We spent the weekend in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay at the Open House for California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. We were able to line up Daniel's housing, see the University facilities, meet with other parents of incoming freshmen and hear from many of the departments and faculty of the engineering school. Daniel will enter Cal Poly as a Civil Engineering student.
The pictures above are of Daniel and Jenny, a friend from church who attends Cal Poly and runs a Campus Crusade bible study in her dorm room. Jenny is a teaching student who is very studious and makes good grades. She showed us around the campus on Friday afternoon and we took her to dinner with us. They also had a Collegiate Interscholastic rodeo on the weekend and Cal poly SLO is a big rodeo school with some of the best student rodeo athletes in the country. We went up to see the senior outdoor living exhibits and had to walk a trail up about a mile to the hill site where the students built their housing units. They were camping out and most of the housing had solar energy and had their housing built up off the ground. One of the units shown above had sod growing on the roof of the unit (supposedly for cooling) with a sprinkler system set up to water the lawn once a day with bottled water. Another of the units had a flooring system set up with pulleys and cables that allowed the students to change the slope and altitude of the flooring. That one was built by the architectural school at Cal Poly, but they couldn't explain why the changeable floor was a good thing. It was very interesting. David wants to gain entry to Cal Poly's Architecture program in the winter quarter next year. I think he is a bit green with Daniel's acceptance, but David has straight A's at community college and should get in to the 5 year Architecture program this December.
You can see from the picture above that the nicest building on campus is the College of Engineering and this is what Cal Poly is known for. They have a nice Business College and a great Agricultural and Animal Sciences college, but at Cal Poly it is all about Engineering. Forbes Magazine describes the school of Engineering at Cal Poly as "An Ivy League education at California State University prices". The estimated cost for a year of education with housing, books and tuition at Cal Poly SLO is $18,000, a far cry from the $55,000 for Harvard.
We got Dan into an off campus housing by the name of Mustang Village. He will be in a dorm of four men with one and a half baths, a kitchen with dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, oven and microwave for $450 a month and it is walking distance to campus. He will not bring his car for the first semester and the plan would be to have David and Daniel room together next year. School starts on September 17th and he will be there on September 10th for WOW week, which is a week where older students help indoctrinate the freshmen into school life with activities, tours, picnics, beach outings, community service, etc.
It was a good weekend and I think Daniel got to see a lot of the campus and hang out with Jenny and her friends and get a taste of college life. He is excited to start his college experience this year.
The San Luis Obispo area is very nice. It is a beach community and has great restaurants and an eclectic feel. Darla and I ate dinner at a restaurant in Morro Bay that overlooks the harbor and boatyard. We also ate at a Mexican restaurant in SLO and thoroughly enjoyed our weekend. They had a drawing at the parent meeting on Friday night and Darla won a tee shirt with the Open House 2007 wording and a great picture of SLO on the back.
Darla had arranged for us to stay at the San Luis Obispo Inn and Suites through Expedia, but upon check-in we were bumped. The entire town was sold out with 7000 people in town for Open House, so we ended up going to a brand new hotel in Morro Bay and staying there. Morro Bay is about 12 miles from SLO. Darla was miffed, but , frankly, the hotel in Morro Bay had two rooms and a King bed in our room versus two queens in one room at SLO. We actually scored by not having the Expedia room. She will let Expedia have it today.
Well, it is time again to do payroll and I need to get on that. I had no golf this weekend and I'm beginning to break out in hives. It is supposed to get into the mid eighties this week and I feel a marketing call coming on some afternoon. Be good and play nice. Ciao.
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