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| 500 pictures from Europe: http://cede.psu.edu/~gee5000/industrytourpics/
(All the crazy drinking pictures have been weeded out.... just kidding,
there were no crazy drinking pictures and you know it... although there
were some that did give that illusion falsely... but I'm not letting
blackmail material like that out so easily).
The trip was amazing. Three weeks is a long time to be away from
home and out of the country, though. But it certainly was, as we
would say, a glorious trip. The first week consisted of tours of
various French companies in rural northern France (highlights included
a steel mill, transmission manufacturer, engine manufacturer, pork
processing plant, the socialist energy company, etc). We stayed
in the dorms of the school that we collaborated with for our project, a
school that was pretty run down, but we survived.
We spent three days in Paris with the whole group of 10, which was
really cool. The first night we basically walked the whole city
and saw some of the major sights at night. During our first full day,
we spent a good amount of time in the Louvre and afterwards we went up
the Eiffel Tower (climbed as far as they would let us... ~700 steps....
and took the elevator up to the top). That night we hit the
Moulin Rouge [I have never felt more out of place in my life].
The next day we took a train out to see Versailles, which was, of
course, incredible. The Hall of Mirrors was unfortunately under
renovation though, but we still saw most of the palace. The
gardens and the Queens' Hamlet (where Marie Anntionette took her
children to live like "commoners") were also incredible.
Afterwards we did some sightseeing and shopping on the
Champs-Elysee. We had planned to leave for Germany the next
morning but due in part to a train strike, all the trains were
booked. We wound up getting seats... er, beds... on a sleeper
train to Frankfurt that night and spent the day killing time in the Tuilerie Gardens
outside the Louvre.
We eventually recovered from there and got to our original destination,
Cologne. There was an amazing cathedral there (and we climbed all
the way to the top) and we got a taste of the German experience.
We decided on the spur of the moment to go to Aachen in the middle of
the day and see some of the remnants of Charlemagne's reign. The
next day we took a sightseeing boat down the Rhine River for most of
the day. The route was full of some awesome castles and views.
Next stop was Interlaken, Switzerland. We took a 2 AM train out
of Germany and caught as much sleep on the train as we could and got in
early in the morning. The town is fairly rural, nestled between
two lakes (hence the name) and the Alps. On the first day, the other three guys
decided to go "canyoning," where they went and, from what I understand,
jumped off Alpine cliffs and waterfalls. I spent the day
wandering the town and taking in the great views. On the second
day, we hiked pretty much to the top of an Alpine mountain in a nearby
town (elevation: 1700+ m).
From there it was on to Italy, first with a few days in Florence.
After getting there it didn't take us much time to find out how much
charm and historic value is zapped by the hustle and bustle of city
life and the pushy Italian ways (Italian drivers make Jersey drivers
look like safety experts... I can't even begin to count the numbers of
times we were in mortal danger on account of Italian drivers).
The hostel we stayed in was not exactly Marriot business suite quality
and the other patrons weren't exactly in that upper class business
traveler crowd either. It was down right scary the lack of
responsiblity of
anyone there (it was run by 20 year olds who were pretty much drunk
and played loud music night and day). Our room with 15 beds had
one working 15 watt bulb. For all intents and purposes, the
shower and toilet were all but unusable. And the kicker, it was
the most expensive place we stayed at the whole time. But I
digress. We actually did get to see some great sights while we
were there, including the main church, the Duomo, Accademia (the museum
with the sculpture of David) and some great views of the outskirts of
town and the main river.
Last stop was the grand finale of four days in Rome.
At this
point the trip was starting to wear on us, but we still were able to
see most of the major historic sites. It was quite hot during our
time there so that also zapped some of our energy, but we did make it
to the Colliseum (or as I like to call it, Veterans Stadium version
1.0) and the Forum on our first day. On the second day we made it
to the National Museum of Rome, which has a great collection of mosaics
and some neat recreations of Roman rooms, and then went back to go into
the Colliseum. On the final day, we revisited the Forum and tried
to decipher everything, went to the remains of the Bath of Diocletion
and, by chance, met a tour guide who helped us find some of the best
pizza and gelatos in Rome.
The third day was our day in the Vatican. It was excessively
crowded and hot but we did manage to see the weekly papal blessing
(none of us were Catholic, but it was a neat experience
nevertheless). We then had to wait in line for a while to get
into the Vatican Museum, a large art museum that culminates in the
Sistine Chapel. After that, we went through St. Peter's Basilica,
including the lower level that had the tomb of John Paul II.
