#heweb11 #tnt8 and #austintx

Yes that’s a lot of Twitter hashtags but that’s what’s been filling up the past few days for me. I, along with four other folks from W&M Creative Services, travelled to Austin earlier this week to attend HighEdWeb 2011 in Austin, Texas. Tina Coleman and Andrew Bauserman presented on our new events system at W&M, and Joel Pattison and Justin Schoonmaker offered a Photoshop workshop. Our former director Susan Evans (now at mStoner) also presented on creating a Creative Services team.

I presented alongside Doug Gapinski from mStoner about mobile strategy for higher education. The talk was well received on Twitter (tracked via hashtags for each session, ours was #tnt8) and I’m excited that folks were so interested in our topic. HighEdWeb’s magazine Link summarized our talk summarized our talk twice (!) if you’re curious about what we discussed.

I attended a lot of great talks and have some great ideas to bring back to campus. Here are their Twitter hashtag commentary (with a quick-and-dirty archive courtesy of Twitter RSS) and summaries courtesy of Link:

As always this is a great conference with great speakers and networking opportunities, looking forward to HighEdWeb 2012 in Milwaukee!

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California trip – day 8 – San Francisco and Alcatraz

Our last day in San Francisco we started with a tour of the iconic Alcatraz Island. All of the travel websites say this is worth going to and it definitely is. Yes, it may be touristy but it’s also really interesting and beautiful. I purchased our tickets online about a month prior (you have to as this is such a popular attraction) and secured the first morning ferry out so that we’d beat a bit of the crowds and still have a good portion of the day to do other stuff as well. There are night tours of Alcatraz as well which I’ve heard are really cool but, even a month in advance, these were sold out for the day we wanted to go.

So you take a 20 minute ferry ride out to the island, getting a nice view of the city on your way out, and then you dock at the main (and only) dock on Alcatraz Island. We were greeted by one of the park rangers who gave us some general information and were informed that there was a garden tourthat was being offered that

The only thing behind bars on Alcatraz now, are the geraniums (to protect them from the birds)

morning that would take you through some of the less-seen areas of the island as well as see a bit of “behind-the-scenes” stuff. Since this was a free tour it sounded like a great way to tour the island and learn more about its history before heading up to the main prison building.

"Tour Starts Here"

After the garden tour concluded we were encouraged to take the Agave Trail to go back down to the ferry, as it went down past the bird sanctuary on the coast. So keeping that in mind we headed into the main building, picked up our audio tour headsets, and walked around with lots of other folks, hearing from previous inmates and guards, about life at Alcatraz.

After the audio tour we took the Agave Trail as recommended. It’s a pretty walk down the island, lots of its namesake plant along the trail,

Air show practice over Alcatraz Island

as well as great views of San Francisco across the Bay. It’s scary imagining being imprisoned there, with the city and its “normal life” seemingly just out of reach. We had to wait a while to board the next ferry and were annoyed by the vast quantity of flies that apparently hatch at this time of year, but thankfully once we were on the ferry and moving they dissipated. As we were leaving the island we were treated to another air show practice, this time not just by the sleek Blue Angels jets but by the older planes as well. All my Fleet Week air show photos are on Flickr if you’d like to see more planes 🙂 Also, the rest of my Alcatraz and San Francisco photos are also online.

Once we were back in the city we headed out towards San Jose, stopping at an amazing Chinese place in the Mission District (aptly names Mission Chinese Food) for a quick lunch. Jeremy had seen this place recommended in the New York Times and it was also well reviewed by the travel sites and Foursquare. So taking Foursquare tip recommendations we ordered the Salt Cod Fried Rice and the Cumin Lamb Belly. The rice was very good with just a hint of the fishy salt cod flavor, but the lamb was amazing, perfectly spiced pieces of lamb broiled so that the fat melted and caramelized along with the onions and few peppers in the dish, so good!

