Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Marden's of Beer

Well it's been a while since my last post.... Kudos to Tyler for keeping it real. 

So, a lot has happened since the end of January for starters most of February happened. I have been somewhat reluctantly getting through things for school. Pretty sure I have 4 written tests (including finals) between me and graduation, pretty excited about that. Nothing incredibly notable has been happening recently though, which is too bad. Also, with the advent of SnapChat I tend to take more pictures with my phone but they aren't saved. Oh but we did get some snow! There were some nuts snow drifts, see below. 



Got this water bottle from Analog devices earlier this year when I went down for an interview. Credit to Sam for a witty modification. I still use it everyday in the lab and I've only had a handful of people notice it without me pointing it out to them. 


Been working on a senior project report and getting better at technical writing a little. Also, I've been making at least one trivia night per week in the downtown Orono area. My buddy Josh is a trivia maniac and he some weeks hits nearly every trivia night in the Bangor area. His team is usually called "Quintanaroo" which I'm not a huge fan of. I made a team named "Four Score and Seven Beers Ago" which I think is much more fun. One week we won at this restaurant called The Family Dog and got a $25 gift card which we spent on pitches of beer this week, hooray beer! 

Speaking of beer, there is a store in Old Town called Tim's Little Big Store, where they have a huge table with loose bottles of beer that are slightly past the expiration dates (ever so slightly). You can assemble your own 6 packs of these out of season beers, $10 for 3 6-packs. At this point I'm pretty sure these guys are just loosing money and straight up promoting alcoholism. I've heard Tim's Store described as "The Marden's of Beer" and after a trip there this week I am inclined to agree. 

Went to an MSSM open house held on campus in Orono, Friedmonster showed up and a couple of Umaine freshmen who graduated from MSSM. Weird to not know the freshmen at all but they seemed like cool enough kids. Luke Shorty is a boss and Larry Berz may have single handedly inspired the entire room to attend MSSM or scared them off completely. If that's all it takes to scare them, then they probably shouldn't go though. I was impressed by the number of people who came out to support the MSSM but it was a little weird hearing parent's questions about their little Johnny's rooming situation.... Moral of the story, good things are happening up there but I have very little patience for silly overprotective parents. 

Anyways, I'm in Litchfield for most of the weekend where the pace of life is very, very slow. I am currently in eating mode. I don't know what it is but for the past couple weeks I have been constantly hungry, just never feeling full. Now is the time to change that, the picture below mostly describes my feelings. 

Currently watching the Maine High School Basketball tournament which is AWESOME. I never watch pro basketball but this tournament never disappoints, year in and year out. Proven by the recent Hampden vs. Lawrence game where Hampden pulled it out in on a last second buzzer beater shot from half court. All the games I've seen today have been tied at least a couple times in the 4th period and usually come down to a matter of about 5 points for a win. I think Ian and I once reminisced about how epic these games are. 

One more week till spring break, I'll have to start looking at places to live soon. Also, there are four tests (including finals) between me and graduation. The clock is a-tickin'. 
 

Sunday, February 17, 2013

This past week: A Wedding, Smoked Eel, 3 Hangovers and a Neil Degrasse Tyson

I seem to be keeping myself busy on a whole lot of shit that isn't school work. Tonight I am locking myself in the observatory class room to force myself to be productive and after being here all day, I still haven't done much. I need a massive dose of "give-a-shit". I joke about senioritis but this semester I might need to get it looked at professionally. I just didn't go to class on Thursday because my PJs were comfy and outside was cold. I made a new bow from scratch instead. It's nice. Once it has a string I'll post pictures.

So last time I posted I said I had something big for next time. That is because I got a press pass to see Startalk Live with Neil Degrasse Tyson. The press pass means backstage access before and after the show. This is some pretty thrilling shit. So I went to NYC two weeks ago on a Thursday. Elliot, his mom and I had dinner with their social media guy before the show talking about what was wanted. I would take video, Elliot would shoot photography. They wanted us to video Neil going to the bar and making the drink of the night. Every night they do this they make a drink themed on the nights topic and they film the process between Neil and Bartender.

We got to the Bell House and went backstage to get our bracelets. When Neil arrived he gave Elliot's mom a huge hug and said "Stacey! My favorite photographer!" He then looked at me, realized he had no idea who I was and kept walking. Good enough for me! Then Jeff, the social media guy told us that something was weird. Elliot and I set up to video the drink creation when suddenly this other hipstery type guy shows up and starts setting up. Then Jeff tells us we have to put away our cameras. Apparently the venue booked their own guy to video and told StarTalk they couldn't use their own folk. Whacky. So I had to put my video camera away. We still got front row seats for the show and still had our backstage bracelets. Elliot told me to wait until after the show, we'll meet Neil. Elliot has done this two times prior and said that usually they get to hang out with all the StarTalk folk for a good hour or two after the show.

After the show we went backstage and picked up our coats from the couch. I was getting pumped to finally meet everyone (Michael Showalter and Questlove were the celebrity comic-types that night). Suddenly a bunch of dudes in really nice suits showed up and Jeff came over and told us that all StarTalk staff had to leave. Turns out they were some important donor types who naturally don't enjoy the company of common folk. So we left. Oh well, still a really amazing time, I can't even begin to complain. Plus Jeff is cool shit. He used to design RPG's at Marvel, writes his own cyberpunk novels, he is just plain cool shit.

The next day Nemo was baring down on Connecticut. We woke up an hour before the storm was predicted to start, but low and behold Nemo arrived early. No matter, not the first time I've had to race God (Irene was a bitch). We outran that bastard before he shut Connecticut down for a week. On the way back, at the request of my roommate Josh, we got off the highway and Jeeped our asses into the middle of the Catskills looking for a man we call The Eel Guy. He is called this because he makes a living smoking Eel and selling out of his cabin in the middle of the god damned woods. Cool dude, gave us a discount on the Salmon we bought if we promised to pray for the troops.

Then I got back to Alfred and my roommates and I suddenly realized that our broke asses could actually afford liquor for once. I don't remember much after that, though there are apparently some shirtless snow angels with my name on 'em.

Then this weekend my friend Ken who left Alfred last year and is an officer in the Army came to town with the intention of wedding his Russian girlfriend. So I got to go to a wedding and it was a nice ceremony (there were only like ten of us there).

And that is what I have been doing instead of my work. Now if you'll excuse me, these continuous charge distributions aren't going to solve themselves (that would be neat though).

Monday, February 4, 2013

Oh Right, The Blog

I am now back at Alfred which means I have tons of work all the time, except now most of it I'm making myself for Boffer and my newly found Dungeons and Dragons addiction. I didn't know how to D&D two  months ago and now I'm GMing a Firefly based campaign. Life is weird. At least the playbook has an entire chapter on cursing in Chinese. Very important.

So due to some cock-ups on my part I've had to drop my Math major, but life goes on. It is weird not having a math class though. Then again advanced Physics classes are essentially math classes so it's not that weird. Doing Advanced Electricity and Magnetism and Particle Physics this semester, so you know, I'll get my math. Don't worry. Also taking Piano and Islam in Politics because why the fuck not that's why.

Also spending an awful lot of time organizing a big event for Boffer this semester, the Civil War. I've convince a contingent of barbaric types from Alfred State to invade and then convinced my school's activities director that fighting in the streets won't do too much damage to the school. I'll be interested to see this one play out.

Haven't done too much since I've been back. But I got something big planned for later this week. If all goes according to plan, I'll have some interesting photos.