Scripps Ranch Stories
I told of its coming many moons ago. I’ve known of the location for over a month, but kept it under my hat. Now, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits is ready to disclose the location …
According to tour guide Lettice Douffet, Fustian House is inaptly named. “Fustian” means “turgid,” “bombastic,” and “pretentious” speech or writing. Lettice says it’s the blandest, gloomiest, 16th century building in Britain. So she decides to …
For the better part of its existence, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits epitomized slow craft brewing company growth. Owner Jack White and long-time head brewer Yuseff Cherney seemed content to let Karl Strauss and Stone …
Many people were surprised to see Sweetwater superintendent Ed Brand appear at the August 19 National City Planning Commission. Brand left a regularly scheduled Sweetwater board meeting shortly after it convened to attend the meeting …
Sandra Millers Younger’s new book, The Fire Outside My Window, is slated for release in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of the Cedar Fire. That devastating natural disaster burned 280,000 acres, destroyed 2,800 homes, and …
There’s plenty on the beer board for hop heads and hot heads at Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits. Specialty brewer Colby Chandler is perhaps the world’s foremost expert on crafting chili-infused beers. Allow me to …
Sometimes new breweries pop-up out of thin air, coming online within weeks of me finding out about them. Then, there are the operations that stay on my lead list for a lengthy period before being …
In the spirit of this census year, we offer this unofficial, informal, and unscientific census of daily life in San Diego. (No census workers were lynched or faked their own lynchings while gathering the following …
"Marshall Middle School envisions a welcoming environment that promotes meaningful collaboration between parents, teachers, and other community members," reads the "About Us" section on the Scripps Ranch middle school’s website. But according to a March …
The late Herb Gardner (he died in 2003) hand-wrote his plays on a Central Park bench. One day, the author of A Thousand Clowns watched two old men nearby, one black, one white. They would …
In 1909, newspaper magnate Edward Willis Scripps began planting eucalyptus on the San Diego ranch he’d bought 11 years earlier. Those trees and their descendents have become the signature emblem of today’s Scripps Ranch. So …
A Scripps Ranch man was arrested early Friday morning, June 26, at Sharp Coronado Hospital on charges of felony child endangerment and driving under the influence. San Diego police say that the man left his …
For the past three weeks, a lone male has been robbing stores in the Mira Mesa area. He strikes late at night, when there are no customers. He enters quickly, shows a knife, and demands …
In San Diego’s hemorrhaging real estate industry, it’s better to be upside-down and rich than upside-down and poor. That may sound axiomatic — it’s always nicer to be rich than poor — but carriage-trade folks …
I never wanted to move to Scripps Ranch — not with its swarming real-estate agents and white-bread, attend-the-church-of-your-choice ethos, its compliant shrubs, its matrons in SUVs, that whole lifeless suburban drone. And where the hell …
Didn't want to be here. Liked the old place better, in the city. A housekeeper's flat in the back of a Craftsman-riche palazzo in Kensington. We grew baby raccoons in winter, big shimmery spiderwebs in …
Miramar Lake, perched halfway up the dry hills overlooking Scripps Ranch, Mira Mesa, and the distant coast, was completed in 1960 as part of the second San Diego Aqueduct project. Water flowing south to the …
'In many things in life, we have a tendency to go one way or the other, and not much in between," says Richard Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute. "Once, fire was all bad. …
"Each one win one" and "Go ye therefore..." read the raised foam letters on the back wall of Mira Mesa Bible Baptist Church. Below these exhortations hung rows of framed, typewritten missives from Baptist missionaries, …
Pastor John Kim was finishing up the hour of Sunday school that preceded the service: "Why do people turn to drugs and other things? They need something to help them deal with the realities of …
Saint Gregory the Great might be an Arts & Crafts arboretum, with its huge slatted dome of a ceiling, its preponderance of windows framed by great beams of wood, its gray-green tile floor, its trickling …
In the teen section of Scripps Mesa Bible Church's library/snack room, Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X gets face-out treatment. Someone has taken a highlighter to certain passages. One such: "I wonder that all things seem …
"We're going to make some noise today!" proclaimed one of the choristers from the stage of the auditorium. "Oh, bless the Lord with the fruit of your lips! We serve an awesome God!" The drums …
"When the music fades/ All is stripped away/ And I simply come, longing just to bring/ Something that's of worth," sang Trevor Davis. "I'll bring you more than a song..." But songs were exactly what …
The movie Wedding Crashers became number one at the box office after playing in theaters for several weeks. The word-of-mouth on this movie has made it a hit. Vince Vaughn is hysterical. (Swingers, a 1996 …
Father Edward Gallagher's homily at Saint Gregory the Great began with a story of the son of a minister who left the Protestant church to become a Catholic. After Mass, Father Gallagher said many Protestant …
"There's the sign," said my wife Grace. "No, Grace, that's the Colonel. No fried chicken tonight. Tonight is all about the grilling." "No, not that sign. The other one. Behind the Chevron." "Good gravy, you're …
Having grown up in Mira Mesa, I had lots of friends in Scripps Ranch. It was our neighboring community, and in the '80s the kids there all went to Mira Mesa High School because Scripps …
When the band played a Beat Farmers song, Steve said, "Country Dick Montana [the Beat Farmer who died onstage] spilled beer on me once." I replied, "Who hasn't had beer spilled on them by Dick?"
The object is to stick a marshmallow into your mouth and say "chubby bunny." The one who can say that with the most marshmallows wins. One guy spit out bits of marshmallow and drooled down his chin.
Bunco If you're a bored mom in Sabre Springs, Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch, or Carmel Mountain Ranch, put your ear to the ground and listen for the sound of dice rolling and blenders whirring. Bunco …
Miramar Reservoir 10400 Scripps Lake Drive, Scripps Ranch 619-465-3474 "It was a hot day and, ya know, I made it," recalls Vern about the last time he rolled around Lake Miramar. "I think I brought …
Not all San Diegans flock to the beaches on sunny summer days. Some gravitate toward inland recreational spots like Lake Miramar, which offers a spacious venue for pursuits such as walking, jogging, biking, and in-line …
San Diego Miramar Reservoir 619-668-2050 The average skater can circle the five-mile paved loop around Miramar Lake in about a half hour. Vehicles are allowed Saturday through Tuesday on fishing days, but the rest of …
Dear Matthew Alice: Who is the Emmy named after? And the Tony? The Grammy? Who decreed that all these major awards have to end in y? What about the Pulitzer Prize? When will you be …
Pearce called police, but the party was over when they arrived. He refused medical attention after the incident but later saw a doctor for heart pains he said were caused by the scuffle.
"We announce a building, and most campuses are announcing four or five, and that’s expansion?' exclaims William C. Rust. The president of United States International University was understandably touchy at the suggestion that the Scripps …
He was charged with planting and maintaining the parkland trees. Most of the trees in Balboa Park, and many of those in other public places — Old Town, for one — were planted by Jerabek.