Santa Cruz Hanging

The couple days in Santa Cruz was refreshing. I got off coffee, but it involved a lot of sleeping. Tuesday was basically a nothing day. I ran early with Jesse and promptly passed out once everybody left for work. I got a bit of code done but really didn't accomplish much.

Wednesday I went up to campus and caught up with friends of mine, as well as the guys from the Akamai Maui crew. It was good to catch up. I spent most of the morning with Jess learning about pyrimid wavefront sensors and seeing the lab. After talking liberal politics over lunch and seeing a free-hugs station we saw a group of maybe 50-80 police on campus standing around, some in riot gear, some with really big guns. The basic idea was a protest of the proposed campus expansion. Some kids were sitting up in trees and others were holding signs. Now, in Santa Cruz, people actually *live* in the woods. Campus housing includes a trailer park full of Marley flags and plenty of people just live in tents and stick-piles. Santa Cruz = Pot and Slugs. I think Jess's response to this was the most interesting. He's an "alternative path" grad student, roughly 40, having spent a few years following the Dead and then working in industry for a few decades, he decided to come back for more. I mention the Dead years because the sight of cops on campus set him foaming. Basically grabbing bystanders and defending the cause. Entertaining. I'm more of a fence sitter on that issue. I still haven't had decent enough internet to find out what happened. Anyways, the rest of the day was spent hanging out with Ryan and walking around campus. Jesse and I went to Jess's place with his wife Diane and his son. They've got an awesome place up in the redwoods out past Bonny Doon. Jess had calmed down enough, but had still written long letters to every official on campus and in the town government. Dinner was awesome. Good to catch up.

Thursday was a work day, and I got a decent amount of stuff done. I do regret my need for speed though. Anyone who processes lots of data and works with code has to be hooked on either massive amounts of soda (and is hence enormously fat) or is hooked on the dark crack, the legal liquid speed: caffeine. Giving it up makes a huge difference. I can't hold as many random facts in my head and debugging goes a lot slower. At least it feels like it does. Maybe I should do an experiment some day.... Anyways, Adonnis spent the day snoring on the chair. The fog lifted for the afternoon and I took a walk on the waterfront. Then we had "family dinner" which was really just everybody cooking something after work. Jesse's pot pie is easy and great.

On the way in to work with him Friday morning, he went off for an hour or so about how we need some male liberation. Women can wear jeans or skirts. Why can't we wear pink tights to work when we're feeling it? At least both Jesse and I have a healthy respect for good cooking..... I got to see Jesse's job, Sonoscan, and get a half-day of work in before driving up to Ft. Bragg to camp and go Abalone diving near Mendocino. The campsite was really the back corner of a trailer park. Only in California. It was really strange being the few campers down a secluded road in a trailer park. Lots of pickup trucks and satellite TV dishes. Reminded me of northern michigan but with a cali twist. Anyways, I got to know some of Jesse's friends Scott & Kate, and caught up with Matt and Kat. Another small world - Matt works for a small fiber-ops company that was making parts for a solar spectrograph on Maui. He knows Haoshing, a guy I see often over there. Random, again. The rain rolled in, but we had an awesome set of tarps that saved the weekend.

Adonnis snoring.
The Santa Cruz waterfront.

"Family Dinner"


From Jess himself:

One minor correction, though... not really into the protestor's cause... It's NOT old growth forest, for crying out loud... let them cut down a few trees and build a building that will be valuable for years to come. I mean, if they want to protest something, protest the flippin' current administration or the war on Iraq or something VALID...

On the other hand, I do, with all vigor, protest the presence of armed goons on a college campus. Somehow, I just can't get the image of cops with UZIs (or their equivalent) juxtaposed against 20 year old kids wearing fairy and tree costumes.

THAT gets my goat. And that I WILL loudly argue against.