Here’s to new experiences!

Last night, Vince, Alex, Bri, Krystal, two of Alex’s friends, and I went to Treasure Island Casino.

Despite having been eligible for three years (in Minnesota, one needs only be 18 to gamble at a casino), I had never before been to a casino. The place was about as I had imagined it: lots of slot machines and lots blackjack tables. Even the essential “Win this Car” slots were there.

The demographics of the place were as I expected. The old people were at the slots, striving fruitlessly and mindlessly towards an enigmatic jackpot. The young people were at the blackjack tables, talking it up with the dealers and exercising their latest “system.”

It was towards our peers that we gravitated.

The cardinal rule of casinos is to expect to lose all the money with which you start playing. This tenet in mind, our group sat down together at a table. High stakes this was not — our table had a $3 minimum, so most of us bought in with $21. On second thought, perhaps that is high stakes to a college student. But I digress…

We played for a while. At least one of our party lost it all. I got down to a last bet and then rebuilt. After I was up slightly for the night, everybody else seemed done with blackjack, so I tipped the dealer and left the table. All told, I ended the night up $2. Woo.

It was entertainment. More importantly, it was a chance to hang out with friends. That I didn’t lose money was a nice bonus.

Why ponder the mundane? History seems to best remember those events that are, in retrospect, pivotal and grandiose, but does that make past everyday experiences less important?

Example: Blogs. These online journals (such as the site you are currently reading) often deal with the daily realities of life. Some authors attempt to be profound — few succeed. Mundane events from the authors’ endeavors therefore comprise most of the content of blogs. I do not say this in derision; it seems that people are fascinated by how normal people live their lives. Reality TV shows this. So does voyeur “artistic cinematography.” Even age-old gossip fits the bill. Is any of this really profound? No, but it is all strangely appealing.

In much the same way, research of the mundane is interesting. A group of people found such studies so worthwhile that they started the Journal of Mundane Behavior. The Journal is a “peer-reviewed scholarly … journal devoted to the study of … aspects of our everyday lives that typically go unnoticed.”

In the latest issue of the Journal, there is an article about “Understanding Television without Television” (Boyns and Stephenson, 2003). Therein, the authors investigate the reaction of sociology students to watching a television for half an hour. The catch? The T.V. remains turned off. Comments from the test subjects were often quite humorous while being quite telling:

• “As I sat watching the blank screen on the television, the first thing that crossed my mind was that I felt kind of stupid, that was before the feeling of boredom set in.”
• “The first thing I noticed was how dirty my screen was.”
• “I noticed how boring a TV set is. It is just plain and black. Not a very fun appliance to look at.”
• “As I looked at the screen, I felt like the TV was trying to talk to me. That feeling was so weird.”
• “I started to feel a little lonely, like I had been left out of something … I realized that I truly did not know what I would do without a television in my life.”

But perhaps the most insightful comment was this: “I actually felt like I was getting mad at the TV. I began to hate it. I hated it for all those wasted days of viewer’s lives they spent watching it, all the misrepresentations it created, the messages it sent. I hated it for being the reason for this assignment.” That comment captures the heart of the television problem: the enormous time commitment.

I simply do not have time to watch much television. Whenever I turn the tube on to watch the Simpsons or a hockey game, I feel an incredible sense of guilt. I know that I could be putting my time to better use and that watching the television is an act of arson, burning away the hours into a pitiful void. I watch very little television, certainly much less than the average three hours per day. For most of my junior year at college, I did not even have a television in my room. Well, okay, that’s not quite correct – I had a T.V. in my room, but it was not plugged in. The T.V. was there merely as a part of the decor. After roughly five months, my disdain for television lost to my desire to watch hockey, so the T.V. was finally hooked up. Even then, my viewing remained negligible.

I know several people (including Mutak and Grandstaff) who have virtually given up T.V. After graduation, neither bought televisions for their new residences. They seem to be getting along fine without the glorified CRTs.

Television can wield an enormous influence on your time, but only if you let it. If you resist the urge, think of everything else that you could accomplish.

You might even have time to ponder the mundane.

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Speaking of mundane, here’s an update into my recent activities.

Finals week at Rose is starting. I don’t have many finals, but I do have several class projects that must be completed. I intend to be back in Minnesota by the end of this week, which should allow ample time to hit the slopes (assuming the weather gets colder).

We had a big poker tournament amongst the Brothers at the Pike house on Saturday night. I lost in the first round, but it was a blast anyway. We have several very decent poker players in the house!

I woke up this morning to find that my left eyelid was swollen shut. I went to the doctor. He looked at it and diagnosed it as an allergic reaction to something. I couldn’t think of anything that I might have encountered that would have triggered such a reaction. Later on, it hit me: I got toothpaste in my eye the previous night. Stupid as this may sound, I’m not the only one to ever do it. In fact, numerous other people have written about such experiences. Suffice it to say that toothpaste-in-the-eye REALLY SUCKS!!!

But then, that’s all really mundane, isn’t it?

The big/little ceremony went well. I have a new little bro: Welcome to the lineage, Ted!

“Blog,” Perenic once wrote. “It’s good for your soul.”

In just a few weeks, I’ll be back in Minnesota for Thanksgiving break. I’m looking forward to being home. Hopefully, it will be reasonably cold out, so that I can go snowboarding. Before I go home, there’s plenty to be done in both school and Fraternity. In the Fraternity, I am (among other things) the Associate Educator, which means that the duty of pairing Big/Little Brothers falls under my committee.

