i discussed this before but part of the charm of the greater san diego area is how hilly it is - there are only a handful of large flat areas near the coast, on top of mesas, or at the base of valleys. undeveloped flat land has long since run out, forcing nearly all new suburban development for the past several decades into the hills. one consequence is that there aren't many neighborhoods or developments with anything resembling a regular street grid, roads large and small must obey the contours of the land, curving to follow the terrain. there's actually no need to go clambering around on rooftops for views because the hilliness and lack of tall vegetation creates an abundance of vistas, almost anywhere you are there's something visible at a distance, up above or down below.

while holding the super-extendo ladder that goes up 20-something feet for my friend who runs the whole show, standing at the very top of the ladder he makes some casual chit-chat: "you know, i heard the owner of a christmas light company in the area died on a roof last week."

some days we dive deep into the outskirts, into neighborhoods that readers of "a field guide to america houses" (2nd ed.) will recognize as post-suburban "SLUGs" (Spread-out, Low-density, Unguided Growth). in the san diego, the houses in them pretend to be "ranches" (or "ranchitos") with white farm fences, some acreage, maybe a couple of horses, though in the end they're really just regular mansions, the kinds of domiciles commonly referred to as "properties". in some places they take the horse thing really seriously though, with an entire overlapping network of infrastructure like horse trails criss-crossing the road, complete with horse crossing road signs. i wondered if the little lane by the side of the road was meant to be a horse lane, instead of the bike or parking lane.

one of the greatest sights in socal is the daily evening light display on the vast highways, when traffic is dense but flowing steadily in both directions: on the left half a stream of white lights approaches you, on the right half orange lights flow off into the distance.

i have a new appreciation, or perhaps perspective, on the highways now that i'm the one driving on them. my friend sitting in the passenger seat grants us access to the exclusive HOV/carpool lane, he finds it amusing that only two people are required to qualify as a "high-occupancy vehicle". it seems to be enough, though, because it does keep the vast majority of cars out. later, driving with my californian friend, the topic comes up again and he tells us that recently there was a scandal over a guy using the HOV lane with a dead body in the car, who tried to argue when he got pulled over that it counted as another person. if a dead body doesn't count, then if you're driving in the HOV lane with a passenger who suddenly dies does that mean you have to switch lanes? next, i wonder, do babies count? sometimes things do seem a little loose, i found it amusing when on multiple occasions i saw solo motorcyclists in the HOV lane. in the big city, riding a motorcycle seems to be a trade-off where in exchange for a much higher chance of being brutally maimed or killed in an accident, you get to get through traffic quicker by splitting lanes and weaving around the cars stuck in motionless traffic. "live fast, die young..."

road observations:

• -there is an absolutely bare hillside beside the highway between el cajon and la mesa filled with what looks to be hundreds of goats
• -at one large intersection i spotted 2 chevron gas stations on opposing corners, the american version of crazy convenience store density in asian metropoli
• -cybertrucks spotted so far, 2. people like to dunk on it but i appreciate how the cybertruck adds a little excitement to the highway with its unusual design and relative rarity, it's like spotting a rare colorful bird or (for those who do not go outside) a shiny pokemon

the big news on the billboards along the highways is that pandas are back at the san diego zoo, which is a pretty big deal because they are quite popular but relatively rare at zoos. why is that? well, pandas are rare in general, they have a reproductive cycle like some kind of mythical creature, they lay only a single panda egg every 5,000 years their annual breeding "season" is literally three days per year, and most of the time in captivity they don't even seem to feel like doing it which has led frustrated researchers to experiment with things like viagra and "panda porn". they also have a tendency to have fake pregnancies, and of course only one out of every five newborn pandas survive more than a couple days because they all die of pneumonia or something. but maybe the biggest reason there aren't more pandas in zoos is that every panda in the world except for one is property of the chinese government, and loaned out in small numbers to favored countries as part of "panda diplomacy" for a fee of one million dollars per year. as relations with china deteriorated the past couple of years, pandas suspiciously disappeared from US zoos, but evidently things are on the mend since pandas are now back in san diego, after xi jinping hinted at his meeting with biden in san francisco last year that they may return to california... "i know from their flag that they must really love bears here," he may have remarked.

