Pullman, WA

On June 26, I made the short drive from Walla Walla to Pullman, WA, the site of my high school glory days. Upon arriving, my dad put me right to work, as he needed help replacing the main support beam of the back deck. Somehow we managed to avoid serious injury and fix the deck all at the same time!

My first night in Pullman, Ellen and I went to the wine bar and ended up getting a bunch of free samples. The lady serving the wine was actually a grad student in neurobiology, so we ended up talking grad school and science for a while. Somehow, I just can't get away. There was also a family from Arizona at the bar that we ended up talking to, which was completely unsurprising; it seems that the entire world has lived in Arizona at some point.

On Sunday, I went up to the high school to do some kata in the field. While doing sai kata, someone's supposed-to-be-leashed dog thought about messing with me. The dog's owner was wise enough to call her dog away, as I don't think she wanted to see it impaled on my sai.

On Monday, my mom and I took a hike up Kamiak Butte, which is about 20 minutes north of Pullman. It's a beautiful hike, and offers a great view of the fields and rolling hills that define the area. Later that day, I went to Moscow to buy some new swimming trunks, as my old ones were getting a little threadbare in the anal region. I did a Google search for "Threadbare in the Anal Region" and was disappointed to learn that there is no band out there with that name.

On Tuesday, I visited my old dojo. Mr. Shirey was held late at work, so I taught his youth class, and then worked out with him, Mr. Smith and Mr. Thompson for a couple hours. Afterward, I went to dinner with Sheldon and Debi and their kids, but it was over rather quickly. This trip to Pullman felt a little too short for some reason.

However, it wasn't too short for the random Pullman chance encounter. At the coffee shop I ran into a couple of my old teachers, my 7th and 8th grade Spanish teacher, Ms. Lew, and my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Tinder. Ms. Lew has retired from teaching and is now a flight attendant; she spends her off time traveling the world. Mrs. Tinder is also retired and was delighted to know that I own a couple of her husband's textbooks.

Walla Walla, WA

On June 24th, I headed up to Walla Walla to visit my brother Brent and his wife Audra. On the way, I stopped at the local YMCA and dropped Audra's name to get in free. Sneaky. That afternoon, Brent and I raced around town on his scooters, and dropped in on Audra's volleyball practice. I ended up in a 2-on-2 game with Brent (former college basketball player), Audra (former college volleyball player), and her assistant coach Lindsay (former college volleyball player). I thank them for not completely embarrassing me.

After dinner, we watched an episode of Wipeout, the American version of MXC. There's something oddly gratifying about watching people being bounced into muddly pools of water by giant rubber balls.

The next day, we drove down to Pendleton to visit Audra's father's steakhouse and Western store. After checking out some $1100 cowboy hats, we had an awesome steak dinner. For some reason, every person I stay with feeds me steak. I can't explain it.

Deschutes River Recreation Area, OR

After leaving Crater Lake, on June 23 I headed up to the Deschutes River Recreation Area, where the Deschutes River runs into the Columbia River at the border of Oregon and Washington. It was nice and grassy, and there was a refreshing absence of mosquitoes.

After a refreshing sleep, I was even able to get up and work on my seoiotoshi a bit.

Crater Lake, OR

I made it to Crater Lake on Monday, June 22, and was immediately mugged by a horde of mosquitoes. This reminded me of a joke my dad used to tell my brother and I.

Dad: Knock knock.
Kids: Who's there?
Dad: Amos.
Kids: Amos who?
Dad: A mosquito bit me.

Anyway, I smothered myself in bug spray, which kept the hordes of blood sucking devil spawn at bay, and I set up camp. I was disappointed to learn that there is no WiFi at Crater Lake. WTF, man?

Anyway, I drove up to the lake and proceeded to have my mind blown.

As is always the case, these pictures don't do it justice.

That night, I woke up at about 2am to take a look at stars, and they were absolutely breathtaking. I even set my crappy camera on a slow exposure so that I could share the experience with you all.

