I met Nick for lunch yesterday. We went back to the Tin Fish since the food was good & it's right across from the convention center. One of the guys he worked with at Tufts happened by & joined us. Nick's all dressed up because he chaired a session that morning. That book he's looking at is the program for his conference - Experimental Biology. He was trying to decide what to attend in the afternoon. After lunch, I did a little shopping in the Gaslamp District and then headed over to Balboa Park. My first stop was the Botanical Gardens. The building is made of wood lath & is one of the largest of its kind in the world. It was built in 1915 and houses over 2000 plants both permanent and seasonal. Apparently there is a "carnivorous plant bog" in there, but I didn't see it...They had a large display of Easter Lilies right inside the front door.
Lots of iris and orchids all over the place.
I'm partial to the ferns. I think I was fascinated by the visual effect of this same kind of fern last time I was at the Balboa Park Botanical Garden.
These two plants seemed to have a nice contrast, both in shade of green and in texture.

This building houses some of Balboa Park's museums. All of the architecture is similarly ornate. It was originally built for an exposition celebrationg the completion of the Panama Canal in 1915-1916. Additional structures were added later at an exposition in the mid-1930's that was held in the hopes of alleviating some of the economic trouble of the Great Depression. The Balboa Park complex is massive. It includes more than a dozen museum, parks, gardens, performing arts venues and the famous San Diego Zoo.The museum of Photographic Arts is housed in this building.
Natural History Museum. I'm going to check out their special exhibit on Pompeii today.
I came across some more ferns in a little place called the Zoro Garden. They were just uncurling. I think it's pretty cool how they develop, so I spent a bunch of time taking pictures of them.

Here's one that's almost fully spread out.
When I was done at Balboa Park for the afternoon, I headed back toward the Convention Center to meet Nick. We went back to our room to change & get ready for a reception hosted by Tufts University for it's alumnai. There were quite a few of Nick's friends & colleagues there. Left to right - Sue, Dan, Sai, Nick, & Gaston. Sue was everyone's advisor, the rest were working on their PhDs together. It was a really nice reception & we both enjoyed seeing old friends.

(Sorry about the quality - my camera setting dial moved & I didn't notice!)

After the reception, Nick & I went to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel called the Indigo Grill for a bite to eat. Have you ever seen such massive servings??? It was really delicious & the restaurant had interesting decor. My dinner was a Pork Porterhouse with orange kiwi salad (spicy), grilled plantains, smashed potatoes and some kind of onion string things. Nick had grilled chicken with rice pilaf, a huge mixed green salad in a shell and black beans. It felt like we needed to be rolled to the door when we were done. It was so tasty it was hard to stop eating it all!

After the late night with Jay on Saturday, Atashi & I lazed around all morning. Nick, on the other hand, got up and ran at 7am then went off to his meeting. Sean called around 1pm to let us know he was in town and we headed down to Seaport Village to meet him. He brought Michelle with him. They've been dating for a couple months. We had lunch in a restaurant on a pier. The salmon was yummy. Sean had it in a sandwich, I had it grilled with sauce & Michelle had it in a Caesar Salad...
After we finished eating we walked outside & these ships were passing by. What a contrast!
The building on the right is the restaurant where we ate.


Apparently I ignored my camera the rest of the day. Atashi headed back to Huntington Beach after lunch. The rest of us wandered back to the Gaslamp district where we landed at the Hard Rock. We hung out there for awhile and each had a beer. After that, Sean & Michelle dropped us off at the hotel & went back to Santa Monica. Nick and I relaxed at the hotel for awhile until it was time to go to the Hyatt for a reception hosted by one of his scientific suppliers - Cambridge Isotopes. He got to see some people he knew. After that we grabbed a nice dinner in Little Italy. I had a fabulous filet and Nick had pasta with italian sausage. It was an excellent dinner.

