Yesterday was the Turner-Davies wedding. I really enjoyed it. Particularly because I was in the wedding party. A year ago when Mike first asked me to do it, I was surprised that he counted me so close a friend. Thinking about it, I did spend a lot of time in his room his last year and he, Weiss, and I were the core Denny's crew, going sometimes 2 or 3 times a week. That's a lot of quality time spent.

And it was those little thing, the rehersal, the limo rides, waiting to be introduced at the reception, sitting all at the head table, and wearing the tuxes, all the time that it wasn't the big crowd but just the bride and groom and a few of us friends, that made things extra special for me. I'm really happy for Mike and Michelle. I don't want to say anything too sappy, but it is obvious that they are good together and it is great to see friends fulfilled like that.

Seeing the rest of my friends who came was also fun. Some excitement was taken out of it by seeing many of them at carnival only a few weeks ago. It is always fun though. These are people I used to hang out with every day, so I'll take more than once a year now if I can get it. Weddings (or really any gathering I guess) bring out all the old stories. Talking to them also reminds me how alike we are. It's great when you can have conversations where you talk about something without ever saying what because you think so alike you both know what you're thinking.

Yes, it has taken me a week to write about carnival, but I had a lot of work I had neglected for carnival to catch up on. It was by far the most beautiful carnival I've ever seen. No rain from move on to tear down and it was very warm too.

How did AEPi booth building go? Picking up where I left off, we got the booth back up, and work continued. After that brief detour of reinvolvement with the structure I went back to working on the game. Perhaps I should not have volunteered to make the game for AEPi this year. Helping out as an alumnus is one thing, but what I've discovered is that it is better to work on smaller projects so the booth isn't 100% depenant on me. I don't need that kind of pressure with everything else I'm responsible for as well, particularly once carnival has started and I feel that I should be relaxing and enjoying the weekend with my visiting friends, as alumni usually do. However, things did turn out ok in the end.

Originally the game was supposed to be a flight simulator. The design for it seemed nice but it wasn't achievable because we didn't have any 3D models, a problem I was unable to solve and the booth chairs seemed unwilling to listen to. There was going to be a secondary game which at some point we decided would have to be the primary game, but thanks to a discussion with my brilliant friend Jason Small, we came up with a plan for a much simplified flight sim that I could create. It was still an ambitious project. The design was to build a model plane flight simulator and have guests fly this model plane in a course around this year's midway.

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Today the booth was rebuilt. It wasn't that difficult and the new booth is so much better. I really felt a positive rush from the way things worked out today. Last night people did start a little despondant. When stuff was going down I felt a little helpless being pushed away from the booth that I felt very responsible for and involved in. Well after a brief cool down, my leading instinct took hold. I might not be a booth chair, but for a day I was an equal lead. Since I had cut a lot of the pieces for the original walls I have studies the plans a lot, and that plus my experience with booth and building made me feel like the perfect person to take charge of the rebuild.

Last night I assessed the damage and figure out what would need to be replaced. With a lot of help we cleaned up the good pieces, removing all the broken parts and removing screws. The roof was repaired and all the pieces that could be cut were. This morning we woke up and headed to Home Depot. Armed with new wood I was able to make the rest of the cuts and have Dave direct all the sections to be rebuilt.

In addition to rebuilding there was time for some design improvement. I don't know when I became a structural engineer but after a few meetings the wall that seemed to have the problems was redesigned with 4 new levels of redundant reinforcement. In addition, after the unit was reassembled, a hojilllion extra cross braces were added, solely for move-on, the time when the structure is the most vulnerable.

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I'd like to address once and for all, today's events regarding AEPi's booth. You may here that it collapsed or that it fell down. People will see pictures, people will tell rumors, and people will draw conclusions. Not even so much to support AEPi as to put all the Monday morning structural engineers in their place, I'd like to explain what this is like from my position. I'm not going to go into any details of the specifics of what happened or why. I'm sure you can find some pictures and draw your own conclusions or listen to others, but I'm sure that all speculation will be wrong. Now I might be able to say what I believe is right, but I don't think it is anyone's place to do that. Those theories are all best kept to one's self. It happened and there's nothing can do now but move forward.

First of all, to say that it collapsed or fell down wouldn't be entirely acturate or at least not the whole picture. Yes, it did fall down, because it was pulled down. If you see piles of rubble you might think that there was a pretty crappy structure there. But actually most of the damage was the result of the fall induced not by structure but by people who did it deliberately. Even then, many sections held together and did not break.

Yes, AEPi does have the worst history I know of in terms of noticeable accidents. Yes, this was the 5th year of a 5 year pattern. No, I do not believe in fate or random patterns such as this. An amazing coincidence to be sure. What baffles me most is still how this has happened only really to us, and on so regular a pattern.