After this late light lunch we headed out to San Jose to meet up with a couple from Williamsburg who had moved out here a few months ago. We met at The Counter, a build-your-own burger place, and had a great time catching up. After dinner we took a stroll around the downtown area, trying to keep up with their two year old son, and then parted ways and drove the hour back to San Francisco. Since we leave very early tomorrow morning we are heading to bed early, back to the real world tomorrow!

It’s been a great trip. It has been quire fun to see Jeremy and my parents interact (and get along well 😉 ) as well as see this side of the country that I’ve heard so much about. There are definitely lots of things I’d like to come back and see, more photos to take, more wines to taste, more great restaurants to find, and I’m looking forward to it 🙂

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California trip – day 7 – San Francisco, Ferry Building Marketplace, Pier 39

For our first full day in San Francisco we were greeted with a foggy and rainy morning. Initially the plan had been to ride the bus down to Pier 1 and the Ferry Building Marketplace but the rain swayed us towards the decision to drive down and park for the day. Thankfully the rain cleared up as the day progressed and we only got caught in one stray shower the rest of the day.

"Welcome to Bacon Land"...why thank you!

The Marketplace is definitely a foodie’s dream, dozens of shops, all with some combination of gourmet, organic, free-range, handmade, natural products (all of them beautiful and/or tasty). Mom and I split a blueberry scone as a quick breakfast as we walked the length of the old ferry terminal then we went outside to see the famous tower and “Port of San Francisco” sign. As we were walking around outside we saw that we were right next to where you can take the ferry to Saulsalito. I had heard from a few folks that it was a fun place to go for lunch so we bought Clipper cards (reloadable mass transit fare cards, it was $5 cheaper to use that than to buy the fare with cash) for the 11:35am ferry and then wandered around the marketplace a bit more until the ferry departed.

Our fellow passengers on the trip to Saulsalito were almost exclusively other tourists, so most were crowded at the front or back of the boat taking photos of the passing coastline during the trip (some blatantly ignoring the “please don’t stand on the seats” signs to take photos over the railing). We offloaded at the base of the main street and decided to find a spot for lunch courtesy of Yelp and Foursquare. The highest recommended place was a Thai restaurant at the end of the main road so we walked the few blocks and enjoyed some pretty tasty food at Thai Terrace. We split spring rolls and spicy fried tofu as appetizers, I had a nice green curry and Thai iced tea. After lunch we walked back to the ferry and headed back to the city.

We arrived back at Pier 1 and walked up the Embarcadero along the water up to the attractions around Fisherman’s Wharf. Along the way we sampled some tasty chocolate at TCHO where we had just missed the 2pm tour, looked like it would be fun to do another time. We made a quick tour around the crazy tourist-iness that is Pier 39, saw the sea lions, and walked up around the old Del Monte Cannery and Ghiardelli Square. We stopped at historic Pier 45 which had a fun antique arcade that we walked around (and where I got my customary souvenir penny) and outside along the water we got to enjoy an impromptu Blue Angels airshow as they were practicing for their shows later this weekend for Fleet Week.

We decided to try out Bistro Boudin at the famous Boudin Bakery for dinner. Social media was divided on the quality of the restaurant, some said it was a tourist trap, others said the food was great, overall I think I would lean towards the first opinion. The sourdough bread was very good (as expected), my mom got to have one of their famous bread bowls with crab and corn chowder, Jeremy and I each had a pretty tasty local beer (Anchor Steam), but the main dishes were rather bland, and not worth what you paid. On the bright side, we did have a great view of Alcatraz and the water at sunset from our table.

Port of San Francisco sign and the ferry clock tower at twilight

After dinner we decided to go back to the Marketplace to acquire some desert before heading home. We hopped on the F electric street car all the way back to Pier 1 and went to Ciao Bella Gelato for dessert (mint chocolate chip, honey pecan, pistachio gelatos and lemon sorbet were enjoyed by the group, all good). We walked out to the back of the terminal to catch a view if the night skyline and lit bridges and “Port of San Francisco” sign and then headed back to the car.

