Weekend Activities

Well, I just got back from a run around the Lake. I try to go running there often - its really pretty around there.

We had BBQ at my grandparents for lunch today, then Karen, Mom, and I went to the Mountain Brook Library to hear a talk by Alexander McCall Smith. There was a large crowd there! He is a really delightful person and eloquent speaker. He spoke over an hour and talked about some of the things that inspire his various book series'. He said if he had to narrow his overall theme in all his books down to one thing it would be that he wants to write about "the little everyday things" in an attempt to preserve the "local" and "sense of place" in the various fictional communities and characters in his book. He feels this is very important in this era of globalization and lessening of emphasis on "local community". He also discussed some of the places he's been to, which go in to helping him find ideas for his books. He and his wife live in Edinborough, Scotland. (I've begun too many sentences with "he"). But he is originally from what is now Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and was a medical law professor in Botswana and Scotland - and is now a professor emeritus (which he stated means you don't have to do any work for the university, its just a title, but they don't pay you anymore either --- "if you want to be paid to do no work you have to seek out a "research chair" position"). Someone asked him a question about his schedule to which he responded that he has no control over his schedule - other people and assistants plan it out for him. They plan his speaking engagements and book tours throughout the year and "block out" weeks of time for him to actually write his books. He said everyday is planned out from now through the next year and a half. He said he usually goes away to write - places he mentioned were Botswana (he goes back there every year), Buenos Aires Argentina, Montevideo Uruguay, Canada, Australia, etc... and writes from 8 to 11 AM each day during his writing blocks of time. His wife, who is a doctor, often accompanies him and tours around the places where he's set up writing. A very delightful talk.

He signed books after the talk and made an effort to stand up and greet each person line and carry on a little conversation with each person. I'm really glad we got to go hear him. Karen had bought the tickets a while back. Last night we went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat musical at Hoover High School. It was really good - most shows I've been to at Hoover have been great.

Tamar's visit was fun (a family friend from Israel). She's nice to visit with. She and Hillel really want us to come to Israel and have been trying to get mom and dad to go for over 30 years since they all were at Alabama together. Tamar wanted mom to actually set a date within the next year and said "it would be a shame, with all your other travels, if you never made it to Israel". Which is true I suppose. So, we decided upon right after Christmas returning before the spring semester in 2008 begins (mine at UNCC starts around Jan. 12). Tamar has always wanted to go to China but Hillel has never had any interest in going there despite all their other travels around the world. So, they discussed traveling to China together while you are over there sometime in the fall. I think they mentioned sometime in November specifically. If they go they may actually just meet in Beijing rather than flying together since they will be coming from different continents. I still really want to find a way to come to Beijing at some point while you are over there too, if I can afford it.

In orchestra, we performed the music for the Birmingham Ballet's performances of Hansel and Gretel (two performances on Friday and one Saturday afternoon) at the BJCC. That was a lot of fun and the music was beautiful and fun to play. I had the songs stuck in my head a while.

Other than that, I'm working on several papers that are due Monday and Wednesday in two classes. Then the spring term at UAB is over, but the May term begins Thursday. Lots going on! All that combined with working all day makes for a full day. I think when I actually move to Charlotte to start the PhD I'll feel like it is a much lighter work load since I won't have this full time job anymore.

Home from the Bay Area

I think San Francisco is one of my new favorite cities to visit. It is in a beautiful and picturesque setting, and there is so much to see and do there and in the surrounding area!

Friday morning a couple of us walked over to the postcard row of Victorian homes called the "painted ladies" near Alamo Park. Then heard a couple of talks at the conference before having lunch at a Thai restaurant near the conference hotel. I then went back to the hostel to work on my talk, then headed to the conference and presented my talk at 2:00. After my session was over, I met up with another friend from UT and we rode the bus west out of downtown toward the Presidio. We must have exited quite far from where we were going though because we then walked and hiked for hours through beautiful residential areas and then through the entire Presido itself (part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area - http://www.nps.gov/goga/). This place is breathtaking! We found a trail that wound its way at first along a beach on the Pacific, and then up into the cliffs leading up to the Golden Gate Bridge. The trail also passed through some old World War II bunkers. All along the trail we were treated to various vantage points of the Golden Gate Bridge itself, which appears larger than life - it is huge! I'm excited to see it with my own eyes after having seen so many pictures of it and after hearing about all my life. Well, after gazing at the sight a while and at the surround bay area, we got on another bus back towards downtown San Francisco. We got off the bus near Chinatown and began exploring for a restaurant to eat supper. We found a place called the Oriental Pearl Restaurant and it was delicious. The meal began with green tea (which lasted throughout the meal) and some dim sum appetizers. Hot and sour soup was then brought out, followed by the main course of three entrees: almond chicken, sweet and sour pork, and fried rice. Dessert was of course a fortune cookie. It was a really nice and delicious place.

Saturday we didn't make it north across the Golden Gate to Muir Woods or Sausalito. Several of us did, however, ride the BART east across the bay to Berkeley and looked around the University of California campus (http://www.berkeley.edu/). Set on a gradual hillslope overlooking the bay and the Golden Gate in the distance, the campus is quite picturesque. We had a delicious lunch in Berkeley at an Indian buffet before heading back in to San Francisco. I then had to work the rest of the day at the conference. For dinner I met up with a couple of friends from UT and we walked down to the financial district to eat supper at a German restaurant. The waiter was a very large, jovial German of course! It was a fun meal!

Well, I finally got back to my apartment around midnight. The flight from San Francisco to Atlanta arrived in ATL almost 45 minutes early at around 6:00 pm (about a 4 hour flight), so I had an even longer layover in ATL, and didn't leave there until almost 11:00 pm. But the flight from ATL to BHM is only around 20 minutes. Everything went smoothly though.

Now I get to dive into the final couple of weeks of the end of the semester at UAB. Need to start and finish two large research papers by next week. Plus some other homework of course. Then, there is this performance at the BJCC that I'm playing in with my church orchestra. I think we have dress rehearsals there tomorrow evening, and Wednesday and Thursday evenings. I think the performances are 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM Friday and 2:00 PM Saturday.
Also, my parent's college friend from Israel, (Tamar), is arriving for a visit on Friday, and leaving to fly back to Israel on Saturday (she is in Atlanta this week for a meeting with her family business consulting group). Hopefully I'll get to visit as well in the midst of all this other stuff.

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!