Ice Cavern Studios

So reunions is finished. I'm packing. I'm moving. I'll post more later.

Life and Times, Princeton

Man oh man. I made it. The first day of reunions as Student Conductor of the Princeton University Band is over. I can’t believe that it went so well. Hell, I can’t believe I got this far at all. I don’t know, it’s just a good feeling to get through something like this and do it well.

Yeah, today was awesome. The first reason it was awesome was that our mini p-rade went well. The mini p-rade is where the band goes from reunion to reunion playing for two hours during lunch on the Friday of Reunions. According to the clue posted by Princeton alum, Irwin Tillman, this is known as the �Golden Time,� and it is vitally important to hit as many reunions as possible. In the clue it says that a successful mini p-rade hits six reunions. Ours hit five, and we would have hit a sixth, but the 25th reunion actually had lunch in a different spot, so when we showed up to play, they were there. Mind you we had plenty of time to play for them, but eh, I’m going to call it a successful mini p-rade route.

In the evening came both the class of �39 and the class of �58 gigs. Both of these gigs are extremely important. The �39 gig because the class of �39 have been very good to the Band, as well as the university. We do this gig for free and I love it to death. Especially because I get to hang out with some of the old guard of Princeton. These guys are awesome, and it is the greatest pleasure to just get the opportunity to be in the same yard as them, let alone schmooze with them later. This gig went alright, we had a few mishaps (like being 15 minutes late due to traffic) but it went ok. They really don’t care, they just like the fact that we are there.

The other gig, the class of �58, gig is incredibly important because, well, few classes have as much spirit, or support the university as much as �58. They give moral, spiritual, and monetary support to the university, and they are a truly lively bunch to play for. I am happy to say, that in my six months of conductor, few gigs have ever gone as well as the class of �58 gig did this year. The band sounded awesome, I didn’t screw up, and because it was a major reunion for the class (45th ) there were a lot of them there. I mean, what more can you ask for, but that was definitely a great performance.

Besides gigs, I did�stuff�um�yeah�I don’t really remember right now, but it probably ruled. Anyway, off to sleep. I have a huge day ahead of me (which I will right about in great deal about sometime this week). Alright, party on!

Life and Times, Princeton

At this point in my life, I am incredibly pissed off at Princeton University. Why? Well, to begin, all of my grades were due on MONDAY. It is now THURSDAY, and I still don’t have all of my grades. I am also rather pissed about the fact that it is 9:49 in the morning, and I’ve been waiting around for Princeton to send linens to where I am so I can make beds for community service, which they are making me do. Why does this piss me off? Because I’ve been here since 9:00.

Personally, I’m rather confused, especially since, the class that has failed to report is my Electrical Engineering class. I don’t know, maybe I’m used to the CS department getting things done efficiently, but come on. How hard is it to grade intro level courses when you have TA’s. I mean, it seems pretty simple to me. You grade the exam, you enter the scores into the computer, you tally numbers, set grades, and turn them in. Not really a complicated process. Other, less technologically advanced departments seem to not have a problem with this. I mean, hell, the Visual Arts department manages to be fairly good about this.

So now I am beginning to wonder what exactly happened to the grades. I think there a number of possibilities. This first is that they decided to individually walk each grade over to the registrar, in ascending order, sorted by login ids. Meaning, at wmorton, I’m going to be last. Or maybe, they calculating grades by abacus. Why use modern technology, when we can do things old school�correction, ancient school. Or better yet, they are doing this to create a sense of anxiousness amongst the undergrads, as if the class wasn’t painful enough. Bah.

Yeah, if you can’t tell, I’m a tad cranky. I don’t like getting up earlier than I need to. And it really urks me when I am told I have to get up, only to find out that people don’t have their sh#t together enough for me to begin the menial task that are making me do. And I thought CAEN was run inefficiently. I mean, the least they could do is find something for us to DO while we’re here, instead of making us wait like a bunch of idiots. Alright, enough of this, I’m going to go fall asleep on a couch.

