Earth Day at Balboa Park

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On April 16, I headed to Balboa Park for an Earth Day Festival. It was completely packed with many booths with information about the environment, worthwhile causes, politics and others. Vendors with lots of goodies were also present and of course, food, food, food. I walked around, but headed over the area between the Centro Cultural de la Raza and World Beat Center where I met with some friends.

Had a great time, walked a lot, bought an amazing purse from Good Life Roots and had fun with my friends. Can't really say I learned more about lowering my carbon foot-print, but it was a great way to spend a Saturday.

Balboa Park seen from 6th Avenue

Area between World Beat Center and Centro Cultural de la Raza

People at Balboa Park

Hare Krishna musician, very cute guy

Looove my New Purse

I Hope He Got Laid

Hey There:

One of my weekly rituals is to go to The Ould Sod on Tuesdays when they have a group of musicians playing live Irish music. I find it soothing and it energizes my creativity. I like to have one beer, read, make a plan of what I will be writing in the following week, maybe talk to some of the regulars, meet new people, etc.

Granted, the last couple of months I haven't been doing too much writing. It has mostly been talking to the other regulars and the bartender, Sara Petite, a local country singer. She's great!

Last night I got there, minding my own business, sitting in my usual spot but this time it wasn't a pleasant experience. Next to me was a couple in their mid-twenties having a drink and talking. Wait....what I meant was....SHE was talking, he had a blank stare, out in space.

This girl annoyed the hell out of me with a loud, shrill voice, valley girl way of speaking and just yapping and yapping and yapping. I mean, non-stop yapping about her current job, her previous jobs, her volunteer work, her vacation in Martha's Vineyard, and so on. I tried very hard to shut her out and concentrate on the music and my book, but it was hard. Now to be fair, they did have a 10 minute conversation where he got to speak and was animated, then she took over again and his blank stare returned.

Not sure if they were a couple, their body language said they've only recently met. Eventually they left for another bar together, he had his arm loosely around her waist and my ears rejoiced. I compared notes with the guy next to me, who was also trying to read and we both agreed, if the guy had to put up with her, he deserves to get some.

I texted a friend and he said something that made my feminist side feel chastised. I said "I can't believe what men put up with to get laid." He said "I can't believe women put up with having sex just to have someone to listen to them." But I still maintain my point, because we have the option to talk non-stop with girl-friends while they talk non-stop as well.

And I really do hope he got laid! He earned it.

Christening and Launch of Navy Ship

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I have several family members and friends working at Nassco, San Diego's ship builder. Last weekend there was a christening and launch of the latest ship named USNS William McLean (T-AKE 12). This ship's mission will be to deliver provisions to strike groups and other naval forces.The ship was named after William McLean, a Navy Physicist who conceived and developed the heat-seeking Sidewinder missile.

Personally I don't particularly like military things, men in uniform or guns. But there is something about seeing such a big ship, the music and general mood that just makes you feel all patriotic and makes those men in uniform look really handsome.

Sea Life Aquarium

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I recently was invited to an SDBloggers event at Sea Life Aquarium, the event was also sponsored by BuyWithMe.com

Now the cool thing about Vlogging is that I don't have to write too much, so I leave you with the videos and some of the pics I took from the event. You can see the rest of the pics I took on My Facebook Profile.

Starfish inside an Abalone shell

Blood Orange soda with Octopus gummies

My First Vlog

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As I get deeper and deeper into Social Media, one of my resolutions for 2011 was to start doing some Vlogging (Video Blog). Originally I wanted just to display images and use only my voice as a narrator or music, but alas, the very first one I did was of me talking directly to the camera.

First of all, never thought I'd have the balls to do it, and second I did try over and over again to only show my nails, as you will see in the clip I'm posting here. Good thing I had a great topic so I could do the video; I made a blog entry at StyleBust.com called "Nail Polish Strips" in it I review Sally Hansen's Salon Effects strips, give information about other brands and show off my own nails.

This short one minute clip took me two days and easily 15 attempts before I was satisfied. I used a Samsung video recorder, also tried my Flip camera and finally it was the webcam on my laptop that did the trick. As a first attempt it's not bad, I still need to learn more about lighting, how to speak directly to the camera, apply my make-up better, and learn how to be more fluent.

I do have to admit I liked doing it, I don't cringe when I see myself on YouTube and I know I'll be making more of these in the future.

MojoPages VIP: CorePower Yoga

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I was invited to another MojoPages VIP event, this time a little different than what we are used to. The event involved yoga, food and of course some booze. We met at CorePower Yoga, in their new location in Encinitas, CA

My previous experience with yoga has been doing it at home with a video, so it's nothing more than stretching. And doing it at the gym with bright lights, the faint sounds of pop music and weights clanking. I normally avoid yoga because my tummy and big thighs get in the way of the poses.

