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While I did say there would only be a 1% chance of me writing about my mini-vacation to the San Francisco-Bay Area, I did not anticipate a very boring four-hour plane ride. So, here we go (pictures are here):

Day 1:
After landing in San Francisco International Airport at about noon Pacific time, I went with my dad straight out of the airport with our rent-a-car headed for the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto. The campus is very different from that of Columbia, as it is extremely large and beautiful. It was pretty quiet, and we got there early for my dad’s interview, so we walked around a bit. It’s really quite an amazing place to see, with the missionary revival style and everyone biking.

While my dad did his interview, I waited around in the University Library playing on a Mac. Frustratingly, I tried to get on the campus WiFi with my piece-of-junk HP notebook to no avail because, as I learned later, Stanford’s WIFi requires registering your computer or wireless card’s MAC address, unlike Columbia’s open connection. Fortunately, I was able to run Firefox, Adium, and Thunderbird off of my USB key on the Mac.

After the interview, my dad and I drove into San Francisco, where we checked in at a Marriot hotel. In the room, we both crashed and I set up the in-room-high-speed-Internet with the Aiport Express I brought from home, allowing my dad and I to enjoy the connection at the same time, both from the comfort of our beds. After that, we headed out to a nice bistro across the street for dinner, went back to the hotel, and slept.
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