It’s junior year in high school and graduation is *gulp* starting to appear just over the horizon. That means two things for the spring of junior year: tests and college research. I already took the SAT a few weeks ago, and I’m scheduled for the ACT in a few weeks and the SAT Subject Tests in a little over a month, plus I’ll likely retake the SAT in the fall.

As for college research, I’ve been doing that too recently, and am slowly but surely compiling together a list of places that I might be interested in spending four years of my life at. I won’t go into much more detail about this at this point, but you’ll likely be seeing me blog plenty more times about what’s happening with my continuing college search.

However, this week is Spring Break, and thus is the classic week for taking the opportunity to visit and tour college campuses. And since I live in the Bay Area (and cannot stop bragging about it), there’s a bunch of great colleges within driving distance of my house. So this week, I’ll be visiting a couple of colleges in the area, not necessarily because I’m interested in going there (some of them I am taking a good look at, while others are definitely not on my list), but to get the feel of going on a college campus and seeing what there is to see.

Today, I’m going to be visiting UC Berkeley, followed by Santa Clara University tomorrow, University of San Francisco on Wednesday, and Stanford University on Thursday (saving the best for last).

So that’s the majority of my Spring Break this week, which should be interesting…

Tags: Bay Area, colleges, Personal, Spring Break, tests, travelling, visits

A big high-five to my home state of California. The announcement came today that the state is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, because the EPA is refusing to give California a waiver on federal emissions standards. California wants to make these environmental standards stricter in our state, and the federal government is refusing to allow them to do so.

This should be particularly important, given the recent significant oil spill which happened in the San Francisco Bay a month or two ago. I would say without a doubt that the majority of us Californians want stricter environmental standards.

Isn’t this ironic? Most waivers are usually applied for by folks who want to make the standards looser. Here, California wants to make them stricter, and are being denied permission. So, hats off to California for suing over this ridiculous denial, and the best of luck.

I never thought I’d say this, but way to go Arnie.

Tags: Bay Area, California, environment, EPA, lawsuit, oil, spill, standards

BART, standing for Bay Area Rapid Transit, is celebrating 50 years since it was founded, and 35 years since it carried its first passenger on September 11, 1972. The idea of an electric people mover for the Bay Area to help relieve growing traffic congestion on the Bay Bridge was first conceived in 1946, a time when most people would choose cars over public transit and before the concept of global warming was coined.

The BART system is now a tremendous system, including a subway that runs underneath Market Street in San Francisco, and the San Francisco Transbay Tube, an underwater tube which is 3.6 miles long and has a maximum depth of 135 feet below the surface, making it the longest and one of the deepest vehicular tubes in the world. It is a now a major transit system for the Bay Area, with hundreds of thousands of daily riders, and also featuring connections to SFO and OAK airports, UC Berkeley, downtown San Francisco, Oakland Coliseum, and many other parts of the Bay Area.

When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area, a portion of the Bay Bridge collapsed on itself, causing it to be closed down for a long period of time. However, the BART Transbay Tube suffered no damage, and within hours BART was running at full speed, and really became an essential connection between the San Francisco Peninsula and the East Bay. Similarly, when the MacArthur Maze, one of the most heavily used freeway junctions in the country, burned in April 2007, BART was there to relieve the excess traffic.

So congratulations to BART for 35 years of service. If you’re in the Bay Area and you’ve never had a chance to ride BART, it’s a great experience and you oughta check it out. Also, check out BART’s 35th Anniversary Video, where they recap the last 35 years and talk about some of their ongoing projects.

Tags: anniversary, BART, Bay Area, earthquake, trains, transit, Video

Well, if you know me, you know that I enter various stuff at the San Mateo County Fair every year, and if I recall correctly, this is my 10th year to enter. However, this is the first time where I actually found out what I won before I went to go see it for myself, but sure enough, the San Jose Mercury News apparently reported on one of the brand new divisions this year: Website Design. There were three award-winning entries in the new division, two of which were mine. At least someone else did enter, when I had called the County Fair office a month ago to ask for entry details for websites, I got a “That’s the first time that question has been asked!” response, which got me worried that I would be the only one entering.