Tomorrow, we get to explore Alcatraz and meet up with some Williamsburg friends for dinner in Palo Alto, with I’m sure some more stops in between.

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California trip – day 6 – Pacific Coast Highway

So today was another travel day, this time from Napa back to San Francisco, with a significant detour via the Pacific Coast Highway. We started off the day at a breakfast spot recommended to us by our AirBnB host Matt, called Cafe Sarafornia in Calistoga. According to its sign it has the “best breakfast in town,” and I must say, it was quite tasty. It was the pretty much standard diner breakfast menu, French toast, pancakes, egg scrambles, but some dishes, like the eggs Benedict I ordered, had a “California twist” such as guacamole added to the dish and bacon substituted for the ham. After filling up we walked around a little downtown, explored a cute converted train depot where they had taken the old train cars and turned them into tiny shops, and then began our road trip for the day.

We set off on route 120 and drove it towards the coast until it ended. We passed through Sonoma county, with its seemingly endless vineyards, followed by Menodino county which was a lot of farmland, particularly cow and sheep pastures. Mendocino stretched all the way to the coast and there we met up with Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

First view of the Pacific Ocean

The PCH is a beautiful, and very windy drive, you weave in and around the coastline getting glimpses of huge rock formations by the ocean along the way. We stopped at Manchester State Park which had a picnic area but also beach access, and my mom and I both had our first touch of the Pacific ocean (after multiple attempts to not get soaked by the incoming waves). There was a lot of cool driftwood along the beach as well as a lot of washed up plant life. The predominant organism that had washed up looked like giant firehoses with a circular root base, not sure what it was but it definitely looked weird. After our lunch of meats and cheeses we were back on the road for another few hours, stopping every once in a while for photos at particularly interesting spots. Somehow about an hour and a half outside of San Francisco we inadvertently got off the PCH which we realized after we stopped to get gas, but it was for the

Mom and I at the Pacific Ocean after almost getting soaked by a wave. (Photo courtesy of Jeremy)

better as it was approaching the end of the day and we were ready to get to the house so we hopped on the main highway into the city.

Our AirBnB home here (a “Hidden Gem that’s Close to it All!“) is what you’d think of as a typical San Francisco town home, up on the top of a steep hill (which requires some crazy maneuvering to park). It is listed as an “artists’ home” and it delivers, there are some very unique bits of art around the house. There are two large and one tiny (with bunk beds) bedrooms upstairs and the bathroom, kitchen and living/dining area are downstairs.

Once we got everything inside and we were settled in I poked around a bit online to see what our dinner options were but in the end we opted to order pizza. The highest recommended place that delivered to us was Goat Hill Pizza, who were known for their sourdough crusts. We ordered a ham pizza for the guys and a mushroom and spinach pizza for the girls (yay for online ordering). Both pizzas were quite tasty and we enjoyed them with a bottle of California merlot we had bought at the grocery store earlier this week. After dinner we all poked around online a bit (yay for free wifi) and then headed to bed.

To check out all of the Pacific Coast Highway photos, visit the Flickr set.

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California trip – day 5 – Napa Valley

After a quick bagel breakfast we set off for our first wine tasting of the day at Elizabeth Spencer Winery. The tasting room is situated in the old town post office and Marshall greeted us warmly and led us through a wonderful tasting of a Sauvignon Blanc, two chardonnays, a Pinot Noir and two Cabernet Sauvignons. Jeremy and I confirmed our previous belief that these are some crazy tasty wines and decided to join their wine club (which also allowed us to get a discount on a few bottles to take back with us). We asked for some recommendations for lunch and were told that Farmstead and Cook were two good options so we made reservations for dinner at Cook (after validating the selection on Yelp and Urbanspoon) and headed to Farmstead for an early lunch. We were also given two discount tasting coupons for a nearby winery that (we later found out) Marshall used to work at so that winery was added to the list of destinations for the day.

