San Diego - Part 3 - Rocky's Cheeseburgers, Point Loma Lighthouses, and Pacific Beach Bar and Grill $2 Taco Tuesdays!

Greetings Jeffrey's Tuners! We have some more pictures, and some food recommendations for SD on the cheap (remember, I was the author of the Hillbilly Gourmet at one time...hehe). So, on this post we will see some ground bovine delights, cheap crustaceans Mexican food stuffs, and some great shots of an old light house standing guard over Naval vessels.

On our trek to Point Loma to see the dual light houses (one was built too high, so the vessels could not see the light once the marine layer rolled in during the June gloom) led us to one of the best burger joints in SD. A little place called Rocky's nestled into a corner store front, that was not much bigger than the bar and few tables (where the heck did they put the kitchen). Now this place was packed with locals by noon, so I knew it had to be good. Their menu was simple and the plethora of draft beers had me in heaven. Here is the menu:

1/3 lbs hamburger
1/3 lbs cheeseburger
1/2 lbs hamburger
1/2 lbs cheeseburger
fries

Don't forget that day's special:
1/3 lbs hamburger, fries, soda or domestic draft beer.

Now mind you, they don't ask how you want it cooked, everything is medium (just a little pink). Of course I ordered a 1/2 pounder and 2 buds. Absolute rapture once it hit my taste buds. If you are in SD and got a hankering for sports and burgers, hit:

Rocky's Crown Pub
3786 Ingraham St
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 273-9140
Google Map

After there, it was a drive over to Point Loma to the Cabrillo point where Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed his ships to discover San Diego. Here is link from the US National Parks on Cabrillo National Monument. This is where we got some excellent shots from the lighthouse, of the lighthouse, submarines, frigates, and the tidal pools.

Cabrillo Monument:


The main light house (and I didn't get a good shot, this thing is way up on a cliff)






A conch (pronounced "conk")


It was a nice time up there on the hill (I guess the pictures didn't capture how high this place is, over looking the bay). After this, we headed over to Pacific Beach for some lobster and shrimp tacos.

After parking the car in Pacific Beach, we head up to PB Bar and Grill. It is half inside and half out (but mind you, it is cold here, so there are those big propane heaters outside). The entire bar and grill is done up in a light wood, and plaster/stucco walls. A true beach town bar, with surfers and hippies. However, we did not really come to drink. We came for the main attraction on Tuesdays, Two Dollar Taco's! Now, out here, you can get anything in a taco. Beef, chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, lobster, chocolate... ok, I am kidding about that last one (well there is probably some place that has one). I had one shrimp and 2 lobster. For under $6 and a $3 draft (did I mention the beers out here are great? Flat tire, Pacifico, Sierra Nevada). Remember, the white sauce is what makes these (which I will figure out how to make and take back to SWFL). So if you are in PB on a Tuesday, go to the PB Bar and Grill and get some $2 tacos and a draft!

Pacific Beach Bar and Grill
860 Garnet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 272-4745
Google Map

So until the next post, Jeffrey's on the scene composing his tune in Sunny SD.

San Diego - Part 2 - The Seals of La Jolla and Torry Pines

Greetings all from "brrrr" mild (ok, I am cold, since living in SWFL) southern California. I just wanted to share some of our adventures, being we ended up in La Jolla (pronounced La Hooya) and Torry Pines (of the golf course fame). Firstly, I want to address a problem they have in La Jolla's beach. It seems the city put up a retaining wall to shelter a man made beach area for children to play many years ago. Well, being that it was protected, the migrating seals decided it was sheltered enough for them to give birth and create a nursery for their pups. If you know anything about seals, you will know that while they may be cute looking, when cornered or their young is accosted, they can be very ferocious. Not to mention, they are quite large and can move well enough to seriously hurt an adult person (imagine if it was a child, God forbid). So the controversy is between the parents and the environmentalists.

To net out the problem, it is basically the parents want the beach for their children to have a place to play and enjoy the beach. The environmentalist want a place for the seals to have a nursery and be seen by people. Lastly, there are some that want "one beach". Where they share the beach with the seals. This is difficult to say the least (I get the feeling that the seals tend to win out). Well the city said they could rip out the wall so the beach would wash away and the seals would just leave (this is the worst solution in my mind). Instead, the last verdict I heard from the local courts is they are going now keep the beach for the children and some how drive off the seals.

