I'm so lucky

I had my class again on Saturday at the San Diego Zoo (Going Green in the Classroom). It was a fun morning filled with petting a meerkat, giving my presentation on reducing pencil shavings in the classroom, and going on the roof of the gorilla exhibit (they stink!). I am still waiting for a classmate to send me the pictures of last Saturday and this Saturday so I can post them on here. Anyway, let me get to the reason why I am lucky. While outside hanging with the meerkat, we smelled some kind of fire but just kind of ignored it. At lunch, as we were walking out to the zoo to explore, one of the zoo educators stopped us and told us there was a car that exploded in the parking lot. She said it happened in the first row of cars, but she knew it wasn't our car. She said that some cars around it had gotten burnt, though. I freaked inside, but stayed calm on the outside. We all rushed out to the parking lot. We had all parked in the first row since we were the first ones there at the zoo before it opened. I saw the fire trucks and they were parked in the same direction as my car. I freaked some more. As I got closer, I noticed it was in the second row, not the first, but my car was straight across from it. The cars right next to it were burnt. My car was covered in the white foamy stuff the firefighters use to put out car fires. I could see no damage. Thank goodness. I talked to a firefighter who said I would need to get it washed today before the foam ruined the paint. My classmate took some pictures of all this too, so I will post those when I get them. I could not believe how lucky I was. My car was so close. The firefighters extinguised the fire before it could get to my car.

It's crazy to think of how a parked car could just explode! When I left the class at the end of the day, one of the burnt cars was still there. Those people were still inside the zoo enjoying their day. I can't imagine what it was like for them to come out later and see what had happened. The car that exploded was towed and there was a note on that last burnt car. These people were probably exhausted from walking around all day and then had to deal with what had happened instead of just hoping in their car and heading home. All I had to do was get my car washed.

Weezer Concert

Gary and I went to the Weezer concert on Friday night down at Cox Arena and we had soooo much fun! First we had dinner in Mission Valley at Seau's and amazingly we ran into Junior Seau. People see him often now around Oceanside and Carlsbad, but I didn't expect he'd be down at his restaurant on a Friday night. He was there for a meeting and then just hanging out. I didn't want to be too pushy and ask for a picture but I did walk by him and say hi.


It was exciting for Gary and I since we are such big Charger fans and that is where he spent many of his professional football playing years.


At the concert, we arrived in time to see the 3rd band of the night, Angels and Airwaves. I have seen them before and didn't really care for them, but thought I would give them a second chance. The lead singer is Tom DeLong, formally of Blink 182, and he grew up in San Diego so I thought local support couldn't hurt. After about 3 songs, Gary and I had to go outside. We enjoyed sitting there with another beer instead. It helped our headaches. (Sorry if you're a fan.)

After, we went back inside to see Weezer. I can't even describe how amazing they were. They came out "Clockwork Orange" style in white jumpsuits and sang My Name is Jonas. Eventually they stripped those off to reveal red retro 70's jumpsuits with Weezer on the back. The played all their classic songs from each album (even a few from my favorite, Pinkerton!) plus a bunch from the new Red album, did a cover of Pink Floyd, and even a forgotten bside from the early 90's (Roxanne). The best part was when they had a bunch of random musicians from all around San Diego on stage with them to play Island in the Sun and Beverly Hills. There were trombones, recorders, violins, you name it. For Undone, the Sweater Song, they had members of Angels and Airwaves play with them.

Here's a video they made to recruit people for the Hootenanny.



Here's me at the concert. They let me join the band.



Today I went to the San Diego Zoo for a teacher workshop and got special behind the scenes access to the Panda Research Center. I will post those pictures once I have them.