San Francisco, California

Stay tuned for information about my trip to San Francisco on April 18-22. I attended and spoke at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting. I also had a fun time touring around the city.

San Francisco, California

I'm having a wonderful time in the amazingly beautiful city of San Francisco! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco). The flight out here wasn't bad at all. This is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to (and I've been a lot of places you know)! So far I've seen downtown, Chinatown (http://www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/), cable cars, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower (with an amazing 360 degree view of the Bay Area), Russian Hill, Lombard Street (the "crookedest street in the world"), Fisherman's Wharf (http://www.fishermanswharf.org/), Pier 39 (http://www.pier39.com/), Ghirardelli's Chocolate Factory (http://www.ghirardelli.com/), San Francisco Maritime Museum (http://www.nps.gov/safr/), and The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island from a distance. Tomorrow morning I think we'll walk over to the famous postcard view of the row of colorful Victorian houses with the downtown skyline in the background (as seen in the opening of "Full House" TV show), and then head back to the conference. Its been fun walking around some of the residential neighborhoods too, seeing how people live around here and the types of homes.

Saturday morning I think a few of us will drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge to hike in Muir Woods (a Giant Redwood forest with great views of the Golden Gate and of San Francisco Bay area), and maybe go to Sausalito too. I'll unfortunately have to work again at the conference Saturday afternoon though.

All the food has been wonderful too. Had seafood at Fisherman's Wharf last night, and a Mexican meal this evening - they prepared the very fresh and delicious guacamole right at your table. I'd like to eat in Chinatown at some point before leaving though.

The conference is going well and I'm getting to see a lot of the sights too - I've probably walked I don't know how many miles by now around the city, which, despite being very hilly, is quite easy to get around. It's been fun hanging out with my buddies from UT as well, and meeting people from other universities who do similar research as I do. Working at the conference hasn't been too bad either.

I'm back at the youth hostel now making some preparations for my talk which is tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at 2:00 PM. I fly out around 11:30 AM Sunday morning and land in Birmingham around 10:30 PM Sunday (with a layover in Atlanta). I'll be sad to leave and have to go back to work Monday morning as there literally is so much to see and do here it would take a lot longer than four days. I definitely will have to come back here again someday!

Austin, Texas

Well, it has been a very long time since I wrote on this thing. This has been a very busy semester both with my full-time job and my full-time work as a graduate student working on a second masters degree. Since my last post I have been to Portland, Oregon, and to the beach along the Gulf Coast on the Florida Panhandle. I finally read "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury, a couple of weeks ago. Pretty interesting. I have now started a book by Isaac Asimov called "Prelude to Foundation" - chronologically the first out of six novels in his Foundation series. I am heading towards the end of the book and it has been phenomenal! Very well written, interesting, and quite thought-provoking. Quite exciting as well. An adventure set many thousands of years into the future. The protagonists are a professor of mathematics and a professor of history. I can't wait to read the remaining five novels in the series, and maybe some other stuff by Asimov as this is the first work of his that I have read.

I am now on a business trip in Austin, Texas for two nights (my first time to Austin, although I've been to Texas many times - I have a relative that lives in San Antonio, which I really enjoy - the Riverwalk is beautiful!). We arrived here yesterday afternoon from Birmingham (on Southwest Airlines via Houston-Hobby) and set up our booth in the exhibit hall at the convention. We're staying in the Hilton Hotel. My room is very nice. After setting up, I walked around downtown a little while and walked over to "Town Lake" which has sort of a waterfront park along the Texas version of the Colorado River (not the same one that carved out the Grand Canyon). There were a lot of people out on the lake practicing crew/rowing. Last night my coworker, her husband, and I went out for drinks at a place called the Scholtz Garten near the UT campus. I had Shinerbock beer for the first time (supposedly only made and sold in Texas) - it was actually pretty good. Then we had dinner at a place called Stub's - famous for their Texas BBQ and beef brisket. I had just enough time to go swimming once we got back to the hotel. The heated outdoor pool and hot tub are on the eighth floor and have a wonderful view overlooking downtown Austin.

Today we spent all day standing at our exhibit booth at the convention (8:00 - 12:00 and 3:00 - 6:00). we went to lunch at a place called ...(oops, can't remember)... where I had Chicken fried steak, which is what the place is "world famous" for. The cab driver who took us there looked and acted like he had smoked one too many joints in the 60s and 70s... This evening we went to dinner at a 40-year old family-owned Mexican restaurant call La Azteca. I had Chicken Mole Enchiladas. Our cab driver to and from the restaurant was an accounting student at UT from Nigeria. I made the mistake of asking if he was from Lagos and he said no, but 200 Km from there, and said that would be like asking a Texan if he or she was from New York City! I should have know better than to ask that. Oh well. Then we drove through the 6th St. entertainment district and then walked around the Warehouse district and had drinks at an outdoor seating area at an Irish Pub. Austin is world famous for its large amount of live music performances at its many bars and restaurants. And one can really hear all the bands playing as the night moves on. Tomorrow morning we have a "networking brunch" at 8:00 am (so really more like a breakfast). I have to get there at 7:30 to reserve some seats. After that we'll check out of the hotel I suppose, then get some lunch, then head to the airport around 1:00 for our approx. 2:00 pm flight home to Birmingham via Dallas-Love Field on Southwest Airlines. Although tiring, its been a fun trip and a nice diversion from the normal routine of the office!

Next week I fly to San Francisco to speak and work at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. I'm presenting a talk based on my master's thesis research. I'm really excited, particularly as I have not been to San Francisco before!

Gulf Coast of Florida

Stay tuned for information about our trip to the Gulf Coast. We stayed near Navarre Beach, Florida and also had fun in Fort Walton Beach and Destin, Florida.

Portland, Oregon

Stay tuned for information about our trip to Portland, Oregon, for a cousin's wedding. Sights seen include: Portland, Hillsboro, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park - (fantastic hiking!), Astoria, and the Columbia River in northwest Oregon, and Ilwaco, Fort Canby, Cape Dissapointment State Park, and Long Beach in southwest Washington. A fun trip.

Mariachi Cobre and the Symphony

Last night was a wonderful evening. We went to dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant. Following that we proceeded to a symphony concert with a guest ensemble called Mariachi Cobre from Orlando and EPCOT Center. The concert was Mexican themed, and the symphony orchestra accompanied the 12-piece mariachi band which consisted of various guitars, violins/fiddles, and trumpet, and all members singing as well. It was very lively, upbeat and happy beautiful music. I really enjoyed it! Its been while since I've attended a syphony concert - I'd like to start going more often. Another perk was we got in for FREE! When I got up to the ticket window to buy our tickets, the man there said to take two that some people had just left, and he didn't charge us. That was a extra nice surprise! After the concert we went to a wine bar for a while in Southside swhich had a nice atmosphere for conversation, and wasn't too noisy or smoky inside.

Tonight was another fun evening of hanging out, pizza, and a karioke game. Back to the work week tomorrow morning though.

New Year and Articles I Found Interesting

Well, 2007 certainly blew in rather swiftly. Back to work January 2. Back to school January 4. The Holidays, as usual, went by much too quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family.

Here are some links to a few articles I found interesting:

A Battle for Global Values by Tony Blair - in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs.

China From the Inside Out from Foreign Affairs