Looking for an über-chic hotel in San Diego?

I was in San Diego a week or two ago and rather than just check out Expedia to find a place to stay I contacted a friend at Bailey * Gardiner who arranged for me to get a journalist rate at the Sé San Diego, downtown in the center of urban San Diego, California.

Just as well, too, as even with the special room rate, it cost me over $150 for a single night's stay. The normal rate would double the tab, but you know what? It was totally worth it and was probably the very nicest place I've ever stayed on my travels.

I dug around a bit and found out that the hotel's quite new: about a year old, and that its odd name has a story. Apparently, when they were busy building it, the hotel was going to be called the Diegan, then Setai was the name of choice, and less than a month before its opening, a legal battle over the name Setai changed it to the Sé San Diego. You can get a hint of the problem when you see on the Setai San Diego site that it disclaims that the Sé has no affiliation with "the Setai Hotel Management Company, The Setai Hotels and Resorts, LLC or any of its entities."

Originally, the building was the San Diego landmark Jessop & Son's Jewelry, and when architects Nestor+Gaffner were brought in, they came up with the bold idea of building a 23-story steel tower atop of the facade. The result is a gorgeous Asian-inspired hotel with 184 guest rooms, 3 penthouses and 20,000 feet of meeting space. Want a swim? The pool's on the roof!

Let me show you a few pics (from their archive, I didn't take these).

First off, this is the "City View" room I had:

Truly beautiful, probably too chic for a jeans-wearing guy like myself, but the staff was gracious and while the hotel had the potential to be snooty, I never felt uncomfortable.

The room was nice, but I have to say that the 900-pound brass door was amazing, this massive inches-thick monstrosity that is on such a well-designed hinge system that I could open it with one hand. Think stylish vault door and you'd be on track. Equally delightful was the lobby, which would be a fabulous place for a rendezvous:

The lobby was truly gorgeous and the lobby bar, Suite & Tender, must be one of the trendiest places in town to arrange a tryst or rendezvous, though I wasn't there long enough to find out. :-)

I really enjoyed my short stay at the Sé San Diego and would love to stay there again. In a city with hundreds of hotels within a dozen miles of downtown, it's one of the most beautiful. If style is your thing, if you consider yourself a fashionista, this should be your next destination in San Diego.

Weird Pic Caption Contest

I hosted a panel last night on the future of television, for the DaVinci Institute, and as part of it, I continued an amusing tradition of presenting the weirdest pictures of the week and offered up what I hope were amusing captions for them unrelated to the original context of the pictures.

Seems to me that'd be fun to do here on my blog to, so without further ado, here they are...

The first one is easy, and I'll use it as a demonstration of what I mean:

(1) Larry was determined to do anything to avoid being the black sheep of the family.

Now, what's your best caption?

Read on for more...

Well, before we get started...

I know that this is going to...

format pretty oddly....

because of that crazy advert on the side...

but bear with me so we can move down to where...

the images are actually included.

(is this the digital equivalent of a Burma Shave sign series?)

Have we gone far enough yet?

Okay, fine, here we go...

(2) You will smile, whether you like it or not!

(3) Stewie didn't understand why his friends were creeped out by the new pillow, he loved it!

(4) After three meetings, the Playground Improvement Committee still couldn't figure out
why kids didn't like the new slide

(5) Uhm, uhhh... I have no caption that's G rated for this one. Mrroooww!

(6) Her new invention worked great until Sandra tried to stay within the bike lane

Now, your turn. Each pic is numbered, so add your own best suggestions for wry, funny, sarcastic or other amusing comments on these photos!

Research: Why your match.com email doesn't lead to dates

I know I'm a research geek with lots of academic background and even a stint as a research scientist at an R&D lab, but still, this kind of data really fascinates me to no end: Online dating site OK Cupid has released the result of some semantic analysis that it did of the aggregate emails that people on the site sent each other, comparing what they wrote against whether or not they actually went on a date with the other person.

Now anyone with a research background will immediately glom onto the fact that they have committed the cardinal sin of assuming causality from correlational data, but it's so darn interesting that I'll let it slide anyway :-) In a nutshell, the problem can be explained thusly: poor people have above-ground pools, while rich people have in-ground pools, therefore getting an in-ground pool must make you rich." See the problem?

Anyway, we're not interested in pools or money, we're interested in picking up that sexy possibility on an online dating service like Match or eHarmony or... etc. That's what they looked at, and if we can even just look at the correlational data and if we can make the assumption that the people that use OK Cupid are sufficiently similar to those that use the more mainstream sites, well, let's look at what they found...

