"It's a revolution"

In between interviewing candidates, I pulled some San Diegans aside to capture reactions to Barack Obama's victory.

Check out more of San Diego's election coverage at The San Diego Union-Tribune, Channel 10 News or Voice of San Diego.

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Live from downtown San Diego

Live from Golden Hall, I will be sending live updates on to my twitter page.

I will be tracking San Diego's election returns, interviewing candidates and trying to keep up with it all.

My camera, flip video camera and digital recorder will be in my pack, so check back for fresh content late tonight.

To track San Diego's election returns live, check out The San Diego Union-Tribune's interactive map.



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Moving into City Heights

You know you are in City Heights when the street noise is a mingle of police cars, revving engines, mariachi music and voices in Spanish.

I have this idealistic frame of mind that moving to an area dominated by minorities would help me mature as a journalist. If I survived Asia for five months, I could probably survive City Heights. Right?


My first night, I drove onto Highland Avenue in City Heights and parked my sister's red Ford Mustang in front of the apartment complex. There were three spots open, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal.

There was a Lexis down the street so I felt okay parking in the neighborhood.

I went upstairs to apartment number seven and saw my new 60-something-year-old roommate, Barbara, sitting on her couch through the screen door.

"It's unlocked, come on inside," she yelled.

I pulled open the heavy screen door and walked inside. The smell of bunny fifth met my nose. I jumped as Barbara's pet rabbit hopped in front of me and scurried beneath the bed where I sleep.

We chatted for a bit and I tried to relax.

"Wait here, I have to show you what I found for my granddaughter at the thrift store today," she said.

I waited and she brought out a plaid Christmas dress with lace that would have felt more at home in a funeral parlor than a little girl's dress.

But never mind that -- it was only $3.

Barbara has two modes: talking or not talking. When she talks, it's a million miles an hour. When she doesn't talk, it's a strange silence. There is no middle ground. It's either off or on.

Her name, means "weird" or "strange", she told me.

I said good night and got no response. I curled up in my bed and turned off the light. It didn't take long until I heard the hip, hop, hip, hop of Bunny the rabbit.

She pushed the door open and scurried across the floor until he reached the area where his litter box was. His names went clip, clip, clip across the plastic mat. I turned over in bed and he ran out the door, evidently frightened to realize I was inside the room.

This repeated off an on throughout the night as I woke to the sounds of sirens, helicopters and the bunny running around.

The next morning I got up slowly and tried to leave the apartment. Try is the operative word here.

When I went downstairs to pull out my car from the parking space I quickly realized that I was not going to be going anywhere for awhile.

Backed up behind my car, touching the bumper was a dark green cadillac with shiny silver hub caps and a Mexican flag elevated over the roof. There was not a hair of space behind the green car and my mustang.

I wondered if the Mexican flag was an emblem of a local gang. I tried to remember what the San Diego Union-Tribune reporter I'm friends with told me about the gangs here. I gulped.

I walked all around the cars, trying to figure out how I could back out of the spot by angling the car. No luck. I turned, and cranked and yanked the wheel, but the green cadillac was just too close.

I threw my keys at my bag and rested my head on the steering wheel and started laughing.

A latina next to my car stopped and stared. She started laughing too. We laughed and laughed.

I got out of my car and realized that the cadillac had a 'for sale' sign on it with two numbers. One for the U.S. and one for Mexico. I dialed the U.S. number and a sleepy man answered.

"Hello," I said. "My name is Jessica and your car is blocking my car."

"Hello?"

"Yes, your car is blocking my car."

"Hello?"

Click.

I stared at my phone. He hung up on me. Maybe he didn't speak English. I tried to think of how to say, "move your car," in spanish. But I realized that he probably did speak English and I called again.

"Hello, do you have a green cadillac? It's a very nice car," I said. I couldn't help but think that he would be impressed that I knew it was a cadillac, but I didn't know why I was rambling about how nice the car was.

"Yeah, you took my spot," he said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just moved here and I didn't know it was your spot. I won't do it again." Why was I rambling?

