Happy "Welcome to Stanford" day to the class of 2018 who moved in today! There was an energy on campus that we hadn't felt all summer, and I couldn't find a place in my usual bike rack at Wilbur Field. Congrats to Selby, Alex, Ricky, McKenzie, Harrison, and Ally. Incredibly, as I was waiting for Ira, Ally was also on Wilbur Field, learning new dorm cheers from her Otero RA's. Oh-oh-oh-Otero! Hope you all enjoyed the Band Run tonight, which is probably going on as I type this. It is one of my favorite Stanford traditions.
We started off today with the campus Gas Station. It really doesn't say "gas station" anywhere, since it is now a Valero, but we touched the sign that displays the prices as well as one of the gas pumps. This gas station actually has pretty good prices, considering the area.
Since it was "move in" day, Ira shared a hilarious story of his first day at Stanford. I'll try to summarize: flew from Memphis, missed bus at SFO, waited 3 hours, Palm Drive had dead palm trees, arrived after dinner and checkin, no one waiting for him, roommates had already claimed space and put him on third top bunk, sheets and stuff was inaccessible in storage. The saga continued the next few days, when he took his first walk around campus, and, in a 90 minute walk from Toyon, somehow never found the Main Quad. Then, a few days later, he walked down El Camino to a bike shop to buy a bike, but the bike shop was in Mountain View. (Let's just say it was all uphill after these first few days.)
We then ran down Serra to the Gates Computer Science building. This building was built after I got my degree, but it sure is nice inside. Our hero Donald Knuth has his office inside this building, I think. My friend Truth once told me that Bill Gates made sure he had a dinner with Donald Knuth as a condition of funding this building. Seems plausible.
We started off today with the campus Gas Station. It really doesn't say "gas station" anywhere, since it is now a Valero, but we touched the sign that displays the prices as well as one of the gas pumps. This gas station actually has pretty good prices, considering the area.
Since it was "move in" day, Ira shared a hilarious story of his first day at Stanford. I'll try to summarize: flew from Memphis, missed bus at SFO, waited 3 hours, Palm Drive had dead palm trees, arrived after dinner and checkin, no one waiting for him, roommates had already claimed space and put him on third top bunk, sheets and stuff was inaccessible in storage. The saga continued the next few days, when he took his first walk around campus, and, in a 90 minute walk from Toyon, somehow never found the Main Quad. Then, a few days later, he walked down El Camino to a bike shop to buy a bike, but the bike shop was in Mountain View. (Let's just say it was all uphill after these first few days.)
We then ran down Serra to the Gates Computer Science building. This building was built after I got my degree, but it sure is nice inside. Our hero Donald Knuth has his office inside this building, I think. My friend Truth once told me that Bill Gates made sure he had a dinner with Donald Knuth as a condition of funding this building. Seems plausible.
The above picture reminded me that, on a previous run, we were wondering if the fountains would be operating today, to welcome the freshmen and their families. Nope. No water was flowing.
Next we ran to the Quad to the Geology Corner. We have several questions for the map-maker today, and here's the first: Why does the Geology corner get special recognition on the map when other departments don't? This doesn't make much sense.
We then ran back towards Gates to the building next door, the Gilbert Biological Sciences. It is also a fancy new building, with a lot of glass, but here's question #2: Gates and Gilbert are listed by the last names of their namesakes, but the building across the street is the David Packard building, which is listed under the D's. Explain.
The highlight of this whole journey was supposed to be Godzilla, an oddly named portable building near the backside of Roble Field. Ira was so excited for this building, especially when I presented my theory of why it might have been named Godzilla. There were two modulars – Bambi and Gozilla. These names seemed bizarre, unless you go with my unproved theory that they were named after the famous short film "Bambi Meets Godzilla." I've provided a link below, and it is totally worth 91 seconds of your time.
Alas, due to the construction on Roble Field, the Godzilla trailer no longer exists. So, yes, Bambi outlasted Godzilla, at least at Stanford. How poetic and glorious. Somehow I think this may be the moral lesson of this whole journey.
Next we ran up the hill to the Golf Clubhouse. Here's our next question (#3) for the map-maker: The map calls this the "Golf Clubhouse", but there is no sign anywhere that says "clubhouse". One sign calls it the "restaurant", and the sign on the door of the restaurant just says "Stanford Golf Course." Who is in charge of the signage?
When we ran down the hill, we noticed one more oddity. The intersection of Junipero Serra and Campus Drive West has the worst crosswalk setup I've ever seen. Instead of having four crosswalks like most intersections, there is only one, which makes it impossible to get to two of the four corners. We wanted to run along Junipero Serra (for the only time on this journey) and we had to fend for ourselves crossing traffic. Probably not a question for the map-maker, but someone should look into this also.
Our last visit was pretty close to Wilbur Field: the Gould Center. The sign says something about the center "for conflict resolution", and Ira and I noted that neither of us had ever been in this building, probably because we're such nice, friendly, amenable pacifists who never disagree with anyone.
Total: 4.4 miles (72.5 total).
One final note: I always try to map out the runs ahead of time, and I had this one pegged at 4.5 miles. Every single run so far had come in over the estimate, probably because we run around the building looking for the signs, take a wrong turn, hit construction, or get lost. This was the first run so far that came in under the distance estimate of Google Maps. See, we're getting smarter than Google!
FTPG: What a disappointment not to find Gozilla! I had been looking forward to it for some time. However, KMo's story and video about Bambi v. Godzilla makes up for it. I love the credits, especially "Marv Newland produced by Mr. and Mrs. Newland."
ReplyDeleteAlso, KMo's version of my first day doesn't quite do it justice. However, I've been at Stanford more or less for 25 years since, so I think it all worked out okay.