Now, I can understand the parents point of view. Especially if my taxes went to create the project and now I could not enjoy it as promised. However, I enjoyed the sight of the seals. I think... no, I know... if I lived here (and I am considering summering here), I would continue to enjoy the sight of the seals. I think I would enjoy watching my children enjoy the sight of the seals. The water is too damn cold to truly enjoy swimming in it anyway (even in the summer when I was here last). Coming from SWFL, we no longer have seals. In fact, there have been no seals in FL in my life time. Go visit Scripps Aquarium and there is a display about how humans ran the seals off in the 1950's and they have not been back. Check out: Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

My point is this, be thankful you have such an unusual and unique natural creature you can view and enjoy. It might not be there forever. And besides, you always can go to the public pool or a tidal pool down the street.

Some pictures:










Enough about the seals for now. We went up the coast a little way more to Torry Pines (yes the Torry Pines park with the world famous golf course) to hopefully catch a glimpse of the hang gliders. While out here, my future brother-in-law asked if I wanted to try it. I just might. So look for some future post about it. I will have my wife take the shots (and pay up the life insurance). Although there were no hang gliders, we did get some fantastic shots of the sunset. Here you go:







I love this bird action shot:




Wherever the Santana Winds blows me, I will be there taking pictures and making observations. So stay tuned to Jeffrey's Tune!

San Diego - Part 1 - The trip out

Greetings all. It has been awhile since the last few posts due to work's end of year wrap ups and my own side projects. To that end, my family and I left balmy SWFL for the shores of the left coast. We are attending family event in beatiful San Diego and decided to take the week to explore prior. I have decided to post some of the pictures that I took on the way out and the first day. Also, if you have read any of my other posts, you know that will have made some observations and opinions that I will share along the way :). Below is a quick (and I do mean quick, since I rarely use a numbered list) run down of some things I have witnessed:

1.) People seem to be in their own little social enclaves here (unlike in FL, where you have highly social NYer's, southerners, and Midwesterners meeting and greeting each other). I hope it is not the norm and my observations will prove incorrect. I will say that in a bar on Coronado, there is more social interaction, probably due to the military presence there.

2.) The vegatation is the same as SWFL, with the exception of coconuts, xoria, spanish moss, and cyprus.

3.) The colder weather and hills are a nice change of pace to the endless heat and humidity that you get in SWFL (don't get my wrong, I love the heat and humidity). However, I think when I went inland away from the ocean, my sinus's went ape-sh!t. I would consider this area a place I would live (or at least summer) at this point. The expense of living is the only deterrent.

4.) I like the "no worries" saying that is pervasive here. Is it really no worries attitude, or just a local color saying?

Now, time for the pictures, with the first coming from the plane ride out (all were taken in this post with my Sony Ericsson 580i).

The plane wing, hehe:


Roswell, NM (see the little grey dudes? Me either):


These were the next morning at the Sunset Cliffs near the house we rented for the week:



A bunch of Kormorants drying off next to this peace sign on that lone cliff (I wonder who the nutty arse that climbed up there to put it on there was?)


A last shot of the Pacific that first morning:


I will post more in a bit. I apologize for the lack of decent writing, but we are constantly on the move seeing things. Until later, "no worries".

Tech Post 1: Most people hate traffic, but I love it for the web

Alright, I have been debating this for a while, since I wanted this blog to be not about my work, but about my observations, experiences, etc. However, since technology is a large part of my life, I guess I will have lots of observations, and experiences. So why not write about it from time to time? Well, I will identify these with the Tech Post : Title (kind of like my short stories). That said...

I have been working with internet based computing since the inception of the web in 1994. Now in the early days, there were several business models that were tried, but after the shakeout, only 5 real models emerged for making money on the web (at this time). Consider this as the 10,000 foot view. The models can be identified as not for profit information services, web related infrastructure services (hosting, consulting, programming), extensions of brick and mortar stores (online catalogs), subscription based services (um, mostly pornographic), and lastly advertising (the big monster, the Walmart of the web, Google ladies and gentlemen). Now I have tried to make money as a side line from each of the models (obviously not so for the not for profit). Tossing out the infrastructure model at least for this conversation, all three boil down to need the same thing (and the infrastructure model too, if you burrow down to the root cause). You need to have traffic to the site and that traffic to do something.

I have found, traffic is needed for click and mortar, subscription, and advertising models. The more traffic you send to your site, the more likely they are going to buy, subscribe, or see your advertisements. If you look at the venues I have followed in my attempts to make money, I started with building infrastructure for clients... well you needed customers for that. I then tried out an online store... well you need traffic to get the customers. In the 3 years we were open, we had 3 customers. I have not tried a subscription based service, but in my next venue I will have that as part of its biz model. Lately, I have been focusing on the advertising aspects (with this blog, several cash parked sites, and I am working on a content distribution service within the web and 3d worlds... the 3d worlds is for another post tho). I would say out of all of them, the most traction seems to come from the building of infrastructure, and the advertisement model. Funny, if I look at them in order of which I did them, they all built upon each other.