Continue reading Research: Why your match.com email doesn't lead to dates

The Story Behind Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I write about all sorts of stuff, not just parenting (though as a single dad with three kids parenting is pretty much always on my mind!), including some of the shows that I have a chance to see as I travel around. About a year ago I got to see Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE, and wrote an extensive review on this blog [see Review of Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles: LOVE].

I was back in Las Vegas a few weeks ago for the Consumer Electronics Show, and my friend Jessica who works at Cirque sent me tickets to see The Beatles LOVE again, and it was just as wonderful and entertaining as last time, if not more so since I had more of a sense of what was going on.

This time, though, I paid attention to what on my film blog I'd call the "story arc", the order in which scenes and acts were shown on stage. Given the backstory of the Fab Four, it was considerably more insightful and thoughtful than I expected...

Continue reading The Story Behind Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE

Finding your sex appeal after divorce

This amusing piece was sent to me by the gal who wrote the book The Laptop Dancer Diaries and I thought I'd share it, even though it's a bit, um, explicit. It's written from a woman's perspective, but with a few tweaks I think it addresses universal issues of self-image and self-confidence post-divorce. Read on, but you've been warned. Oh, and it's okay to laugh a few times, even if it's in embarrassment. :-)

---

You're a woman in your forties. You've been through enough of life's experiences that nothing can faze you. You've developed confidence and style. You are no longer self-conscious about what you say or how you look and you like who you've become, wrinkles and all. Those laugh lines add character.

Then you get divorced. Suddenly, you feel about as secure as a high school geek with braces and acne. Childbirth and age have left you with cellulite, stretch marks, and deflated boobs. How in the world will you ever feel comfortable exposing your naked body to a new man? You decide it's time to experiment with vibrators.

Although vibrators provide surprisingly more satisfaction than your ex-husband ever did, eventually, you come to the conclusion that they do not provide the emotional connection that you crave. Admittedly, most men come up short in that department, too, but you are not quite ready to experiment with women. You know you must venture out into that scary world of dating.

Continue reading Finding your sex appeal after divorce

Should your ex show up at events when it's your time?

Since I post questions for other people with some anonymity involved, I am finding that more questions are showing up in my mailbox, asking me for advice. I'm happy to help, but I do have to be candid that I'm hardly an expert parent nor am I any sort of expert on attachment parenting.

Nonetheless, here's the question of the day:

Dave, I'm struggling with a co-parenting issue and looking for a fellow attachment parent to run a couple things by...like hockey tournament in Colorado Springs during my weekend in Feb. and he wants to come and get his own room. Not really my cup of tea. So, what is in the best interest of my son and MY best interest feel competing. Then again, the 30 minute hockey tournament 2 mornings during the weekend is really cute but not worth driving to the Springs with girl du jour. Motivation unclear, in my opinion.

I know that my first reaction was "screw your ex, it's your time, he and his gal should stay the heck away!", but then I kept thinking about the situation, took a breath, and realized that my first reaction was exactly wrong.

Continue reading Should your ex show up at events when it's your time?

Honey, it's our fetus on the phone again!

I am just so entertained by this phenomenally wacky hardware add-on to our handy Apple iPhones: the Ritmo Advanced Pregnancy Sound System, which, according to its makers, "was created to provide a convenient, comfortable and safe way for families to share the sensory and emotional experience of bonding through sound and music with their developing baby."

Marketing talk, for sure, but the basic concept is just hilarious: it's a sort of two piece belt that mama wears around her belly that plugs in to an iPhone or other audio device. As the headline says: Talk to your baby in the womb using an iPhone. Wow!

On the left I have an actual product picture from the Ritmo site, and I've also embedded a video. Every time I look at the photo on the right, I think "darn that little monkey, calling me again!"

Now, in reality, I realize that the fetus can't actually initiate calls (not yet, that might be v2 of the Ritmo product for all we know), but jeez, isn't this just a little bit over the top?

Continue reading Honey, it's our fetus on the phone again!

Avoiding stress while raising two 4mo boys?

As is not uncommon, I received an email from someone who earnestly hoped that I was an expert on attachment parenting. I'm not. I just play one on TV. Oh, no, I turned that offer down (it's true, I was invited to come on the Dr. Phil show to talk about attachment parenting!).

More seriously, I've just been using an attachment parenting approach first with my children when they were young, and now as best I can as a single dad who has my kids approximately 50% of the time. It's not easy, though Linda and I are at least in pretty close sync about what we are and aren't okay with from a parenting perspective.

