The club was dark today as we went off an a planned field trip to Digital Nest at 318B Union Street in Watsonville (on the south county Cabrillo College campus).  
The Nest is only a few years old and moved to its new setting less than a year ago, tripling the size of its facility (which is the old post office in Watsonville complete with preserved customer service windows!). Their focus is work force development and already six of their members have gone on to jobs in the tech field. Others have gone on to college.
Members aged from 12 to 24 can focus on web site development, graphics, digital music and video production.Instructors come from all over, some paid staff, others offering their volunteer time.  Local businesses are beginning to look to them for skilled labor and they are also beginning to establish a price structure for future contracts.
Members attend for free and can use (and even check out) the laptops to work on their projects. Through relationships with Second Harvest and local chefs, they even offer their members free food. They are open nearly every day of the year.
As we were finishing the tour, one of the students offered his opinion that Digital Nest was the ‘coolest place’ to hang out and learn.