I call this Part I because I’m assuming there will be a Part II.

So far, I think that Florence is a lot more fun than Rome. It’s much easier to get around the city at the very least.

So, yesterday morning we got on a train for Florence. Without realizing it, we had gotten a ticket for a Eurostar train, a significantly nicer, faster, non-stop ride that also included a drink service (which I thought was wonderful, because I’ve been really thirsty on almost the whole trip).

Oh! Speaking of drinks, I have a quick aside. I have no pity anymore for people who drink coffee at Starbucks and complain about the cost (including me). We’ve actually paid €4 for a cappuccino, and €2.50 for a half liter of water.

Back to the train. We got to Florence rather uneventfully and, after picking up a map of the city, made our way to our hotel, which is actually a B&B.

Here’s the weird thing about Florence: there are red and blue (or black) street numbers, red marking businesses and blue marking residences. Both are assigned sequentially, but are not connected at all. Since we figured we were looking for a hotel, we were looking for red numbers, but the B&B was in an apartment-type building, so it turned out to be a blue number. We only realized this after we walked twice the length of the street our hotel is on.

So we check in, and realize that we have an absurdly long 4 days in Florence, so we decide to try and shift our schedule back some. I call the Accademia (where Michelangelo’s David is) to try and get a new reservation. That’s easy—it’s never booked up too far in advance. Then I ask to cancel our old reservation, and find out it was for April 28. Not good. So I check the reervation for the Uffizi…April 29. Also not good. Unfortunately, they don’t let very many people into the Uffizi, so it was booked through June 2. Even more not good.

So, we decide our only real option is to go and try to get in. Fortunately, we do. However, the Uffizi wasn’t anything spectacular. There were lots of pieces of art, but not many individually famous pieces, except the Birth of Venus and a couple of others. The audioguide was expensive and seemed to focus on pieces that didn’t seem very interesting—and ignore other ones that looked more so.

We went thorough and then went to a recommended restaurant from our guidebook which wasn’t so great and only had an Italian menu. We had a very light meal and decided we didn’t want to fight the menu, so we left and went to another restaurant, where we each had a pasta dish. Back to the hotel and to bed.

This morning we planned what I expected to be a full day of sighseeing. First, the Duomo, the dome on which the dome at St. Peter’s was based. Unlike the dome at St. Peter’s, there is no elevator to get you started—you have to climb all 463 steps on your own. And the steps are a bit harsher—long spiral staircases, no railings…you have to use the same staircase going down as you did going up for a while, and just hope you don’t run into anyone.

The view at the top was pretty nice. We enjoyed it and then headed down.

Next was the Duomo Art Studio, a workshop a few blocks away where they apparently repaired ancient artwork. It was closed, so that was a quick stop.

Next we walked to the Bargello, yet another gallery less famous than the Uffizi and the Accademia, but it had a few interesting things. There was a bronze statue of Mercury that I recognized from somewhere, but I don’t remember the sculptor. More significantly, Donatello’s David was here. Unfortunately, there were no photos allowed at either the Uffizi or the Bargello. It kind of sucked. I’m assuming that the City of Florence (who owns both galleries) makes a tidy profit from the rights to any photos of the statues taken.

We finished the Bargello, and it was only about 10:00, so we moved on to the next item, the Science Museum. Here we got to walk through a lot of rooms with a bunch of nifty old instruments…as well as Galileo’s right middle finger.

After we finished the museum, it was about lunch time, so we found a sandwich place. Then we went to what is apparently a famous gelato place, Vivoli’s. I had a mix of hazelnut and chocolate with coffee. Very, very tasty.

At this point, we had actually finished everything I had lined up for today, so we went to the Leonardo Museum, an overpriced display of working da Vinci inventions. Didn’t spend to long there, either, so we spent about 2 hours wandering through the city and shopping at the numerous street vendors.

By the way, this is apparently the place to get anything made of silk or leather, particularly ties or wallets. So I picked up a new wallet, since mine was looking kind of beat up.

Also, I’ve been trying to find Moleskine notebooks. Since they’re supposedly made in Milan, I figured I’d be able to find some here, but I haven’t so far. Instead, I’ve found several companies that bind books with leather and paper made here.