Anyway, back to the email I received. Here's what the gal asked:

"I am new to the whole Attachment Parenting thing and I came across your blog when I googled AP. I am reading Naomi Aldort's book Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. I agree with most of everything I have learned so far, but I am already kind of stressing myself out which in turn is going to stress my boys out, which defeats the whole point.

My problem is I have four-month-old twin boys. I read the other day that if you leave your baby crying it will increase the cortisol in the baby's brain and could cause problems later in life. Now when I'm feeding one baby and he other baby goes off I feel bad if I can't get to him right away. I have trouble trying to carry them both at the same time?? I tried a Moby wrap but that didn't work to well. Right now I take turns carry them each in the sling at different times.

I still have a lot to learn about AP and I'm trying to take a deep breath and relax and do the best I can. Do you have any ideas about how I can do AP type things with both the boys???"

My response is...

Continue reading Avoiding stress while raising two 4mo boys?

How do you refer to "the person you're seeing" when you're an adult?

As a single man again, after almost two decades of being in a relationship, I'm finding that dating in my 40s is very different from dating in my 20s. One huge difference in me is self-confidence: I'm far more self-assured than I ever was back then.

Just as importantly, I know what I don't like and am comfortable saying so. Want to go ski the black diamond slopes in Aspen? I'm not your man. Want to go sky-diving? I'll see you on the ground and good luck to you! Going to see a movie? Going for a hike? Need a pal at a local rep theater production? Having a spontaneous weekend somewhere? Now we're talking...

But here's what's baffling me: if I'm seeing someone, if we've been dating for long enough that we've reprogrammed our phones to have each other on speed dial (I know, quite trés modern, eh?), what's the word we should be using to describe each other?

Continue reading How do you refer to "the person you're seeing" when you're an adult?

Reality TV Show Casting Call!

Generally I am not a big fan of reality shows as I know from the inside that they're manipulated and designed to create drama and interest rather than the actual boring humdrum reality of our day to day, minute by minute lives, but sometimes things do come along that are a bit different.

This casting call, from an LA-based freelance casting associate, does sound kind of interesting, with its emphasis on " America's most outgoing families to compete in exciting outdoor challenges". Is it going to be of reasonable quality? It'll take a year for us to find out, I imagine, but if your family is picked, you do get $5000 compensation, plus I presume gear, visibility, lodging, food, and perhaps some nice trips too.

Check it out: and if you do apply, please leave a comment letting us know how it went!

Continue reading Reality TV Show Casting Call!

Sleepovers: our place or theirs?

Had an interesting experience last weekend with my 13yo daughter, A-. All day she'd been talking about having her pal over to our place for a sleepover, and her friend had joined us for the day's activities (she's a delightful addition to the family and always welcome).

Late afternoon we talked about how we were one bed mattress short for things to work: We have three mattresses and one air mattress but adding her would make five and unless the girls were willing to share A-'s (big) bed, we needed to get an additional bed.

That's what they wanted, no problem, so we stopped by Linen's Etc and I spent $200 buying a new aerobed + two anti-allergenic blankets on 50% off sale (we needed more blankets anyway) along with a hot air popper.

On the way home, A- asks "can we watch a movie tonight, Daddy?" to which I said "no, that's not going to work out."

She was clearly not too happy with that answer and after a moment's thought...

Continue reading Sleepovers: our place or theirs?

Attachment parenting and babysitters

I don't know exactly how we ended up in this situation, but I find that one of the toughest things about being a single parent with three varied age kids we've raised with attachment parenting ideals is that they're not babysitter friendly.

What do I mean by that? Simply that they aren't responsive to babysitters, don't listen, and generally are anxious and upset if they're with someone other than Linda or I. Not during the day, I'll note, but I'm talking evenings, bed time.

As I have written before over the years that I've run this blog, bedtime has been a perpetual challenge and frankly it seems like bedtime problems are a great unspoken problem for parents in our society, particularly those of us that are trying to create a "safe container" for our children. (do I sound like I live in Boulder, Colorado, or what?)

Continue reading Attachment parenting and babysitters

Fighting H1N1 with a cool soap dispenser

I'm not a big fan of vaccinations. I think that it's one of the reasons that we're seeing more and more extreme allergies and auto-immune deficiency illnesses, a path that only seems to have one direction for us to travel: to a world where people are more and more sickly, more reliant on the vaccinations and big pharma medications.

