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 …

Idyllic Spanish Village shaken by mystery stabbing “Then I heard male voices outside on the patio. I didn’t look up because I didn’t want to be noticed. The voices moved left to right. I never …

“All my tuxes are in Texas,” says this gent. He laughs a Texas-size laugh. I’m looking to rent a tux for myself. It’s not something I’ve done a lot. But there’s a lot to it. …

Ukraine? Bohdan Zukewycz has seen it all before. “My parents were slaves of the Nazi regime. What happened was, Hitler started cattle-car [transporting] people to work in his factories, so young German people could go …

Grief is like carbon monoxide At this point, this article is going to seem to go seriously astray, so I might as well come clean. My aim is not simply to write about hospice, though …

Orchids and Onions — 20 years later The ’95 jury opened by dubbing 1976 Orchid-winner Rancho Bernardo “the ultimate suburb.” Nicoloff and Collins concurred, calling it “one of the few really successful and well-planned new …

The Loud Adios I wrote a story about her, called it ‘The Blue Fox.” and decided not to give it to the singles’ magazine. The publisher probably would’ve turned it down. It wasn’t dirty enough …

Is it just me? Harken to KPBS: “Thank you for listening and supporting KPBS…” This is KPBS, member-supported radio, with assets of, what, $75 million? You do a double take. Say what? “Thank you for …

“Hey, Eduardo!” Pedro, 16, shouts out some joking conversation that’s way too fast for my halting Spanish. Luckily, he’s talking to his three pals and not me. The four of them, all 16-year-olds, have plopped …

Something happened last month when I went down to New Zealand. I fell in love. Again. It was Diane. I had known her in student days. She was bright, shy, that unexpected laugh, those unexpected …

I’m trying to write this aboard the #1 bus. Ha! Judder judder judder judder JUDDER! You have to wonder how these buses hold together. The road surface rides like a bulldozer had grooved the tarmac …

“I remember when Nestor [Judkins, friend, famous skateboarder, do-gooder] first called me and said the words ‘Let’s build a skateboard park in Pakistan.’ My first thoughts were, ‘Can we go there?’ I didn’t know much …

Waves crash on the edge of the Tasman Sea. Kapiti Island blocks a clean horizon that stretches to Australia. And the ghosts of 20,000 Camp Pendleton Marines who formed the “friendly invasion” of 1942 feel …

Two things you notice about Chris Dent: He’s albino, and he plays a Taylor guitar, straight from the Taylor factory in El Cajon, California. Chris happens to be onstage right now, here in Christchurch, New …

“We are sisters under the skin,” says George Andrews. I’m visiting my friend during a lightning visit to Auckland, New Zealand. George is a leading commentator on the politics of the Pacific. Here, he’s talking …

She’s wearing her red jacket. It flaps around her as she jerkily spins around and around. Makes her look as she must have when Roger first fell in love with her. He has a play …

American Bully Contest judge James Roman has his own conviction about why pit bulls have a stigma attached to them: it’s their owners’ fault. “The stigma around pit bulls is the owners,” he says. He …

John Bucur is a barista in a San Diego coffee bar, but he’s got another life. A life filled with…algae. “Here’s the thing about algae,” he says. “You can grow it anywhere. On parking building …

Caw! Caw! Talk about a dawn chorus! Six in the am. Half a dozen crows swoop and holler above the little patio in back. They keep it up for half an hour before I finally …

Tyler Barry points his two metal rods towards the earth in front of him. He’s not exactly looking at what he’s doing: his eyes are closed, as though he’s listening for something. Then he starts …

My buddy Kevin and I see her just about every time we head for what until recently we called our polar bear ocean swims. Because every day, she’d come swooping around the wide curves of …

“I’m really just a rock and roll girl,” says Teresa Gunn. “But this has made me a poet of the streets.” “This” is Gunn’s program of arts for young mothers at the margins of San …

