San Diego firefighters are out at busy intersections today collecting donations for the Burn Institute. Drivers roll down windows and place a bill or two into a firefighter’s boot! The annual event is called Fill the Boot!
The Burn Institute, serving San Diego and Imperial County, provides important services for those who’ve suffered from burns, and they provide fire safety education in the community.
Would you like to make a donation? Haven’t passed through an intersection with friendly firefighters this morning? Then donate online!
Make your online donation at the Burn Institute website 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 Twitter!
My travels included a quick stop in front of the Del Mar Library, to see if Baby Boomers Google had reappeared.
It had!
Last summer I noticed it was missing, and learned some vandals had damaged it. The humorous sculpture by Del Mar artist Maidy Morhous is back!
Before Google, we old-timers had to pore through volumes of reference books and encyclopedias. Not sure about the golden apple on top. Perhaps that’s for a helpful librarian or teacher!
If you’d like to see a couple other Del Mar sculptures that are nearby, one of which was also created by Maidy Morhous, click here.
If you’re curious about the amazing mosaic wall you see in front of the library, click here!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
I was looking at the website of the San Diego History Center yesterday when I noticed a cool project they’ve undertaken.
The History Center is looking for San Diego residents to document their personal stories regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
The recorded experiences–in writing, video or audio–will be preserved by the San Diego History Center and become part of their permanent collection. Years from now, when people want to understand what this unusual moment in history was like, they’ll be able to refer back to your own unique story.
Questions you might answer include “How has COVID-19 changed your daily life?” and “How is your neighborhood/social circle responding to the crisis?” and “Has COVID-19 changed your perspective about living in San Diego?”
If this project piques your interest and you have something to say, go to the History Happening Now! website and Share Your Story by clicking here!
This coming Sunday, Cool San Diego Sights turns seven years old.
Seven years doing this? Unbelievable.
Starting a blog and watching it grow very, very slowly over many years has taught me an important lesson about life. Patience and perseverance might be the two most important keys to success.
While having fun and doing things that I love–walking and writing–I have spent literally thousands of hours working on Cool San Diego Sights. A good chunk of my life has been spent taking and selecting photos, cropping and adjusting them, doing research, being a detective, plotting out future blogs, making corrections, being obsessive/compulsive, providing updates, pulling out my hair (what’s left of it), periodically wondering if I should quit this sometimes tedious exercise…
And now, to my complete surprise, I find myself getting traffic from Google News, News Break, Chrome’s suggested articles, and a remarkable variety of major websites.
As a result of Cool San Diego Sights’ growing success, one of my other websites, Short Stories by Richard, is being visited by students from classrooms around the world. Most are reading my little story One Thousand Likes, which I’m told might be used in an upcoming twelfth grade textbook produced by one of the world’s most prestigious publishers.
Pinch me.
Is this real?
To think this thing started on a whim. I’ve always walked. I had an unused little camera. I created a simple, easy WordPress blog. I figured I’d post a photo and a few words once in a while.
So if you’re a blogger or writer out there in a ridiculously enormous world that contains billions of web pages, and you’ve begun to wonder if it’s really worth the effort–keep at it! Don’t give up! Do your best! Stay passionate! Write well, be truthful, be original, be creative, be smart, be curious, understand and appeal to your readers’ humanity, and remember to always maintain your sense of humor!
Do you love reading literature from the 19th century?
I do!
I love Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville . . . there are too many great Victorian authors from this period to mention!
If you love to read these authors, too, there’s an online event in progress that you’ll probably like!
During this special event you can listen to selections from 19th century literature read aloud by San Diego actors!
It’s part of Write Out Loud’s virtual TwainFest, and you can subscribe by clicking here to get daily links to new YouTube readings in your email!
What was the event like before the coronavirus pandemic? To see photos from TwainFest last year in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, click here!
Mark Twain uses his cane to point out his classic novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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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!
