[2626] in APO News
The Apocrypha, Volume 86, Issue 9
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (That Jeff Guy)
Thu May 22 20:29:18 1997
To: apoc-dist@MIT.EDU
From: That Jeff Guy <jeffreypu@MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: jefreypu@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 20:19:58 EDT
The APOcrypha Special Edition
Volume 86, Issue 9
Friday, May 16, 1997
Spring 1997
Letter from the Editor
Well, its my last apoc (sniff sniff). Well, I am still going to call
it the special edition, even though it doesn't have as much in it as I
wanted. I did include a few things that I had time to revise for this
edition, so there is some reprinted material in here. I didn't quite
get to spend as much time as I wanted on this, and maybe its because
after 9 issues I am burned out. But I did manage to put together 9
issues, like I wanted, and so, I am not really disappointed with how
the term went.
I would really like to thank all those of you who submitted articles
to me. I was pumped full of ideas at the begging of the term, but
there isn't really time to do everything you want to do as you want as
an officer, so sometimes you have to settle for less to actually get
the job done, rather than doing more and doing it poorly. I put out so
many apocs this term cause I really wanted to see it be a more regular
part of our chapter. Of course, now I will be passing it on to someone
else to make it more interesting again.
Thanks again to everyone, and here is the final apoc.
YiLFS,
Jeffrey
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outgoing Officer Reports
Outgoing SVP Report, by Lizzie
So! We've had a few projects this term, and I had a good time trying
to set things up. It's been a good term, although the lack of
attendance overall worried me significantly throughout the term, and I
hope that, as a chapter, we'll be able to remedy that this coming
term.
We had a variety of projects, although they tended to come in clumps,
with many painting and cleaning, then many outside, with some random
people projects interspersed throughout (though, since weather needs
to cooperate for outdoor projects, I'm not sure we can fix this). From
the feedback I've gotten, people have really enjoyed the outdoor
projects a bunch, so I'm glad we could accommodate those wishes.
I had little trouble finding PCs this term, as I found a few people
who cannot say no (suckers! <thanks!>). Each of the active pledges
this term PCed a project. One even PC'd the *same* project
**twice**. They are a great bunch, and they too will not be able to
say no to SVPs to come (yey!). Unfortunately, I got PCs for things
often fairly late, and as a result, I didn't push phone callings. I
probably should have, as it might have improved the attendance.
I tried very hard to have ServeComms, but they were ill-fated. Plagued
by apathy and weather. It might have been better if, instead of having
ServeComm be anyone who happens to be in the office at the time, there
were a set collection of brothers who were specifically on ServeComm,
plus anyone who happened to be in the office at the time. This is just
a thought.
The main thing that I had intended to do but never actually had the
time (1.12 is as much of your time as you'd think; don't take it
unless you have to and/or have someone spiffy like Jeff or Charley to
help you out when it sucks) was to look into expanding the SVP files
some by getting feedback on ideas for causes people would like to give
our time to. I did not get very many ideas from people, but I did end
up with a list of 2 dozen or so groups I wanted to contact about
helping.
Carnival, a resurrection of an old tradition, was a major focus of our
service program this term. In my humblest of humble opinions, it went
fairly well, and I'd like to see the chapter continue this. The second
time has to be easier, especially since people will have more of an
idea what we are talking about when we try to hype it up to groups
next year. The Carnival Committee worked very hard, and brought off
quite an event. And if nothing else came of it, we got to bounce on
the bouncy-bouncy, roll around in plastic balls, throw ourselves
against a wall really hard, and run at top speed until we felt our
stomachs yanked through our backs. Sounds pretty good to me!
A list of the service projects this term follows. If there is anything
inaccurate, I apologize profusely, and would greatly appreciate a
correction for the history books.
[Editors Note: This used to be a latex table. I would fix it if I had
more time, but hopefully you can read the info from it.]