I have been lucky with my big/little experience thus far. All three of my little brothers have are great people. I was especially fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend extended amounts of time with each of them. My first little brother, Willis, was my roommate during my junior year. I worked with my second little brother, Vince, at Medtronic last summer. This year, my third little brother, Tyler, is my roommate.

The big/little experience is something special, something profound. For me, my little brothers have become almost as family. In the words of Scott Himes:

“In a fraternity your little brother is someone younger than you, [someone] that you take in and treat almost as a son during their time leading up to initiation. You support them through the difficult times, teach them what they need to know and celebrate with them when they accomplish great things. The best part was the special friendship that always formed and would last long after they were initiated.”

Yesterday, Matt Gordon (my Big/Little coordinator) and I sat down to pair the Associates with their Big Brothers. It was anything but a simple task. The Associates and the Brothers submit short lists of people they would like to be paired with. In an ideal world, an Associate’s top pick would correspond directly to a Brother’s top pick. Unfortunately, such is not always the case. In some circumstances, all of the Associate’s choices are “taken” before they can be assigned a Big Brother. In other cases, the opposite occurs. Either way, the challenge becomes making a good pair with effectively no input from either side.

After three hours, we completed our task.

I am happy to say that the K’Allen Lineage will be growing by 9 people to a total active membership of 23. For those unfamiliar with the concept, our lineage traces our big/little pairs, much as it would in a family. The lineage of Kyle “K’Allen” Allen, my Big Brother, is especially close, which I think is really cool.

During the selection process, I decided that I would only take a Little Brother if an Associate listed me as his top pick for Big Brother. There was one person in particular that I really wanted for a Little Brother, and it turns out that the preference was mutual. Who? Well, I can’t say quite yet (the secrecy of the pairing before the pairing ceremony is a long-held tradition), but stay tuned for an announcement of the newly expanded Keacher Lineage.

Bid Tuesday.

Type type type. Check watch. Type type. Check watch again.

Duck out of work early. Drive drive drive. Go to grocery store. Endure odd looks for buying 10 Chips Ahoy cookie packages and 44 liters of pop. Head back to House. Drive drive.

Check on the fire trucks. Hmmm, one of them won’t start. Will a battery swap cure the problem? Click, growl growl growl; vroom! Now the other. Click, growVROOM! Quickly, inside to grab the letters (t-shirts with the Greek letters Pi Kappa and Alpha) for the freshmen. Toss the letters in the pumper cab, riding shotgun. Back pumper out of barn, turn to make exit from grounds. Slow down so others can hop on; fire trucks are cool!

Drive towards campus. Politely smile and wave at those motorists honking. Start slowing early for the turn into campus. Will the repairs to the brakes made at 3:30 a.m. earlier today hold? Park at rendezvous point. Admire Pike flag flying 100ft in the air off of the ladder’s ladder. Grab box of letters from cab. Check watch again. Almost late! Rush to Moench, outside of EE lounge. Mingle with Brothers. Hypothesize at new class size. Do last minute Bid Tuesday assistant recruitment. Debate safe and practical limits of pallet bonfires. Listen to credible rumors of a rushee signing with a rival fraternity.

Here comes Snyder! Here comes Brandt! Do they have the list? Yes! Mass excitement, growing noise level. Their hands go up; it is their time to speak. Move to the front to distribute letters. How many? Thirty-two, plus one who signed late, so thirty-three. Largest class in several years!

Names are read. Letters are distributed. Where are several of the freshmen? D’oh, two of my rushees signed elsewhere, including one with a chapter that had been on probation. Suck. Ah well; the other ones I really wanted to join (Speed 3!) are all signed with us. Go through the list again. Does every freshman have somebody to present them with letters? Yes? Good! Run to the dorms, find the freshmen. Congratulations abound! Quickly now, back to the fire trucks. Everybody pile on the trucks for a spin around campus. Start up the pumper, wait for the ladder. Wait, where did the ladder go? Ah, there it is; long vehicles make for long, tedious 12-point turns. No, 13-point. Watch out for the building! 14-point. No, 15-point — there, now it’s facing the right direction. Turn on the lights, prime the siren. WeeeOoooWeeeeOoooo.

Attitude check! Pikes Number One! Fun times, the freshmen are confused but loving it. Once around campus. Twice around campus. More noise, more noise! Is anyone taking photos? Thrice around campus. Park the trucks in the lot — wow, fire trucks turn sharply. Everybody off the trucks! Time to learn the cheer.

Teach the cheer to the freshmen. Whoa, slow down, they didn’t get it all, though they’re learning quickly. There, now they have it. Walk back to the house!

Back at the house. Make final preparations for the night’s activities.

Time for traditional milk and cookie toast! Rah rah rah, go Alpha Eta class, KAllen lineage, and Minnesota. Everybody outside for the bonfire and [optional! traditional!] milk chug.

Wow, fire is still cold. Probably cold because of lack of flames. What are they doing; is that kerosene? And a monster propane torch? Uh-oh, stand back. Good, nobody got hurt. Grab gallon of milk. Chug. Feel really, really sick. How could fresh milk wreak such havoc on one’s stomach? Idle by the fire for a while, in recovery. Yikes, the inferno is getting hot. Find the hose. Squelch the flames. There, that’s better.

Supervise the remainder of the evening. Chill with longtime and newfound friends. Chat about life, the universe, everything. And nothing at all.

Sing “American Pie.” Goodnight world!