Week 2

Everything started to heat up this week so I haven't been able to post everyday. I think I'll try to move to one post per week for the rest of the trip. A normal day for me goes something like this:


5:00 am - Wake up, do some stretching, get ready for the day.


6:00 am - Check my four different email accounts and if I have a few extra minutes read Morning News Beat from the day before (morningnewsbeat.com).

6:40 am - Leave the house to meet Ron, Sue, and Dawn for the morning commute.

6:45 am - Leave Oakwood. We often take different routes to school (there are at least six different ones), but my usual is Washington Street east to Lincoln, Lincoln south to SR-90 East, to Slauson Blvd, Slauson south to Figeroa St, then Fig east to USC. This takes anywhere from 24 to 48 minutes depending on the day of the week, the weather, and who crashed their motorcycle into a closed on ramp after a high speed chase with police (no joke, it was on the news at 5 am on Tuesday).


7:30 am - Arrive at USC


8 am to 10 am- First class, either Accounting (Ruben Davila), Decision Making (Ed Hill), Management Communications (Donna Miles), or Marketing, Research, and Simulation (Tom Arnold)


10 am to 12 pm - Second class. One of the above - each class gets 2 or 3 two hour sessions per week.


Noon to 1 pm - Lunch with various classmates either brown bag or at one of the many many eating establishments on campus. I have lunch with different people almost everyday and it's really a pleasure to get to know them all individually.


1 pm to 3 pm - Lab class. Either electronic library research or Microsoft Office 2007 with Kim Esser and Wayne Wilmeth respectively. This is our last week of these classes which were designed to give those of us who haven't been in school for a few years (pretty much everybody) some familiarity with today's educational/research/reporting/presentation tools.


3 pm to 4 pm - Commute back to Oakwood.


4 pm to 10 pm - Various activities. Try to do something active like take a quick walk, a swim, or go to the gym. Have a quick dinner or maybe once a week someone will decide to cook something and have a few people over (this week I made a lasagna and Ron made fajitas). Then spend a couple hours reading, about an hour writing in my journal and/or blogging, and probably another hour writing a paper for myself about what I've read. Some nights I may spend an hour or more working on a presentation and as we go along and get through the books we're reading most of our "off" time will be devoted to working with one of about three to four groups preparing presentations, analyzing and making decisions for our Food Industry Management Simulation (FIMSIM), or working on individual presentations, not to mention studying for exams.


As you can see it's a lot of work! But it's also a blast and more rewarding, just in the first two weeks, than I can adequately describe here.


This was our first week of accounting so, in preparation, I led a study group on Sunday attended by about half the class. As we went through the first week of class, I think a lot of people found it even more difficult than they expected. That said, the class is full of bright people who, I believe, will do fine. In my opinion, the biggest obstacle is that as experienced business professionals we tend to want all the answers all at once and need to take a step back, slow down, and walk through the basics at the speed Professor Davila wants to teach it.

Monday afternoon Sue and I went for a walk down the beach since it was the first day it wasn't raining in the afternoon in about a week. It was none too warm when we left, but by the time we'd walked two blocks to the beach we had to take off our coats. Here are some pictures.


Below: Venice Beach as seen from the Washington Street Pier about two blocks west of my apartment.



Surfers seen from the pier.




Sue standing on the pier. Notice the sweatshirt. It's warm compared to Seattle, but it's still below 60 degrees.



Waves breaking over rocks on Venice Beach. The guy in the lower right corner is in for a close up. I wasn't that brave.


On the way back we walked through the Venice Canals again so I could get some pictures. There are a lot of unique houses as I mentioned previously. The pictures below are of some of the bigger, nicer ones, but there are quite a few that are probably 1000 sq. ft. or less. I doubt any of them would sell for less than $1 million.





Below: This one's for sale. Only $2.9 million and you even get a 2 car garage.