Date & Project & PC
1/18/97 & Afterfinals& Elaine Tso
& & Manpower: Grant Emery
1/25/97 & Open Project Zero: &
& Rosie's Place & Cathy Coury
2/1/97 & Open Project I: &
& Shelter, Inc.& Matt Alvarado
2/2/97 & Book Exchange Setup & Melissa Dullea
2/2/97 & Reg Day Setup & Gina Nicholls
2/3/97 & Reg Day & Gina Nicholls
& & Food: Bani Azari
2/3/97 & Book Exchange & Melissa Dullea
- 2/7/97 & & Treasury: Cathy Coury
& & Manpower: Laura Dean
2/4/97 & Class List Distribution & Gina Nicholls
2/8/97 & Open Project II: &
& Welmet House & Ryan Lackey
lll
Date & Project & PC
2/14/97 & CWI: Camp Cachelot & Brian Perrin
-2/16/97 & & Food: Jill Pelavin
& & Trspt: Gina Nicholls
& & Mnpwr: Heather Pospisil
2/22/97 & Open Project III: &
& Margaret Fuller House & Junko Tamiya
3/1/97 & National Braille Press & Carolyn Phillips
3/8/97 & AIDSRide & Grant Emery
3/14/97 & CWII: Camp TL Storer & Jeffrey Poore
- 3/16/97& & Food: Heather Drake
3/22/97 & Boston Urban Gardeners &
& Gathering & Carolyn Jones
4/5/97 & Boston Urban Gardeners &
& Granada Park & Daniel Berger
4/6/97 & Happy Book w/BU & David Maze/Cathy Coury
4/12/97 & Boston Urban Gardeners &
& Granada Park** & Daniel Berger
4/13/97 & Big Screw Setup & David Maze
4/14/97 & Big Screw & David Maze
- 4/18/97 & & Candid: Matt Alvarado
& & Jeffrey Poore
& & Publicity:Heather Drake
& & Melissa Dullea
& & Manpower:Laura Dean
& & Prizes:Heather Pospisil
& & Treasury:Grant Emery
4/23/97-4/25/97 & Carnival Publicity Booth & Emily Wallis
4/25/97 & Carnival Teardown & Emily Wallis
4/21/97 & Boston Marathon & Cathy Coury
4/26/97 & CARNIVAL & Carnival Comm*
4/30/97 & Science Fair & Michael Salib
5/3/97-5/4/97 & ESP Gifted Children &
& Conference & Brian Sniffen
5/11/97 & Franklin Park Zoo & Victoria Chen Alexis Lewis
5/14/97 & Awards Convocation & Gina Nicholls
5/18/97 & Floating Hospital & Jeffrey Poore
5/23/97-5/26/97 & Afterfinals & Charley Hamilton
& & Food: Heather Drake
& & Manpower: Elaine Tso
& & Trnsprt: Emily Wallis
**Boston Urban Gardeners was cancelled due to a freak blizzard on
April Fools Day and rescheduled for the following Saturday.
So, I like to think I did a reasonable job. I'd greatly appreciate
feedback on my term, and my general tactics, and on the organization
of my sock drawer. Or anything else you'd like to tell me about.
- Lizzie
Outgoing MVP Report
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 11:49:05 EDT
All in all, this has been quite a good pledge term. We had six
pledges, of whom five were elevated. Memcomm met in the beginning of
the term, to suggest a change in the voting policy (which the chapter
approved). We did not have a Chapter Skills Weekend this term, and so
there was no silkscreening or treasury training.
I had originally planned to make a ``Who Knows Whom'' chart, which I
punted when I remembered how much I had hated that sort of thing in
elementary school. Well, now I wish that I had such a thing; poor
project attendance kept the pledges from meeting very many brothers,
which I failed to realize until it was too late to do anything about
it. Despite this, the pledges stuck through with the pledge program,
and I am incredibly impressed with them all. Thanks to the brothers
who were helpful this term, (in particular, Charley, who saved my
worthless rear more than once) but thanks especially are due to the
pledges.
Oh --- and if you want sage advice from me, you've come to the wrong
place. I do have some Observations, however, which I'll record in the
flame book in the next week or so.
YiLFS,
Michael
Outgoing President Report
This term has been a fairly successful one for Alpha Chi.
While managing to survive carnival with much less financial loss than
we could have experienced, we also had a project just about every
weekend. All of the officers met the goals we set at the beginning of
the term, including me! We have (essentially) decided to host a
conclave next term, which I find amusing, since I will be far, far
away, and through this are closer to our goal of extending our program
of service to Service to the Fraternity (tm).