Probably makes me sound a bit paranoid. Ah well, can't be helped, I'm just being transparent. My kids have never been vaccinated for anything and they've had remarkably healthy childhoods and when they've gotten sick, they're returned to health quite quickly. Correlative? I don't think so, personally.

Anyway, the "plague" of H1N1 aka swine flu raises an interesting question: should I get my children vaccinated from this flu strain?

No surprise, Linda and I decided not to have the vaccination, either for ourselves or for the kids. (at least, I assume she hasn't had the vaccination. I know I haven't been vaccinated)

But what to do instead?

Continue reading Fighting H1N1 with a cool soap dispenser

Dad + daughter's hair: an inherent disaster?

I'm lucky, I know. I'm a single dad to two girls, 12 and 5, and while it'd be a bit odd for the tween to be asking me for help with the latest hair style, it's a miracle that my 5yo daughter can do her own hair and never asks me for more than finding those darn hair bands.

Most dads don't have it that easy, and there's little more intimidating than a little girl asking you to "do that pretty braid like mommy does" or "fix my hair for photo day".

Turns out I'm not alone in my misigivings and angst in this area: a chap called Craig Lawrey contacted me a few weeks ago about a book he's written called Does Your Daughter Have Dad Hair?

Continue reading Dad + daughter's hair: an inherent disaster?

Jif Peanut Butter is gluten-free, but ...

The PR agency behind Jif peanut butter has a promotion where they're asking for the best recipes that include Jif peanut butter. Okay, not a bad idea. When I got a copy of the query I responded that to me the real question is the quality of the food: two of my three children are on gluten-free diets.

To my surprise, they informed me that Jif actually is a gluten-free product. Now, before you say "well, yeah, it's peanuts and oil", you should know that just about all foods on the shelf now have the ambiguous "natural flavoring" and that's often where gluten is hiding, as an additive or flavoring. As I've learned, if it doesn't say "gluten free" you can't assume that it is, even when the ingredients are listed and there's nothing that's obviously a gluten product.

Turns out that Jif, while gluten free, has more ingredients than you might expect:

The challenge with peanut butter, of course, is to keep it creamy even as the natural tendency of the peanuts is to have the oil separate and the nut butter to coagulate and eventually become this thick glop. I've tossed more than one jar of all natural peanuts-only peanut butter for just this reason, and bet you have too.

Continue reading Jif Peanut Butter is gluten-free, but ...

The economics of driving a taxi in Las Vegas

I'm in Las Vegas right now for the Blogworld and New Media Expo and took a cab, as I often do, cruising around from hotel to hotel, party to party. This time the driver, Frank, was in a talkative mood and revealed some very interesting information about the economics of being a cab driver here in Las Vegas.

Wondering how these guys get paid? Turns out that one of their biggest sources of revenue is dropping fares off at strip clubs. In fact, there's a "price war" going on with the strip clubs here in Vegas and a cabbie can earn up to $100 per person for dropping people off at the door.

They drop fares off, get a "chit" from the doorman, and then park and come back to get the cash. Meanwhile, the people going into the club find out that there's a "cover" charge (of up to $100) to cover the cost of paying off the cabbie.

I'm thinking that's going to skew their recommendations regarding which club to visit, don't you think? Do they have to disclose that according to the new FTC regulations?

Continue reading The economics of driving a taxi in Las Vegas

For me, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare numbers didn't end up working

A pal of mine emailed me a few days ago asking:

Do you have a hilton grand vacations hgvc timeshare? Which resort do you usually go to? Are you happy with it?

We went back and forth in email, including me explaining some of the math behind time shares and why they're such a bad idea for most people (myself included, in hindsight) and so I thought I'd publish the back and forth here, add some additional comments, and invite you readers to add your own two cents and your experiences with timeshares, whether you jumped or not.

Ready? Here we go...

I responded: We paid $110,000 for a double-timeshare share at the fanciest new King's Land location in the Waikaloa Beach area (Kona Coast) of the Big Island of Hawaii. When Linda and I separated, however, and we took a two-location, shared kids, trip to Hawaii for a few weeks, she booked through Hilton Grand Vacations and I just went to the vacation rentals by owner (VRBO) Web site and booked a nicer place with far, far less hassle.

The theory of timeshares is good, but my experience is that the reality is that it's so complicated to figure out their point system and when you can / can't get what you want, when you want, that I strongly suggest you put the money into a CD and use sites like vrbo.com to book your trips instead.

For example, check out this page to see how many rentals there are on just the Waikoloa coast area on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Continue reading For me, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare numbers didn't end up working