Run #34: Varsity Lot, Varian Physics, Ventura Hall, Visitor Center, Wadsworth, Wallenberg (160), William H. Neukom Building, William R. Hewlett Teaching Center, Y2E2

We're done!

We finished our grand adventure today with a seven mile run.  Yes, that's right.  209 buildings in 34 runs, totaling almost 175 miles.

The final stats average out to about 6.1 buildings per run, and our runs averaged 5.1 miles (which seems like more than I thought).  And, lastly, we hit about 1.2 buildings per mile, or, if you prefer, each building was, on average 0.83 miles apart.

Before I hit the run down, two things you should know about today's run.  First, in the spirit of Sesame Street, today's run was brought to you by the letter "c". That's "c" as in "a squared plus b squared equals c squared", because today we took every "hypotenuse" we could possibly take.  We began the run thinking we might be able to finish it off, but we knew it might be too far, so we cut every corner we could.  We ran diagonally through the Oval four times, cut across grass fields and dirt areas.  Yes, paths couldn't limit us.  In the end, it paid off, as I had mapped this out ahead of time at about 7.5 miles, and we came in at exactly 7.0.

Second, Ira really dragged me along today.  I've been fighting off a cold and I'm still coughing a bit, so the run in the slightly cold air was tough.  I definitely felt my limited lung power.  There is no way I could have done it today without Ira pushing me.

Our first stop could not have been more fitting:  on the last day of our adventure to run to every building in alphabetical order, we began with someplace that is neither a building nor in alphabetical order.  The Varsity Lot is a parking lot between the stadium and Sunken Diamond.  Um, it is not a building, and there are many other named lots that didn't make the map.  Why is this listed, dear map-maker?  We were nervous that we wouldn't be able to find a sign, although we did pretty quickly.  And, of course, we couldn't actually touch a door, so we touched one parking spot with our hand.

Next is the Varian Physics Building.  You'll notice that, alphabetically, it is tough to justify why "Varian" comes after "Varsity".  This older building is near the Math Corner, and is one of the only buildings of the "old" engineering buildings that has made the cut and still stands.

We continued our trek to Ventura Hall, which is a cute looking building in the little grove of buildings near the corner of Panama Street and Campus Drive.  We found the sign pretty quickly, since it is the closest one to the street.  I have no idea what goes on here, but it seems cozy.

We made a u-turn (although we got our signals mixed up and Ira briefly ran left as I ran right) and basically retraced our steps back to the Visitor Center, which is on the corner of Galvez and Campus near the track.  We went through the Engineering Quad, cut across the Oval, and took the path between Frost and the new Bing Auditorium.  There was a tour starting, so we had to wait to touch the door for a second.

Sigh.  We then made yet another u-turn and headed back to Wadsworth, which is the final one of those old creepy "abandoned" buildings off Searsville Road.  As we ran there, basically taking the exact same route yet again, we wondered if this would be the last time in our lives we would ever be near the Wadsworth Building.  It seems likely.  We stopped and stretched there a bit, and I noticed that there was a little plaque on the building in commemoration of whoever Wadsworth was.  This building is basically made of aluminum siding, so maybe Wadsworth should get his money back.

We again turned around and headed back to the Quad.  This run didn't quite have the variety that some of the early runs did, although, as Ira said, we've basically been everywhere by now.  We ran along the front of the Quad and touched the door of Wallenberg (160).   Quoting a Stanford website, "Funded by the generous gift of Thomas Welton Stanford, Leland Stanford's younger brother, the building has served as the library, the administrative center, the law school and home of the department of political science during its 100-year lifespan."  So, yeah, this is an old building.  When you're looking at the front of the Quad, you're looking at Wallenberg.

I was exhausted by now, but Ira kept me going.  We headed back to the Law School for the William H. Neukom Building, which is the new building at the back of the Law School with the cool upper courtyard.  I was nervous for a second that we wouldn't find a sign, but Ira pointed out that that sign is cleverly inlaid in the sidewalk in metal.  This is certainly one of the prettier newer buildings on campus.  And, bonus fact: William "Bill" Neukom was the owner of the San Francisco Giants.  

