With Santa Barbara as Home Turf, It’s No Wonder that 2GreenEnergy Interns Love the Experience

I thought I’d write a little post for any of you who may be planning to visit Santa Barbara for the first time and might be wondering what to expect.  I had this idea yesterday while attending the 42nd annual summer solstice festival, the core of which is a parade featuring more than 1000 people in amazing costumes, accompanied by wonderful live music, dance and sing their way up the main drag. 

This year’s theme was “Legends,” and many of the acts were hilarious depictions of identifiable mythical subjects like Paul Bunyon’s blue ox Babe, and Thor (four guys dressed as eight-foot-tall gold-colored claw hammers).  While the tie-in to some of the others was more obscure, each one put a broad smile on my face.  Check out the photos linked here to get a hint as to why this institution is so beloved; and while you’re doing that, keep in mind that there are at least another couple of thousand people of all ages lining the street, bopping to the beat and cheering.

I don’t think you’ll find anything like this in Tulsa.

Looking at Santa Barbara’s demographics will be a help in understanding what this place is about, which I would summarize as follows: 89,000 well-educated, free-spirited, progressives.  It would be easy to conclude that we’re oriented towards the arts and creativity, given that our art museum is far larger and better-appointed than that of Dallas, whose metro population (7.14 million) is 81 times the size of ours.  But at the same time there are no fewer than nine Nobel laureates at the University of California at Santa Barbara, seven in physics and materials science.

When people want to do internships here at 2GreenEnergy, I always encourage them to get a room in one of the city’s more vibrant sections (which pretty much means anywhere in town), knowing that venue itself will add great joy to the experience.  No one’s been disappointed yet…