Filming in the Bay Area

It's been a while. But I suppose it's time to revive the blog briefly as I'm on the road again. This time, I'm in the Bay Area to film an educational video for Medtronic. Since I owe my ability to walk now to Medtronic's medical therapies, they asked if I would be willing to share my story with other potential patients who are considering those therapies too. In exchange, they flew me and my dad down to San Francisco, where my doctors are, to shoot this film. 

The educational film itself is actually focusing on the work of my doctors at UCSF. Where I come in is the patient stories as they have three patients from around the country to share their experiences with Medtronic's therapies. I met one of the other patients, a sixteen year old girl from Nevada. She's only the third person I've ever met with dystonia, so that's pretty neat.

Since they didn't call me till late August, they've been working like mad to organize everything. From their headquarters in Minnesota, they booked our flights, the hotel, and arranged an hour-by-hour itinerary for us. Organized itineraries can be wonderful things.

This morning, I woke up at 3:30 AM, and my sister, Grace, kindly drove me (and my friend, Luca, who was flying early this morning as well to Cornell for a med school interview) to the airport. I suppose I could've left later since I had checked-in online, printed my boarding pass, and walked through a relatively empty security line in less than 10 minutes. So I waited around for an hour and ten minutes before we finally took off.

After a rather uneventful flight (and one annoying child, wailing in the row in front and across from me), I arrived at SFO and found my dad waiting at baggage claim already, since he'd arrived ten minutes before me from Spokane. A driver with my name on a sign picked us up and helped us load our bags into a nice black sedan.

My itinerary had said "limo pick-up," so I was expecting a long, black limo. But apparently a large, chauffeured sedan can also be considered a limo. In any case, it was comfortable and had perks you don't normally get in the back of the car.

I snuck some pictures, and I was rather chuffed to bits about this one of my dad, reading his newspaper in style. (If you don't know what "chuffed to bits" means, check out the video; it's such a fun little phrase).

Our driver brought us first to UCSF, where I had a quick appointment with my doctor. I hadn't seen her in a few years, so it was really nice catching up. It's also the first time I've ever visited the doctor's office in a suit. Haha.

We were actually well ahead of schedule, so when our driver picked us up and took us to the hotel, we had plenty of time before the next item on my itinerary. The drive from downtown San Francisco to Lafayette (where the hotel is) was rather long. Funny how they wanted to film this thing in SF and then put us all up in a hotel way over in East Bay. But hey, it's a nice hotel, so I'm not complaining. :)

The driver had given me his business card so I could call him, and I noticed his name was the same as one of my Ethiopian friends in Seattle. So when we were driving to the hotel, I asked him, "Are you Habesha?"

He was pleasantly surprised and probably somewhat shocked that I even knew the word, but he said yes, he was from Ethiopia. We chatted and laughed about several things, and he told me he was fully expecting that I would know more words in Amharic (I can only say, "Hello, my name is Sam"), since I pronounced "Habesha" correctly. Sadly, I didn't.

He dropped us off at the hotel though, and we went to see if we could check in. It was only 11 AM or so when we arrived, so unfortunately, we were not able to check in just yet. I did get to meet most of the team though, so that was nice. Then my dad and I just chilled by the pool outside to do work.

My laptop's battery was nearly dead though, so I went and took pictures of the hotel instead. I brought my swimming trunks and goggles, so I plan to hit the pool later on.

There's my dad working away by the pool.

We had lunch downstairs in the hotel's bistro. I had a grilled Reuben sandwich, while my dad had a gigantic plate of clams. I wish I could've taken a picture, but I didn't want to since we were having lunch with all the Medtronic folks and the other patient and her mom. We had a really nice conversation, and I have had many opportunities to push Scholarship Junkies today already. If you didn't know, we launched a new site (www.scholarshipjunkies.com) a few weeks ago. Let me know what you think!

Tomorrow's a very busy day with all the filming and what-not. I even have to go to make up first! Really not sure what to think about that, but I met the make-up lady today. She was really nice, so I'm sure it'll be fine. Then at night, I'll head up to Berkeley to have dinner with friends from UW and SF. Should be fun!

I'll try and blog again tomorrow, but we'll see if I still have internet since we have to pay for it here. Lame. How come luxurious hotels always charge for internet service but the cheapest places (like the Super 8 I stayed at in Shelton, WA) offered free internet? I will never understand it. Speaking of extravagance, if you haven't seen how ridiculously out of touch some employees of the federal government are (well, not only federal government employees, but specifically some of them in this case), check out how much the Department of Justice paid for 250 muffins...

Cheerio!

Sam