I was exhausted, but we pressed on to the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center, another pretty new building near the Engineering Quad.  It sort of felt like the end of a marathon by now; we were tired but excited we were going to finish.  And, finally, props to the map-maker for the difficult alphabetical decision of "William H." versus "William R."  Although, again, why not use last names?

This is a pretty incredible building, though.  It kind of looks like a spaceship.

We've known for a long time that our last stop would be Y2E2, and we noted it almost every time we ran by it over the last several runs.  This building is technically called the "Yang and Yamzsaki Environment and Energy Building", named after Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and his wife Akiko Yamazaki.  We couldn't have been more excited to touch the door to the Coupa Cafe located on the first floor and lumber back to Wilbur Field, holding our arms up like Rocky climbing the steps.

Distance: 7.0 miles (with a grand total of 174.2 miles)

It has been quite an adventure.  You might be wondering, "Hey, KMo and Ira, what's next?"  Well, we've discussed it, of course, but I'll save that for a future blog entry.  (There are other sections on the map, you know...)

Run #33: Student Services Building, Sweet Hall, Temporary Arboretum Child Care Center, Thornton Center, Tower House, Tresidder Union, Vaden Health Center

This blog entry sets the record for "most days behind the actual run".  The record is two, since we actually ran on Thursday, accompanied by Jake and Mo, and today is Saturday.  It is weird to run in the dark.  We still haven't adjusted to the lack of daylight savings time.

Our first stop was the Student Services Building, which we couldn't find at the end of the previous run.  We ran all the way around this building, and there is absolutely no sign that says "Student Services" at all.  It's a building near the new Munger graduate housing, and it has, among other things, the "Office of Accessible Education."  Hey, map-maker, we'll concede that this is a "student service", and a very worthwhile one at that, but so are so many other things, right?  Clearly all the "student services" aren't in this building, and, um, shouldn't the name of the building on the map match up with a sign somewhere on the building?

Next we ran the short distance to Sweet Hall.  I'm actually not sure what is there now, but when I was a student it housed a lot of the high-powered workstation computers.  As a CS major, I spent some time there.  The joke was that you weren't a CS major until you saw the sun rise through a second floor window at Sweet Hall.  I did so once.  And, in a historical note, I once gave a presentation there in 1995 explaining the new wacky idea of the "world wide web" to a bunch of people.  

Next was a long run to the Temporary Arboretum Child Care Center.  It is a bunch of portables in the parking lot near the corner of Campus Drive and Stock Farm Road.  We knew where it was a found it, but we had a bit of a tough time finding a sign.  When we did, we noticed a printed sheet of paper on the door noting that the center had returned to the original location (way down Palm Drive near the Hoover Pavillon) in August.  I think that, in a crazy coincidence, we ran there when we were on the A's back in the summer ("Arboretum Child Care Center") when they were moving back in.  So, yeah, this spot was actually a ghost town.

We headed back toward the middle of campus to the Thorton Center, which is the building standing near the reflecting pond where the old Terman Engineering Building used to be.  We've gone by this building on almost every run, and I bet Ira walks or drives by it every day, and he had never heard of it.  I had to look it up, but apparently this building is named after Tex Thorton, who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  You go, Tex!

We then ran all the way down Escondido Road (including a run across a grassy field near Sweet Hall that upset Ira because his shoes got wet) and headed toward Bing Nursery School to find the Tower House.  Ira knew exactly where this was, so he was our sherpa guide.  It is one of the oldest buildings on the entire campus, originally built in 1876.  Although, to be fair, it has drastically renovated after the 1989 earthquake.  Check out this crazy picture of it when it was the only thing around!

Two more places to go!  It was getting dark, so Jake turned on the light on Mo's collar.  Yes, if you've been reading this blog and you didn't know who Mo was, well, Mo is Jake's dog.  We ran back to Tresidder Union.  If you're reading this blog and you don't know where or what Tresidder is, well, that's weird.  We did have a tough time finding a sign, though.  It would be fun to make a list of all the various businesses that have been in Tresidder at one point.  When I was a kid, there was a bowling alley and an arcade.

