Graduate School Update

Choosing where I end up going to graduate school is easily the biggest decision of my life to date. Sure, I've made some decisions with big consequences; like attending UofO and taking full time 2 year job in research, but these decisions have all been stepping stones into where I ultimately want to end up: with a research lab of my own at an established University. Graduate school not only determines where and who I will be with for the next 5 years, but the speciality in which I decide to study sets a precedent to what I will be researching for the rest of my life. I've been working in pulmonary physiology for 5 years now (which I absolutely love), but it's time to learn more. I'm young, I've been out of school since 2011 and I'm 22 years old; by no means am I locked in to studying pulmonary phys. 

With the knowledge that I could change focuses on a dime, I applied to 6 unique programs for graduate school this past October (well before their January deadline). I've been anxiously awaiting the reply since application, and as of today I have officially heard back from all but one. Below are the schools to which I applied and the status of each.

Rejected From

The University of Florida 

Program to which I applied: Interdisciplinary Program in Biomedical Sciences

PI intending to work for: Dr. Michelle Gumz, Renal and Sleep Physiology

Expecting to be: Accepted

Actual Status: Rejected (1/24/13)

Reason for rejection: Oh, this turns out to be a good story. Dr. Gumz and I stayed in very close contact via email prior to my application decision, which not only increased the possibility of ultimately ending up in her lab, but also made me excited about her research. I read her papers...which I understood very little about... but it was something I could see myself learning. Of the 6 schools I applied to, this was a top 3 choice. Of course, my Aunt (Dr. Cooper-Dehoff) is a professor (and kick ass researcher) of Pharmacology at the UF, and she as well Dr. Gumz were both very encouraging about my application and the opportunity to be there. So, to my surprise, not only was I rejected from the program, but I wasn't even invited out to interview. A quick slap to the face, and that was that. Let it be known that admissions committee rejected me, not the PI that I wanted to work for. I told Dr. Gumz of my rejection, to which she responded that she was shocked to hear that, and went to the dean of education/admissions to talk about my application and why I was rejected, to which he responded that there were three reasons. 

1) GPA (mine was a 3.3 in undergrad, a mediocrely competitive number for graduate school).

2) I never took a biochem class (which is true, but I did get a minor in chemistry. It's not too hard to take a class while being a graduate student either). 

And 3) "That I had professional experience in a lab." Apparently, the program hired a former tech on as a grad student, and he's been sort of a flop in the program. So, they're generalizing to everyone that has professional experience. You read that correctly: I was rejected because I have experience in a lab. 

This is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing I have ever heard regarding graduate school. The main reason I took my job as a technician was to beef up my CV prior to applying to graduate school. I have my now have my name on 4 abstracts and 4 papers in preparation, I've budgeted a 1.3 million dollar grant, I've dealt with the IRB dozens of times, I've dabbed in/ran my own biochemical analysis project, I've presented at seminars in front of the entire department... and the UF admissions committee saw all of this as a bad thing. Unlike most undergrads who apply to grad school, I know this is what I want to do solely because I have experience. I know what a good grad student looks like, and what an unsuccessful students look like as well. This isn't me delaying working in the real world, this is me taking a step to accomplish my goals. And again, UF saw that experience and that knowledge of what I want to do, and saw it as the opposite of its intended purpose because their history with technicians has been poor. As researchers, shouldn't they know that you can't run statistics on an n of 1? The sample size isn't large enough.

UF has a very well respected, well funded program, but this in all honesty is the stupidest reason ever. Reject me for my GPA... reject me for my lack of Biochem, but do not say it's because I have too much experience. (I'm still a little sore on the subject, my rant is over now).

Dartmouth College

Program to which I applied: Experimental and Molecular Medicine

PI intending to work for: Dr. Robert Darnall, researching SIDS in the pig model

Expecting to be: Rejected

Actual Status: Rejected (1/31/13)

Reason for rejection: I was expecting this. The program doesn't have much overlap than the one I'm coming from, and the competition is stiff. I had very little email exchange with faculty there, and applied on a whim. Rejected without an interview, but in all honesty I saw this coming.

