Geek's guide to San Diego

Weather It is looking like we will get some real nice weather for the camp. Highs in the low 70's, lows about 55, and it looks like it will be partly cloudy, no rain in the forecast. Friday March 10, was just another perfect day in paradise. Looks like today, Saturday March 11, will be the same. You can see the forecast here. That forecast is for the airport, which is on the ocean, which moderates the temperature. The highs tend to be a bit higher and the lows lower inland.

Food Camp Smalltalk is in north county. I do not have any experience eating up there. Eleanor Widmer is one of the better restaurant reviewers in SD. Her reviews can be found on-line at the reader. The reader is a free weekly paper that contains all the events for the area. It comes out on Thursdays in hard copy and is on-line.

The hotel, which is located just west of the I-15 corridor, is near some fast food places. Further north on I-15, at the Carmel Mountain Road exit (east), you will find a large shopping complex with a Staples, the main Post Office, movie theaters, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc., plus several restaurants of all types. My favorite is Claim Jumpers, the portions are large and the cost is reasonable. There is also a Chevy's Fresh Mexican (Bill Gates favorite restaurant), a TGI Fridays (great Jack Daniels steaks), a California Pizza Kitchen (gourmet "pizza"), plus other smaller establishments. Paul Webber

Events See the events section in the Reader. It covers concerts, movies, dance, museums, outdoor events, sports, etc.

Hiking & the Beaches There are lots of places to go hiking/walking in SD. See Jerry Schad's article Roam-O-Rama in the Reader. His book Afoot and Afield in San Diego County is very good. My favorite is Torry Pines State Park, which is just north of La Jolla. The park beaches, cliffs, great views from top of the cliffs, hang gliders, and interesting vegetation and landscape. A warning about the beaches in north county: the sand gets washed away during the winter, so some of the beaches in tend to get rocky. (I am spending the year in Illinois so I can not give a first hand report.)

Fry's Electronics This is the home depot of computers and electronics. It has nearly everything. The only place I know that you can pick up a new hard drive, new CPU, a spool of cat 5 wire, a Red Hat CD and a new refrigerator. They sell computers too :)

San Diego Technical Books This is a very nice technical book store. Where else can you see the three books on CDMA before you buy one of them? The Smalltalk section is rather thin, but I did get some of Kent Beck books there.

UCSD The campus is on the cliffs near the ocean. The campus has some interesting sites. The Birch Aquarium is very good. The campus has a rather interesting outdoor art collection, called Stuart Collection. The art is scattered across campus. The big bird (you can walk between it legs), talking trees, stone hedge, the seven deadly sins & seven virtues, and the snake. From the lobby of SDSC (San Diego Supercomputer Center) you can see into their machine room and see the Crays and the Tera.

Might want to add: Reuben H Fleet Space Center (Balboa Park) and Dave and Busters. There is also a computer gaming center in Mission Valley. The Star of India (very old boat) is in Seaport Village (downtown). If you want to visit the beach, try the silver stand in coronado. You'll get to drive across the coronado bay bridge. The other good beach is pacific beach by the roller coaster.