I want to thank all of the officers this term for their hard
work, as well as all of the brothers, pledges, alum, and advisors for
their valuable input. Special thanks to Oscar and the Carnival
Committee for working their behinds off, and Cathy and Ingrid for
volunteering their lives next term.
I have enjoyed my last term in AX and hope it hasn't been too
bad on all of you. For the record, meetings were short because we
didn't waste time arguing, not because I wanted to watch 90210 ;)
Good luck to all the new officers and to next term's
membership. I'll see you at Conclave!
YiLFS,
Alexis L.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incoming Officer Reports
Exceedingly short ApocEd article
Hmm...I'm ApocEd. Right. Publish Apocs. 4-6, depending on
spluftiness. Track down people. Fetch articles. Pictures would be
good. Interesting stuff on covers. Ads? Should talk to SVP; getting
advertisements for projects could help boost both Apoc readership and
project attendance. Complete sentences? Yeah, general grammar-type
stuff would be good. I can handle that.
- David
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted Articles (Most not the same as before)
Gilbers Revised Eleven Reasons to Hang Out in the Office
[Editor's Note: This article was snarfed from Gilbert's homedir, and
now it is being revised for the special edition of the apoc]
/c
Eleven (not top eleven, as I am tired of top ten lists) reasons
to hang around in the APO office
The office has larger speakers than your rooms'. Thus, you have
more power to blast music to distract others around you!
The office, however untidy it is, is tidier than your room (if
this is really true, you need to spend more time at home, not in the
office :)
You love using a modem-terminal rather than a real
athena machine (if this is true, you need to get out more often :)
There is coke for 40. Where else can you get such a deal?
(well, ok, there's sipb for one)
Brothers will occassionally walk in and out of the office,
preventing you from falling asleep while studying. They may also come
and tickle you, and what else would you rather be doing?
The office is right above Lobdell/Networks so that you have easy
access to (yucky) food without spending Real Money. (i.e. Use
your meal card.) You can eat your food in the office too, and if you
look closely, you probably have curly fries with Lizzie's name on
them.
You can help move the safe and the letterpress in case of
fire. Or you could just leave them. You decide.
Your parents cannot reach you. Not that you are easily reachable
at home either, of course.
You want to help sell drop poster paper and deal with Book
Exchange stuff. You want to be Silkscreening Chair. You want to run
Carnival. You want to run Conclave. You want to do it all. You are insane.
The office is right next to the Thistle. If Thistle haters
decide to bulldoze the Thistle office, you get to eyewitness
such a memorable event first. Hell, you can grab tools from the back
office and help out.
If you stay in the office enough, you could watch sunset and
sunrise. (Oooooo! Aaaaaa!) Its especially fun to do with
lots of brothers around.
- Gilbert
n things to do with a sledge hammer
[n=1] Thwack someone with it. Brothers occassionally need to be
thwacked. :) Thwackings are more effective with a thwacking tool.
[n=2] Play frisbee. (May require some practice to achieve good
distance). Could make Ultimate to be a popular chapter
sport.
[n=3] Eat on it. Stand it up on end and use it as your own space
saving table.
[n=4] Write an article on it. Personalize the sledge for future generations.
[n=5] Love it and squeeze it and call it George. Hint: We'll
look at you funny. Even when you love the sledge hammer.
Top Ten Ways to Make the PC of AfterFinals Un-Happy
A small parody, but the point is the same. :)
10. Sign-up Late! Not on Wednesday, before the food has been
bought. At least wait until the first run has already left.
9. Change your mind frequently and keep on removing and adding your
name from the sign-up on Thursday, after the food has been bought.
8. Don't even consider sub-PC'ing, and make sure you call those that
do gullable.
7. Don't concern yourself that you are a sub-PC (despite the PC's numerous
email reminders) and encourage the PC to pick up your job at
the last minute.
6. If you are a passenger, come up with great excuses to be really
late for your ride.
5. If you are a driver, take your time getting to the office, and
leave when it starts getting dark (so you can be there before it gets
too late!) regardless of whether all you passengers have arrived.
4. Don't listen to the PC when she sounds like she has something
important to say, this will only encourage her.
3. Never help the PC cook. Stand around, goof off, show off, and when
possible, play with the food that cook is trying to cook with.
2. Since you are cooking, don't clean either. Make the PC demand your
help and then get mad at the PC for yelling at you and march out.
