Captain John
Lastnight's dinner cruise was fun... we all boarded onto a bus (feeling like total tourist oohing and aahing out the window and asking people "what's this bridge called?") to get over to the docks where the boat was departing.On the way over we chatted w/ a few guys Rick's met at previous conferences... and since they reside in San Diego, we asked em a few q's about places to go, etc. They hadn't heard of a number of the places I'd been recommended to hit. Like The Whistlestop Cafe - which apparently all the indie kids who are tapped into Keep it Like a Secret go to on Sunday nights. They had heard of The Casbah of course (for those in SF, it's like the Bottom of the Hill of San Diego) - and we'll be hittin that for sure either tonite for some old school punk (TSOL) or tomorrow night for the Dirtbombs show (Detroit garage band type o rock, but Grandpa Ajax just saw them and said it wasn't so good, so I'm wary)
OK - so back to the boat story -- Our dinner on the boat was DELICIOUS, the most notable I must say was the dessert: Chocolate Mousse in a square of thin crisp chocolate witha strawberry on top. MMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chocolate Mousse is my absolute favorite dessert EVER. Funny thing is that I hardly eat sweets anymore. (I may have mentioned this another time, but it's just kinda big news to me) I used to have SUCH a sweet tooth and go for a little "sweet & treat" most every single day. But lately I don't crave sweets at all... and 1/2 the time I will even decline offers of a taste or dessert cuz it just doesn't sound good. I think once you're out of the habit of eating sugar like that, your body looses the addiction for it. Pretty cool, really. That said, put some creamy chocolate mousse in front of me and my eyes get big & my mouth starts watering. YUUUMMM!!!!
After dinner the Captain came around saying hello to everyone and passing out a photo of the ship we were on. We all joked looking shocked, "Well, if you're down here... who's drivin this thing?!?!" Comically (actually to him he was being quite serious) he looked out the windows and said, "Oh, I've got someone up there... he doesn't have a license, but I can see it looks like he's doing pretty good". ha!
I asked him if he'd autograph the photo he gave me and he said, in all seriousness, that so many people want it, however he doesn't have time because he really had to get back to driving the boat (as he looks out the window to check if the guy driving the boat for him is still doing ok) -- but that if we'd like his autograph, we could go up on the top deck, where he drives the ship, and get it there.
Well don't you think I didn't take him up on his offer, cuz I was going to get his autograph, dammit. This just isn't any captain you know... It's Captain John!
He's been "on the sea" since 1953. Wow, huh? He said he used to drive some big boat (that's my technical term) up to Alaska and back - so I asked him if he'd ever seen an Aurora Borealus - and he said yes, lots! Wow, I would love to see one of those someday.
He signed our photos alright (which Rick claims he put a little more love into mine :) and when we were getting off the boat, Captain John even remembered my name! I heart Captain John.
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Today I'm gettin just a bit of work done here - and then we check outta here at noon, head over to our other hotel and then plan the next big SD adventure! Will it be LegoLand? San Diego Zoo? Tijuana?
Stay tuned.
