The Birch Aquarium is a nice little aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, overlooking the beach and the Pacific Ocean.
Hall of Fishes – Following the currents of the Pacific, this walkthru exhibit has many native Pacific fishes and sea turtles
Seahorses – The different varieties of seahorses is amazing, and some of the ones you see there are truly unbelievable
Elasmo Beach – Sharks and rays, a lot of which are native to the waters just outside the aquarium
Tide Pool Plaza – Full touch tank, with varieties of sharks and crabs. Also has an overlook, where during the migrations you can see the whales swimming by
Kelp Tank and Infinity Cube
In the upcoming weeks, I’ll have a lot more from the attractions and sights of San Diego, in the order that I visited them, and the Birch Aquarium (with its free parking) was a great starting point!
When going on vacation, one always looks to save money any way they can. One of the ways to do this by heading to “Smart Destinations” and purchasing a Go City Card.
These cards are available for a multitude of cities, including New York, Boston, LA, and San Diego.
You can go ahead and plan out your itinerary, and if done right you can save a lot of money…in my case over $200 from the base price of each location.
It isn’t always cost worthy, so price yourself out before you purchase!
This also means that you can go to places you may not have paid for otherwise, and you can leave after 5 minutes if you don’t like something, without worrying about just wasting money on admission.
Depending on the city, you can choose from 1-, 2-, 3-, 5-, and 7-day passes, depending on how long you are going to be in town; or you can choose a pass based on how many locations you plan on heading to.
So when I planned out my week in San Diego, I determined that the 7-day pass was best suited for my stay, and here are some helpful guides in case anyone else wants to head to the attractions and sights of San Diego.
Below you have two helpful tools that work well together:
The first is an excel spreadsheet that lists all the locations, listing the would be cost if you paid for it seperately, how many hours are suggested for visiting, and the times they are open (as of October 2017). It also has the cost of parking for some of the locations. Lastly, it lists a “Zone”, which I sorted out based on key locations (Legoland, SeaWorld, San Diego Zoo, Downtown, etc.).
I then took those zones and plotted them on a map, the second tool below, which uses Google Maps and the MyMaps app.
If you have any questions, feel free to email me and ask!
Unless Southwest is running a great priced sale (because you can’t say no to low prices and two free bags), JetBlue will be my airline of choice for the future.
The positives for a JetBlue flight started off great, and just kept adding on, and here are some of their pros, which may have been limited to the Airbus A321, which a lot of their fleet flies:
Every seat has a TV with loads of free options:
Sirius XM Radio
Direct TV
TV Shows – Including some Amazon Prime Shows
Movies – Including some of the newest/hottest movies for free, including Spiderman: Homecoming and Wonder Woman at the moment, depending on the route
Free WiFi – No more having to pay for GoGo or having to download everything in advance, JetBlue’s high speed WiFi is good for whatever you’d like to stream
Texting? – I can’t tell you how it works, but I was texting on my flight…while in Airplane mode with my WiFi turned on…regular SMS
Outlets – Every seat had their own outlet, with multiple plug options, so no matter the country you are coming from you wouldn’t need an adaptor
Snacks and Drinks – They had an impressive amount of free options, and not the typical tiny bags of pretzels and peanuts, instead it was full sized bags of:
PopCorners
Terra Chips
Cheez-Its
Rold Gold Pretzels
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Abby’s)
Dunkin Donuts Coffee
Variety of sodas and juices
Want to buy some more food? Their lists were long including:
Crackers
Cheeses
Nuts
Brownies
Candies
Sandwiches
Yogurts
Wines/Beers/Whiskeys
Warm Compresses – These are surprisingly enjoyable after a six-hour flight
Eye Masks and Earplugs – Sitting on every seat when you get on for a red-eye flight…and with crying babies on board, and people on laptops, these are godsends.
My future flights will all be searched via JetBlue.com before I look elsewhere.
Last Sunday was the final day of the regular season for NYCFC, and with the Yankees in the playoffs City had to move out of Yankee Stadium for the second game in a row.
After a failed game in Connecticut, both because of a poor performance and a really low attendance, the front office was able to procure Citi Field for this match, and hands down it outshone everything about The Bronx.
For starters, and this one is slightly selfish, it was a much easier commute (albeit similar timing), with no tolls on the route. But when you got to Citi Field there was a strange sight…parking lots, with lots of space in them for cars and tailgating, all for $25.
In The Bronx, you have to park at least 10 minutes away to pay $25 or less, with costs in the $30-$45 range to park at the Stadium.
Once inside Citi Field it was a mix of good and bad.
I’ve always preferred the feel, as you can walk around the entire place in under 10 minutes, while Yankee Stadium feels like a trek to get just a few sections over, and because of the smaller feel, all the food stations are more easily accessible.
The seating was all facing home plate, so the seats were a little too slanted for soccer, leading to a lot of sidesaddle seating, but from there the sight lines were a lot better, and all the better seats were a lot cheaper than their equals at the Stadium.
Also due to this tighter Field was a lot louder an atmosphere than is to be had in The Bronx, and the 20K+ in attendance made the place intimidating for the visitors.
And of course David Villa had a brace, including this great header on a corner.
I would go back to Queens for a game in a heartbeat. Maybe Flushing Meadows will be their Stadium destination, as we expect an announcement before the end of the year…
David (played by Craig Roberts) is in New York City, working on his directing, or rather, becoming a “production assistant” (read: intern) wasting time running errands at an agency for nine months…and getting rejected over and over, on his ideas and in his relationships, all while fawning over Annabelle (Allison Lanier), a costume designer at their agency, who is in a relationship already.