Our last stop was the Vaden Health Center, right across the street from where we start and stop at Wilbur Field.  This building used to be called the Cowell Health Center when I was a student, although it is now much bigger and better.  That's where I found out I had chicken pox on the final day of classes during fall quarter of my freshman year.  Quite a memory.  The diagnosis went something like this:  "Take your shirt off. "  I took my shirt off.  "Yup, you have chicken pox.  You need to go home."

Distance: 4.7 miles (total 167.2 miles.)  We only have nine more buildings.  We're running Sunday morning, and we've got a shot of finishing the whole thing tomorrow if we go crazy, but it will probably take two more runs.

Run #32: Stauffer I, II and III, Storage Buildings, Student Housing Management

We only got to three places today, partially because we're being cautious about my gimpy knee, and partially because, well, there's a really good story at the end of this blog entry.

(Please note that every thing is relative; it is a "really good" story for this blog, but most people would read it and say, "Um, OK, whatever, you guys are weird.")

The first stop today was Stauffer I, II, and III, which are three older engineering buildings near the computer science building.  As we ran by, we passed the first building, and we weren't sure whether it was I or III.  We'd run by before, and we knew that they were in order, but we didn't know whether the direction from which we approached them meant they were ascending or descending.  We passed the first building, and Ira thought it was III.  We could see the second building by then, and we saw that the sign said "II".  He said, "See?" and then realized that the fact that the second building was II gave us no mathematical information about the other two buildings.  Silly Ira.  Though he was right that the building we passed was III.  In any event, these aren't the most picturesque buildings, but today's run didn't hit a lot of beautiful architectural highlights.

We thought our next stop was ridiculous; it's listed on the map as Storage Buildings, as if this is the only place on the whole campus where anything is stored.  They are, in actuality, just a bunch of those metal shipping bins that you see on freight ships.  Well, there was a lot of chain link fence and other stuff, but certainly not a sign that said "Storage Buildings" or, in fact, any sign whatsoever.  I'm not sure the map-maker should have included this as a place on the map at all.

Next, it was back across campus to behind the Cowell Cluster for Student Housing Management.  We had one big quibble with this listing, dear map-maker.  The sign on the front of the building says something like "R&DE Housing Management" or something like that.  "R&DE" stands for "residence and dining enterprises", something I had to look up.  I'm not sure that anyone would ever find this building under the S's, since you'd probably first looking up "Housing", then maybe "Residences", then maybe "Management", then maybe "Housing."  Isn't the goal of listing all the buildings to allow someone to lookup and find a building?  Our visit to this building was saved by the fact that nearby there was a woman training the world's cutest golden retriever puppy.  You know those little adorable puppies that are so young and tiny and fluffy and cuddly?  Well, we ran by one twice.

So, we've adopted some rules in our alphabetical adventure.  One of them is that we can't ask anyone for directions or help finding a building. If I've got my phone on me, we can look it up, but that's it, and we try to avoid even doing that.  We intended to visit one more building today, the Student Services Building, but notice that I didn't put it in bold, because today we had our first failed attempt in the entire journey.

We knew the building was behind Munger, the new dorm across the street from our ending point.  Ira thought he knew what building it was, but we couldn't find a sign that said "Student Services."  We ran inside one of the buildings and there was a guy at an information desk, who clearly saw us walking around inside this building looking for something.  He said "Can I help you find something?"  Ira replied "Actually, I don't think you can."  And then we walked out.  It was pretty darn funny.

We decided to abort our mission and call it a day.  It was an easy decision, since this building is so close to where we'll start the our next run on Saturday.  We won't have to backtrack at all, and at least we got a good story out of it.  I'm still not sure why this one random building merits an informational help desk.  Bizarre.  That must be a pretty boring job.  I hope we brightened his day.

Distance: 3.7 miles today, bringing us to 162.5 total

Run #31: Stanford Daily, Stanford Dining, Hospitality, & Auxiliaries, Stanford Hospital, Stanford Humanities Center

We're back, baby!

