We just got back from San Luis Obispo. I spoke at the student chapter of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) there. It may seem odd to drive my high-performance Swedish driving machine (with 180K on the odometer) fourteen hours, seven minutes, 800 miles (roundtrip), and spend $118.66 for gas (plus $ for food and lodging), to talk to twenty people for a total of twenty minutes. It is. They gave me pizza. And it was good.
Thanks to Nikki Gross of Cal Poly’s SAF for inviting me. Thanks to Dr. Doug Piirto for sending out an email to lots of folks letting them know about my talk. Thanks to many of those folks taking time out of their day and studying for midterms to listen. And thanks to Norm Pillsbury for shining on his office hours to see me. My life is richer for it.
We talked about writing. The Cal Poly students and professors I talked with are experts in forestry. They know their stuff. Their writing in the professional journals is important. Yet, we need to look outward. I hope one of them starts a blog about forestry.
We also talked about my novel The God of Trees