In any case, I have a minute and 35 seconds left at this internet cafe, so I need to get going. Ciao.

Did you know: the outfit for the carabinieri, the Italian military police force, was co-designed by Armani?

I’m actually writing this post at a computer while we do laundry. So…the past three days…

On Monday, we decided to do the “Caesar shuffle,” i.e., the Forum Romanum, the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, that sort of thing.

We actually started at the Forum and took the official tour offered by the Archeological Society of Rome. Our tour guide claimed to be an archeologist, but I would recommend against the official tours. She was hard both to hear and to understand.

Like before, I’m going to describe the photos that will be put up here when I get home (well, possibly a little bit later—I have a lot of photos to edit).

The problem with the Forums is that there’s not a lot left. You’ll see 3 or 4 columns from a temple that has otherwise been torn down or plundered by Christians.

First, we saw the Basilica of Constantine. It was a big building, and apparently a smaller third of it was left. At the Capitoline Museum we saw what was left of the giant statue of Constantine that was there, but that comes later.

Next, the Temple of Romulus. But not Romulus as in the founder of Rome; this one was apparently the son of Marcus Aurelius. The son died young, and so the father deified him to help cope with his grief. The columns are made of some red marble, which is extremely valuable.

Then, a giant temple to some person; don’t remember who. It was apparently reused as a church later.

Other cool buildings included a temple to Saturn, of which about 7 columns are left, and the Arches of Septimius Severus and Titus. The Arch of Titus itself isn’t original; it was remade within the last 100 years. The friezes, though, were original, and just stuck back in.

Also, right in front of the Temple of Saturn was the Rostra. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was—it didn’t look as I imagined it, but that’s what our guide pointed at. Also, the Curia, which I believe was also repurposed as a church.

Near the Colosseum was the Arch of Constantine—really big arch. My photo of the arch was actually taken from the second floor of the Colosseum.

And then there’s the Colosseum. It’s big. And missing a lot of the original marble. Apparently this was not, as I had expected, from Christian salvaging but from an earthquake. For your visual enjoyment, I have a series of photos that I can hopefully stitch together into a panorama or two.

Tuesday was Vatican day, which I actually enjoyed a lot more because everything was still there. Also, not as sunny.

We got off the Metro (subway) intending to do the Vatican Museum first. Stupid non-believer that I am, I didn’t really see what would be so great about a giant church (a.k.a. Saint Peter’s Basilica). This is where I show you the photos of the lines to get into the museum, which were about 12 people wide and probably stretching halfway around the world’s smallest country—all the way around 3 different sides of the wall.

So, we decided to head for the Basilica. When we were about to get in line to go through the metal detectors, some guy was standing around offering a free English tour of the church. He was an ex-pat, turned out to be Canadian, so he spoke good English, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, so we joined him. We figured there had to be a catch, but we also figured that a tour by an expat with a catch was better than a tour by a local without one.

The guy gave a great tour, though, pointing out all kinds of nifty stuff with perspective (two statues might have looked like they were the same height, but one was actually 6 feet taller than the other). Also, flash photography is allowed in the Basilica because everything that looks like oil on canvas isn’t—it’s glass mosaic. Everybody ooh and ahh together now.

Near the entrance is La Pieta, a sculpture by Michelangelo of Mary holding the dead body of Christ. After someone took a hammer to Mary’s nose in 1972, it’s now behind 2-inch thick glass, and you can’t get anywhere near it, so I had to really work the camera for all it was worth to get a good photo. I can’t really tell if I did or not, but I think so.

The columns on the giant structure (technically called the Baldachin) are modeled after that of the Basilica of Constantine (different one that used to stand where St. Peter’s is now), and the entire thing could fit in the little hole in the top of the dome with room to spare on all sides.

There is a giant statue of Paul and Peter on either side of the church entrance, and Paul looks strangely like Zeus (see the picture). Across the top are Jesus, the apostles (minus Judas), and John the Baptist, and bunches of saints and martyrs are positioned around the square.

So here was the catch to the guy’s tour: he was selling a tour of the Vatican Museum later on. But he was really good, so we decided it was worth it. After a quick lunch, we met up with him at a bar, and then headed to the museum.