It used to be if you build it, they will come. Then it got to be if you build it, they will come, but you need to make them do something. Now it is, if you build it, they will come, but you have to make them WANT to do something. As an example. I used to build websites for people that were static and dynamic. Just submitting to the search engine was enough. Then I started building online stores for others and myself. People would come in, but you had to compel them to buy. Now, I have to drive traffic to my site with various ways (search engines, engine placement, dead url redirects, bought traffic, google ads, etc). Once here, I have to put out compelling content to get them to click on my ads or make sure my content pulls up ads that are higher paying. What is next? Bribes? There will be a new business model that will eventually shake out I suspect. Perhaps a slant on the old ASP model.

So what will the new business model for the web be? Either way, in the end you will need customers/traffic. Maybe something with SOA perhaps? Collections of services that are sold via micro payments each time they are used? That would work, but your services would have to be better than what is available freely, and the payments have to at that sweet spot of price to make them worth while to the developer and customer. I would love to be the one that sets up the "framework" for collecting the monies from SOA pay services (of course taking a small % for my troubles)... Hmm, there it is world. My newest entrepreneurial adventure! See you in 5 years on my boat in the Caribbean.... Ha!

They lost their way

This is probably my strongest rant, but it is an observations I have had brewing in me for awhile now. I try to be a live and let live. I try to look at every individual objectively based on their skills, knowledge, experience, and sense of moralities and most of all their deeds. Also, I can say I honestly believe in what the hippies, blacks, and gays were fighting for back in the 60's and 70's. However, I feel all three groups have not done anything with their new found freedoms or rights. They have truly lost their way from the root of each of their respective movements.

Lets start with the hippies. This group has sold out to corporate America and became the bulk of the baby boomers. They just kept the drugs and "free love" (in this case, just a reason to poke each other). Shameful. How did you all change the world? Not for the better. You gave us globalization, outsourcing, welfare, cheap goods from over seas that poison us, and affirmative action. Where is your passion to change the world? You rallied around so many things and went so many ways, I don't think I could tell you what hippies were/are about. Help me out please.

To our Black patriots (Or is the correct vernacular African Americans, since I work in an International company, peoples from African descent are now called Blacks again, since they are all over the world). I guess I am referring to those in the USA, I guess your group is African Americans. Well guys, what happen to the Martin Luther King's dream? All his work has led to what? The birth of "Gangsta Rap", and affirmative action? From all I have read from him, he wanted more for his children. Mostly, I seem to sense the younger generation of African Americans (not so from the immigrant blacks) seem to have a sense of self entitlement. Also, where are their moralities? Have those gone quietly into the night. Sadly, I am rather tired of the rant about slavery and oppression from 120 years ago. I am sorry for the atrocities inflicted upon you, and they should not be forgotten, but my grandfather didn't own a slave, and most likely yours wasn't one either. Go pound sand about it, because it has worn very thin. However, after all that your grand parents and parents did to further the cause of civil rights, you could come around with something better than taking the extra "points" from affirmative action. Stand up and have some pride like they did.

Lastly, the gays that fought long and hard for equal rights (right to marry, right to being accepted, etc.) are either retired, or dead. The ones that marched with the rainbow flags and the outlandish costumes are long gone. Since they seem to have become socially accepted in society, the younger generation has done nothing with it to better the cause. Anytime I have been to a gay run club, they seem to have became superficial, shallow, and egotistical. There is no depth of character that made their plight worthy. My gay or bi friends have agreed this is true when I point it out. Some depth of character on the whole would be nice.

Granted these are all generalizations (and in my opinion, there is not much difference between stereotyping and generalizations, even if people claim such... but then again, I think there minorities can have just as much prejudice as a majority too). This is not meant to be a bigotry rant. However, it is meant for people of these groups to open their eyes to the observations of an outsider. I felt what each movement was doing was good. Now, it seem the movements are either dead, or the groups don't care. It almost seems a slap in the face to all their forefathers hard work, dedication and perseverance. Maybe they don't need the movements anymore? Maybe this is indicative of something good? Perhaps things are converging into a true blending of ideas that all are created equal? That we no longer need causes to rally around because things are so good? Or is it a barometer of something bad? A compliancy not only found in these groups, but in the USA as a whole? Lord I hope not. Sometimes I fear for my generation.