Following Lewis and Clark Along the Columbia

It's been a while since my last blog about a Scholarship Junkies trip, but today I drove down I-5 from Seattle toward Portland and then headed west at Kelso to finally arrive at the historic town of Cathlamet, WA.

Driving west in the dark along the WA-4, I arrived in Cathlamet under a sign that read "Cathlamet 1846." This small town of a few hundred people sits along the Columbia River about an hour and a half north of Portland.

After eating too much McDonald's, I arrived at the only lodging available in Cathlamet—the Bradley House Inn. This Victorian-style house dates all the way back to 1907 and offers a view of the Columbia River. I can't see anything right now though since I arrived after the sun had already gone down.

So, instead, I took pictures of the inside of the house. I have a pretty nice room.

I watched the Huskies lose on a last second shot after taking the lead with 3 seconds left. Sad.

Anyway, tomorrow, I am speaking at Wahkiakum High School to share my scholarship secrets with the student body. I am very much looking forward to it. Should be a great time.

Time to hit the sack soon. Toodles.

Sam

Another Visit to Portland

It's been a while since my last blog, but I'll try and keep this short and sweet (knowing me, yeah right...). After spending the past few weeks with my family in Spokane for the holidays, I flew to Portland this morning to spend a day with my old buddy, Roland.

Roland's mom and he picked me up from PDX and went to Pho for lunch. Yum. Portland has changed a bit since I was last here, and it looks really quite nice.

My goal for this visit, besides saying hello and catching up, was to attend the Portland Trail Blazers vs. Golden State Warriors game tonight. Since we had a few hours before the game though, we played a few rounds of NBA 2K10 on Roland's Xbox 360. Just like old days. : )

Then we actually went to a park and shot hoops for a bit. I'm quite rusty after hitting the gym a total of one time this past quarter.

After a quick stop at the grocery store, we got ready to head downtown for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and then on to the Rose Garden. I've only ever seen their commercials on TV, but I'd never been before. 'Twas pretty cool. I had a Honey BBQ Bacon Burger. Deeelicious.

We hopped back on the MAX (love light rail and public transportation) and headed for the Rose Garden in perfect time for the starting lineups and introductions. Man, the Rose Garden was full tonight and the atmosphere was quite electric.

Just like old times, we sat up in the nosebleed sections, but it was still fun. Pretty amazing that nearly 20,000 people are watching the same thing in the same building all together.

The game started off horribly. The Blazers trailed 11-1 and 17-3 in the first quarter. The officiating seemed very inconsistent, and the Warriors ended up dumping 41 points on the Blazers in the first quarter. That's about as far as their good luck carried them though.

Brandon Roy carved up the Golden State defense the rest of the night, finishing with 37 points along with 5+ rebounds and assists. Simply amazing. With his furious shooting and huge games from Andre Miller (23 points) and Martell Webster (21 points, 11 rebounds) as well as solid defense and hustle from the rookie, Dante Cunningham, (10 rebounds), the Blazers ended up winning fairly soundly 105-89. Chalupas!

After the game, I went and bought myself a LaMarcus Aldridge t-shirt. They didn't have Roy's shirt in my size, so I went with an equally good option with the Aldridge jersey t-shirt. The ride back on the MAX was tiring. I fell asleep.

Roland and I decided to go to Sonic for some popcorn chicken and slushies. Good late night snacks. After we headed home, we played two more rounds of NBA 2K10. I lost both times by one possession. Argh!

The graphics are ridiculous though, and the details even more so. I tried taking a picture. Didn't turn out all that great, but here it is anyway.

Tomorrow, I fly back to Seattle a bit after noon. Then it's right back to work to finish a great deal of school work as well as a lot for Dream Project. A few more trips coming up this month that I might have a chance to blog on again, including a weeklong trip to Guatemala. Can't wait!

Until then, toodles.

Sam

Back in the Big Apple

What a trip! I haven't blogged for two days because each night when I took my computer out I was too tired to write. So here's a recap on the past two days.

