February 2 & 3, 2007
Harvey Mudd Family Weekend
Odette and I flew down to Claremont for Parents Day and the inaguration of HMCs new president and to deliver Will’s razor scooter to him. We stayed in the Doubletree at the Old Schoolhouse a couple blocks away from the campus. I had trouble all week getting time with the new president of PASC so when he offered me half-an-hour right before I was going to leave I called Odette to tell her to pick me up at work. She called 20 minutes later (in the middle of my meeting) to complain that she was stuck in traffic. We got to the airport and through security just fine and then sat for an hour or so waiting for the flight. I took my new camera and my old iBook in a Crumpler backpack.
Claremont is only a few minutes from the Ontario airport and Will called just after we found the hotel to discourage us from visiting his classes. We went anyway, after a big breakfast and walking the few blocks to campus. We sat in on his multivariable calculus class and I followed a surprising amount of it. Odette and Will went to Chemistry while I went to the career planning presentation. Will said that the Chemistry class was staged. He refused to let us go to his Pragmatism class. The weather was warm in the sun but cool at night – a welcome relief from Seattle. I got a blister on my left foot from the short walk in my work shoes.
Will had lunch with us and we visited his dorm room. The courtyard of West looked like a battle zone and Odette spotted an airsoft gun in his closet. That added an element of tension to the rest of the weekend. Will showed me his broken scanner. It looked like the cog on one end of the positioning ribbon had popped out. Somebody who knew what they were doing and who had the right tools could probably fix it in two minutes. We had openhouses and stuff all afternoon while Will was in class. One of the events was a President’s pannel with a student and the president from each of several colleges. The girl from Pomona was almost a caricature – english major who also took organic chemistry while working with pregnant nuns in Argentina. After serving in the Peace corps she wants to go to medical school and then cure aids in Africa. The Mudd guy talked about how important his homies were. We picked Will up and tried to find a Thai restaurant he had been to. We ended up eating Sushi at a pretty good place in the village.
The next morning we walked the campus and then went to the kickoff meeting for the new strategic plan. There were “showcase” events after that – robotics and a mathemagician. Then burgers with Will and hanging out until the inaguration. A lot of pagentry – kind of a mix of informality and traditional trappings. The music was good.
We went to the pizza place in the village for dinner. Sunday we spent at Mt. Baldy. We got to the airport two hours early and found that our flight had been delayed two hours. Ultimately, we took off at 8:30 and got to Seattle at 11:00. We picked up my car at PASC and got home at midnight. Odette couldn’t figure out how to compress her morning meanderings so we set the alarm for 5:45. Not sure I want to do that again.