Accepted To

The University of Texas, Austin

Program to which I applied: Kinesiology

PI intending to work for: Dr. Matthew Brothers, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular physiology

Expecting to be: Accepted

Actual Status: Accepted (1/28/13)

Reason to go there: Well, I'm not going here. I've been accepted to schools that I've ranked higher on my list (see below). UT is competitive for not only Research Assistantships, but also Graduate Teaching Assistantships as well. So not only would I be competing against my fellow graduate students for funds that I'm not guaranteed to get, but I may actually be paying to attend graduate school, and there is no chance in hell that I'm going to do that. I will be sending in my intention to decline acceptance within the next 2 weeks.

The University of Utah

Program to which I applied: Bioengineering

PI intending to work for: Dr. Markus Amann, Central Nervous System Fatigue

Expecting to be: Accepted

Actual Status: Accepted (officially 2/20/13)

Reason to go there: Dr. Amann is the only PI that I applied to that I also knew personally. He borrowed my car for 2 weeks while the Bolivia Crew was here, and he's great guy.  He studies something that is different than I'm used to, and I would only have to focus on research and not teaching. I've heard that Salt Lake City isn't too bad of a place to be, and it's not all the way across the country either. After speaking with a graduate student in the program, it sounds like the University itself isn't the best, however the lab isn't actually on campus (and I wouldn't need to really associate with the school).  This lab also has money. A lot of money. Funding to get me through 5 years of research without a problem, and very few labs can do that. Right now, there's a strong chance that I could end up at Utah, and I'm working to schedule a visiting date. Utah is currently a top choice.

Still waiting to hear back from

Pennsylvania State University

Program to which I applied: Kinesiology

PI intending to work for: Dr. David Proctor, cardiovascular & exercise physiology

Expecting to be: 50% chance accepted, 50% rejected

Actual Status:  Finished interviewing in person, waiting on word from PI. 

Reason to go there: Both Dr's. Minson and Halliwill here at the UofO are who I consider to be great professors and mentors. They're both very well respected in their fields, and do some pretty cool stuff. Early in my search of programs, they both advised me to look at Dr. David Proctor's program; who they both have held in very high regard. We've stayed in close contact via phone and email since December, and he seems like a pretty cool guy. I listed this school was my #1 favorite choice since the beginning of the application process for a number of reasons, but principally because of the history of researchers this program has produced. Penn State has the #1 ranked Kinesiology program in the nation, and an excellent history of funding. The combination of funding with a professor who I've heard nothing but positive things about, AND research I find interesting all adds up to a perfect concoction for a school that I would love to attend. However, after visiting, it seems as if the professor has been in a bit of a rough patch funding wise for the past 2 years... and if this continues it will make both research as well as graduate school in general difficult to complete. However, with Dr. Proctor's name being so well respected in his field, I am confident that he will be able to get funding in the near future.

Brown University

Program to which I applied: Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology

PI intending to work for: Dr. Chi-Ming Hai, upper airway restriction at the molecular level

Expecting to be: 50% chance accepted, 50% rejected

Actual Status: Still waiting to hear back

Reason to (possibly?) go there: Brown had one of the earliest application deadlines (January 7th) for the program, and I was told I would hear back about the decision 2-3 weeks from (now) over 3 weeks ago... but no word as of yet. I'm not sure about how well I'd fit in to molecular physio, so even if I get accepted (which is a 50/50 I'd say), there's still no guarantee I'd go there. It's a top 3 choice alongside Penn St and Utah, but slim chances I actually end up there. 

This is where I stand and my thoughts on all 6 schools. My next plan is to visit Utah and hopefully hear back from Brown, and make a decision soon after. I will keep you updated. Currently as I see it, Utah's dept. of Bioengineering and Penn State's dept. of Kinesiology are the 2 most likely schools I may end up at.  

3 weekends up to Portland, 3 excuses to dress fancy

For the past 3 weekends in a row, I've made the drive up to Portland for very unique events. Below is a summary of each weekend.

January 5th: The Book of Mormon

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have hands down been my favorite comedic writers of all time. They've been able to challenge all that is politically correct on cable television with South Park, attacking individual religions and organizations in almost every episode in a way that no others have attempted. It's not that they just attack the flaws of nearly every group, but they are able to consistently do it in a way that makes make everyone from the outside looking in realize how crazy some people really are. With their unique and rather offensive sense of humor, Matt and Trey created the Tony Award winning "The Book of Mormon," which (luckily) my parents were able to get tickets to.