Lunch at Farmstead was delicious. I had a country ham-wrapped fig salad with arugula and goat cheese and Mom and I split a burger with fried egg, with a side of fried potatoes. I think the fig salad is one of the best dishes from the whole trip, everything was so fresh and just tasted like it “should.” We noticed the tasting room next door (affiliated with the restaurant) had a Foursquare special for free tastings so we walked next door and tasted three wines and two olive oils at Long Meadow Ranch.

Grapes at Cakebread Cellars

Our next stop was Cakebread Cellars and we were given the VIP treatment thanks to some connections with friends back in Williamsburg. We were given a personal tour, tasted probably a dozen great wines, and even tasted grapes off of the vines so we could contrast the same grape being grown in the California and European-style of growing and trellising grapes (they really do taste different!).

Our last wine tasting stop was at Steltzner Vineyards (where our wine server Marshall at Elizabeth Spencer had worked previously). The bartender there also worked in the kitchen of Bottega, which had been another restaurant we wanted to try, so he checked to see if there were any openings coming up, and unfortunately there were not, will just have to be a place to go next time.

Before dinner we wandered around downtown St. Helena, perused two of the many olive oil stores, checked out the real estate listing (very pricey, but hey, you could buy a vineyard!) and then headed to dinner at Cook at 5:30. To start, we split the calamari and mussels with tomato and sausage appetizers amongst the table. Jeremy had the fetuccini carbonara special, Dad had the short ribs (recommended by Foursquare), Mom had a whole trout, and I had the risotto special with seared tuna, red grapes, and a pistachio, fig and bacon tapenade (very different combination of flavors, but tasty). For dessert I tried their “mundae,” chocolate and vanilla gelato with a balsamic reduction, gray sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil. Overall the flavors were good but the chilled olive oil was a bit odd, could’ve done without that but I guess we were in olive oil country.

After a rather harrowing drive back up the hill in the rain we made it back to the house and Jeremy and I decided to “rough it” a bit and sleep in the little garden cottage for the night. It’s really cute and cosy inside. Tomorrow we head down to San Francisco, possibly stopping at a winery, and then definitely going down the Pacific Coast Highway to the city.

Photos from our winery tours and of the AirBnB house are in a Flickr set if you’d like to see more.

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California trip – day 4 – Santa Rosa and our AirBnB house in Napa

So today was a travel day. We made our way out of Yosemite after cleaning up and checking out of Sunset House and traveled via route 140 and 580 through Modesto to Santa Rosa, California. We were running about two hours ahead of when we needed to check in to the next AirBnB spot (the Secluded Wine Country Retreat) so we

Bacon and brown sugar cupcake from Sift

utilized Foursquare to find a fun spot to grab a snack and kill some time. The first stop was Sift, a cupcakery, in downtown Santa Rosa. The four of us each got a different cupcake, carrot cake, lemon, Boston creme and cheesecake, and I got a bacon and brown sugar cupcake to go (bacon! cupcake!). All of the cupcakes were extremely tasty, and rightly so as the bakers there won Food Network’s Cupcake Wars back in early 2010, so that was definitely a fun discovery. We killed a bit of time at a nearby Barnes & Noble and then headed up the mountain to our “Secluded Napa Valley Retreat.” we were met at the house by the owner, a very friendly guy named Matt and we were shown around the cabin, which is fabulously and eclectically decorated with objects ranging from animal skulls (with little labels telling visitors what each animal it belonged to) to billiard and gazing balls, to Roman helmets and awesome star lamps and lanterns. There’s a cute little garden “room” outside (that is a converted shed) with a bed in it, Jeremy and I may sleep in there tomorrow night just for fun, tonight it’s raining though so we will stay in the second bedroom tonight.

A welcome tray from our AirBnB host, Matt

We were left with a welcome basket with wine, cheese, meat and some sparkling water so that was a really nice surprise. During our introductory tour Matt showed us a game of digital 20 questions that we played for a bit before dinner (Jeremy managed to stump the computer with “corkscrew”, it managed to guess “grape”, “billiard ball” and “candelabra”).

