An adventurous childhood led the way to many delightful adventures while living on grandmother’s ranch and attending high school in Atascadero, but this didn’t prepare me for the culture shock of a lifetime when I went from a school with only 132 students to a university that had more than 22,000 students. I survived the shock and it prepared me for more exciting endeavors while doing doctoral work in the biological sciences. This of course led to many new adventures in the pursuit of life‘s fulfillment while doing research and teaching at some of the nations leading universities.