Move-on

Tonight was move on for carnival. In a very uncharacteristic move, AEPi move'd on whole. Basically, instead of breaking the booth down to walls, we just took it apart into 2 large sections plus the platform. Bringing the platform on we blew out one of the wheels on the cart, so I'll have to replace it again, and I don't remember where I got the wheels last time. Oops. We got the platform in place and we were almost ready to carry part of the booth, but it started thunder and lightening. I looked up and started cursing at the heavens. Then it started raining. Midway was closed for close to 2 hours. We waited around in the house and didn't think we were moving on tonight at all.

Finally around 10:15 we were allowed to go. The big section we moved first was 9 ft by 15 ft by 11 ft tall. It took all of us to lift it but I think it went pretty well. It didn't ever threaten to tip over and there weren't really any other major problems. We had to take 2 break, on right inside the morewood lot and one half way from there to our plot. Moving on whole like that made me feel very manly. I think it really puts us in the same league as DU or PhiKap. Maybe getting in their league for move will help us get in their league of placing come trophy time. The best part for me was being booth chair. I got to lead the charge. I had to round people up, make sure stuff was happening, and coordinate with our escorts. Running the show and managing 30 people on a project like move on is incredibly fun. When it was time to move the piece of the booth I got to call out direction. I was shouting and losing my voice, but I was in command of a team of highly tuned booth moving machines. What a rush.

Other things with booth are coming along pretty well also. I build one of two waterfall walls this week. It looks awesome without the water. With the water, it is still having issues and it bothers me, but I think it will be ok. Lots of other people are working hard and other stuff is starting to come together. The sample of rock for the mountainous room looks awesome. Electrics is happening. Alex is doing an amazing job with fake fire, almost as good as the totally adorable frog beanbags he made. Tonight I was finally able to test the game. After debugging a few minor issues, it worked. The wire to pull the figures down still need to be put in place, and one of the down sensors is backwards, but all in all, it looks like it is going to work.

Grad-school

In other news, I got wait listed from the MIT Media Lab. I was sort of sad about that. Even though I wasn't sure if I wanted to go there, I still wanted to get in. And with wait list, there is still a chance that I will get in, which is even worse because my life still hangs in limbo.

The worst part about finally hearing from MIT is that now I have to think seriously about the ETC. Before I could simply think that it would be cool to stay in Pittsburgh and I'd do well in the program and they are fun projects. Now, I have to think about some of the other negetives. I know I'll succeed but that's because I probably know a lot of the stuff that other people might take away, and while I'll still be learning by doing, will it really be worth how expensive it is if I could have just gone straight to work. Also, at some point I realized that it is still school and I don't like school very much. As much as I want to be done and thing that the ETC is not the same, it is better but not perfect.

Today was the ETC open house. I went to the first part, down at the PTC on 2nd Ave. It was a nice facility and they had a lot of space. I got to see a bunch of projects I hadn't seen that were cool. It seems like the program is actually starting to get real. In the opening talk (which was really long), Randy actually said some things that made me think it might be worth it. Also, Todd set up a program where the applicants all have first-year (soon to be second year) mentors. I found out that I have a mentor, which we both thought was pretty funny since I already know a lot about the ETC, maybe not more than him, but certainly when he started I did and I was his TA last semester, but he's a cool guy so whatever.