Life of Wry

Beautiful day in the way-southland. I think they forecast another day of 90s.

We chose a place in Del Mar for breakfast … a wonderful outdoor-only place called the Stratford Court Cafe–seems you can have those kind of places down here:

And yet another great vanilla-ish smoothie-like drink … this one: orange juice and vanilla powder. Jim had a Belgian waffle, I had a veggie scramble with a mountain of arugula and avocado… Mmmmm…

Eating fresh organic, outside in late October. Love California.

And for a bit of gravy: baseball!

We were lucky to be in town for a club baseball double header: UCSD Tritons v. USC Trojans. We headed over for the start of the 10:00 game…which we missed while searching for the field, but arrived in time to see Bobby at the plate in the bottom of the first.

Not too far from UCSD is University City High School. This is often where the club team hosts its home games. Nice field with shadeless bleachers.

Club ball is very low key.. it’s about fun and camaraderie, playing a sport you love. They self coach and self manage. They also provide and launder jerseys (not sure who does that), and provide most of the equipment (including helmets, bats). Players provide their own pants, belts, socks, cleats, gloves.. of course.

It’s official, too. They have umps, a league, league standings, titles, tournaments they travel to and hope to win (for example, the team traveled to Las Vegas last weekend and narrowly lost in the championship game), and big fancy things like world series (if they win their league and prevail in a series of post season tournaments). So, mostly it’s fun, but they also want to win.

It was incredibly fun, and such a bonus buy, to see Peter on the mound today. And Bobby, who played for DHS before Peter came along, and Ray.  And, AND, it was fun to play against Nate whom Peter & Ray played with in their junior year, who now plays for USC.

Look how pleased we are to be at yet another Peter baseball game:

We sat in the bleachers with parents of another freshman, Kyle T, who’s from San Mateo. Got some good info about the team, dorm life and what the first quarter at UCSD feels like from another’s perspective. Nice folks.

Peter started the second game of the double header:

He has such a distinctive style… it was fun to see that signature wind up..

Lead off batter for USC in the second game was none other than Nate. I think Peter went about 2-2 in the count before grazing him slightly on the elbow:

All pitchers today went a max of two innings. Peter pitched well enough. The Tritons won both games, 6-0 and 5-0. Good for them.

Afterward, the four former DHS varsity players posed together… Classes of 2013, 2015 and 2016…

Peter stayed to work on the field, Jim and I headed out for some drinks. Decided to check out the UTC — University Town Center — a very upscale outdoor shopping mall that we’d heard about, just across the freeway from UCSD.

After a while, we got a call from Peter who’d gone home and showered and was now ready for dinner.  We picked him up at his dorm…

…and he even let me come inside (no pics). It was interesting… cramped, messy but not horrible. They have a lot of stuff. The mini-fridge is great and very appreciated.

For dinner, Peter picked an Italian restaurant in Little Italy: Mimmo’s. Great ambiance, good service and our dinners were all excellent. My guys:

Walked around a bit after dinner..

I liked this apartment building. Little Italy’s about two blocks up from the water, great location in downtown San Diego.

There was a Lamborghini show in the street. Peter and Jim checking each one out..

Then… something bizarre… we found a new concept in desserts: iDessert…

… where you construct your own dessert via a bank of iPads set up along a long counter. Here is Peter through the window making his selections:

This guy, Jean-Philippe has come up with this unique dessert concoction and figured out how to make the entire selection process so gimmicky you want to try it. You first choose an outer meringue layer from a lengthy menu of options. Then, page by page, you customize your dessert by making similar selections in a range of categories: flavored creams, gelato flavors, sauces, cake types, crunchy toppings, fruit layers, etc.  You fill your entire order this way and then pay online. When they call your name, you retrieve your masterpieces:

Those are the upside down meringue shells, on top of all that other stuff . Jim’s is mint something, Peter’s mocha something, and mine is vanilla and coconut-themed. They were good… but a little contrived, if you ask me. Not sure we’ll go back, but interesting to try.

And that was that day. Again, mostly just a treasure to spend it with the kiddo.