austin and xian eating her miso greenbeans - dscf1439

Sets

winter vacation in california [36 photos] written in december 2001:

i have been on just a few vacations since finishing ucla in 1994: a trip to hawaii for yoga and karate, backpacking in hetch hetchy, and a nostalgia trip back to upstate new york. this time i am on a lazy road trip, driving south to hide out like a hermit at the family cabin, stopping along the way to see any friends that will have me…

santa cruz kathy moved here from new york city in the fall. she lives in a house by the sea, spacious improvement over her cramped 2 bedroom apartment for three in nyc. kathy wants to break into landscape architecture. she took me to the town of capitola for sushi dinner (prize for best menu item ever: soylent green) and we invented games on a scrabble board in the goth-inhabited mr toot's coffee shop. after a predawn haircut, breakfast is served at sunrise on the back porch -- trader joe's ginger granola. we stopped by kathy's nursery to pick out gifts for my parents, and someone in the parking lot recognized me from karate and said hello, that was a nice surprise.

santa barbara i arrived on the last day to place orders with bodytrends.com for xmas delivery. joslyn is their operational mastermind. i entertained myself by running down to the beach for kata and sunset, back up for quality time with katherine's acoustic guitar. midbite into veggie thai dinner, parenti confides that she is happily infatuated with someone -- so perhaps she's finally recovering from her summer mantra: ``i'm never going to have sex again.'' joslyn took me out for quadruple hot chocolate, to deliver abdominal torture devices and to meet her sozzled coworkers at the pool hall -- but no dancing, despite several walks past the salsa club. parenti serves trader joe's pumpkin granola and mango smoothie for breakfast.

glendale finally, i get to see austin in his post-ibooks professional habitat, working his php voodoo on content management for the scientologists. austin showed up on a holiday, showed off a very clever copyright tool he developed for neopets' visual assets, helped himself to tshirts and a scientology calendar, then took me out to lunch in an italian grocery, where the flagship deli sandwich is called `bebe jesus.' the wait is long, but that's cool, austin has matters of consequence to discuss, and there's nothing like spying on a throng of impatient hungry people in los angeles. despite the odor in my car, i completely forgot to hand back austin's ripe, dirty laundry from his november excursion to san francisco.

mira mesa jack abbott is the remaining founder of inter@ctivate consulting group, we worked together from 1996 through 1998, evolving from three people working at home into a beautiful beachfront office with five people. inter@ctivate inc. is now 30 people holding down the top floor of a skyscraper beside san diego's horton plaza. jack is the maestro of mixing wireless business with dining pleasure, lunch on christmas eve is no exception. jack bought me pho and all that cafe suda (those are all empty iced coffee glasses on the table there) and even gifted me with a company windbreaker.

university city erin morrison fowler is the first woman who ever called me on the phone. she's showing off her son christopher. erin is one of just a handful of friends i've been able to keep in touch with for more than 15 years. the sun is setting on torrey pines beach, across the street from my old apartment building -- now inhabited by none other than alison lee gianotto -- captured here beside her biological father (though you'd never guess from the vertical discrepancy). alison's dad took us out to ice cream and asked about places to anchor his boat if he sails from florida.

cuyamaca when i get fed up with urban chaos, this is where i close my eyes and go -- cuyamaca, california: population 160. i lived here on and off for more than a year. really nice to be back enjoying the silence and solitude for a few more days. running the kelly ditch trail and highway 79, reading three different books, and forgetting what day day of the week it is :-)

del mar glenn little materialized for dinner at roberto's. we caught up on ucsd, almost-married life, and karate. at roberto's you sit outdoors facing wind chill off the pacific ocean and torrey pines lagoon, but we were not cold.

``you cold?''
``nope. you?''
``nope. ima order another burrito. sure you're not cold yet?''
``no. go ahead. its warm tonight.''

that kept up until alison came over from across the street and laid on the emperor's new clothes ridicule: ``what the fuck are you doing out here? its freezing!'' so we left.

home i spent two days at home in san diego with anna and chips, their grandkid, daniel & allie. by the time i arrived, daniel had completely dismantled and boxed up his own bedroom, seth's bedroom, then wired the house with x10. all the lighting can now be manipulated from a little star trek device. i burned a fresh set of mandrake linux cdroms while everyone else actively ignored a pay-per-view anime flick.

griffith park on the way back to san francisco, i got to check out the alexandria compound at half capacity - xianfoy, kirstin and austin - they took me to marvel over los angeles food ($10 usd for a bagel, thanks :-) and then xianfoy led the sublime sunset tour of griffith park. despite living in la for two years i had only seen this place in the movies. nice way to end a vacation and kick off the new year.
durak.org

winter vacation - san francisco to san diego and back [47 photos] san francisco -> santa cruz -> santa barbara -> los angeles -> san diego -> cuyamaca (and back)