on our day off, i deferred to my friend for deciding the day's sightseeing spot, since i'd already been to san diego so many times. seaworld came up because my friend seemed to think it was some kind of massive aquariam, but came off the table as i regrettably informed him that it's mostly a theme park with a bunch of roller coasters and stuff. the final decision ended up being the USS midway, which i have to admit i wasn't too enthusiastic about visiting because it's expensive and i already went there last year. then, approaching the midway (and subsequently missing the dedicated parking lot), i happened to spot on a neighboring pier a giant banner that said "FLEET WEEK SAN DIEGO", but more importantly below that "FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC". upon parking we headed there first, and after clearing the security check (serious stuff, there was even extra screening for "foreign nationals"), we spent so long there that there wasn't enough time left to visit the midway.

it isn't that surprising to stumble across an event like this because san diego is a big military town, if not the biggest in the country (according to one source i dimly recall). on some of my past flights to san diego i've been seated near groups of well-groomed young men holding informational packets and seemingly on a mission that i at first mistook for mormons or something, but it turns out they were just new recruits on their way to basic training.

at the center of the pier were parked miscelleneous military vehicles, accompanied by a complement of soldiers bearing big guns. the atmosphere was pretty laid-back, you were allowed to clamber all over the vehicles and handle the guns for photo ops while the soldiers gossiped about what things are like in the field. they had a good idea of what the people wanted to see because they only brought out the biggest and most impressive machine guns and missile launchers, i made sure to try all of them on for size. most interesting was the m4 "recoilless rifle" rocket launcher, which weighed something like 20 pounds. we spoke with the operator who told us a couple of fun facts, like that he's going deaf in the right ear from using it, or that the back-blast is so strong that you need to keep an area of up to 100 ft behind it clear when firing, or that the ammunition is so expensive that in his career he's only properly fired it 7 times.

docked at the pier was an active warship that could be toured, the uss germantown. an amphibious landing ship, most of its bulk was an enormous floodable "well" used to transport landing craft like hovercrafts. apparently it's one of the oldest commissioned ships in the fleet, though none of the tour guides were able to agree on its exact position in the ranking. the only thing that's for sure is that the US navy's oldest commissioned ship by far is the uss constitution ("old ironsides"), a frigate launched in 1797 preserved in boston that's occasionally sailed for special occasions. the germantown does have one thing in common with the constitution, it's one of the last ships in the navy containing wood, which line the walls of the well. the most memorable part of the boat tour was the ship's "damage control specialist" giving a brief overview of firefighting equipment that was larded with initialisms and acronyms to an almost comical degree. "so, this is the EPFA, which we use with the NUJ in order to deal with INFI situations..."

at the center of the military vehicle corral, there was an M777 howitzer pointed ominously towards the nearby san diego skyline. for most of the day it seemed like it was just there as a conversation piece, but towards closing time a crew of six soldiers demonstrated what a full firing sequence looks like (without live ammo, of course). it was hard to tell which was the better-oiled machine, the soldiers with their precise practiced movements and callouts, or the actual machine they were manipulating.

as we were headed out, on the far side of the pier we saw a large group of people clustered around something and went to have a look. it turned out to be something completely unexpected: military dog trainers putting on a dog show. the trainers retrieved their pups one at a time from an adjacent trailer and sicced them on a poor guy wearing a thick padded bodysuit who looked pretty miserable in the hot socal sun. the dogs were trained to latch on to the arm and detain the target, but one of them went above (literally) and beyond by leaping up and tackling the guy to the ground. some of the dogs were really raring to go, the trainers could barely hold them back when they were brought out, and had difficulty detaching them from the poor guy's arm. i remember going to the county fair once and seeing dogs do tricks, but this was something altogether different... i'm not sure i can look at dogs again the same way...

