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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I know I've been pretty despondant lately, but things do go in waves. Right now it seems to be turning up. I was very stressed about all the things I need to do, but there's been progress. On finding a job, I haven't had much success but I wasn't doing enough either. Now that I'm putting more effort into it, things seem to be going better. I still don't have enough time to do all I should, but I think I'll find something.

AEPi Booth is starting to work out. I was worried about how much was done but now we're ahead of schedule. We've got the high stuff painted and the roof done before we put them up high. Amazing. Plus we've got a really slick move on plan that does not require lifting anything on top of anything else. As far as games go, I talked to Jason Small today who is brilliant and together we figured out how to make the flight sim game work. It should be pretty amazing if I pull off what I want to.

For my other booth things are going pretty well too. We got approved, we've got plans, and we start tomorrow. There's a lot that needs to happen but my heart is in the work.

The task list for the ORB project is the most daunting, with a lot of things I have to do. I'm worried but I think if I put in the hours, even if that is all crammed into the week between booth and soft-opening. I might do ok.

Lastly, I have been shaping up. Not really, but since the weather has been so beautiful out, I took to running again, Wednesday and this morning. If I can keep doing things like that I'm sure to improve my mood and productivity.

The phrase "If you don't like the weather wait a minute", which I first heard in regard to New England although I imagine every place has that saying, never seemed literal until this week. All week I've been trying to build a booth, among other things I have to do. I've done what I can inside but now I need to start assembling things outside. I enjoyed this a lot the last 2 spring breaks of my undergrad career. but those were several weeks later. This year it is still winter. It is cold out and has been snowing off and on all week. The really tough part is that it hasn't been consistant. Monday was hot and beautiful. A great day to be outside, and I was wearing a t-shirt. Then Tuesday it started snowing. It has been snowing a little every day, but also getting just warm enough to melt the snow, not really warm though. Today has been the worst. First it is snowing. Then it stops, gets sunny, and the snow melts. I think that maybe I can go do some work outside, but as soon as I get ready, it gets dark and snowy again. It has been going back and forth every 20 mins for hours now. I just want it to be warm and spring. I would have even settled for a nice one week of indian summar like we've had here before. Booth season. Shitty weather. *shakes head*

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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Booth Addendum

There was so much in the last entry but so much happened and I left a few things out. The first story was when Ben came up to me and asked "What booth needs booth?" I didn't intend to give a nonsense answer (and that is probably what made it so funny) but the ridiculousness of the question caused me to answer, "That's good true." I don't want to put the next story in here but for those who know, lauan:wood::gold-plated:jewlery. The bush we had to be the burning bush in the booth was a real bush. I took it back and planted it in our yard. I think I did a good job. It looks good where it is, even though it isn't in a place that we've had a bush before. I hope it lives. I think it is nice that it blesses our house. Unlike people who did small things such as hieroglypic tiles or beanbag frogs, there wasn't anything for me to take away from the booth, but the fact that I was able to plant and leave something from the booth makes me feel good. It will hopefully be there for a few year and I'll be able to come back and say, "that's the burning bush." The last thing I forgot was a pointer to my carnival pics.

Passover

Booth really put me in the right mindset for passover. When we said, "Because of what God did for me when I was a slave in Egypt," I feel as if I really was. After all building a booth is hard labor and we were even building pyramids.

At one seder I went to, instead of cups of salt water, they had spray bottles of it. It seemed like a good idea until a little kid got hold of it and decided to give me a shower and no one thought they should stop him.

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I've wanted to write a journal entry about every day the past week, but I've been so busy and there has been so much to say I haven't. Let's see how long it takes to get it all in here.

Booth

There was a lot of hard work put in. People were working around the clock. It was great being booth chair when instead of me having to go bug people to help, I had people who wanted to help me and nothing to give them. Every time we carried over a new big piece, like Mt. Sinai or the waterfall walls, it felt really cool. I think I learned a lot about management. Initially, I felt bad that I was asking people to work and do stuff and I wasn't doing anything myself. Later I realized that management and keeping the big picture in mind is worthwhile, and if 1 less person is working on it, but they are making sure it all gets done, then that is worth it.

