Happy Post-Independence Day Weekend 2025!
Another MLB ballpark seen with another I Day spent in another city, and the remainder of my MLB ballpark chase
Given the fact I immediately transitioned from end of Spring Semester 2025 at UVM to driving home to the Pacific Northwest to starting my Summer Semester 2025 courses at UVM to finishing them the night before Summer Quarter 2025 started at UW, etc., I hadn’t had a mental break for months. So, the week before last (aka week 1 of UW Summer Quarter 2025 - I booked plane tickets to fly to San Diego for I Day weekend, bought myself a Padres ticket so I could see them on I Day, and having solicited advice for what to do in San Diego from two of my friends who have lived in San Diego (all hail Conor and Evan), I had a plan to fill the weekend.
Part 1 - I Day Weekend!
I flew down to San Diego from Seattle on the Alaska direct flight on Thursday (3 July) in the afternoon, which was nice, since I was able to get first class tickets for a reasonable enough rate.
On 3 July, mid-afternoon, I arrived in San Diego, got a cab to my hotel (The Little Italy Hotel), got to my room, turned on the HVAC to as low as it went (15 deg C), and immediately took a three-hour nap. After, I went to Ironside Fish & Oyster for much seafood goodness. Now, I shouldn’t have had the shellfish, but I do enjoy it, so ended up paying for it for the rest of the weekend.
For anyone seeking to know the vibe of Ironside - here you go. And there’s no point showing you a restaurant without showing you what I had at the restaurant!
A three-hour food and drink experience in nine pictures - admittedly, whilst I was sitting at the bar, I went through three different groups of guests to my left. After much feasting, I sat outside near a fountain for a bit, and eventually went back to my hotel and to bed.
Friday morning, 4 July, I Day itself, started with a steak breakfast burrito at La Casa Verde (I showed up at 08h30), and it was a tasty, meaty treat experience for an hour.
With my breakfast consumed, I ordered a Lyft, and took it to the USS Midway Museum, so I could begin my day of American patriotic goodness.
The USS Midway Museum opens at 10h00 (and in fact they start letting people in at 09h45), so my recommendation is to show up early.
Once you clear the screening area and get to the entryway, the fun begins!
When I was in the service, I had the opportunity to spend a little time on an aircraft carrier before, but all of that time was spent in what (depending on your service background) is known as the CIC (combat information centre, US term), AIC (action information centre, British/Commonwealth term), or specifically on an aircraft carrier, the CDC (combat direction centre).1 So, this was a very different experience for me, even if it was only a museum ship docked in a harbour. It required a fair amount of climbing up and down flights of ladders (the steep flights of stairs found in a naval vessel - not an easy feat for a man who walks with a cane), and it was worth doing, but I paid for this, since climbing up and down is not so easy for me to do these days.
After the carrier island tour, I walked around the flight deck for a bit, took a gander at some of the aircraft parked on the deck, and then left the Midway about 11h45.
By this point, my tired & sore self called for a Lyft to take me back to my hotel to rest up for a bit before the Padres game later that day. After my nap, got myself together, and then took a Lyft to Petco Park.
After clearing security (where I was asked to dump the contents of my Cornell water bottle, so, as directed, I immediately unscrewed and upended my bottle, dumping the water right in front of me - to the annoyance of the security guy), I went to the nearest guest services booth. Two things of note happened here: 1) found out that they don’t fill-out printed first game certificates (although I did get a button as well as a QR code which I could scan to a link to the PDF for it - and of course filled it out later), 2) that I was told that in order to access my disability seat, I had to go up a ramp to the 100-level, then walk a ways to the section. When I got there…
I come to discover that the disability seating is not at the end of the section nearest the walkway around the ballpark, but down the stairway of the section…which to my gimpy self, not exactly doable. So, the employee working the section got her supervisor, the supervisor called a wheelchair for me, and while I waited I watched the game from the last row of the section:
This was not a bad view, and it was shaded, but eventually the wheelchair showed up, which took ~15 minutes to show up, then wheeled me outside, and into another entrance, up a ramp, and then along a walkway for a bit to my seat.
