Brian Butler:
CLASS OF 1985
South Whidbey High SchoolClass of 1985
Langley, WA
Stanford University - Electrical EngineeringClass of 1990
Stanford, CA
Harvey Mudd CollegeClass of 1989
Claremont, CA
Torrey Pines High SchoolClass of 1985
San diego, CA
Earl Warren Middle SchoolClass of 1981
Solana beach, CA
Brian's Story
---School---
I grew up first in the Point Loma area of San Diego before we moved to Solana Beach.
In San Diego's North County, I went to third grade at Central Elementary School in Solana Beach. After that, I attended Skyline Elementary School (Freymiller 4th, Parker 5th, Calendar 6th). At this time, I was a little geeky & a little social.
Junior High started out at Earl Warren in Solana Beach. Halfway through eighth grade my folks decided to move to Whidbey Island, Washington! It's the largest U.S. island in Puget Sound & quite scenic -- lots of trees, ferns, bays, mountains, harbors, eagles, deer, and big slugs. It has the sort of ocean beaches you go mostly to look for driftwood and clams. The beaches are certainly not for swimming save the very hottest, crazy days. At Langley Middle School on the south end of the island, cultural re-adjustment and trying to make some friends were my new challenges. The locals made fun of my Vans sneakers and surfer wear.
At high school things started getting lots better. At South Whidbey HS, I made many more friends. I played JV baseball and after-school soccer & baseball. Freshman year I was on the academic HiQ team. Halfway through the freshman year I got my first decent haircut and a date to the school dance! Sophomore year, I worked on the annual staff, taking pictures and working in the dark room. The girls' softball team liked to give the photographer a pretty tough time! Also sophomore year, I was elected class president and had a few rather nice girlfriends! My friends and I learned to drive then, so lots of fun was to be had -- such as concerts in Seattle (like Def Leppard). I worked in a Langley restaurant named Al's Place. I learned to water ski in the ocean. Then we moved again! Good for my academic life, bad for my social life.
Back in Solana Beach, California I attended Torrey Pines HS for my final two years. There were a few familiar faces there, but several of my closest friends were in private schools and I was an outsider. I took lots of honors/AP math and science classes and was even forced to take a year of PE with the underclassmen. I made friends with both the school brains and a bunch of the dope-heads. I made acqu...Expand for more
aintance with some of the very popular people too and hence could often find some very good, big parties. Some of these were in the grand estates of Rancho Santa Fe. Wow! At this school it was hard to get a even a casual girlfriend. I don't think it was entirely me, as I could find such both before and after Torrey Pines. Caught some cool concerts: Van Halen, MSG, Oingo Boingo.
---College---
I studied Engineering at Harvey Mudd College in the Los Angeles area. It's a small, but very academically intense school in math and science. Unfortunately or fortunately(!), women are the minority at Mudd. Dating continued to be pretty bad for the first couple years at college. Luckily it shares campus space with other fine schools with higher concentrations of females: Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, CMC. I got to know many fun people at these other schools. In fact, my wife is a Pomona graduate (and also a Torrey Pines HS graduate). I graduated among the top few of my college class.
I lived in South dorm my freshman year. Sophomore year I managed to get some upperclassmen to get my friend and I single rooms again in South, so why not!? It wasn't socially cool, but it had air conditioning! Junior year I was living in West dorm, sharing a fishbowl-double room with a football player. I got to know half the football team pretty well. That roommate ended up marrying the cute Scrippsie that I introduced him to that year. Senior year was in New Dorm.
The summer before grad school, I did an intense 9-week backpacking tour of Europe with my brother. It was awesome! We did our low-budget adventure through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, and England.
I then went to one year of graduate school at Stanford University to get my Masters degree in Electrical Engineering on merit-based fellowship. It was intense bit of schoolwork but a nice visit to the bay area. I was assigned to live in Manzanita Park -- the 20 year old mobile home park. We had several interesting experiences that year -- the damage to many buildings on campus during 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the start of the Simpsons, and the visit by the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev to campus.
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