auto-reply: out of office

Hey all,

I went to Santa Ynez for the weekend. The folks over at Island View Catering put on a delicious pre-Thanksgiving party at the owners' ranch house. These guys know their food. If you're in Santa Barbara County, I strongly recommend! (Full disclosure: I received no compensation, monetary or otherwise, for my review and/or endorsement)

While I was at the ranch I collected a bunch of cans, but the goat ate them all:


This week I'm traveling to the proud state of New Jersey, another state sans bottle bill. I suppose that I could save them up and bring them back to California, but that might get me in trouble. I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm in California.

Have a good thanksgiving! Try to recycle what you can, no matter where you're at!

-Charles

P.S.: No, goats don't really eat cans.

Bunny Boy

Hey all,

So tonight I went out for a bit after finishing some of my Microeconomics problem set [if any of you ever did Bergstrom/Varian workouts as an undergrad, you'll be excited to know that Bergstrom is in fact my professor!].


So I cruised down DP, and actually stumbled across a Keystone Graveyard in between the beginning of DP and the end of Campus. Since cans are so easily collected here, it's a totally accepted behavior to just throw your empties onto your lawn. By the way, tomorrow is Veteran's Day, so there was a fair amount of celebration considering it was a Tuesday night. The cans smelled so grody that I actually left them outside for the night (see photo on the right). Just one of the reasons I try to steer towards plastic when I can.

Although my Alma Mater didn't celebrate Veteran's Day, I guess they take it seriously here. I don't have classes tomorrow, so I'll probably cash them in then.

Further on down on DP, the cans didn't come so easy. However, the night wasn't a total loss: I stumbled upon a film being shot right on the Del Playa shores. I wasn't able to go on set, but special thanks to Morgan for snapping some nice shots for me:



















The film, "Bunny Boy", is currently in production and will be showing at the IV Theatre sometime in the Spring of 2010. Keep an eye out for it!

Good night, and thanks for reading!

-Charles

Midterms are over!

Hey all,

I just got back from collecting. In two hours I'm guessing I snagged about a buck's worth of aluminum and maybe $3 or $4 in plastic. I finished my last midterm this afternoon, so I figured I could take the night to hang out and get plastic. After an afternoon spent drinking on Goleta Beach, I set out.

While I pretty much stuck to the same spots there were several interesting things worth mentioning about my collecting tonight:

1. As I was biking through campus on my way to IV, I noticed a group of kids with what looked like swords and fencing gear:










Turns out they're a medieval fight re-enactment club, the Shire of the Isles. Unfortunately the show didn't last long, as practice was just ending as I got there :( With they're attention to form and strategy I can at least say that these guys were way more professional than some kids just running around playing make-belief.

2. I saw a raccoon that was the size of a small dog. I snapped pics, and even pursued on foot, but it seems raccoons are extremely un-photogenic. Oh well.

3. It appears that I got a low-level burn from handling bleach. It seems that one of the recycling bins had some discarded bottles of detergent in it. You can see a little white spot on my hand, in between my thumb and first finger. I took this right before I jumped in the shower to clean off:


I suppose it's just another on-the-job hazard and other than a bit of swelling I'm none worse for the wear.

On another note, last weekend was Halloween at UCSB. About 25,000 people ended up coming
from all over Cali to enjoy the Bacchanalia. I think I saw about a dozen Links, the cast of Mario-Kart, and enough sexy co-eds/librarians/schoolgirls to start a new UC campus. There was TV coverage, mounted police, and even these guys:

Although it might appear that this is just a dedicated team costume, they were actually paramedics on patrol in the case that someone fell off the cliffs over the ocean, or passed out in one of the unlit parks on Del Playa. Fortunately there were no deaths this year, and only a few hundred arrests. Can't wait until next year!

Alright that's all for now! Thanks for reading!

-Charles