Life in a Carlsbad Hotel

So you may or may not know that I lived in a hotel for over two months, actually one of the better hotels in town. My room was one of the suites, one of the better suites to be exact, so it had a kitchenette and a sitting room. Don't let this fool you...this hotel was pretty classy:

• Apparently the designers/hotel management had no concept of thermodynamics...they put the smoking rooms on the bottom floor and the nonsmoking rooms on the top. Coming home and having the smell of cigarettes (or pot for a few days) hit me was totally cool (yeah...no).
• Normally when you have a kitchenette in the hotel, you usually get silverware, cups, plates, maybe even cooking supplies like pots and pans (or at least you can request them)...not so in Carlsbad. Apparently they had such a problem with people stealing them they stopped handing them out, or even having them available on request. Very lame actually for someone living out of a suitcase in a hotel.
• Once I came out to find a family having a bar-b-que in front of their hotel room door on a camper grill.
• The third night I lived there I was turning into the hotel and the entrance was blocked by two police cars and an ambulance...later I found out someone was shot there
• One Saturday morning I awoke to find about a dozen kids playing some sort of run around and beat eachother up game around the whole hotel...they looked like local kids which was even better

Ahhh the _____ Inn, you can see they have a lounge, which will be the subject of a whole other post...get excited. Yeah, it's totally classy.

Classy Carlsbad Moment #3

Since I moved to Carlsbad I have noticed a change in my driving habits:

• Once you can't see the town anymore, it is fully permissible to go 90+mph no matter what the speed limit. If you go below 70 (even if the speed limit is 55 and the road has no shoulder, no center line, and cows walking across it at random intervals) you will be passed...probably by big oil trucks.
• Red lights: Some places say "red lights are just suggestions" but here is a whole different story...if it just turned red and you don't run it, you have the possibility of getting rear ended. I have noticed my feelings towards red lights go from "OMG it's yellow I'm going to get a ticket if I don't slam on breaks, :::screeeeech:::" to "eh, it just turned red, plenty of time to make it through." ::drive leisurely through intersection::
• The vehicles themselves: Range from grandma cars to bad-ass trucks to low-riders. Once just driving down the street by my house I saw about 5 low-riders just cruising...and that was a side street.

Here is my favorite low-rider picture...this was taken in Santa Fe though in front of the DMV:

All fine and good...but look at it closely:

Could it be pot leaves and dollar signs stenciled on a green glitter background? Oh yes...Classy.

Classy Carlsbad Moment #2

I couldn't get a picture of the guy selling baby turtles on Canal Street (the main street through town) yesterday, so here's an article from a robbery that took place just before Christmas:

Store manager thwarts meat heist

CARLSBAD — An alert grocery store manager in Carlsbad thwarted a big meat heist last week. An Albertsons' manager said a man attempted to leave the store Dec. 13 with a shopping cart full of choice beef including five 10-pound chubs of meat, two rib-eye roasts, six packages of pork ribs, four sirloin steaks and five packages of chicken breasts. A police complaint said the total value of the items came to $501.05. As the female manager attempted to stop the man, he became startled, fled and left the cart and meat behind. Police reviewed surveillance video from the store and saw a man placing items into a cart. They later arrested 43-year-old Manuel Cabazuela, described as being a transient. Cabazuela entered no plea to charges of shoplifting more than $500 but less than $2,500.

Classy.

Classy Carlsbad Moment #1

To start this off I needed a really good one...I think this covers it:



and a close-up of the other side:



Yes, that is a converted U-Haul truck selling various car accessories (written with a marker on the side) off of our main drag. Classy.

Let's get this Blog Started!

As it says in my "About Me" I moved here earlier this year for work and since then have been coming up with ways to describe Carlsbad to various family and friends. Descriptions I have either come up with or heard are: "The complete opposite of Portland, Oregon." and "What America would look like after a zombie apocalypse." Also, I would tell them different things I have observed around town and throughout the state, commonly called "Classy Carlsbad Moments." There is a totally different mentality here when it comes to just about anything. Don't get me wrong, I actually like living here...it's an entertaining town that's to be sure and far removed from the fast-paced life in a college town I was used to. I guess living 2-3 hours from the nearest "real" city (meaning El Paso, Lubbock and Midland) in the middle of a desert does that to you. So enjoy my "Classy Carlsbad Moments!"