I guess I need to explain our hiatus for the last two weeks or so.  First, Ira was very, very busy a few weeks ago, planning and hosting a family Bat Mitzvah.  It was tough to find time to run when family was flying in from all over, and, oh yeah, he still had a job that it would probably take three ordinary men to do.

We did manage to run once last week, after the Bat Mitzvah, but Ira has this other goofy rule that he has to run to the Stanford Dish once every month.  He's been keeping this up for several years, although it is sort of lost to the dustbin of history how many.  Well, it has been harder to squeeze in these Dish runs during our alphabetical adventure, and he was approaching the end of October.  So, we ran to the Dish.

Then, I sort of got hurt.  My left knee was killing me.  I'd wake up and I'd have a huge limp.  This went on for several days, and there was no way I could run on it.  We planned to run last Friday and I had to cancel.  Then, we planned to run on the weekend and I had to cancel.  For a few days, I thought I had really injured myself, and might have to abandon my quest.  Then, I started using a foam roller a few times a day.  The first time: Yowza! it hurt like heck.  Then, it gradually got better each day, and yesterday I was able to run.  It wasn't perfect, and we didn't run as far as normal, but I think I'll be able to continue the journey.

Our first building was the Stanford Daily, which is sort of behind Old Union.  We knew exactly where we were going, although we struggled to find a sign.  Eventually, we did find a sign that said the "Lorry Lokey Stanford Daily Building."  We laughed about how Dean taught us that we were mispronouncing "Lokey" while simaltaneously being impressed that Mr. Lokey had an interest in journalism.  The Stanford Daily is a pretty darn good college newspaper, all things considered.

Next we ran to the Stanford Dining, Hospitality, & Auxiliaries building.  It is a nondescript office building down Serra Road, near the Stanford Auxiliary Library.   Not much to say about this one.

Then, we ran across campus to the Stanford Hospital.  We'd obviously been to parts of the hospital over and over again, but this time we had to go to "THE" Stanford Hospital.  This kind of reminded me of how NFL players always say "THE Ohio State University" when they are introduced before the game.  We decided to touch the front door, or what most people would consider the front door.  (Architectural note: Do you think Stanford is now regretting basing the entire hospital design on that lattice pattern?  Did it seem like a good idea in a meeting, but seems a bit overwhelming when it is replicated thousands of times?  Has anyone suggested getting rid of this pattern?  Doesn't it remind you of the 1970's?)

We headed home, but we decided to hit up one more spot: the Stanford Humanities Center near Tressider.  When we were students, this was the Alumni Center before it moved to the grandiose new building.  They were having a little reception in the lobby, and I was hungry by now.

Distance: 4.2 miles, not bad for the first run on a bad knee.  158.8 total.

Run #30: Stanford Auxiliary Library, Stanford Barn, Stanford Community Recreation Association

Yup, just three places today.  Today's run didn't fit together very nicely.  We hit three places in four miles, which is not a good ratio.

You may have heard the quote "Those in power write the history."  Well, I'm in charge of this blog, so here's the history of today's run.  I was telling great stories to keep Ira interested (high school football, "This American Life", our weekly "Shark Tank" recap, to name a few), so Ira was totally fresh.  He's very busy this week, and he therefore decided to run much faster than normal, to end quicker and to tire me out.  At about mile 3.5, he said "We're going to run four miles at a good pace."  I'm really tired, and it was totally his fault.

Our first stop was the Stanford Auxiliary Library, which is way down Serra Road, and is pretty much just a warehouse, I think, for all the books that don't fit someplace else.  Hey, is the word "Stanford" in the title really necessary?  It's an auxiliary library on the Stanford campus, so it probably doesn't belong to San Jose State.

We then had a really long leg to the Stanford Barn, which took us by the football stadium and the Mausoleum and near the mall off Welch Road.  Along the way, we wondered why this random building, which houses a Wells Fargo and some other offices, is worthy of recognition on the map.  Apparently this building has quite a history, as detailed on this webpage.  Can you image writing pages and pages about buildings that no one likely ever reads or cares about?  How tragic.

