Day 4 - Parties, China, and Baseball


Well, let's start with last night. Elizabeth and I attended the Michigan State party. Open bar and a room full of academics equals good times. Pretty much everyone i knew at the conference attended the party. Those who didn''t regretted not showing...

Here's some pics from it with captions:


Johnny Sparks and Elizabeth having a good time.


Me and Johnny. Brown is in...


Elizabeth and I.


My WSU advisor Rick Busselle and I.

Wow...lots of pictures of me. I got complaints that I never posted pics of myself in Germany. I dunno, it's kind of vain to me, but i must appease the readers. Anyways, onto today!

Well, this morning I had my poster session. We were presenting our Daily Show study. It was a pretty successful event and we had a lot of interest in our poster. From the looks of it more interest than most. Volkan Sahin made our poster look awesome and professional. Here's some pics and captions:


Me, Dr. Julia Fox, and Volkan Sahin in front of our poster. Much coffee was had. Mmm...free coffee.


Dr. James Angelini and Sungkyoung Lee in front of James' poster.


Sungkyoung Lee in front of her poster.

After the ICA-stuff Elizabeth and I decided to go on a walk around the city and see a few different areas. This turned into nearly an 8-mile walk and it felt great! I think i'm already starting to get stronger in my legs with all these hills. So we first went up to Chinatown which was huge. It's supposedly the largest and oldest chinatown in the united states. I believe it...the place was filled with tiny shops selling tiny things. One store we went in sold various herbs and what i can assume are traditional chinese medicines. I couldn't even tell what most of the stuff in the store was but it was interesting. The neighborhood also featured a ton of traditional chinese architecture. Here's some pictures:


Here's a Bank of America


Another bank with cool architecture.

Next we made a long walk toward the San Francisco Bay and walked down the shore to AT&T park which is the home of the San Francisco Giants. This is a newer park and is unique because if a player hits a homerun out of the park it will fly into the bay. Every game there are a bunch of small boats that wait for the balls. Here's the outside of the park where the balls fly out:




And here's the front gate:



We next walked all the way back to the hotel and have been taking it easy. Big day of travelling tomorrow.

Till then,

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Day 3 - Moving and Stuff

We switched hotels today. Goodbye Renoir, Hello Donatello! This place is niiiiiiice...and hip too! Orange and blue is the theme with a flatscreen and jacuzzi. Again, niiiice.

So today there isn't a whole lot to blog about. We were on the move and a crises occurred. No worries though, it was eleviated. I love my parents.So anyway, today we transferred hotels. Yes, yes, i already said that but it's a nice segway, no? When we checked into the Donatello our room wasn't ready. We had to wait a few hours but it wasn't any big deal. We checked our luggage and when we finally checked in the bellhop delivered our luggage to the door! never had that much service. what did i ever do to deserve such treatment? yeah...

So i keep taking breaks while writing this. Bad Jack Nicholson movies and what not. Yeah, so when we were waiting for our hotel we decided to hit up the shopping district. The area around us is upscale to all get-out. We window shopped a bunch of places. We even went into Tiffany's which featured sparkling jewelery I never knew existed. That place was crazy. They even had this baby section with pure silver baby rattles for $250. Ridiculous...

Tonight is the Michigan State party for the conference. Very nice. I'm kind of excited because my girlfriend gets to meet my undergrad advisor, Rick Busselle. This guy had a huge impact on me when i was at Wazzu. It'll be fun.

Afterwards we're planning on hitting the jacuzzi and sauna.

Overall a good day but stressful for a while. It's all good.

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Day 2 (Part Two) - Crooked Lions and Sea Streets

I'm sitting in the hotel right now relaxing from a busy day. Note: I got a card reader today, so this will have some pics, finally.

Today, after all that stuff in my previous blog, we visited the fisherman's wharf. We caught a cable car, which is what most of us call a trolly, from downtown. It looked a little something like this:


The ride was great and it was nice being able to be driven over the hills as opposed to attempting trekking it on foot. Half way through our ride we saw this couple try to get on the trolley when it was moving. The guy got on first (how chivalrist) and the woman almost fell off the back. It looked pretty dangerous.

Anyways, we got off the trolley before the wharf because it had a drop off at Lombard Street. You've probably seen it in photos before. It's the world's "crookedest" street. I can't believe how many cars drove down it. I didn't think some of them would make the tight turns. It also hosts some of the city's most expensive real estate including beautiful victorian-style homes with a great view. Here's a couple photos:




(Happy Felix Day)

Next we wandered downhill to the Wharf. There was a lot going down along this waterfront. The first thing we saw was a bunch of old wooden ships. This sight yielded awkward-brian-picture #1 of the trip. Actually, now that i look at these, i can't decide which picture is more awkward. You be the judge:

vs.

