Ventures & Such

A weekend worth bantering about, revelations, and a funny little thing called love. Sometimes one gets so caught up with routine and living a life in the comfort lazy-zone, that the things one once loved are forgotten. There's this city nestled on the coast about an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles where I grew up called San Clemente. There's eroding geological wonders, vanishing beaches, epic waves, and my old bedroom that's been taken over by my parents belongings. You know you're back in your old neighborhood, when you can hear the roaring horns of trains traveling alongside the sand and the moist ocean air, sifts a salty layer upon your skin. It's happiness really.

You realize that L.A. is a city which offers you glitzy entertaining options, musical venues aplenty, eateries galore, pretty spectacular people watching, but no sea. It'd been forever since I actually took a walk down to the beach and swam out into the Pacific, and let me tell you it was a religious experience, perhaps what an ultra religious person might feel upon being saved. In fact, I was saved that sunny Friday afternoon as I dove under waves and floated about so free. Later that evening I finally took out my new 9'8 surfboard, which I freshly waxed with my brother and we paddled out. The bright blood-orange sun began making its way down into the shadowy blue waters, and my heart sank with it. I caught a few good ones that evening, nothing spectacular, but that of the entire day. Saturday brought forth business in San Diego with some lovely individuals as we set off in our Party Bus/Limo for a Brewery tour.

Green Flash was first up on our list as we sipped on fine beers, pregaming for some ridiculous reason. Six bucks bought you a flight of beer, TEN beers which were all really quite fantastic. My favorites included the Hop Head Red Ale, Imperial India Pale Ale, and Double Stout. All the beers exuded unique features in the palatal region, and the beerstresses schooled us and gave a grand tour of the place. Next on the list was Lost Abbey as we continued with our buzz.

Of all the places, I thought that this was likely going to be my favorite of the 3, however due to unfortunate circumstances of a supposed on again off again fridge problem, the beer wasn't as cold as it should've been. I'm a belgian lover, don't get me wrong but these were just boring. Their Inferno was probably the most exciting, but nothing really caught my tongue except the Hop 15, having the perfect amount of hops. After we finished up here, Stone Brewery came quickly upon us as we had a little dance party and acrobat spectacle back in our pimpmobile.

If San Diego had a Disneyland of breweries, Stone would win first prize hands down. It's extravagant design of mixing rustic California adventure, with an outdoor wonderland of creeks and lush greenery is simply amazing. We ordered a few over priced appetizers and drank a few delicious cold ones outdoors. Lagunita's was one of the beers I love, love, loved and there was another one, but really you expect me to remember the name?

And that was my "magical" weekend, as Huell Howser would say. Many more to come of course, I'll be giving you a full report on the Flaming Lips performance, which will be happening August 15th at the Del Mar tracks (you should go, only 6 bucks & there's a beer fest) in the coming weeks . I leave you with something lovely, an Elliott Smith cover by my beloved Wilco...

Wilco-Thirteen (Elliott Smith cover)