Morning walks with Seiko

  We are walking this morning, and my wife is wearing her newly-revived Seiko 17-jewel, automatic, date-equipped Hi-Beat watch. We've had this for about 12 years and it's never run before. More details on its restoration will be covered in a Watch Tech article. We went to the southeast end of Balboa Park today, near the Naval Medical Center, San Diego. This massive, sprawling complex is one of the largest medical centers in the world. We followed the scurrying folk on their way to work and ended up at the back corner where no civilians are allowed. OK with me, I don't want to go into a hospital anyway. If you just spin around 180 degrees you find the old hospital (now administrative offices for Balboa Park) and its more appealing architecture and tile work. By stretching my arms to their limit I was able to lift my camera high enough to get the whole bench in the picture. There was plenty of light for photos and having the lamps lit as well added to the appeal of the ground...

Today's walk was started with a bit of indecision and back-tracking. We knew it would be clear and crisp (ie frost on the lawn). No dramatic clouds. We decided to go for the view rather than someplace where we'd be focussed on the ground at our feet. That meant high on a hill with minimal obstructions. I did some early reconnaissance before waking my wife, and yes, it looked promising:   An hour or so later we saw this: And as the sun rose we saw even more in the golden light. Here's the watch for the day. At the moment the sun topped the horizon we were behind a large house, but we could sure tell it had arrived. We sat on a bench for a moment, then continued our quest for the ultimate tourist board photos of San Diego. I got distracted by these two large hangars on North Island. Now the home of the helicopter fleet, they used to house PBY Catalinas  in the Second World War and the Korean conflict. My dad piloted his "Flying Boat" out of those hangars, down a ram...