Herr doctor

On Saturday night Dr. Hugh Herr was the keynote speaker at dinner. He was a child prodigy climber who lost both feet due to frostbite (he and a friend spent three nights in -20F temps after getting lost in a blizzard). Now he designs, builds, and wears bionic legs.

After his talk paradox invited him to come drinking with us. I thought he would be a boring professor but he isn't. He told me as we sat down at a table that he had just gotten back from Geneva after giving an important talk. I was like "Oh, I thought you went there to eat chocolate" and he said "I did eat chocolate, and it was decadent".

Of course all the amps wanted to know more about his legs, and when they would be available. His legs have flashing lights on them like R2D2 and they have processors on them. I asked him if someone could hack his legs and he said "definitely" and we were joking that someone would make him walk somewhere he didn't want to go (I was picturing him being forced to walk into a sleezy lingerie and sex shop).

Somehow we ended up with two bottles of wine on the table. Dr. Herr poured me a third glass of wine and I was like "dude" because I was afraid I would start babbling like a drunken idiot. He said "you're hotel is close by isn't it? you don't have to drive" and I was like "yeah, but I still have to walk there" prompting great laughter from around the table. I was the only one there with two legs.

Then Dr. Herr said he was thinking about starting a facebook page for his legs, and that he wanted to set up an account so they could send out tweets like "Dr. Herr is walking to starbucks". I started trying to explain the episode of Wallace and Grommet called "the wrong pants" but everyone was asking him questions so I started talking to Rob about side stix.

It was a fun evening, unfortunately cut short at midnight when the bar threw us out for being too noisy. I have to say most non-profit events I've attended in the past were boring with weird people. No Barriers was like a non-stop adrenaline fueled party and I met lots of cool people that I will hopefully be climbing and hiking with in the future.