I'm heading back home on Sunday.  While the house I currently live in is in Flagstaff, home will always be San Diego.  Its where I've spent most of my life, where most of my closest friends are.  It's where my Dad is, and where my sister and I go to seek respite and solitude, if only for a weekend.  I've taken to playing 'Paradise City' by Guns n' Roses when I am coming out of the East County mountains on my way in. 

San Diego is known as America's Finest City, a title earned mostly by it's climate, but driving an hour in some directions will get you into the mountains for snow or the desert for heat.  If you go west, you're in the Pacific, and if you go South, you're out of the Country.  In San Diego, we play baseball and softball year round, mostly because we can, and its fun.  The beaches are often crowded in the summer, but the beauty up and down the coast is hard to beat on the mainland.  

Sure, our only professional sports championships were won by the San Diego Sockers, who won Indoor Soccer championships ten times in eleven years between 1981 and 1992.  The Padres have been to the World Series twice, but have not been competitive for a few years, since two of their biggest stars (Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman) retired.  The Chargers are cursed with bad, greedy owners that would like nothing more than to move the team (to Stockton of all places).  Twice they have chosen to keep a GM that could not get along with a winning coach, and they cut the two best players to wear a Charger uniform (Junior Seau and LaDanian Tomlinson).  It seems that sometimes the sports teams that play in San Diego are their own worst enemies, but fans still will come out to support them (even with so many other things to do in San Diego).  

I always feel the need to apologize to my friends in San Diego that I am not able to see when I come out for short visits.  Mostly I spend time with my Dad and my Sister since we lost my Mom last year, and I never stay as long as I'd like.  I have short bucket lists of things to do and places to go while I'm out visiting.  Phil's is a regular stop for me, as is the El Cotixan on Genessee near the DMV.  I've been meaning to hit up El Indio the last few times but have not made it there since I left in 2011.  I had Lucha Libre at Petco last time I was in town, and will probably revisit there if we make it to a game this time.  Pick up Stix and El Pollo Loco are regional SoCal places that Carla and I miss a lot being in Flagstaff.  Round Table Pizza is good, not as good as Fratelli's, but it brings back memories.  

It's amazing what I miss now that I don't live in San Diego anymore.  I miss the ocean a lot, while I don't go in the water just seeing it is relaxing.  I took that for granted while I lived there.  The Golden Donut near Vons can never be beat in my opinion - after years of working early mornings and getting donuts there at 5:00AM when they were still warm.  Krispy Kreme is good too, but they still remember me at Golden - same people work there that worked there when I was in high school. 

I miss UCSD a lot.  I know other universities have been around longer (NAU was founded in 1899); UCSD was converted from an old military base (Camp Matthews) and first started taking students in 1960.  I have spent a lot of time there, both as a student and as an employee. I miss the co-workers I had there the most (I'm looking at you Jason Almazan, Anne Proffitt, Angie Thieman).