By the way, the line that was insanely long earlier? It now only stretched about halfway around one side. We stood in line for maybe 10 minutes and then went through.

Waiting for us right after the metal detectors was a statue of Laocoon and his sons being strangled by snakes. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the original statue—it was a plaster cast, as the original was being restored. Oh well. It’s still a cool statue.

Next? A statue of Artemis from the Pope’s private collection of everything stolen from the Forum (and other places). There were at least 100 marble statues from antiquity on display.

The next room was the Hall of Tapestries which contained, you guessed it, a bunch of tapestries. Not many of them were very interesting, and they were mostly faded, so I moved on.

Next was the Hall of Maps, where some cartographer had gone and drawn up giant maps of each of Italy’s provinces. These were done 400 years ago, but were apparently found to be 98% accurate. The photos here are really for the ceiling. Our guide commented that you never have to ask if something’s gold—it always is.

We then saw a couple of rather uninteresting frescos, and finally ended up in the Raphael rooms, where we were shown one of my favorite paintings: the School of Athens.

Finally, we saw the Sistine Chapel, where you weren’t allowed to take photos, so I have none. I personally was of the opinion that the paintings might be nice, but they were really far away, so kind of hard to enjoy.

One interesting thing I’ve found about museums in Rome is that they’re not nearly as protective of their artwork. Many of the galleries let in sunlight, have open windows, aren’t climate controlled…our tour guide says that he’s had curators from England who were literally in tears by the end because of how much damage the elements were doing to the artwork.

The other funny thing was that our guide was apparently not a registered tour guide—in Italy you have to be. Of course, we were in the Vatican, which is not Italy. That doesn’t mean he didn’t catch a lot of flak from other tour guides, who apparently didn’t like him too much. They apparently insulted his character in Italian, and so he flung it right back. I thought it was kind of amusing, personally.

Next we went up to the top of the dome. First they drop you off at the base of the dome, where you can walk around on the inside. I did the best I could to get photos of the whole thing which I’m going to try to digitally tape together, although there was a giant grate in the way. After you soak in your fill of that, you go out and start the 320-step climb up to the top. And boy is it a climb—as you get higher, the staircase first starts leaning to the side (in parallel with the dome), then you have to take a very narrow spiral staircase (no railing) to get to the very top. The observation deck is at the bottom of the small hole in the top of the dome.

And boy was there a view. Not surprising, really—by law, no building in Rome can be taller than the dome, but nothing even came close. I have another panorama of Rome, a photo of St. Peter’s Square, some nice shots into the Pope’s private gardens, and some nifty floral arrangements.

Today we played catch-up, hitting all the sites we had missed earlier, since we leave for Florence tomorrow.

First, we had lunch at the Piazza Navona. The Tre Scalini is apparently well known for their Tartufo, a chocolate gelato covered in chocolate chips with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top. Very, very tasty. For the main course, Dad had a gnocchi dish and I had a fetuccine alfredo, both of which were good.

Then, I took a photo of the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini. For reference, the closest river god is the Nile—its head is covers because at the time of the sculpting the headwaters apparently had yet to be discovered. On the left is the Ganges and on the right is the Rio de la Plata (apparently they hadn’t discovered the Amazon yet).

Next we walked to the Pantheon. It’s big and it’s apparently perfectly sized to hold a sphere the diameter of the dome. The dome, by the way, was the model for the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, but out of respect, Michelangelo made his 13 centimeters smaller. The Pantheon was converted to a Catholic church (wasn’t everything?) and is still being used as such today. Also, Victor Emanuele II and Raphel were both buried here.

Next was the Fontana di Trevi. It’s basically a big fountain. There were also lots of people trying to force knick-knacks onto the tourists.

Then we walked up to the Spanish Steps. They were rather uninteresting, though, so we just headed back to the hotel.

Note: I didn’t have time to finish this post earlier, so I’m doing it now, May 26, in Florence. My memory may be weaker as a result. I’m also going to go ahead and finish up our stay in Rome, but I’m preserving the original composition date.

After doing laundry and getting kicked off the computers, we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and headed off to a restaurant that Dad found. It really wasn’t too great, but Dad’s tirmasu was.

