Friday/Saturday

Friday was another long and busy day.  I have so enjoyed this class and all of the people that I've met.  It has been so much fun to learn about the sustainability initiatives at their companies.  Just at my table I had Darsey who works at Adobe headquarters, Tiffany who works at SunMicrosystems headquarters (they have actually been bought out by somebody else, but I can't remember who it is), and P.Patel who worked for President Bush! 

We finished up about 6:30.  It wasn't dark yet, so I walked across campus into town.  The campus is just so pretty with all of the huge trees.  The weather is so cool that it feels like late fall.  The cool temps really make a difference in your day-to-day activities.  There are sidewalks and trails all over the place so people walk to get their groceries and ride their bikes to work, etc.  Darsey lives on an island that is about 2 miles by 4 miles and you have to take a ferry to get to it.  She doesn't even own a car.  She rides her bike to the ferry, takes the ferry to the mainland and rides BART (Bay Area Rail Transit) into town and then rides her bike the rest of the way to work.  I was discussing my options for getting into San Francisco with someone and she said "It's only a couple of miles from the BART, so you can just walk (this is with luggage in tow)."  Can you imagine someone in the south walking a couple of miles carting luggage?  No way...no sidewalks and its too hot.  AND women don't wear makeup here...really!  We need to get that started in the south.

I got up this morning and took BART into San Francisco and walked to my hotel.  My hotel is really nice...and I have my very own bathroom! :)  I checked in about 10:30, dropped my stuff and headed to the Embarcadaro.  They have the market place on Saturday so it was packed.  I walked, shopped, ate and took pictures all the way down to Ghiradelli Square and then circled back around to my hotel.  Its been a fun day and I'm exhausted.  I better get some rest since tomorrow is the big bike ride! Oh yes - high temp today was 59 with a low of 51!  A repeat is expected for tomorrow!

This is a picture of some of the vendors set up at the Embarcadaro - Saturday is market day:

Although it looks similar to the Golden Gate bridge, this is not.  This is the view of the bay from the Embarcadaro:

This fountain is at Ghiradelli Square.  The last time that Phillip and I were here, we got a hot fudge sundae made with Ghiradelli Chocolate....yummm.  I was looking forward to having another, but apparently everyone else was too.  The line was too long for me....

This is Lombard street.  I took a picture of a family from France and they returned the favor by taking my picture.  The exchange rate must be really good for the Franc...I saw/heard a lot of people from France.

Embarcadaro - Ferry Island Seafood

The view out the window while eating lunch at Ferry Island Seafood.  Phillip and I ate here the last time we were in San Francisco and the atmosphere and food are great!

Beautiful campus...

The campus has lots of big trees and old buildings.  Below is a picture of "The People's Park" in Berkeley...many a protest has been held here over the years.

I thought that someone had left a bag of trash in the park, but as I got closer I realized that someone is sleeping in the bag...

Co-ed bathroom/shower!

I'm staying at the Faculty Club which is right in the middle of the UC-Berkeley campus.  The building reminds me of the lodges in Yellowstone (beautiful wood on all the walls and large stone fireplaces).

They told me when I registered that all rooms have a shared bath on the floor. That really didn't concern me since many of the lodges out west have shared restrooms and it has never been a problem. I checked into my room right before dinner and went to the restroom. I had a key to get in, but noticed that I could not lock the door from the inside (so everyone on the floor that has a key could walk in). Now, this would not be a problem, but this is a co-ed bathroom! I went to the front desk thinking that maybe I had missed out on some instructions and there is a system that I'm not aware of....No, said the front desk clerk...it is a co-ed restroom/shower. Now, you walk in and there are two stalls to the right with commodes and stall doors, and two showers to the left with frosted glass doors, and one shower with a stall door, with two sinks in the middle. Let me be clear, when I say "stall door," I'm talking the same kind of doors that you see in all public restrooms with a one inch gap all the way around! So I could be taking my shower and some strange man comes in to brush his teeth....I just can't handle that. No need to worry, I solved the problem...I got a piece of tape from the front desk and put a sign on the door that said "Occupied, come back in about 10 minutes."

All things considered, this has been a very productive day. It is probably the best seminar that I've ever been to. I am the only educator in the group, so it has been very interesting visiting with these company leaders and learning about their sustainability efforts. The west coast society is so far ahead of the south in terms of thinking about sustainability. The Chief Sustainability officer of Symantics (they make Norton Anti-virus) spoke this afternoon and our dinner speaker was the CEO of HIP Investor. We started at 7:30 this morning and finished at 8:00 this evening - and we have an equally long day tomorrow.

This beats the hostel!