Brukab, Italy, and I flew out of Seattle on Tuesday evening on a red-eye flight. Normally, I'm fine with red-eye flights, but this one was particularly unenjoyable as the guy next to me kept hitting my elbow since his arm was on my side of the seat. Geez.

So after only two hours of sleep on our four and a half hour flight, I arrived in New York around 5:30 AM. Still dark out. We needed to take a taxi to the Hilton New York, where we'd be presenting on the Dream Project at the College Board Forum 2009.

As we walked out of JFK airport, some guy asked if we needed a taxi and asked us to follow him. Hmm...we made it as far as his large car with no visible signs it was a taxi. Once we saw the skateboard lying in the back of the car and the fact that he said cash only, we ditched that plan and went for the yellow taxis we passed. Must've been that two hours of sleep that got me since I remember hearing "take yellow taxis only."

We finally made it to our hotel around 7 AM. Turns out though, we couldn't check in since the hotel was full the night before. So we dropped our bags off and headed out into the sunrise in downtown Manhattan. The streets were already getting busy as people, almost all wearing business suits and nice clothes, headed in every direction to work. We walked the few blocks over to Times Square where we watched Good Morning, America being taped and just chilled at the tables in the square. Even got WiFi there.

Later that morning, we headed to the UN just past Grand Central Station and took a tour of the building. 'Twas pretty awesome. I bought another flag for my flag collection and picked up a few other trinkets as well. By the time we finished, it was past noon, so back to the hotel we went.

Thankfully, despite all the College Board people all around the lobby, we got our rooms. Italy went straight to bed. Brukab and I unpacked. I bought internet for two days (no free WiFi), took a shower, and then headed to a session on undocumented students. I enjoy attending conferences like these since you get to learn so much from other people...plus talk about the Dream Project. : )

On Wednesday evening, we ended up going out to eat dinner at a pub and restaurant down the street. Delicious burger and French onion soup. Then back to our room to practice for our presentation on Thursday.

Stan arrived later that evening as we were practicing. He got upgraded to a nice suite on the 39th floor (we're on the 14th). Pretty awesome.

Thursday morning, I didn't make it to breakfast at 7:30 AM as I had thought I would. Too tired. Besides, at midnight on Wednesday, Brukab and I had gone out to the block downstairs and got a plate of chicken and lamb over rice from the street vendor. It was soooooooo good. Except I killed my tongue by putting extremely hot sauce on it.

So after waking up, I headed towards Grand Central to visit the Humanity in Action headquarters. I had never visited it before since when I was a Fellow, we were in DC and then off to Europe. So I had called Judy, the executive director and my mentor for my Action Project, and it turns out she was in Istanbul. So I went to see office anyway and say hello to Phil, the center director in New York.

It was a great visit, and we got to chat lots about the Dream Project. Very exciting stuff. After that though, I headed back to the hotel and headed into a session on philanthropic partnerships a bit late. Quite fascinating though.

For lunch, I went to the luncheon in the Grand Ballroom while Brukab and Italy continued practicing. The luncheon was nice. It featured an awards ceremony for the most inspirational high schools in the country. Pretty fascinating. I sat with a gentleman from the College Board who actually knows some folks I worked with at UW. I skipped Gwen Ifill's speech though and headed back to the room since our session was coming up soon.

After gathering all our stuff, we headed down to our room for the presentation. As our time drew nearer, there were only a few folks in the room. Not the kind of turnout we were expecting at a national conference. Turns out though, Gwen Ifill went over on her time, so people trickled in late. Soon, we had a fairly good sized audience and got started.

Our presentation went smoothly and our audience asked great questions and engaged in the conversation with us. It went so well, in fact, an audience member wrote us a check for our program! : )

After that, we debriefed and explored some other sessions, but since we had debriefed so long and didn't get to anything else, we headed back upstairs. I had made reservations at 6 pm to visit my aunt's friend's sports bar, so we changed and headed out. Stan brought us to Rockefeller Center and past the diamond district before heading near Times Square where the sports bar was located.