"It's okay," he said, amused at my apologetic plea.

"When can you move it?" I asked.

"I'm not there."

"Well, about how long?"

"Soon."

Click.

Tears had welled up in my eyes. I walked up to the apartment, slammed the door and nearly burst into tears. I tried to stay calm.

Twenty minutes later my phone started to ring.

"Hello."

"Yeah, you want me to move my car?"

"Yeah, I'll be right down."

Click.

I walked out of the apartment and locked the door behind me. Three enormous latinos walked out of apartment three down the stairs.

I could tell they were talking about me, and they weren't saying anything friendly. I decided in my mind, "Play dumb, smile and run for it."

"Hello." I said with a smile. The three gave me an odd look like they expected someone else, not a young gringa.

I walked out to the cars and the bigger of the three men walked over to the cadillac.

"You want me to move it?" he said in a threatening voice.

"Yeah." I said and started laughing.

He started laughing. We all started laughing. I was so scared, but I kept laughing.

I hopped into my mustang and pulled out. I waved and waved, like an idiot, until I couldn't see them anymore.

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ON THE ROAD: SoCal residents looking to San Diego as closer getaway

The water was a chilling 58 degrees at Pipes in Encinitas yesterday, but I didn't care. I borrowed a wetsuit from my cousins and paddled out past the breaking waves.

Since I moved to San Diego two months ago, I've been enjoying the beaches on the coast and hiking in East County for only the cost of gas getting there.

Apparently, I'm not the only Southern California resident to notice what San Diego has to offer for free.

John Rogers and his wife created the Web site San Diego Beaches and two others to provide online information to tourists about the county's beaches.

The bulk of hits on the websites are from Europe, Asia and Australia -- But they've noticed that more and more Southern Californians are checking out their site compared to years in the past.

Tourism is the third largest segment of San Diego's economy, according to The City of San Diego.

In fact, it was one of four segments still growing in San Diego's economy, according to a North County Times article.

With a slowing economy, more and more Southern Californians are looking locally for vacations.

"It seems over the last six months we've seen a lot of visitors from Southern California and other cities within a days drive of San Diego," Rogers said.

The Rogers' three sites attract nearly 700,000 visitors annually:

• www.a-zsandiegobeaches.com (established in 2001)
  
• www.san-diego-attractions.10-best.info (established in 2003)
  
• www.whathappensinsandiego.com (established in 2007)
  

As I paddled to catch a wave without too many other surfers nearby, I realized just how much I secretly want to keep San Diego's beaches to myself.

*A surfer gets ready to paddle out in Encinitas, California/Photo by Jessica E. Davis.

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Back on the road

After one week on the road through San Diego's economic slowdown, I feel as if I've only scratched at the surface.

I've learned these things about the slow-down in San Diego County:

• Small businesses are doing OK, but not great. The real impact of the slow down hasn't hit yet.
  
• Local banks and credit unions are still funding some businesses. I'm not sure which banks are giving certain companies capital.
  
• Several organizations are trying to "help" small business owners. I'm still not sure which are actually looking to help and which ones are looking for a profit.
  
• Many stay-at-home-moms are turning to home-based companies to bring in extra cash.
  
• Some people are looking for opportunity.
  
• Online consulting businesses and technology companies are growing.
  

I've decided to continue the road trip into next week. Check back for updates.

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ON THE ROAD: No job, No spending

Butch Lee Rush of Poway is in the moving business and says he hasn't had any consistent work since last August. For Rush, no job means little spending.

I ask Rush: What are you doing differently during the economic slow down?

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ON THE ROAD: Looking for opportunity

Mike from Solana Beach, who chose to withhold his last name, says he is looking for economic opportunities.

I asked Mike: What are you doing differently during this economic slow down?


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Q&A: Doug Means organizes Meetup Groups for Small Businesses

ON THE ROAD: Day Three

I sat down with the San Diego Small Business Meetup Group organizer Doug Means in Kearny Mesa to talk about how small businesses are using social media to optimize business during the economic slow down.

