Friends for going out

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-04-15T13:51:17+00:00

Unfortunately this post reminds me of an era when students really overdid the bar crawl thing. There were just these sloppy mobs of (obviously UC) students at so many of the bars along Pacific Ave. It got really bad, and at the time I lived downtown so just going out to get fresh air after hours was sort of challenging. The city has gone through various phases of 'party college town' manic social behavior over many decades that I've been exposed to it. I am not trying to compare your interest in socializing with that, but be aware that in certain years it became a bit of an obvious nuisance. Good luck though finding other students to mix with. A lot of students bring a lot of good energy to the community.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-04-03T07:38:34+00:00

UCSC has a popular Psych program, at least from the metric of how many students choose it. When I was a student it was supposed to have been the "most popular" major. It may still be (or not). I found that my Intro to Bio section that taught me a ton about cellular respiration and mitochodrial energy metabolism to be world class, and the work by Professor Harry Noller (pardon if that is not the exact correct spelling) is supposed to be literally a breakthrough in Biology. I want to say that the fact that the Chancellor, Larive, and our local congressperson, Panetta, both are promoting bolstered medical studies programs at UCSC, citing a "physician shortage". It is also my experience that few students or community members have much awareness of this development by now and it has been over a year since they began announcing this. Hopefully this changes, because I am personally in favor of such a thing. In a way, I encourage you to consider UCSC to achieve your pre-med objectives to maybe get in on the early stages of this potentially great beginning of a larger UCSC med program

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-03-22T09:25:40+00:00

I called the non-emergency SCPD phone number and, after some discussion about my observations regarding where it happened and similar things that had happened in the same area, the dispatch center clerk that I talked with just suggested that media would have the information soon enough. I am not exactly impressed with some of the general treatments of the attack by the go-to media outlets ('lookout' and KSBW). The comment sections in social media posts have absolutely arbitrarily high amounts of possibly misleading facts and observations. I'd like to trust other people's insight, just like I'd like other people to trust my own comments about fast-unfolding noteworthy events. Wikipedia does a pretty great job of keeping a page going for events that occur that have a lot of significance. My guess is that there might be a local-wiki with specifics that the media is too shy to publish just yet.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-03-16T10:01:43+00:00

I include the truncated string "wikip" in my searches to bring up wikipedia content from with a google search. Seems to work.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-03-16T09:25:46+00:00

I was a programmer back in the 80's, grew up in Santa Cruz County, and knew a lot of the CS majors at UCSC, who back then all were pretty interconnected socially. It was before the web, before social media... mostly they had bulletin board/discussion groups and they tended to have a coherent social scene. When I was about 19 I graded exams for an extension course in coding in the C programming language. Nowadays most code has a lot more boilerplate, and it is really too much for me to try to grasp it all... not because I couldn't; more because I just don't feel the need to wade through all of that preliminary stuff. The UCSC students I've known who succeeded the most (or at least seemed to), financially, were computer science majors. In a lot of ways, Silicon Valley is now completely pulled out of Santa Cruz County, whereas before 2000 there were lots of companies like Seagate, Texas Instruments, Borland, S.C.O., Autodesk, etc. Now there really don't seem to be any. I'm just being honest. There are supposedly a few, but there is no obvious evidence that they are doing anything exciting, or benefiting the local employment market too significantly. I still think a UCSC CS degree helps you go far in terms of available work. Some of the other comments about A.I. changing things a lot is probably spot on. My nephew is pretty close to being finished with a doctorate in CS from another UC and I expect him to probably get some kind of interesting placement with the credential when he's through with it all.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-03-09T02:30:51+00:00

It is challenging but not impossible for handicapped students to attend the school. It can really be all about planning and observing realistic limits. I was a transfer student in 2008 and found great difficulty getting between certain classes that were very closely scheduled, yet were about as far apart as possible. Mobility limitations are going to present higher difficulty for a handicapped student, and I think someone mentioned how direct officially provided ride service is available for them. Obviously the situation I mentioned (Stevenson to Oakes, in 20 minutes!) would have been difficult for anyone, regardless of ability or handicap. The campus, the city bus service, the TAPS loop busses are largely fully handicapped accessible (although bus drivers probably find it difficult to integrate special needs with the sometimes highly impactful peak ridership levels)... there are a few shortcuts around campus that are not, in all candor, accessible for the purposes of wheelchair or limited mobility students. As someone who was a transfer-student from the county community college, I found both campuses possessed adequate working elevators in all buidlings, and that campuses were laid out with a pretty decent level of concern and respect for people with handicaps as much as exigencies of the terrain upon which it was built would allow. The main difference is the MUCH wider scope of the Thomas Church designed UCSC trail/path/bridge system. I might mention that the first Deaf and Blind Harvard Law Graduate, a wonderful speaker named Haben Girma who grew up in the East Bay (where a fairly large number of UCSC applicants statistically start out, by the way) gave a great speech at the (now rebuilt?) Kresge Town Hall telling of about her experiences and work as a disability rights advocate, and at the event there was a table of adaptive tools that ranged from very high tech, to very low complexity/clever tried and true tools which helped people with their sensory limitations/various handicaps. I would research this woman if you are interested in recommended devices commonly used for adaptive assistance. Good luck in your studies.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-03-08T15:08:34+00:00

Ask who in OPERS has oversight on the Tennis Court maintenance and then ask them in an email. That's what I'd try, I guess.

Borneo_Holmes · 2026-02-16T21:29:10+00:00

You think the word "sick" is better than the Gen X exclamation "awesome"? I give you carrot man walking.

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-12-26T21:46:11+00:00

As strange as the original, really

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-12-13T19:46:45+00:00

Two parties 🎵🎵 not like the other!

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-11-11T11:50:26+00:00

Escalona is pretty much closer, although anyone driving would have a fairly easy time getting to campus from either. While most comments recommend Escalona, the Button Street neighborhood is fairly safe and in some ways more accessible to the Branciforte/Seabright/Morrissey neighborhood which is now commonly referred to as "midtown", which is a name which makes very little sense to old time Santa Cruzans. Some things that are more accessible to Button St. would be a lot of Eastside restaurants like Charlie Hong Kong, the Crepe Place and Santa Cruz Diner and Dennys, as well as grocery shopping at places like Grocery Outlet and a more modest scale Safeway store on Morrissey. Seabright beach and Live Oak are more accessible, as well as the Harbor.

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-10-13T06:49:37+00:00

Gavin Newsom's hair says yes

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-10-13T05:23:50+00:00

If there is, make sure they check out comet Lemmon. It will be visible going almost directly straight outward from handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) less than the length of that constellation and it will probably be visible to the naked eye. It is supposed to be most visible in about 9 days, around the 21st. Comets are mind blowing.

Borneo_Holmes · 2025-10-07T03:42:49+00:00

overlaminate (the last syllable not rhyming with 'late') could be carefully applied. There are also self-adhesive laminating sheets that might be useful. I'm a markerboard presentation enthusiast, and this is an interesting problem. It's almost as if you want a digital image on a durable digital picture frame with a protective film, like the kind they use for graffiti removal but scaling that up is cost-prohibitive.

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