Half Past June

Whaddya know, my website is back up and running. So what all has happened in the last three weeks? Well, a fair bit actually, namely graduation and finding a summer job.
The last Sunday in May was Commencement Day. My parents came down for the Baccalaureate Service at 9am, and even though it was supposedly a Christian church service, there were definitely some overtly pagan elements in the service, which greatly annoyed and troubled us. But hey, it’s Gustavus, you can’t really expect to get actual Christianity at an official Gustavus church service (or class/lecture, for that matter) I guess. After then packing up most of the remainder of what I had left in my room, we went down to the Arb for Seth’s reception for a bit, and then it was time for me to get all dressed up in my cap and gown and head to Christ Chapel for the line-up. It was kind of a long procession, they had us wind all the way around the Chapel, over by Old Main, and then under the arch between the Campus Center and Student Union. But once the last people finally made it outside the Chapel, they had us just wait around and stand there for the better part of an hour. At least it was a gorgeous day for being outside, with temps in the upper 60s and a light breeze under partly cloudy skies. At long last the line started moving towards Hollingsworth Field, with all the professors lining the way in their colourful and varied academic robes. Prof Paul Saulnier had even made up a big orange “Congratulations!” tagboard that was littered with all sorts of hideous physics equations — and I recognized each and every one of them. That’s just sick. Anyway, by the time of the processional, my brother Nathan had joined my parents up in the stands for the commencement ceremony, which lasted about two hours. I thought the student speeches were pretty good, as far as those things go, especially the hilarious one by Josh Hauser and Andy Brown. There were other speeches and awards as well, including the Gustavus professor of the year award that went to a philosophy prof, Lisa Heldke, who then gave a 15-minute speech about some philosopher named Dewey that left everyone going “huh?” That is, if they were still paying attention by the end. Nobody I know was really able to discern what her point was or why she rambled on for so long. But then at long last the names started getting read, and we’d walk across the stage, shaking hands with the board of trustees chairman, Chaplain Rachel, and finally President Peterson. Then we’d wind our way back over to where our department’s faculty were standing to receive our diploma finally. Once Commencement was over, it was time to head over to Olin one last time, for a reception for physics majors and their families. After pictures a few of us even played one last game of frisbee out in front of Olin, and I was even still in my cap and gown! Even though Olin has been the place of much torturous hard work over the last four years for me, I didn’t want to leave, because that building has basically been “home” for me for awhile now. But I went back to Wahlstrom, checked out of my room there, packed my computer in my car, and then I was off with my parents and Nathan to Aaron & Eve’s place in Minnetrista for a little family get-together, with them, Nathan & Laura and kids, and my Uncle Dave & Aunt Dee. By the time 10 o’clock rolled around, I was totally exhausted from the day’s happenings.
I applied for a few jobs in the Cities on Memorial Day on my way up to Cumberland. I went up there mostly to see my parents and drop off a lot of my stuff that had been packed away from my Wahlstrom room, and that I didn’t wanna take back to the Cities with me when I moved into Aaron & Eve’s basement. I also spent part of an evening up there hanging out with Mike & Kevin for a bit, primarily on the pontoon they’d built on Beaver Dam Lake. I hadn’t seen them since I visited them out at UW-Green Bay back at the beginning of February. I also got to see Richard & Sarah S. too, it was the first time I’d seen Rich since our spring break trip to the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns down in Australia at the end of September, and Sarah had just gotten back from her 18-month Mormon mission trip to Hong Kong, so I hadn’t seen her in a couple years. It’s fun seeing old friends. And Janelle should be getting back from her year in China sometime this month too. Oh yeah, and I also stopped by my high school to say hi to several of my former teachers, every one of them were amazed that four years had already gone by. It was good to see them too.
I moved in to Aaron & Eve’s for the summer on the 1st of June, and for a couple weeks after that, in addition to continuing my job search, I was basically just relaxing. I’ve managed to watch a bunch of Twins games on TV, start knocking the rust off my piano-playing, catch up with an old friend Luke N., and read a fair bit, including an awesome book by Erik Larson called “Isaac’s Storm.” It’s a historical narrative about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the deadliest natural disaster in American history (over 6,000 deaths). It’s one of my favourite books ever now, I highly recommend it. And right now I’m workin my way through a long book, “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers, about his involvement in and subsequent break with Communism and the Communism underground in the late 1930s, and the Alger Hiss trials shortly after the end of WWII. It’s also very good. And then I also have gotten to go out on Aaron & Eve’s 25′ boat on Lake Minnetonka a couple times, which is always fun, including the time when this picture was taken of my 2 and a half year old nephew Mathias and I hanging out and being cool. 🙂 It’s such a beautiful lake.
