A blue surfer made of LEGO bricks is riding a huge wave over six colorful Christmas trees in Balboa Park.
Seriously!
You can find this very creative holiday display inside the Fleet Science Center, in its theater lobby.
The surfer sculpture is titled Wave Of Illumination. The 15,428 LEGO bricks were assembled by artist Nathan Sawaya. The multi-colored Christmas trees add a delightful touch during this Holiday Season!
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Do you know the friendly gentleman who plays the didgeridoo in Balboa Park? That’s Mitchell Walker.
He loves astronomy. He’s super creative. He never stops dreaming. That’s how he managed to shrink a volume of space 100 light-years across and fit it inside a plexiglass cube!
Mitchell’s one-of-a-kind, incredible Stellarium shows all of the stars within 50 light-years of the sun, placed in their correct spatial positions. That makes 166 stars in our stellar neighborhood. (Mitchell is now playfully calling his unique cube SITH–Stars in the ‘Hood!)
The colors of his tiny illuminated stars are based on spectral classification: the Morgan-Keenan system. Press a button and you hear a recording made by Mitchell describing his Stellarium.
I first blogged about The Great Stellarium Project over three years ago. You can see a smiling Mitchell and learn more about his brilliant creation here.
Since then modifications have been made to the Stellarium, including a visible ultraviolet light.
Today I heard that more improvements are coming!
During Stars in the Park this evening, Mitchell showed me his detailed plan to have each star light up individually with a touch of a button. That way the position of a particular star can be seen in relation to others and to our sun.
Mitchell starts with a dream. Then he makes it come true.
What are your dreams?
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
Creativity is always welcome at December Nights in Balboa Park! I could clearly see this, as I periodically checked out some tables hosted by San Diego’s very cool Comic-Con Museum.
Everybody and anybody was invited to grab some paint and help color in a community mural. Actually, there appeared to be multiple murals, as you can see in my photographs.
I walked around the big December Nights event both Friday and today, and watched as the murals took form.
Check it out!
UPDATE!
I saw a completed mural at a later visit to the museum…
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
Enjoy these photos taken in Spanish Village Art Center during December Nights!
Balboa Park’s colorful Spanish Village is one of my favorite spots in San Diego at any time of year, but during the Holiday Season, it really shines!
Without further ado, here are photographs that I captured today, the first day of 2022 December Nights. I wandered through Spanish Village before dark–before the crowds really grew!
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
The other day, as I walked around to the north side of the 17th Street Lifeguard Tower in Del Mar, I discovered many tiles that had been painted by kids!
The tiles are dated 2008, 2009 and 2010. (Looking closer, I see a 2012, too.)
I can find nothing online concerning this project, so leave what you know in a comment. I’m guessing the artwork was created by families that reside in Del Mar.
In any event, enjoy these colorful bits of art. The painted tiles are bright with sunshine and beachy happiness!
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
I love this public art at the 17th Street Lifeguard Tower in Del Mar!
A tile mural depicting pelicans in flight decorates a concrete bench in front of the lifeguard station. The artwork was created by Betsy Schulz, whose fantastic, very beautiful mosaics can be seen all over San Diego County. I’ve photographed many.
Poetic words beneath the mural provide a wish: May your joys be as deep as the ocean, your sorrows as light as its foam. -Anonymous
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
The working Blacksmith Shop is one of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park’s most popular attractions. At one end of the blacksmith shop is a small wood shop, where I seldom see any activity. But that wasn’t the case today!
Gary, a California State Parks volunteer, was busy working on some projects inside the Wood Shop. He was nice enough to describe the elegant Mediterranean chair that he is creating, plus a beautiful wooden cabinet and stand!
He then demonstrated some of the old-fashioned tools one can see in the wood shop. Many of the historical tools hanging on the walls are so old they are no longer very functional. But they do provide an idea of what a wood shop might have held in the early days of San Diego, around the mid-19th century.
I asked him about Old Town’s cannon carriage project that I blogged about over a year ago. He has the materials ready, but he’s awaiting word concerning it!
Gary explained that the above tool is an antique drill press. (Sort of looks like a massive mousetrap!)
By pulling a cord, this rather primitive lathe smoothly rotates a length of wood around a horizontal axis. I forgot to ask Gary, but I believe this might be an old bow lathe.
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
The super colorful artwork is titled The Beacon. It was painted in 2022 by artist Paul Mericle. His astounding creation decorates a wall at Red Door Interactive, a marketing agency that recently moved to this location.
I took photographs of the mural from the Market Street sidewalk during a stroll through the neighborhood.
Enjoy!
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
A positively amazing mural was painted a year ago in North Park on the side of Verbatim Books. You have to see it to believe it!
The subject matter of this huge mural is books, of course. And famous authors, and classic characters, and timeless stories! (Not to mention dinosaurs, Balboa Park, and the North Park water tower!)
The artist who painted this fantastic 90-foot mural is Armando Hernandez (@elizarraras_art). I met him very briefly last year at the North Park Book Fair. I posted a photo of his Edgar Allan Poe with The Tell-Tale Heart here!
The mural at Verbatim Books is so brilliant and surprising and so alive with colorful detail, it’s like a colossal outdoor bookshelf demanding to be explored!
After filling your eyes, you’ll yearn to enter the secondhand and antiquarian bookstore!
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
We’re fast approaching the holidays. So it isn’t surprising that the City of San Diego’s AgeWell Services had their big senior craft show today in Balboa Park!
I’m fascinated by human creativity. So it was a treat to slowly wander about the two outdoor courtyards at the Casa del Prado, looking at everything.
I saw really good paintings and fine woodwork and dolls and scrapbooks and gift card holders and Christmas stockings and toy Santa Clauses and Thanksgiving crafts and so much more!
Many of the artists were kind enough to let me take photographs. These should provide an idea of what you missed if you didn’t go this year. There’s always next year!
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 