Just to make one thing clear about the play: it was potentially the funniest piece of entertainment (movie, book, or television show) that I have seen in my entire life. The theatrics and songs were so eloquently performed in a way that there may have been 2 minutes of the 2 hour play that I wasn't smiling. The play is constructed to bash Mormonism and organized religion by blatantly stating their beliefs in delightfully catchy tunes. The story, the characters, and everything about it was so good that I can only understate the brilliance of Matt and Trey. I fear to give away any of the information about why specifically it was so great, as the surprise and originality of it all was part of the enjoyment. If you have an opportunity to see this in your lifetime, you need to make it happen.

January 12th: The wedding of Alex and Caitlin Wentz

This being my first Catholic wedding, I was told to expect the worst. Everyone let me know there would be a lot of standing, a lot of prayer and a lot of boring (which, for the most part was true). The real bang was the reception, and man was it beautiful. It was very stereotypical; great food, open bar, first dance, bride tossed the bouquet, and more dancing. The majority of the evening was spent with my cycling teammates, but as they left I began to transition myself more on to the dance floor. Personally, I've never considered myself that great of a dancer, but after comparison to a few of my peers... I'm really not that bad. I actually got a few compliments, which led me to dance with more people than I normally would. The feel of this room was one of generally the happiest places you could be in at once. It really was a fun time.

I've found a few photos of me from the wedding, from which I've stolen from facebook

I managed to perfectly ruin this photo

I may have over embellished my actual dancing skills

January 19th: Dinner with Mariel Zagunis

As my fathers financial success continues with the rise of his law side of his practice, he is simultaneously becoming increasingly more charitable. Approximately 2 months ago, my parents both went to a charity auction for Water Watch; a non profit organization aimed to keep Oregon riverbeds as clean as possible. The specific item that my dad won was a prized dinner for 8 with chef and cook book author Janie Hibler, with Mariel Zagunis as the guest of honor.

It was a bit of a coincidence for me with Mariel being the guest, as I have never in my life been in to fencing as much as I am now. By no means am I trying to say that I follow the sport, but I generally understand the rules and regulations better than most people in the United States. Dan was a NCAA fencer (a relatively good one but still pretty bad on the grand scale), and I've been pestering him with questions for the past two years or so whenever I have them. The one thing I've recently learned not to do is, when talking about fencing, to not wave your hands in a gesturing fashion like you are waving a fake sword... you know, swishing your hand back and forth quickly. I'll get more to this later.

We arrived for the dinner as a family to meet the hosts/chefs at their lavish house in the South Hills in Portland,  later to be accompanied by a few family friends. After we shook hands with everyone, questions became immediately about the olympics and fencing. It was safe to say that I was the 2nd most knowledgeable person about fencing there, as question after question I felt like I could have also answered (only because I've also been curious about the sport in the past, and I've just asked Dan when I'm curious). Mariel took it like a champ. She answered very politely, was very smooth with her words, and also had a hint of humor thrown in that I wasn't quite expecting. There were questions you know were bound to come up (the party life in the olympic village), and questions I was generally curious about (how she shops for pants/how asymmetrical her legs are). And although we were not asking the most demanding questions, there was never a hint of opaqueness to her answers; she answered everything in a way that portrayed that she was a nice person in general. To be honest, I had relatively low expectations going in to the dinner about her intelligence/personality... mostly because athletes of the highest caliber in the world don't need to also be the smartest or the nicest, but she really did leave a nice impression. As a side note, I was also impressed with how perfect her teeth were. Here are just a few pictures from the evening:

The kitchen setting

Mariel decided to bring out her medals at the end of the night

The dinner itself of course was magnificent, and the chefs were great company too. Oh, and that hand wavy motion that I previously mentioned as something that all fencers hate? Yeah, that came up 26 times in the evening.

The tennis team is awesome

Tonight was no normal Friday evening (lingering on the internet), no no no, on this night Dan and I decided to do something other than get yogurt, ride bikes or go to volleyball games. This night, we decided to attend the Annual University of Oregon Tennis Fan Day. We anticipated a few fans to show up, meet with the players, eat some pizza and leave... but we quickly found out for this to not be the case.