Jeremy and I cooked up pasta with a fresh tomato sauce, chicken and prosciutto. The kitchen is fully stocked with just about every size bowl and utensil (including an incredibly large whisk, no idea what you would use it for) so it was fun making dinner. We enjoyed a few bottles of wine through the course of the night as well (only appropriate being in wine country).

Tomorrow we have tastings scheduled at Cakebread Cellars and Elizabeth Spencer, so those should be a lot of fun. Hopefully the rain that’s been going all day will let up and we can get a chance to enjoy the deck here at the cabin. As we are all still kind of functioning on East coast time 9pm is feeling pretty late so I think it’s time to head to bed.

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California trip – day 3 – Yosemite, Mist Trail and Vernal Falls

Today started off early again with everyone heading out around 7am to get to the Yosemite stables by 8am. As usual, we got there significantly early (about 30 minutes), but better early than late. There were fifteen people all together in the group, with three guides. After watching a 15 year old “training video” warning us of the dangers of horseback riding by a narrator who sounded like he was out of an old western, we were told “enjoy the ride, partner” and were ready to head out.

Lenny the mule

We lined up and were each assigned a mule. Dad got a mule named Guiness (very appropriate considering his fondness for the beer of the same name), Jeremy’s was brown with a white mane named Uno, Mom’s was named Hawkeye, and mine was Lenny. We had a few couples as well as two families along for the ride, with a guide at the front, middle, and back of our single file line. The mules can walk this trail without virtually no guidance so you were just along for the ride more or less unless you decided to let them have a snack on a nearby bush.

We rode for about two hours, passed by Mirror Lake (which was more of a small pond at this time of year), and turned around at a spot where there was a rockslide in 2009 that closed off the trail loop. We doubled back a little and then went down some pretty rocky terrain, good thing the mules are sure footed. Both my mule and Mom’s we quite cautious, pausing at the top of any particularly steep spot for a few moments and figuring out the best way to go. After two hours we headed back to the stables, everyone was a bit stiff from the ride but overall we had a really great time and it’s definitely something we will have stories from and remember as a highlight of the trip.

We ate lunch out of the back of the car, making deli sandwiches and roughing it with no knives (Mom and I learned from the guys that you can just “rub the two pieces of bread together to spread the mustard around”…riiiight). After lunch we decided to split up, Mom and Dad opted to go around via the shuttle bus to the various gift shops and to see the historic lodges in the valley. Jeremy and I decided to go for a short(ish) hike via Mist Trailto see Vernal Falls.

Vernal Falls with a beautiful rainbow

The trail was listed as “moderate” in our guidebook (on a scale of easy, moderate, strenuous or very strenuous), and I hate to see what gets classified as strenuous. Granted the first half of the trail, which was quite popular and had the full gamut of age range hiking it, was a paved path but it went up quite steeply. I have decided it’s a very good thing to have a camera with you on these kinds of hikes as I would just “stop to take a picture” whenever I needed to catch my breath. The altitude definitely came into play here, it wasn’t that I needed to stop because my muscles were tired, it was just that I couldn’t catch my breath. Eventually though we got to the midway point where most folks turned around and just got a distant view of the falls, we decided to continue up the seemingly endless granite steps to finish the trail in pursuit of a better view. Every few hundred yards you would get an ever closer view of the falls, which had the light hitting them just right that there were rainbows at the base of the falls. The water comes over a sheer rock wall so the view is breathtaking seeing the water coming over, and the water rushing around all the huge boulders that have come off the wall over time. Granted, this was the lowest the falls had been all season, so I can’t imagine what it looks like at full capacity in the spring after the snow melt.