Our third and final stop was back all the way across campus to the Stanford Community Recreation Association (SCRA), which is a sort of swim/tennis club for the Stanford community.  I coached and swam at lots of swim meets here when I was younger.  They have built up a really good program, with some really good coaches.

OK, here's something someone needs to explore.  This building is listed on the map as the "Stanford Community Recreation Association."  But, I just googled it, and their official website calls it the "Stanford Campus Recreation Association."  Hey, map-maker, which is it?  I always knew it as "community" growing up.  Did they change the name?

That's all for now.  Today's distance was 4.4 miles, bringing us to 154.6 total.

Run #29: Sequoia, Serra, Skilling, SOM Loading Dock, Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences, Spruce Hall, Stanford Athletics Shop

We had a nice Sunday afternoon run with our special guest star, our friend Dean!  He drove all the way from the East Bay to join us on today's run, since he is a faithful blog reader and wanted to experience it in person.

We began the run with Dean telling a story.  I won't repeat the story here, but it met all the criteria of great "running story":  funny, we'd never heard it before, relevant to the map, and long enough to chew up over a mile of running.  Great job, Dean!  Our first stop was Sequoia, which is a building near the Math Corner that houses the Statistics department.  I just looked up Sequoia Hall, and it has its own Wikipedia Page, with quite a history.  Apparently the building we touched today is "Sequoia Hall, Part II, the Sequel."  I should also mention that I thought the word "sequoia" is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels, but it turns out that the word "Euonia" means "alertness of mind."  I'm not sure that should count: who has ever heard of that word?

Next we ran up to the Faculty Club for Serra (589 Capistrano Way).  We're not quite sure why this building gets an address in parentheses, but there it is.  This is a cute cottage that hosts the Institute for Gender Research.  There was a name on the building, and Ira made a snide comment about why it wasn't named for that person on the map.

We then ran back to the engineering side of the quad for Skilling, which is where I took my first computer science class.  Oh, the memories.  Here's something else to mention about this leg of the run: I've noticed that whenever there is a third person on the run, Ira and the other person enjoy poking fun at me.  It is all good natured: KMo is setting too fast a pace, KMo is getting us lost, KMo is taking us the long way, or KMo sometimes runs into me and injures me.  OK, that last one did sort of happen once, and Ira and Dean were enjoying talking about that on the way to Skilling when, ha ha, Dean ran into Ira.  Karma, baby!

Our next stop deserves a bit of a rant for the map-maker: the SOM Loading Dock.  First, I'm not sure it is that obvious that "SOM" stands for "School of Medicine", especially since the Medical School itself is listed under the M's under "Medicine, School of."  I think listing this place under the S's is very questionable.  Also, there really isn't even a permanent sign.

We moved along back to the new SEQ ("Science and Engineering Quad", just to show that you should explain your three letter acronyms) for the Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences building.  We've run by this a million times, but I don't think either Ira or I actually knew what the building was called.  I bet you're wondering about who Spilker is, aren't you?  Well, he helped invent GPS, and this webpage tells you everything you want to know.

At long last, we've completed visiting all the buildings in the "Tree Quad", when we went to Spruce Hall today.  I've run out of comments about how unremarkable these buildings are, so I'll just move on.

We headed across the Serra Mall between the Oval and the Quad, weaved by Frost Auditorium, and ended up at the Stanford Athletics Shop, which is next to the track.  I once tried looking for running shorts here, but I thought everything was a bit too expensive.  They had a lot of cool jerseys and hoodies, but I guess I'm not really their target audience.  I have two Stanford sweatshirts, and today I was wearing a t-shirt from Rinc-a-Delt in 1994, my senior year.  It used to be a big concert party at Frost, and we hosted the band "They Might Be Giants", known for their song "Istanbul Not Constantinople."  I think it is funny that I wore a t-shirt that is twenty years old.  It must have been really, really well made.

We ran back to Wilbur Field, and Dean didn't realize that we always start and end at the same spot.  Yup, that's part of the rules we invented.

Distance: 4.97 miles, which I'll round down to 4.9 (up to 150.2 total)

We're in a stretch of the S's where a lot of buildings, not surprising, begin with the word "Stanford".  I think that will be all of tomorrow's run.  S is the most popular letter, for that reason.