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Tonight was greek sing. It brings back some unhappy memories. First of all, I wanted to help out with ABTech, setting up and doing tech for the event. Of course I did help set up, but what makes me mad is that because I was a brother of AEPi, I'm not allowed to help out during rehersal or the show. I guess the worry is bias, that I might try to give unfair advantage to AEPi or adversely affect other shows. Some think it seems valid but I do not agree. First of all, it isn't like I'm looking for an especially important job with a lot of influence. Secondly, I was never very involved in AEPi greek sing and have no stake in their success. But most important is a thing called professionalism. If I'm going to do something then I'm going to make that my priority and focus. I am able to have multiple hobbies and keep them seperate. In protest I did not help with strike, although it was also since I had to get up early the next day.

Having been shunned by ABTech, I had no choice but to attend Greek Sing with AEPi. It felt weird being there like it always was in the past. I've been a bad brother with regards to greek sing. I helped out only slightly my freshman year, didn't do anything my sophmore or junior year, and was only actually involved one out of my four years. As much as I like theater, particularly my rare opportunity to perform, I have not capitalized on it. I've felt bad because of it, for both reasons.

The other thing that greek sing brings is girls. I have been and was this time uncomfortable being around which ever sorority we were working with. This probably comes from a comraderie developed over the weeks working together that the other brothers had that did not.

Well, that all being said there isn't much I can do about it now. So this year AEPi did Pippen with Zeta and won 3rd place.

Today I participated in an AEPi scavenger hunt. We split into teams and given a list of thirty clues to places. We had to figure out where the clues refered to and go there and take a picture of our group there. My team was Team Illegal, Avi, Mike Gross, Dave Mason, Bryan Arsham, and me. I think we probably won. The score hasn't been tallied yet but we got all the answers and all but two pictures. If we had done a little research before we went out we could have even gotten those two and we would have finished in less time (we went very near both but spent a while looking for them and didn't find them). It was a lot of fun. You should check out our Pictures.

The last week, I have spent in Pittsburgh working on booth. Of course it was a very different experience as an alum than as a student, and every carnival is always different, but this one was extra different. We almost didn't finish.

I guess I better start by saying that the overall theme was "To be a kid again" and our theme was "The Wizard of Oz". Pictures are up in bbGallery. My projects were the giant hot air balloon you see out front, the 2 smaller balloons that were part of the game, and part of the electronics for the game that controlled the sound effects and the lights that displayed the winner. The game was clicking your heels together to race the balloons up.

My projects went pretty well. I worked together with Linda sewing the balloons. I did the design, marking, and cutting; she did all the sewing. The big balloon is 6 feet in diameter and 8.5 feet tall. It is made up of 32 pieces. The smaller ones are 1/6th scale models. It was quite a challenge, especially to support, but a lot of fun. There's something great about working at such a big scale.

As for the rest of the booth... Maybe it was the rain on monday and tuesday. Maybe it was a number of buggy or other people not helping out on booth. I don't think we've ever been that close to not finishing before and I blame the management. In the end, when you realize you are too far behind, you cut back, concentrate your effort, and do only what is neccessary. That is what we did, but that started around 1pm on Thursday instead of 5pm or so on Wednesday when I would have done it.

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"... made the rest feel second best, and even if they were." "Being told we're also rans, does not make us Joseph fan." Tonight was Greek Sing. I haven't written in a while and maybe that is because of rehersals. Probably not, but there were sure a lot of them. We worked really hard and I think we had a damn respectable show. I was in it for once. I've avoided being in the show or even working on sets or crew for the past 3 years so I thought it would be time to act. And it's funny because Joseph was also the last show I acted in, 6 1/2 years ago. I had a lot of fun being Benjamin. Singing, dancing, and getting beat up by Alex and his precious golden cup, which I apparently stole. I think our set came out really nice. I only hope the painting in Booth will look as good as those backdrops we had. Oh, and we got 2nd place. What I hate is people who whine about how important winning is. WHO CARES! Apparently a lot of people who aren't me. I don't know what to say to people from other organizations who claim that the judging wasn't fair, but judging for all things, like college admissions, is mostly random in my opinion. I don't think I've ever been in a competition where I've liked the outcome and a lot of the time I'm talking about stuff other than my organization.

All I've got to say is BOOTH! Well, actually I'm pretty worried. Someone observed that in booth the judge are very reliable about judging based on their criteria, which we don't usually fit into. But in that case I really do disagree with their criteria.

