San Diego Trip - Day 7/8 Balboa Park, Sunset Cliffs

On our last play day we decided to go to Balboa park. It's advertised as the best Urban Cultural Center in the nation. There are 15 museums and various botanical gardens in the area. I thought it might be interesting. I found that I am definitely not an art aficionado. We went into a couple of the art museums and I basically skimmed over most of them. I could admire the artists ability; but so many of the scenes were boring and uninteresting. On the other hand I was rather fascinated by the architecture of the buildings in the area.

We went to the science museum in the park and enjoyed that.  There's something about hands on science that still appeals to the 30 year old child inside of me. Most of the science wasn't anything new to me; it was still fun to see the weird things that nature does under certain circumstances.

That night I found us a Singles ward to go to the next morning.  I really am not a big fan of family wards right now so was willing to drive a little bit in order to get to a singles ward.  I found one but it didn't start until 11 and we had to be out of our hotel by 10. So in order to blow some time we drove along the coast south of San Diego along the Sunset Cliffs.  It gave a nice contrast to the beaches that we had seen farther north.

After church we drove the 10 hours home straight. It's the longest drive I've ever done at once. I was actually proud of myself that I actually made it.  Long distance driving isn't exactly my forte.

San Diego Trip - Day 6 San Diego Zoo and Improv Comedy

Tourist trap day again. San Diego Zoo it was. While the Wild Animal Park spread it's animals over extremely large areas the San Diego Zoo tried to jam pack as much stuff in it's 60 acres as possible. I was impressed at how well the zoo used the landscape for their exhibits. They also did a great job with the actual animal enclosures. I've always wondered why some people don't like Hogle Zoo because they say the enclosures aren't very good. After seeing what the San Diego Zoo does; I can understand why some people think that. A lot closer to natural habitat. Of course; I'm sure the San Diego zoo's budget is also 30 times that of Hogle Zoo.




After going to the Zoo I decided to introduce Debbie to the enjoyment of improvisational comedy. I had a roommate once who loved to watch  the show "Who's Line is it anyway" and he got me hooked on improv. Since then I've gone to improv shows in SLC and Logan multiple times. I thought I'd try out the San Diego improv.  It was a good choice. Ended up being one of the best shows that I've seen. Sure there were some duds, there always is in improv, but the overall quality of the show was great.  Pretty sure my sister enjoyed it.

San Diego Trip - Day 5 Lazy Day at the Beach

After playing the tourist and going to two animal parks the previous day I felt it was time to take a lazy day. Instead of going to a tourist trap we spent the day out on the beach. When we were at Seaworld and the Wild Animal Park the sky was completely clear and blue. Not a cloud in the sky. Sounded like perfect weather to go to the beach.

The weather sprites were attuned to my thinking. Our beach day it turns out ended up being the only day out of the seven that we spent in San Diego with overcast. Even more annoying was the fact that the overhanging clouds only existed right above the beach. Drive back a couple of miles away from the ocean and you had perfectly clear skies. Someone really hates me. I could almost hear the sprites were laughing at me, "ha ha ha you’re not getting sun on your beach day ha ha ha."  The did however make up for it by giving me a really nice sunset at the end of the day.

Despite the overhanging clouds we still managed to entertain ourselves. I got to play in the waves. Read a book on the sand. Write my name in the sand and all kinds of other beach things. I did forget to bring a bucket to make sand castles. My one regret.

San Diego Trip - Day 4 Wild Animal Park

We decided that since we spent the previous day seeing sea animals at Sea World that maybe we should go look at land animals. Our fourth day in San Diego was spent at the Wild Animal Park.  The park is huge.  The basic idea is that instead of keeping the animals in small enclosures like normal zoos they have the animals in gigantic enclosures that attempt to imitate their native habitat.  A couple of the areas they have open for the animals are larger than 60 acres (aka larger than the world famous normal San Diego Zoo).  This leaves the animals free to roam around as they would in the wild.

With one small exception. The predators aren't in the same enclosures as the prey. The Wild Animal park main function is to breed endangered species. Leaving the predators in with the endangered species isn't the best idea.  The interesting thing is that the predator species are intentionally left upwind of the prey species. The smell and sounds of predators acts as an aphrodisiac for the other animals and encourages them to breed.

Almost the entire time that I was in the park I couldn't get a movie out of my head. The place just reminded me too much of Jurassic Park.  Wide open enclosures, double electric gates, animals wondering freely around the park, a train ride that went through all of the enclosures, enclosures where you would stand for a long time and wonder "does this wild animal park actually have animals?" There were even a couple of buildings that could double as the velociraptor pit. (Buildings that were actually used to care for pregnant and recently born animals.)

