Archives: March 2008
Wed Mar 26, 2008
Power Outage
We had a power cut to the upper campus Monday. Here's how our network engineer described it: More...
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Sun Mar 16, 2008
Today's posts
All my posts today are about the local history class I'm taking. You may want to read them in reverse chron order.
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A reunion
The second week of the history class concerned the Native Americans of the Monterey Bay Region. As a special guest, Sandy invited Linda Yamane to lecture with him, sing to us, and let us see and handle for our selves her baskets, clothing, and extremely cool feather capes. (You can hear her speak a little, and sing at the link above.) More...
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A Map Assignment
The best assignment in the class so far is the map. It was more difficult than I would think, and far more interesting than I would have imagined. More...
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Your True Personal Address
In keeping with Sandy's emphasis on how the land shapes our history and our present day situation, he gave us a semester-long project where we locate ourselves in Santa Cruz and in our history. He prompts with the location, we have to provide the answer, which I have below. More...
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Shutting Down Santa Cruz County
Sandy likes his classes to do a thought experiment. "Isolation is one of the basic themes of Santa Cruz County and the region. There are many times when residents are confronted with the challenge of getting into our county during floods, earthquakes, accidents, or traffic jams. The Problem: What is the minimum number of explosive charges it would take to completely stop land access into and out of Santa Cruz County? " More...
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Locals Quiz
The first night of the history class, we had a quiz called "So you think you're a local?" I could answer most of these, but not all More...
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Sacred Spots
When we arrived at Monastery Beach, it was about to rain. Before the hail started, we decided to walk to the chapel of the Carmelite monastery, which is open to the public, and quite beautiful. While we waited out the storm, I walked among the gardens and found a lovely collection of goddess shrines. More...
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Local Lore
I am in possession of tickets to the most popular events in town. No, it is not dance, music, or theatre. I have tickets to Cabrillo College History 25A, Sandy Lydon's local history class. It sold out Cabrillo's largest lecture hall, no auditing allowed--you must wear a special name badge to get in. More...
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Sat Mar 15, 2008
Garrison Keillor goes to San Francisco
Garrison's essay this week records his impressions of the scene at the Inner Sunset. "Sitting in my coffee shop, I heard a dude discussing his hangover at greater length than I would've thought possible, all about how his expectations for the night before had been too high and that there was an emotionally needy side to him that sort of ambushed him and led to his debacle, which he then described in too much detail, and then he said, "Mom, I've got to run. Later." And then "Love you, too." And went back to reading e-mail."
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Tue Mar 04, 2008
Public Salaries
Now you can look up state employee salaries on line. Mine is in there, but it is out of date. This is going to change a lot of things. I've had friends who were told "no we can't offer you any more than this because of how much everyone else is making." Often that is true, but sometimes it is not. Now, people will be able to negotiate their salaries armed with public information. This has always been available before, but not as easily.
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