Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Biophilic design connects people to nature“We’re tucking our kids into the fridge at night,” says Bob Burnett. “It’s not right.” Indeed, while San Diegans are enjoying (or cursing) the summer heat, many Kiwis, …

Who knew that power boats would be the news at this year’s America’s Cup? The world’s oldest sporting competition — for sailboats, mind you — starts up again later this month in Barcelona, Spain. No …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Igor the pelican is hungryA funny old bird is the pelicanHis beak can hold more than his belican. Food for a week he can hold in his beak, But I don’t know how the helican.That’s …

I’m at the bus stop. The one right outside the Bullpen bar in IB. Problem: last bus heading north to Coronado is gone. It’s after midnight. I’m broke. No way up the Silver Strand. And …

Could New Zealand ever be the happiest nation on earth for insects, mushrooms, plants, and animals — as well as people? I’m curious as to the answer, because down here in the less-populated South Island, …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Steen Rasmussen is banking on biochar“Biochar!” says Steen out of the blue.“Say what?” says Erik.Steen Rasmussen and I are hooped over the bar at McP’s Irish Pub in Coronado with my friend Erik …

“I keep coming back,” says the elderly lady with the walker-wheeler, Lupita. “I’ve been coming here for forty years.”“That’s more than I can say,” says Israel. Izzy. He’s sitting at 90 degrees from Lupita in …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Luke Fink, a drifter headed for homeI meet him at LAX, at one of those tables where you go to charge your iPhone. He’s watching video of cars hurling themselves around bends in …

His watery eyes are open, but they don’t blink. He’s spreadeagled on his cushion at the foot of Papa Joe’s stool, his nose and mouth splayed over his black and yellowish toenails.“It’s his last night,” …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: SD’s Fringe Festival includes award-winning New Zealand act The Only Bones ProjectWhen I hear Fringe Festival, I think of Scotland’s Edinburgh. Its Fringe Festival is as famous as its mainstream one, and it …

“It’s a very trending hobby right now,” says David Caywood-Hernandez. I have spotted him at a 901 bus stop, crocheting away at something pink and aquamarine and woolly. He’s poking a single hooked needle into …

This is scary. I’m here at the April 6th San Diego Writers Festival, a modest gathering that people are starting to take seriously: the organizers were able to promise “90 speakers at 40 events” all …

Video:Famed SEAL’s daughter makes a show out of her crazy hobbySome exotic goings-on at Danny’s Palm Bar on Orange Avenue in Coronado. A girl dances on the bar top, waving live flames about herself. Suddenly, …

Which building at UCSD is the more iconic: the ziggurated Geisel library or the Falling House? The question occurs as I emerge from the elevator on the library’s sixth floor, turn right and right again, …

“You’re on your own, dude,” says Tim. “I ain’t coming.”He says his gammy knee won’t handle the climb. Great: Now he tells me. On the other hand, we’re standing at the sign that has a …

These look like glory days for design in San Diego. Not only has the San Diego-Tijuana twin-city region been named the Design Capital of the World for 2024 — the first binational conurbation ever to …

It’s an odd feeling. I’m standing here at 12th and Imperial, waiting for my stretch limousine, aka the number 901 bus, when I spot these gentlemen. And gentlemen they are: they’re dressed in white shirts, …

Whew. Something has been made right in La Jolla. For the last decade, everybody I’ve spoken to has talked as if a little piece of this town’s soul had been ripped out. A piece that …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Escondido doula gets a taste of celebritySometimes, you get reminders that Escondido is still a country town in some ways. Like today, this gal comes into one of the coolest coffee hangouts here, …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Looking back at race relations in CoronadoWas Coronado San Diego’s most culturally diverse city, back in more racially divided days? The city’s historical society would like you to think so: it’s holding a …

Video:COVER: Why parrots, godwits, and bushtits are so good for San Diego“Get there by dusk,” says my friend Larry, “and prepare yourself for a whole lotta noise.”Photograph by Jim Brown, iStock / Getty ImagesSo here …

Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Two Mary Beths break out, buy a truck camper, and hit the road.What are the odds? Two women sitting next to each other. Strangers. They introduce themselves.“Hi. I’m Mary Beth.”“Well actually, I’m Mary …

Hanna Daly is putting finishing touches on the larger-than-life dancing lady she has painted, freehand, on the alley-side wall of a dance studio in Coronado. It’s the kind of mural Daly can knock off on …

Tuna found in the desert? OK, fair enough: that’s tuna, as in the Spanish for prickly pear, the fruit of the nopal. Ken Factor and I have spotted an ancient cactus tree growing close to …

