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Carnival, Day 2
We got up and watched a little of buggy over CMU TV, and ate bagels, and then walked to campus with Sheena. She found a ton of cool clothes at the campus store. Nothing fits me, though, which sucks.
Went to the new building and visited Mark Stehlik for a few minutes before Mobot started (it was just lucky that he happened to be in his office). Then we went off to Mobot and basically hung out there for an hour or so. Saw lots of CS alums, although most were younger than me, very few were from my same year (98-99), maybe just Julie and Jason, and mj2q and his kids (who are now huge), and Forest. But I guess there were also plenty of people from the 2000-2003 range as well, which at this point is about the same age anyway. I ran into twescott, who apparently also works at MS now, and we might have some overlapping friends too, go figure.
Mike and I went to check in at the UC after hanging out at Mobot for a while; we tried to get free food for lunch but would you believe it, just as we got there, the BBQ people literally ran out of food. All they had left was veggie burgers and chicken pieces. So we both made chicken sandwiches, and grabbed some drinks and ice cream bars, and went up to the place over Entropy to see who was there... but it was just Adam and Jenny playing some new board game of theirs. So we watched them for a while and then headed onwards again, this time back to the Gates building. We visited Mark again as he was talking to some other cslounge alums, and then went to the Game Creation Society club's "arcade", where they were having people play and/or playtest video games they'd made. It's really pretty crazy. I'm guessing some of those kids are really going to go somewhere in the videogame industry; makes me wonder what it would have been like had such a club existed in my day. We ran into bolson and the Jensen clan there too, and played a bunch of the videogames.
Bolson and Mike and I went to go try to find the new Coke machine... on the 6th floor. Which wasn't accessible after-hours the day before. But naturally we go up the stairs... walk out... and I see Christa, Charlotte, and Derek standing there. (Friends of mine from APhiO way back in the day.) Charlotte has worked for the CS dept for a long time, so she knows the new building inside out -- so after seeing the new Coke machine she showed us up to the 9th floor where there's this insane reading room, it's got this amazing view of campus. And really nice chairs. Apparently some undergrads vandalized them and so the room is usually locked to anyone except grad students and other people with office keys.
Then after that we wandered some more of the building... including finding the new cafe area and the new "cluster" that I had been told is like the cs lounge in spirit. It certainly seems so -- whiteboard full of geeky random stuff, bunch of geeky people who are just hanging out there, etc. Really, the entire area is very nice, it makes me a little bit jealous of the current students for what they have. (I'm guessing that in general, the fact that CMU builds like one new building per year or so, probably makes lots of past alumni jealous of the new facilities.)
Then we went to find CS volleyball but went the wrong way. That is, we went out to where it used to be on the Cut or the Mall or whichever... found Adam, and realized yeah, we were in the wrong place, it's now on the grassy area under the Pausch bridge that back in my day was a big valley of nothing but dirt and debris. Go figure. So we played volleyball for about 2 hours, with Mark and a few undergrads (I think) and then various alumni who showed up.
Went to the UC, met up with some people for a Mad Mex run. We had 15 people total and were originally told that we'd have to wait for like an hour for tables but it turned out to be more like 30 minutes when we split into two groups. We were at a table with rjmccall, mym, christine, mj2q and his girlfriend. And there was much chips and dip to be had, which was very good and very nostalgic. But thanks to the Penguins game it was really loud in there, defeating the purpose of "McKnight is the quiet Mad Mex". Even funnier, the point of going there was for Christine and folks to be able to go home afterwards... and then they left Paul on campus and had to go back and get him anyway. Oh well.
We got a ride back to Roman's. Benoit and Alison showed up right after we did -- and then I pretty much fell asleep. I felt bad -- people came over to play poker -- but I simply laid down and couldn't get back up until like 2am after sleeping for 4 hours. I had trouble sleeping the rest of the night, but oh well.
Went to the new building and visited Mark Stehlik for a few minutes before Mobot started (it was just lucky that he happened to be in his office). Then we went off to Mobot and basically hung out there for an hour or so. Saw lots of CS alums, although most were younger than me, very few were from my same year (98-99), maybe just Julie and Jason, and mj2q and his kids (who are now huge), and Forest. But I guess there were also plenty of people from the 2000-2003 range as well, which at this point is about the same age anyway. I ran into twescott, who apparently also works at MS now, and we might have some overlapping friends too, go figure.
Mike and I went to check in at the UC after hanging out at Mobot for a while; we tried to get free food for lunch but would you believe it, just as we got there, the BBQ people literally ran out of food. All they had left was veggie burgers and chicken pieces. So we both made chicken sandwiches, and grabbed some drinks and ice cream bars, and went up to the place over Entropy to see who was there... but it was just Adam and Jenny playing some new board game of theirs. So we watched them for a while and then headed onwards again, this time back to the Gates building. We visited Mark again as he was talking to some other cslounge alums, and then went to the Game Creation Society club's "arcade", where they were having people play and/or playtest video games they'd made. It's really pretty crazy. I'm guessing some of those kids are really going to go somewhere in the videogame industry; makes me wonder what it would have been like had such a club existed in my day. We ran into bolson and the Jensen clan there too, and played a bunch of the videogames.
Bolson and Mike and I went to go try to find the new Coke machine... on the 6th floor. Which wasn't accessible after-hours the day before. But naturally we go up the stairs... walk out... and I see Christa, Charlotte, and Derek standing there. (Friends of mine from APhiO way back in the day.) Charlotte has worked for the CS dept for a long time, so she knows the new building inside out -- so after seeing the new Coke machine she showed us up to the 9th floor where there's this insane reading room, it's got this amazing view of campus. And really nice chairs. Apparently some undergrads vandalized them and so the room is usually locked to anyone except grad students and other people with office keys.
Then after that we wandered some more of the building... including finding the new cafe area and the new "cluster" that I had been told is like the cs lounge in spirit. It certainly seems so -- whiteboard full of geeky random stuff, bunch of geeky people who are just hanging out there, etc. Really, the entire area is very nice, it makes me a little bit jealous of the current students for what they have. (I'm guessing that in general, the fact that CMU builds like one new building per year or so, probably makes lots of past alumni jealous of the new facilities.)
Then we went to find CS volleyball but went the wrong way. That is, we went out to where it used to be on the Cut or the Mall or whichever... found Adam, and realized yeah, we were in the wrong place, it's now on the grassy area under the Pausch bridge that back in my day was a big valley of nothing but dirt and debris. Go figure. So we played volleyball for about 2 hours, with Mark and a few undergrads (I think) and then various alumni who showed up.
Went to the UC, met up with some people for a Mad Mex run. We had 15 people total and were originally told that we'd have to wait for like an hour for tables but it turned out to be more like 30 minutes when we split into two groups. We were at a table with rjmccall, mym, christine, mj2q and his girlfriend. And there was much chips and dip to be had, which was very good and very nostalgic. But thanks to the Penguins game it was really loud in there, defeating the purpose of "McKnight is the quiet Mad Mex". Even funnier, the point of going there was for Christine and folks to be able to go home afterwards... and then they left Paul on campus and had to go back and get him anyway. Oh well.
We got a ride back to Roman's. Benoit and Alison showed up right after we did -- and then I pretty much fell asleep. I felt bad -- people came over to play poker -- but I simply laid down and couldn't get back up until like 2am after sleeping for 4 hours. I had trouble sleeping the rest of the night, but oh well.