The restaurant was near the Spanish Steps, so we took the subway. However, we went to go back and the subway station had closed. We figured that was OK—we’d just walk to the next station. So we did, and it was closed too. But at that point, we were just two stops away from the train station, and we needed to get tickets for the train to Florence. A stop on the Roman subway, by the way, is about a 10 or 15 minute walk—walking two wasn’t unreasonable at all. So we walked to Termini and got our train tickets. At that point, our hotel was one stop away from Termini, so we went ahead and walked the rest of the way.

Editor’s note: I’m going to start on a Florence entry now, but I don’t know when I’ll finish it.

Did you know: the Italian word for crossword is cruciverba, literally cross-word? I saw this on the back of the magazine of a guy in the same train compartment as us.

Right now, I’m on a train from Naples to Rome. Lacking a laptop to keep me entertained, I’m writing (as in with pencil and paper) a blog entry, which I’m hoping to actually type in the next 24 hours. But enough about the present.

We spent last night in a smaller town outside Naples called Sorrento, because it was supposed to be a little nicer. Didn’t do much—a quick walk around the piazza and some gelato before going to bed.

This morning, we woke up and had breakfast at a small pastry shop, and I got to see Dad murder the Italian language (”due cappuccino, por favor”). Then we took the Circumvesuviana, a regional commuter train, to Pompeii.

We left our suitcases at the train station, then decided we didn’t want to carry our backpacks, so we left those at the excavation site. If you ever go, the latter is free. Then we picked up one of the electronic guides. If you ever go, try to get in on a guided tour—we had trouble sometimes telling what the recording was talking about.

Here is a very brief description of what we saw, to be highlighted by photos when I get home.

After going through the grand entrance, we checked out the basilica, a courthouse and business area. I also got a nice shot of the top of a Corinthian column. They liked taking those and putting them on the ground.

Next was the forum. Apparently large white columns once ran around the whole thing. This isn’t too surprising, because there were columns around just about everything. At the end of the forum was a temple to Jupiter.

Next we wandered until we came to a row of houses. You could see the atrium and the remains of an impluvium (life people, correct me if that’s not the hole in the ground), and there were also lots of mosaics in the floor.

As we walked along the road, we caught a glimpse through the ruins of a large mural, remarkable well preserved. The camera didn’t cut through the protective plastic very well, unfortunately.

Next was a small town square and, more importantly, two amphitheaters. In the first photo that will eventually show up here, there is a large athletic field on the right and the larger amphitheater on the left. The entrance was grandiose, but blocked off—you had to take some stairs on the side and enter from the ground level. The photo from the stage is actually the smaller of the two amphitheaters.

There were several tunnels going down below ground, which we assumed were cellars. This, however, just looked like a Roman hobbit hole.

A random mural from a random shop goes here—I picked out Hermes on the left, but I didn’t really try to interpret any of the others. Also, some machine that looked like a waterwheel, which was sitting on another field near…

..the really big amphitheater. Bigger than the others, it had large arches around it.

One of the few places where we were able to pick out the individual areas described by the audio guide was the baths. This is a photo of the changing room, whose exact Latin name I can’t quite remember. You could see the frigidarium (cold room) and tempidarium (warm room) from in here.

Dad was artistically inspired to take a photo of one of the roads. I will have to take the time to edit it, so you better take the time to enjoy it.

I got a photo of a random column, because you just can’t go see ancient Roman ruins without taking photos of columns.

Next, my personal favorite, the Casa del Poeta Tragico, so named for a painting now on display in Naples. It is famous, however, for a very well known mosaic at the entrance. This mosaic has a picture of a chained up dog and reads “Cave canem,” or “Beware of the dog.” This house was also interesting because you could walk through a lot of it. There was a small temple like structure which I believe would have been for the penates, and two large murals in the living room. The first was of Ariadne after Theseus forgot her on Naxos. The second, according to the audio guide, was of a bunch of Cupids, whatever that was supposed to mean.

On the west side of the forum was a large collection of archeological artifacts. About a fourth of them are in this photo.

