Professional hockey is back in Minnesota! A year and a half after going to my last NHL game, tonight I attended a Wild game. Woohoo!

My seat was great: fourth row, center ice, right behind the Wild penalty box. The weather was great: I walked to the Xcel center with only a light jacket. The game was great: the Wild pounded the Sharks 6-1, with five of those goals coming in the third period. A trifecta!

On top of all that, it was inspirational to see some fantastic goaltending. Fernandez (the Wild goalie) made a bunch of beautiful saves despite the new NHL restrictions on goaltenders. The pros make it look so easy. Two weeks until my league’s season starts!

Wednesday night, I said to myself, “Self, what should I do this weekend?” Much to my surprise, I replied, “You obviously have gone far too long without taking a huge test, so you should take the GRE.”

Yup, a spontaneous GRE-taking. Is this an example of callow intellectual hubris? I hope not. Is it an attempt by yet another disillusioned young professional to right a feckless post-college life? Perhaps.

My line of reasoning goes like this: I forget more and more of my school-derived knowledge with every passing day. My writing skills have grown stale from inattention. My lexicon might expand over time, but many of the words on the GRE are so obscure that it would be only by Providence that I would encounter them in time to be useful. Really, how often do you see the word “opprobrious” in literature?* Taking all of this into consideration leaves but one conclusion: sitting for the GRE sooner is better than sitting for the GRE later.

Twelve hours until test time…

(*specially-chosen example from the GRE practice exam)

This past weekend was Homecoming at Rose. I spent the vast majority of the time hanging out with my Brothers at the Pike house. The overall mood was much more energetic when compared to last year.

As always, it was good to see everybody. The conversations tended to start in a predictable fashion (“Where are you living?” “Where do you work?” “How do you like it?”), but many swung to more interesting topics. It seemed like I knew almost everybody at the house on at least an acquaintance level.

The chapter appears to be in good shape. Rush is going well and is (apparently) better organized than it has ever been. Improvements have been made to the house, most notably the (yet another?) remodeling of the formal lounge. Homecoming was well-organized and well-executed.

One of the neat things that the actives did during homecoming was to have a huge bonfire at the house. The fuel? A large pile of pallets. Once the fire got going, the flames were immense and the heat was intense. Good times.

The alumni were their usual messy selves, so I spearheaded an effort to clean up part of that mess in the house on Sunday morning. Tyler, Ben Leonard, and Edmonson pitched in, too.

Sunday night, I went to a chapter meeting for the first time in 16 months. In the meeting, I was surprised to find that I had been voted “Pike of the Week” for my cleaning efforts. I found it quite amusing.

The award was special in another way: my very first “Pike of the Week” award was four years ago, on September 24, 2001. What was it for? Cleaning up the house after homecoming. Thus, both my first and likely my last PoW were for the same task.

All in all, it was a good weekend.