Once I got to my seat, I was in the sun…
That’s row 22, which is 20 rows ahead of where the end of the section is. I will say, the view from my seat was definitely better than the back of the section.
And it was very sunny outside, which meant that my long-sleeve shirt was a bit warm for the environment, so eventually took it off…
exposing my Pineland University t-shirt!2 And yes, Petco Park in July was a sun-soaked experience - either bring sunscreen with you when you travel to SD, or buy some once you arrive. I did not, and I was fortunate that the usher for the section had sunscreen she was able to give to me.
The game went to 10 innings, and the Padres won, 3-2!
See, there were fireworks! After the game, I was wheeled to the street in a wheelchair, caught a Lyft back to my hotel, ended up taking a nap that lasted so long that I missed most of the San Diego Independence Day fireworks, but I did catch the tail-end of those, and then went back to sleep.
I woke up on Saturday (5 July), having a late start, so decided to go to Hodad’s in Ocean Beach for my first meal of the day.
I showed up to Hodad’s at 10h45, joined the queue, got seated at the bar, ordered a Guido Burger (grilled onions, pastrami, Swiss cheese, deli mustard, and the beef patty, but without ketchup), and then after that, I got the potato chip encrusted chicken tenders with BBQ sauce. All told, took me an hour, and the food was good, but the service wasn’t great for me starting, but ended way better than it started.
Immediately afterwards, I walked down the block to Mike’s Taco Club, to get a second steak breakfast burrito for my lunch. It was glorious.
After that, I walked to the beach, sat, looked around, read my book some, and just relaxed.
At the edge of the beach, near the curve in the road, there was a veterans’ memorial, which was simple, but thoughtful, which I appreciate. I sat with my book nearby and read for an hour.
My three-ish hours at Ocean Beach was a solid experience, and after, I called for a Lyft to take me back to my hotel. After relaxing, I got a San Diego Cheesesteak at Princess Pub and Grille (which was fine, but it would have been improved with the avocado mixed with the meat, onions, and peppers, and not on top of the cheese on top of the cheesesteak - it was not worthy of pictorial documentation).
After, I got myself a milkshake at Salt & Straw across the street with ”coffee & love nuts” flavour (more of a mocha than pure coffee flavour, and the nuts were toasted almonds, so no complaints).
This whole experience took me about an hour, including time in the queue, ordering, awaiting my milkshake, and consuming it on the bench outside. After, I went back to my hotel, read some more, took a nap, woke up in Saturday evening, did some work, and then went to bed.
Sunday (6 July), I woke up early, did some work, then got (first) breakfast at La Casa Verde again (another steak breakfast burrito, so my third of this trip).
After, as I was walking back to my hotel, I got second breakfast of pastry (an almond croissant as well as a morning bun/muffin thing) & an “Aztec mocha” (with dark cacao, cinnamon, & cayenne but with unheated milk, so they gave it to me in an iced beverage cup).
After my second breakfast, I went back to my hotel, did some more work, packed, took a ride to San Diego International Airport, got on my plane, flew back to Seattle, got a light snack at the Alaska Lounge in D Terminal, took the light rail back to UW, got my car, and drove home. My trip was complete as of 19h15 Pacific Time.
Given the advice I got from my friends Evan (whom I know from undergrad at UW) and Conor (who was one of my students at UVA, and became a friend after he was no longer my student), both of whom who had lived in San Diego, I got plenty of recommendations from the two of them, as well as from the New York Times travel article on 36 Hours in San Diego.
In fact, I got way more recommendations than I had the time for, even with the (semi-hard) restriction of doing things in/near downtown given my not having a rental car, so relying on walking and Lyft for getting to and from things, and my own self-imposed restriction of not pushing myself too hard, I still got the vast majority of what I wanted to accomplish on this trip done. The fact I took naps and spent time to read for pleasure was undeniably relaxing to me, and something that I normally don’t have time for these days.
In all respects, this trip was a success, and I will have to go back at another time to experience all of the rest of the things I didn’t have time for this trip. My gratitude to Conor and Evan for their San Diego recommendations is large, and they both are now holders of EDCs.3
Part 2 - The Rest of my Ballpark Chase
With the experience of watching the Padres beat the Texas Rangers at Petco Park on I Day, that means, given my ballpark chasing rules, I have half of the MLB teams left to see at their home stadia.
Given I will be in the DC area at the end of August, and will see the Baltimore Orioles play in Camden Yards (and already have the ticket for that game watch), and am planning to go to San Francisco in mid-September to see the Giants play (logistics still being worked out), that means, in order to complete my 30 MLB home stadia game watching chase, I’ll have the following teams left to see (with their stadia names as they were when I started this chase officially in the 2023 season):
As you can see from my MLB team/stadium tracker - I have teams/stadia with the following designations in the “Been to” column:
One x (or x) = been to the team stadium, have not seen a game there,
Two x (xx) = only been to the team’s previous stadium to see a game (specifically this only applies to the Giants, as I saw games at Candlestick Park when I was a kid, I haven’t seen them in AT&T/Oracle Park, but this designation will soon be moot, since I plan to see the Giants this September),
Three x (xxx) = have been to as part of my chase since I started my chase, but since I have been to their stadium to see a game at home, they have since moved (as you can see, this specifically applies only to the team formerly known as the Oakland A’s - and I refuse to update the name for the current location or their future location), and,
Four x (xxxx) = having been to as part of my ballpark chase since I officially started it, and they haven’t moved since I attended a home game of theirs.
This means, for the teams I have left after the end of this baseball season, that I can work them all into a bunch of trips for which I will bundle the games to require fewer total trips to do this. Those game bundle trips are:
1. LA & Arizona Trip
Los Angeles Angels (Angel Stadium)
Los Angeles Dodgers (Dodgers Stadium)
Arizona Diamondbacks (Chase Field)
2. Texas Trip
Texas Rangers (Globe Life Field)
Houston Astros (Minute Maid Park)
3. Atlanta + Florida Trip
Atlanta Braves (Truist Park)
Tampa Bay Rays (Tropicana Field, or Steinbrenner Field if I end up going whilst Tropicana is still under reconstruction)
Miami Marlins (Loan Depot Park)
4. Midwest (or I-70) Trip
Kansas City Royals (Kauffman Stadium)
Colorado Rockies (Coors Field)
5. Great Lakes/Ohio Valley Trip
Cleveland Guardians (Progressive Field)
Pittsburgh Pirates (PNC Park)
Cincinnati Reds (Great American Ball Park)
Now, I can probably do some of these locations with friends, since I know some folks in LA, Kansas City, Florida, and Atlanta - however, I expect that the bulk of these I will be doing alone.
Given my thesis/lab work for UVM, my post-bac coursework at UW, etc., I certainly won’t be able to clear all five of those trip bundles next year, but if I can get 2-3 done next year (the 2026 Season), and the remainder done in 2027 - I will consider this a relatively well-executed endeavour.
I meant to get to other stuff, such as academic things, where I want to take this Substack from here, etc., but will try to get to within 1-2 more posts later on this week.
On that note, my good people, I hope all of you had a happy Independence Day weekend with your loved ones, and that’s a full lid for today, 7 July 2025.
By whatever name you call it, fundamentally, the role is the same, it’s where information from radar, sonar, visual spotting, etc., is all processed to drive actionable decision-making by the people exercising command and control - that is to say primarily the warship’s commanding officer, the navigator, the conning officer, the officer of the deck, etc.
I was not an Army Special Forces soldier when I was in the US military, but I worked for and with them when I was in, so knew plenty of the background and lore that SF soldiers were steeped in. Pineland University refers to Phase 5 of SF training, known as Robin Sage, which is a lengthy field exercise that takes place in a fictional country of Pineland.
EDC = Everett Drink Credits - what I give out to friends for favours done for me, as well as what I normally wager on with my friends, since I don’t bet money for real. My friends who do not consume alcohol much if at all can redeem their EDCs in non-alcoholic drinks or in substitute things (usually meals).