At any rate, I finally did find a job for the summer. On Monday morning I started working at Choice Auto Rentals in Eden Prairie. They’re not like the car rental places you’d find at an airport, instead they rent cars to people whose cars are getting worked on in the body shop. I really enjoy the job, basically I spend most of the day driving rental cars to customers who are waiting at various body shops around the southwestern suburbs, and then picking up cars from the body shops that customers dropped off when they were done with them. And then probably one day a week I’ll probably end up cleaning cars and getting them ready to go out for rental again. The good part about whatever job I happen to be doing on a given day is that I’ll get to listen to KFAN, KSTP or whatever radio station I want to quite a bit. The downside? A lot of 7:00 or 7:30am start times, and not getting off until 5:00 or 5:30pm everyday. But this should be a good job for me, I’ll get to learn a bit more about cars, and get paid to drive around fairly new, nice cars all day. 🙂
Back on Wednesday night I went to the Twins-Giants game at the Metrodome with Carl, Al, John, Zach, Jolene, Cory & Mike P. Every Wednesday night game is student night, where students can get $3 tickets in the upper deck cheap seats. Heaps of students showed up, because the entire upper deck outfield area was filled, it was pretty cool to be in the Dome with a crowd of over 25,000 (I was at games in the mid-late 90s when there’d be only 8-11,000, making the Dome seem like a mausoleum). It’s just too bad that they lost 8-4 though. 🙁 Kyle Lohse gave up four 1st inning runs, but by the 5th we’d pulled back to within 5-4, so it was a pretty close game until JC Romero gave up another 3 runs in the top of the 9th. Argh! But we still had fun, and it was good to see everyone again.
Friday afternoon I went up to Brooklyn Center to see “Batman Begins” with Kate and John. I’ve heard everyone raving about that movie, and both Josh and my friend Jonny from Massachusetts both insisted over IM the other night that I HAD to see it. And it certainly lived up to all the advance billing it’s gotten, it’s a fantastic movie, probably the best superhero-type film I’ve seen. It did such a good job of explaining the backstory, and showing how Bruce Wayne developed into Batman. My only small complaint about the movie at this point in time was that in the first two fight sequences, it was pretty difficult to tell who was fighting who rather often. But yeah, I don’t have a doubt that this will be considered one of the best films of 2005, it’s that good. Go see it. After the movie John and Kate came over to the house in Minnetrista to hang out a bit at the barbeque that A&E were having, and a bit later I showed those two a bit of footy on DVD. They seemed to like it, even though neither of them are huge sports fans.
Man, do I miss watching the footy on the telly, or going to the ‘G for a match. I’m so gonna order this year’s Grand Final on DVD in October. And probably also the NRL (National Rugby League) Grand Final DVD at the same time, just so I have some rugby to show off and educate myself with. And I may even buy a DVD of some cricket to show off to people! Man, why can’t ESPN just televise some of this stuff like they used to?? It’d be way better than weightlifting, pool, bowling, lumberjacking or endless repeats of poker tournaments like they have on now. I mean, if AFL (footy) was good enough for ESPN to televise for several years not all that long ago, and made ESPN popular and laid the foundation for what it is today, it should be good enough now. I should start a letter-writing campaign to ESPN, who’s with me? 🙂 Anyone?
This afternoon (Saturday), after I finally got done with work (2-3 hours later than expected), I headed up to Cumberland for the night, for Father’s Day amongst other things. Aaron & Eve came up too, though a few hours before me. Tonight I also ran into Rice Lake to Aquafest to hang out a bit with Mike M., and Kevin came over to RL for a little bit too. Joan Jett was playing on the Aquafest stage, but aside from her one or two well-known and popular songs, she wasn’t all that great. That and she was scary-looking and washed-up (which would explain why she’s doing gigs in towns like Rice Lake, Wisconsin now). And her partner, another guitarist, was even scarier-looking with tall spiked hair. ~shudder~
Other than that I guess I haven’t been up to too much. 🙂 For a random smattering of news stories, the drought finally seems to be breaking in parts of Australia where it’s barely rained in the last few years, so that’s fantastic news. Farmers were literally dancing in the rain. And ya gotta love stupid criminals, even when they’re a couple of Aussie teens (now labeled “Dumb and Dumber” by the Aussie press) who try to rob a Colorado bank. And my favourite story of the past couple weeks (or at least favourite headline), is the one about two PETA employees being arrested in North Carolina on charges of animal cruelty. The irony is amazing.