after all the excitement, we headed towards a vaguely-asian commercial zone so that i could purchase a rice container. i am sick of always having to go all the way back into the pantry to retrieve rice a cup at a time from the big bag, plus i need something more secure than just the bag because one time after i poured water over the rice to cook it i noticed that some of the "grains of rice" were wiggling. the first stop was daiso, but as we cruised the parking lot looking for a spot i noticed a ramen place in the same complex that boasted of an endorsement from michelin, which you don't see every day. "superlative ramen joint tucked into a random strip mall" seems to be something of a socal idiom, then again where else are you supposed to put a restaurant here? we were there right around opening so decided it might be a good chance to try and get in without a wait, though even 15 minutes after opening there was already a 30 minute wait.

we killed the time browsing daiso, which despite being one of the biggest ones i've seen didn't have any rice containers or even these little spice containers i wanted more of that measure out exactly a teaspoon when you invert them. instead i contented myself with a small plastic storage container for sd cards, daiso always has exactly one oddly-specific thing i could use. the ramen was good but i ordered the wrong broth, and also overloaded on chashu by getting an extra side order of 5 pieces because the menu made it seem like the ramen otherwise didn't come with any.

the next stop was book-off, where i hoped i could replicate the Miracle in Honolulu. although the store seemed promising at first, extremely well-stocked with a robust japanese-language section, ultimately (as my friend remarked w/r/t to the vinyl selection) it ended up being mostly a tease. the japanese novel section seemed even larger than the one in honolulu but of course did not contain DOGRA MAGRA, and i'm beginning to fear that perhaps japanese readers in the US have shit taste. elsewhere, anything of mild interest was paired with a severe price, and the good stuff was locked in display cases, never a good sign for affordability. since when is a wii $150? there was also an oddly large selection of goods from that annoying harem anime with the quintuplets, like book-off had picked up a bunch of it at liquidation and was trying to offload it.⊕ after an hour of browsing i departed with two japanese cookbooks, i like how they have a full-color photo illustrating each step.

the hunt for a rice container continued nearby at "tokyo central" (formerly marukai), where in the back corner i discovered a neato rice container that automatically dispenses 150g of rice at a time, but i hesitated buying because 150g is 2/3 of a cup, a slightly awkward amount, and then a security guard came by to shoo us out because the store was closing in 5 minutes. on the way out i bravely resisted purchasing a donpen (mascot of japanese discount retailer don quixote, parent company of the store) plush toy, the devil has been tempting me a lot lately for some reason and i can't say he's never succeeded, i will probably go back and get it later. the tokyo central supermarket (in a separate adjacent building) closed an hour later so we retreated there, and i discovered an exciting new boss canned coffee containing coffee and milk and... banana?!

⊕late at night, when i was sure the roads would be clear of traffic and only the real degens would be out, i went to the san diego round 1 arcade (of course) for the first time, since it hadn't been open yet last time i had been in san diego. for some reason neither of my gamecards showed any credits, so i was forced to load up a new one. then, a few minutes later, of course i almost ran into a big sign advertising a limited-edition round 1 game card that was dedededededededede (henceforth referred to as "dex9") themed, of all things. this is the first time i've ever seen them do an alternate game card design promotion, i'm surprised they didn't get in on it earlier, i mean konami has probably released hundreds of limited edition e-amusement pass designs by now. someone left a partial free credit on iidx and i hijacked it to take the new version out for a spin and play that one wacky vocaloid song (apparently there's been something of a vocaloid renaissance lately) and somehow cleared it first try on HYPER 9 with no warm-up (auto-scratch on though because i don't actually know how to play iidx). the pump it up cab, unfortunately, had difficulty connecting to the internet and somebody had spilled something sticky on the pads, so i gravitated towards stepmaniax, which is a ripoff to play almost anywhere besides round 1.