As we showed entered the indoor courts in our casual clothes, every player from both teams (mens and women's) were there and ready to to take on the fans. I quickly realized that this night was intended to be much more hands on than we thought it would be, as dozens of people from ages 3 to 70 were there with their racquets and ready to show the UO team what they could do. My first thought was:  How awesome is that? What other collegiate sports here offer to socialize with their fans by playing their own sport with them? No one on either basketball team would even do a 3 on 3 game with fans, and  the volleyball team certainly couldn't invite their fans out to join them in a pick up game. Football? No. Golf? Cross Country? Baseball? Acrobatics and Tumbling? There's really no other sport here that there's even a possibility to get the people this involved.

As Dan and I are hung around on the benches watching others play, I made the decision that I needed to get involved in this tennis orgy. I sprinted back to Dan's place to pick up some more athletic type clothing so that I could hit with the players, borrowed a racquet from the rec center, and I was as ready as I'd ever be to play. I found a good court with a few guys on the team, but more importantly my favorite girl on the team was there as well. As immediately as I walk on the court Aaron Clissold grabbed a hold of me and told me I was his partner. Alright, sounds fun, let's play. After a few rounds of me really not doing much at all and rotating with a few random partners, I finally get a few balls hit to me... and man did I fuck them up. Not just once. No. Almost every time I just couldn't get it back. I was very hesitant with my swing, and couldn't get any top spin down on the ball at all. I can honestly, hole heartedly, without a single doubt in my mind that the tennis I played tonight was the worst tennis I have ever played. Ever. I really don't think I could understate how poorly I played. And of course it was in front of the people who were best at it in this university.

Alas, the night was for fans and for fun. There was a raffle with some really great prizes, including free private tennis lessons with the COACH. As luck would have it, my raffle ticket was called and I got to go up front to see what I won. Turns out it was a T-shirt that was a tad too big...

Knees locked to achieve maximum awkward effect

As Dan and I left the tennis center, I couldn't help but think of how awesome our team here is, and I'm fairly sad that I'm only now figuring it out. I will undoubtedly be going to every home game this year that I can to show my support, and I strongly encourage anyone who's here to do the same.

I'm going to be inside you, Eugene Marathon

I am able to say this with 95% confidence that I will be participating in the Eugene Marathon this year. 

Now, this may come as a surprise to all of my friends and followers alike. To many, I'm known as the small guy who races bicycles, although just just between you and me... I'm not very good at that. However, I love riding bikes. I love being able to go 90 miles of scenic wine country in Oregon without phone service or a care in the world. I love the adrenaline rush of going over 50mph. I love racing when I'm in shape. And I particularly love the incredibly small but fast community of friends and racers in Eugene that I have built over the past 4 years. I love all of these things about bikes... which begs the question; why on earth am I switching to train for a marathon? 

Like I said before, I'm not a very good cyclist. I'm a middle of the road category 3 racer (5 being slowest, 1 being fastest), so I'm mediocre. The key to being fast is to be committed to training, and cycling takes a lot of time to be good. In my 3rd year of racing, I made the biggest jump in speed by riding over 8500 miles... this year I'm on track to ride about 3500 if I'm lucky. Full time work past sunset eliminates the possibility of getting good miles outside during weekdays in the winter/spring, and I certainly can't leave during the middle of the day to go for 40 miles. Time is easily the biggest reason I am temporarily transitioning away from riding. Cycling takes 20 minutes to get ready to go outside in Oregon weather, and a minimum of 2 hours outdoors to feel like the time you spent getting ready to actually ride was worth it. Running however takes no more than 5 minutes (less than 1 minute if it's sunny) and a great run can be done in 35 minutes. Also, for some reason, my lab condones running like it's the end all be all exercise. I can leave anytime during the day to go on a run, come back and stretch, take a shower, then get back to work. Almost all of us do it, even though it's a major time killer. The crew would look at it differently if I left to kit up for a ride, even though if I stopped running 3 days a week and switched my training to riding, the amount of time I spent exercising would be the same. 

As I make this temporary transition to a different sport, I can't help but notice all of the negative consequences of doing so. First and foremost: running hurts like a motherfucker.  Aerobically, I have the same fitness as the cycling me, but my knees and muscles absolutely hate running. It took me 4 months to build up my base to run 6 miles. I also can't run more than 3 days a week without my calves and knees withering away. Hopefully as I train more this changes, but I don't think it will anytime soon. Also, remember how I said I was 95% confident I would be running the marathon? The 5% doubt comes from potential injury. Runners are exposed to all types of risks that cyclists aren't. Running can cause stress fractures, shin splints, a wide array of tendon/ligament damage... you name it. And like I said, my knees are already bitches. I'm fairly certain that my knees have weak/damaged menisci, which causes an insatiably sharp pain in them from time to time. The more I run, the more frequent I feel it. Right now, it's maybe once a day. The pain is transient, but man does it suck, and hopefully it doesn't develop in to anything else.