Life and Times, Princeton

Today, I witnessed one of the most disgusting things I will ever see. I watched twenty of my bandmates take part in the White Castle Meat Product Tolerance Marathon. It was, quite scary. Some where in the total of 410 White Castle burgers were consumed. For those of you who have never had one, a White Castle burger is possibly one of the grossest things every created, and for some reason, my friends ate a LOT of them.

Besides, that, it was a pretty fun day. The band took a fun trip the Jersey Shore for a bit of sun (there was a little), surf (although it was too cold to go into the water) and video games (read ski-ball). We spent a couple of hours on the Jersey board-walk just kind of going back and forth between the beach, cheesy (overpriced) carnival rides, and the various stands and shops. I personally had a great time, although it left me very tired afterwards. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but I had to conduct a rehearsal.

Fortunately, I was able to get a bite to eat before having to actually go to the rehearsal. That helped rejuvenate me, and I felt it showed. The rehearsal went really well (in my humble [don't say anything] opinion). We went over a good deal of music, got some songs to sound pretty good, and even managed to end things on a good note (no pun intended) rehearsal wise.

Of course, after the rehearsal came the before mentioned White Castle competition. I’m not going to go into all that much detail; mainly because I do not want people to become completely grossed out. But yeah�it was�an experience. As it always is. The basic idea of the competition is to go and try to eat as many White Castle burgers (called Sliders) as possible. This ultimately becomes a quite raunchy thing to watch, smell, participate in.

As was the case last year, I chose not to participate. While some may view this as not being in the spirit of the band; I am going to say that there are some people who, for various reasons, never participated, and yet were still very much in the spirit of the band. The main reason I do not participate is that I did my freshman year, and after eating 10 sliders, I have found it hard enough to simply be AROUND the burgers, let alone trying to eat them.

That being said, I cheered on, and sometimes taunted at their request, my friends as they tried to break last years team record. You can only imagine the kind of record that needed to be broken if they ate in excess of 400 Sliders. What is scarier still, is that they in fact broke that record. It was quite disgusting. What was especially disgusting was that ten people ate twenty or more of the nasty little things. Man, I don’t even want to imagine what is happening in their stomachs at this moment. But, to those who took part, I congratulate you, and if you needed, I will gladly go and buy you some Tums.

Life and Times, Princeton

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a post. Why? Well, let’s just say that being a Princeton student during finals time is fun for the entire family. Oh boy�

So the first thing, the time after reading period has sucked pretty hard core. I’ve been a complete busy nutcase for a little over a week and a half. I was hoping that things would turn out well, but unfortunately, I was not so lucky. I was originally thinking that having so much due Dean’s Date would actually mean that my final’s period would be really really light. Boy was I wrong.

First off, as soon as I finished all the stuff for dean’s date, I had to start getting ready for my Photo final critique. This was, generally, a fun process, but I also knew that it would mean staying up pretty late to get stuff finished. The first day wasn’t all that bad. Just a lot of printing that I had to due. The printing process is generally pretty cool. Doesn’t require all that much work. Wait, who am I kidding. Printing is actually a shit-ton of work. And at times I enjoy it (when pictures turn out well quickly), but at others, I just wish I could do things digitally and be done with it (when pictures don’t turn out so well). At least I was able to avoid trying to print out pictures that I knew would be a lot of work with very little return.

After printing came the fun task of having to get everything matted. I actually enjoy the matting process. It appeals to my more meticulous nature. Matting is seriously just dumb grunt work that has to be done, but it makes all the prints look really nice. Unfortunately, having to do so many mattes meant that I had to spend a lot of time matting. This processes had me up all night before the critique. I probably could have gotten a few hours of sleep, but I needed to take a study break and went with my friends to see the Matrix Reloaded. (The jury is still out on the Matrix 2. I need to see it again before I can make any major judgments.)

