Spoiler alert: This is a really long-winded but not-very-high-stakes soft fundraising pitch. So if you want the tl;dr, we went to a conference and were very frugal and also suffered some mishaps, so send us a check to support the Press.
Otherwise, we begin with Chapter 1.
In time, I will leave the city. For now, I will stay alive.
—Tyler Joseph, Twenty One Pilots, “Leave the City” from Trench
Anchorage Press Publisher Veri di Suvero and I walked off the plane in San Diego into a wall of heat. I wanted to get back on the plane and go home. Instead, we went to pick up our silver 2026 Kia Seltos LX from a company called U-Save. (I know these details do not seem particularly important at this point in the story, but I promise: They will later.)
We had arrived in San Diego for our first Anchorage Press professional conference — the annual gathering of the Local Independent Online News Publishers, or LION, where we’d have a chance to hear from other small outlets about their policies, technologies and practices. While Anchorage Press LLC is still raising money to cover its first year of operations, the registration fees were cheap, and Veri got us mileage tickets. They also said we’d be able to stay with some of their family members and bike to the downtown conference hotel.
That did not, in fact, end up being true. After numerous unanswered text messages — and I would casually note that Veri did not follow up with a phone call to make sure their aunt and uncle weren’t dead — we pivoted about 24 hours before our arrival. Our colleague, Max Graham, reminded us that a friend and longtime supporter of Northern Journal and the Anchorage Press, Aurora Roth, used to live in San Diego and probably had friends we could stay with.
Aurora sprung into action, setting us up to stay in a screened-in trailer at a cooperative living space in a series of messages that closed with this one:
“Oh, one more thing! Bring ear plugs. The trailer does not keep out sound. And there is a Jamaican restaurant that plays reggae late into the night, or sometimes there are mariachi bands for quinceaneras, and just generally highway city noise, like ICE helicopters flying around.”
Good enough for the Press!
Given our economically priced rental car and free accommodations — $65 for three days — Veri and I decided to splurge on one of the conference add-ons, a San Diego Padres game that was paired with a session on AI coding and tools. At a sweltering Petco Park, we connected with other LION members from Wyoming and Kansas — I learned the “It Is Topeka, My Dudes” Facebook page is one of that city’s most popular. The most delightful surprise: We all got free bobbleheads of Fernando Tatis Jr., the Padres star slugger and right fielder, which featured a detachable bat and Tatis’ famously pierced ears.
Once the game was over, hosts Andrea and Paul showed us around the co-op, including its communal kitchen, pomegranate tree, chickens and outdoor showers. No mariachi music was audible, and Veri and I shoved in our earplugs and went to sleep. It was so hot that I couldn’t even manage with a sheet, but we survived.
Chapter 2
Your soul knows good and evil, your soul knows both sides.
—Tyler Joseph, Twenty One Pilots, “Isle of Flightless Birds” from Twenty One Pilots
Our first full day of conferencing passed uneventfully, except when I encountered a dude with a BMX bike and another dude with a unicycle at the top of a set of outdoor stairs not far from the conference hotel. I asked if they were about to do something cool, and they said yeah, so I volunteered to take a video of Unicycle Guy. I also made the mistake of asking if he was going to wear a helmet, which elicited some ‘bro, really??’ looks. Nonetheless, our friendship blossomed while I watched Unicycle Guy — he turned out to be Extreme Unicyclist Mimo Seedler, who also performs with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey — take like half-a-dozen cracks at sliding his unicycle down the staircase handrail until he actually pulled it off. Epic stuff. Great Anchorage Press content. (Mimo gave me permission to post.)
Day three of our trip dawned much like days one and two: hot, sunny, indoors with a bunch of other media people. At lunch time, Veri and I decided to take another recreation break before a long evening of networking, so we walked over to the lot where we’d paid to park the rental car, which was….not there.
Uhhhhhh.
We spent a while pressing the lock button on the key fob, then the panic button, to see if we’d forgotten where the car was parked. No dice. Our silver 2026 Kia Seltos LX was gone.
We called the lot operator. No, they had not towed any cars from any of their San Diego lots that day. Which meant that the only plausible conclusion was that someone had stolen our Kia. It was broad daylight, downtown San Diego next to a busy street with cops going by, in a private lot where we’d spent $11.99 to park for the day.
We called the police. Then, we called U-Save. They told us to come back to their office, file an incident report with them and then — in a gesture I thought was honestly pretty generous — they’d be able to give us a replacement car. There was also a tracker on the Kia, she said, which gave us hope that it would soon be recovered.
Veri and I walked the half-hour to U-Save, making calls on our way to sort out our insurance coverage. When we arrived, the very nice woman who answered the phone had us dutifully fill out an incident report, then brought a manager out to tell us that, actually, there was no tracker on the Kia; we would not be given a replacement car; U-Save also would not open a new rental contract for us; and in fact, we would continue to be billed a daily rate for our silver 2026 Kia Seltos LX until it was found and returned.
Then, she brought out a Detective Samuel Smith from SDPD, who told us that we were prime suspects in the case, cuffed us and drove us to the San Diego Central Jail.
Okay, that last sentence isn’t true, but the rest is. Suffice to say, U-Save, that Veri and I give you a one-star, oneish-word review: U-Suck.
For what it’s worth: The going rate for a 2026 Kia Seltos LX in San Diego seems to be around $27,000. Luckily, we expect to be insured for the theft through the business credit card we used to rent the car. If we’re not, you can expect a much less soft fundraising pitch in the near future.
Chapter 3
Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days.
—Tyler Joseph, Twenty One Pilots, “Stressed Out” from Blurryface
Veri and I trudged back to the conference hotel, where we took stock of our losses.
Because we’re not complete idiots, we were pretty sure we’d left no valuables in the car. We had not, however, left absolutely nothing in the car. Inside was some of my badminton gear, plus a bunch of clean clothes, which, rather stupidly, I’d pulled out of my backpack during an unpacking-repacking session.
Pretty much all of my remaining items were disgusting, having been sweated through on a couple of jogs and in the generally Hades-like climate that was prevailing in San Diego. I needed some new stuff — and I also needed a break from talking with benefits administrators on the phone. My search for ‘discount clothing’ on Google Maps led me to the ‘Super Discount Store,’ where I found competitively priced three-packs of boxer-briefs only in XL. I only found one box of t-shirts, all of which were the same: repping the 2022 ‘Icy Tour’ by the Twenty One Pilots. They were $3.99 apiece. I bought two. I wasn’t even sure if I knew who the Twenty One Pilots were until YouTube helped me pull up ‘Stressed Out’ and reminded me that they’re an alt-rock duo from Ohio. They’ll now be well-represented in Anchorage, where, perhaps ironically, the Icy Tour did not make a stop.
The conference, also, was far from a defeat. I collected some useful coverage ideas; Veri gathered details about tech platforms and also made connections with a number of funders — although none immediately pulled out a checkbook after hearing our sob story.
The real tragedy? Our Fernando Tatis Jr. bobbleheads were in the car, so we’ll have to find other ways to decorate our desks once the Anchorage Press eventually finds an office. In the meantime, Veri says that the Press can reimburse me for my lost gear/clothes/hope if this post raises at least $500 in new subscriptions. So, help a brother out! All new subscribers in the next week will be entered into a raffle; the winner gets one of my Twenty One Pilots t-shirts.