Running and impact both suck, but they're not the worst thing about the sport. The absolute worst part about running is the lack of places I can go. I spent 2 hours running 15 miles on Sunday, and I was able to see the glorious bike paths of Eugene I've ridden on for the past 5 years. There is no scenic wine country running, and no escaping the town unless I drive out of it. I feel like I'm confined to Eugene when I run, whereas when I ride the entire state of Oregon is my oyster.

Another little down side of this training is that Dan Mahoney is going to be faster than me on a bicycle this year. In fact, he's already faster than me now. Sure, I can win up punchy hill climbs that last one minute, but overall Dan's going to be the better rider. Of course, I don't wish Dan to be slower than he is... that would be a terrible and selfish thing of me to wish. I wish Dan is the fastest he possibly can be in life... but I also wish that I am ever just so slightly faster than him always... is that too much to ask? It's not really a rivalry thing, clearly either of us would be ecstatic if we won a CAT 3 race, but we are both competitive in nature, and there's something satisfying about beating up each other on the bike.

Overall, I feel like there are more negatives to running than positives, and I really don't enjoy it as much as cycling. I think after this marathon I'll commit the rest of year to riding, but as of right now, I am 95% sure this will happen. 

How can I reach these kids?

A few months ago I decided to have lunch with who is quite possibly both my favorite and most influential instructor that I've ever had in my academic career: Mr. Teschner (who I will refer to as Ken from now on).

Ken teaches both Advanced Freshman English courses as well as Theory of Knowledge (a course designed to make you think about how things work), and he takes his passion of teaching to a level that no other teachers or professors I've been with in the past have matched. He has always taken the responsibility to make sure each individual student uses their minds to the best they can and really helps (or helped me) get on the right academic track. His personality is eerily similar to that of Benjamin Linus' when Benjamin was a high school teacher in the alternate universe. 

Alas, I digress. During lunch this past summer, Ken asked me if I'd like to lend my scientific input in to his Theory of Knowledge class; an advanced elective filled with Juniors and Seniors in high school. I unhesitantly agreed, telling him that I was sure I could teach kids about how science works in real life. I know our research pretty well... how hard could it be to teach how it works?

A month or two had passed, and I began to prod at when would be a good date to come up. Ken told me October... and come late October, he said Early November... which eventually turned to mid November (11/13/12). Because of budget cuts and extra days being taken out of the schedule, the class had fallen way behind. Once we settled on a date and it was a week out, I realized I had no idea what he wanted in this lecture or how long I was supposed to talk for. His latest email said that they weren't quite on science yet, but rather that I should discuss fallacies of reasoning and logic, fallacies of inductive reasoning and what we do to eliminate such fallacies.  

Well shit. I'm no Yuji when it comes to reasoning and logic. Heck, I'm not even Dan (this may be the first time I publicly concede the point that he is more logical).

However, what I lack in logic I make up for in my bull shitting skills. I would classify myself as an expert bull shitter, most likely in the top 95th percentile in the world, and this lecture wouldn't prove to be difficult to put together. Neither the students nor Ken knew anything about science, and even if I were to be telling something untrue, they likely wouldn't catch it.

The night before the presentation, I threw together a couple of words, placed some big, bold pictures in it and talked about our research. Since the point of the lecture was to inform students about logical reasoning, I made the whole story of the presentation to be "How do you know what is knowledge" i.e. how can we interpret results and science to be information.

As I gave the lecture, a few kids were little shits in the back corner, but overall there was a sense of bewilderment and curiosity. There were a lot of questions from a lot of kids (although most questions came from Ken, who in all seriousness had no idea about how science works), and I think that everyone learned a lot... or at least I hope they did. I was a little disappointed when no one in the classknew what a scientific variable was, but other than that they were engaged and were pretty on their games with all the questions I asked. Overall, it was fun returning to my Alma Mater to teach and pay it forward. I could never see myself teaching high schoolers for a living, but just for a day it was a pretty fun thing to do.

