Dima’s Corner

I have been meaning to visit California for a long time now and finally all the stars have aligned - I found cheap tickets, Doug was going to be in town that weekend, and I could use the trip to get out of the Iowa cold and earn my last segment to get the Skyteam Medallion status with Delta for next year.

I spent  first night with Andrew in Newport Beach, just south of Los Angeles. We used to play soccer together in high school and have not really been in touch since then so it was nice to finally catch up. We started off the evening by riding a tandem bike to Fuji Yama for some sushi. Afterward we were joined by some of his friends for a glorious night of bar hopping next to the Newport Pier. Needless to say, the bike ride back was quite a challenge!

Next day I met up with my friend Doug and his girlfriend to drive down to San Diego. Since it was Doug’s birthday earlier that week, we decided to celebrate by going sushi bar hopping. We first got some dinner at Hive Sushi Lounge and it was some of the best sushi I have ever had, and cheap too during their happy hour (seaweed salad - $2.99, sushi pieces - $0.99, sushi rolls - $2.99 and so on) - our bill for three people was $34 . That included multiple appetizers, sake, and dessert! The only thing I was not impressed with was the white tuna - it tasted somewhat different from what I am used to, but oh well. Next, we made stops at RA Sushi, Sushi Deli, Wonder Sushi Plus, Katsu Sushi, and finally made it to the Gasslamp (party) Quarter. To be honest, we were not very impressed with our choices there. We walked around for a bit, then checked out Jimmy Love’s and rounded the night up at the Shout House piano lounge It was raining pretty hard on the way back to our hotel so we were all soaked and cold by the time we got back to our Days Inn.

Next day the weather finally cleared up and spent most of the day at the famous San Diego zoo (supposedly the best in the country). I did like it and there were a lot of animals. The layout of the park was kind of confusing thou. I still think the themed exhibits at the Omaha zoo were the best when we visited a couple years ago.

Once it got darker, we went to the Harbor Island to watch the Christmas boat parade of lights. It was actually really cool to see how some of the people decked out their powerboats, yachts, sailboats, and even a giant clipper. On top of that, many had music blazing and people dressed up in Christmas outfits causing spectators on shore to break out in cheers.

Afterward Doug had to drive back up to Ventura so I went to get my rental car and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was upgraded to a convertible Mustang, just in time for better weather. I went back to Hive Sushi Lounge to take advantage of their happy hour all day Sunday deal and then crashed at my hotel room for the night.

I spent the last half a day by driving around San Diego with my top down basking in the sunshine. First, I had some breakfast at Mimi’s cafe, which I was lead to believe would be a french pastry cafe, but instead turned out to be more of an IHOP with no pastry for desert. Oh well, I will know better next time. After breakfast, I drove around the harbor, the downtown, and crossed over to the Coronado island. It kind of reminded me of southern Florida - sunshine, palm trees, sky high gas prices… I definitely miss that (minus the gas prices).

My parents came over here for Thanksgiving and we went to Des Moines to celebrate it with our friends. As everyone else, we have stuffed our faces on Thursday and then watched some Russian concerts on TV while I did some pre-Black Friday shopping online. Next day we avoided the Black Friday craziness and just went downtown to check out Pappajohn Sculpture Garden downtown and the Greenwood Park. Finally, before leaving Des Moines, we stopped by at a gun show and I got my first gun - Smith & Wesson 22A target pistol.

I have been thinking about getting a pistol for a while now and a few weeks ago took a day-long NRA pistol basics course at the North Linn Fish and Game Club in Central City.  We spent half a day in “class” learning about gun components, how they work, different types of ammunition, safety rules, and shooting basics. In the afternoon we went out to the range and did some shooting.

There was a reporter from the Cedar Rapids Gazette doing a piece on increasing number of gun permits being issued this year. He took some pictures while we were on the range and I forgot all about it. Fast forward to today and the article has been published on the front page of the newspaper so I am famous again! A bunch of people have already stopped by with some witty (and some not) comments about it.

Once again I was not able to pull a crew together to venture out to Mount Rushmore for the weekend. Instead, I saw a pretty cheap deal for flights to Tennessee and decided to go check out the Blue Ridge Mountains and kill three birds with one stone - visit a friend, cross out another state off my list (only 17 to go!), and earn six flight segments towards my Skymiles Medallion status next year (only 5 to go!).

We went hiking in the Smokies and the view of the never ending Blue Ridges, some covered in fog and clouds, was breathtaking. On the back to Knoxville we swang by the McKay bookstore - a huge warehouse filled with used books, movies, music CDs. I walked out with a couple books and a dozen DVDs to add to my collection.

The summer is almost over so my friend Cisco decided to mark this unfortunate event with a pig roast and get-together for the local Latin dance community. We did it Cuban style - the pig was gutted and placed inside a box with hot coals burning on top of the box. This slow roasting was indeed very slow taking about six and a half hours, 18 pounds of charcoal and four big canisters of lighter fluid. While waiting for the meal it was good to catch up with many people I have not seen in a while as well as make some new friends. At the end, it was well worth the wait - the (late) dinner was delicious!