They offered a 2 hour photo safari in which you go into a bunch of the larger enclosures and interact a bit more closely with the animals. They put you in the back of a truck and you drive through all the areas of the park while a guide talks to you about all the animals. It allows you to get a lot closer to the animals than walking around the paths or even their train rides.

As part of the tour you feed Giraffe's acacia leaves. You stood against the back of the truck and handed them leaves as their head was over their shoulder. It was amazing how much character giraffes actually possess.  It was also pretty funny at how impatient they were. If you were too slow in handing up the leaves they would lean down and grab them from your other hand.  The level of impatient varied. Some would go after a couple of seconds; others as soon as you had given them a leaf.

The other animal that we gave food to was a rhinoceros.  While the rhinos didn't have the character of the giraffes they still knew what was going on. As soon as they saw a hand extend from the truck they would open their mouths so you could throw an apple slice into their mouth.

San Diego Trip - Day 3 Seaworld and Ocean Beach

For the first day in San Diego I decided that we would do the tourist thing and go to a tourist trap. Thus Sea World is the place that we decided to go.

The first show we went to was the Sea Lion and Sea Otter show. The show was a spoof on Saturday Night Live. (Sea Lion Live).  As such it consisted of small skits performed by the sea lions and sea otters. Sea lions it appears are naturals at comedy.  The sea otters also participated but it was generally to come out and grab something and then run back behind stage. I tried multiple times but was never fast enough to actually catch the sea otter on camera before it made it backstage again.

The next show was the dolphin and exotic bird show.  This show was quite a bit more elaborate than the last time that I was at Seaworld.  The show had a storyline in which she was introduced to both the lord of the Sea who controls dolphins and the Lord of the Sky who controls exotic birds. The dolphins did their usual tricks; splashing people, jumping, flipping, but I did notice they didn't ever launch their trainers into the air like they did last time I watched this show.  Probably some danger/liability issue.


Seaworld didn't seam to have too many exotic birds. Occasionally some were let out and they flew around the stage but the vast majority of the "exotic bird" representation were divers or acrobats that swung around on tethers, bungee cords, or swings. Fun to watch.  Think Circue du Solei with dolphins.

They arrange the shows that you basically go from one to another to another. So after the dolphin show I made Debbie run to the Killer Whale show.  I walked fast; Debbie had to run to keep up. I remembered last time that I was here that you had to be really early to get into the show. It appears that not as many people attend Seaworld in September as in May. We didn't have to run to make it.  Ooops. Sorry Deb.  The killer whale show was cool. It's amazing how high those huge animals can jump out of the water.  Even more so when they are doing backflips and so forth.

Debbie made fun of me but there was something in the show that fascinated me almost as much as the killer whales did. They had 4 large rectangle video panels set up in the performing area. During the show these panels moved horizontally across the entire stage, but they also pivoted around a central axis. So that sometimes the long side was vertical, other times horizontal, then other times slanted.  They did all this without any obvious anchors or wires. It appeared that the panels were just floating and rotating in air above the tank. It was cool.

The last show that we watched was called "Pets Rule." It's a show where trained domestic birds, dogs, cats, and even a pig perform.  I kept trying to find a reason that Seaworld would have a domestic pet show but I could not think of a valid reason. It was however entertaining to watch. There were pet competitions, races, sports demonstrations, and even a dog preparing for a date with another dog.That was the end of the shows

Debbie however found something else to entertain herself. Seaworld offers animal experiences in which  you get in the water and interact directly with the animals and trainers. Debbie did the dolphin interaction. For 45 minutes or so she touched, directed, and play with dolphins. It was fun to watch and photograph. She was obviously on cloud nine with a gigantic grin on her face.



We spent the rest of the day admiring all of the exhibits at the park. We actually ran out of time to do everything that we had wanted to. So we missed out on a bunch of the rides.

After Seaworld we went to the closest beach so we could watch the sunset.  I was playing the tourist and going to tourist traps but I wasn't going to let a day go by without at least sometime at the beach and ocean.   It's interesting watching the sunset on the ocean. It makes you realize how fast the sun actually moves in the sky.

San Diego Trip - Day 2 Traveling and Introduction to the ocean

After my failure in the strip of convincing Debbie that Las Vegas has some redeemable qualities I turned to my trump card. We visited the temple on the way out of the city. I was pretty sure that at least the temple would prove to be absent of scantily clad young ladies. Fortunately; I was right.

 Our trip to San Diego was a little bit roundabout. Instead of going straight to San Diego with I-15 we drove over to the coast just South of LA and drove along the coast all the way down to San Diego.  I had my first experience with toll roads (fan by the way) and we found a highway that ran down the coast from LA area all the way down to San Diego.   We found a convenient beach and introduced ourselves to the ocean. It's been too long. I was glad to see her.