On Wednesday we did our first rehearsed presentation - a one to two minute introduction of one of our classmates who would be giving a fictitious speech or keynote address in a situation of our choosing. The challenge was to be engaging, using the guidelines Professor Donna Miles had given us, creative, and to act more comfortable speaking to a group (even if we really weren't inside). We were given permission for this presentation only to use MSU (Making Stuff Up) and many of the intros were absolutely hilarious. Donna said we may be one of the most creative classes she's ever had.

Thursday wrapped up the "normal" week with Dan Madsen, President of DPI, speaking to us about his company (a $900 million specialty food distributor) and also his experience going through the FIM program in 2005. He mentioned that he enjoyed working with Joel Todd from Haggen on his FIMSIM team and talked about what he believes are the most important things for being successful in business. Dan was a very nice guy and his accomplishments really got everyone's attention particularly in light of the fact that he's only about 37 years old and was promoted to President just ten months after graduating from the FIM program.

We continued the traditional Thursday night BBQ with Don & Keith from Stater Brothers and Rod from Bimbo Bakeries grilling up carne asada. Special thanks to Don's wife Heidi who actually did most of the work.

Day Four - California Club

Friday, January 25, 2008

Today was pretty quiet. I think most people spent the day around Oakwood or with their families. I went over a few assignments, caught up on some emails and did a few household chores.

This evening we had dinner at the California Club, a very exclusive, members only club that's been a fixture in Los Angeles since 1887. The evening was hosted by executives from Unified Grocers, Bristol Farms, and Smart & Final - so special thanks to all of them.

The club itself was amazing. Moved to it's current location in 1930 it was decorated by one of the leading New York designers of the times. It looks and feels like something out of the movies with 25 foot ceilings and rooms filled with dark wood panelling and antiques.

Above, Michelle from Dole sits in an antique chair in one of the hallways of the club. Notice the high ceilings, spaciousness and period decor.

I think everyone felt a little nervous and out of place as we arrived for the reception; we had to remind ourselves that we didn't need to whisper. As the waiters brought drinks and h'orderves we all began to relax and enjoy the evening, recognizing that we were unlikely to have the opportunity to attend an event here again soon, if ever.

Above, cocktail reception before dinner. Left to right: Michelle from Dole, John from Safeway, Myself, Maeliene Mira the FIM program Assistant Director/Den Mother, and Lloyd from Safeway.

Dinner in the Fireside Room followed featuring filet mignon, stuffed tomatoes, roasted potatoes and green beans. Dessert was chocolate cheesecake with berries and creme anglais. Our director, Tom Arnold, then introduced our hosts and explained that the reason for the dinner was to give all of us a chance to spend more time together in a social setting, get comfortable with each other and form stronger bonds. One of the biggest opportunities of the program is for us to learn from our peers and understand what they do, how they do it, and incorporate their perspective of the industry into our own. Our hosts, most of whom are graduates of the Food Industry Management program, then took just a few minutes to echo Tom sentiments and congratulate us on being recognized within our companies as having "high potential."

Above, Michelle from Dole (she seems to be in every picture), Christel from Safeway (she took most of the pictures) and Brooke from Safeway dining in the Fireside Room.

Above, Dawn from Safeway and Stephanie from Associated Foods were both sitting at my table. There are five people from Safeway in our FIM class. Stephanie is the youngest of us at 24. She works at her parents' independent grocery store in Elko, Nevada and did all the legwork herself to get into the program and convince her grocery cooperative to sponsor her in conjunction with WAFC.

After dinner we mingled a bit more and then took the opportunity to see some more of the club. Up on the third floor we found the terrace with a beautiful view of the city. Glass skyscrapers stood illuminated next to older buildings of architectural significance as a steady stream of tiny green and red lights marched across the night sky toward LAX. All in all a truly memorable evening.

Below, more pictures of my FIM classmates:

From left: Sue from Haggen, Tom from Food 4 Less, Juliana from Ralphs, and Andrea from Dreyer's with her husband.