Dinner was delicious as Paul had a special steak entree that night. Brukab and I both got it. Man, it was good. It was great to see Paul too again, but since there was a Yankees game that night, he was pretty busy. Well, he's always busy anyway. Afterward, we headed out to Times Square and bought a whole bunch of souvenirs. So touristy. Oh well.

We made it to ESPNZone though where we played a few rounds of basketball and football games. It was awesome! I felt right at home.

After that, we called it a night since Stan was flying out early this morning. In fact, I kept falling asleep while watching Slumdog Millionaire. This morning, I totally slept past my alarm and didn't get to the session I wanted to get to. We're heading out now though, and I finally got my suitcase closed.

We fly home at 7:30 PM tonight, so it'll be nice to not have to drag all my luggage around. That's all for now. I didn't really take many pictures and haven't really uploaded them, so sadly, this blog post has few pictures and more writing than I would've liked. Oh well. Overall, a very successful trip with plenty more connections made for the Dream Project. Toodles.

Sam

Why I Like Colorado

So this morning, we woke up early for our presentation at the 9th annual Colorado State University Diversity Conference. It was quite early, but no matter. After all, this was the whole reason that Jenée and I flew all the way out to Colorado.

Our session was surprisingly well-attended by a number of VPs from the university, some faculty, and even a few brave students who'd woken up early for our session. Michelle had given about 10 of them special wake up calls this morning.

We were able to finish everything we wanted to cover and had time left over for Q&A. It was highly successful, and in terms of everything we wanted to accomplish on this trip, it was a success in every way. The folks at CSU are so excited to get a Dream Project of their own off the ground, and we're so glad to be working with them.

Michelle and Laura took us out to lunch across from the campus at a nice little restaurant called Rainbow. It was pretty good. I had a nice sandwich and french onion soup. Delicious. Even the squirrels nearby thought so.

After that, we went our separate ways, and Jenée and I met up with Juwon, who had attended our session, and Alfred, a freshman whom Juwon has been working with. It was so great to connect with these guys, and they are definitely doing some big things at CSU.

Jenée and I decided to cap off our Fort Collins experience with a quick visit to the New Belgium Brewery where they brew Fat Tire among other beers. It was fun! Plus you get two free beer samplers.

Andrea met us after that, and then we headed on the hour plus drive towards Denver International Airport. On the way, we stopped at Johnson's Corner, a world famous truck stop known for their cinnamon rolls. We got some for the road.

Right in the parking lot too there was a man selling fresh peaches. Andrea and Jenée both bought some, but I didn't want any. The man seemed shocked that I didn't want any and was so kind as to say, "Here, have one to go. Catch!" That was extremely nice of him. He had some good peaches too; he let us taste some.

The flight went very smoothly. I watched State of Play again and chatted it up with the man sitting next to me. He was a software engineer from Seattle, who had just visited Bismarck, North Dakota, for business (not pleasure, he was adamant about stressing). We had a great conversation about travels. Turns out, he's a one million mile member for United, so he's been all over the world.

Since we were sitting in first class (my dad was so kind as to upgrade us), I had a few glasses of white wine. I'm really liking wine now ever since I returned from Greece. Also, the gentleman next to me recommended getting a brandy and Bailey's mixed on the rocks. It was quite strong, but tasty. He did say to never get more than two as they're quite potent. :P

It's good to be back in town, and I have to say this past week was a great one. I got back from Greece, the Huskies beat USC, I headed off to Colorado, and I finished my Fulbright application. Colorado was a beautiful state. I hadn't seen much outside of Denver until this trip, and I liked what I saw. All in all, very successful and productive.

Time to plan more travels tomorrow. Until then, toodles.