I'm staying at the Berkeley Faculty house tonight. The day is not over yet...meeting until 8pm.  It has been very interesting.

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UC Berkeley

Wednesday:  It has been a long day - I've been up for 20 hours.  The flight from LR to San Francisco was uneventful (that hardly ever happens for me) and I navigated the train from SF to Berkeley without any problems.  The 1.5 mile hike from the train station to where I'm staying was uphill the entire way, with me carting a bag and a backpack.  Whew!  I got my workout today!  I am staying this first night at the Piedmont/Berkeley house which is a hostel.  It is a big old house - the kind with squeeky and uneven floors, with rooms that have been partitioned off to make more rooms.  It looks like a "hippie house" from the early 70's.  If I didn't know better I'd think that I'd been here before :)  The room is very "basic" to say the least - and I had to put the sheets on the bed myself.

After checking into my room, I explored the campus and the town.  The hostel is right next door to a fraternity house....The area around the campus reminds me a lot of the area around Centenary College in Shreveport back in the day.  I grabbed me a bowl of soup to go from a health food store and went back to my room for dinner tonight....I've got to study for class tomorrow.

Rescue on Beaver Lake

Second rescue in as many weeks....

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Outback

I took three pictures and Phillip had his eyes closed in all of them.. LOL!  The poor people in the booth behind us were probably blinded from the flash - Miranda said she was seeing spots 10 minutes later.  We ate at Outback in Hot Springs with Jayden on Thursday night and back again (this time in Rogers) tonight - we love Outback!
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Housepainting

Phillips has been painting the house since NOVEMBER!  He is making progress....

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Vacation No. 2

We left for Florida on Saturday June 19th.  We picked up Mom in Shreveport a little later than planned....Phillip cut himself with his pocket knife right as we were getting ready to leave Arkadelphia.  This was not a minor cut...blood splatter reached over 5 feet high on the bathroom wall!  He had to have 6 stitches at Baptist Medical Center here in town.  They did a fantastic job - it healed very nicely.  We took I-49 south from Shreveport to I-10.  This is the first time that we've gone this route and it was great.  Not much traffic on 49 and interstate the entire way.  We spent the night in Moss Point, MS.  Sunday we hit the road early and we were in Perdido Key before lunch.  We had a great week hanging out at the Condo with the Pitts and Burris crew, as well as the other families.  Phillip, Mim and I stayed at a hotel in Gulf Shores, but hung out at the condo with the fam all day.  Some pictures below:

This last picture shows the boom that was out in the bay on the west side of Perdido Key.

Although oil was coming on shore to the east and to the west of us, we had no problems...the weather, beach and water were all beautiful.  Phillip, Mim and I headed out on Thursday morning early and we had Mim home by 4:00.  A fun time was had by all....

WOW!

The fireworks on Beaver Lake were awesome!  The people that live around the lake really get into the 4th of July.  Usually we're sitting on our deck and catching glimpses of the fireworks all around us.  This year, however, we took the boat out on the lake just down from our house.  One of the homeowners (or maybe a group of homeowners) put on an unbelievable show.  We've been to the fireworks displays at Lake DeGray, but this was better than any of those.  But to make it even better, several homeowners had smaller displays going on so we had fireworks all around us.  Phillip and I had taken a cooler with some drinks and some watermelon.  It was a beautiful, breezy and cool evening.  The displays started at 8:20 and continued non-stop until almost 10!  A 4th we won't soon forget...

Catching up...

I'm still so far behind on my blogging - maybe next week I can catch up - I've got pictures to post from the beach.  But, this week we're at the lake  and I just haven't been in the mood to blog.  They boys spent the night with us on Wednesday night and we packed a lot of fun into a short period of time.
We stayed outside until 10:15 on Wednesday night - which is extremely late for the boys!  The world is a different place after dark and they boys seemed to enjoy the "after dark fun."  We were down by the water and watched the sun set behind the mountains and the stars come out.  Mr John (our next door neighbor from Australia) was out for an evening swim and the boys got to visit with him.  Jayden said that he was talking Australian to him :).  Fireflies were everywhere and Evan was fascinated.  (on Thursday morning he kept asking "where the fireflies go???")  I bought these little poppers and they were a big hit.  You throw them on the ground and they pop - and in the dark you can see a little spark. 
Even though we were outside late (the boys are usually in bed by 8), we couldn't skip the baths :)  I put Evan in the tub and couldn't believe how black his little feet were...its been a long time since I've seen such dirty little feet...a sure sign summertime!

On Thursday we packed up the boat and went fishing and swimming and then headed to the lakeside park to play and cook hot dogs.  Evan was the only one to catch a fish (again), but we all had a good time!