Tracy from Albertson's with his wife. Tracy was an Army Ranger and received his Bachelor's Degree from USC in the '80's before entering the grocery industry.

Gary from Food 4 Less with his wife.

Tony from Bristol Farms with his wife.




Miguel from Costco with his wife Alberta. Miguel and Alberta are two of the nicest people I've ever met and that's really saying something.


Rebecca from Ralphs with her husband.


Jimmy from Costco with his wife.


Kim from Smart and Final with her husband.

Day Three

Thursday, January 24, 2008 (Day 3)

Since I've been a little short on pictures lately we'll start with a few:



These are my carpool buddies. Sue Yarkosky from Haggen, Dawn Davies from Safeway and Ron Mitchell from Unified Grocers.

This is our classroom. Rather than running all over campus, we stay put and our instructors rotate through.

This is where we're taking computer classes on the fourth floor of Hoffman Hall. Wayne Wilmeth is teaching us the Marshall system as well as Office 2007. He's not part of the faculty, but one of the IT staff for Marshall and a heck of a nice guy.

We arrived at class this morning to find out that Tom Arnold was sick today. This presented a problem as we were scheduled for four hours with him and then for another computer class at one. Fortunately Maeleine was able to get our computer class moved up to 11 am and we used the time until then to watch and critique videos of the final presentations from last year's class. It was interesting not only to see the videos, but also how my classmates reacted to them. Everyone had a different take and there was a fair bit of disagreement about which ones were the best.

That pretty well wrapped up the day and we headed back to Oakwood by about 2pm. It's been another rainy day so Dawn was able to get us the rec room at Oakwood for the Thursday night BBQ. I guess I'll be out there barbecuing in the rain - but that's nothing new!

Day Two

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 (Day 2)

We had class with Ed Hill this morning and began talking about management of organizational behavior. Ed is a great storyteller and very enjoyable. He makes a lot of good points very subtly using entertaining stories.

Next up was Donna Miles. I can already tell she’s really going to be a hoot. I liked her right away and I’m excited to get a lot of constructive criticism. I have no doubt that I’m going to have a commanding presence when she gets through with me. She gave us the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator to take home, work through, and score to find out our personality type. Should be interesting.

After lunch we had a couple hours with the director of library research on how to use the USC library system. I was amazed how far library research has come in the ten years since I was in college. We had the opportunity to use about a half dozen of the many database subscriptions that the library has access to. It was astounding to be able to look up any company or industry and get analysis and insight into what they do, how they do it and whether or not they're doing a good job.

We also added a fourth to our carpool today: Dawn Davies from Safeway. It's been raining most of the day here (as it did yesterday and is supposed to do for the next week). I guess it's a good night to get some more reading done.

Day One

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 (Day 1)

Today was our fist day of FIM. I say “our” because I really get the sense that we, the students, are all in this together. We went through introductions today and will continue to do so on Thursday. Everyone seems to be of a generally high caliber and there were some really interesting personal stories. Some of us have definitely overcome some major challenges in our lives (like Christel, from Safeway, who dodged secret police as a journalist in Cameroon before immigrating to the U.S.A. and has since put two of her siblings through college while working her way up to store manager).

During the presentations I noticed how many people have real difficulty with public speaking ranging from not knowing exactly what they want to say to real physical reactions like red blotches on their necks, red faces and even hands turning purple from clenching. This is surprising to me since everyone seems really good at communicating one on one or in small groups. There were also a few people who are extremely comfortable speaking in public. Andrea Dimond from Dreyer’s (a mother of five) was very much at ease and Rebecka Cupp, the pharmacy director for Ralph's(?), brought a lot of drama to her presentation. Generally I’d say the vendors are more comfortable with it than the retailers, probably because of the number of times they’ve made presentations.

I’d put myself somewhere in the middle of the group. I don’t think I have a physical reaction and I don’t have a lot of butterflies, but I’m a bit distracted being up there and I have a tendency to leave out some of the things I had thought I might mention. I don’t do as many of the bad hand habits as some people do, but I do a few and even notice them while I’m doing it. That's something I'll need to work on.