In all we took 25 different trains on the entire trip. My friend
Erik shot 10+ hours of video during the trip with his new camcorder and
we're going to edit it down into a DVD next school year.
Side-note: Europeans have no free-market economic sense
whatsoever. But I guess it's a mystery why their top economies
have unemployment rates in the double-digits. Another side-note:
the United States is the greatest country in the world... PERIOD... not
open to discussion.
Anyway, moving on to our second major topic: the already
legendary Conestoga Class of 2005. And, as it appears on Ch. 14,
the seniors sucessfully graduated.
Congratulations to you all. Of course, all the usual
sentimental stuff almost goes without staying.
Luckily, on account of the Menendez/Krone graduation party (thanks
guys!), I did get to see an amazing amount of the cool contingent of
the senior class together in an opportunity probably unlike any that will be in the future.
My sappy contribution will come courtesy of Mr. Bob Dylan's "Forever
Young". [A song I was reminded of, in case you were wondering, because
of its inclusion on the DVD of The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's
incredible take on The Band's final concert]
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young.
So what else is exciting? Hmmmm....
Well there's going to be a sequel to Live Aid entitled Live 8 and
Philly again gets to host the US portion. And, once again, we get
a line-up that dramatically pales in comparison to that in
London. Actually, the Philly line-up is straight up embarrasing
in comparison to the first one. 50 Cent, P. Diddy, Maroon 5,
Jay-Z... especially as opposed to the reunion of Pink Floyd and all the
other great classic rock artists in London...are you kidding me? I will
probably go to join the other
million or so attendees on July 2, desperately hoping for some surprise
guests. (I'm still holding out hope the rumor of Bruce, The
Rolling Stones and Elton John joining in comes true).
In sports news, it is nice to see the Phillies playing red-hot
baseball. Let's keep it up for once. Once again, the
biggest Philly athlete of the year is a horse, but, hey, we'll take
what we can get.
Any way, I need to find something to occupy my time this summer.
Maybe a job pushing papers around some office for $10/hour. I'm
still working on that one...
| | |
| Life has been good lately. I've seemed to be especially happy over the last
few days, which is pretty remarkable considering there's less than a week to go before
finals.
I just got back from an amazing Sting concert, during which he finally
dusted off the old Police classics for the first time in 25 or so
years. I had great floor seats that I got for a great price on
eBay. The opening band was Phantom Planet ("California here we
come") and they actually weren't very good, except for the performance
of the quoted song. Sting was fantastic though and put on a great
show. His four-piece band included the lead guitarist from the
"other" band Bruce played with in the early 90s. There
was also a pretty technologically complex light show that backlit the
stage, complete with the requisite red for Roxanne. The first
five songs were all incredible rockers (Message in a Bottle/Demolition
Man/Spirits in the Material World/Synchronicity II/If I Ever My Faith
in You) and really set the tone. It seems like aging classic
rockers are still all the rage.
This concert also coincided with the release of a new Springsteen album
and my receiving of the 1985 Live Aid 4 DVD set from Amazon. I
walked about a half-hour each way to go to Best Buy to pick up the new
album (under $10!). It was released in this new DualDisc format
with audio on one side and DVD content on the other. The album is
good, if not strange, with
everything from very dark acoustic songs to more upbeat nearly full
band songs. I won't be able to catch any of the tour since he is
playing insanely small venues and because I'll be in the US when he's
touring Europe and in Europe when he's touring the US. My fingers
are crossed
that the rumors of a full-band album in the fall and a remastering of
Born to Run with a '75 DVD release will come true. It was also a
great day for the DVD I ordered of one of the greatest concerts [Live
Aid in 1985, almost all the stars of the day in one globally broadcast
concert staged in London and Philly] ever to arrive (10 hours+), which
I know will be amazing but I haven't had much time to enjoy.
Anyway, every month or so the Honors College has some social activity and on
Monday they were hosting one called "Paterno Pride." They
advertised it as basically just a way to get free food with "many
surprises." I had been wondering if that meant that Coach himself
would show up, but I didn't really think that was realistic. But
I was wrong. So I ran scrambling to charge camera batteries and
find something to try to get signed. He went around and talked to
people for a while and then gave an improptu speech on his thoughts
about Honors students and the state of the world today. After
that he went around and talked to some more people and sporadically
signed autographs.
