here is a photo set from matthew:

and just for fun, here is a panoramic montage of the storm we were running from:

So, it's been two and a half years since my last road-trip. This time, Matthew is coming with me. I'm gonna try to make it action packed, and get as much (and much needed) facetime in.

The goal here is to take some photos of the trip, and to blog about it at night. Two things I'm not good at doing. But if you're following twitter/facebook, then you'll know if I'm doing a good job or not.

Here is the breakdown:

Thursday - The Nances
	stay in flag overnight

Friday - Road Trip
	take route 66 / I40 to carlsbad ~ all day event
	arrive carlsbad late

Saturday - Beach Day
	hit the beach
	maybe meet up with the reilys?
	find some fireworks

Sunday - Urban Adventures
	new childrens museum
	the reuben h. fleet science center
	san diego automotive museum
	san diego natural history museum - ocean oasis @ 4pm

Monday - Mission Bay
	seaworld till it hurts

Tuesday
	depart san diego

I promised last weekend i was gonna take Matthew to see the dinosaurs, and I made good on my promise this weekend -- i mean, come on, who doesn't like dinosaurs?

OK. These are most definitely NOT wings. What we're talking about here is something else entirely: a plateful of deep-fried sliced chicken breasts covered in a sweet, sticky, raspberry chipotle glaze, served atop a warm flour tortilla, with the minimal (but all important) sides of jicama and blue cheese dressing.

Now, for those of you that know me, I have a tendency to avoid cooked fruit -- any fruit in fact -- in my main dish fare. So, while I've been frequenting Carlsbad for over 2 years now with on-again-off-again regularity, I've always avoided ordering the wings, and instead always opted for the sliders. Mistake.

Wow. This dish is simply amazing. The trick (and the reason I thankfully changed my mind), as the bartender Jake informed me, is to order it "spicy". By doing so, they dump a bunch of habanero aioli in the mix -- and oh man -- now we're cookin' with gas!

The best part of this dish? When you come to find, sadly, that there's no more chicken to devour, the jig ain't up! All that hot, sweet glaze? All that blue cheese dressing that's been dripping as you transfer the chicken to your mouth? It's all right there on that tortilla. Have no fear, accept no shame -- roll that baby up, and enjoy all the sweetness and habanero hotness that it has to offer.

Caveat #1: You need to wait until 10PM because it's strictly a late-menu dish.

Caveat #2: A gutful of habaneros right before bedtime is ill-advised. Eat at 10, but go to bed at 2 (hey, that also happens to be last call -- what are the odds).

Upshot #1: Mostly chicken and jicamas, so it's high in protien and low in carbs. Then again, it's fried. But somehow seems better than eating a greasy burger and fries so late at night.

Upshot #2: (Er ... possibly a caveat) My rear balcony overlooks the parking lot of Carlsbad. If you wanna hang out call me up, and if i answer my phone, I'll meet you there!

"Duck is a magical word. Both a noun and a verb".

Boy, this is one strange film. It's so off-color that I wasn't even sure I wanted to write a review of it. That said, I took the time to rent it, the time to watch it, and the time to give it some thought -- so I guess it's only fair I take the time to write about it.

Duck is basically the amalgamation of Boy and his Dog and About Schmidt -- if you can imagine that. It's the story of an old, lovable grandpa-type fella who's lost everyone dear to him that's set to a backdrop of a dystopian future where he befriends a trusty animal companion -- his duck. We watch as they travel together, meet heroes and villains, experince trials and tribulations, and effectively discover the meaning of life. No ... seriously.

The amazing thing is that most of the time, it seems to work. I found, to my surprise, I really wanted the old man and the duck to make it. When they stumble into a drunken Halloween party, I kept getting that "oh no" feeling in my throat. It also does a pretty good job of forcing to viewer to ask themselves questions about loneliness, love, attachment, and ... the environment.

At the end of the day though, this movie is trying way too hard. And come on -- a duck? There had to be an animal that inspires more empathy than a duck. And to say that the ending (not to mention some of the preposterous situations along the way) was less than compelling is gross underestimate.

I've seen better films. I've seen worse movies. Take the 10 awards wreaths adorning the dvd cover with a grain of salt -- I think that's where I went wrong. Why am I such a sucker for indie films? I'm thinking next time i should just -- wait for it -- duck the cover.

I watched Iron Man after I watched Dark Night -- which to say the least -- sets the bar extremely high for comic book derivative feature films. And even with knowing this, this is one really great movie. In fact, I think it even did better in some arenas.

First, allow me to rattle on about what I didn't like. Now, never being an avid comic fan, there are some things I'll just never get. If Howard Stark (Is that an allusion to Howard Hughes, Howard Roark and Philippe Starck blended into one?) is such a genius, how is it possible he is the only one in the entire world with all that sophistication? The level of technology is not only implausible, it's borderline Star Trek -- right down to the quick-witted English-accented AI computer. And from a non-comic-fan, distanced perspective, it only goes to discredit the entire movie as a whole. I just kind of had to settle on the fact that this guy is a super-human genius and keeps all his stuff to himself. Riiight -- like he couldn't sell some of that to Intel.

Anyhow, from what I've been able to gather thanks to Wikipedia, the movie, for the most part, sticks to the original story line of the orginial comic, which is nice, I guess. And the special effects are certainly fun to watch. And who doesn't love watching non-descript Islamic extremists getting blown up, along with all their third-world accoutrements? Quote: "Technology. That's always been your Achilles heel in this part of the world." This part of the world? Hmm.

I'm digressing. The real reason to watch this movie (and the only reason to rent - I said RENT - Tropic Thunder) is to watch Robert Downey Jr in action. He is so hot right now. Seriously, he really was perfect for the role, and maybe that is just because initially, I was thinking how it should have been a simply awful role for him to play - but man -- he nailed it.

I think it is even fair to say that Robert Downey Jr played the cocky business man turned superhero far and away better than Christian Bale played Bruce Wayne slash Batman. It's probably because Robert Downey Jr actually was a coke-obsessed, alcoholic ladies man in real life at one point when Christian Bale was busy trying to lose 80 pounds of body weight method acting (Personal Note: Christian Bale is in fact one of my favorite actors).

He really is very good in this movie -- even with all the crazy space-age insanity existing transparently next to his trusty Audi -- he makes it all believable somehow. I rented it, but I really wished I would have seen this one in the theater. It seems like all that CG gold titanium alloy would have had more "pop" on the big screen.