Both Professors Tom Arnold and Ed Hill talked a little bit about themselves today and are quite impressive. Tom has been an engineer, a business person (MBA), and a lawyer before becoming a teacher. Ed Hill is a pioneer in the grocery industry, has done a lot of retail consulting, mostly in Europe (including with Tesco), and owns a working Sherman Tank in Idaho. I think both will bring a tremendous amount of knowledge, experience and vision to our classes.

After class ended we had a group photo taken as well as head shots and then took a two hour Excel training session. I didn't learn much at this one, but the instructor was very helpful to some of the other students and I did have the opportunity to help a few of my classmates out, so it was certainly worth my time.

Tomorrow we begin the coursework in earnest.

The Canals of Venice

Today was another study day. I didn't get quite as much read as I had hoped, but I'm well into three of the books for the communication class. I felt that it was more important for me to really understand what I've read so I took about three hours today and wrote a couple papers, just for myself, to summarize and restate what I'd read in Type Talk at Work (about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (about avoiding the traps and pitfalls that get in the way of successfully communicating at work).

About 4pm Sue and I went for a walk with Ron from Unified over to the Venice Canals. They're just about two blocks from Oakwood and I would never have known they were there. It's a series of canals between the streets with houses lining each of them and footbridges in between. In typical California fashion there's every manner of architectural style and size ranging from 1000 sq. ft. bungalows to 3000 sq ft moderns. One of the larger houses we passed was for sale for a mere $2.9 million. It even had a two car garage which, I would say, is unheard of around here.

After the walk Ron and Sue came over for dinner. I used the "Easy Enchilada" filling I had made yesterday to whip up some enchiladas which were accompanied by a chop salad (thanks Ron for bringing tomatoes) and a quick pan of cornbread. We decided we'll carpool together tomorrow, leaving at 7 am to make sure we're early.

Tomorrow's the first day of class and I feel very excited. I'm anxious to get to work.

The Weekend

Saturday, January 19, 2008.

Wendy emailed me some new pictures of Logan. This is my favorite one. I got him the shirt when I came down in December for the tour. It says "Somebody at USC loves me!" I really miss both of them.

I did a lot of reading today. I'd like to get through at least three of the books before we start class on Tuesday. I feel like everything I can do to get ahead now will pay dividends in the weeks ahead.

I also ran some errands today. It's surprising how much stuff you need and how much time it takes to get your life set up down here. It also takes a fair bit of time to get anywhere. It's not hard to burn through half your day just running around.

Note for 2009 class: Get down to Los Angeles as soon as you can, get familiar with the area and get everything you need to feel dialed in and ready to work.


Sunday, January20, 2008.


I hit the gym at 6 am this morning which was great. I haven't felt like I have a lot of time for regular exercise since Logan was born, but I don't really have any excuses while I'm down here. They have a nice facility and I pretty much had it to myself at that hour. I'm glad it's a short walk over there because I was in a t-shirt and shorts and nearly froze to death. I forget that it's still winter and at night it gets down to the high thirties or low forties.


After that I got a haircut (gotta look good for pictures on Tuesday) and then drove up to Santa Monica which is only a couple miles up Pacific Avenue. What a view! Too bad I didn't have my camera with me. I'll have to go up again to take some pictures to share with all of you.


Later that afternoon Sue and I decided to walk down to Venice Beach. Quite a freak show. It's kind of like a permanent street fair on the boardwalk with all sorts of entertainers ranging from the energetic (young hip-hop acrobats and Brazilian drummers), to the unusual (a gold painted mime who looked like a statue with a gold painted mime dog who would move when given tips), to the deranged (a man in pseudo-African tribal dress standing on one foot on a ten food A-frame ladder holding snakes and preaching Armageddon). It goes on for miles, but we quickly tired of the incense and t-shirt shops, piercing parlors and hustlers and walked back on the beach. The thing that struck me was that even with the temperature nearing 70 degrees there were thousands on the boardwalk, but only a handful of people actually on the beach or down by the water. We continued our walk around the marina and the surrounding area before heading back to Oakwood. We had walked for about three hours by the time we made it back and I was getting a bit footsore.