I wasn’t paying much attention to anything except this dog, Teo. Milton Cadiz, his owner, was explaining to me what had happened. I knew it was something bad, because the little guy had only two …

“Crackles and pops?” says Greg Hildebrand. “They’re the most valuable part of vinyl recordings. They give them individuality.” Hildebrand owns one of the better-known havens of hard-to-find LPs in the county, Cow Records in OB, …

The sun is hot. The sun is yellow. The sun is in the sky. It’s been a long day for Jovanna Venegas, starting out as she did so early in her room in the house …

Travis Jackson has been here before. Good times and bad. And he still has faith in the sport fishing business. Proof? He’s refitting a 62-foot boat, Patriot, to take passengers down to places like Cabo …

“Me?” says Robert Alfonso. “I am a half-breed.” He says it just as a matter of fact. No apology, no irony. A statement about his life as an “Indo-Dutch” child. We’re sitting at his new …

“OMG,” says my friend Erik. He’s calling me from McP’s Irish pub on Coronado’s Orange Avenue. “Get your butt down here right now. A beer god has descended!” He clicks off and I go on …

It’s the cold night of January 28. Outside the Mexican consulate in Little Italy, a bunch of journalists, maybe half of them American, half of them Mexican, gather for a vigil. We’re paying tribute to …

The Silk Road Ends in San Diego “One of the Russians said, ‘Treat these [Russians] and kill these [Afghans].’ The other doctor said, 'How can I do that?’ The Russian said, 'Like this!’ and he …

It’s a miracle! She’s back! Heather the hummingbird is back! I’m talking about the little hummingbird who whirred into town one day and started threading together a perfect egg cup nest on a dangling branch …

“The Red Flag Now Flies Gallantly Over Tijuana!” reads the headline in Hellraisers Journal, Saturday, May 27. Of course, that’s Saturday, May 27 of 1911. Things were happening, right outside where I’m at in TJ, …

San Diego’s active Haitian Pastor Johny (sic) Oxeda has a new weapon: his food truck. He uses it to reach out to his flock, to give them a taste of home. Also, to spread Haitian …

“Attention!” It’s midnight on Friday. A shirtless, tattooed guy jumps up onto the counter at Danny’s, the Coronado bar in which Navy Seals and other special ops types like to gather to let off steam. …

Captain Billy Hunts a Human Martinez escaped in the brush. But his wounds— three buckshot near his right lung, two lower down — and the December cold forced him to the Gaskills’ house at 4:00 …

My good neighbor Kevin and I are walking into the ocean, towards the white waves of a gray winter’s day. Water temp is high fifties. Knife-like breeze makes the air feel colder than the water. …

I was reminded of my meeting with President Jimmy Carter the other day when news broke that the organization he’s intimately involved with, Habitat For Humanity, had come up with their first-ever 3-D printed house. …

Old Haunt “They tore down the original hotel and put the facade in crates. Then they tore down another building and put that façade in crates. Then they built a new building, stuck the old …

Risky Wasteland Because the ordnance littering the Carrizo Impact Area was dropped from planes, a lot of it imbedded itself in the sand as far as 30 feet down. Over the years, the earth has …

My friend John Drehner is in ebullient pre-Christmas spirits. “What do you get when you cross a centipede with a chicken?” he shouts, rubbing his hands against the chill. “Uh? Uh? More drumsticks. Bada-boom!” He …

“Can we be serious!” That’s me, trying to get a shot of Allison (“Allie”) Demers, 22-year-old stage actress, singer, composer, veteran of acting school, recipient of an MFA degree in musical theater from Indiana University, …

Where the Bikes Are I noticed one guy playing pool using a broom as a cue. He looked as if he might have been an extra in a movie with a title like Chainsaw Rapists …

I’ve always been a tad cynical about anything cute. Think portraits of children with giant Disney eyes. But I do have chinks in my armor. Here’s one: ambling down C street in Coronado t’other day, …