One Time At Physics Camp

My wife and I have been empty nesters for this past week. Last Sunday morning we put our son on a plane to California. As dedicated readers of this blog know, our family does a lot of traveling, so he is no stranger to airplane travel. Starting when he was about five, my mom or dad would fly up in the summer and escort him back to Florida for a few weeks with them. As he got older, we got comfortable booking a direct flight between Baltimore and Florida and putting him on the plane at one end knowing my folks would pick him up at the other end. He has also flown with us plenty to places like California, France, and Vietnam.

A few summers ago, we made the mistake of visiting the Stanford campus (remember, I like to visit colleges and bookstores on vacation) and took the campus tour. My son liked this whole techie-fuzzie metaphor they spieled, and there is something impressive about standing on a corner where the Gates Computer Science Building is across the street from the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center. He took a liking to the campus and the alleged laid-back California lifestyle and added Stanford to his college wishlist.

This year he took the PSAT which gets him on the mailing list to every college in the country. Many of these colleges also run summer programs for high school students. When Stanford e-mailed him an application for a summer enrichment program, our son expressed an interest, especially since one of the courses was in relativity and physics was his favorite course this year.

The application was fairly involved, requiring essays, transcripts, and recommendations. We told him that if he could get the packet together with a minimum amount of nagging on our part, and he was accepted, we would think about it. Well, he and Stanford both called our bluff and we agreed to send him.

That leads us to getting him out there. There are no direct flights to San Francisco from Baltimore, so we booked a flight with a connection in Columbus and a one-hour layover. When we arrived at the airport bright and early at 5 am to check his luggage, I got real nervous when the e-ticket machine kept telling us to see an agent. It seems the first leg of his flight was delayed several hours and they had to rebook him through Newark. The new itinerary only gave him 15 minutes to switch gates for his connection.

Fortunately in this world of cell phones, we are able to maintain contact across the country. We told him to call us when he was on the plane in Newark and when he was on the bus to Stanford. In the meantime we called the summer program and let them know about the change in flights. We got both calls and know he arrived safely. My wife wants daily phone calls or e-mails from him, but I don’t know how often that will happen. One night he called us from the middle of a game of four square to say he couldn't talk long because it was his turn. That is truly clever passive-aggressive behavior.

Physics Camp lasts for three weeks, which is three weeks he won’t spend in the den slack-jawed playing Warcraft and downloading anime. I think it will be a good experience and hopefully keep him focused on academic goals for the next two years.

We only bought him a one-way ticket. We plan to pick him up on our cross-country road-trip. More about that soon.