I made Wendy's famous "Easy Enchilladas" for dinner which I'll be eating for several meals to come. This was my first real attempt at cooking since I've been here and I'd forgotten how many left-overs you end up with when cooking for one. I imagine as I get to know more of my classmates and their schedules we'll probably be doing some communal meals. Otherwise I'll be drowning in sameness.


I finished out the day with some more reading, talked with Wendy and Logan on the phone and fell asleep with a book on my face.

Orientation

Today was the first day of the program. Orientation. A chance to meet Tom Arnold, the program director, and to spend some time with last year's alumni as well as meet our classmates. What a great day and how exciting!

Sue and I drove in together and arrived about a half hour early. To my surprise, and pleasure, probably half of the class was already there. As we walked in and got coffee we immediately began meeting and greeting; there was very little standoffishness here - everyone was an experienced business professional and knew how to act like it. Everyone that I met seemed very pleasant and I quickly discovered that most of them had been told the same thing by their predecessors that I had been told by mine - accounting knowledge in the program is rare and to be treasured. I found I suddenly had at least ten new friends eager to get to know me and secure my goodwill and future help.

At about 9:30 we got started and Professor Arnold spoke for a few minutes, announced that 2008 is the 50th anniversary of the FIM program and then introduced the alumni, after passing on our first reading assignment from Professor Miles. Fully half of the students from last year were back today to give us a tour, share their insights and help make us as comfortable and prepared as possible. They also tried to impart to us the importance of tradition at USC and to pass on some of the FIM traditions to our class.

Several of the alumni stood up and spoke about various aspects of the program and I was immediately impressed with the presence and excellent speaking skills they brought to the presentation. I was particularly impressed with Fred from Basha's (the spokesperson for the 2007 class), Lou a 33 year veteran of Safeway (who I believe was recently promoted to Vice President), Erin the class of 2007's Spice Girl (she works for McCormick) and our very own Matt Johnson. There were several others, but those are the ones that were both most outstanding and that I had the most opportunity to talk with throughout the day. They were so excited for us and passionate about what we would be learning that it was infectious and I think we all started to really get excited too.

After they spoke and answered questions for awhile, we broke into smaller groups and toured with a few of the alumni. Most of the students hadn't had a chance to get their books, parking permit, etc. yet so we made a lot of stops to do that. We broke up at about 1pm with the alumni inviting us to come to Oakwood, where I'm living, for a barbeque in our honor at 5pm. Sue and I had lunch with a few of our classmates and then headed back to Oakwood.

Just after 5pm I headed to the barbeque for more meeting and greeting. It was a nice casual atmosphere and I got to meet some more folks and get to know some of those I'd met earlier a little better. About an hour into it Denny, 2007's BBQ speaker, gave a toast and the 2007 class presented us with a few gifts. The first was the FIM barbeque tools, that they had received from the 2006 class. One of the FIM traditions is that every Thursday evening, no matter how much work we have to do and how stressed we may feel, we're supposed to have a barbeque. Somehow I was spontaneously elected grillmaster by my class (and perpetual washer of the barbeque tools) and I immediately got to work grilling burgers and dogs with 2007's grill man Mike "Moose" Johnson from Unified Grocers. They also gave us a propane heater since it gets pretty cold as soon as the sun goes down. Stephanie, from Associated Foods, was appointed class handyman and charged with getting the heater assembled by next Thursday and Dawn, from Safeway, volunteered to be our BBQ speaker/toast giver.

The BBQ broke up about 9 and I went back to my apartment to get started on some reading. Today was a great day and I'm even more excited about USC after feeling the enthusiasm from the 2007 class.