Next, I took a photo from the office of weights and measures. I took it purely for the Latin, because I wanted to have a sample to look at later, as I couldn’t make any sense of it while I was there.

Almost done, I promise. In the temple of Apollo, there was a nifty looking sundial. This temple was the oldest place of worship in Pompeii. It is also near the tourist entrance, but we missed it on the way in.

Finally, I snapped a panorama type shot on the way out.

Ooh! One more thing. Just now we passed the ruins of an aqueduct on the train. Its photo will eventually go here. Do any of my Roman geography buffs know of an aqueduct that would be running north into Rome? In any case, this means that we’re almost in Rome, so I better wrap things up. Until next time…

Editor’s note: This was typed on an Italian keyboard, which has a really, really screwy layout. Typos are the fault of the keyboard, not of me.

Travelling to Europe is really a pain. Thanks to my week of living the easy life, I’ve calibrated my internal clock perfectly incorrectly for the 7 hour time change, so I wasn’t ready to sleep on our Trans-Atlantic flight until we were about to land.

There’s also the amount of time it takes to get here. We left Nashville at 3:50 PM and will be arriving in Naples at 9:55 PM one day later. That’s 30 hours with the time zone change, and still 23 without. Of course, we’re using accumulated American miles, so the connections and layovers suck, but that’s still a lot of time in an airplane.

And American sure doesn’t do much to make it any better. I think that was the least legroom of any flight I’ve taken. And I have a theory about the food. I think that somebody out there has become very wealthy for making food as tasteless as possible.

In any case, I’m writing this from London’s Gatwick airport, right as we’re beginning the second half of our 8 hour layover. The first thing we did was find a computer so I could do the Da Vinci Code Quest Final Challenge Thing. It was mostly predictable—harder versions of the same puzzles. With Dad’s help, we finished in about an hour and ten minutes, which surely won’t be enough to win, but I never was really expecting to anyway.

After that we had lunch at a restaraunt in the airport. I figured that, since I wouldn’t be in London long, I might as well do the British thing and have fish and chips, so I did.

I noticed a few odd things about London. First, people actually walk on the left side of. Obviously, I knew they drive on the left, but I never really made the connection to walking.

Also, like any international airport, the place is littered with duty free shops selling beer, wine, cigarettes, and so forth. But what caught my eye were the cigarettes. Unlike American packaging which tries to hide their poisonous nature (i.e. the surgeon-general’s warning), here it is emblazoned on all sides with messages like “Smoking kills,” “Smoking causes fatal lung cancer,” and “Smoking is highly addictive, don’t start.” I have photos, which I will post when I get home.

The last thing is security. Compared to the US, security here is lax. We had to go out of the secure zone to get to the lounge,e and when we went back through, they didn’t check our IDs, just the boarding passes. And the metal detector is set low enough that nobody had to take off their shoes.

Later addendum: they did eventually check our IDs at the gate.

So, in a few hours I’ll be heading off for Italy.

I suppose I should talk about graduating first, though.

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t perceive graduation as anything unusually special. Hell, we didn’t even get our diplomas at the ceremony—apparently under Tennessee state law you have to sign for them, so we pick them up afterwards.

Not only that, but the transition from high school student to graduate has been rather slow. I stopped going to school about a week and a half ago, and school has been winding down for a lot longer than that.

In any case, the ceremony was well done, and all speeches were very nice.

But now, like I said, I’m heading for Italy.

I have a notebook, a camera, and lots of paper, so I’m planning to have a few blog entries written up by the time I get back. If I’m really lucky, I’ll manage to convince Dad at the last minute to let me take my laptop with me, but I’m not counting on that one.

Assume that I”ll be completely out of touch with the world until June 1, and won’t be able to check my e-mail until June 5.

This entry is going to get me caught up, like it or not.

First topic: Aaron’s bass.

For Science Olympiad, Aaron got to do the Sound of Music contest, where you have to bring in a homemade instrument. So Dad made this washtub bass for him to play.

However, only the strings could be from a real instrument, so Dad had to take off the actual bass tuning machines he had installed and replace them with something quite literally made of nuts and bolts. Then, since Dad couldn’t figure out how to read our electronic tuner, I spent hours and hours telling him “higher” or “lower.” Of course, whenever I did, he had to get two giant vice grips to make any adjustment.