And the number one way to make the PC of AfterFinals un-happy
is
1. Never thank the PC for what they did. They bought the food, made
sure you got there and got home, made sure there was pleny to do, and
made sure the food got cooked, but hey, you're a brother and you
deserve these things!
Note: This parody is completely sarcastic, and should be interpreted
the same as the original
Wife 1.0
[this article reprinted cause it was cool]
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found
that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other
applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning
Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention
of this particular phenomena was included in the product brochure or the
documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be
expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0
installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization
where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some
applications such as PokerNight 10.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no
longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected
(even though they always worked fine before).
At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of
undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release.
Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.
The features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0 include:
A ``Don't remind me again'' button
Minimize button
An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be
installed with the option to uninstall at anytime
without the loss of cache and other system resources.
An option to run the network driver in promiscuous
mode which would allow the systems hardware
probe feature to be much more useful.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by
sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems.
Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You
must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a long
standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions
of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think
they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse,
The uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving
undesirable traces of the application in the system.
Another thing that sucks -- all versions of Girlfriend continually pop-up
little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0
BUG WARNING
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1
before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before
doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install,
claiming insufficient resources.
BUG WORK-AROUNDS
To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system
and never run any file transfer applications such as LapLink 6.0. Also,
beware of similar shareware applications that have been known to carry
viruses that may affect Wife 1.0.
Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under
an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can
accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other submissions
Elaine's Farewell Article
The title of this article makes me sad because it means that I am
leaving. I am graduating in June. After toiling at MIT for four
years, I am saying farewell to Boston and latenights of working on
athena. I will be traveling for the rest of this year (I need to
recover from the exhaustion MIT caused me) and in 1998 I plan to start
graduate studies somewhere, most likely in the midwest area where I
was raised. After all, for metallurgy and automotive engineering, I
think the midwest is the best place to be.
Of course, I will miss everyone and long to return. I have
experienced so much in my four years at MIT. Some things have made me
a stronger person. Others have made me a better person. I have
had the good fortune to be part of a number of groups, but the one
that I will always remember is APO. How could I forget the memorable
events that I have shared with the brothers of APO?
fade to flashback....
Beep, Beep, Beep,..
I wake up to a tap on the shoulder and this incessant beeping noise. A
smiling stranger says to me:
``Hey, there. You've been asleep for a while.
But, the beeping is starting to annoy the people
around us.''
``Oh, I'm sorry. I must have fallen asleep. What time
is it anyway?''
``It's almost 11am.''
``Oh no. I need to get to recitation to get checked off.
Thanks. Bye.'' (off I run)
``Wait, you have a backwards R on your forehead....''
return to present....
That was how I met Jeff who eventually became my big brother. Jeff has
been a great big brother and the thing about Jeff I will miss the most
is his happy smile. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up at
athena several years ago and it is the thing I will always remember
about Jeff.
Jeff being such a great big brother to me inspired me to get some
littles of my own. The littles I have had, in chronological order, are
Joe Foley, Oscar Rodriquez, Tony Araujo, and Mike Salib.
Unfortunately, Joe Foley went off to double major and I only see him
on rare occasions. But, thanks to him I own a disc gun and I am not
afraid to use it. And Tony, well, um..., he can throw a paper
airplane, yeah, enough about that.
Oscar and Mike have been the greatest littles that a big could ever
have. Oscar was so shy when I first met him, and look at him now. He
burst into a warm, fuzzy, snuggly, teddy bear, always read to be
hugged. The things that I will miss about Oscar is having him to talk
to about anything and how he never turns away from a hug. I can just
go up to him and squeeze him. But, Mike is great, too. Mike is so
innocent (and hopefully he will stay that way) and this, combined with
his youth, helped to remind me that there is still goodness in the
world. The thing that I will remember most about Mike is how he
describes what it feels like to be in love.
I have the best family tree and the extended family is wonderful as
well. I could go on for much longer but I need to submit this article
before the deadline. So, time for one more flashback, a quick
whirlwind.
Pledging, UMOC, Big Screw, Drop Posters, Paints, Jeff Chasing Me With
a Cleaver at George's Island, Book Exchange, Chapter Weekends,
Telephone Charades, Phone Calling, Bungee Run, SFF, I-Banquet.