Settling In

Not a whole lot to report today. I got the apartment squared away - put things away, washed the dishes, etc. - then ran down the street to Albertson's to pick up a few groceries. I didn't have much time as I was meeting Sue and we were going to USC to take care of some errands, but I wanted to have a few things for when I got back.

The Albertson's on Washington Boulevard, about two miles from Oakwood is right next to a Costco in a little shopping center. The store itself wasn't bad, but the produce was a little sad, the prices were outrageous ($5 a gallon for private label milk!) and the crew was generally unpleasant. I left with only half the things on my short list and was thankful to be leaving.

We left for USC at 10 am, arrived just before 11 (even though it's probably only 18 miles away) and went to get books. Sue had picked hers up a few days before so I was forewarned of possible problems and after only minor difficulty was able to get all the books I needed; there are ten in all:

Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting
Speak Like a CEO
Management of Organizational Behavior
Strengthsfinder 2.0
Type Talk at Work
The Articulate Executive in Action
Why Business People Speak Like Idiots
The One Thing You Need to Know
Communication for Management

I'm glad I have the long weekend to get through some reading before class starts.

We then went to the parking office, were told there weren't any spaces available on campus, convinced the service rep we were special and had prior reservations, filled out the paperwork, were told we couldn't pay with credit cards, went back to the bookstore to find an ATM that would give us $400, found the atms, determined they were broken, found some other atms, got our cash, went back to the parking office and retrieved our permits.

Then it was time to go to Health Services for shots. We both needed an MMR vaccine because we couldn't provide documentation that we'd had them before (though of course we have). This went pretty smooth and we emerged none the worse for being poked with needles and the nurse gave me a lolly pop.

By now it was after 1pm and we were both starving so we hit the student commons for some gyros - I had chicken and Sue had lamb. The food on campus is generally good and there's a tremendous variety to choose from.

After lunch we went back to Oakwood dropped off our stuff, I did a few errands there and then we decided to go to Ralph's. Sue had spotted it a few days earlier when taking her husband back to the airport and had quickly made it "her store" for the duration of our stay.

Ralph's was everything Albertson's wasn't. The store was beautiful, reminding me of the Fairhaven Haggen. It was clean, the product was good, the shelves were stocked and the employees were very friendly. Oh, and the prices were low. So of course it's "my store" now too.

That was about it. Tomorrow is orientation and our chance to meet our fellow students.

Road Trip - Day Three

January 16, 2008

Day Three - Santa Rosa, CA to Marina Del Rey, CA

Frost!

I couldn't believe it! I've driven nearly a thousand miles south to get to the coldest night in the last week! It's ironic that the coldest weather of the whole trip should appear after I've finally made it to sunny California.

I said goodbye to Mike and Amanda and hit the road about 8:30. I would have left earlier, but there wasn't any point as I'd have been stuck in the morning commute traffic. Even then the traffic was heavy until I crossed the Oakland bridge. As I continued to head east to I-5, the concrete jungle receded and I was back on the open road. One thing about California that's easy to forget is that it's so big that there are places with millions of people all on top of each other and then you go 50 miles and there's nothing, but fields for the next hundred miles.

I really wanted to finish the trip today so I pressed on pretty steadily. I didn't stop for lunch until 2 pm when I saw the first In and Out Burger of the trip. For those of you unfamiliar, it's similar to Dick's in Seattle, though a bit fresher and with better fries. After my quick lunch, I continued to roll on south, thankful that the traffic was back to a steady clip over rural plains from the kamikaze chaos of the more urban areas. This was probably my favorite part of the actual drive.

As I approached the hills about a hundred miles north of L.A. the roads got really rough. In fact at one point I actually pulled off the side of the road because I was convinced I had a flat tire. It turns out the tires were fine, it was just the road that needed repair.

I finally rolled into Los Angeles just after 4pm, which was just in time to hit the end of day rush hour. Thankfully most of the traffic was headed out of the city, but it was still heavy enough to take another hour plus to get to Marina Del Rey.