Means is the organizer for the Entrepreneur, Small Business and Network Marketing Meetup Groups and also works for BNI for his day job. 

Here are excerpts from our conversation:


Jessica: Can you briefly tell me what The San Diego Small Business Meetup Group is about?

Doug: Well, the Entrepreneur and Small Business groups, and the Network Marketing Group is a third piece, it is a community of people with a business focus here. A lot of people that either have their own business or looking to start one. 

For the most part, we have events where we go and meet each other. And it got a little bit bigger, a little bigger as far as the people that were showing up to the point where there were 15 to 20 people at a dinner table. 

I try to from a business standpoint, people want to get to know each other. I know from my other networking activities that getting as much face to face time and visibility is helpful. So we started off doing introductions and I encouraged people to figure out who they wanted to talk to before they left. Someone brought up the idea one time about speed networking and actually I went, duh, I should do that, because for a very short period of time, I organized some speed dating events. And I went, speed networking is a lot easier because all the work on the speed dating was matching people up and taking all their answers and sending all their information. With speed networking, I didn't have to do any of that. And you can get people in front of each other and you're forcing people to speak with one another. 

Jessica:  I'm seeing that more and more businesses in San Diego are trying to use online tools like Meetup.com by joining groups and meeting up for networking and other social networking tools. What is it about your meetup groups that small businesses can benefit from?

Doug: It is social networking certainly in building relationships, but in a business focus standpoint there are tools. Probably the best known would be linkedn.com. There are a few others. Even I am learning more and more about those. I'm no expert. 

One of the main differences, for the most part, is that those are more online, not face to face. The goal of meetup is to get communities together face-to-face. When it comes to building relationships with people, the face-to-face interaction goes a long way. Also the idea of having regularly occurring events, whether they are weekly or monthly, is getting to know people over a period of time.

Jessica: News reports are coming in now saying we are in a full-blown recession or fairly close to one. I've seen small businesses using these small tools to optimize their business. Are you seeing an increase in traffic of people coming to the meetup events in the last few months?

Doug: What I'm seeing overall is a big transition. I'm seeing a lot of people that have fallen on tough times or tough situations. They are out and having to do something else now, whatever reason it may be. Whether they've been cut or starting own business and it's just not working. All of sudden there is a transition of other people who are looking for more business. There are  lot of new faces as well at the same time.

Jessica: And that's consistent with the economy slowing down?

Doug: Yeah. It's consistent with the economy.

Jessica: And what kind of businesses are you seeing coming through the door to your meetup events?

Doug: I haven't really analyzed it. The consistent factor is people who are looking to either grow their businesses or they are looking at opportunities to step out of what they are doing and doing something else and considering starting a business. That would be a common denominator.

I'm going to put you in front of about 14 people, face-to-face, and you're going to get a lot face time with a lot of people in a short concentrated amount of time. It's up to each individual to maximize their time and maximize what they are doing. What they need to do is identify what people they met that night that are the one, two, three, four, five people I need to follow up with. Now it's the follow up and it's getting to know those people and build on that relationship.  
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ON THE ROAD: A social network startup

ON THE ROAD: Day Two

I stop for a chat with Carlo Desierto about the social network he created for small and Fortune-100 companies: 

MyCCMpro.

  Every week, Carlo Desierto opens a drawer in his office in San Diego and pulls out a long sheet of paper that stretches from one end of the room to the other.

The long sheet of paper is a timeline Desierto created to track his goals, failures and achievements.

The timeline begins in 2001, before Desierto left Iraq and picked up three jobs.

"I knew if I could (stay in a fox hole for two weeks), I could do anything,'' he said. Every month he reflects on how he can make himself better.

Just this year, he started a social networking Web site designed for small to fortune-100 businesses called MyCCMpro.

Carlo said one day he was sitting at his desk looking at his database management system on one side of the screen and MySpace on the other.

Then it clicked.

