Month: October 2012

In the aftermath of the spectacular shellacking that Mitt Romney gave the President in the first debate, there was much handwringing in liberal circles. Critics on the left side of the spectrum couldn’t believe how Mr. Obama let Romney prevaricate so boldly and wildly as he hammered away at the President’s record while simultaneously and stunningly repackaging himself as a centrist unrecognizable to those of us who were paying attention to Mitt’s rightward tilt during the primary season and the obvious implications of his plutocratic agenda.

Yet another person has been injured in a fall off Sunset Cliffs. Late Sunday night – early Monday morning around 2 am, lifeguards got the call about injuries from people falling off the cliffs near Ladera Street.

Around sunset Sunday evening, the Coast Guard suspended its search for a vessel in distress off the coast of Point Loma.

According to lifeguards, the Coast Guard was searching for a white and green vessel carrying two adults and three children.

More violence is reported in Ocean Beach.  This time, a bouncer in front of an OB nightclub was stabbed by…

The U-T San Diego is reporting that a young man and his woman friend were attacked by a group of men Friday night under the OB Pier around 8 pm.

The man, reportedly 18 years old, was stabbed twice, in the chest and in an arm. His injuries are not considered life-threatening.

Due to hazardous stuff and pollutants being washed down from the streets and roads into the San Diego River and then onto local beaches, the San Diego County Department of Environmental health has issued an advisory for residents to stay out of the water at all local beaches. Material that is caught up in the rain-swept streets is not treated anywhere before it reaches the ocean.

The advisory is for the period of 72 hours after the last heavy rain, which was Wednesday and Thursday of this past week.

Large Tan Dog Named “Tank” Attacked Boy With Suppressed Immune System

At about 3pm on Wednesday, October 10th, a small boy was bitten by a dog while he was getting out of a car at the Ocean Beach parking lot. The boy’s leg was bleeding and he was taken to Sharp memorial Hospital for treatment. The seriousness of this attack is compounded by the fact that the boy is a heart transplant recipient with a suppressed immune system.

Artist Shinpei Takeda and Architects Kevin deFreitas and Sillman Wright Deserve Praise for this Creation at the Beach Despite the Lengthy Bid and Construction Process

Modesty can pay off. At least, if you’ve created a public restroom where its functional necessities are met while achieving great design. For at last night’s awards ceremony of the annual “Orchids & Onions” awards, OB’s newly-built comfort station won an Orchid in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture category just for those reasons.

Shinpei Takeda, the artist of the comfort station, is a local San Diego craftsman and once lived in OB, very near the current site of his designs and artwork. Recipients of the award were local architect Kevin deFreitas and Sillman Wright. The euphemistically-termed “comfort station” is on the beach at the foot of Brighton Avenue.

Coastkeeper Council Without OB Rep Despite Annual “CleanWater” Paddle and Strong History of Eco-Awareness

San Diego Coastkeeper is today – Oct. 11th – announcing the members of its first Community Advisory Council. Yet the list lacks any OBcean – despite the community being the site of the annual “Clean Water” Paddle, a strong Surfrider Foundation chapter, and years of ecological awareness. (Why OB even has its own Green Store.)

Now, perhaps this lack of any representative from OB is all fine and dandy, maybe there’s been plenty of OB voices on the advisory council over the years … but wait just a sec! This is the very “first” council and it’s supposed to be a “community” council as well.

Not only that, Coastkeeper announced that as the very first and “inaugural” council, “these members get to create the structure and goals of the council”. OBceans may lose out there too. To their credit, Coastkeeper stated that they did receive “a wave” of applications

Midway School Brought in Bid of $16.5 Million

The leadership of the San Diego Unified School District voted Tuesday night – October 9th – to sell the property of the former Barnard Elementary School in the Midway area next to Ocean Beach. The property had brought in a high bid of $16.5 million. The sale was part of their plan to balance this year’s budget.

The School Board voted to sell the Barnard property along with another undeveloped parcel in Paradise Hills that had brought in $3.1 million at auction.

The Barnard site – 9.37 acres -is located at 930 Barnard Street, a block from West Point Loma Avenue in the Midway area. The “coastal zone” property was on the chopping block for a minimum bid of $9.14 million. Originally opened during World War II for Navy children, the elementary school had been acquired by the School District after the war, and used every since until recently.

Tonight – Thursday, October 11th – the San Diego Architectural Foundation holds their annual Orchids & Onions Awards Ceremony and rumors are abounding that the recently-completed Ocean Beach comfort station will receive some kind of award.

This annual event is a way, as touted by the San Diego Architectural Foundation, for San Diegans to “take an active role in the celebration and condemnation of their environs”. The 2012 Orchids & Onions Awards Ceremony & Silent Auction will hand out 19 project awards.

The Awards Ceremony begins at 8:30 p.m. in the museum’s Sherwood Auditorium of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, and TV host Sam Zien, of “Sam the Cooking Guy,” will serve as Master of Ceremonies. Awards will be presented by numerous other guests throughout the evening. A pre-party and auction begin at 6 p.m. at the Museum.

Well, what about those rumors? The comfort station or public restroom – as most call it – at the foot of Brighton Avenue at the beach has been the focus of both detraction and envy since it was built and completed earlier this year.

Slater’s 50/50
Liberty Station, 2750 Dewey Road,
San Diego, 92106

I have to admit that while I was recuperating from “trigger finger” surgery the past few weeks, my life was relatively smooth with few, if any, angry people telling me that now that I have reached the 70+ mark my taste buds are numb; that I was really wrong about my review of their favorite restaurant; that maybe I should be doing something else than writing/reviewing/existing. The truth is that something was missing in my life; nothing to get overly excited about and I am thrilled to note here that within a few minutes after this article is published it will be like I was never away.

Ever since this restaurant opened I have wanted to try it out. Today was a perfect day, because on Wednesday my “widow support group” meets, either at someone’s home or at a diner. We have been together almost 3 years now, and definite likes and dislikes have manifested in our relationship to the point that we know each other well enough to know what they are thinking before it is ever voiced.