Anyway, congratulations to Taylor Hansford who does the website for Pacifica 4-H (it’s the county fair, after all!) and won 1st place. My own Webmacster87.info won the red ribbon, and the 17th District PTA Website, which I maintain and entered under the class “Website for a Business or Organization”, took third.

Thanks, by the way, goes to Larry and Anthony who sent me the link and asked me “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” I haven’t been to the fair yet, so honestly, I had no idea that I’d won until they sent me the link.

There are some things slightly ironic about the San Jose Mercury News article. For one thing, San Jose isn’t part of San Mateo County, but I’ll let that slide since our fair is open to all the neighboring counties as well. However, they said that “Neither boys were available for interviews.” Besides that being bad grammar, I wasn’t even at the fair today, so of course I wasn’t “available” for an interview! The article also claims that they were looking for me and the other kid in the livestock section. I can’t speak for Taylor, but I’m not part of 4-H and don’t spend very much time in the livestock section. I might spend 5-10 minutes in there during the fair to look, but I don’t exactly hang around there waiting to be interviewed, if you know what I mean. Now, I did get a phone call today from the fair saying that the San Mateo County Times wanted to interview me, albeit about my being a judge for a contest in the Culinary Arts division, but they have setup a time to meet me there at 4:30 PM on Monday. So, San Jose Mercury News, if you’d like to say hi to me, I’ll be there on Monday willing to answer questions.
Anyway, I am glad that my websites received the recognition from the judges (hopefully they didn’t try to view this website in Internet Explorer, which doesn’t work that well), and I’m glad to have helped the San Mateo County Fair get their technology entries going. Who knows? Maybe next year they’ll have a division for best podcast. Stay tuned next week when I’ll post a full list of everything I entered this year and how well I did!

Tags: Awards, Bay Area, Blogging, event, interview, News, Personal, PTA, San Mateo County Fair, Technology, web design

I’m just about to go to sleep tonight, but first thing in the morning will be my third Tour de Peninsula–a grueling 33 mile bike event around southern San Mateo County that’s FULL OF HILLS. Oh boy–this is NOT a flat land bike race, it’s full of hills, particularly the infamous “Mount Neverest” as termed by the event for the exhausting trek up Ralston Ave. (in Belmont) from Alameda de las Pulgas to Highway 92. Still the bike event (it’s not a race) is a lot of fun. In 2005, I took the official 21 mile shortcut, but last year, partially inspired by a bet that I had with Larry, I completed the full 33 mile ride, nearly killing myself in the process. (Due to my success, Larry had to use Firefox for 72 hours.)

This year, I’m not as sure of myself as I haven’t done quite as much preparation for the event as I did last year, partially because I’ve been much busier and partially because construction crews have been tearing up the nearest overcrossing to the nearest good bike paths, so I’m a little unsure of myself. However, I have done a bit more preparation than I did in 2005 (in ‘05, I only learned that the event existed two days before I went and did it!), and I still mustered up 21 miles there. Heck, last Thursday, I did a long 26 mile trek to South San Francisco, up the San Bruno Mountains and back down on Sister Cities Blvd., and back to San Mateo, and I pretty much survived that. So I’ll probably try my hand at another 33 mile ride tomorrow, even though there won’t be the fear of having to use Safari for 3 days straight to push me on.

Actually, that might be a good idea. Even if there’s no one to force to use Firefox for 3 days straight if I finish the ride. Okay, yeah. If I don’t complete the Tour de Peninsula this year, all 33 miles, I’ll have to use Safari for 3 days straight, AND review it during my Month of Reviews. Okay cool. Now you doubters have something to look forward to.
Anyway, wish me luck, and pray that I survive tomorrow’s ride! As the Tour’s slogan says, “It’s all downhill from here.”

Tags: Bay Area, bike, event