Yesterday I had to wake up really early to meet Ed at his place in time to get to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk-a-thon in Balboa Park. I volunteered to work the registration tables. Ed has diabetes and has been voluneering a few days a week at the foundation. He asked me if I would be willing to help out so I said, "Sure!"



After it was over (about 10 AM) we called Jerry, his roommate and said, "Let's go have breakfast!" At breakfast we decided what we were doing the rest of the dy; I was going home to take a nap and run some errands and then I'd be back at Ed and Jerry's at 6:15 PM. Jerry wanted to go to Tijuana for dinner, since none of us had ever been to that city. I've only been to Tecate and Ensenada, and that was 16 years ago.



So, we drove down to the parking lot and walked across. It was an eerie feeling; I related my experience crossing into East Germany in 1988. It wasn't that oppressive but we all knew we were leaving the US, that's for sure. We walked through the turnstiles and then were accosted non-stop for the next 4 or 5 hours. We walked over to Avenue Revolucion, which is the downtown district and is where everyone goes. Constant "Cuban cigars, T-shirts!" and "Titty bar! Come on! No cover. You want to see girls?"



It seemed as though every "family restaurant" had a 2000 watt stereo system blasting rap and dance music (and this was only 7:30 or 8 PM). We found a quiet place down a set of stairs that turned out to be a Tijuana tradition. La Cafe Especial has been there for 50 years. Quiet, competent and the food was decent (not great, but there are no "great" restaurants in Tijuana, of that I am sure).



We walked along Avenue Revolucion from one end to the other and then headed back to the border. We were there at the "in between" time - there was no line to speak of. As we were walking across the street to get back to the car a group of kids passed us the other way. The snatch of conversation we heard went something like this: "(girl's name)!! You mean you have NO ID on you at ALL???" Ed, Jerry and I all stopped and looked at each other.



I said, "I vote we follow those girls all night and see what happenes when they try to get back across the border."



Ed said, "It would almost be worth it to put up that (stuff) again."



We all laughed, commented on how stupid some people are and decided to go back to the car anyway.

A quick entry to say that we played at Bob's party last night. The people seemed to enjoy us a lot; Ed gave the cold hard truth later, but also had some good things to say, too.



So, we need to keep working and we'll be OK for the boat cruise.

I finalized my Rome trip plans the other day. I'll be gone from Oct 24 to Nov 3. I plan to use most of the time to research the next book, "Rome Explorations: Early Christian Rome."



I drove up to Lake Arrowhead two weekends ago (Sept 7) to see my friends perform 3 hours or so of Beatles music for a charity event. It was great time. I videoed about 30 minutes worth since that's all the battery power I had. I brought a friend and we had a great time, but now we are in a bad place emotionally. It may have been a mistake to go together, even though we had a blast at the time. We had a sad conversation last night and I am calling her again tonight to try impart some information and try to get this mess settled.



I nearly broke up the band the other day. I was unhappy with our level of skill and was not feelin' the love of playing for the Users' Conference in October. I was talked out of cancelling it, though, but am still dubious. I just like to play, I don't like to get on stage and "entertain" people. I hate that part. And also, Ed has decided he is not interested in playing with us full time, which was a blow to me since I gain quite a bit of confidence having him up there next to me.



And the NZIS has raised the "General Skills" category minimum score from 28 to 29, apparently as a means of reducing application backlog. As a result, even more applications poured in. I guess the panic factor kicked in. The NZIS seems to be wiling to make it harder and harder for skilled people to get in. Oh well, maybe it was a bad idea after all.