I will miss everyone, but you haven't seen the last of me. In the
words of Arnold Shwartzenegger, ``I'll be back.''
Recpetion for Graduating Brothers
[Editor's Note: Reprinted because this will be happening soon]
There are several Alpha Chi actives who are graduating this spring, so
the Alpha Chi Alumni Association will be hosting a reception for the
graduating brothers, their families, and their friends. This reception
has not yet been scheduled; I am waiting for word on the "Senior Week"
activities so that I can schedule the reception for the best likely
attendance. The likely schedule is a weekday evening during the week of
June 2--5. (Commencement is June 6th.)
If you would like to assist with preparations for this reception,
contact John Kohl: jtkohl@mit.edu or 617-643-0215.
==John
An APO S.O.S. of sorts...
Dear APO actives, pledges, alumni, advisors:
Greetings! My name is Michele Cervoni, and I'm writing at the
suggestion and encouragement of my 1/2 sister, Linda Stein, a founding
member and former Secretary of the Alpha Delta Eta chapter in Albany,
NY. She assured me that any person involved with APO would probably
be willing and able to help in some manner, either through their
chapter (if active) or through any community groups (Scouts, Boys
Girls Club, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, etc.) to whom they might
currently volunteer time. If this email is inappropriate or
unwelcome, I apologize.
I am the Director of an organization called SAPE (formerly ``The
Soviet-American Penfriend Exchange''). We match people -- aged 8
through adult -- in the USA and other countries with postal mail (not
email) pen pals in the former Soviet Union (CIS/Baltics). One of the
organizations we work with in the former USSR is The Peace Corps.
U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers who are teaching in those countries enroll
their students in our program as a way to practice their English.
Because of the massive word-of-mouth network in the former Soviet
Union, we now have a waiting list of THOUSANDS of people who would
like a pen pal in the USA or another country, in order to practice
their English. Most of these pen pals are between the ages of 12 and
30. Unfortunately, since the rapid expansion of the internet (into
schools), it has become more and more difficult to find young people
willing to exchange letters with people who don't have access to
email.
So, I'm calling to APO for any help you can provide. If each of you
could help in one or more of the following ways, we could possibly
find pen pals for everyone on the waiting list. Ways you can help:
Get a SAPE pen pal yourself
Tell your APO brothers about SAPE so they might get a pen pal, too
Give a copy of this letter (by email or in print) to these departments at
your college (now or in the fall):
Foreign Language Dept.
Russian Studies or European Studies Dept.
Political Science or History Dept.
Education Dept. (for use by Education majors who will be student
teaching)
Give a copy to:
Your local high school
Your local Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization
Scout troops, Boys Girls Clubs, 4-H, or other youth groups you work with or know of
Your house of worship or religious fellowship for their youth
group(s)
Include our info in your chapter/sectional newsletter
Tell any family members or friends who may be interested in this activity
Add a link to our website (URL below) on your Home Page
After 8 years of existence (and more than 30,000 pairs of pen pals
matched), we've just launched our first website, which features
letters from teachers whose students have participated, stories by
participants who've met their SAPE pen pals in person, as well as a
more detailed description of our goals and history. Rather than make
a long email LONGER, I invite you to check out the website for
yourself. Our URL is
http://www.1webplaza.com/sape/sape.html
If you click on the link at the bottom of the main webpage that says
``Find Out How to Become a SAPE Penfriend!'' it will bring you right to
the registration information.
Any person or group who isn't online can receive a condensed, print
version of the webpages by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope
to our postal address, which is below.
Thank you for your time and all of your help. I'd love to hear back
from you with any comments or ideas you may have.
In friendship,
Michele Cervoni
Director, SAPE
P.O. Box 319
Monroe, CT 06468-0319
U.S.A.
Email: USAMichele@aol.com -- OR -- sape@1webplaza.com
--------
Jeffrey
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jeffrey Scott Poore Home Phone: (617)225-8868
500 Memorial Drive #518 APO Office: (617)253-3788
Cambridge, MA 02139 My Pager #: (617)675-7258
jefreypu@mit.edu http://the-dark-side.mit.edu/
Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brother and Editor of the Newsletter of the Alpha Chi
Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, the National Service Fraternity
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
