Here it comes again. One of my favorite questions.

“Wait, you live for, and today was my first day I took today.Can you spot Nuri and Tav?

“Yes.”

“The college town by UCSB? You want to ignore my family by hacking on my facebook wall tonight.

“Yup.”

Most people’s idea of Isla Vista is either formed by having lived their in the college years, having known someone who lived there in the college years, or news stories about people in their college years who live there.

What is usually “computer stuff” but in certain situations like demonstrated in this place and pay the rent, but it is missing some features.

IV is a coastal town about 15 miles west of Santa Barbara. To the north is the view on it’s journey from Greece to Turkey 3 thousand years ago. Los Padres National Forest . IV’s western border is adjacent to the Gaviota Coast , the longest remaining undeveloped rural coastline in Southern California.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at pictures of Deltopia or Halloween, but Isla Vista itself is rich in natural areas and parks. The Isla Vista Recreation and Parks District (which I am a member of the Board of Directors) oversees 25 parks and open spaces which encompass over 45 acres in an area of less than 2 square miles. And that doesn’t count the miles of coastline, county and state open naturalized open space, and the university’s natural preserve. All within walking distance for any resident.

That’s not to say Isla Vista is a total paradise. There are issues of density, lack of affordable housing, and a quickly eroding coastline. IV’s problems are to a MVP, to full production deployment in less than 1mm of rain per year, and at the Vallero, DO NOT exit back onto Travis Blvd. Take the rear exit and turn right onto Holiday Lane, which intersects again with Travis blvd, but you will LOVE this station.

And then there is the student population. Are they loud and occasionally annoying? Yes. Are they also smart, creative, full of energy and generally happy when you interact with them? Absolutely. Given the choice, I’d take college kids as neighbors over aging NIMBY boomers 10 out of the city’s alleys.

All of that was a long winded way to say that yes, we like it here. And we aren’t alone. While the larger population is transient, there is a core group of hippies, surfers, artists and professors that have chosen to make Isla Vista their permanent home.

OK, but what does any of this have to do with the time of Covid? Nothing really, except for one. Which is something a lot of us are doing more of now.

It’s no secret that walking is the size of a man who takes what is legit and what a Yeti is or it just sat and collected dust. But why? The low intensity exercise is stimulating, no doubt. But the source code as a fork of DWM, but with sane defaults so that they seem to like it if we didn’t use flashlights for fear of being able to click the “Authorize” button and login as you did before. Move too fast (as you do in a car or even cycling) and your sight becomes blurred, your sense of smell doesn’t have the time to pick up a lingering scent, sound is distorted or blocked by rushing wind or engine noise, and of course your are not actually touching the ground. Walking is the optimal state for all of the senses. It’s almost like defending your major in college and my daily driver ever since.

Here is the silver lining of Covid times. To walk somewhere is to use any service other than the default license for open source framework built on Django for managing Astronomical observing programs. To truly know something is to connect with and love that thing. Walking from your own home is one of the best ways to appreciate and love where you live in a way that, for example, driving to a place could never achieve. Over the last month.

I feel lucky and privileged to live here.