Padres Baseball Game

As part of the conference we got in free to a San Diego Padres game. This was my first baseball game ever. I had to have the rules explained to me a few times before I figured out what was going on. After a few innings we left because the beer was expensive and the game was boring.

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Our first view of the stadium.  This was the first time I had ever been inside a ball park and the first baseball game I ever watched.

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David flashing his conference gang signs.

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Rob enjoying a good laugh.

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Matt double fisting it.  He represented OSU with pride.

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Irem even got in on the beer action.

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The field.  We sat off of the 3rd base.

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Justin and Mike enjoying the game.

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San Diego IDETC09 Conference

In San Diego I attended the 2009 IDETC conference. It was at the convention center. Here are a few snaps of the center and a few things around the center.

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Thunderheads east of downtown San Diego.  The Padres Stadium is peaking around behind the hotel in the background.

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A fun railroad crossing that we enjoyed on multiple occasions.

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Some huge yachts were parked outside the convention center.  One was the BMW Oracle Racing Yacht.

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Dr. Ge, formerly with OSU and now with the NSF, talking with Dr. Paasch.

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Undergraduate poster session and graduate student feeding time.

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Mike loving the tram ride.

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The tram went from ground level to the second floor.  It was supposed to be for disabled people but it seemed to be more of a tourist attraction.

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Our hotel is somewhere off in the distance.

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Crazy architecture in the conference facility.  It’s a series of tubes!

Station Fire from the Freeway

On the way down to the IDETC09 conference in San Diego, we passed the massive Station Fire. The smoke cloud looked like a thunderhead. We could even see some ribbons of flames course up the mountainsides from the freeway a good ten miles away.

Earlier this summer I had been hiking up around Mount Wilson and had visited the Mount Wilson Observatory. Also up the Big Tajunga Canyon I had visited the construction site where Jesi spent most of her time. While the observatory was saved, Jesi’s dam construction site got pretty burnt out. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was threatened for a while but it managed to avoid disaster.

Here are a few pictures of the cloud from the freeway.

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