Before I moved to La Jolla, I worked as a journalist in Los Angeles covering events including the 1998 Academy Awards. When Jack Nicholson walked into the press room with his statuette for “As Good As It Gets,” he was asked by a male reporter, “How does it feel to be the coolest guy in the room?” Jack, of course, was too cool to answer that it’s not much of an accomplishment in a room full of journalists. But if I had to answer, I’d say the coolest guy I ever met was La Jolla’s Mark Scales, and in a town full of surfers, that is saying something.