“What are they doing?” one of the German students asked, pointing down at the kids with flashlights and buckets, running along the beach and squealing under the moonlight.

The other night, I stopped by my favorite Convoy Street Japanese joint for a gobo salad, but instead of driving straight home afterward, I swung by Mesa College Drive and pulled over on the street and sat there for a moment, staring into the past.

If you’ve ever run for your life from a tsunami—like I did in December of 2004, which I’ve written about in CityBeat more than once, and which still haunts me, and about which, yes, I am still mildly obsessed, so deal with it—then you’ve peered into the future of coastal life in all its global-warming glory.

The death of Ryan Carter, a 12-year-old El Cajon boy who was killed by a friend on Jan. 16, is so tragic that it’s unspeakable. The 10-year-old accused of taking Ryan’s life pleaded not guilty to murder the following Thursday in juvenile court.

I’ve never been on one of those trolley-shaped tour busses you see cruising around, but no doubt they channel visitors between San Diego’s points of sanctioned interest: The Gaslamp Quarter, Balboa Park, Cabrillo Monument, Old Town and so forth. Those who live in tourist destinations take for granted the things the tourists come to see. I think the last time I saw the Cabrillo Monument, cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. And how many times did you visit Old Town last year? Yeah, me neither.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote about getting back behind a drum set in my 40s and taking the instrument a lot more seriously than I did as a teenager. It’s not so easy to learn new things at this age, but I decided it was worth trying and that I’d have fun doing it. I was illustrating this simple point, one that’s always worth restating:

“If [you’ve] wondered whether it’s too late for you to return to or begin that creative endeavor that has always eluded or intrigued you, take my story to heart: It’s not too late.”