On Returning to San Diego

As I write this, I sit in a restaurant abutting my hotel, the lovely Ramada St. James Gaslamp in San Diego. There's been a hotel on this site since early in the last century, and I'm enjoying its quaint charms--including an old style elevator with a door and a sliding gate. The Gaslamp District of San Diego is a hip spot of bars, restaurants and cool places to live.

I lived in San Diego for 15 months, from November of 1999 to February of 2001 when I was the XO of the USS PRINCETON (CG 59). I moved there from Washington, where I had finished a grueling tour as the Speechwriter for the Chief of Naval Operations. Writing speeches for oneself is easy--writing them for someone else, less so. At the end of that tour, my girlfriend of two years broke up with me--just as I was starting the drive west.

Although I loved my job and people I worked with (I'm dining in two nights with the world's best Naval Officer--a guy who worked for me in PRINCETON who now commands his own Destroyer), I HATED San Diego. I missed Washington. I missed the Eastern Time Zone. I never got used to actually watching an ENTIRE Monday Night Football Game. I hated coming home from work, cooking dinner, and then remembering that there was someone I wanted to call on the East Coast--except is was now 11PM out there. I was heartbroken. I was bitter. I hated day after day of 72 degrees. I lived in one of the most amazing places to live in America--Coronado, CA--in a perfect little apartment with a courtyard and citrus trees--but couldn't wait to get back to DC.

The "ambition at all costs" guy was alive and well then. I hated the leisure culture of Southern California. I hated that people seemed to work only so that they could have money to recreate--that their work alone was insufficient reward. I hated the culture of "spirituality". I lived here for 15 months and not a day went by where I didn't wish I were back in DC or Norfolk, back watching the Hoos in person at Scott Stadium or at least on Raycom Sports.

It's been nine years since I lived here, and much is the same. Flying in, one sees a low heights surrounding the airport, thick with population and low-slung dwellings. Palm trees are everywhere. The weather is sublime.

I've lived a life of few regrets. One of them is that I wasted 15 months of my life living here with a big, negative attitude. This place is wonderful--I should have enjoyed every single day I lived here. I should have loved the weather, the leisure, the sun, the mountains, the desert. I should have gotten my head out of my butt and just plain enjoyed it. Oh sure--it's still California--lots of taxes and a state government run amok. But my God it is nice here.....