On Monday it rained. The booth leaked and we were worried about electrics. I think it was a real set back. Out of tragedy was born the squigibro. A Squigibro is a combination broom and squigie. We bought hte squigies a while ago but they didn't have a handle and I couldn't find an empty handle so I screwed it onto a small broom.

Everything was coming along great. Wednesday night Noah and I met and made the master list of all things that still had to be completed. I stayed up all night and managed the list and the people to do it. I got the waterfalls working. In the morning I took a break to go to Schatz for breakfast, continuing a tradition I started last year.

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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.

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( Preamble )
It only took most of the week but the structure for the booth is finally up. Got that done on wednesday. When I climbed up on the 10 ft roof I realized that was the highest anyone had been above our porch while I've been here. It is a nice view of campus and Oakland. The game is going really well. We've rigged up a neat little mechanical device to raise and lower the targets. I'm looking forward to carnival, but worried about all the things I have to do in the next two weeks. Now that spring break is ending people will be coming back. Nate is already back and I'm glad. When Noah gets back I'll feel a lot better. As much as I wanted to do it all by myself, I like having someone else to rely on to a point.

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I like the word confluence. It is a good word. Someone told me that it used more in Pittsburgh than elsewhere due to the join of the three rivers. However, that is not why I use it tonight. Tonight was the confluence of cute girls who I always wanted to talk to but were never able to. I ended up at the Hillel Purim party at The Attic, because a different place that I went with Alex was too crowded. There were several girls who showed up there that I had tried to talk to in the past and still wasn't able to tonight. It saddens me to realized that I truely am a loser. Not even alchohol can make me a better person socially. Therefor, I see no way for me ever to have a girlfriend or even anything close.

Booth, of course, has been my main focus over the past couple days. After what I said the other day about the protest and all, and now going to war, you'd think I'd have some more stuff to say about the war. I'm sure that I have thoughts, but just not worth getting out. Booth, on the other hand, I've been working hard on. For the past 2 days I have been building walls. I was hoping to get them all up today. I didn't but I did build them all. Now they just have to be faced and erected. I'm looking forward to working on booth over break. The booth chairs' meeting today was cool. We learned about fire safety and the correct use of fire extinguishers. Then we got to go and light stuff on fire and practice putting it out. It was fun.

Not feeling very up to the Stage3 work I have to do, which is a lot. I have to finish Project Phonebooth with Sarah, and she wants us to show Shadow Gnomes at the Beehive as part of FLUX 9 a week from next friday. I don't know if I can do it, but I think I will try. As far as 360 goes, we got the project done and I think we did pretty well. Guess I'll have to stay in the class.

Man, the weather was nice today. Today, of course, being Sunday the 16, I really have to teach my journal, just because I'm writing this at 6am it is still yesterday. Anyways, It was beautiful out. Very sunny and really warm. I'm not exactly sure the tempature, but I wore shorts and sunglasses for the first time this year, and I was still hot. Two main exciting things happened too.

First we got started on booth. I'm SOOOOOOO excited for booth, I love it. Today we went to the newly clean storage (I did that last week) and set up the platform that is the floor. It was a great day for being outside and doing that kind of work, and just hanging out outside with my brothers just made it very fun.

The other thing that happened was an anti-war protest. We were working on the porch, and being that we have the best location on campus we were in just the right place to see hundreds of people protesting war block traffic crossing Forbes in front of our house. It seems it started at CMU and I did know a few of the people. I'm pretty against that sort of thing. First and foremost I'm against protests. I don't see that they accomplish except to strengthen the resolve of those involved, but I don't think it gets them any more support or credibility. Media coverage of protests usually make the protestors look like quacks, or at least to me. Maybe I can't be convinced since I always come up with a strong position on an issue even if I don't actually care that much. In this case, I'm not going to say that I think we should

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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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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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