When Woodbridge “Woody” Parker Brown first beheld La Jolla in 1937, he wasn’t looking to surf. A glider pilot, he preferred air currents to wave breaks. His wife would tow his motorless airplane to the …
December 19, 2024
Articles by Chris Ahrens
Reader writer Chris Ahrens tells the story of Windansea
The e-bike memorial at Santa Fe Drive and El Camino Real tells all
I would happily argue that electronic bikes, or e-bikes as they are commonly known, have changed the transportation of humans more than anything since the invention of the internal combustion engine. These vehicles, which combine …
May 22, 2024
Finn Madsen’s FlexWave: the next wave?
Forty-four-year-old Finn Madsen grew up two blocks from where I lived in Cardiff. I would see him around when he was a young man; he rarely spoke to me or anyone else, and I figured …
January 31, 2024
Foilboards fun but not cheap
Like skateboarding, snowboarding, sailboarding, and kiteboarding before it, foilboarding sprouted from the promiscuous seed of surfing. While foilboards and surfboards appear similar if observed from the deck, their bottoms differ radically. Surfboards have fins. Foilboards, …
November 29, 2023
Happiest places in San Diego: Stater Bros., Resilience, Taylor Guitars, Hansen Surfboards
It’s another dreary Monday morning in this, the summer of yuck. As what feels like the whole world races onto a single, dreaded workaday I-5 onramp in Oceanside, stress reaches the breaking point. Horns honk, …
September 27, 2023
Ups and downs living in San Diego's safe harbors
At 2200 square feet, the average American house offers ample ways of escape from the inevitable (if occasional) unpleasantries that accompany extended cohabitation. Each party can usually find a corner into which to retreat for …
June 21, 2023
In-Ko-Pah’s Desert View Tower, the edge of nowhere
Party at the snakes' place The joke is that nobody is from here, because we are on the edge of nowhere, but, sure as snake’s teeth, the right kind of folks will settle just about …
April 10, 2023
Reader writer puts repentant bad boys on YouTube
Video:You Don't Need a Record To Attend Set Free ChurchThe painter Michael Cassidy is either the least or most practical person I know. Least in that he doesn’t measure success in terms of money; most …
January 4, 2023
Reader writer tests alternative medicine on self
Alternative medicine has been defined as “Medical therapies not regarded as orthodox by the medical profession, such as herbalism, homeopathy, and acupuncture.” But while those practices may have been filtered out from the mainstream of …
July 13, 2022