Corvallis and Roseburg, Oregon
February 27 - March 2, 2008
In reality, my last trip was a mere three months ago--a visit to Ithaca, New York that deserves a photo essay but sadly will probably never get one. Even so, three months of Minnesota winter is long enough to make me a little stir crazy, especially in the absence of any real friends or fulfilling work. After examining my grad school options in the area of biological hydrogen production, I was particularly attracted to the work of Roger Ely and Frank Chaplen at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Unlike some professors at other universities, Roger has a useful habit of responding to my e-mail inquiries almost immediately, and after a few exchanges he suggested a visit and even found a way to cover my travel expenses using university money.
So...just before noon on Wednesday, February 27, I hopped on a little Frontier jet with a mountain goat painted on the tail and landed myself in Portland, via Denver, by mid-afternoon. A shuttle bus carried me to within a block of my room, and the housing manager just happened to be walking by as I approached, so I avoided the trouble of tracking him down and waiting. I spent most of the evening just sitting out on the lawn, enjoying the scents, sounds, and feelings of spring and nature that are so conspicously absent from Minnesota this time of year.
My temporary dorm room at OSU
The green man.
I had intended to go to bed early, but I soon found myself engrossed in a mystery novel that kept me up until I finished the whole 300-page book. The next morning, I tried to walk most of the trails and roads on campus to get a feel for the place before my first "official" meeting at 1:30.
My dorm (part of a square four-dorm complex with a central courtyard).
Click on the above picture for more photos of campus.
Me with one of the trio of giant sequoias (~120-140 years old) planted soon after the school was founded.
I sat in on Roger's lab meeting, learning a great deal about the current research as well as some of the difficulties of cyanobacterial culture (creating homozygous mutant lines and maintaining sterile cultures). I spent about 45 minutes discussing research ideas with Roger one-on-one, then he took me out for wine with the grad students. Free for the day around dinner time, I walked downtown for dinner and beer (the beer selection in Corvallis is amazing!), stopped at McMenamin's for dessert, dropped into Bomb's Away cafe to listen to a local folk trio, and hit the sack early.
Friday began in the lab with Hatem, Roger's Egyptian postdoc who is working on creating a functional oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase, among other things. He showed me the great variety of high-precision, expensive equipment in the lab, some of which I was familiar with from college but much of which was new to me. We went out for coffee and discussed cyanobacteria, lab routines, and life in Egypt. After lunch with the grad students, I met with Frank Chaplen and spent another half hour with Roger, after which he concluded we were about 25% finished with our conversation. After a few cookies and a brief speech from the Dean of Engineering, I was back in Roger's office. This time we finally got around to what he was most interested in: my work relationships, ability to work well with others, ability to plan and schedule experiments, etc. Roger has a very personal relationship with all of his grad students, and the lab functions rather like a family. He seemed to be feeling me out to decide if I would fit well with that family. I'm not sure if I passed, but I hope so...
After grabbing some Mexican food and some bubble tea from the little Chinese tea shop on the edge of campus, I wandered down 9th Street in search of the bowling alley to which Dave (one of Roger's grad students) had invited me (as part of a prospective students event for a different engineering department). As it turned out, it was a 2 1/2 mile walk from campus to the bowling alley, and Dave wasn't there. I found out the next day that none of the other invitees showed up, so Dave left shortly before I arrived (late, of course, given that I didn't know the distance, only the street). No bowling, but I did get to see a good deal of the town on foot and get some useful exercise. I stopped through a bar to grab a pint of Arrogant Bastard ale (one of my favorites) before returning to my humble room.
Saturday began with a hike to Bald Hill, the nearest high point (high = 800 feet above sea level....) to OSU. The way there took me across the OSU agriculture pastures along a biking/walking trail.
One of Corvallis's famous covered bridges (on the bike trail).
Alpacas!
Bald Hill, from the bottom
Looking across the Willamette Valley and southern Corvallis from the top of Bald Hill.
Looking northwest into the Coast Range.
An amazingly verdant forest--no leaves yet but plenty of bright green moss, deep green needles, and light green lichen.
Roger called me at lunch, so I didn't have time to take a shower after my hike. He gave me a tour of the town in his car, then took me to his home to meet his family, eat popcorn, and watch Sense and Sensibility. All of which was far more than I expected from a busy professor currently working on 17 publications and several grant proposals, but it reinforced the respect this man has for his students, for me as his guest, and perhaps most importantly for balance in life.
I'm told rainbows are quite common in the Corvallis area. I caught this one during Roger's car tour.
After the movie, I walked about a mile to the Saturday night contra dance, where I remembered some moves, learned some new ones, and met a bunch of extremely friendly Oregon folk-hippie types, including three who had moved there from Minnesota. Contra dance is great fun and great exercise, and I expect I will attend more than a few if I end up in Corvallis.
At one time I had hoped to take a bus to Eugene on Sunday to visit my friend Lily. But as it turned out, Lily was elsewhere, so I revised my plans to a take a bus to the coast. But I misread the bus schedules (the bus leaves at 11:30 pm, not am), and the correct schedules didn't fit with a one-day there-and-back trip. So I had some free time. I started out exploring around downtown and the riverfront area.
The mighty Willamette River.
Crocuses! (along the sidewalk downtown)
Some sort of flowers blooming profusely in somebody's yard.
I explored around the library (which puts Carleton's library to shame - pictures on the campus photos page) for about an hour, then called Roger one last time to say farewell and thank you and to tie up some loose ends. Liz (another of Roger's grad students) called me in response to a message I had left about the contra dance, and she offered to teach me a bit more about work in the lab. I worked on centrifuging cells and making more cell growth media for about an hour, then walked downtown to the Darkside Cinema to watch The Kite Runner, a sad story of two Afghan boys torn apart by the Soviet Invasion and subsequent takeover by the Taliban. After the movie, I had dinner with Liz and Dave, then went back to McMenamin's with Liz and her boyfriend for beer and dessert. Liz said goodbye with a "see you in September," so she at least seems pretty confident that I will be accepted. By the time we finished dessert, it was 10:30 pm, so I returned to my room to pack and await the arrival of Emma, Hannah, and Daniel (Emma is my cousin, though I had never met her previously, Hannah is her amazing 12-year-old daughter, and Daniel is her new husband.)
Story continues with Part 2