 On the drive I made a couple of observations. Utah may have a bad reputation for drivers but I've never seen so many people going slow in the fast lanes and tons of people passing on the right even when it only improved their position in the line by one care.  Anyone from California; I will no longer allow you to make fun of us Utah drivers. On a different note.  It appears that sometime in the past California spent a bucketful of money to install emergency call boxes every mile on every highway/freeway in the state. I'm not sure why but I found them fascinating.

San Diego Trip - Day 1 Las Vegas

I surprised myself by deciding to drive to San Diego instead of flying.  I’m still not quite certain why I didn’t. Just think; instead of my car I could have been cruising around in a convertable for the past couple of days.  Missed oppurtunity.  Instead I drove.  I didn’t think that I would make the full 13 hour drive in one setting though so we stopped halfway in Las Vegas

I’ve been to Las Vegas a couple of times with the high school water polo team. I wanted to show Debbie that it was possible to have some fun in Vegas without gambling or sexing.  We started with partaking of a big Las Vegas tradition. Walking the stip and finding a dinner buffet.  We found one; and then proceeded to spend 45 minutes in line behind a bunch of girls in bikinis and cover-ups.  Welcome to Vegas.
After finding our seat we examined our options.  Mexican, American, Desserts, Mid-Eastern, Italian, and Seafood stations. Being the seafood fan I am; it’s no surprise which station I headed to.  Crab legs are popular items it appears. The seafood line was another 15 minutes.  Much to my surprise; bikini girls got into line behind me.  People kept trying to jump the line and the girls were very vocal about letting them know there was a line. I laughed at a couple of their comments. Which led to actual interaction and conversation between myself and the bikini girls.  As we left the station after finally getting their food they left the following parting, “Good talking to you “Joe”  For the rest of the night when one of the 5 girls saw me they greeted me, “Hello Joe” I’ve never realized how much you run into the same people at even a large buffet until that night.

After dinner we walked the strip and participated in a couple of shows on the strip. The first was the water show in front of the Bellagio. Absolutely amazing what technicians can do with water fountains and water.  I was going to upload some of the video that we took of the performance. Unfortunately the shortest video clip I had superseded this blogs max video size by some 68 megabytes.

I remembered from my past trips to Las Vegas that Treasure Island had a big boat fight between a pirate ship and the defenders of a city. I remembered it being a fun little skit and fight.  It appears that the show has changed since the last time I saw it.  My first danger sign should have been the name of the show, “Siren’s Call.”I remembered from my past trips to Las Vegas that Treasure Island had a big boat fight between a pirate ship and the defenders of a city. I remembered it being a fun little skit and fight.

It appears that the show has changed since the last time I saw it.  My first danger sign should have been the name of the show, “Siren’s Call.” The defenders of a besieged city have morphed into a group of scantily clad sirens who lure unsuspecting pirates to their city and boat. A pirate ship captain took exception to the sirens stealing one of his crew and attempted to rescue him…despite his not wanting to be rescues.  Sirens and pirates fight; pirate ship sinks. Fight still occurs; just a bit different story line, and a lot fewer clothes.

At that. I gave up my attempts to show Debbie that you can have some clean fun in Vegas and we returned to our hotel

Midnight Hiking

A girl from work decided to take advantage of the full moon this past Friday.  She invited a bunch of people from the facility to go with her and her roommate on a midnight hike up to the Wind Caves in Logan Canyon. Normally a Wind Cave hike is an automatic no for me. I've hiked it way too many times in the years I've been in Logan.  Hiking it during the middle of the night sounded different thought. So I decided to go with them. It ended up being only 4 of us; me and 3 girls.

 Hiking with a flashlight was a new and interesting experience.  I was actually kind of shocked at how many other people were doing it. During the time we were up there I think we ran into at least 10-12 other groups doing the same thing.

Being the amateur photographer that I am I took my camera and tripod with me hoping to play a little with time lapse. Unfortunately the moon had some haze around it that night. The moon was bright and clear to the naked eye but with any time lapse the refraction of the light through the haze caused flaring.

White Pine Lake Hike

Over the weekend I found that I had a rather significant urge to go up into the mountains and do some hiking. I originally planned on going Sunday afternoon after getting off work at 1500.  It wasn't until I started looking for local hikes around Logan that I realized that this wasn't going to work.  It appears that with the exceptions of Wind Caves and Crimson trail (both of which I've done millions of times) basically every official hike around Logan is around 6-7 miles long.  A little bit long to be starting at four or later in the afternoon when the sun sets around 7-8.  So instead I did my hiking today. I chose the White Pine Lake trail mainly because it's a lake...and I like water. :)

The trail fascinated me.  It wound up and around a mountain peak and then dropped down into a valley where the lake sat.  At only one time I was in quaking aspen forest, pine tree forest, or large meadows. I regretted not having done this hike a couple of weeks ago. All of the meadows were covered with flower buds from which the petals had fallen off.  A couple of weeks ago the meadows must have been splattered with color. I'll have to come up here next August to look. Some flowers survived.