So then came the day of the critique. Let’s just say, my critique sucked. Well, it could have been worse, but I found out that the style of pictures that I had liked to take, and my professor originally liked, really wasn’t that good. This was kind of an annoying thing to find out when I was at the final. Bah. I haven’t gotten the grade yet either, which is also annoying, seeing as how he didn’t collect anything for the critique and it was over a week ago. I don’t think I’ll do poorly in the class, but still.

I don’t remember much of the weekend, I spent most of it sleeping and vegging. I was pretty burned out at that point. Having to do so much work sucked and I just wanted to sleep. I remember playing video games and spending time with Sarah, Mel, and Pat, but that’s really about it. It was a blur, and I guess it’s good that it was like that. I couldn’t handle another weekend like the one before it. I was burned out enough as it was.

So after that was the demo of my final project for Databases. I think I t went well. My professor and I got into some interesting discussions about the choices I had made. Especially on the features I added just before the presentation. Hopefully that went well. Otherwise, eh, I did my best, not going to worry about it. I haven’t gotten that grade back either, but I’m not going to be upset. My professor hadn’t finished grading things, and she had a lot to get graded so it’s cool.

Finally came my Ele 206 final. I hated this class. I say that because it’s over. I’m happy for this. The exam is hard, but everyone thought that and I think I did alright. I’m not going to worry, I’ll do alright in the class. But I spent a good deal of time studying for the final. I feel good about that. I actually managed to learn some things. It’s scary that I had to wait till all of my other classes were finished, but hey it’s over. That and Algorithms, which I will never study again. Ever. Let me repeat this. I hate this class with a passion.

So that puts us here, last weekend. For those of you who don’t go to Princeton, the last weekend of the exam period is fun. Mainly, because while a few unfortunate souls have exams on Saturday, the rest of the university is busy packing up and moving out. Even if you are staying for Reunions, you usually have to switch rooms, unless you are very very lucky. I got lucky this year. Of course, I still had to get stuff put into the Student Storage Agency because there isn’t room at my parents house to take everything home and the last day they take things is the last Saturday. So I spent all the time Thursday and Friday that I wasn’t doing ELE to get my room packed up.

Packing was kind of depressing. It’s always sad when the end of the year comes. It’s sad because there is a whole academic year of history in a room, and to pack it up means that the time there is up. It was especially had having to begin turning off computers. There were at one point thirteen in our room. Now we’re down to six working. Even less will be working in a few days. It’s very sad. *shrugs*

So with packing came moving boxes. Not only did I have to move the boxes I had packed, but there was also the task of helping Sarah move, as well as Pat. While Sarah had to get stuff packed and moved to a different room, Pat had to get his stuff to his parents car. Oh�I guess I didn’t mention that. Sarah’s, Pat’s, and Melissa’s parents all came to Princeton to move their children’s things this past weekend. This was definitely fun. Besides the fun of everyone’s parents meeting everyone else’s, I got to meet Sarah’s parents.

Meeting Sarah’s parents was actually quite fun. I had met them briefly at a football game, but it wasn’t as Sarah’s boyfriend. Now normally, the guy is supposed to be really scared by this. For some reason, I wasn’t. Instead, Sarah got to be incredibly terrified by the whole thing. She kept going on about bad past experiences. I don’t know. She’s silly, and nothing bad happened. I like Sarah’s parents. I think they like me. So it’s all good.

So that brings me to today. I slept a lot. Chilled. Actually moved Sarah to her new room (moving to Reunions housing happens on the Sunday). I mean, it’s been a chill day. I’m not sure what is up for tomorrow. In theory, I am going to the New Jersey Aquarium, I’m not sure if I’m going. Mainly because I have to see about migrating this site to the CS computers. I know what I have to do, it’s going to be a lot of grunt work and I don’t want to do it, but still. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted. Later all.

Life and Times, Princeton