Tag: city life

The Pompom Project in Civic Center Plaza!

Are those Christmas ornaments hanging from the trees in San Diego’s Civic Center Plaza? No! They are pom poms made of yarn!

The Pompom Project has decorated the Civic Center with many bright spheres of color. Artist Katie Ruiz and the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego produced this cool installation with the help of the people of San Diego. A goal is to bring strangers together in our community.

This public art is a part of Creative City, a cultural planning project of the City of San Diego.

I took these photos during my downtown walk this morning…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Street art shows reasons to Visit Escondido!

A love for Escondido shines brightly from an electrical box that is situated near the corner of Valley Parkway and Broadway. Award-winning local artist Suzanne Nicolaisen (aka Zanniki) painted this street art, infusing it with light, color and life.

What small scenes on the four sides of this box do you recognize?

I believe I see the Escondido gateway arch on Grand Avenue, Maple Street Plaza, the old train depot at Grape Day Park, City Hall, not to mention sunshine, palm trees, flowers, grapes, avocados, and above all an airplane towing a banner that reads: Visit Escondido!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Holiday crafts sale coming to Balboa Park!

Mark your calendars! An epic craft sale will be coming to Balboa Park during the holiday season!

The public is invited to peruse all sorts of beautiful creations, many with a Christmas theme, on the weekend of December 16th and 17th. The annual craft sale will take place on both outdoor patios of the Casa del Prado and inside Room 101.

I learned about the upcoming 2023 AgeWell Services Annual Craft Sale when I poked my head into the Balboa Park Senior Lounge today. (They were busy decorating the lounge for Halloween and Thanksgiving!)

Homemade crafts for sale are all created by skilled crafters age 55 and older. I checked out this big event last year. Shoppers will discover tables and tables full of great, heart-warming gifts! You can view a few photographs that I took here.

Are you a senior in San Diego? If you’d like to learn about additional AgeWell activities, click here!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Help keep San Diego clean and beautiful!

I Love a Clean San Diego is a sentiment shared by many. It’s also a local environmental nonprofit that works to keep our city healthy and beautiful!

The above smiling folks were in Balboa Park today, greeting those passing over the Cabrillo Bridge. They were handing out flyers about preventing pollution, and letting people know of many community clean-ups and other environmental activities that would love your participation!

As I crossed the bridge and proceeded toward the heart of Balboa Park, I saw volunteers walking along picking up trash!

I checked out the I Love a Clean San Diego website and learned about their latest effort. A couple weeks ago, more than 5,000 San Diegans joined I Love A Clean San Diego (ILACSD) for the 39th annual Coastal Cleanup Day. Volunteers across the region restored, beautified, and preserved the health of over 100 local parks, canyons, creeks, and beaches and joined volunteers in 150 countries across the globe. As of 2:30 p.m. and with 85% of sites reporting totals, over 76,800 pounds of litter and debris was diverted from San Diego communities.

Wow!

Did you take part? Would you like to participate in future cleanups and make a definite positive change? Check out the I Love a Clean San Diego event calendar by clicking here!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Red-tailed hawk by Sixth Avenue sidewalk.

Look what I spotted while walking home from Balboa Park this afternoon! A red-tailed hawk was perched in a palm tree next to the Sixth Avenue sidewalk, at the west edge of the park.

The bird, perhaps ten feet above my camera, was unfazed by my presence.

A young person staring at a phone walked directly under the hawk without noticing it. What other wonders in this world go unseen?

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Learn to cha-cha-cha on a San Diego street!

You can learn how to dance the cha-cha-cha on a San Diego street corner.

It’s true!

At the corner of Civita Boulevard and Via Alta in Mission Valley, a step-by-step cha-cha-cha guide is embedded in the sidewalk!

(I gave the dance steps a try and almost tripped over my own two feet. Passing motorists probably had a good laugh.)

I happened to spy this fun public art as I walked through the Civita urban village this afternoon. I was heading toward Civita’s newly opened Creekside Park. Photos are coming up of the beautiful new park!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

More fun photographs along 30th Street!

North Park in San Diego is a place where you can find all sorts of colorful signs and street art. I took these fun photographs several days ago during a walk up 30th Street, from University Avenue to El Cajon Boulevard.

It had been a long time since I passed this way. All of the sights you see here were new to my camera.

Enjoy!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Ten year anniversary of Cool San Diego Sights!

WordPress notified me just now that my blog Cool San Diego Sights is celebrating its 10 year anniversary today.

Ten years? Good grief! That means I’m already ten years older!

It’s been fun so far. Hopefully there’s much more to come!

Back when I started Cool San Diego Sights, I didn’t imagine these posts I publish in my spare time, using photographs taken with a rather old camera, could end up on popular news apps like Google News and Newsbreak. Believe me, if you’ve discovered my posts in those places and wonder how they possibly rate as news articles, don’t ask me. As I understand it, it’s all determined by mysterious algorithms. Take my blog for what it is. A curious guy walking around San Diego taking photos!

But what a wonderful opportunity to express my love for my city.

And a great opportunity to meet all sorts of interesting people, too!

Perhaps I’m most thankful that Cool San Diego Sights has allowed many people to discover my Short Stories by Richard website. As a consequence, my short story One Thousand Likes is now included in a 12th Grade textbook, and part of at least one English Literature course at a major international university.

Ten years ago I had no conception such a thing might happen. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that persistence can pay off. Never lose hope!

Once again, thanks to those of you who swing by Cool San Diego Sights from time to time for a few moments of enjoyment. I keep learning new things. I hope you make a few fun discoveries, too!

Onward!

Richard

P.S. I spied a mysterious garden today in a very unexpected place. That’s coming up!

Sweet times at Lemon Festival in Chula Vista!

The annual Lemon Festival in Chula Vista is one of the most popular street festivals in San Diego County. A huge crowd turned out today in Chula Vista’s historic downtown for lots of sweet family fun!

I walked down Third Avenue taking in the sights. Yes, there were lemons everywhere I turned: lemonade, lemon treats, lemony gifts, lemon-themed chalk art, and lots of people wearing yellow–some dancing to live music! Shame on me. I missed a lemon costume contest, a lemon cook-off, and a lemon squeezing contest!

Why is there a Lemon Festival each summer? As various displays at the South Bay Historical Society’s table explained, Chula Vista was once considered the Lemon Capital of the World!

Enjoy these photos!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Real superheroes fight human trafficking!

Wearing a superhero costume is fun. But would you like to become a genuine superhero?

Help spread the word about human trafficking and join the effort to end it!

I met several superheroes today at Comic-Con who are doing just that. They are informing people that human trafficking is a serious problem in San Diego.

What is human trafficking? The SAFE San Diego website explains: Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery where perpetrators profit from the sexual exploitation and/or forced labor of men, women and children. It is a violation of basic human rights, and it is also a crime as defined by U.S. federal law and California state law. Furthermore, San Diego was identified by the FBI as of the top 13 high intensity child prostitution areas.

This same website explains how to identify possible human trafficking and what you should do if you spot it. It’s good to be informed, because you never know.

Please visit the SAFE San Diego website and spend a minute or two learning what you can. And spread the word! You’ll become a real superhero!

You may end up saving someone’s life.

If you expand the following image, you should be able to read it…

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I’m covering Comic-Con again this year. To see all my current and past blog posts concerning Comic-Con, click here and scroll down!

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!