About halfway through the hike I ran into a flock of sheep. I found them initially interesting; then very annoying. A hundred or so sheep BAAAA-BAAAAAing around me isn't exactly the relaxing soundtrack that I was desiring. The sheep would start to run in mass whenever I would get close to them taking the path of least resistance. AKA they ran down the trail.  A uninvolved observer would have found it hilarious I think.  Hiker approaches sheep...sheep run 25 yards down the trail...hiker approaches sheep....sheep run 25 yards down the trail....repeated some 15 times

The lake itself was beautiful. Water constantly rippled from the wind.  Lots of blues and greens speckled the surface of the water. Even a couple of fishes jumped out of the water to say hello to me.
I stayed around the lake for about an hour reading a book, pondering, and writing before I headed back. It felt good I should do it more often.

Swing night in SLC

A couple of years ago I used to be quite into dancing. At one point I was going to country swing dancing, the big band swing club, and doing ballroom dance all at the same time. I've kind of slacked off for the past 3-4 years. I decided to change that a couple of weeks ago. I've gone to the country swing dancing several times.

Then yesterday afternoon one of my facebook "friends" posted that there would be a Big Band Swing event in SLC. Complete with a Charleston performance and a Jack and Jill dance competition. I decided to try the event out.  The performance wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was three girls with a choreographed but obviously not too rehearsed routine. It was also obvious that they were having a lot of fun with it so it was fine.

Lining up for Jack and Jill competition

Once I started dancing I realized a few things.  I've forgotten how much fun big bans swing is.. I forgot how much you can "play" with your partner. I realized how much I had actually forgotten. The first time I went out on the dance floor it was pretty sad. I repeated the basic several times between moves while I tried to remember things. Gradually I remembered how to lead through my desired moves.  I noted that there are quite a few people who are really good at Lindy. I spent half the night gawking at them just to try to pick up ideas.  I enjoyed the night enough that I'm going to relearn how to Lindy.

Book Review: Mockingjay

Mockingjay is the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. In my opinion this is a series that opened with a bang and ended with a clunk.

Major differences between the two books for me.
1. Emotional Connection
I felt emotionally connected to Katniss in the first book.  I felt her panic when Prim was selected. Her grief with Rue's death. Her desperation to save Peeta ect. I felt her emotions when she had them.
I didn't feel any connection to her at all in the second.  I read that she was having these struggles; but just couldn't find myself to identify or feel those emotions with her.

2. "Can't put the book down factor."
I read Hunger games in one sitting.  I had to take much longer to read Mockingjay.  In fact there were several times in which I skimmed just because my interest was waning so low.

3. Rereading factor
When I finished the first book there were mutliple scenes that I wanted to go back through and read. Particularly Rue's death, drugging Peeta, and the suicide pact. When I finished Mockingjay; I had no desire to either read the book again or to reread certain parts.

 4. Plotlines
Hunger Games flowed continuously from action to action. To be fair this was a lot easier in Hunger Games since the entire book's event occurred over only a few days.

However I felt that Mockingjay was disjointed in it's storytelling.  The rebellion was desperate for her to be the figurehead but even when she decided to become that figurehead we saw little of her actual influence. We see her making the progaganda programs...then suddenly all of the districts are united and attacking the last remaining district. Then suddenly she's useless as a figurehead and the capital falls.

From my viewpoint Mockingjay suffers from the same problems that a lot of movie sequels have. It's tough to follow up something really good with something as good or better. I think if Mockingjay would have been a stand-alone book I might have enjoyed it more.  I just can't help to compare the book to its predescessor. Under such a comparison it falls rather flat.

The things that end up in my in-box.

Since I serve as middle management at the nursing center I rate an in-box.  I never realized something before receiving my own in-box. It appears that in-boxes attract a lot more interesting things than just paperwork. Some of the things have ended up in my in-box are pretty random.  I've found toys, receipts, random papers, key-chains, and once even a DVD.  The item that I found in my in-box this morning has to be the most random item that I have ever found. This is what I found.

Ovulation Predictor.

I'm not really sure what I was supposed to do with this. It's kind of useless to me. Not only am I not trying to start a family; I have the wrong plumbing to use this item.

I am having a hard time trying to figure out why anyone would even have that in a nursing home? Most of our residents are way past the age of worrying about this.  Staff, is work the place that you would want to take a such a test?

I thought that it was just a some kind of perverse and over my head joke. No one ever came to claim the joke however. So I'm just left to laugh at the experience of  receiving an ovulation predictor. Anybody want it?