Now it was finally time to eat! The Wharf has cheap musings and we took advantage in the form of fish & chips, followed by a baguette from the boudin sourdough factory (for later of course), and shrimp & chips. Elizabeth and I split the food so we get to try everything. Overall a cheap and delicious venture.

Next we walked down to pier 39 (or was it 37?). This hosts a grip of shops, food, and SEA LIONS!!!!!!! These animals rule. They're huge, lazy, and fight for position on the docks. Check it:





By this point we had been walking around for about 4-5 hours and were getting tired. Luckily we found a bus that took us pretty much to our hotel's doorstep and have decided to take it easy tonight. Tomorrow we switch hotels so we have to get up early to check-out/check-in.

Until then,

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Day 2 (Part one)- ICA Stuff, caffeinated ramblings...

I woke up this morning recharged. I got the 9 hours of sleep I desperately needed and was ready to make the most of my first full day in Frisco. Actually, I was woken up by a phone call at 5:45 AM PST from a company I applied for a job at. They informed me that I got the position which is a good, good things. Rock.

Anyways, so the first thing I did this morning was walk to the conference. I attended a panel session featuring a bunch of people I know including Johnny Sparks and Sam Bradley Both of these presentations were excellent, as expected, but I had to run out early from Sam's (sorry buddy).

I then ran into my old adviser from Washington State University, Rick Busselle. It was great to see him and catch up. He told me where and when the legendary Michigan State University party is for this conference so I'll get to talk with him more.

Anyways, I'm sitting in the hotel lobby right now typing this waiting for Elizabeth to be ready to go out. We're planning on taking a trolly car up to the Fisherman's Wharf and will probably spend the next several hours having fun trying not to get eaten by sea lions.

More later...

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Day 1 - The Day of Two Days

8:32 PM PST (PDT?)

Well, well, well...Welcome to the next chapter of my travels. San Francisco, California. I'm here attending the 2007 International Communication Association Conference. You might remember that last year's was in Dresden, Germany. If not, just scroll down...

Anyways, so it's 8:32 PM (if you forgot that, look up...) and i'm exhausted. This time I have the wonderful company of my girlfriend, Elizabeth Jenkins. It's a lot better to travel with a partner because it gives me someone to talk to instead of the usual conversation i have with myself while sight-seeing. I get fewer weird looks this way...

So, as usual, let's start from the beginning...

I'd say an appropriate start time would be yesterday at about 6:30 PM. This is when the migraine began. One of the worst I've had in about a year. This kept me from getting more than about 45 minutes of sleep. Not necessarily a bad thing because I had a lot of house cleaning to do and didn't start packing until about 2 or 3 AM. Not a fun task to accomplish with a migraine but what are you gonna do? We made our way up to the airport around 7 AM and our flight took off at 8 AM.

The flight had about half of the Department of Telecommunications faculty and grad students aboard. One of my profs joked that if the plane went down there'd be a big problem for the department. Kind of morbid, yet true. Anyways, we arrive at SPO (San Prancisco Oirport?) around 10 AM Pacific Time and I still have a headache.

Oh yeah, one beef here...thanks-a-freaking-lot Northwest airlines for making the coach-seats on your plane sized for toddlers. This is kind of what i looked like for over 4 hours:



And yes, i still had the migraine at this time.

We made our way to the Renoir Hotel which is shaped like an isoceles triangle

or a big wedge of cheese for those non-geometric folks.



It's an old hotel but charming. It's not in the best neighborhood, but nothing too serious.

The activities for the day mainly consisted of walking a LOT. I just looked at a map and noticed we walked nearly 7 miles up and down hills all over downtown. We hit the Port of San Francisco, part of the Mission District, and Haight/Ashbury. All of which were great. The city is so diverse and the weather is nothing to complain about. Mid-60s with a breeze. I took some pictures but for some odd reason the digital camera card reader on my laptop isn't working. Very upsetting. I'll see what i can do with that problem so I hopefully can show you all some of the things I've been looking at. In the mean time, here's an unrelated picture for you all:



Near-death experiences so far: ZERO! (a new record?). All-in-all a good day and I can't wait to fall asleep. Lots to do tomorrow...

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Day Zero - Prep for San Fran

Currently packing for the San Fran trip. Yes, i'll be blogging. No, i'm not lying. I err....promise.

Pics, commentary, pathetic attempts at comic relief to follow. Yay!

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