Sam

Visiting Wyoming and a Colorado Rockies Game for the First Time

This morning, Jenée and I woke up fairly early, considering we didn't have to be anywhere. But we woke up and, after breakfast with Andrea, drove north toward Wyoming.

I'd never been before, so this was a fun first trip—the first of several firsts today. The drive from Fort Collins, CO, to Laramie, WY, was pretty scenic. There were plenty of rock formations, sprawling plains, and a bunch of white-bottomed antelope. Plus, very few cars, so plenty of opportunities for photos.

We stopped at Medicine Bow National Park and walked around a short trail. The area where we stopped had some pretty amazing rock mountains! We had no clue how they were formed as they looked like someone had stacked these huge boulders together. Plus they looked really smooth.

Funny sign at the park entrance..."bring an ax or chainsaw..." (second from the bottom).

Jenée trying to crack a rock.

The forest looked pretty awesome. Definitely very beautiful. Lots of America left for me to explore.

After a short stroll, we were hungry, so we headed for the capital of Wyoming, Cheyenne. We stopped in the city, which has a population of a little more than 50,000 people (more than Buford, WY, which we passed...the sign said, "Buford, Population 1"). We asked some random people where a good place to eat was, and they suggested Sanford's Grub & Pub. It was so good!

Check out the Cal football helmet above the tons of beer taps.

I had a Gilligan's burger, while Jenée had one with onion rings and ranch in it. I got Cajun fries with mine...they were deeeelicious! For dessert, even though we were both stuffed, we had fried oreos with ice cream. That was sooo good! Man, good food, but probably not the healthiest.

We had to head back to Fort Collins after that since we had to drive another hour from there to Denver for the Rockies game, so we headed home, worked on our presentation a bit, and then headed out to Denver. The weather on our way back from Wyoming didn't look all that promising.

But once we got closer to Denver, the weather seemed to clear up. It was still brisk and chilly, but at least it wasn't raining. We parked and headed to Coors Field for the Rockies game against the San Diego Padres. I'd never been to a Major League Baseball game outside of the dozen or so Mariners games I've attended at Safeco Field, so I was really excited to go.

I took a ton of pictures once we got inside. Coors Field is very similar to Safeco Field. Apparently, Safeco was modeled somewhat after Coors. I think they ought to copy the fountains in center field and replicate that at Safeco. That was awesome!

Fountains! They're shooting high because the Rockies just got introduced.

Back to normal.

Right next to the bullpen too.

Nice view of downtown Denver.

The view from our seats. We were only a few rows below the row of purple seats around the stadium designating the one mile above sea level mark.

We stayed in our seats in the upper level along the third base line for the first five innings, and then since it was getting pretty dang cold, we decided to head down, grab another beer (yes, we had one already), and just stand behind home plate. That was pretty awesome. We saw the Padres load and then unload the bases, when one of their players, who had already hit a home run in the game, hit a bases-clearing double to right center field. Pretty nice piece of hitting.

The bases are loaded...and then cleared on the next pitch. Woo! Or boo if you're a Rockies fan...

After finishing that beer (much worse than the first one, which actually tasted good), we decided to hit up a pizza place three blocks from the stadium with some of Jenée's friends/family. That was fun. We watched the rest of the game on the big screen TV there. The Rockies were losing 6-2 when we left, and they ended up losing 6-3 so we didn't miss all that much. We had our tickets and hands stamped for re-entry anyway in case anything exciting happened, so we could run back into the stadium. :P

Dinner was nice, and it was fun meeting Steve and Laurel. We left the pizza place pretty full and actually right as the game ended, so the timing was perfect. We headed back to Fort Collins after that, and an hour later, made it home. Tiring day...I bet Jenée was more tired since she drove the whole time. At least, I napped a bit.

Tomorrow morning, we have our Dream Project presentation and then have the whole afternoon before flying back to Seattle in the evening. We may visit a local brewery. Colorado sure has some good local beers. I've been impressed.

Anyway, it's late, and I have an early morning. Time for bed.

Sam