Saturday, March 20, 2010

All Shook Up

This is the latest in a continuing series of moderately interesting travelogue blogs…

I am convinced that the sun, the beach, and especially the ocean, have some very mysterious healing powers. I recently traveled to Coronado Island in California to attend a seminar on seismic engineering, and arrived with a bruised psyche. So I ditched the first afternoon of the seminar and hung out the beach. It was very therapeutic. Thank-you, Mother Ocean...



And thanks also to my friends Debra and Mark and Sarah and Hannah and Katie for taking the time to hang with me after school, and for generally treating me like a “rock-star” while I was in town. Although, after attending the musical in which Sarah performed and Katie had choreographed, and learning about Hannah’s role in her show choir, I know who the real rock-stars are!

Okay, imagine a well-written transition paragraph right here…

Coronado Island, which, loosely translated, means “Place Where Dorky Engineers go at the End of Winter to Cause Widespread Boredom in the Indigenous Peoples” is a wonderful place. Everyone, it seemed, was tanned, friendly, and laid back. Of course, the warm sunny climate is conducive to that sort of thing.

There might be one group of folks on the island that aren’t laid back – the Navy SEALS - who have a base there. It was suggested by my smart-aleck cousin/brother/friend that we engineers challenge the SEALS to a competition of some sort. So, during a break on the first morning of the seminar, I commandeered the podium and microphone and gave one of my best speeches ever (which was actually pretty easy, since I have only given one other speech in my entire life) and got the group fired up. We excitedly broke out our calculators and laptops, crunched some numbers, and quickly determined that we didn’t stand an ice cube’s chance in hell of beating the SEALS at anything except, well, number crunching. It was at this point that we dutifully returned to our assigned seats and waited for the next session to begin…

The seminar was really good, very informative. There are some significant changes coming in the world of seismic design, but, since this is not an engineering blog, I won’t bore you with the details. Interestingly, there was a magnitude 4.4 shaker east of downtown Los Angeles a couple of days after the seminar ended.

I stayed at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort and Spa and had a terrific view of the San Diego Skyline from the walkway just outside of my room.


Pretty cool, huh?

The Marriot really does have a resort feel, beautiful grounds, friendly staff, great location. Jeez, I should get a commission from the Coronado Island Visitors and Convention Bureau…

My friends came to Coronado on Friday night and took me to dinner at Coasta Azul. This place has a relaxed atmosphere and some killer guacamole. It was a little chilly to dine al fresco, so we sat inside and had a great time.

Coasta Azul is a short walk form the iconic Hotel del Coronado.


This is the place to stay in Coronado!

On Sunday, my friend Debra came back to Coronado and we enjoyed lunch at Peohe's with a great view of the sailboats on the bay and the San Diego skyline. I tried fish tacos for the first time (when in Rome…) and they were delicious. Debra had some kind of salad thingy that looked very healthy.

I came back home Sunday evening and had the pleasure of driving the 50 miles from the airport to my house in a wet, sloppy snowstorm. Coronado Island seemed far away, but not too far. Mrs. R and I are planning to head back in October.

 Please don’t tell her about all of the high-end shopping at the Hotel del Coronado…