San Diego Living Archives - Page 7 of 7

Yesterday, Youth Specialties let go of about 40% of its workforce. It was a day that suckety, sucked, sucked. And than I thought about it and it sucked some more.

Since YS is a small close-knit company I know every single person who was let go. You read about a company cutting jobs and it never seems personal… just a ticker on the bottom of the screen on MSNBC as I drink my morning coffee. This was very personal and too close to home.

Today begins the slow exhale. In a couple of hours I begin to deal with the realities of “now what?” Yesterday is in the past and there is a lot to do in the hours, days, and weeks to come.

Today I take a deep breath to breathe the new air of today. There is no other choice. The task at hand is to equip and encourage youth workers.

Literally, this morning I will reshoot the podcast that was to go live yesterday and we will get right back to work. I will look into the camera and remind everyone… “What you do matters.” It does. It matters a lot.

Marko posted this on his blog today… it captures what I feel about today.

February 3, 2009

Avocado and Limes

Part of our integration into San Diego life has been the addition of two staples into our diet. It seems like all of the best foods are either cooked with or come with a side of avocado and/or lime. Once novelties, these are pretty normal on our plates.

Also part of our normal diet these days, which typically requires both ingredients mentioned above, the fish taco.

The first time I heard the phrase “fish taco” came on my first trip to Southern California. It sounded gross. Almost repulsive to think of fish in a taco. But I have to tell you that if you tuck a slice of avocado in there and squeeze a lime over the top it’s pretty good.

I would hazard to guess that just about every restaurant in San Diego has both items in their kitchen. Sure, it might not be on the menu, but I guarantee you that they are used for staff meals almost every day.

Why are the lime and avocado such a big deal? I don’t know exactly. I love both ingredients. I think it has something to do with it being so cheap though. A recent trip to the grocery store scored us some avocados at $.25 each and limes for $.20 each.

January 21, 2009

Dinner with the Bailey’s

Kristen and I are having one of those fun weeks that is also really busy. Other than Dave, we’ve not had many visitors since our moving to San Diego. That has been both good and bad. Good in that we’ve been forced to find new friends… and we’ve been doing that. Bad in that we miss so many of our friends.

Yesterday we had a chance to catch up with Bill and Shannon Bailey. Back in fall 2007, Kristen and I had the chance to spend a week on their boat, the Pacific Catalyst. It was a great week of fun and relaxation for us as we explored the San Juan Islands. The San Juan’s are a group of islands that create the border between Canada and the United States in northern Washington. During summers they lead adventure cruises in Alaska but in the spring and fall they like to lead trips near their home in Friday Harbor. We shared hilarious memories, including Shannon’s attempt to get me into a sea kayak. I fit, barely. As Bill described, my belly formed a perfect seal which didn’t need the kayaks skirt to keep out water. And I’m pretty sure you could hear a suction “pop” when I got out a couple hours later.

Bill and Shannon are some of the most hospitible people I’ve ever met. You know someone has the gift of hospitality when they make you feel completely comfortable in their space without effort. Within an hour on their boat you feel at home.

We felt at home in their company about 8 seconds after they came to the YS offices yesterday. We tooled around the offices (They’ve been youth workers forever and have known YS and the conventions for about two forevers.) then we headed out for an early dinner at Casa de Pico in La Mesa. It was fun to re-connect with them and linger over dinner, not wanting it to end. We caught up on life, ministry, YMX, and shared some stories. We even connected their lives to the life of a staff member at our church. (I love that small world feeling in the Christian world!) It was one of those nights that Kristen and I really needed.

We came home feeling very normal when we’ve not felt normal in a while. There are times when we feel like we’ve been in San Diego for a while and everything seems routine and as if we fit in. But the last few weeks we’ve felt very much like foreigners on a vacation that lasted too long. Tough to explain that emotion. But if you’ve ever moved and had to start over in life… I think you’ll understand. San Diego seems like home at the end of a long trip when we come home. But we have a long way to go until we can comfortbly declare “we’re from San Diego.”