Check that shit out; my camera managed to capture the light of exactly ONE star. Eat your hearts out suckers.

The next morning, I headed back up to the lake and took the trail down to the water's edge. It was the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen, and I was able to look off into the abyss of the lake and contemplate the infinite depths of the human soul. Or something.

Redding, CA

After leaving Redwood City, I headed up north to Redding to stay with my friends Jody and Nancy. They treated me to lots of good food, and even more good wine:



Jody is building a dojo in his house, which is totally awesome. We spent several hours doing throws and kata up there; it's a great place to work out.



On Sunday, we watched Transformers on Jody's kick-ass enterntainment system. I left Redding the next morning, sent on my way with a bag full of food for my journey into the mountains.

Redwood City, CA

I spent about 10 days with my friends AJ and Fiona in beautiful Redwood City, CA. I arrived on Saturday, June 5, just in time for their karate class. Afterward, we had a party at Avinash's house, and I'm certain I remember Too Legit to Quit coming on the stereo at one point. "Hey heeeey, heeeey, too legiiiiit!"

The rest of the week was pretty lazy. In fact, take a look at this picture here:



You see that red beanbag chair on the left? I would say that 95% of all my waking minutes were spent sitting in that chair. I even rivaled the cat, Spook, who would occasionally move from the top of the cat pole down to the second level, then back up.

However, the week was not totally lost. I managed to score a free day pass to a posh athletic club (all the water in the drinking fountains was filtered), go to a gymnastics class, almost kill myself on a trampoline at Sky High, and actually do some kata.

The seminar with Kaicho Howard was the weekend of June 12-14, and was a whole lot of fun. We did a little bit of everything, but getting the chance to do some randori with Senseis Hallock and Carter was one of the highlights. On Saturday night, we had a pool party at Krisi's apartment complex. Someone before us had put soap in the hot tub:

On Monday, we had a regular jukido class with Kaicho, and we ended up working on seoiotoshi the entire time. To the non-Kokondo folks out there, this is considered to be a good thing.

I stayed with AJ and Fiona until Thursday, June 18. The night before, we cooked up a couple monstrous steaks. Spook looked jealous.

Bakersfield, CA

On my way up to Bay Area, CA, I stopped in Bakersfield for a night. I was planning to spend a few more days and train with the dojo there, but my car troubles changed my plans. I spent a night at Barbe's house with Scott and Kyle. We went to the gym, watched some Kokondo videos, and played with a really sharp sword. As far as I know, we still have all our fingers.

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

The plan was to leave AZ on June 1, but a few days before my car decided not to start. It turned out to be a faulty distributor, and after taking 3 days to get a replacement part, I finally made it on my way on June 4.

My first stop was Joshua Tree National Park, in southeastern California. I stayed in the Jumbo Rocks campground, whose name can be easily explained by this picture. My car is the little white dot right in the middle:

My first night of camping brought back a few things I learned about the wilderness during my traumatic childhood:

1. There are bugs outside the city.
2. Crapping in the wildnerness sucks.
3. There is no WiFi out in Joshua Tree. WTF, dude?
   

Despite these uncomfortable truths, it's turning out to be a pretty cool trip so far:

Introduction

Howdy folks! As you can see above, the title of this blog is "Doctor Vagabond's Tales of Mystery and Woe." This seems like a fairly weighty title, so let's break it down a bit.

• Doctor: I just finished up my Ph.D. in electrical engineering, which somehow makes me a doctor.
• Vagabond: My post-Ph.D. plans consist of bumming around the U.S. for the next 7 months while I hope for a job to land in my lap, which also makes me a vagabond.
• Tales of Mystery and Woe: this phrase is not original. Props go to a former computer science classmate of mine.
  

That should make the purpose of this blog pretty self-explanatory. Hopefully there will be a fair amount of mystery and relatively little woe.