Thoughts on Graduation

May 17th, 2012 by matt

So, I graduated last night. It was interesting.

I really hope that Canisius posts a video of the commencement ceremony. Some highlights:

  • The commencement speaker managed to spend a sizable chunk of his speech telling us how important it is to financially support the college, now that we are alumni. The audience for this just spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $30k, at least, to get to this point. Apparently, not enough. Then again, the commencement speaker was the head of the local PBS affiliate; it’s entirely possible that begging for money is just an instinct that kicks in when he sees a crowd.
  • This was balanced by the president of the college telling us that we’re graduating into a terribly economy anyway, and good luck with finding a job in the Mad Max times that we’re all living in now. The Thunderdome is the new law. He said we were lucky to be graduating from Canisius, though, because apparently a degree from a regional liberal arts college is a valuable credential in the New Economy. I’m not sure if he actually believes that or if he’s just being nice.
  • There were a staggering number of people graduating from the School of Education. Hundreds. Probably fifty or sixty in physical education alone. No wonder I know so many unemployed teachers; the market has got to be completely flooded.
  • Apparently Canisius now offers a degree program in Applied Nutrition. So, if you’ve ever considered getting yourself deeply in debt to have your eating prowess certified, now’s your chance.

Anyway, it’s been three tough years, but I’m done. And I’m glad. I may go back to school at some point in the future, but for now, I plan on spending those two nights a week I was in class with my sons, instead. And I couldn’t be happier.

 

Shirt Designs 2012

May 17th, 2012 by matt

Here are the submissions that I received for this year’s SAPS shirt design. Each one is tagged with a name, which corresponds to an entry in the voting booth. To vote for your favorite, go to the end of this post and make your selection. Please don’t just post your vote as a comment, because then I don’t know whether or not you also used the voting booth. Please note that each of the images in this post is a thumbnail; if you’d like to see more detail, where available, just click on the picture and a larger version will load.

Whichever design has the most votes by midnight on May 31 will be the winner, and will go on the t-shirts that Super Atomic Pedal Squadron wears in this year’s ride.

So, without further ado, here’s our contestants:

SAPS Atom

Dinosaur

Chainring

Fallout Gear

Please, pass the URL for this far and wide – email, Facebook, etc. Not only is it good publicity for the team, and a good chance for fundraising, but I’d like to get a lot of input and a lot of votes. And I’m sure that some of you are dying for a chance to stuff the ballot box.

What should be the 2012 SAPS shirt design for Ride for Roswell?

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One Thousand Steps

May 15th, 2012 by matt

Beer and Failure

May 9th, 2012 by Pitt

From the fine website, “Cracked”: 5 Tips for Pairing Beer with Failure. #1 about made me spit out my coffee. Enjoy.

Security Footage

May 8th, 2012 by matt

Check out the video attached to this Buffalo News story.

Pretty impressive video quality on those blue light cameras, eh?

Financial Sector

May 7th, 2012 by matt

Last night, I was watching an episode of Frontline about the recent economic crisis. One of the early facts they mentioned was that the financial sector is not only the single largest component of the American economy, but that it’s fully twice the size of American manufacturing.

How strange is it that shuffling money around in a databank somewhere is twice as lucrative as actually producing something of tangible value?

This is a postmodern world, to be sure.

Sprawl Kills

May 7th, 2012 by matt

Late last week, a fourteen year old boy was killed by a drunken hit and run driver.

The boy was riding his bicycle on a suburban street with a minimal shoulder and no sidewalks. The driver was coming home from a local bar with a BAC of olympian proportions.

For the last five decades, we’ve optimized real estate development in this area for automobiles, and we’ve built a sprawling complex of subdivisions that are optimized for cars rather than humans. Why are kids riding bikes along the side of a highway-in-all-but-name? Why are people drinking at a bar so far away from home that they have to get in a car and drive there? Because our insane suburban sprawl dictates it.

It’s amazing how much better we were at urban planning before we started calling it that.

Crash 2.0

May 1st, 2012 by matt

Those skinny road tires just don’t corner, do they?

Crash

April 30th, 2012 by matt

First crash of the season; about 25 miles into Saturday’s ride I hung up the front wheel on the trolley tracks downtown and went over sideways. Ouch. The bike is fine, but I left most of the skin from my left knee on the pavement.

Good times.

Shirt Design Contest 2012 – Extension

April 29th, 2012 by matt

Since I’ve received absolutely ZERO submissions for this year’s shirt contest, I’m pushing the deadline back from May 1 to May 15. Hopefully, that will give people a little more time to get something together. As always, just send your entry to my email.

Sheesh, you’d think we were all busy with our spouses and kids or something.