Perhaps that what was so odd living in Romeo? We felt like we were “from Romeo” almost immediately and maintained that small town pride as long as we lived there.

At the end of our time with Bill and Shannon we said our goodbyes and made plans to meet up again this fall in Washington. I hope we get to spend more time with them on the Catalyst and I hope we get to see orcas this time!

January 14, 2009

I will not turn on the furnace

Having spent 29 of my 32 year in the upper midwest, I am resolute that we will not need to turn on our furnace this winter. Seriously, it doesn’t get cold enough in San Diego to even turn on the pilot light. Call me cheap, but I don’t plan on firing up the furnace this winter.

For those outside of Southern California. While the San Diego climate is mild year-round, it does get noticeably cooler in fall and winter. Hardly cold, but still chilly.

If you ever visited our house in Romeo you’d know that Kristen and I like to keep the house cool. Todd and his family talk about putting on layers to come over for dinner. Of course, the joke was funnier knowing that we would actually turn the thermostat up to 70 when company came over. At night, we allowed the house to cool to 58. Understand that we lived in a 135 year old house and keeping it warm all night long would mean the furnace would literally run all night long if I tried to keep it at its day time temperature of 65. At the same time, we’ve always kept our houses at similar temperatures. Some people like a really hot house, I like a relatively cool house.

So, some things about us never change. Just like in Michigan, Kristen and I wake up and tiptoe to the kettle to warm up water for coffee or tea. Just like our house was in the mid-fifties in the mornings, the same is true of our San Diego home. But, just like in Michigan, we are thinking of cheating by installing a couple high efficiency space heaters just to keep the nip off the air.

After all, we’d feel like bad parents if the kids could see their breath when they crawled out of bed.

December 9, 2008

Christmas in the City

Yesterday our church hosted an event called Christmas in the City. It was one of the most unique expressions of God’s love I’ve ever witnessed.

We are an unashamedly urban ministry. Situated in City Heights, a diverse working poor community, we reach out to the neighborhood in ways that just wouldn’t work in the suburbs. This is a great example.

How it works

The organization that actually presents Christmas in the City [er, I forgot what it’s called!] encourages church, schools, and businesses to give toys in a way that is very similar to Toys for Tots or Operation Christmas Child. Additionally, previous year’s proceeds go to purchase more toys.

On the day of the event volunteers from all over come to to create a store, checkout areas, and wrapping stations for the presents. Additionally, our church set-up some play areas, snacks, live music and activities for shoppers and their kids to enjoy while parents shopped.

This is where the line comes in. Since they’ve done this event for a few years people in the city know and depend on the sale to buy gifts for their kids. So think of this line a lot like a Black Friday line. People literally showed up at 7:00 AM for this event… which started at 12:30 PM. Thankfully, this was more civilized than a typically line at Wal*Mart.

When the store opens, gifts are sold at 10-20% of retail prices. ($2, $5, or $10) The idea behind Christmas in the City is that they don’t just want to hand parents a random gift to give to their children for free. While that is nice and many organizations do that, this is different in that they allow parents to choose some gifts for each of their children and also give them the ability to buy presents for their kids. The hope is that by doing it this way they can help the working poor while helping the recipents maintain their pride and dignity. They chose the gift. They bought it with their own money.

How did it go?

I had read about this type of event in community development books. So I had some idea that there would be a big line, that there would be a lot of toys, that there would be a lot of smiles.

I guess I wasn’t prepared for the volume. On a typical Sunday our church has 150-200 attendees. (About half non-English speaking, the other half English speaking.) There were at least that many who were in line to come to the Christmas shop. Tons of different ethnic background, tons of different stories, tons of people helped.

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for was that we’d have to turn people away. I know the need is great out there… but I never presumed that we wouldn’t have enough gifts for those who would come. We could have easily sold twice as much stuff! Now that I know how it goes I think I’ll have to do a better job promoting how people can get involved.

I’m still getting the pictures and video together. I will share that when I have it all ready.

December 8, 2008

Saturday Pictures

Megan and Paul learning about life in a light house

HT to Dave and Kristen for their presence.

