Hey all, it's been a while because I've been spending nearly all my time trying to find a job, and there's just not much of interest to say about that until I get one. There have been some really cool ones, though, so I'll keep you posted if anything comes to fruition.

I did have time to do one really interesting thing, though: Alcatraz, aka the Rock. So my blog today will be a little history lesson for the unintiated. There's a lot more history to it than you might expect -- it was developed in 1853 to be a fort (along with several others) protecting the bay. So you'd have all these lonely sailors posted on Alcatraz and overlooking San Francisco over a mile and a quarter away who ultimately never saw any military action, and then they'd get their shore leave and go wild. It was then quickly discovered what a great holding pen Alcatraz was for miscreants -- originally the soldiers were lowered into a single basement cell for periods from days to weeks. And by 1861, they were shipping civilian (and unfortunately, native american) prisoners in as well: Confederates, for example. But the problem with Alcatraz was always its cost -- it has no source of fresh water (it had to be shipped in from the mainland) and had to provide its own electricity, etc. So in 1892 with Military equipment improving leaps and bounds, Alcatraz as a fort became expensive and obsolete, and thus in 1915 becomes entirely a military prison, and then 19 years later becomes a federal prison. That's where famous inmates like Al Capone and The Birdman come in. Al Capone was able to buy out all the guards at his first prison and continue his booming prohibition business et al. from his original jail cell, so they moved him to Alcatraz to completely isolate him. He only served 10 years for tax evasion, but by the time he was released, he was in the full throes of syphilis-induced delirium, and died not long after. The Birdman, as we learned in a lecture, was sentenced to be executed for murder and placed in solitary confinement pending that somewhere in the Midwest. But his mom intervened with a huge writing campaign, actually gained an audience with the president, and convinced him to repeal the death sentence. The catch was, it was still on his orders to be in solitary confinement, so for the entire rest of his prison "career," which lasted for some 40 years, he was in isolation!! He was, by all accounts, a true psychopath -- prone to stabbing anyone he got in an argument with. He gets his nickname from his practice of keeping and studying canaries and their diseases, but he didn't actually keep them at Alcatraz, he kept them at Leavenworth, having OVER 400 in his solitary cell with him there! He wrote the definitive work on canaries and their diseases while in prison -- he was the authority on them for decades -- until finally in 1980 someone looked into it and it all turned out to be complete "bunk" -- literally the word they used in the report. He was pretty much a major celebrity once Burt Lancaster played him in a movie about his life, though his death went unnoticed because he died the day before President Kennedy was assasinated.

Alcatraz ran as a federal penitentiary from 1934-1963, and that was the main focus of our tour. We took the night tour and also got the audio tour thrown in, which was narrated by actual security guards and former inmates who had lived through Alcatraz, who were amazing to hear from. There were 4 major cell blocks and depending upon their relative appeal or location, they were named after New York streets -- Broadway was the central corridor down the middle and ended in "Times Square" (where the central wall clock was located) -- the cells with the best views were called Park Place, etc. There was an unsuccessful riot and of course the infamous escape (the escapees are to this day on the FBI's wanted list: though they are presumed never to have made it across the bay, there is no evidence of their death either).

After it closed, once again for financial reasons, they almost sold it to a Texas billionaire to be made into a space-themed amusement park, except that a group of Native American Political Activists occupied it to make a statement to the "Great White Father and All His People." These occupations (three in all) lasted from 11 days to 19 months and had a lot of positive public support initially, but like every other endeavor on Alcatraz, eventually they couldn't support themselves and most of them left or were escorted off by federal agents. At this point, the National Park movement had begun and Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Because there are no land predators whatsoever (in fact, there is only the deer mouse and the California slender salamander as 4 footed representatives) it's home to all kinds of gulls and birds, including one of the largest western gull colonies in California, along with the black-crowned night heron, both of which are valuable enough that they close parts of the island during nesting and breeding season. During some of the outdoor lectures, the gulls were so loud it was hard to hear the tour guy standing 7 feet away.

The ferry ride to and from was beautiful -- we got a perfect, clear, warm evening with little to no fog, so the ride back when it was dark and we were facing all the lights was astounding.

Anyway, that's about it...I need to stop writing this and get back to the job market. Keep those fingers crossed!!