One of our avian visitors

We made it to the top of the falls and then walked back a bit to the Emerald Pool that feeds it for a snack stop. We sat in the shade on a big boulder and almost immediately after pulling out our granola bars we had peaked the attention of the surrounding birds and squirrels. A few were quite bold and landed or walked within a few feet of us, making for some fun wildlife photos but we eventually shooed them off. There were huge smooth slightly sloping rocks that in spring must be under a few feet of rushing water but, being we were there at the end of the season, were dry and offered a very comfortable spot to recline for a bit and soak up some sun and listen to the rushing water. We saw glimpses of a wooden bridge and an even higher waterfall, Nevada Falls, so I suggested we walk up a bit farther to try and get a better view and set that as the pinnacle of our hike. We made it up to the top, took a few more photos and then made the significantly faster journey downhill back to the shuttle stop to meet up with my folks.

We swung through the store to pick up a tri-tip steak to grill along with some corn, sweet potatoes and rice for dinner, and we will eat the bit of leftover chili as well to round out the meal. It has been a great stay in Yosemite, not too hurried, not too slow. I feel like we have seen a lot of the “famous” landmarks but managed to avoid really feeling like you were in a tourist spot, I think the photo walk and trail ride helped with that. Tomorrow we have a 5ish hour drive to Napa. On the way we will probably stop in Modesto for lunch somewhere (we will see what Yelp recommends), and be in Napa at our next AirBnB home between 4 and 5pm.

If you’d like to take a look, all of my Yosemite photos are up on Flickr.

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California trip – day 2 – Yosemite and Mariposa Grove

So today started off early (in California time, late on East coast) at 6am so that we could be at the Ansel Adams gallery in Yosemite valley a bit before 8:30am. It had taken us an hour to get to the house from the visitors center the day before but we forgot to add in the fact that downhill goes faster so we arrived almost 45 minutes early for our photo walk. We grabbed a cup of coffee at the little cafe at the visitors center and waited with the 11 other folks for the walk to start.

Reflections of Yosemite

We were led by one of the park photographers on an hour and a half mini-class. He explained aperture and shutter speed as well as ISO and how that affects your photos. We had a pretty diverse group both geographically and in terms of photography experience. There was a couple from the UK who had lots of nice equipment (the husband kindly offered to let me borrow an extra tripod when we were taking long-exposure shots), a few ladies from Minnesota with point and shoots, a lady from New Zealand with what appeared to be the same amount of equipment/experience as us except she had brought a tripod, and a few other folks with point-and-shoots. In hindsight, I wish we had stopped by the Swem Media Center at William & Mary and rented monopods to use for the trip, oh well, note for next time.

Our first stop after our camera “orientation” was to shoot an elm tree in one of the valley meadows in the morning sun. This was the first time in a long time that I had actually shot full manual, and I realized how much I do miss it. Shooting manual makes you really stop and take a bit more time to compose your shot, and playing with F-stops and histograms to adjust the light (even when your light meter says it’s “right”). We walked by the Merced river to shoot reflections of the huge granite formations next, and finished with some shots of Half Dome before heading back towards the visitors center and concluding the tour.

We walked around the gift shop and Adams Gallery for a bit then hopped on the (free!) hybrid shuttle bus that runs around the valley and went to the stables to see if there were any spots open for a horseback ride the next morning, and we were in luck! So tomorrow at 9am (we need to arrive at 8) we will be doing a 2 hour horseback tour of the park (Mom has always want to do this and I am super excited too 🙂 ). After making the reservations we got back on the shuttle and headed back to the main parking area. We decided earlier in the morning we would visit the Mariposa Grove in the afternoon so we stopped at a picnic area along the way to enjoy our peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches and then (after a bit of driving around to secure a parking spot) got on another shuttle up to the grove.

See those tiny colored dots on the road at the bottom center of the photo? That's my parents and Jeremy, these trees are HUGE!

The initial plan had been (based on the guidebooks we had) to ride a open air tram up to the upper grove, then to walk down and see all of the famous trees. Unfortunately the tram did not go just one way, and it was $26 per person, so we decided to walk. The lower grove (about a 1.5 mile hike) had a few famous trees, but the upper grove (an additional 2.5 mile hike) showcased some of the larger and more unique trees so once we got to the top of the lower grove we decided we were in good enough shape to visit the upper grove as well. There was quite a bit of uphill on the way to the little museum at the top of the upper grove but we made it, saw everything we wanted to, and were back down to the parking lot by 5pm.