November 16, 2008

Photo post: New Children’s Museum

September 20, 2008

San Diego Living

It’s been nearly a month since Megan, Stoney, and I packed the car to drive off across America. And it’s been 4 weeks now that we’ve been living in our San Diego house… not quite a month but closing in on it.

So how is it going? In a nutshell it’s going great. We are slowly getting used to a different lifestyle in Southern California. In some ways SoCal is foreign to us and in other ways we feel like we blend in.

Here’s a typical day in our house. We get up at about 6:15. That’s after a restless night of sleep… the sprinklers still wake us up at 4:00 AM every morning. Technically either Kristen or I gets up at 5:30 to head to the gym depending on who’s day it is. So days start early.

Mornings are quiet. We make coffee. I like to sit on the back patio and watch the animals explore the yard while doing my morning internet rituals. Eventually the kids get up and we start getting them ready for school. Around 7:40 I leave for the office while Kristen gets ready to march the kids up the hill to school.

Days at YS are pretty much like work anywhere else. Everyone tries to get stuff done between meetings, we go to lunch, and then we do more work between meetings. It just so happens that the work and meetings I am doing are the most enjoyable stuff I’ve ever done.. but other than that it is pretty similar to working anywhere else in my life.

Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 I head home. On days Kristen keeps the car she comes to get me while other days I just drive home while listening to NPR. (How is this different from life in Romeo again?) I love it when Kristen comes to pick me up as the kids actually come into the office to find me. They love YS! It’s full of people who love talking to them as well as a big candy jar by the front desk. They bring the fun and then steal me to go home.

The evenings are pretty basic. We have dinner, we walk the dog, we watch some TV, we go to bed. At least once a week I like to take the dog to the beach so he can run around and smell other dogs butts, chase other dogs, and pretty much just run free at Dog Beach without a leash.

We go to bed pretty early.

Weekends. Friday night has become our family date night. We try to take the kids somewhere fun… we may introduce a movie to this night as Fall progresses. On either Saturday or Sunday we go to the beach. Other than that we don’t do much. Even when we go to the beach we’re only going for 2-3 hours. For some reason we’ve started the habit of going at about 2 and leaving by about 5. That seems to be just enough time for us.

Dear Lord, Kristen and I need our date night back. It’s nice with the kids but… yeah.

So what’s different? The big point of contrast is that our lives are so simple. Life has really slowed down for me. (Conventions are coming!) In Romeo I was always running somewhere. Either for the church or YMX or family stuff… I never got to just chill out. So far it’s been nice to “reset” and just enjoy the cool breezes on the porch, watch the birds in the trees, spy on the cat eating something in the yard, etc.

Other things are very different. San Diego is a true melting pot. There are oodles of other cultures everywhere you go. I have been comparing San Diego (in my mind) to a bunch of European cities I’ve visited. Lots of languages, lots of types of foods, lots of polite “I have no idea what to say” smiles in shops. The abundance of ethnic foods is awesome.

I dig the weather… I mean, who doesn’t? Mornings are typically overcast with a “marine layer” and sometimes that means it is foggy. So mornings will have near 100% humidity until that burns off. When the sun comes out just before lunch it warms up and true Southern California emerges. It gets to about 90 at the YS offices… but never seems to be above 80 at home.

I’ve mentioned the beach several times because I like going there so much. Each time I drive down there I have this “I live here” moment! The waves are typically calm enough the splash around in and the water isn’t warm like in Florida… but so far it’s been warm enough to swim in.

What else is different? Well, we live in a city now. So yards are smaller, houses are smaller, cars are smaller… pretty much everything is smaller and more dense. It is weird to hear your neighbors talking. We have a neighbor who regularly has karaoke nights… that’s fun right there.

We live near San Diego State so sometimes we get exposed to gems like Kristen uncovered the other day at the store. Generally, food is cheaper but everything else is more expensive than in Michigan. Tropical plants are different than Michigan… we have a massive ficus tree in our backyard that would only be 4 feet tall in someone’s house in Macomb County.

This may be the most rambling post of my life. 900 words. Yikes. 901. 902.

September 7, 2008