Two weeks ago I had a chance to attend the UC Desert Farming symposium, a one day event that was organized by UCCE in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties plus the Desert REC. It was an event of ‘firsts' – the first time the event had ever been held, the first time I had ever been to Palm Springs, and the first time I had ever heard Star Wars references included in a talk about the UC ANR Strategic Initiatives. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that the latter included images of different Star Wars characters that I couldn't name. I do recall R2D2 called out by name but one of the challenges of waiting too long to write this is that now I can't remember what the R's and D's represented! Serves me right for not taking notes and not writing a blog post right away. The symposium was a great way for some of our newer academics to meet local supporters from the region that were outside of their program area and to deliver educational sessions that awarded continuing education credits to professionals. Overall, the attendance was strong, despite some uncertainty from the organizing committee.

One of the speakers talked about the Salton Sea. It was really fascinating. Given what I have always heard about it, I never imagined it to be a beach-goers hotspot. Following that speaker's talk, Mark Bell and I decided to take a quick trip to the north end visitor's center before heading back to the educational sessions. We even visited Bombay Beach – not even close to what was portrayed in the 1950's advertisements. But still, my first time to the north end of the Salton Sea and I would certainly recommend a trip to the visitor's center to learn more about its formation and challenges.

Ricardo Vela was in attendance; he's close to wrapping up his first year with the News and Outreach in Spanish contingent of ANR Communication Services. Jeannette Warnert was also there. When she mentioned that she would be driving through the LA traffic to get back home, I realized I needed to look at a map again. Despite knowing that I-5 went to LA, I hadn't considered that to be the most direct route from western Riverside County to Fresno County. Perhaps in a couple more years I will have places all mapped out better.

Last week was the CARET/APLU meeting in Washington, D.C. I believe Anne Megaro worked with the UC DC office to arrange 32+ Hill visits. Keith Nathaniel, Katie Panarella and Mark Bell joined the Deans and our CARET representatives for the visits. Overall, I felt that the visits were of high quality. I don't envy the elected officials or the staffers that see a revolving door of people through their offices at this time of year. Then I had a couple of days with nothing but annual evaluations last week. I have a few of those days this week, too. I have a long list of notes that are the result of the conversations – all good stuff with ideas for improvement.

I hope everyone has acclimated to the time change, not to mention the drastic change in weather from what we were seeing over the last couple of weeks. Even Palm Desert was cold (relatively speaking).