The giant sequoias here are just unbelievably huge, it’s hard to really fathom how large they are until you standing next to them and realizing you could stretch your arms wide around the tree and not even go a tenth of the way around it. It’s amazing how these trees survive, and thrive, from the forest fires that occur every few years. The burned trunks create beautiful patterns and sometimes the fires hollow out entire trees, yet the trees are still alive (like the Telescope Tree). These guys are very resilient, and they aren’t even considered “mature” until they are 800 years old, some of the trees we saw were over 3000, amazing.

After hiking the grove we were all pretty famished and ready to head back to the house so we did just that. We cooked marinated pork chops on the grill with oven roasted potatoes and acorn squash, all the while enjoying a spectacular sunset view from our deck. So now it is quarter past 8 but since we are getting up early again I think we are all heading to bed early as well. Tomorrow we have the horseback ride in the morning then I think my folks will split up from Jeremy and I and we will do a short day hike somewhere while my parents visit the lodges and other shops in the valley, looking forward to all of it 🙂

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California Trip – day 0 and 1 – Travel to Yosemite

Our flight from Richmond left at 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday so both Jeremy and I took off the whole day. We spent the morning running last minute errands before heading to the airport early to meet up with a friend who sold me her scooter (a Yamaha Vino) so we could exchange payment and the title. My parents were flying out of Dulles and it just happened to work out (no really, not planned) that our connecting flight to San Francisco was through Dulles on the same flight. We all were lucky enough to fly first class courtesy of miles and upgrades so we had a pretty relaxing cross-country flight. We landed in San Francisco (hello first time on the West coast!) around 7:30 PST, grabbed our bags from baggage claim and headed to a nearby Hilton for the night.

After our complementary hotel breakfast we set out towards the east and Yosemite National Park. Typically this is about a 4.5 hour drive but we stopped in Oakdale to pick up groceries for the next three days (breakfast, packable lunches and dinner) and to have lunch at a local deli called Ferrareses Deli that came highly recommended on both TripAdvisor and Yelp. I had a very tasty avocado BLT, Mom had the pesto chicken sandwich and Jeremy and Dad both had the French Dip, yum.

Most of the trip we just spent looking out at the scenery, as it changed from tan dry grass hillsides with wind farms, to seemingly endless groves of pecan trees, then finally to tall pine and cedar trees as we entered the national forest and ultimately Yosemite National Park.

We are staying in the only private residential section allowed in the park (courtesy of AirBnB, the Yosemite Sunset House), about an hour’s drive (15 miles) from the main visitor’s center in Yosemite Valley. We couldn’t check in until 5pm so we decided to head to the visitor’s center to pick up maps, standard souvenirs (I always buy photo magnets from places I visit, my mom always gets one of the 8×10 photo tour books), and to see if there was anything we wanted to make reservations for while we were in the park. The Ansel Adams gallery hosts 1.5 hour morning walks for free most mornings so we called and were able to reserve spots to take that tour in the morning. We are also talking about doing w horseback trail ride, hopefully we can fit that in, I haven’t ridden a horse for probably 18 years but it would be fun to do again, so we will see.

(from left to right) El Capital, Half Dome and the Three Brothers

On our way to the visitors center we passed by many of the park’s most famous sites, Bridal Veil falls, El Capitan, Half Dome, it’s amazing to see these in person, the views almost don’t look real, the scale of everything is just awesome.

We arrived at our house around 5:30, lugged all our suitcases up the three flights of outside stairs to be greeted by a pine tree studded view of the mountains and the sunset on our big deck. The house is situated on a hillside, with three separate apartments, the bottom is not open to the public, then there is a one bedroom apartment on the second level (the folks staying there pulled in around 8pm tonight) and then the top level is a 2 bedroom, one bath place where we are staying. There is a big open living/dining/kitchen area with lots of windows looking out to the forest and facing west towards the setting sun (thus the name “Sunset House”). We bought the makings for chili and cornbread at the store so we got that going and then sat out on the deck, enjoying the cool mountain air and views. Dinner turned out quite tasty (even with some baking dish improvising for the corn bread). Now everyone is getting ready to turn in for the night (we are all still on East coast time, luckily this works in our favor when we need to be at the visitors center tomorrow before 8:30am and we have an hour and change drive to get there).