This made for a much more interesting story when it happened, which was around the last week of March. Anyway, enjoy the pictures. The second is the top side of the tuning…mechanism, and the third is the bottom.

Next story: quizbowl, specifically the state quizbowl championship.
This was amazingly awesome, because we kicked so much ass. We were almost completely undefeatable. We had 500 or 600 points on almost every round, including the ones against Knoxville West and Ezell-Harding, the two teams I was most afraid of. The only round we lost was to Rossview. It was one of those annoying things where we were more or less neck in neck the whole time. The problem with playing Rossview is that we both know the same information.

Anyway, we won 1st place overall by a landslide. I’m pretty sure that we could have put our buzzers down for the last round, or at least part of it, and still won. Just for extra fun, Dallas, Will, and I all made the State All-Star Team, a purely honorary list of 8 players in the state, voted on by the coaches. We each got our own little trophies for that, in addition to the giant one we got for winning.

Next story: I have a job
I started working at a web development company called GoDesign. As I explained to Connie, they’re “like sitemason, only they work in the languages I know.” Working at Sitemason (or Monster Labs) was lots of fun, but their major products were all written in Perl, and I’ve never been quite able to get Perl.

Not only that, but I’ve got a big project. I don’t want to say what it is, because someone else could probably go and get it on the market before me, but it should be cool, and it should have a pretty large market.

Other cool things about working there: they do all their project management online, so I do all of my work from home whenever I want. Also, they have a few designers in house, which means I don’t have to do any design work (and trust me—that’s a blessing for anyone that has to use my apps).

The head programmer at GoDesign sent me an e-mail about a month ago about a PHP Users Group meeting, so I went to it. It was really cool to talk to other developers; I honestly had no idea there was so much serious development going on in Tennessee. Also, Chris Shiflett, who’s a big security guy in the PHP world, was at the meeting, so we got to talk about some security stuff that’s definitely influenced the way I develop (i.e., I think about security now, instead of ignoring it). The other cool thing was that I had more experience than the other people there with both WordPress and Ruby on Rails, so I was able to contribute to the conversation. Made me feel all special and stuff.

Next story: TJCL Convention
It was generally awesome, like always. And like always, I pretended to be a state officer even though I’m not. I didn’t pay for food all weekend, and I stayed at Rossview until midnight with the other officers to help with the ribbons and such. Also, MLK won Role Call this year. Avram and I did a knockoff of Lazy Sunday that we wrote an hour before the General Assembly. Yeah, it was that bad. But we did win.

Next story: MassJCL Convention
Connie invited me to go to the MassJCL Convention, which was lots of fun. Getting there was interesting—my first flight left at about 6:00 AM, so I had to get up around 4:00. I did make it though, and the first thing I had to do was a colloquium on technology in JCL. Let’s just say it was about as well attended as my OhioJCL colloquium on Nationals. That is to say the guy that was supposed to be helping me was there. And a few other officers came for moral support. I had the colloquium again two hours later. This time two webmasters showed up. They, however, knew what they were doing, so the basic-level presentation I had prepared wasn’t very useful. So we spent a while fixing up their website.

The other interesting event was that night. The four male officers (including me) played Risk after lights out. Actually, it was Risk: Lord of the Rings edition. I’d never played before, but the dice liked me, so I was actually doing quite well. After 2 or 3 rounds, though, we gave up, because it was like 1:00 AM.

And that was the month of April.

Now for May.

The day after I got back from MassJCL was our final in math. I actually don’t know how I did, because I never got in touch with Professor Hughes. In actuality, though, it doesn’t matter. Since I’m not earning credit, my hypothetical grade doesn’t really count for much. I’m going to just have to hope that I can test out of the class.

That next Thursday (we’re on May 4, by the way) was the AP Literature and Composition test. The multiple choice was easy; the free response sucked. That’s really about all there is to it.

Next major event: AP Microeconomics test
It was easy. Most of economics is easy; you just have to think about it the right way. I spent a good portion of the free response time drawing out the database schema for that super-secret web application I mentioned earlier.