The 11th Annual Red Shoe Day is almost here! But this year it will be different. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the gathering of donations for Ronald McDonald House in San Diego will be entirely online!
Instead of plunking your spare change into a big red Ronald McDonald shoe held by a volunteer at a busy intersection, there’s going to be a virtual Red Shoe Day on June 4, 2020 that everyone can safely take part in and share online with others!
Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego, according to their mission statement: provides a “home-away-from-home” for families with children being treated for serious, often life-threatening conditions at local hospitals.
Put yourself in the shoes of a family with a seriously ill child and imagine how important this would be. You could spend much more time with your child as they undergo super scary medical treatment at a big, scary hospital. Read more about what Ronald McDonald House Charities does here.
And here is what you can do!
Click here and join this year’s virtual Red Shoe Day!
Recruit friends, coworkers and family members! Form a winning team!
Look at all the smiling volunteers I photographed in past years, before the coronavirus pandemic…
Click here to join Red Shoe Day and make a huge difference in people’s lives!
Are you a relative or friend of a deceased military Veteran? Are you grateful to someone who served in the United States Armed Forces who is no longer with us?
On this Memorial Day–or on any day–you can create a virtual tribute to those who chose to protect our nation and our freedom.
The online Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM) now allows visitors to leave a comment on a Veteran’s memorial page.
According to the Veterans Legacy Memorial website, which is an extension of the National Cemetery Administration: “NCA manages more than 140 national cemeteries as shrine spaces to honor our Nation’s Veterans, and extends memorialization of the 3.7 million Veterans interred in those cemeteries to this digital memorial space by providing a VLM profile page for each Veteran.”
If you would like to create a virtual tribute to a deserving hero, a digital tribute that might endure forever, click here.
Love and respect are shown for those in the military who pledged to protect their countrymen, and defend freedom. They are honored on Memorial Day.
This coming Memorial Day will be very different. The coronavirus pandemic has caused public events around San Diego to be cancelled.
But I’ve learned there will be a live stream over the internet that celebrates Memorial Day this year, and the virtual event will feature four locations: the USS Midway Museum, Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, and Miramar National Cemetery. Those who perished serving in the United States Armed Forces will be honored and remembered.
If you’d like to learn more, or view the live stream online this Memorial Day starting at 9 am click here!
There are many online opportunities to listen to live musical performances this Easter Sunday. During the present coronavirus pandemic, everyone who is safely at home can enjoy the inspiring music of Easter remotely.
As usual there will be a video live stream of the 2:00 Sunday organ concert at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. Civic Organist Raul Prieto Ramirez will also chat with those who tune in to listen. To read the details, click here.
Many local churches will be live streaming their Easter services, and those who listen will hear beautiful music from San Diego’s finest organs. To see the complete list, including links to the live streams, click here.
Playing the organ inside the beautiful First Presbyterian Church of San Diego.
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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!
A breathtaking photo of Balboa Park, perfect for your desktop computer wallpaper, courtesy of the San Diego Tourism Authority.
I just made the above photograph the wallpaper background on my desktop home computer. It’s one of seven stunning images that were made available today by the San Diego Tourism Authority. I learned about it because I subscribe to their email list.
The amazing photos were sized to be used as Zoom video communication virtual backgrounds, but the high quality .jpg images also work perfectly as wallpaper on a computer.
Anyone can freely download beautiful images of Balboa Park, Torrey Pines, Cabrillo National Monument and Windansea.
To download these wallpapers, visit the San Diego Tourism blog by clicking here!
Another recent post links to amazing virtual experiences from around San Diego, including many of the city’s most popular attractions. You can access live webcams at the San Diego Zoo and the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, go on a virtual tour of the USS Midway aircraft carrier and the San Diego Museum of Art, listen to world-class music by the San Diego Symphony, view clips from some of the Old Globe’s famous productions, and much more.
To check out these virtual San Diego experiences, click here!
Cool San Diego Sights! 