Went to Kean Coffee (new place by founder of Diedrich). Very good. The place was packed. Starbucks never knew what to do with that location.
Listening to Chess. Only one year before Les Miserables, but sounds so much more dated because it was done in a 1980s pop rock style.
Diedrich Coffee’s website no longer has a store locator. It’s all online ordering. %^*! Starbucks.
Update 2015: Now the website doesn’t even exist anymore. Diedrich.com redirects to a page on Keurig’s online store. But Martin Diedrich took over the old location two months after I posted this, and Kéan Coffee is still going strong six years later!
On another note, saw a great misspelling in search terms: “synapses” for “synopsis”
We went to San Diego this weekend for a company event. The drive down on Saturday was quite nice — much faster than any of the times we’ve driven down for Comic-Con, for instance. It took us only an hour and 20 minutes to get to Old Town San Diego, and that was with taking the wrong exit and driving two miles inland just to be able to cross the river.
We had lunch at El Fandango in Old Town, then wandered around the shops for a bit. By now we’ve seen most of the exhibits and museums. But the San Diego House of Coffee and Tea is a must-visit stop, if for no other reason than to pick up some Highlander Grog. We also grabbed some hot coffee to walk around with, since it was gloomy with occasional drizzling. (I later noticed a sign in the Gaslamp area that said “Umbrellas $9.95. When Raining, $19.95.)
They had set up period tents and wagons around the grounds, mostly in the courtyard with the flagpole made from the ship’s mast. One of the shops we visited was the mineral & gemstone store, which I’ve always liked visiting even back when I was a kid. And right up front, they had the hugest trilobite fossil I’d ever seen, around a foot long.
After a few hours, we drove into downtown San Diego and checked into the Omni Hotel. I’d never stayed there before, but it’s highly sought-after among attendees at Comic-Con because it’s right across the street from the convention center. Our room had a view of the end of the convention center, which will shed a little light on the size of the crowds. Continue reading
The Diedrich Coffee across from UCI is now a Peet’s. There’s just one Diedrich left in all of southern California: the one in Irvine on Barranca and Culver. I’m still annoyed that they converted the one in Tustin to a Starbucks, then closed it when it didn’t perform as well as they wanted. I suspect if they’d left it alone, it would have probably done fine.
Update: Judging by how well Kéan Coffee has done in that location, it looks like I was right.