Talking of boy wonders: Shay Horay is known as Rubber Band Boy, or the Master of Rubberbandology, or The One-Man Rubber Band. He was my last interview before returning from Aotearoa-New Zealand (as it is …

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Edric Saphire? The kid is 17, a high school senior, and the Mainly Mozart organization commissioned him to write a work honoring Mozart. Tonight, he’s here at the Conrad Prebys …

“My job is to bring this unity of consciousness through a woman who has practiced for over 50 years daily, and how I have experienced my gradual awakening.” The woman Guru Rattana (it means “jewel”) …

San Ysidro – where it's cheaper for kids to live in a motelWe pass the Las Americas Outlet Mall, where upscale shoppers and Border Patrol agents coalesce. It’s here, across the street, that a completely …

It’s a sunny morning. Scot Walker and I are sipping coffee. He’s got one of those humor-ready faces that a pretty good life on the road gives you. He’s a roadie. And it’s been a …

Original Artists Work to Restore Chicano Park MuralsArmando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on …

Last year I was the youngest player in U.S. Championship"I played Nakamura. He was 18 years old at the time, at the 2005 U.S. Championship. His name is Hikaru Nakamura. And he's the top U.S. …

He loves the people no one wants"I'm used to voices downtown, of agony and pain and just dysfunction, and I had the window down a little so I could hear. I look and there's a …

The murderous saga of Andrew CunananWhen Vulgar Favors, Maureen Orth's book about the murderous saga of Andrew Cunanan, hit the best-seller lists last month, a national audience was offered a sinister portrait of San Diego, …

La Jolla 1962 Dressed in long trousers and boat shoes and a white Lacoste tennis shirt, I accompanied Toby across Vista del Mar and Neptune Place to the Pump House and down concrete steps to …

Bridges of San Diego County I drive the roads of San Diego County with an agenda: You don’t know when you might spot another canyon dancer, a concrete Nureyev. I hike gorges and find them …

Ten Reasons Why You’d Have to Be Crazy to Live in Borrego Springs To paraphrase what Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, there is no there there — no people (population: about 3000), no movie …

Linda Vista in conflict with itself Linda Vista is San Diego’s cucuy room. People drive past it on the way to somewhere. Sometimes they go there for a specific place like Skate World but don’t …

“McKinley Elementary’s library hadn’t been updated since 1970,” says interior designer Heather Vitti Pruett. “Fifty years!” Then, back in 2018, Pruett suddenly found herself in a position to do something about that, after she enrolled …

“It’s almost like an infant,” says Jonathan Bickoff. It’s a refreshingly simple take on one of the most tortured topics currently getting bandied about among La Jolla’s digi-pioneering crowd: AI. Artificial Intelligence: an evolution-leaping phenomenon …

“I live in the Maori world,” says Te Mairiki Williams. He says this because I have asked him about his moko, the tattoo that covers his face. I asked because this is not a usual …

It’s an odd feeling, meeting in a five-million-year-old crater halfway down the South Island of New Zealand, and then hearing a San Diego song blast in your ears. I’m in Lyttelton, a harbor in New …

Popped down (up?) to my once-upon-a-time homeland, New Zealand, after a lo-ong time away. To, uh, marry the beautiful Diane. We have been talking about it on and off for years. Finally feel mature enough, …

Take two Titan Krios microscopes, a whole lot of viruses, and a sharp scientist, and you have full-on war against immune-disease. I’m still in the thrall of this local research tank which is looking into …

Behind the Border Fire fire wall Behind the lines at the Border Fire, neighbors, volunteers, county animal-control crews, and Border Patrol agents are caring for the animals left behind during the fire's sudden spread. By …

Dr. Sonia Sharma makes no bones about it: when she’s studying immune diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, she concentrates on women, not men. She is also one of those vital, loquacious academics who actually likes …

“Watch your step,” says the girl. “Watch your…oh dear. You okay sir?” I brush off dust, drink, pride, and reply, “Yes of course.” And it’s true — except for the pride part. I’m with a …

Gregg Fajardo noticed the Bowie knife on the man’s hip as the man sat there in the Mira Mesa library. Fajardo is telling me this in Clayton’s Coffee Shop in Coronado. We both came in …

“I’m not super happy,” says the normally cheery astronaut Bill Shepherd. “It’s been 50 years, and we have not been back to the moon. We have three space shuttles that don’t fly any more, that …

“Are the DT’s finally setting in?” I mumble to my friend Carlos, “or did you see what I saw?” It’s this giant…pink…poodle, walking along the avenue. We’re frozen, mid-mug, unable to continue with our morning …

“Handfasting,” says Donna Lynn, “is an ancient way to get married.” My novia Diane and I are interested. We are engaged. We want to know if we can get married this way. “It is going …