Alan Irwin’s Blog

We now have our tickets for Malaysia!
We are flying United (oh well), leaving from Santa Barbara on Monday October 30 at 8:20 am. We go through San Francisco (70 minutes) to Tokyo’s Narita Airport (12 hours) where we switch planes for the final leg to Singapore (7.5 hours). We arrive at 11:59 pm on Tuesday, [...]

Saturday, Harriet and I got a chance to stop by the Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival. We’ve gone to this for several years now, and it just gets better and better. Eric Kelly from the Book Den is heavily involved, and this year it was across the street from his store, in the courtyard [...]

Friday night, Harriet and I ate at the Itsuki Restaurant on Calle Real, between Highways 101 and 154.

Itsuki Restaurant
4020 Calle Real # 3
Santa Barbara, CA 93110
(805) 687-3838
It’s a really good Japanese restaurant that’s pretty small and informal. They have a wide variety of sushi and combo plates, but my preference there is the Oyaku [...]

I’ve been involved with the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center since 1985, serving on the Board of Directors, President of the Board, volunteer at fundraising events, computer nerd, and donor. Over those years, the agency has been at several locations, but for most of my active years it was at 111 North Milpas Street. It’s [...]

My middle niece, Kimber, celebrated her 14th birthday on Wednesday. I sometimes refer to Kimber as my stealth niece, because the first impression you get is “cute and quiet”.
Wrong! She’s both gorgeous and really funny. The first time she came down to visit us on her own, I was surprised at how hard I laughed. [...]