Do you like ghost stories?
Do you like riding trains?
Answer yes to either question, and you might enjoy a new short story that I published this morning. It’s titled Backward Man.
Is it possible to see the future by looking backward? That seems like a reasonable assertion, right?
If a little strangeness and horror are your cup of tea, you can read the story by clicking here!
A fascinating display in one window of the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon shows students engaging in psychodrama, reenacting past-life experiences.
I walked past the Unarius Academy of Science today. It’s located in downtown El Cajon. You might have seen their flying saucer car or the space murals by their parking lot.
According to an educational sign in the window, beginning in the late 1970’s, students were filmed during their elaborate psychodramas to help them recognize and overcome past-life shocks and traumas.
A different display filled this particular window the last time I peered through it, a little over a year ago.
I can’t say I know anyone who has studied here, but no doubt the coursework is just a bit unusual!
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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!
Two dummies in El Cajon were caught climbing electrical power line poles today.
Caught by my camera, that is!
They were a pair of real dummies, because, well, they were in fact real dummies!
I was walking along West Main Street past the SDG&E Construction and Operations facility when the corner of my eye was taken by surprise. Through a gap in the surrounding fence, this is what I saw…
During today’s walk in El Cajon I captured more surprising and amusing photographs. The next blog post might really make you laugh.
Stay tuned!
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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!
An enormous, very fancy Red Shoe seems lost among the trees in a corner of UC San Diego!
Red Shoe is an unusual outdoor sculpture by Elizabeth Murray, created in 1996. It’s part of the University of San Diego Stuart Collection.
I say unusual, because it stands among eucalyptus trees and seems oddly–to me–out of place. Like a shoe from a fairy tale, dropped in a forest. But I think that was the intention!
Faceted, colored objects are scattered on the ground nearby, like fallen jewels.
The paths in this corner of the UCSD campus, by North Torrey Pines Road and Revelle College Drive, are seldom trod. By ordinary folk, that is.
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The ordinary . . . the bizarre.
The familiar . . . the dreamlike.
Countless intersecting paths down the same streets.
Turned corners, reflections, glimpses, mysteries.
The complexity of living.
Happiness . . . despair.
You will encounter many complex visions and contrasts when walking through downtown San Diego. Which is what I did yesterday morning.
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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!
Very strangely, football goal posts rise in Petco Park near first base. (So reaching first must now mean three points!)
As I walked through Gallagher Square this morning, I saw this peculiar remnant from a football game that was never played. When UCLA backed out of the 2021 Holiday Bowl a few hours before the game, many were shocked and extremely disappointed.
I suppose we’ll soon see Petco Park back in its usual configuration.
An interesting experiment–playing a football game in this baseball ballpark–will now most likely never occur. SnapDragon Stadium in Mission Valley should be completed and ready for football by next holiday season.
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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!
When you walk randomly through a city, you encounter unexpected mysteries.
The other day I was walking through Balboa Park, west of the Cabrillo Bridge, when strange, tiny mysteries greeted my eyes. Down in the concrete sidewalk were a few dozen scattered leaf impressions.
I found them on the north side of El Prado, west of Balboa Drive, in the vicinity of the Sefton Plaza statues of Balboa Park’s founders.
Did leaves falling on fresh new concrete produce these impressions? The impressions seem too deep for that.
What’s more, many of the leaf shapes don’t appear to match any of the nearby trees or vegetation.
Were these mysterious impressions produced naturally or deliberately?
Stamped in the concrete sidewalk a short distance to the west, at Sixth Avenue, is the year 1968. Perhaps that’s a relevant clue.
What do you think? Does anybody know?
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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 you’ve seen that very unusual house perched high on a hillside in La Jolla. You can’t miss it when you drive west down Nautilus Street.
It was designed by Eugene Ray, a San Diego State University professor who taught Environmental Design from 1969 to 1996. He found his inspiration from UFOs and natural, organic shapes!
The house is called the Silver Ship.
Back in 1978, five SDSU students set to work building the unique structure. You can read about the project and see photographs of the construction on Eugene Ray’s blog here. For years it was his La Jolla home and studio.
I first learned about the Silver Ship in 2019 at an exhibition of Eugene Ray’s work at the SDSU Downtown Gallery. Like many of his designs, it’s form is simple and symmetric and consequently unusual. He observed a UFO in his youth, and it influenced his architectural concepts throughout his life. See more of his groundbreaking designs, learn more of his unique story, and see blueprints of the fantastic Silver Ship by visiting my old blog post here!
When you compare these to the original photographs, you can see how the Silver Ship appears different today. If I recall correctly, a new owner redesigned the house somewhat. Interesting that now it appears a little more like a . . . silver ship!
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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!
Readers who are new to Cool San Diego Sights probably don’t know that, when I’m not walking around the city taking photographs, I love to write fiction.
Well, I’ve completed another very short story. This one is about a school teacher and a very peculiar lesson taught to her students.
The lesson isn’t merely strange–it might be one of the most important lessons any person, young or old, could learn.
To read it, click here!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, legendary author and creator of Sherlock Holmes, is in San Diego this Halloween weekend attempting to solve an ages old mystery.
Today I saw him at the Maritime Museum of San Diego examining clues concerning the mysterious disappearance of the ship Mary Celeste. Nobody knows what happened to the Mary Celeste back in 1872, when it was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands without a soul aboard. And with nothing touched. Not even its cargo of alcohol in barrels.
Did evaporated alcohol create a flash explosion that left no discernable trace, but caused the captain and crew to desert ship? Did their lifeboat somehow end up lost at sea?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was examining charts and considering a strange variety of clues as I and some other Maritime Museum visitors looked on with bewilderment. I suggested a kidnapping by denizens of Atlantis. No better explanation seems to exist.
The celebrated author and novelist affirmed that he will be at the Maritime Museum of San Diego tomorrow–Halloween Sunday. Perhaps you can help him solve this intractable mystery!
Learn how the actual Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is connected with this mystery here!
Kids who are 12 and under are invited to write down their own theories. Winner of this contest gets four free tickets to an adventure aboard the historic tall ship Californian!
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 