With me, of course, not being content to get a
pedestrian piece of Penn State apparel signed grab my Heinz-Kerry
protesting, battle-wounded Bush/Cheney sign to try to get signed.
I though it wouldn't happen as JoePa was about leave and someone said
he wouldn't sign anything else, but he saw my sign and I told him my
story and did get it signed. My friend
Erik got his whole speech and him signing my sign on film with his new
digital camcorder (that he incidently bought to take to Europe).
Which leads me to my next point of discussion with myself, my upcoming
trip to Europe. My last final is next Friday afternoon and I have
to get everything moved out of my room and back home to be on a plane
that Sunday night, with packing and prep for three weeks in foreign
countries done in the meantime. Sounds like fun... I think we may finally have most
of a plan down. The first week is touring various
companies/factories in France and then going to Paris for three
days. Then a group of four of us are going on our own to go to
Cologne, Germany for 2 days (hopefully taking a tourist boat ride down
the Rhine), rural Switzerland for 2 days, Florence for 2 days and Rome
for 4 days. I'm really excited and nervous at the same time.
Sunday night I went to see a group of comedians being headlined by Dane
Cook. Apparently he's all the rage now. It was a pretty
good show, a little crude for my taste, but solid. I've heard the show was
filmed for an HBO TV special but I don't know if that's true or not.
Saturday was the annual Blue and White game, the springtime Penn State
intersquad scrimmage. The only problem was that the weather was
terrible -- we wound up leaving
after half-time and still getting soaked. It was nice to be back
at Beaver Stadium, though, and at half-time they brought back the
undefeated '94 team including luminaries such as Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana
Carter, Kyle Brady and some other heavy hitters. That night there
was a free concert right outside my dorm by Rusted Root, which I saw
most of that was pretty good.
Last week there was a speech by Steve Forbes that I really
enjoyed. At the end I got up to the open mics to try to ask him
his opinions on the relative merits of a flat income tax versus a
consumption tax. I was sixth in line and only five questions were
asked but then someone offered me a ticket to the reception afterwards,
so I got to meet him, talk to him quickly and get my picture taken with him.
So in summary, there is always a great deal going on here. Penn State really is a great place.
Regardless, however, finals will soon rear their collectively ugly head. My
Physics E&M final is not going to be fun. And, most likely,
neither will be my Multivar Calc final, nor my Diff Eq final nor my
Engineering Mechanics final. But then again, my school year is
over in less than 9 days, so I can count my blessings. And right
now, I still feel great and it's a nice change of pace.
| | |
| As Southside Johnny would sing.... "It's been a loooooooooooong time."
Remember me?
Even though I highly doubt any of my maybe three loyal readers even
bother checking to see if I updated my Xanga (it would have been wise to give up), it just occured to me
that it's been quite a while since I last posted.
So I guess that means a lot is new. I'm back at school after
throughly wasting 10 days of my life doing very little
productive. Even the things I really should have done didn't get
done. I have an exam on Multivariable Calc this Thursday on a
bunch of material I don't understand. And that's along with
assignments due early this week in just about every class. And
then the three days after Easter I have a Differential Eqs. exam on
Monday, Engineering Mechanics exam on Tuesday and a Physics E&M
(ick) exam on Wednesday. So it starts again.
But I did get a good deal of sleep over break and that is most definitely good. I'm still tired
now for some reason though. Maybe it was staying up until 4 every
morning. Maybe... And maybe I should be in bed now.
But the semester is half way over. Right after my finals (meaning
less than two days after), I will be going to Europe for about three
weeks, which
will be my first time abroad (and even my first time on an airplane....
I don't get out much). The ten highest finishers in a competition
for our Engineering Design class get to go on this industry tour in
France, which lasts a few days and then to Paris. But after that,
we're allowed to stay (the Honors College basically just pays for
airfare and some travel expenses) and do whatever we want. So
five or so of us are planning on staying for an extra week and a half
and touring Prague, Switzerland and finally Rome. I'm especially
excited about seeing Rome after spending 6 or so years of studying
Latin and Roman culture. Maybe that Latin will come in handy in
the Vatican, the only Latin-speaking left country in the world.
Or
maybe not. Europe and I have our political differences, but this
all seems very exciting.