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So, I have tried, today, to be a better student. I realized that despite the fact that I don't think it is important to me, it must be. When I see people who do better than me, or I see how poorly I actually do, I wish I were better. I feel below good students and that isn't what I want. So I tried to do work. To get things done so that I would know what it feels like to have fun with everything done. It didn't work. I realized, "What's the point?" Things were going well, but then I had a sudden realization, and knew that even without work, I wouldn't be happy. I won't ever be happy. It's a tough thing to realize, because I like to be optimistic and think things will *eventutally* work out... but they won't.

Since things were going well, might was well mention them. Halloween party was cool. The party itself didn't go so great, but my costume was cool. Check out pictures. Although, on the note of halloween, there was another party I was supposed to go to and didn't. I really should have but I just can't handle stuff like that, it makes me sad. Also, AEPi had a mixer where we did karaoke. It was actually surprisingly fun. I guess the fact that I like to sing helps but I was surprised that I wasn't really embarassed at all not only to sing in front of 30 or so people, but to sing Whitney Houston.

The ice rink is supposed to open on Monday. That is something I'm looking forward to. I have been waiting to go ice skating for a while now. I already have plans to go with a whole bunch of people. It should be /interesting/. That is what I was looking forward to, but in light of other things, it just can't really make up. I have to try to put on a positive face, and make it seem to others like my life is worth living. Right. Signing out.

The first week of school has come and passed. So far my classes haven't really given me any hard work to do. I have to start the shell for my OS for ... OS. It actually bothers me that everyone has to write Yalnix -- I think you should get to name your own OS. I'm not in 18-240 yet, which I really need to figure out this morning because I need to be in the class and not screw over my lab partner and the first lab would be on tuesday for me. Definately one of the funnier class related moments this week was when I was trying to get to 85-100 and the stairs in Doherty were clogged with people trying to get into 2210 and I said loudly, "Intro to Intelligence? How about starting with 'Don't block the halls!'" Ha Ha. Anyways... BVW has been a lot more work so far than I expected, but this first week is the hard one and I enjoy helping people. Randy still spells my name wrong. If he plans to fix my grammar I'll teach him to spell my name.

Outside class things are going well. I ran 2wice this week. Rush has been going well, and our events have been fun. Monday we went to Gullifties for dessert. Tuesday we went to the Pirates/Braves game. It was a good game. The Braves were up but in the bottom of the 9th there looked like a chance that the Pirates could pull it off (Go Buccs!) but it didn't happen. I missed laser tag, and ultimate frisbee yesterday was a lot of exercise.

It's tough to keep the personal stuff out of this journal when it is the only one I have and there are things I have to say.

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It has been 6 days since I last wrote because a lot has been going on. Tuesday we moved in all the freshmen. It was pretty fun. Lots of people had LCD monitors so things weren't as heavy as usual. I was back at Donner again for the 3rd year. Later that day I helped out Tech with setting up Tartan pars. That's the thing where we light up the columns of Purnell and the UC with Tartan colors. Then we had to set up and do Playfair.

That night and every night the rest of the week there was a lot of chillin' on the AEPi porch. BBQ and meeting freshmen. Fun. I met a whole bunch of really cool people. I don't exactly wanna mention names or anything in a public journal, but if anyone I'm talking about actually reads this, you know who you are.

Friday night the jew crew assembled a large posse and headed over to Chabbad. I went. It was fun and the food was good. So far this year I've met a lot more jews than I think I have in the past, other than in my house of course. I really feel the jew thing happening this year.

Last night was House Wars on the cut. It was very muddy because of the rain earlier. I'd say it was the muddiest event I've seen at CMU since Fiesta de Primavera my freshman year.

I was at House Wars because I was with Tech. I've been doing a lot of Tech this week. I hope I'll really be able to keep that up this year, assuming my class load doesn't get to bad.

I'm also really happy because I got to start really using my new digital camera. I Have a whole lot of pictures from Orientation

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Well, everyone is back now. It is kind of hard to make the adjustment. Before it was just a few people and it was very relaxed. Now there are all these people and everything is organized and it just makes me feel like a second class citizen of a fascist regime.

Tomorrow morning all the freshman arrive and it all start. First we have to move them in, but that is only the beginning. Then there are lots of Tech events and meeting freshmen and stuff. It is fun because as a senior I'm basically the king of CMU. Carrying heavy stuff and being useful is what I live for, and after that I get to be the old wise man. neato.

Well I better get some sleep so I'll be ready to do some moving. Goodnight.

Every spring, Carnegie Mellon holds their annual Spring Carnival. Carnival is one weekend where we get friday off of school and there are a number of interesting events that take place. The theater company has a show, there are concerts, and a lot of alumni come in. There is a line-following robot competition called mobot. Then there are the 2 big events, Buggy and Booth. Buggy is a race that takes place on some roads in Schenley park. A buggy is a small 3 wheeled craft that a small girl just barely fits inside and drives. There is a bar sticking up in the back that is used to push the buggy.

