Productivity

Whew.  The "rock festival" today was fun.  All of these rocks were placed in a matter of about five hours.  I was there working from about 14:00 to 17:00, because of the ΜΚΥ lunch.

Once we had finished the "decorative pattern," there was extra gravel, so we patched potholes in Lou's driveway, too.  Unfortunately, the extra gravel was at the top of the driveway, and the potholes were at the bottom.  No problem.  We just had some people shoveling gravel into plastic buckets, some people sliding filled buckets down the pavement, some people dumping the buckets, and some passing empty buckets back up the hill.  That's one of the many advantages of having about 25 people helping out.  It was very efficient work.

As I said earlier, ΜΚΥ had its Fifth Degree this morning, and we now have three new members.  And before that, we had band recruitment, and we spoke to 16 interested prospective students (which isn't that bad for one of those events).  Gosh, that seems like forever ago.

Once I got back at around 19:10, I collapsed in bed.  I only arose about four hours later to write this and catch up on some emails so that I wouldn't get behind on all that.  I felt bad that I ignored my mother's phone call at first, but I am now having trouble feeling my arms.  At least, I told her, I won't be as physically tired after tomorrow's concerts.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention my cousin Ted's birthday today.  Twenty-three already; wow!

All in all, though, a productive day.  I'd love to have those more often.

So Much to Do...

Tonight is ΜΚΥ's Fourth Degree of Initiation. Tomorrow morning, at the Fifth Degree, we'll have initiated new members. That's always exciting.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Honestly, this whole upcoming week is a busy week. But tomorrow comes first. At 07:30, there's a band recruitment event at Pitt's final "Day for Admitted Students" of the year. At the Pitt Band table, members of ΚΚΨ basically talk to high school seniors who are prospective students about why they should join the band. It's really cool, despite the fact that it's really early in the morning (since it's an open "fair"-type thing that's before the actual event). But it's over by 09:00, and most of us usually go right back to sleep.

I can't, though, because ΜΚΥ Degree starts at 10:30, then we're soon off to a celebratory lunch at the Waterfront. Meanwhile, Brothers of ΚΚΨ will be making their way to the home of Lou, the band's operations manager, to help him out with a project. The double-brothers like me will join them after the ΜΚΥ lunch.

At Lou's house, we will be participating in a "rock festival." In the most literal sense of the phrase. In exchange for a modest payment to the fraternity and a lasagna dinner for everyone involved, we will be spending the afternoon moving a total of 25 tons of rocks and placing them in a "decorative pattern." So that will be a lot of fun, but also a bit of work. But there will be many hands... And then my fixed obligations for the day are done.

Sunday, I go to Uniontown with the Heinz Chapel Choir for a full two-gig day. I get maybe about a day's rest before gearing up for a Nuclear Reactors exam on Wednesday night, which is conveniently followed immediately by ΚΚΨ's final Degree, only because a Wednesday was the only day we could do it, what with the awkward placement of Easter this year.

Then it's a ChE presentation Thursday, a CHEM lab report Friday, and — what do you know? — it's the last week of classes. So that'll be fun.

Still no luck on the newest of the camera issues, which is giving me quite the sad face. I need a fully functioning camera before leaving for China, and that's only 25 days away!

Dapper Dan

Tonight was the 73rd Annual Dapper Dan Dinner and Sports Auction, which was held this year at the Petersen Events Center.  They invited a small pep band to play during short periods of applause, mostly while honorees were making their way to and from the microphone, much like the awards shows you see on television.  Except everyone was really close by, so they weren't kidding when they said that most times it wouldn't be more than five seconds at a time.

Anyway, it was a really nice event (despite the fact that the band didn't get to eat).  And there were many distinguished guests.  Pitt Women's Basketball's Shavonte Zellous was honored along with the Pittsburgh Steelers' Dick LeBeau and Mike Tomlin.  All three spoke.

I would show you pictures, but wouldn't you know it... the day after I finally blog about my camera being fixed, it starts acting screwy again.  Now, though it will turn on and remember all of my settings, it won't stay on.  Sometimes it will shut off after five or ten seconds, and sometimes after only a fifth or a tenth of a second.  In any case, it would not retract the lens; it would only suddenly seem to lose power and force a restart, which would only work every fourth or fifth time.

So taking pictures was difficult.  That's how things go, I guess.

The dinner did go a bit long, so I only just now got back from my own dinner (Arby's, since it's the only decent place open at 23:15 and I had a coupon).  That's about all that was interesting in my life today.

BEDA?

It's time for another little note to tell you how I've been doing for the last three weeks, I guess.

March Madness went well, for the most part.  The men's team was disappointing in New York, but you'll have that.  At least we didn't turn around and head right home; they let us stay in town for much of the next day.  So it wasn't a total loss.  If you haven't seen them already, I took some pictures on the trip.

And of course, that means: My camera is fixed!  Hooray!  I was right; it only took a watch battery.  It was a bit overpriced at the RadioShack I went to in Connecticut ($5.82 altogether), but I figured that's still way less than a brand new camera, and paying a 400% premium was worth it if it meant my camera could be working right away (but moreover because 400% was only $5).

And I have just realized I haven't taken a picture yet today.  This is a minor problem.  (Pause.)  Okay.  Sorry, I just really want to get the whole "halfway decent picture every day for a month" thing done sometime soon, and it really doesn't help if I miss the first day of the month.  February was ideal for that due to its brevity, as I mentioned before, but then the little mishap happened.  And it screwed up March in the process.  So here's hoping I can get back on track with that, because I like taking photos and it's spring and there are beautiful things all around and it's about time I finished this run-on sentence.

Much like my picture thing, I've now heard of several people who are attempting "Blog Every Day April," an idea that young adult author Maureen Johnson just came up with the other day.  A couple of my YouTube subscriptions are even taking it to the next level, replacing daily blogging with daily vlogging.

Now, I am intrigued and inspired by how much this has caught on (it even has a Twitter hashtag), but I'm not sure I want to commit to anything like that, given how Aprils tend to go around these parts and how much other stuff I've got going on.  But I figured I could at least write something today, and perhaps actually make a concerted effort to write shorter posts throughout the month.  (And yes, I know I've said this before, but I haven't had something like this as motivation.)

So here I am, having reserved the last 15 minutes of my day specifically to write this.  Or something like this, anyway.  We shall see if this continues, as I have come to the realization that with the bunches of stuff going on in my life, I actually do have a lot of things I can talk about.

A few quick notes about today, Wednesday 1 April 2009:

• Today was George Bandik's birthday.  In case you don't remember, he was my OChem professor.  I tried stopping by his office for a quick visit before PChem this afternoon, but he wasn't in.  What a shame.
• Google's April Fool's pranks were fun this year.  Whoever came up with the idea, kudos on coordination across so many Google products!
  

Apologies for not saying much of actual substance today.  We shall see if this continues... again, no promises. ;)