Manic Monday ~ "Cruzin"

Santa "Cruzing…. "

At the very end of the list of definitions for cruising, was noted the derivation of the word’s origin, “cross”. I live in Santa Cruz…actual translation…Holy Cross.

It is a town of incredible beauty. You may know it as one of the all time greatest surfing communities in the world.

And while our City Council is so far left their decisions frequently boarder on acts of communism, there is a strong underground of fiscally republican, socially democrat, capitalists….many with a significant collection of tattoos and piercings. We are located a mere forty-five minute commute from the Silicon Valley. In case you haven’t heard…high tech is back.

We are the home of the ninth campus of the greatest research university in the world. (see miscellaneous UCSC stats below)

The giant redwood forests grow right up to the phenomenal beaches of the Monterey Bay. The PGA is gonna be here next week…you can all check it out on the television. Speaking of sports….we are an hour away from the Giants, the A’s, the Raiders and the 49er’s. We are just a few hours drive from Lake Tahoe an amazing snow sport destination.

A wide variety of well-knowns have owned (or still own) homes here….from Alfred Hitchcock to Howie Mandel to Thomas Kinkaid to Carlos Santana. (I am sure younger well-knowns hang out here too…they just don’t stand out in my memory at the moment.)

The earthquake in 1989 which most of you thought was in San Francisco, with their nationally televised buildings falling and freeways collapsing…was actually centered here. Our downtown still has empty lots remaining from the destruction.

The Spanish established three civil settlements known as pueblos in California. They were located in Santa Cruz, San Jose, and Los Angeles. Spanish explorer Don Gaspar de Portola discovered the land now known as Santa Cruz in 1769. In 1791 Mission Santa Cruz was founded…the twelfth in the series. Mexico governed California by the 1820’s and over the next twenty years Americans arrived in huge numbers. California became a state in 1849, which was the same year as the Gold Rush. (obscure note: the gold was actually discovered on 24 January 1848)

Miscellaneous Stats for UC Santa Cruz
UCSC ranked 11th in the nation among public universities for the quality of its research productivity.

UCSC ranked 1st in the nation among public universities in the Social Sciences in the quality of research productivity.

UCSC ranked 6th in the Arts and Humanities index.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz has been named one of the top Shakespeare Festivals in the country.

UCSC ranked 1st in the nation for its academic research impact in the field of space sciences.

UCSC is headquarters to UC Observatories/Lick Observatory, which operates Lick Observatory and is a managing partner of the world's largest ground-based optical and infrared telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

UCSC ranked as the 2nd most influential research institution in the world in the physical sciences.

In a survey of 60 elite Association of American Universities member schools, UCSC ranked 15th for the percentage of its students whose bachelor's degrees led to doctorates.

U.S. News & World Report's rankings for 2007 place UCSC in the top 20 percent of national public universities.

In economics, International Finance was ranked 9th in the world in 2005.

I could go on and on….