Not too old for a wardrobe malfunction

While driving past the Star of India this foggy morning, I thought I spied a certain laxness in sail maintenance. This couldn’t be, though, as the dedicated volunteers at the Maritime Museum of San Diego take such good care of the old girl (and besides, she just came out of dry dock). I suspect this is, in fact, her “Halloween costume,” and she is playing the part of a pirate ship.

Turns out she is dressed up for some upcoming Halloween events: lantern-led tours on the evening of Friday 10/30, and on Saturday 10/31, a carnival and costume contest, followed by more lantern-led tours.

Sounds like a good place to take your little pirates. For tickets or more information, please see the Maritime Museum’s events page.

Despite my love of urban living, I must admit that there is something magical and quite valuable about those places in San Diego that are still rural and a bit wild.  When I first moved to San Diego county, I didn’t settle in Downtown right away – I made a few stop overs along the way as I made my way South.  One of those stops included renting a house in a place just beyond San Marcos, in an area that has since been developed into what is now San Elijo Hills.

Before there were schools, gas stations, shopping plazas, condos, or enormous houses around San Elijo, there were only winding roads, horse trails, the occasional deer, and The Elfin Forest.

The community there hasn’t gone quietly into the night, but instead continued to fight the encroachment of suburbanization into their wide open spaces.  As a result, much of what I loved about that area can still be found and enjoyed.  If you’re curious about one of my most cherished places in San Diego, the details are after the jump.

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I’m really not sure why this hasn’t been done before – but I created a google calendar to showcase events in town that are ‘in our scene’. That being – the barcampers, the web dev scene, the drinky drink scene, etc.

It would be nice to have a calendar with *EVERYTHING IN TOWN* on it, yes? I thought so too :)

Drop me a note and I can add your google account to have write access to this calendar!

Read access to this calendar: XML ICAL HTML

The International Pop Overthrow (or IPO) festival begins it’s 11th year run starting tonight in San Diego before continuing it’s bid to take over the world in 13 other cities around the world including Los Angeles, Liverpool, New York, and Torronto to name a few.  The three day event will showcase a wide variety of local bands.  Full schedule and venue details after the jump:

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Theres quite a handful of meetups in town. Blogger meetups, twitter meetups, web dev meetups, web standards meetups, marketing, advertising, CEOS only, martians, Al Pacino look alikes, clowns with ak-47s..

Okay I made those last few up, but there are roughly 10-12 meetups in town, each with their own agenda. The ones that seem to draw the largest crowds are generally held in places that don’t promote communication – loud thumping techno, 15 dollar martinis and packing the attendees into a small venue – great if you’re into that sort of thing.

Drinkup is the exact opposite! Its a meetup with no purpose or agenda other than to just hangout, have a beer, relax and maybe talk a little shop or snap a few pictures.

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The Embarcadero Marina Fitness Course @ Sunrise. Image Courtesy of CrashMattB's flickr photo stream under a Creative Commons license. Check out his entire "Hello San Diego" set.

Now is the time of year when most of us start thinking about the summer months (which in San Diego is most of the year).  Unfortunately this year, now is also the time that many of us are letting our gym memberships go due to tough times and prudent frugality.  Who’s got disposable income for the fitness center right now?  Fortunately for San Diegans, the city has got you covered.  For the next couple of weeks I’m going to reveal all the good local free fitness spots I know of around the downtown and surrounding areas.

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Photo courtesy of Union Tribune

While on Twitter the other night, I got word that “King” George Stahlman had passed away last week.  If you’ve lived in San Diego for any length of time (or are a native), then you probably are familiar with the successful bail bondsman and local fixture.

I have a unique connection to George Stahlman — my father, Jerry Reeder, worked for Stahlman as a bail agent when we first moved to San Diego in 1978.  As a five year old child, I only knew “Uncle George”, as a very warm man who was kind and generous with me. I didn’t know him well, but he and my father had what I perceived to be a somewhat father/son-esque dynamic.

Within a year or two, they had a falling out (though as a kid, I have absolutely no idea what it was about — but it must have been a biggie) and my father quit working there… with gusto.  He opened up his own bail bonds agency two doors down on Union and B St. and went on to become a very successful bondsman in his own right, eventually dubbed locally as “The Prince of Bail”. (more…)

Most San Diegans think of the Gaslamp Quarter as the destination for nightlife and dining. While that is true, my favorite reason to head to the Gaslamp is to learn history about San Diego and to take photos of architecture.

Historic buildings are marked with a plaque such as this one for the Old City Hall building.

You can easily walk around and find these plaques and read about the building’s history. There is a great book that you can use for reference: San Diego Architecture: From Mission to Modern by Dirk Sutro. (I have seen it at SDMA’s bookstore but it is also available on Amazon.)

I’m long overdue for another walking adventure in the Gaslamp. If any like-minded arhictecture-history-photography enthusiasts want to join me, feel free to comment and we’ll organize an outing.

Hi, I’m Joelle! I’m a blogger, web designer and author who’s lived in San Diego since I was five and consider myself a native.  My friends rib me and call me a “proud San Diegan” because I never miss a moment to share the awesomeness of this city with someone new… and not so new.  And I’m thrilled to be writing here at Metblogs!

One of my favorite shows is NBC’s About San Diego, which if you’ve never watched it, covers a lot of local history (my fave!) and little-known stories about the faces and places of our fair city. I wish it was longer than 30 minutes. I figured I’d break the proverbial seal on my authorship here and share something I saw on this week’s episode: the Munchkin village set on Mt. Soledad.

I drove with my friend mikey all through the hills one day to see if we could find this alleged ‘Midgetville‘ (as we’d heard it referred – no hate mail, please!), but no such luck.  I also saw it mentioned in a book called Weird California (which is fascinating, by the way — Costco has it still,  I think).  So we drove and drove and drove… eventually getting lost and ending up in Clairemont somewhere…

We weren’t sure it even was there… and I’ll admit, it seemed a little far-fetched, but worth a look, wouldn’t you say?   This clip on About San Diego sealed it for me, along with a few other myths that needed busting.

I look forward to sharing more stories of local flavor with San Diego Metblogs… stay tuned!