Before break the big excitement was Jerry Seinfeld's fantastic comedy
show. It was all new material since the show
and he put on a show that only he could. At the end he even came
out to answer questions from the audience and I got some video on my
camera of him doing his "Hello Newman" bit. Overall an awesome
experience.....one more thing to cross off my (currently fictitious)
life-long "Must Do" list.
I now see that there is a Spoke webring, which is awesome (thanks
Susan). Actually the point when I realized that I hadn't posted
on Xanga in a while was when I saw 10 members in the Spoke group and I
was at the bottom of the list for updates by a solid 4 months. One
of the things I did get to do over break was attend Spoke
production. It was amazingly fun with no deadlines to meet and no
homework due the next day. Finally it was my turn to kill
productivity.
And so it's time for March Madness. It is maddening that Penn
State can never seem to field even a respectable team (geez, even
Bucknell made it into the tourney this year). So 'Nova's going to
have to be my team this year (interestingly the last Philadelphia team
to win a national championship, before my time in 1985).
New Springsteen album comes out on April 26. I'm looking forward to it
but am prepared to be dissapointed as it will be an acoustic-ish effort
and not a full E Street Band rocker. And it's getting a parental
advisory warning.... maybe it's a Bush administration conspiracy to get
back at Bruce all he's done.
In other random ruminations.... if you still use Internet Explorer, you
shouldn't. Firefox is exponentially better and more secure.
| | |
| Ah, insanity. Escalating insanity. Less than a week to go until the election and I think my head is going to explode. I'm now checking the Drudge Report every five minutes or so as not to miss anything. There is so much going on here related to the election that it's a wonder I have any time to get work done or sleep (both of which I'm currently doing very little of).
Where do I even start? This weekend was Homecoming Weekend, so there was a parade and a great number of other things going on. Michael Moore was giving a speech (courtesy of $23,000 from student activity fees  ) at the basketball arena. Luckily, nationally-syndicated conservative radio talk show host Mike Gallagher decided to come to Penn State to counter his appearance. He broadcast his national radio show from a hotel in town. I skipped my CompSci lab to go and it was pretty cool. I briefly got to meet him and get an autograph. He was originally planning to just premier FahrenHYPE 9/11 from a huge new auditorium that holds 700 or so. They then also got a copy of Stolen Honor to show and had the producer come and talk about it. In the end, it was standing room only and I would guess around 1000 showed up. Some probably even got turned away. But it was a great and high-energy atmosphere. FahrenHYPE was excellent and tears apart just about everything in the original. Most of it was written by Dick Morris, so naturally it was good. Quote of the movie: "Give me enough footage of Michael Moore and I can make him look like an anorexic right winger," said Bush-supporting actor Ron Silver.
The event was even one of the top headlines at GOPUSA.com - http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/october/1022_grassfire_gallagher.shtml. I helped set-up and sell items during and afterwards, so it was a long night, but totally awesome. Here are some pictures from the two events: http://www.mikeonline.com/freephotos?action=viewPhotoSet&photoSetID=31.
The Homecoming football game against Iowa was at 12:00 the next day. There was a Students for Bush tailgate beforehand that I wandered around without finding for a solid hour. I finally did find it and then went to find Rick Santorum, who was campaigning for Bush outside the stadium with the help of students. Chalk that up to another political celebrity I've met since being here. I was disapointed I missed his speech earlier in the week, but at least I met him later on. Interestingly enough, he founded the current chapter of the Penn State College Republicans in 1977. How cool is that?
We just found out today that Bush 41 is coming to campus to speak on Friday. Then, Cheney's giving a speech late that afternoon about an hour away, so I will skip Calc and go if I can get a ride. Howard Dean and Gloria Steinem are coming on Thursday. On Saturday, I'm missing the Ohio State game (it's away, at least) to make $50 as part of the Bush/Cheney 72-Hour Team.
Why am I here again? Oh, that's right, to go to school. That all kind of got lost in the shuffle. So far things haven't been too bad work-load wise. I'm still not sure how grades will end up, but we'll see.
