Category: Living

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 26, 20239:37 pm

Overgrown Hydrant

The barrage of winter storms is finally finished for Southern California—as sunny days fill the future forecast. Mountains are snowcapped, reservoirs are full, and total rainfall to date in San Diego is nearly twice the total for all of 2022.

All that precipitation is good for the things that grow from the earth—and do they! Driving down Camino Del Rio N, yesterday, I was delightfully surprised to see massive yellow flowers flanking both sides of the street. The city is quite literally in full bloom.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 25, 20239:21 pm

Balboa Buskers

We return to my most recent visit to San Diego’s Balboa Park—April 20, 2023. Busking can be friendly among musicians but competition for prime location leads to jockeying for position, too. Then there is the decibel factor, when one performer is so loud he or she drowns out and therefore drives away other buskers.

That’s the story behind the Featured Image. After shooting the companion photo—both with Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra—I came upon a flutist packing up and moving along. For good reason: The sax player bellowed with great gusto, such that no one could appreciate the higher register of the flute.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 24, 20239:14 pm

Sticker Shock

I couldn’t count the number of times that I have walked by this car, parked in one of the University Heights alleys. I don’t recall which one; they’re so similar in this part of San Diego. On April 19, 2023, I strolled past again, stopped, and turned about. The moment demanded antithetical approach: Shooting colorful stickers in black and white.

The super sharp Featured Image comes from Leica Q2 Monochrom. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/400 sec, 28mm; 5:11 p.m. PDT; composed as shot.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 23, 20238:07 pm

Just Fountain Around

Before taking stealth shots of a pair of content creators, I turned Leica Q2 Monochrom onto a skateboarder going around Bea Evenson Fountain in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s 10x zoom lenses—that’s 230mm film equivalent—let me close the distance on the two women but the photo is muddy rather than sharp.

By contrast, the captures from the camera are richly detailed with great dynamic range, even close-cropped. The smartphone’s small sensor cannot compete with the Leica’s full frame. High IQ, meaning image quality, lets me crop in and get much the same benefit of the Samsung’s zoom caapability. That said, 230mm is huge reach and not to be easily dismissed because of its overall utility on a device carried in the pocket.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 21, 20239:41 pm

Content Creators

Yesterday, I drove my daughter and her best friend to Balboa Park, where he pushed her around in a wheelchair. She will require rehabilitation, which starts next week, before being able to properly walk. Her left foot is painful and not fully functional, possibly from neurological damage. But her cognitive capabilities look good.

We are now on day 50 since she was found unconscious and suffered cardiac arrest. Our girl was released from an in-patient physical rehab facility on April 11, 2023. Being wheeled about the park was a big outing for her; meanwhile, I walked around, looking for photo ops. The young women in the Featured Image is one of them.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 21, 20238:58 am

When Vanlife Ends

What could be more aspirational than freedom? Shake off the shackles of mortgage or rent—and associated financial obligations—to travel about as a deliberate vagabond. You aren’t homeless because your vehicle is your residence. Cost-effective. Safe and contained. Simple. Free. All are allures of vanlife.

But what happens when aspiration falls far from reality? I guess that’s the state of the Featured Image, captured using Leica Q2 Monochrom, yesterday. I came upon the van for sale along Alabama Street in San Diego neighborhood University Heights. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/1600 sec, 28mm; 11:33 a.m.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 20, 202310:00 pm

Uh-oh, Busted Band But, Hey, the Watch is Okay

Gasp. Look what happened to the band on my wife’s Luminox Leatherback Sea Turtle Giant 0323 Dive Watch, which I bought for her as a Christmas present on Nov. 30, 2021; we grabbed the timepiece on a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale—and what savings, too. The manufacturer currently sells the wristwear for 68 percent more than we paid nearly 17 months ago.

Broken was yesterday, when I captured the Featured Image, incidentally. Today, we have an exact replacement band that I purchased through one of Amazon’s third-party sellers. I couldn’t find the correct Polyurethane strap on the Luminox website. But what we got looks legit and appears to be exactly like the one the watch came with.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 18, 20239:20 pm

Bike Boxes?

In the category of meaningless, but intriguing, you get the bicycle storage lockers that I happened upon today. Bikes are among the most stolen items in and around San Diego; homeless gangs grab the two-wheelers—and with no punishment or other consequence. The bicycle equivalent of a chop shop pops up suddenly; frames are stripped and equipment recombined.

Because thieves are less likely to take what they can’t see, the lockers offer some protection from prying eyes and grubby fingers. Are these boxes a novelty? An archaic solution? Progressive response to preventing bicycle theft? You tell me.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 17, 202311:07 pm

The San Diego Housing Boom is Bust

About two weeks ago, Reventure Consulting posted a YouTube short spotlighting a house for sale in my neighborhood: “$1 Million Listing in San Diego that has no buyers“. I wanted to snag a photo and write something sooner, but our daughter’s medical crisis and recovery consumed my time.

At the time that Reventure Consulting CEO and Founder Nicholas Gerli released the 53-second clip, the University Heights home listed for $1,099,000, following several price reductions. Recent history: For sale at $1,222,000 on Dec. 15, 2022. Less than a month later, January 12, price dropped to $1,192,000 and to $1,162,000 thirteen days later. That led to a pending sale for the lower list price on February 21, which quickly collapsed, and the home returned for sale at $1,162,000 on February 24. Sellers dropped the price, again, on March 1 to $1,135,000 and to $1,099,000 on the 23rd.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 16, 202310:12 pm

Men @Work

During any typical weekday, between the hours of about 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., I am likely to see more men (and some women) wearing hard hats and yellow vests than I do encounter local residents. That’s a brash statement, considering constant movement of folks walking dogs.

Welcome to the whiles of living in a close-in San Diego neighborhood, where the mantra is more bike lanes, fewer parking spaces, and increase of population destiny (by way of replacing single-family homes, lush green spaces, or commercial properties with multi-unit residential buildings).

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 15, 20239:44 pm

She Waits

One of the benefits of our old apartment was the frequent nesting of hummingbirds. They typically made their appearance about this time of year, which is why I chose the Featured Image taken on April […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 14, 202310:04 pm

How San Diego will Kill People

The Featured Image and companions document the beginnings of a disaster. For weeks, San Diego contractors have been dropping compost containers outside residences. These are in addition to recycle and trash bins already in use by apartments, condominiums, and homes across the area. Their deployment is the worst kind of stupid public policy, which is designed to protect the environment and diminish the so-called effects of climate change. Humans aren’t important enough to matter in the public policy equation.

Shortlist of grief: Animals knocking over bins and spilling rotting food into the alleys and streets. Hungry homeless people digging into the containers, also spilling rotting food, becoming sick from eating it, and likely spreading one or more of any number of bacterial infections. Disease is the clincher. These compost bins surely will be breeding grounds that could, and likely will, lead to E. Coli and Salmonella outbreaks—to name but two. One is reason enough to worry.