From the moment you walk into CorePower Yoga, you have a feeling of calm and you immediately feel far away from the bustle of the day. There is a very nice flow from the entrance to the reception, the small lounge, the lockers, their boutique and of course the yoga rooms.

We had one session of Vinyasa type yoga for beginner's, there was quiet a bit of movement with the room slightly warm, dim lights, candles and soft music. Even though there was a competition among three of us for the worst in class and a pregnant lady next to me was doing most of the moves, I didn't feel self-conscious at all. I felt free to just do what I could and not feel inadequate. There was one instructor and an assistant helping us with the poses.

The session itself did give me a good challenge and when the instructor said we would be doing the last downward dog I felt like cheering out loud. Another thing I noticed is that as I began the session some of my muscles protested, but by the end of the session I was able to bend all the way and place my hands under my feet with my legs straight. I was very proud of me and my new found flexibility. I felt the session for days afterwards, especially in my core area.

Once we finished the workout we were treated to a very good and light champagne and some really yummy protein bars. We sampled several flavors like Banana Chocolate Chip, Chewy Macadamia, Lemon Vanilla and others. The bars were offered by a local nutrion company called FitzeeFoods, they are in the process of re-branding themselves and launching their new site, as soon as that happens I'll be updating this post.

FitzeeFoods' goal is to provide a nutritional makeover with ready made meals prepared daily with fresh, organic & all-natural ingredients. Depending on your budget and nutriotional needs they offer packages of up to three meals a day plus protein bars. There might be a possibility to have a MojoPages VIP event with FitzeeFoods, I hope that happens so we can learn more about them. In the meantime I can say the protein bars were very good.

So once again, Thanks MojoPages for another very interesting event and I look forward to the next one!

San Diego Beer Club Pub Crawl

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Last weekend I went out on my first ever pub crawl. I joined the MeetUp group of The San Diego Beer Club, it was their fourth anniversary and the team organized a pub crawl in Dowtown San Diego.

I was worried before the event for several reasons, since my injury two weeks ago (One of Those Days) I still can't wear my pretty shoes and that really eliminates lots of clothing choices. Of course other than the clothes I was concerned that all the walking would make my foot worse. But my main concern....what if I didn't make it all the way? I'm not as young as I used to, maybe I would be ready for a nap half way through the event. But no matter, with clothes I wasn't too happy about and with a slight limp I arrived.

The first stop was The Tilted Kilt, that's where we all met to check in, got our pretzel necklaces, our beer n food tickets, were designated to our teams and given some trivia questions. The theme was crazy hats and there were several really good ones. We had our first and second beer there as well as lunch and then we headed to our second destination.

We went to Bar Basic, which is this really cool converted warehouse, very basic, but so chic with the warehouse doors completely open, very nice comfortable seats, a private area for reunions, pool tables and even though this time I didn't have any pizza, it smelled really good.

Here we had our second round and played the first game, which had to do with bouncing a ball on the table and making it land on a piece of bread with peanut butter...our team came dead last.

Then we were off to The Corner, where we had more beer and some hot snacks that hit the spot just right. I really liked this bar as well, we were upstairs the area looked very modern but comfortable with big windows and a breathalizer, which had a line of fellow pub crawlers checking out their alcohol level. The music was great and by that time we were all on the tipsy side. 

So of course, the games got more difficult (sneaky organizers!). This time using an opened clip at the end of a make-shift fishing rod we had to pick up keys that were on the edge of the table. Very tricky and I had to do it twice since one of our team members left....again, dead last.

Then it was a big walk all the way to Maloney's Tavern where the thing that impressed me was not the huge wall stacked with booze bottles, but the huge wall stacked with books. At Maloney's we went downstairs and here I actually felt sleepy. The basement was so dark and gloomy, the chairs so comfy that I could easily had taken a nap, but I didn't. Yay Me!

The game we played there was trying to stack on golf ball on top of another. I had to do it twice, the first time I was able to do it, but not the second time. Have no clue what place we got, at that point didn't care anymore.

Finally we had another big walk to get all the way to Downtown Johnny Brown's, I had no idea this place existed. It's in the middle of big buildings like a little house in the middle of the woods. This place is somewhere you can have lunch or dinner, play pool, enjoy beer and have a good time with friends.

No more games here, but we did get out prices. Among the hats that got prices were:

Bird Hat

Holiday Hat

Rainbow Hat

And Me!!

AND our team won for best Team Name: "Accidentally peed my pants". We got beer cozys for that.

Thank you very much to the organizers, it was an amazing event!!