The world contains unending beauty. As the years roll on, much comes and goes, but beauty remains.
So now I’d like to close out another blogging year by wishing you all a Beautiful New Year!
Where did I head today to harvest some stunning photos? To the amazing Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park, of course!
Come with me…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Happy New Year!
Beloved, legendary sports broadcaster Dick Enberg has passed away in his La Jolla home. Many in San Diego and around the world are heartbroken.
On September 29, 2016, the final home game of that Padres baseball season, I was privileged to see retiring Dick Enberg’s public celebration at Petco Park.
If you’d like to see a few images from that day, here is that blog post.
Your help is needed to help restore a beautiful U.S. Navy sailor memorial in San Diego. I’m speaking of the USS Bennington Memorial Oak Grove in Balboa Park. Some of the 66 oak trees planted to honor the victims of the USS Bennington boiler explosion in 1905 have themselves died. They need to be replaced.
The San Diego Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is working to restore and improve the historic oak grove with the help of hardworking Boy Scouts and locally-based U.S. Navy sailors. You can read more about these efforts here.
But money is needed. Donations are sought to purchase new trees. Please contact the San Diego DAR to learn how you can help honor and beautify the USS Bennington Memorial Oak Grove.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Are you a blogger? Do you want to help make the world a better place? You might want to join Bloggers Lifting Others Generously.
Here are seven posts from Cool San Diego Sights that might touch your heart. The following links contain powerful memories. You’ll find sadness, joy, hope, and much inspiration…
9/11 Firefighter’s legacy: Two Sons and Stickball.
A heartwarming Christmas tradition in San Diego.
Art by creative homeless provides purpose, hope.
Combat veterans create art to bring hope.
Quotes from the Tony Gwynn public memorial.
Students interview veterans for USS Midway exhibit.
Gratitude expressed by random people in a park.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
As you can see from the above snip, my blog Short Stories by Richard has a brand new look!
I’ve polished many of the stories (and now two poems) to such an extent that I feel comfortable launching a new domain and website.
Are you curious?
Many of these short stories might seem a bit different. Some are happy, some are sad . . . most are a shifting mixture. I try to arrive at essential truths in surprising and creative ways. Human life is illuminated using sudden revelations. All of these works of fiction are very quick reads.
The poem I just published, A Brief Note, sounds dire as you read it. But read to the final two lines.
Anyway, I truly appreciate all of you who follow my adventures in photography–and creative writing! Life is a continuing journey . . .
Richard
I’ve made a couple of cool changes to my website! Now it’s easy to enjoy Cool San Diego Sights (plus my other blog Beautiful Balboa Park) in dozens of languages!
If you’re viewing this page on a computer screen or large tablet, you will see a Google Translate button near the top of the sidebar, on the left side of your screen. Select your preferred language and everything on the website will be instantly translated!
If you’re using a smaller device, like a smartphone, click those three parallel lines up at the top of this page and the sidebar will open up. Google Translate should be the first thing you see.
What else is new?
I’ve added buttons to my sidebar which make it easy to follow Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr! I only update my Pinterest and Tumblr pages every few months, but if you’re on those social media platforms, you might want to check it out!
As always, please feel free to share anything you happen to find on any of my blogs. It’s all for fun!
By the way, I just finished writing a new short story for my Short Stories by Richard blog. It’s called The Silver of Ice. It’s based a bit on my own personal experience, when I lived on the high plains many years ago.
I’m going to Balboa Park in a few minutes to check out something that should be really cool. I’ll post photos when I get home!
Have a great Sunday!
Richard
Some powerful canvases by talented artists are now on display on the first floor of the downtown San Diego Central Library. These artists all happen to be homeless.
The artwork you see in the following photos was created with the help of HEAL, a nonprofit organization that provides purpose, hope, and a creative outlet for the homeless in San Diego. Homeless Empowerment Through Art and Leadership has a Mobile Art Studio, allowing anyone on the streets to freely express themselves. Locations include Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, and the downtown library. To learn more, click the photos of signs below and they will expand for easy reading!
If you’d like to shop for art that supports San Diego artists affected by homelessness, please visit HEAL’s Etsy store. The money from your purchase of artwork goes directly to the artist! (And please share that store’s link with your friends, too!)
If you happen to be homeless and are visiting my blog, first of all welcome! When I was young I was homeless myself for a time. But I found my way out of that maze and now have a hopeful, fulfilling life.
If you’re homeless, one thing you might consider doing is starting your own blog. You can easily start a free blog on WordPress. A public computer at the library is all you need! it’s actually pretty easy and if you accidentally mess up you can make changes or start over.
You can blog about anything that interests you. As you can see from my own blog, I like to walk around San Diego, take photographs and write short stories. After blogging consistently for a good while, Cool San Diego Sights now gets hundreds of page views every day! If I can accomplish that, believe me, anyone can! You just have to stick with it.
If you’re an artist and have a smartphone with a camera, you can use it to upload your own art online. Not only will that make you feel fantastic, and possibly open new avenues for your future, but by sharing your artwork with the world you might uplift the lives of many other people, too!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Perhaps the greatest, most difficult quest of our intelligent species is for a simple Theory of Everything. Everything–the entire cosmos–explained: easily, elegantly.
I just finished writing a short story concerning this. I’ve titled it The Perfect Snowflake. You can follow the link if you’d like to read it.
My writing blog Short Stories by Richard is the home to many small works of provocative fiction.
You’re invited to enter that universe.
Cool San Diego Sights now features over 15,000 photographs! Would you like to share or use any of them?
This blog makes no money. Its purpose is simply to enjoy life. With it I try to more closely observe this wonderful world, learn a bit about the people I meet and the city where I live, spread a little joy, and perhaps help others who are striving to improve the community.
This blog has many visitors. From time to time I receive inquiries about using my photos. Please feel free to share any of my images. All I ask is that you provide credit to coolsandiegosights.com and, when possible, provide a link to my website.
While my modest photographs might not be of the highest technical quality, over the past four years I’ve managed to capture a good slice of San Diego. To find photos of a particular place or thing or event, simply use the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or if you’re an experienced user of Google Search, you can utilize that method, too.
Finally, thank you for swinging by Cool San Diego Sights. And thank you to my many friendly followers. I’m just an ordinary guy who walks through the city a bit randomly, exploring life. Some of you I know personally; many others visit from all around this great big amazing world.
I have a lot of fun blogging, and I hope you all are having fun, too!
Richard
Perhaps you’ve noticed I love to write fiction. I love to combine words. Words are tools that can dig toward truth.
I’ve recently written three short stories that are absolutely dystopian. They concern advancements in technology and the possibility of our own dehumanization.
I’m not a pessimist. I prefer to smile and generally try to find and highlight good things in life. But I also strive to be intellectually honest. I recognize that the human world contains both light and darkness. And some of my stories can be quite dark.
These three dystopian stories are: Life Made Easier, A Ship Without Ghosts, and What the Giant Saw. Click the links if you’d like to read them.
It’s funny–the latter, most recent story was written yesterday as I sat beside the small river in Balboa Park’s beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden. Looking down at the living water, I felt strangely like a giant. Perhaps my stream of thought emerged from that feeling.
All of my modest works of fiction can be found at my website Short Stories by Richard.
Cool San Diego Sights! 