There was one redeeming thing about the test, though. One of the questions asked you to explain why something is. Since I was bored and had plenty of time, I wrote my answer in the style of a mathematical proof—complete with a QED box at the end.

Well, there was one other thing between my two AP tests: on May 7, I turned 18. That, combined with the fact that I’m about to graduate from high school, has led to a large influx of stuff from parents and grandparents and the like. Of particular note, so far I’ve received a MacBook Pro (well, it’s still in the mail), a Canon PowerShot A620 digital camera (not as fun as Mom’s, but it does its job), and this, from my uncle.

Finally, my one other graduation present is a trip to Italy. Originally, Phillip, some other kids, and I were going to go to China this summer, but that never really happened, so Dad and I are going to Italy. It’s a 12 day trip; we leave Friday afternoon. Then, we come back June 1st through Chicago, where I stay for another 3 days because it’s the NAQT National Championship, a quizbowl tournament. This is seriously going to probably be the best two weeks of…well, at least my pre-college life.

This is made interesting, though, because I managed to place myself as a finalist in the Google Da Vinci Code Quest contest thing. I got a cryptex replica in the mail today as one of the first 10,000 people to finish all 21 of their challenges. When does the final challenge start? May 19th. Luckily, it just has to be finished within 48 hours, and it’s based on shortest time, not first done. My plan? Use our 8 hour layover at the London Gatwick Airport.

By the way, the cryptex is about 4 or 5 inches long. The code for it was on the back of the box it came in—that’s “grail” if you didn’t notice from the picture. There is no vinegar inside to dissolve the paper—they shipped it, remember. And finally, it’s not unusually well made—only the last two letters really matter. Keep in mind, though, 10,000 of these were sent out. They weren’t going to be top quality.

And that’s my life. Maybe I’ll do more regular updates now. I’ll try to handwrite entries while I’m in Italy at the very least. Speaking of which, assume that I will be totally incommunicado between May 19th and June 5th.

…stays in Vegas.

Except I’m a blogger, so I don’t believe in secrecy.

But now…close your eyes, and imagine that it’s the middle of March, instead of the beginning of May.
Imagine…
Imagine…

Hey! No peeking!

The NJCL had their Spring Planning Meeting in Las Vegas this year. I can assure you that this sounds far more glamorous than it actually was. We stayed at an Amerisuites about a mile away from the Aladdin. I flew in on Friday after math class was over. For whatever it’s worth, the flight from Nashville to Las Vegas was a lot longer than I expected it to be—two different times, I looked at my watch and thought our plane must be coming in late, only to realize that we had crossed into a different time zone.

The meetings on Saturday were really very uninteresting, for the most part. We got a lot done at FPM, so we weren’t left with much to do at SPM. The only thing I can think of that other people care about is the Officers’ Skit. Assuming Zach turns out to be a prodigy screenwriter, we should have a good skit.

Also, there are currently two board members who don’t have laptops: Laurel and me. This is ironic, because our positions are more technology driven than anyone else’s. As a result of a long drawn-out support fiasco with Dell, Cain had an extra laptop, so he brought it with him for me to use, but he only had one power adapter between the two laptops. Since the room where the Officers met didn’t have WiFi, he brought an extra switch and we both brought as many ethernet cables as we could lay our hands on.

Every couple of hours, the Officers would stop meeting and go down to report on our progress to the Committee. Every time, Zach would assure us that this we would be down there for a little while, so every time, Cain and I packed up our equipment and schlepped it all down four floors. And every time, we would report on our progress and then be sent away, forcing us to lug the electronics back up. This happened 4 or 5 times over the course of Saturday.

After the meetings were over, we headed into Las Vegas for a little fun (and some cheap photo ops at Caesar’s expense). The hotel ran a shuttle back and forth from the Aladdin, so we started there. Next, we walked past Paris and headed for the Bellagio, where Laura’s parents were staying, because she needed to stop by her room. While she went up there with Dr. Fu, the rest of us waited to watch the fountains. Unfortunately, there was some wind, so the fountains were cancelled.

Drew then decided that he wanted to take us to his favorite hotel, the Venetian. We rushed over to the Venetian, but we only had 30 minutes before we were supposed to meet everyone at Caesar’s Palace. By the time we got there, we had to turn around and head back.