Good job Dean!

Run #28: Recycling Center, Red Barn, Redwood, Roble Modules, Rogers: The Bridge Peer Counseling Center

We went on a quick run yesterday afternoon and finished all the R's.  It was a shorter run than we've been doing – just over four miles – and we wanted to squeeze in one run because we've got a special celebrity guest joining us on Sunday, and we didn't want his run to begin with the long boring segment that today's run did.  Aren't we thoughtful?

I guess, actually, we also completed the Q's, although there aren't actually any buildings that begin with Q.  In case you are curious, here are the letters that we "skipped", since no buildings begin with these letters: I, J, Q, U, X, Z.  If you rearrange those letters, you can make the word "quiz".

Our first leg took us to the Recycling Center, right next to the fire station and police office.  There are lots of dumpsters and trucks, and this certainly isn't the most scenic spot on our tour.  I bet they recycle a lot of paper here, though.

We were totally on the wrong side of campus for our next stop, which is the Red Barn.  It is a really cool spot, actually.  There were horses on the little riding area right outside, and we stopped and looked at the horses in the stalls, and even considered running through until we saw that a horse was being saddled up and we thought we might disturb it.  Someone has written a lot about the history of the Red Barn: you can find more information than you ever wanted to know here and here.  Just keep clicking "next" and "previous" and you'll get sucked in like I just did.

At this point, we had almost run 3 miles, and we had only visited two buildings.  Fortunately, everything else was pretty close, including Redwood Hall.  It is yet another one of those older buildings in the "All the buildings are named after trees except for Polya and Forysthe" quad.  I'm not exactly sure what happens at Redwood Hall; a quick search mentioned "Postdoc orientation" and "IT training", which seems important, I guess.  

Ira did float one theory about these buildings, though, that is worth mentioning.  As I said, all the buildings are named after trees (Cedar, Cypress, Pine, Spruce) as are the nearby portables (Acacia, Birch, Oak, Juniper, Laurel, Poplar).  The two exceptions are Polya, named after the great mathematician George Polya, and Forsythe, named after the first chair of the Stanford computer science department George Forysthe.  Why?  Well, our theory is that it is a incredible geeky inside joke.  One of Polya's great contributions to the field of mathematics was something called a "Polya tree", which has to do with graph theory and combinatorics.  And, George Forsythe no doubt had a hand in the theory of a "binary tree," which is an important concept in computer science.  We're going to believe that someone knew this and the naming scheme of these "tree" buildings reflects this inside joke.  

Our next location was the Roble Modules, which deserves a bit of a rant.  On the map, there are two different buildings in the "Roble Modules" area of the map: Bambi and Godzilla.  Loyal blog readers will of course note that Godzilla has been removed due to construction on Roble Field, so only Bambi remains.  Furthermore, there is no sign labeling the area as "Roble Modules" anywhere.  So, to sum up, we've visited a random trailer named "Bambi" three times now: once under the B's, once while we were looking for Godzilla, and once while we were looking for the Roble Modules.  Enough, map-maker!  We're done with Bambi!

(Hey Ira, someone else has a blog mentioning the wacky naming of Bambi.  And, hey look, the first link discusses Memphis BBQ.  I think you should get to know him, if you don't already.)

Our final stop was Rogers: The Bridge Peer Counseling Center.  It is a cute little cottage across the street from the Faculty Club near Tressider.  They do a lot of good work at the Bridge, and I know they have helped a lot of people.  I do have to question, map-maker, the way this building is listed on the map, under the R's and with the lengthy description following the colon.  Most people know this as "the Bridge", and I'd bet most Stanford students could locate "the Bridge" but have never heard of "Rogers."  I think it should be under the B's.  Maybe something like "Bridge Peer Counseling Center (Rogers)", since the parentheses are used liberally elsewhere.  I think this is the only use of a colon anywhere.  It is a nice building, though.

Distance: 4.2 miles (a grand total of 145.3 miles).  See you on Sunday for the S's.  There's a lot; several buildings, not surprisingly, begin with the word "Stanford".