Why couldn't he create a social networking site as a contact and client management program?

Using the MySpace model of banner advertising, Desierto offers the database management system for free. The system allows users to input contacts and tracks notes written about the person. What makes the system effective, is that users can set up reminders to follow-up with contacts.

Desierto says he now can make 50 calls in under 20 minutes to check up on potential clients, instead of the hours it took before.

Desierto uses the social networking site Meetup.com and word of mouth to bring in potential users to trains them how to use MyCCMpro. Desierto hosts classes at 5440 Morena Blvd. in San Diego.

During my visit to his office at Credit Report Atlas Services LLC, Carlo pulled out a green binder in which he keeps a journal of his goals.

He points to a entry dated back to over four years ago, "Understand that going out is expensive ... Remember not even having enough to buy a burrito."

While the numbers of users on MyCCMpro are at a meager 141 subscribers right now, he remembers what it was like to have nothing and keeps recruiting more users.

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DAY 1: Small businesses harness social media

DAY ONE: The San Diego Small Business Meetup Group


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The noise in the room was almost deafening as I sat in a room full of San Diego's small business leaders exchanging ideas and sharing information.

On Monday night, about 40 small business leaders packed into a room at the Best Western Seven Seas in Mission Valley for the San Diego Small Business Meetup Group. The goal was to "speed network" -- a more professional form of speed dating.

I had to shout to let the person across from me hear what I was saying. The air was electrified with ideas of how to fight back against a slowing economy and decreased consumer spending.

This group was formed through the social networking site Meetup.com, which allows people from all over the world to develop communities online about shared interests and then meetup face-to-face in groups. 

As the economic slowdown goes global this week, Meetup.com is one of several social networking sites San Diego business leaders are harnessing to fight back against a slowing economy.

Doug Means, director of BNI in San Diego, started the group to help facilitate San Diego's small business leaders to share information. (Check back later this week for a Q&A with Doug.)

Social network sites are increasingly being used by small businesses in San Diego because they are a free and innovative way to collaborate with other businesses, says Jay Neilsen of Right Turn Web site Development in Poway. 

The San Diego Small Business Meetup Group has nearly 450 members of business leaders looking to expand business and share ideas.  

That's 450 members that have the opportunity to network during a time when budgets are tight.

Later today, I'm meeting up with Meetup member Carlo Desierto from Myccmpro.com to hear his class on optimizing the Internet for small businesses. 

Check back later for more on my conversations with small business leaders.

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SD ROAD TRIP: Trekking through the credit crunch

One suitcase, a box full of equipment, a tank full of gas, two reporters notebooks, a video camera and a laptop -- my road trip through San Diego County's small businesses begins.

I'm hitting the road this week, exploring the impact of the credit crunch on San Diego's small business community.

As many U.S. banks hold back capitol from small businesses, many owners are struggling to find money to fund holiday items, staff salaries and other daily needs to keep afloat.

For the next five days, I will be delving into the heart of the small business community to bring you updates on the impact of the current economic slowdown.

THE TRIP:

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Check back daily for updates.

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O.C. ANGLE: Angels v. Red Sox

*The Angle series explores beyond San Diego County to nearby Southern California areas.

Taking the train north from San Diego to Anaheim, I went under the Big A to ask the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Boston Red Sox fans one question:

Why will your team go all the way to the World Series?



Read my live Twitter posts of the game.
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The Troubadours At War: Up Close

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The Troubadours At War

Two guitarist. One drummer. 

With the strum of the guitar, bassist Alex Packard began The Troubadours first performance at Channel 1225 in El Cajon on September 20.

Packard's band started out as a three-man band from Valhalla High School.

When one of the band members went away to college, Packard enlisted a new drummer and started The Troubadours, which means "traveling musician." 

Aliks Snyder leads with vocals and guitar, while Alex backs him up occasionally and plays the bass.

Packard says the band is still trying to find a full-time drummer. Until then, the Troubadours can be seen throughout the county strumming their original tunes.

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