Thursday, June 12, 2014

Went to San Francisco to give Grand Rounds at Moffett (invited by Marcia Glass (Kat Glass’s sister). Timed the trip to coincide with Ali’s graduation from Stanford on June 13-15. Great time; extremely well-received by UCSF community. Visited with Eric Goosby, Jaime Sepulveda and others from UCSF; spent time with students and fellows. Chris and Megan flew to SF with me – I went north to UCSF and they went south to Palo Alto. That evening met in SF for dinner. Great time. Drove back to Palo Alto that night June 13-15, 2014 – Magnificent time at Stanford graduation events. Ali received multiple academic honors in addition to sports honors. Graduated “with distinction” , which means summa cum laude. Also, received Engineering Award and inducted into School of Engineering Honor Society. Socially, had great time. Dinner at NOLA sponsored by Chris and me and the parents of several of the seniors on Ali’s boat – Ad Bax, Dawson’s, etc.. Present at dinner were all the seniors on the boat – Anna Dawson (Olympian), Daphne Martschenko (All- American), Kayla Cornale, Christina Bax, etc. Wonderful, joyous meal. On Thursday night Chris, Jenny, Megan, Ali and I drove to Half Moon Bay and had dinner at Miramar Restaurant by the sea – open pit fireplace and dining by the beach - great wine, calamari, etc. Seems not to get any better than this – so wonderfully proud of Ali who is truly a superstar – self-effacing, but a real superstar. Has another great lunch with the Ayers on Sunday afternoon before I took the “red-eye” back to DC. The formal graduation on Sunday had Bill and Melinda Gates as co-commencement speakers. They were good , but a bit self-congratulatory. I viewed the famous Stanford “Wacky Walk” entrance of the seniors. Ali and friends were dressed as “cars”. Really fun. June 24-25, 2014 – Went to Aspen Ideas Festival. Gave 2 minute “Big Idea “during Opening Ceremony and was on panel on Emerging IDs with Tom Frieden and Yu Wang of China CDC. Moderated by Rich Besser (ABC News). Good panel. Many compliments for this and Big Idea. Met the usual DC glitterati at the festival – Walter Isaacson, Barbara Bush, Bill Frist, Corby Kumar, etc.