PKT25: Fall 1999
The Fall 1999 semester is where my memory for what happened with pledges joining and brothers graduating and/or leaving starts to get foggy. This is partly because we had had some pretty substantial pledge classes and some pretty significant graduating classes, and partly because I started having more and more activities and interests outside the house. I've tried to confirm dates whenever feasible, but as with all my posts, history is hard and memory is malleable.
The biggest change in the new semester was that my little sister, tigerlily_blue, was a freshman at CWRU. We immediately started doing things together. First up, we both were in the chorus for the Footlighters production of Cabaret. My sister has actual musical talent, and I showed up. Still, a ton of fun. We also did a semester of ballroom dance together. I wasn't much better at this, but in an organization where the girls outnumbered the guys by a substantial margin and many of the guys had questionable hygiene and social skills, I never lacked for someone to dance with. I got halfway decent at swing dancing, at least if you never looked at what my feet were doing. Most of the other dances I never got good at, although weirdly when I danced with Karen S. (and only with Karen) I somehow was able to do a halfway decent tango. I can't explain that one.
On the radio front, I moved into Monday 3pm-5pm with The Body Electric, a time slot I would maintain the rest of my time in college. Part of the reason I kept that slot was that for the Fall 1999, Spring 2000 and Summer 2000 schedules I was the Program Director. gieves was the General Manager. I won that one! I really enjoyed being Program Director, I was pretty good at it, and if it wasn't reserved for a student I would have tried to hold that job again. Oh well.
This was also my second semester working at CWRUPhone. On top of that, during the freshman move-in period, me and many of my fraternity brothers served briefly as contractors for the company that handled CWRU's networking infrastructure. Our job was installing network cards into the computers of new students so they could hook up to the network. This gives you a sense of how long ago this was. It was even before wi-fi! Anyway, both Dolan and Pat were working for Netcom (by this point, both were working more than studying) and they hooked up anyone in the fraternity who was vaguely technical. You wouldn't know it to look at me now, but back then I definitely qualified as technical with regards to computers. I still have my official Netcom t-shirts, even.
At the house, I was back in the Studio again, but this time I was lived in the front room and Alberto lived in the back. This was occasionally awkward when I had female company, but pragmatically that happened maybe once that semester because I was still hopeless with woman, so was no big deal.
I was the Vice-President that semester. I ran ritual, and I was supposed to do the awards packets, but Hsia did them instead for reasons I no longer recall. I think he just wanted to do them.
At the end of the Spring 1999 semester, we had 26 actives. Our Fall 1999 pledge class added eight people - well, probably. I pinged several people who were members of that pledge class or the following pledge class, and got several different answers. Comparing their memories against the composites, I'm pretty sure that the pledge class was these eight freshman:
Marc - History major. BB: Hsia.
Coop - From somewhere near Toledo. Majored in something weird like the history of engineering. BB: Shawn.
Sean - I think he was a music education major. BB: unknown.
Tim - Metalhead physics major. BB: Neal.
Bybluk - From near New York City, given that I once got drunk with him and his brothers in Little Ukraine. BB: Dolan.
Dominic - Physics major from somewhere near Akron/Canton. BB: Frank.
Joe - From Stowe in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland. Computer science major, which would help me a lot my second senior year. BB: Jon.
Brad - Another computer science major, this one from Colorado. BB: Dutton.
I don't think anyone graduated in December 1999, or at least my recollection is that with one exception everybody who was on the 1999-2000 composite and not the on the 2000-2001 composite graduated or left in Spring 2000. The one exception is my little brother Vic, who left CWRU somewhere in 1999. He thinks it was late summer, but he's on the 1999-2000 composite, so we'll call it Fall 1999 and acknowledge that there's some uncertainty about exact timing. Whenever it was, I helped drive him back to his parents house in New Jersey, which was a long two days there and back.
In any event, take 26 actives, one leaving the house and eight pledges and we had a record 33 actives (or so) at the end of the semester.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999, Summer 1999, Fall 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding, Video Games
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings
The biggest change in the new semester was that my little sister, tigerlily_blue, was a freshman at CWRU. We immediately started doing things together. First up, we both were in the chorus for the Footlighters production of Cabaret. My sister has actual musical talent, and I showed up. Still, a ton of fun. We also did a semester of ballroom dance together. I wasn't much better at this, but in an organization where the girls outnumbered the guys by a substantial margin and many of the guys had questionable hygiene and social skills, I never lacked for someone to dance with. I got halfway decent at swing dancing, at least if you never looked at what my feet were doing. Most of the other dances I never got good at, although weirdly when I danced with Karen S. (and only with Karen) I somehow was able to do a halfway decent tango. I can't explain that one.
On the radio front, I moved into Monday 3pm-5pm with The Body Electric, a time slot I would maintain the rest of my time in college. Part of the reason I kept that slot was that for the Fall 1999, Spring 2000 and Summer 2000 schedules I was the Program Director. gieves was the General Manager. I won that one! I really enjoyed being Program Director, I was pretty good at it, and if it wasn't reserved for a student I would have tried to hold that job again. Oh well.
This was also my second semester working at CWRUPhone. On top of that, during the freshman move-in period, me and many of my fraternity brothers served briefly as contractors for the company that handled CWRU's networking infrastructure. Our job was installing network cards into the computers of new students so they could hook up to the network. This gives you a sense of how long ago this was. It was even before wi-fi! Anyway, both Dolan and Pat were working for Netcom (by this point, both were working more than studying) and they hooked up anyone in the fraternity who was vaguely technical. You wouldn't know it to look at me now, but back then I definitely qualified as technical with regards to computers. I still have my official Netcom t-shirts, even.
At the house, I was back in the Studio again, but this time I was lived in the front room and Alberto lived in the back. This was occasionally awkward when I had female company, but pragmatically that happened maybe once that semester because I was still hopeless with woman, so was no big deal.
I was the Vice-President that semester. I ran ritual, and I was supposed to do the awards packets, but Hsia did them instead for reasons I no longer recall. I think he just wanted to do them.
At the end of the Spring 1999 semester, we had 26 actives. Our Fall 1999 pledge class added eight people - well, probably. I pinged several people who were members of that pledge class or the following pledge class, and got several different answers. Comparing their memories against the composites, I'm pretty sure that the pledge class was these eight freshman:
Marc - History major. BB: Hsia.
Coop - From somewhere near Toledo. Majored in something weird like the history of engineering. BB: Shawn.
Sean - I think he was a music education major. BB: unknown.
Tim - Metalhead physics major. BB: Neal.
Bybluk - From near New York City, given that I once got drunk with him and his brothers in Little Ukraine. BB: Dolan.
Dominic - Physics major from somewhere near Akron/Canton. BB: Frank.
Joe - From Stowe in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland. Computer science major, which would help me a lot my second senior year. BB: Jon.
Brad - Another computer science major, this one from Colorado. BB: Dutton.
I don't think anyone graduated in December 1999, or at least my recollection is that with one exception everybody who was on the 1999-2000 composite and not the on the 2000-2001 composite graduated or left in Spring 2000. The one exception is my little brother Vic, who left CWRU somewhere in 1999. He thinks it was late summer, but he's on the 1999-2000 composite, so we'll call it Fall 1999 and acknowledge that there's some uncertainty about exact timing. Whenever it was, I helped drive him back to his parents house in New Jersey, which was a long two days there and back.
In any event, take 26 actives, one leaving the house and eight pledges and we had a record 33 actives (or so) at the end of the semester.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999, Summer 1999, Fall 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding, Video Games
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings