Gomeler.com

Hell Week and Georgia Tech Homecoming Week

10.31.06 - 12:36pm

I’m back! I sincerely apologize for the week long absence but I was hammered from the thursday before last until this saturday. Besides the 3 tests and project I had due from that thursday to last wednesday I also had Homecoming week to deal with. For those of you not interested in my personal life you might as well skip this post and move on as I’ll be detailing the activities of my last week to help explain my absence.

The Academics

I’m pretty certain I am failing half of my classes right now however that has been the standard through the duration of my attendance at this school. Once again all my professors conspired against me and hammered me with a test in every class spread over 5 days. I just love how professors can manage to always clump tests together within a 5 day period to create a week of supreme academic hell. I am pretty certain if I wasn’t forced to cram for the last 2 tests due to studying for the first 2 tests I’d have a chance at passing more than 2 tests. Either way it doesn’t matter as my bitching won’t get me anywhere, so instead I will start making plans for self-employment as I will probably be unmarketable with a GPA that a retarded monkey could attain. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of my ideas will come to fruition and make me comfortably rich. No matter what I have another 2 years at this lovely Institution and I hopefully I will leave this place with an Engineering degree, wish me luck.

Homecoming Week

In high-school Homecoming Week was a rather small affair, weaksauce compared to college. I don’t know how other colleges roll but at Georgia Tech Homecoming week means long nights, little sleep, and lots of cuts, bruises, and hard to explain injuries. For those of you wondering, no we don’t have our own version of Fight Club, there are just so many activities that must be completed to acquire points for the Homecoming competition. The field events ranged from your standard standing longjump, punt/pass/kick, and “Ironbuzz” competitions to random stuff like the Dustbowl eating contest, the Stand, and watergun fights. I myself participated in the Stand which consisted of precariously balancing 5 guys on a square foot platform and standing there for the longest time possible. Simple as it may sound this can be rather difficult considering that 5 pairs of feet don’t comfortably fit in a square foot area.

The non-field events are what makes Homecoming week such a pain. I myself worked on the contraption which is a vehicle that is powered by non-direct drive propulsion. Basically you can do anything so long as a motor doesn’t directly turn the wheels. My friend Mark and I decided to continue with our attempt last year at creating a working pulse jet and what an adventure that was. I had to bend by hand a 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of 16 gauge steel into various cones, flanges, and chambers. By utilizing an enormous propane stove, two hammers, and an improvised wooden anvil I managed to bend everything into shape in under 72 hours. Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn’t manage to get our jet working before the deadline but this week we plan on strapping it to a small go kart and go cruising around the campus. Did I mention the jet will create ~65 pounds of thrust and produce a screaming 140 decibels of noise? Did I also mention it’ll easily drain a 25 pound propane cylinder in a few minutes? What more could I ask for! I can’t wait to drive it around campus. When we were test firing the engine the explosions were echoing off a building a quarter mile away, wonder what the Atlanta Police will have to say about that. I’ll get some pictures up when we have the cart assembled and the engine firing.

Besides the contraption I participated in the Mini 500 which consists of a race on little tricycles. This year I was the lead driver for my team which was a great honor but this also meant I was the test driver for our tricycle. The trikes used are little plastic and flimsy steel bikes meant for 3 year old children. Since my team placed 2nd last year we got our pick of starting positions and I chose to be right in the center, front line. The start of the race was amazing, the Ramblin Reck lead the race off with a honk of its horn and then like a F1 race everyone starts going forward regardless of what’s in front of them. I had an awesome start as the picture below shows, everyone else was still talking about the race when it actually started. I had an excellent lead for the first 3 seconds then on my second thrust with my leg I pushed too hard into the bike and the front steering assembly disassembled itself causing me to roll across the ground and completely disrupt the start of the race. To go from first place to last place in a blink of an eye was so heart breaking, we tried to fix the bike but powertools aren’t permitted and I am pretty certain a MIG welder was considered a powertool. Oh well, there is always next year.

The Football Game

This year our football team faced off against the Miami Hurricanes and what a game it was. On the first play of the game Reggie Ball was hit rather hard by Miami, fumbles the ball, and Miami’s defense ran the ball in for a touchdown. Not exactly the best way to start a homecoming game but it was ok as our defense persevered. Both offenses were subpar when compared to the defenses so the game primarily consisted of the quarterbacks getting creamed, the running backs getting flattened, and the wide receivers tripping over themselves. The game was rather close ending 30-23 Georgia Tech. The game was great, a few fumbles really turned the tide for Georgia Tech, and this let me sleep soundly saturday night.

So there you have it, that was my week, in snapshot view. I was awake from Wednesday morning at 8am till Saturday morning at 10am with a total of 9 hours of cat naps fit in there. Saturday night and Sunday night I slept 13 and 11 hours so I believe I am caught up but I still feel beat. Thankfully I have 6 months to recover till Greek Week starts up this Spring. That’s about it from here, I’ve got all the data for the Lean Machine and i’ve started writing on that plus a few other things so expect a flurry of articles to pop up soon. Thanks for sticking around guys.

Category: Personal, Status