the end of 1980, and I made it with a month or so to spare. I've only been back to Stillwater once since then, but I'm pretty sure we were the last people to live in that dilapidated old trailer (my roomies moved back to town when I went to California).

Today, I noticed on the map that there was a huge building approximately where the trailer used to be. The trailers are long gone so I can't locate the exact spot, but it appears to me to be darn close to the same spot. Reading a bit, I found out that the building was a country ballroom built in 1981. When it was built, they brought in country acts, many of them famous, from all over the country. Now this surprised me because there was NOTHING out there but farm fields when I was there. For miles, you wouldn't see anything but a farmhouse every half mile or so. And in 1981, someone built a ballroom there? Wow!

But not as strange as the next thing I read. It turns out that another OSU student named Garth Brooks worked as a bouncer at that ballroom, called Tumbleweeds, in 1981. He liked it so much, in fact, that he started performing there. On this little lonely country road, just a year or two after I left, Garth Brooks did his first performance. That, my friends, is absolutely bizarre.