Long time no see. Obviously Jay was happy to see Nick. Jay drove down from Huntington Beach yesterday around lunchtime. We took him up to the rooftop bar to check out since it was so cool & then went in search of coffee. There was a Starbucks at the Convention Center, so we grabbed some Joe & headed down to the waterfront. It was a beautiful day - sunny, cool and windy. There were lots of people flying kites.
We wandered closer to the water & stood along this fishing pier for awhile talking & watching the boats & people. What a perfect day!
There were tons of sailboats taking advantage of the brisk breeze.Here's a view of the city from where we drank our coffee.

The Convention Center is the short building with the row of blue/green windows running from left to right. The section with the white peaked roof is also part of the Convention Center. After our coffee, we went in search of a bar to wait for Atashi to get done with her meetings. We ended up at a place called Jimmy Loves. Eventually we got tired of waiting there & headed back to the Marriott to pick up our bags and check into our new digs - Hampton Inn. Atashi met us at the Marriott, we trekked over to the Hampton & headed into Little Italy for dinner. At the wine bar we chose to eat at, Jay, Nick & I all ordered BEER...hmmm. Jay is more of a ham for the camera than Brandon - that seems hard to believe doesn't it??? Maybe he was unsure about the rpospect of being blogged... Or maybe he was still disconcerted by his poor beer pouring skills....He said he was out of practice, but this is a little extreme!
Nick chose to order an Olive and crostiti plate for dinner. It was ALOT of olives. Apparently he didn't know there was a "too many olives" line that could be crossed. He found it last night... I had a Caprese panini which was huge & shared some of it with Nick. For dessert we all shared Strawberry tiramisu - YUMMY!!!

Are you wondering where Atashi is? She was sitting next to me - I guess I never got her in a picture last night...hmmm. Sorry Atashi!

After dinner we retired to our hotel. Jay hung out for a couple hours with us just talking like old times. I think he left around 1:30 in the morning. It was fabulous to see him again.

San Diego - we started out our first full day by having an early lunch at a place called the Tin Fish. Nick had fish tacos & I had fish & chips. The restaurant is right across from the Convention Center and a good place for people watching. The food was good too.
After lunch we drove to Carlsbad to see a Botanical Garden - it turned out to be a field of flowers behind a garden center. However - Legoland was right next door. We got a shopping pass that allowed us to go into the park for free for an hour to buy stuff in the gift shops. It's pretty cool to see all the things they can build with Legos!

Nick thought about a light sabre clash with Darth Vader, but R2Dt convinced him it wouldn't be a fair fight...

They decided to just be friends :-)
On the way back from Carlsbad, we drove along the ocean. There were lots of Pelicans flying around. It was grey and windy and a bit chilly, but still fun to stop and look.

Check out this picture in a larger format ... the longish dark shape in the water is a dolphin. Pretty cool.

That's Nick - not as uncommon as the dolphin sighting...
Nick's tired of being in all the pictures, so I agreed to hand over the camera - briefly. Aren't the cliffs in the background interesting?
After our sightseeing, Nick & I met up with Chad, a former colleauge from UAMS. We went to the rooftop bar at our hotel to have a couple drinks while we waited for Atashi to join us for dinner.
The rooftop bar overlooks Petco Park - home of the Padres. For no cover charge and a cool atmosphere, you can watch the game from the roof while drinking overprices beverages. I paid $15 (including tip) for a top shelf martini! OUCH! Oh well - it was a pretty cool place to hang out. That evening the Padres were playing the Dodgers. I have no idea what the outcome of the game was.
After the rooftop bar, we all went to a place called Micky & Lou's for dinner. Nick had steak, I had salmon. It was all really good - so was the grey goose martini :-)

After dinner, Atashi & I just HAD to stop in a couple of shops that were still open (at 11pm!) Atashi bought that green shirt she's wearing. I bought the jewelry I'm wearing. Nick was very patient with the whole process...

Having had enough late night shopping for the evening, Nick found a comfy chair & surfed the web while we browsed this cool little shop.