San Diego

Tomorrow morning I'm to wake at 3am so as to head to the airport for an early flight to San Diego. (And what's worse is, this is the better-timed trip. The return voyage is an overnight flight.)

The purpose of the trip is a business conference for Siobhan, with me tagging along for no better reason than two can travel almost as cheaply as one. And I'm at that stage at work where I could use a few days off pretty badly (and also that stage where any time off will only make things far worse... but since staying wouldn't make things good, merely less bad, one must put mental health first when the time can make a difference).

Since she'll be busy much of most of the days at the conference, there's not much that I'll have to do. I won't be going to museums and zoos by myself, so I'll likely breeze away the time in the hotel. I'll have Wifi (though they charge extra for it, can you imagine such a thing?) and both my laptop and my Eee. The laptop because I might want to do some serious writing, or some Lusternian combat training, and the Eee's not up to the latter (and limited on the former). The Eee, because the laptop has chosen now to start going on the fritz -- the screen flickers and sometimes the left quarter of it goes pale red -- and if it dies entirely on me, I'd be completely without, since I'd have no external monitor to fall back on. (Arrangements are underway both to repair it and replace it.) Plus, the laptop will probably stay in the hotel room, but the Eee might go with me if I venture forth.

Some of the time, though, we'll have to go do stuff. Everyone says to go to the zoo, and there's one solid point behind it: when else am I ever going to be in San Diego? On the other hand, we just went to the National Zoo; and we probably won't have a full day, but how can you hope to assay the San Diego Zoo on a half-day? There's also an air and space museum, and again, so soon after visiting the National Air And Space Museum and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center it might feel redundant.

We'll likely visit the USS Midway since it's only a few blocks from our hotel, and when else will I get to walk on an aircraft carrier? And we'll probably drop in on Ocean Beach, and Coronado Island. There's a list of restaurants planned for visits. Embarassingly enough, these include In-N-Out Burgers and Krispy Kreme, for while these are humdrum and mundane fast food, they are widely considered the best fast food in their respective categories, but in both cases, establishments we never have a chance to visit otherwise.

Still, if all I do is sit in a hotel lobby with a laptop, do some reading, and eat a bit of Mexican food in a place where snow is unheard-of (even if the locals are all wearing heavy coats!), that'll be more than enough.

I don't know how many days of blogging I might miss. Depends on when I get Internet, I suppose.