California: Berkeley

One my days in the Bay Area I followed a friend to his office in Berkeley to look at cool robots and equipment, then spent the day exploring the area.  The computers and shop and data plots made me miss work quite a bit...  I was tempted to jump in and start debugging any broken stuff in sight!  Thinking that that would be a little odd, I left and walked around the Berkeley campus for a while.  But the itch to use my noggin didn't leave.  So I snuck into a math class in a big auditorium and listened to a lecture on differential equations for an hour.  I even took notes!  And I left feeling much better.  Maybe it's time for me to start looking for a real project... 

Here's a picture of the Berkeley campus:

From campus I took my packed lunch (yogurt, bread, avocado - staples of life) for a hike up the hill overlooking the city.  It was hot and dry and I could see the fog sitting on top of San Francisco, across the bay:

All the way at the top of the hill I wandered into a park and a very strange sight: eight or so people, three in mountaineering gear and the rest holding cameras and sound equipment.  Very curious, I hid behind a tree (to avoid being in the way of the cameras) and sat down to watch.  The guys in mountaineering gear stopped, took off their packs, and pulled out red and purple costumes and put them on.  Flying squirrel suits!  With fabric attaching wrists to ankles, helmets, and little parachute packs on the back!  Fantastic! 

I was hoping that they were going to jump off the mountain, but it didn't seem steep or high enough, so I waited to see what would happen.  The crew put on and took off their suits for the cameras three or four times, with close-up shots on zippers and helmets and I finally got up the nerve to go ask them what they were doing.  They said they were filming a reenactment of a jump, and no, they weren't going to leap out of any trees or off any cliffs today.  Too bad!  I headed back down to the city, people watched (Berkeley has good people-watching) and rode the subway back to foggy San Fran.