Friday was a remarkably productive day. I woke up early, unpacked my car, took it to the car wash, folded my laundry, and repacked my car all before 11:00 AM. Then I went to Laura's school, High Tech High. She gave me a tour of three of the six schools at their Pt. Loma location: Explorer Elementary, High Tech Middle, and High Tech High. They were the most phenomenal schools I've ever visited. Here are some photos:
Laura and me outside of High Tech High
Art projects from High Tech Middle School
A student reading in a teachers office. All of the teachers get offices like this one in addition to their classrooms. Wow. 
7th graders in humanities class doing a peer critique
The art room
The art room
Students painting on easels. They're also listening to Led Zeppelin. 
Art class again
Students made calculus into art
Students in Wireless Engineering (a required class for all students) making plans for remote control airplanes. Their teacher used to design phones for Nokia. Not bad.
Physics/Art
Kindergarten
The book nook. All K-2nd grade classrooms have one.
After visiting the schools, I made one last run to In-And-Out Burger, and headed North and East to Vegas. It feels really unnatural to drive east after driving west for more than six weeks straight. I have an attachment to the West Coast that I can't really explain. Maybe it's because I was born there, or because I identify with their more laid-back approach to life. Or maybe it's because I only visit during the summer, when it's beautiful and sunny, even in Portland and Seattle. Whatever the reason, I love it.
My drive was pretty uneventful. I hit some traffic around Riverside and again when I was approaching the Nevada border. I ended up arriving in Vegas a little before 7:00.
I'm staying with my friend Robbe, who lives in Henderson, Nevada. Robbe and I have known each other for two years now. Sort of. We met two years ago at a halloween party at the Affinity Lab, a small-business incubator/one of my favorite hangout spots on 18th Street in Adam's Morgan, that Robbe and a few others founded several years ago.
I went to the party with my friend Tom, who was a lab member at the time. He was dressed up as a Dictator. I won't go into too much detail about his costume, but let's just say it involved a potato hanging in his pelvic area. Actually it was a yam, because that's what he had at his house. I was dressed up as static cling, and Robbe was dressed up as his friend Charles, who I didn't know at the time, so I didn't really get the costume. Now Charles is my friend too and I get it.
At the time of the party, Robbe had already moved back to LA, where he's from, and was just in town for the weekend. He and I kept in touch, and now we're hanging out for the second time, two years later, in Las Vegas. He moved to Vegas from LA almost a year ago (I think) because he's working for Zappos. I love Zappos. I love it even more that Robbe sometimes sends me coupons for Zappos.
Robbe and I had to get moving right away because we had tickets for the 9:30 performance of Love, a Cirque du Soleil show celebrating the Beatles. First we grabbed a quick dinner at the Carnegie Deli. Mmm... They're known for their enormous sandwiches, and when I say enormous, I mean you order a grilled chicken sandwich and you get eight grilled chicken breasts between two pieces of bread. Neither Robbe nor I attempted to tackle one. I think it was a wise choice. I got the blintzes and they were AMAZING! Probably the best blintzes I've ever had.
Love was fantastic! I highly recommend going to see it.
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