I'm on a billboard!

warning, fairly liberal use of personal opinions

Let me make one thing clear: I hate religion. I hate having conversations about it. I hate how confident billions of people in the world are about how their  God is 100% the correct one, and that everyone else is wrong. I hate that if you make a joke about it, people get offended. I hate how people use religion as a justification for their own actions. I hate how one of the candidates for the Presidency of the most powerful country in world believes that he will get his own planet after he dies (that's not a joke). But above all, I hate how religions deny factual evidence of anything in (relatively) recent discoveries just because it clashes with their beliefs.

Religion, more than anything, is a topic that annoys me to no end, and I've lived the recent years of my life avoiding talking about it whenever possible. Well, I should say I did avoid talking about it, until I found myself in a rather unique scenario after having a conversation with my dad on the phone about a month ago. The conversation went as follows

"Man, do I have a crazy story for you" My Dad tells me just seconds after I got out of bed
"What's up pops?" I replied
"So there's this conference next month with Richard Dawkins, and this group I'm a member of (the FFRF) is trying to promote their national conference."
"That's great pops..."
"No no, it gets better. So they need models for their billboards to promote their conference, and since I'm a member, I got a request. I didn't really want to do it, so I forwarded it to your brother (Brent). He replied, and they told him to come up for a photo shoot for this Weekend!"
"What the shit?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what do they think about having a pair of brothers on that billboard"
"I don't know" replied my dad "But you should ask them"

And ask them I did. Well, my brother actually asked, but I was told to come up to Portland to join in on the shoot.

We went to the shoot up in NW Portland at some guys apartment. Upon seeing the door that labeled "FFRF," indicating that we were in the right place, I kind of wanted to leave.

It's a trap

I told my brother that this looked like a prime location for a double homicide. Nonetheless, we still entered (although I went in a few feet behind him). Steve Etling was the photographer,  He was very professional, with thousands of thousands of dollars in camera equipment and a studio in his garage.

We spent maybe 2 minutes with goofy pictures and poses, a few minutes of smiling pictures, then signed a waiver and that was that.

It's been nearly a month since the photo shoot occurred, and we were told that we'd made it on a billboard. Finally, it was put up yesterday (10.10.12) at the corner of Mcglaughin and Blue Bird, in the SE Portland area.

And now we wait. Although I'm not quite sure what I'm waiting for. I don't think I'll get any criticisms or scorn from my friends or peers... I would be very surprised if I did... but I will continue to wait.

If I may quote a personal favorite of mine: "I got a poster!!!"

Road Tripping down to Stanford

Let me prepose a hypothetical situation for you:

You are given $330 for doing nothing

You must split that money with Dan Mahoney

What would you do?

As bizzarre as this may sound, this is exactly the situation that has developed over the past year. Dan and I made a YouTube video in 2011 (biking downhill at 60mph), which has accrued $330 and ~250,000 views. We've agreed to split the money, to which we decided to allocate it to something we both thoroughly enjoy. No, we didn't decide to spend it on prostitutes. Or bicycles. Or not even prostitutes on bicycles. Rather we decided to take the money to Stanford University to enjoy all that is our favorite collegiate sport: Volleyball. The #2 ranked Ducks were to play the #7 ranked Cardinal on Friday (10/5/12), and we wanted to be at this game. The plan was simple; use our hard earned YouTube dough to cover gas to Stanford, a 550 mile (9 hour) drive, while staying with Dan's college friend, Mr. Nick Haber for the weekend.  

We left Thursday at 4 pm after Dan decided that teaching his 200 level econ class was more important than leaving Eugene at a respectable time (note that he could have got a substitute to fill in for him, but just decided that he probably shouldn't without any real justification as to why). The drive was mundane, long, dark and rather sketchy at some construction sites, but we arrived safely on Stanford's campus at 1:15 am Friday morning.

Nick's Grad school dorm provided a cozy home stay for the weekend

Friday became a day of relaxation and exploration. While Nick had to get some work done, Dan and I were left to wander around campus; something I thought we have been training for for the past year or so. I would consider Dan and I expert wanderers, but I have never seen anything like Stanford's Campus in my life. The distance that campus covered was unfathomable (it's actually very fathomable at ~13 sq miles), but it felt enormous compared to the UO's 0.46 sq miles. Buildings were new, students were ethnically diverse, and everyone was on bicycles. It really is quite amazing, and Dan and I only covered a fraction of it in our wandering escapade. 

