Tim and I arrived in San Diego last night around midnight and had a quick meeting with John and Dan at the Behemoth office before packing it in at the hotel here in Little Italy. The air outside was cool, but the non-air conditioned hotel room still managed to be hot.
I wake up at 5:44am - partly due to excitement but also because it's 8:44am on the east coast, which is way past when I normally get up nowadays. I've been on a jogging kick lately, so I attach my iPod and go to it. I start my routine with a jog AWAY from downtown, towards the airport and the neighborhood under its noisy flight path. This is a redevelopment district, so it's always fun to see what pops up. There are a variety of art galleries and boutique shops that somehow manage to stay in business despite not having any customers or local foot traffic. I like to imagine the shop owners come in when they're tired of sitting by the pool. Rather than run a business to make a living, maybe they do it to make themselves more interesting at coctail parties. A few of the galleries from last year are vacant, but new ones have sprung up. It's dead silent this early in the morning.
My jog loops around towards the waterfront, back past the hotel and in the direction of downtown. Interpol's "Heinrich Maneuver" kicks in on my iPod with, "How are things on the west coast?", which seems appropriate, like I'm in a movie. I pass Broadway and the outdoor mall with Jamba Juice (my favorite quick morning stop in San Diego) but don't stop because I still have a good bit of jogging in me. I go to where downtown dead-ends into the convention center (aka Mecca) and jog up the trail towards the Omni Hotel, where I've stayed with April during two previous Comic-Cons (she used up all her vacation days on the honeymoon this year).
From there, I loop back around and weave through the Gaslamp district, looking for changes since last year. I'm devastated to find that Bassam, my favorite local coffee shop, is vacant and available for lease. It looks like the Starbucks across the street finally won. It wasn't enough that another Starbucks was two blocks away, they had to make sure Bassam didn't stand a chance. During the Alien Hominid crunch, I would make nightly trips to Bassam for their chai latte. Sometimes I would go to Borders and listen to CDs while sipping my chai, picking out new music to fill those lonely late-night coding sessions.
Jogging back towards the hotel, I finally stop at Jamba Juice for a wheat grass shot (for old time's sake) and protein smoothie. I try to jog with my smoothie but ended up walking most the way back. The streets are still really quiet this time of day, mostly just me and the people who keep the sidewalks clean. I was caught off-guard by the sound of pounding club music - apparently 4th and B had some all-night rave that was still going into the early morning hours.
Returning to Little Italy, I pass a new gelato spot and a place called Intelligent Design, but not in the Biblical sense. I toss my cup in the trash and do one last sprint for the hotel. I figure if I don't make a post about something this morning, I'll be too busy to do it later today. :)
Mad-Mardigan
Good to see you get some excercise after sitting infront of your computer for long periods of time. : )