Oh, then sports. Riiight. The Penn State-Iowa game was one of the most pathetic offensive performances I have seen in my life. Our defense was fantastic but the offense more than made up for it with its ineptitude. They decided to make it another "White Out" game and have the whole student section in white and I was in the senior section again. But, this time, I was in the S-Zone (every game they give students in a certain section blue and white T-shirts so it spells out 'S' for 'State') - in blue, so I got a free t-shirt out of the deal, too. The Eagles-Browns game was unneccesarily exciting at the end, but was overall a well fought-game and a great offensive showing. 6-0 with T-O! From what I hear, 'Stoga's still holding it down undefeated. Very good stuff... (My teams: Eagles 6-0; Conestoga 8-0; Penn State UH-OH)
By the way Spokesters.... I thought the first issue was excellent. I haven't had time to fully read over every article (I will, trust me), but from what I saw I was very impressed.
Anyway, I really should get some sleep. I would like this semester to be over soon with me obtaining a really high GPA - I'd feel so much better about everything. Oh, and "Four more years!" | | |
| Besides the football game, I really didn't do much today. Although the game certainly was enough excitement for one day. I think it's one of the most enjoyable games that I've seen, even though they lost. Every part about it was intense. We lost 13-20 to the undefeated and #9 ranked Purdue Boilermakers [BTW, can someone explain to me how this is a legitimate team name?] with a Heisman-caliber quarterback who hadn't thrown an interception all season [he's now thrown two, so you do the algebra]. There were over 108,000 people there [one of the largest crowds ever, if not the largest] and the energy all game was just incredible and unlike anything I've ever seen [save, perhaps, the 4th quarter and OT of the Eagles-Packers playoff game last year]. My voice is just starting to recover. It was a our "Whiteout" game, where everyone in the student section had to wear white, so it created a really neat effect. I had tickets in the senior section (!) due to a nifty trick that I learned about, so I was within the first 20 rows at the 30 or so yard line... amazing seats.
The game was close at every point and the outcome was up in the air until the last play. You can't ask for much more out of a game [except maybe a win]. Perhaps if one ball hadn't been tipped and pass interference was rightfully called, the outcome would have been different. The game was a valiant effort by Penn State against a really tough opponent. Maybe next week...
Early in the afternoon before the game, I went to a Republican tailgate party. Scott Paterno (Joe's son, running for the US House) was there and I got to meet him and speak to him briefly, in addition to the obvious benefit of free food. The 15 or so of us students all went and sat together during the game afterwards.
On Wednesday, Michelle Malkin was here to speak and I got to meet and talk to her afterwards. It was a good speech and we even got featured on her blog. The flyer I designed for the event was all over campus beforehand, which was cool.
There's a new JibJab cartoon out. Not as classic as the first, but still pretty good.
In less than two weeks, Michael Moore is coming to Penn State, flush with $23,000 from student funds for Mr. Capitalism-is-a-sin. Fantastic. Nationally syndicated radio talkshow host Mike Gallagher has already signed on to host his show here that day and to hold a screening of one of the several anti-Moore movies, Fahrenhype 9-11 at the same time Moore is speaking. There have even been rumors Sean Hannity might come to add to the excitement. Never a dull moment up here.
And we got two debates this week. The Veep debate was intense all around, but lim as Edwards-->truth (Cheney/Edwards) does not exist, as read the whiteboard outside my door. Bush did much better during Friday's night debate, while Kerry dodged questions at an unprecented level and must have brought "tax cut for the top 1%" into every single answer. Debate #2 goes to Mr. Bush and his lumber company.
I had some of my first college exams this week, although I really didn't have that many because I have a bunch of liberal-artsy classes this semester. I was really disappointed that I got a 76% on the Calc exam, especially for a class I've already taken and have credit for. Granted the average for the test was a 55% so it translates to a 90% or so in the end, but I still should have done quite a bit better. Some of the problems were evil, though, like a trig substitution problem that involved completing the square with fractions, having some strange fractional substitution and having to switch the bounds of integration three times.
Our Leadership Jumpstart project group made the newspaper and apparently the local news, too. I was even quoted in the article (on factual information that didn't need to be quoted, but I digress): http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/10/10-07-04tdc/10-07-04dnews-16.asp.
Our Fall Break consists of having this Friday off, so I will probably get to come home this weekend. How exactly I will be getting home remains a mystery but it probably will happen somehow. I hear the first Spoke issue is on Thursday, so that should be exciting to see.... too bad I couldn't come back to visit production or on the issue day.
Anyway... maybe I'll actually get some work done tomorrow with the Iggles having a bye week. I have another action packed week ahead, albeit only 4 days. | | |
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