April 11 - United States: San Diego, CA (Cardiff-By-the-Sea)

Ketron finally went in to work today, although she's still not feeling great.  So we said our good-byes and Jon and I started to pack up the car.  I'm sure that Jon meant well when he went to Costco and bought ten pounds of pancake mix.  He had good intentions.  Unfortunately, this means that we didn't have room for other stuff in the car.

Like, say, ME!

So it took us a while to arrange and re-arrange the various innards of the trunk and roof storage before we were able to squeeze everything in.  Jon had some very colorful four-letter words to describe the situation.  But we finally got the car packed up and headed to the intersection of Hollywood and Highland to meet his friend Mike Iovino.

Lunch at the Pig and Whistle

Mike is good friends with some of Jon's fraternity buddies.  He and Jon have known each other for years and routinely harass each other via love-emails about their fantasy football league teams, football wagers and other important sports statistics.  It's a riot to hear the barbed comments and veiled threats that they send back and forth to each other, and they provide endless entertainment for everyone in the football league.  But all of this has made them very good friends, and Jon's been psyched to meet up with Mike and to hang out with him in San Diego.

Mike does general contracting for a contracting firm in San Diego.  Most of their clients are the big names: Polo, Tommy Hillfiger, Adidas, etc.  Mike happened to be in Hollywood to look at one of the Hillfiger stores that he finished up a few months ago.  So he met us on Hollywood and Highland and we went to lunch at the Pig and Whistle, where we had a delicious lunch and got caught up.

San Diego and The Iovino's House

Then we followed Mike on the 5 back to San Diego.  Mike and his wife Lynn live just a few blocks from the beach in a little suburb called "Cardiff-By-The-Sea".  The house was an adorable little two bedroom that's owned by Mike's good friend and boss, who lives next door.  Lynn was at work until 9:00, so Mike, Jon and I hung out for a bit and Jon made some phone calls to various BMW mechanics to see about getting the car fixed.  (It's due for a major service, has some problems with the brakes, and the A/C is busted).  So Jon decided on a mechanic and made an appointment for tomorrow.  Then the three of us went to a Mexican restaurant on the beach called Los Olas (The Waves), where we consumed obscene amounts of margaritas and had some great burritos.