BCATS = Done!

Over the past 6 months or so I've been helping to plan the annual Biomedical Computation at Stanford conference (aka BCATS). The big day was yesterday and I'm glad to report that everything went off without a hitch. We had about 250 attendees from around the bay area including 60 poster presenters, 10 talks, and 3 keynote speakers. Although I admit I only understood about 5% of the talks during the day it was still a great experience to learn about all of the other topics and research areas within biomedical computation. Our keynotes were great as well and included a talk on medical imaging from Harvard, a local molecular diagnostics venture capitalist, and a professor from UCSD who does drug discovery for infectious diseases ... all pretty cool and complex stuff. You can check out the website for the conference at http://bcats.stanford.edu . For now I'm just glad its over so I have a bit more time to devote to other things. Yay!

Wieners & Losers

Dan and I hosted the Escondido Village tennis and 3v3 basketball tournament this past Saturday. We had a great turnout with 6 basketball teams and over 30 tennis players. We only had three tennis courts so it took a while to get through all the games but I think everyone had a good time and there were some pretty good games. Dan played in both the basketball and tennis tournaments and did great in both but lost in the end.

We decided to keep our losing tradition going on Sunday as we went to the #4 Stanford vs. #5 Cal volleyball game. It was a really close match but Stanford just doesn't look as strong as they did last year. I find the student support here so disappointing sometimes .... I think there were more Cal students at the game then Stanford students! After the game we went to an Oktoberfest on campus where we ate some amazing sausage and pretzels and listened to a funny band of old German men. Once we were stuffed full of wieners we figured it was a good time to play our IM ping-pong match. Unfortunately this ended just like every other sport this weekend but we had a great time playing once we figured out how to get out of eachothers way (you have to alternate hits). All in all not too successful of a weekend but it still went by way too fast.

The Hidden Watermelon

Dan decided that today was the final day of life for our sad looking watermelon plant on the deck. None of the watermelons had gotten over a 1/4 of an inch wide before dying and now it looked like the whole plant was dying. Dan started to rip out the plant but one of the tendrils that ran back behind the orange tree (yes .... we have a dwarf orange tree on our deck) wouldn't budge. He figured it had just grown under the pot so he moved it to the side and lo' and behold we have a watermelon! It is just about the most misshapen watermelon you've ever seen but it still tasted amazing.

Cucumber!

Today we picked our one and only cucumber that was growing on the deck. See those white little dots ... don't let them fool you ... those are sharp little spikes all over the surface.

Day in SF

While Dan has been out of town chasing his deer I went down to SF for the day on Sunday (it seems like I only go up there when he is out of town ... too much city I think). A few of my more ambitious friends ran the Bridge to Bridge early in the morning while the rest of us made a trip to Tartine for yummy morning pastries. After picking up the runners we headed across the city and over the bridge to Treasure Island to watch the dragon boat races. I wasn't quite sure what to expect at this festival but it was entertaining watching the long, skinny boats with dragon heads paddled furiously down the course. They had divisions for everyone from high school to companies.

After the festival we headed back into the city where we met up with my friend from Colorado, Caryn, who happened to be in town for some training this coming week. We went to the "Stinking Rose" for dinner ... a place infamous for its excessive use of garlic .... and it was delicious. Obviously we hadn't had enough food for the day so we made one more stop at a small bakery in Chinatown for their egg custards which came fresh out of the oven ... delicious! Every time I go to the city I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it but by the end of the day I am just as excited to get out and go home - nice place to visit but I still don't think I could live up there.

Good-bye Bambi

For all of you animal lovers out there I'm sorry to announce that Bambi's dad did not survive Dan's second hunting excursion. Right before dusk last night Dan got his buck. From his official report: "Pacific Fork. Shot at 30-40 yards on Oct 4th about 10 miles east of Myers Flat, California on the Chase Ranch. Biggest blacktail I ever shot." It is probably a good thing his mom was accompanying him this weekend to help with the dirty work which I'm still not sure I could handle (Dan says I'm in denial about where my food comes from). Anyway ... yay for Dan, yay for good meat!

Wine, cheese, and board games

Arum and Steve hosted our most recent CA event for the building last night with tons of wine, cheese, and other goodies to complement a night of board games. We got a surprisingly good attendance with over 30 people stopping by. We played Taboo and Cranium with the whole group which was made even more interesting with our large population of foreign students who are still learning English. My favorite Taboo moment from one of our wonderful Japanese neighbors: "Not Old England but .... New England!" It was a great night to get to know our neighbors better and enjoy some good eats.