So tomorrow, photo walk and tips on how to take “nature photos,” then I think a short day hike of some sort is in order. There’s so much to see, and we have two full days to see it, but for now, as it feels like 11:35pm rather than 8:35, I think it’s time to head to bed.

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Facebook Profiles vs Pages vs Groups

(Cross-posted on the W&M Creative Services Blog)

There are a lot of ways for people to connect on Facebook. What started as just a network for college students has mushroomed into a community of over 750 million active users where seemingly everyone (and nearly every business, celebrity, brand and university) has a presence. There are three main ways that an entity can have a presence on Facebook: profiles, pages and groups; not all of these options are suited for every occasion. Here are quick overviews of each type with answers to some of the most common questions about their differences.

Profiles

Facebook profile silhouetteProfiles are for people and only people. On your profile you can share photos, videos, web links, and general status updates with people you have connected with as “friends.” If you create a personal profile for any other entity aside from yourself Facebook will get grumpy at you as it violates their terms of service agreement. So this boils down to no fake names or personas (use a Page) and no creating multiple personal accounts (like one for work use and one for personal).

If you are concerned about mixing work and personal Facebook use, keep in mind that if you are an admin of a Facebook page it is not listed anywhere publicly, so no one will know to contact you or associate you with that professional page. You can utilize friend lists to keep work and personal Facebook friends separate and control what each group sees by selectively sharing information via your Facebook privacy settings.
For more on friend lists and privacy see the Facebook Help Center.

If you have created a Profile rather than a Page, for your business or brand, Facebook now offers a way to convert your Profile to a Page. Be warned however, only your photos and friends (who will be converted to “fans”) will be moved over, your wall posts and any other data on your profile will not be saved so make sure if you want to keep that information you have it backed up somewhere. For more details on how to convert a profile to a page, check out the Facebook Help Center.

Pages

Facebook page iconPages are essentially profiles for any entity that isn’t a real-life person on Facebook. Pages have the same photo albums, wall and info page as a personal profile, but you can have an unlimited number of “fans” rather than “friends” (which is limited to 5,000). Many celebrities also maintain a fan page in addition to, or in place of, their personal profile. This avoids the friend limits of a profile and when the celebrity is also a “brand,” is a way to keep their business and personal entities separate.

Facebook allows there to be one or more administrators for a Page. A cool feature released by Facebook allows an administrator of a Page to post wall messages or comments while masquerading as the page itself, rather than as their individual account. This feature is another good way to keep the business and personal aspects of Facebook separate if you manage a Facebook page for work.

For detailed info on how to create and manage Facebook Pages, visit the Facebook Help Center.

Groups

Facebook group iconIf you have a need to more frequently or directly communicate with a small community of people then a Facebook group is the way to go. You can utilize Facebook’s group chat, shared documents, and messaging features (where members will get emails rather that status updates in their Facebook stream as with a Page), to communicate directly with the members of your group.

There are three kinds of Facebook Groups:

  • Secret – Only members can see the group and what members post
  • Closed – Everyone can see the group. Only members see posts
  • Open (public) – Everyone can see the group and what members posts

If you are debating between a Group and a Page, consider how you plan on using it. Do you want to have a real-life “club” feel with a directly engaged community? If so, use a Group. If you want to offer interesting information to a large audience and publicize your organization, use a Page.

For more on Facebook groups, visit Facebook’s official Group help page.

Speaking of Facebook Groups, if you’re in charge of (or have any interest in) social media and are part of the W&M community, please join our W&M SMUG (Social Media Users Group) Facebook Group.

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