Happy to have arrived, but a bit exhausted from the day's rough ride I checked in to Oakwood at about 5:30 and by the time I'd gone through the paper work, found my apartment and brought all my stuff in it was nearly 7pm. I got a quick bite after calling Sue to let her know I was here, put a few things away and hit the hay. I also called Wendy and Logan to chat for a bit and to hear the new things Logan is saying and doing in the three days I've been away so far.

The day wrapped up with 434 miles for a total of 1359 on the whole trip. The weather was the best I could have hoped for and although long, the drive really wasn't unpleasant. Looking back on it, one of the best things about it was that it gave me a chance to get my mind right; to gradually relocate myself to my new (if temporary) reality. I know it will take some time for me to get acclimated to California and USC, but the drive at least got the process started.

Road Trip - Day Two

January 15, 2008

Day Two - Ashland, OR to Santa Rosa, CA

Another 367 miles down. If yesterday was all about endurance and the steady slog through long miles, today was just the opposite - lots of excitement. Amusingly, today's journey opened with Dean Martin singing "King of the Road" on the radio. The good weather continued to hold, but I was a little nervous to tackle the Siskiyou's this morning. It was cold out and the roads were a little bit icy; the stray water drops froze on the windshield as soon as I got up to speed. There wasn't any snow on the roads though and I didn't have to chain up so that was a bonus. Still, it was exciting coming over the last pass and down into California. I stopped to take a few pictures just over the pass - it really was beautiful.

After that the road opened up and it was smooth sailing. As I got deeper into northern California there were fewer semi trucks than there had been, though still a lot more than I'm used to seeing. The roads were a little rough in some places, but not bad and everyone was cruising along steadily.

By 12:30 pm I had stopped in Vacaville, just onto highway 80 for lunch. There was a little strip mall that looked like it had just been built last week and I wandered into Panera Bread for a sandwich. Nice place, very NorCal - organic, artisan, no trans fat, etc. Then it was back on the road to Santa Rosa.

Vacaville seemed to be the dividing line between a nice comfortable drive and total chaos. No sooner had I gotten back on highway 80 than it opened up into five lanes in either direction and there were suddenly hundreds of cars on the road. Where before everyone seemed content driving at five over the speed limit, suddenly everyone was flying past me at 80 plus mph. Welcome to California!

The last piece of excitement for the day, before pulling into Santa Rosa was on highway 37 where I witnessed my first ever incident of true road rage. One driver made a bad decision to change lanes at the last moment when there really wasn't enough time or distance for safety and cut another driver off. The second driver, clearly angry at being put at risk by the first, proceeded to pull around him and cut him off in turn, putting himself and at least ten other drivers back at risk. This was all done at 75+ mph and was honestly the scariest thing I've ever seen while driving. The second cutoff was so sudden and deliberate that I was certain we were all going to make the news in a bad way. Thankfully, a crash was avoided by mere inches and the two drivers sped off chasing each other down the highway. I ticked off the last few miles to Santa Rosa as my blood pressure ticked back down to normal.

Santa Rosa was actually a little bit out of the way for me, but Wendy and I have some good friends there, Mike and Amanda Visser, and I thought it would be a nice chance to visit and avoid another night at a hotel. They're great hosts and we had an enjoyable dinner at Graffiti, a tapas restaurant in Petalluma, with good food and great service. It was nice to have some company after two days of solitude. That wrapped up the day and after a restful sleep I'm ready for the last leg.

Roadtrip - Day One

January 14, 2008:

Day One - Bellingham, WA to Ashland, OR

558 miles down. Taking Norris Johnson's advice (he made the trip for last year's class) I wanted to get as far into the trip the first day as I could so that I can tackle the Siskiyou Mountains tomorrow morning in the day light. The weather was pretty decent today, traffic was relatively light and it was fairly easy to make good time. 11 hours in the car is still quite a long day - I think I'll be out as soon as my head hits the pillow.