San Diego: Torrey Pines, Padres, Historic Gaslamp District

This past week I took a trip to San Diego and while there got to visit the Torrey Pines nature preserve along the Pacific Ocean as well as go to a Padres vs. Cardinals game and checkout the historic gaslamp district. Here are a few photos:

Runners be not jealous, I got to do a mile repeat speed workout along this stretch.

This guy was hanging out around my hotel along with a few of his buddies.

Kansas City Board of Trade

On Friday, I took a field trip to the Kansas City Board of Trade where they trade Hard Red Winter wheat commodities. This is the image you get when you think of the stock market and see people in a pit on TV waving hands frantically trying to buy or sell. This is a hub of trade for a large quantity of wheat trading that occurs in the United States. There are a few other trading exchanges for wheat as well, but this is a major one.

The majority of trading is done electronically via computer these days but there is still some that happens in person. As trades are executed, they're recorded and the price of wheat changes as a result whether up or down. The electronic boards in the background track the prices of wheat that is scheduled for delivery during various time frames. Some traders are just trying to make a margin on trades or speculation and some are hedging risk so that they get a guaranteed rate to buy or sell at. It was very interesting to see the market in person. The last 30 seconds close of the market was fairly rapid and exciting as well.

Powell Gardens Flowers

Over Labor Day, I went to Powell Gardens which is about 45 minutes east of Kansas City. They have lots of nice flower gardens as well as some agriculture exhibits.

Bag of Money

A bag of money picked up on a recent trip to the Kansas City Federal Reserve. They have a really nice exhibit set up telling all about the history of money in the U.S. as well as present operations and you even get to see some of the workers in the money sorting/counting/shredding room. They've recently implemented some robots as well that help with moving money from place to place. Their names are Huey, Duey, and Louie.

Watkins Mill

A recent field trip consisted of a visit to Watkins Mill the last standing woolen mill from the 19th century. In it's heyday the mill produced tons of fabric and employed around 40 to 50 people at a time. It was all run by steam engine which was wood fired. An elaborate system of pulleys, belts, and rods throughout the mill powered a bunch of different equipment designed to transform wool from just off the sheep to something that could be used for fabric.

The mill was 4 stories tall and employed men, women, and boys. During that day, depending on the role, a person could make a very good wage as compared with traditional agriculture jobs. The pay rate was anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per day depending on the role with the exception being those involved in weaving who were paid 3 to 9 cents per yard. The skill level also corresponded to some degree with social class as a direct result of higher pay.

It looked to have been a very dangerous place to work and would be an OSHA nightmare today. People regularly lost fingers or were otherwise injured by the equipment. You could allegedly hear the mill from 2 miles away. On the day that I went it was around 80 degrees and I was sweating inside while not doing any strenuous activity so I imagine it would have been very hot, noisy, a tough work back in the day.









Carding
Loom

Spindles


Wood powered engine
Checkers in the store
Store


Barn nearby

Going home after a hard day's work
Watkins Mill
Some of the local workers