We then ate dinner at the Caesar’s Palace Planet Hollywood (we ate so much better during FPM). After dinner, the Officers were allowed to wander around the Caesar’s shopping mall. We sort of looked around at some clothes stores and then discovered the F.A.O. Schwartz with the 30 foot tall Trojan Horse. And on the top floor? DDR machines and an air hockey table. Those kept us occupied for the rest of our free time. For the record, I have indirectly beaten half of the Officers at air hockey (I beat Cain and Preeti, who beat Drew, although Cain beat me the first game).

That’s about it for Spring Planning. We headed back to the hotel, slept, and left the next day. Personally, I was very glad to have scheduled the early afternoon flight, as opposed to Cain, who I believe had to wake up at something like 4:00 to catch his flight.

Also, all the Officers proudly proclaim the fact that we are but ants under the heel of the National Committee at each meeting by giving gifts to everyone else. This time, most of the Officers brought some form of chocolate. Zach’s gift, however, amused me, because he gave us purple and gold M&Ms.

And now, the thrilling conclusion of MIT Campus Preview Weekend…

I slept in reasonably late again on Saturday morning, but eventually got up and had some waffles at Next House. Then I headed for ESP because once again they were doing lectures that I was interested in: The Lambda Calculus and Unlambda. I think I almost understood lambda calculus, but unlambda went so fast that I was completely lost. That’s really ok, though, because unlambda is designed expressly to be impossible to code in. I also went to the Do-it-yourself Audio lecture on making speakers, which was interesting because the guy taught mostly about the circuitry of making speakers. I’m considering taking his IAP class, although I don’t know what I would do with a good set of speakers.

Next I hit up the East Campus barbacue, which was conveniently on the way to Sloan. A group at Sloan was doing a trading game simulation. It was really cool, although I didn’t win—I couldn’t spot a .COM bursting stock bubble when it was staring me in the face. Afterwards, they fed us pizza, and we headed back for Kresge.

After an official farewell from the admissions staff, all of the MIT a capella groups performed for the prefrosh. I enjoyed the concert, although I was kind of tired, so I had to work to stay awake.

Next was the Battle of the Bands. Now, I’m not really big on concerts, and I kind of like my hearing, so I came and went a little, but I did stay and watch Ben’s band play. I was fortunate to witness one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: Tim the MIT Beaver crowd surfing. Don’t believe me? Here’s photographic proof (courtesy of Valery ‘08):

With my ears starting to hurt, I headed out and started wandering around. In particular, I was looking forward to Capture the Flag along the Infinite Corridor, but I didn’t want to be carrying the bundles of papers, promotional material, and propoganda, so I wandered back to Next House. My host wasn’t there, so I left my stuff outside his door, figuring it probably wouldn’t go anywhere (dumb? probably). I then headed back, and spent a little while in the ESP room. I talked with them about dorms, life at MIT, general stuff. Got some good input on what to do and not to do.

So anyway, Capture the Flag. It was sponsored by ΑΔΦ, who apparently does this regularly. We met at Lobby 7 and were split up into two different groups. Lobby 10 was neutral ground, and any part of the main campus was fair play. Also, everybody got t-shirts—either red or blue—that we got to keep. Much, much fun was had by all. We played a total of 5 rounds, I believe. My team ended up winning, although I never managed to accomplish anything. Anneke and I, plus an Illinois JCLer named Max, plus a few other people formed an elite stealth team. We were very good at being stealthy, but not so good at the whole capturing the flag thing. We finished at about 4:30 in the morning, though. I sat around in the student center with some other prefrosh for a little while longer, then headed back to Next House.

Sunday was for the most part uneventful. I packed up my stuff (actually, I had a hell of a time getting my bag zipped shut with all the extra t-shirts and such) and checked out at the student center. While there, I filled out my form accepting admission to MIT and turned it in. I had a quick breakfast, took the shuttle back to Logan, and flew home.

There you go. That’s it for my CPW coverage. Now that I’m done with that and school’s winding down, I should be able to go through the rest of my backlog soon. No seriously—I promise I will; I was really hoping to not get more than a month behind.