Although wandering, coffee, and lunch were exciting, they were merely a way to kill the time until the volleyball game Friday night. Erich, (a triathlon friend of mine from Eugene who currently resides in Santa Clara), Nick, Dan, Amy (another friend of Dan's) and I went to the game with with the hopes of a good game. Sure, a win would be awesome, but with news of the team being sick, we just were hoping they would play well.

Of course, I couldn't travel 550 miles without having a sign for my favorite player. I held the sign with as much pride as the guys down in the Castro District have in San Francisco, and it got a big smile out of the players during pre-game.  

Unfortunately, the Ducks lost the game in a 5 set thriller, but still an overall fun game and awesome to see us play away from home.

Although the Ducks had lost, our weekend adventure certainly did not end there. After all, this was my first time in San Francisco area, and I wanted the full experience; Saturday was sure to provide me with plenty of it.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world, and I needed a picture in front of it. Although we couldn't find parking directly near the bridge, we went to Baker Beach to see all sorts of great sights. Our primary interest was taking pictures of the bridge, but so many other things that had been erected a long time ago were in also in the area; copious amounts of old men on the beach decided that clothes were optional rather than mandatory. Now, I'm all for optional clothing, but two 50+ year old men giving each other the "gentleman's handshake" on the beach was certainly something I didn't need to see. However, I did ask for the SF experience, and old guys tanning with their dicks hanging out sure was fitting the SF stereotype. In one particular man's case (a Chinese Tourist taking pictures of the bridge), the guy lost his shoes to the tide of the water, when he immediately decided to de-robe and dive in after them.

The man splashed himself with the cold ocean water for approximately 5 minutes, psyching himself up before taking the dive in the water to retrieve his shoes. Meanwhile, a local naked old guy decided to help out our Chinese friend by swiftly getting in the water to retrieve the shoes. Both naked men rejoiced, and the Chinese man couldn't have been more thankful. It truly was a sight to see, and they both posed for a photo for the Chinese man's friend. I can only imagine how shrivled they must have been, and I bet the Chinese man will try to explain to all of his friends about how cold the water was.

The two men posing together

But no, San Francisco had a lot more to offer than naked men and the Golden Gate Bridge. Nick, Dan and I continued to The Mission, a kind of crazy hectic side of town with great food and quite a bit of hipsters. This part of town was most similar to SE Portland, only much more dense. We overate on an amazing Mexican lunch, and continued on to explore more.

Mexican food came with a complimentary family Mariachi Band

Our next stop was Doleres Park; a seemingly endless supply of hipsters came around from every direction. Dan was visibly disturbed, as these people were the exact opposite the type of people that Dan can tolerate. Watching Dan in Doleres park was like watching a dog try to cower away from fireworks on the 4th of July, but really he had no where to run.

The view from the park. You can see a few local natives to the right of the photo.

Sensing that Dan was uncomfortable, I knew exactly where to go to lighten his spirits: the gayest part of town (The Castro).

We walked up and down a few blocks, and man was it gay. If there's anything in the city of SF that I wish for others to replicate, it's their openness and appreciation of the gay community. It was awesome to see every type of minority not give a care in the world about what others thought of their sexuality. And man oh man, were these people gay. Not only were they gay, they were actively trying to fit the stereotype of what a flamboyantly gay male should look like. There were ripped guys, there were shiny guys, there were suave guys, there were guys in matching suits, and hell, there were even more old naked guys. I wanted the full SF experience, and by the time I left the Castro, I feel like I got it. 

After some great dessert, we left the city on high spirits. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, had amazing food, blended in with the hipsters, and saw the most flamboyantly fabulous gay men I have ever seen in my life. Overall, Saturday was a great day.

With our adventurous weekend over, Sunday was used primarily to drive us back to town. Below are a few random photos from the trip.

Myself, 5'6" and Nick, 6'5" standing back to back. I'm not quite sure why he kept his shirt off for this

In front of the Stanford Campus. 

Pre-Stanford Game

I'm sad to say that this photo was actually my idea

So much food this weekend

Post VB game dinner, with free ice cream for dessert