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Where'd we leave off? Oh yes, the bike story. Yes, my bike was impounded for being illegally parked, and then I was lectured for having expired tags. On a bicycle! The short of the story is that you shouldn't mess with the UCSD librarians, that the bicycle officer at UCSD is an awesome fellow, my bike is now licensed and registered in the State of California (having previously been registered in 1981!), and when the UCSD parking folks found out that I bike to campus "at least three days a week," they gave me a parking permit for the remainder of my time here. Thus guaranteeing that I don't have to bike if I don't want to. (In an effort to encourage bike commuting!) This campus works in mysterious ways.

I got my bike back just in time to do CRITICAL MASS! kennyjensen should be proud.

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for those who care: splorg dot org is up again at 68.225.229.252

sorry for the downtime.

Critical Mass and other adventures

Chris wrote me a letter a week or two ago. After recounting an enormous adventure, he summarised: "That was my month of June. It felt like a decade." It seems that my time in San Diego has hit the three month sweet spot where everything is going perfectly, mainly with respect to having all kinds of adventures. The week feels almost like the sort of month that Chris was talking about, but on the scale of a couple of days.

On Thursday evenings in the summer they show movies at Balboa park, projected onto the side of a building. I went with Megan a few weeks ago and we were incredibly envious of everyone with their fabulous picnics. So this time we brought our own. Jason (from our Ensenada trip) came too.

Afterwards we went scouting for neon signs. There is an abundance of neon in the city of San Diego, but there is one monster that, when it suddenly looms above you in the warm night, you realize you have found the mother of them all.

On Friday I tagged along with Critical Mass. It's a tiny group here in SD compared to SF, but it was still one of the funnest things I've done in a long time. It meets at the fountain outside of the Ruben H. Fleet museum in Balboa Park on the last friday night of every month, at about 18:30-19:00. Gradually more and more cyclists appear, circling around this fountain, like a swarm of bees, until someone shouts "let's go," and the pack is off. We cycled around through Hillcrest, through Banker's Hill to downtown, down to the waterfront. We even caught part of the San Diego Symphony's pops concert, since they were playing at the waterfront. We hit at Gellato place and then a mexican restaurant on the way back (Flautas.. (sp?).. yuuuuuuumy). It was awesome.

I counted about 50 cyclists. Very friendly people -- I made some friends. One guy had a very nice recumbent cycle, hooked up with a CD player and speakers. We cycled to the tune of "Low-Ride-Er" and "We don't need no thought control." Bystanders went wild. (More than once: "Who are you? Is this some kind of group?" "Critical mass!" "Critical who?" "Critical MASS!" Shouting "last friday of the month, 7pm Ruben H. Fleet Museum" was a bit awkward -- flyers are needed!)

We cycled to the LGBT Equal-Rights event at the Spreckles Organ in Balboa Park. Riding with Critical Mass to an LGBT-rights event.. it warmed my heart!

In Downtown there was a loud confrontation with the police. I don't know what the big problem was, since we really weren't causing any trouble. But the police officer strong-armed one cyclist, pulling him off his cycle, shouting, "Do you want to go to jail? DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL?!?" Then at the next intersection there were more police. Here an officer is explaining to one of the cyclists, "I can guarantee that at least one of you is going to Jail tonight. GOING TO JAIL." Later, cycling quietly by the waterfront, with only the noise of the gears and the pedals and the water quietly lapping at the embaracadero, this nonsense was thankfully left behind.

Saturday... "hanging out" at 5th Ave Books in Hillcrest.

Saturday was Pride in San Diego.. Here's a sampling of the variety of floats:

Afterwards we had lunch at Hamburger Mary's. We asked for beer. The waiter motioned, "big ones or small ones?" We motioned "big". Later, other patrons asked, "Where'd you get those?"

There were other adventures, like the Black's Beach Full Moon Drumming Circle.. two hundred people, a giant bonfire, and drumming like the end of time. I even met another "Tobin", a first.