Mr. Getty (Paul Reiser) is still in jail, receiving conjugal visits and recruiting David to help make a video to help save the Red Oaks country club, which is up for sale to the Japenese.
Misty (Alexandra Turshen) is back lifeguarding while being a dental hygienist all while dating Wheeler (Oliver Cooper), who is taking education classes at Columbia (after finishing Cornell…it’s amazing how well his brain works now that he’s given up weed), Nash (Ennis Esmer) is still pretending to instruct, while Sam (Richard Kind) is divorced and finding love.
Nash: What’s the situation in the showers?
Getty: Not gonna lie to you…The water pressure is not good.
This was announced as the shows final season, and the six episodes rightfully fly by. While all other seasons focused on the club, this season mostly takes place in NYC, and it’s a good season, but the weakest of the bunch, getting a 7 out of 10.
But when it’s all said and done, I’m glad they wrapped it up, instead of playing it out for too long.
There is no denying it. Whether you like the Yankees or hate them, they are making baseball great again.
For years those talking about the future of baseball, and how Bryce Harper would be the one that would get people to watch again. And then it became Yasiel Puig. And all the while it should’ve been Paul Goldschmidt and his career average of .299.
But the storyline this postseason, as Harper and Goldschmidt got knocked out in the first round, and Puig isn’t pulling in the excitement, is the powerhouse in The Bronx that is lighting up baseball.
And it really doesn’t matter (in terms of this) if they move on to the World Series.
Simply the way this team has come back twice from being down in a series 2-0, and have gone up against the best pitchers the League has to offer to mount those comebacks, turning their own pitchers into household names.
Luis Severino, who only managed to get thru a single out of the Wild Card game, has shown glimpses of why he is the next Yankees Ace, and one of the Top pitchers in baseball. That’s not to put down any of the other starters, as Masahiro Tanaka has brought his A-game, CC is as clutch as can be, and Sonny Gray has proved why we went out and got him.
And when it comes to the bullpen, despite Dellin Betances completely falling apart, they have been fully loaded this postseason, including the other 8.2 outs of that Wild Card game.
Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson have been go-to’s, while Aroldis Chapman has closed out as needed.
But all of that pitching greatness has been overshadowed by the lineup of Baby Bombers and veteran leaders, and as highlighted by their eighth-inning Game 4 batting through the order, they are all participants in this great playoff run.
Going around the field they are all pitching in, Greg Bird, Aaron Judge, and Gary Sanchez are bringing the fireworks, Brett Gardner showing grit and leadership, Sir Didi proving his Knightness, and Chase Headley crushing any past talk about him being a waste of money.
This isn’t to forget about Starlin Castro or Aaron Hicks…they are just afterthoughts in this crew.
Meanwhile, Todd Frazier has become the face and life of the Yankees dugout, and after a Mets fan graced him with a Thumbs Down, it has become the symbol of the 2017 Yankees.
And looking at history, underdogs always seem to have some sort of ritual that pushes them through their tougher games, most famously the 2002 Angels and their rally monkey.
Obviously, as a Yankees fan, I want the Yankees to win.
But as a baseball fan, watching the last three games, it’s hard to see how they won’t win their 28th Championship this year…unless the team that just can’t hit shows up again.
I have the StubHub app on my Android phone and use it regularly to list tickets and change prices on them.
As your listing is set to expire, the app will send you notifications reminding you to keep an eye on them. I sell the tickets, sometimes via TicketExchange
If I sell the tickets via some other method, such as TicketExchange or to a friend, I delete the listing entirely (as opposed to if I am uncertain and I just “deactivate” it).
When I delete it, it’s completely gone from my account, and I should no longer get any notifications from it.
But back in mid-July, I started to get tens of notifications that my listing was set to expire…even when I had deleted the event weeks earlier. And I wouldn’t just get one or two notifications…I would get 10-20 in one shot, and when I would clear them out, they would show up again shortly after.
I reached out to StubHub at the time via Twitter, and they replied that they were looking into it.
Later that week they released an update, which seemed to fix the issue…until mid-August. And suddenly those tens of notifications were back again, and I reached out again to their social media team.
And then one Sunday night I got a call from StubHub. They called to apologize, saying that they thought the issue was resolved, and they were seeing that certain devices still had the bug.
The next night, I got another phone call, with more apologies, and the promise that they were working on it.
In their defense, the issue seemed to clear up shortly after that second phone call, but more importantly, I was extremely surprised and pleased with the way their Customer Support team handled the situation.
I didn’t ask for a phone call…and while I was annoyed by the notifications, my Tweets were along the lines of “just fix this”…so the fact that they took initiative and reached out gives their support teams a huge thumbs up.
Would you pay for your news? What about insights from the top reporters? Would it change if it was business news or sports?
The Athletic is taking that approach, starting a subscription service, writing about the NHL/NFL/NBA/MLB and NCAA, with the intent to make you “Fall in love with the sports page again”.
Their focuses have been also been on regional markets (although not yet NYC), including the Bay Area, Chicago, and Toronto.
While other sites are going towards videos and less written content, such as MTV and Fox Sports, The Athletic is all about the written word.
Personally, I love the idea. I don’t want to worry about having headphones at all time, and while not having an Unlimited Data plan I don’t want to have to always be waiting for videos to load.
And they haven’t wasted any money while trying to get the top writers and voices in the world to talk about their fortes.
TSN’s Pierre LeBrun talking hockey, Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal on baseball, and Stewart Mandel and Seth Davis covering college sports.
Pricing isn’t overly expensive if they can keep the writing levels up, at $8/month or as low as $48/year.
I would definitely be interested if they come to the New York area, covering the teams I follow and would be even more interested if their app would allow downloaded articles, for quick recall on my phone.
Aviously 