Does it seem to you that now that I got a new computer, I post less? I thought so. I sit down and say “let’s write a post, and then see the link on my personal homepage to someone’s blog, or the Aloof forum, and then end up wasting an hour, after which I go back to what I was doing, and never quite remember that I was going to write a post. Or (like this weekend) I decide I should write a post, and then the power has a surge, blinks, and the network is down half of Saturday and most of Sunday. I have fun online, though. One day, I got into a friendly competition with a gal from Canada, in the forum, to see who could post more nested quotes. Go look at this page, to get an idea what that looks like. That was pretty much the whole competition, but it was fun. I conceded in another thread, and DocD posted the next morning, to which Celtic also conceded. But I bore you.

I’ve done some pretty interesting things offline, too. Every Tuesday, we have hall mass. At the after mass social last Tuesday, a couple of guys decided that they should have a Villa campout. They ended camping out right outside my window. I went outside about 1:00 to talk for a few minutes, and came back in a few minutes before 2:00. I was just wearing a t-shirt, so it took an hour or so to get warmed back up. I’ m glad my grandmother made me a warm jean quilt! (Thanks, Grammie!)

That was the first of two (three?) nights where I was outside in the cold. The next night, I was riding back to the dorm after a meeting (about 9:30), and heard some loud music/voices from across campus. I rode over that way, and ended up spending the next two hours watching Spiderman 2. Good movie, but towards the end, the whole screen may shake (perhaps shiver is a better word). 🙂 The grass was kind of wet, though, and after the movie, I noticed that the seat of my bike was damp, so I guess some sort of dew or something had been coming down during the movie.

I hinted at three nights because after mass, they mentioned potential plans for another campout. Looks like it’s not happening, though. I got distracted in the last paragraph, so there’s about an hour between that line and these ones.

Tuesday afternoon, I went over to St. Mary’s, the student lounge, for a game of college bowl. Turns out there were only 4 of us total. We broke into two teams of two, and my team took three of four rounds. The game is similar to Knowledge bowl, or Jeopardy, in a sense. Each person has a buzzer, and a toss-up question is asked. The person who rings in first gets to answer the question, for 10 points. If you interrupted the reader to ring in, and get a wrong answer, your team loses 5 points. Otherwise, it’s a no loss situation, except that your team can only have one member ring in. This is where I was dominant. I think that I may have answered over 2/3 of the toss-ups, correctly. In fact, I know I never lost points, and can’t remember ever being wrong on a toss-up. After the toss up, the winning team is asked a question fro only their team, usually from 20-30 total points, often in multiple parts. Here we didn’t do as well, but good enough. Luckily these questions don’t cost points for wrong answers. I’ll be going to College Bowl every other Tuesday, and hopefully finding more participants. W could actually go as a team to a competition, or onto a TV broadcast. But we don’t have to, and will make the decision later.

Nik just went to bed, and I should probably follow suit–I can pull late nights for a while, but REALLY late nights catch up to me before too long. You know the feeling where you want to hold the pencil and write something, but your hand thinks it better to let go of the pencil and just rest on the paper? Sleep-deprivation right there. Luckily, I have my first class at 10:20 MWF, and 9:45 TR (Tues/Thur), so I don’t have to get up really early.

Off to bed, with a promise to TRY and be a bit more regular in my posting.

–Nathan

I mentioned in my previous post that I got a laptop. Right now, I’m sitting in the library, at a table in the middle of the room. No wires, no cords, but still an internet connection. Wonderful. I’m told that he Campus is in the top ten finalists for a grant that will allow the entire campus to go wireless. That would mean that I could go anywhere on campus, and still check my e-mail, write a Blog post, and so on.

Funny thing I noticed last week–someone viewed my website from the University of Portland about two days before I got here. The referring link was from the forum on my free webhost-someone else here must be using aloofhosting. It’s a small world..

Went to the game, where the Pilots won 1-0. I got there about halftime, and joined up with the drum squad. I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned the squad yet, so here goes.

Basically, lots of Villans bring lots of drums to all the home soccer games. We beat out rhythms, encourage the players, and heckle the other team. Today, #4 from the other team (UAB, which I think is University of Alabama Birmingham) kept having his shoe come untied. We looked in the program and found out that his name was Jason. And so every time his shoe was untied, we’d all yell for him to tie it, etc. Then came the offers to buy him velcro shoes, and so on. When a player subs out, we all chant Right, Left, Right as they walk off the field, and then ‘Sit down’ as they do. The two games I’ve been to, both times at least one player has gotten frustrated by us and taken a funny hop step, or several small steps in a row, or faked us out as to when he’s going to sit down.
Then we have the cheers. This game, towards the end, when we were up 1-0, we sang, to the tune of “Sweet Home Alabama”, the following. “Go home Alabama/Jason tie your shoe.” and so on. Every goal results in the Pilots flag being run down to the goal and dipped once for each point we have, as we count off each point. Then if their score is zero, we line up and sing , to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, something like the following: “One-nil, one-nil, one-nil, one-nil/one-nil, one-nil, one-nil/…”.

In general, we try to rattle the other team, and support the Pilots. I’m told that the legacy of the Villa Drum Squad is that no one likes coming to Portland to play. Apparently, the word is out. I’m told that Good Day Oregon, a morning talk show in the region, is intending to do a segment on the Squad, and may do an interview Wednesday. We’re going to be out in force for the first ever night game this Friday, and they may also be there to film us in action.

Lots of reading to do tonight, so that’s it until later.

–Nathan

PS: Not all technology is smart. While spell checking this post, Blogger Spell Ckeck didn’t recognize the word Blog. And Blogger’s only product is blogs!

For the first time in a few weeks, I’m using a computer that I can do anything I want to on. My Dad and sister came in Sunday with my loft, and my laptop, which had been delivered to my Uncle Pete the a day or two previously. I’m having lots of fun setting it up properly. (Take that sentence literally, or with a hint of sarcasm, either way, you’ll be correct.)

My dad had built the loft at home, and then disassembled it for delivery. It took less than an hour to set up and everything. Then we went through all the stuff I had asked for, and all the stuff that Mom had decided to send out with them. I now have a fairly large stockpile of food, mainly crackers, granola bars, and fruit.

On my way back to the dorm after my last class, I noticed that the Men’s Soccer was playing again. I think I’ll make this a short post and wander over to see the rest of the game–it started at 2:30. I may even join up with the drum squad.

Go Pilots!

–Nathan