The other main part of carnival is the midway. One parking lot is turned into a carnival midway by clearing all the cars, importing carnival rides (and carnies), and by the building of booths. The booths themselves are built by various student organizations. There is an overall theme which each booth's idividual theme should conform to in some way. Each booth must have a game. The booths are 15' x 18' and can be 1 or 2 stories tall with a maximum of 20' high. The midway opens thursday at 4pm and is open thursday until 11, friday 11 to 11, and saturday 11 to 5. It has to run nonstop during those time with only 4 hours of downtime allowed. The booths are judged and trophies are awarded in 3 divisions, fraternities, sororities, and independants.

I love booth. Working on booths for AEPi is one of the most fun things I've done in my entire life. I think the reason I love it so much is because it is so much like what I'd love to do for life.

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is year the overall theme was Inside-Out. Our choice for overall theme was "Famous People's Houses, Real or Imaginary". We basically did that anyway, by doing Batman. It was inside out, though, because you enter the batcave which is visible from the outside, and then Gotham City (outside) was inside that. Above the batcave on the outside was a really good looking facade of Wayne Manor. The batcave, manned by Alfred had a neat Batcomputer which would teach you all about the batmobile and the Penguin. It also had a cute little story about why bats fly at night, for the kids. Alfred was there to inform you that the Penguin had poisoned Batman and his henchmen where running loose in the city, some carrying the antidote. When you got furth inside you were on a city street in Gotham City. On the street was the Batmobile we built out of fiberglass and car parts from a junkyard (the chairs are in my room now). The game was to drive the Batmobile, capture the Penguins henchmen (little penguins under mind-control, you don't kill them only fix them and return them to the zoo), and find the antidote to save Batman. The city was projected in front of them. One person had to drive with a steering wheel and pedals, the other had to navigate (with the GPS monitor on the floor) and shoot the baterang to capture the penguins.

I was the game guy again. There were a bunch of really tough challenges. The environment was much more expansive than the year before. We needed a whole model of Gotham City, which we bought from some friends of mine, Reagan and Gabe, who are experts at that.

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This years overall theme was originally called "Little Things Made Big" but was changed to "Larger Than Life". At first we were going to do a large scale pinball machine, my idea. I still think it would be really neat. You'd get to walk around in the machine, ball-sized, with lights flashing and sound and everything, then the game could be playing it, or something. But it was eventually decided that this would be impossible to build. We switched themes to doing a sort of space-themed booth that we called "The Outer Realm". The outside was pretty much just a grey box, which was sort of disappointing. We only let people in 5 at a time and gave them a little tour. First you are taken into a white security room and given lab coats. Then you are lead into a NASA-like command center, complete with map with flashing dots and paths (if they had worked), main screen, and 3 control consoles with working switches and buttons. The "new recruits" are given a briefing by Alan Zimmerman, the director of our organization via satellite from the moon base. He explains that we are the Advanced Earth Protection Initiative, a secret division of NASA, designed to research ways to protect earth from outside threats such as commets or aliens. The technology we are developing is used to take small ships and enlarge them to make it easier to put hardware into space. Suddenly there is an accident and an asteriod is detected heading straight for Earth. Now the only chance to save the planet is to use the enlarging machine (which wasn't designed or tested for humans) on the new recruits so that they will be big enough to travel quickly to the moon and shoot down the asteroids with normal guns made large.

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This year, my first, the overall theme was Around the World. We decided to do Easter Island. We had a corner plot. The outside wall was made up of wooden spikes. Then there were 2 large stone heads, and a cool wooden gate with a sign. Inside on the first floor it was all jungle like complete with jungle noises and a pond. Then as you headed up a "stone" staircase, you cross a bridge over a stream running from the pool at the bottom of the waterfall in the corner of the booth to the pond. At the top of the stairs you crossed an actual rope bridge and then entered a bamboo-walled tiki hut. It even had special night lighting and different night jungle sounds. The greeter at the front door who led you through the jungle was Archibald Huntington. And the Chief Nahoc lived in the tiki hut.

My part was wiring and lighting with DW. My great achievement was cool looking electric tiki torches. Although I got pulled away to handle the waterfall and the ponds. That was fun but a big pain in the ass. The hard part was getting the ponds not to leak, and the stream to flow fast enough not to over flow the top pond. When it didn't work, I had to drain it and start over. I just remember that last night. First I leaned on the fire extiguisher while in the confined area under the staircase, filling the air (and my lungs) with chemicals. Then I had to siphon all the water out of the upper pond and I drank quite a bit of it. It was so cold and I felt lousy so I went to bed. But in the morning everything was great again.

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