Jack Hardcastle

Got back from New Orleans at about 11:15 last night. Had an awesome time. We left Rice around 2:30 on Friday afternoon, and drove 7 hours (with some heavy traffic leaving Houston and entering Baton Rouge). The first thing we did was park and catch the end of the Morpheus and Crew d’ Etat parades, and then headed into the French Quarter for a little while.

It seemed pretty packed to me, and it took about an hour to get from one end of Bourbon to the other, but according to veterans it was empty compared to previous years. I spent half the time staring up at the balconies to make sure I didn’t get clocked by some rapidly moving beads. I must say I think the whole thing is overhyped. There are clearly marked strip clubs and probably a hundred bars (with to-go beers and hand grenades) but it was not the sort of drunken revelry people portray.

It seemed to be all about the beads, and 95 times out of a hundred you didn’t have to do anything except stand there and make eye contact with someone standing on a balcony throwing them. We were walking around Jackson Square towards the river and a woman burst out of her second floor porch and said, “Don’t move!” She went inside and ended up giving us an entire bag of really nice beads just for saying our hometowns. I think we ended up with, between the eight of us, about 50-75 pounds of beads after 16 hours. Not bad, considering none of us were really trying at all, and seven of the eight of us were guys.

We ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, and were given an iron by some drunk guys in the Park. I nearly got trampled by a mounted policeman whose horse got spooked by the flying beads and came flying backwards at me into a wall. We used a paid bathroom for free at Krystal’s when the attendant wandered away, and the rest of the gang used the river when there were no other options available (it’s really interesting to see how drinking affects your bladder — I had to go about one-tenth as much as everyone else). All in all, it was a great trip. I don’t know if I’d ever do it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

I wrote a column for the Rice Thresher that will be run in a shorter, letter form instead. Click through to read the full column.

There’s a new kosher restaurant that just opened up in Houston. It’s apparently the first such establishment in the city of five million people. I didn’t have the heart to tell my friends at lunch that I drive by one of the only kosher Krispy Kremes in the country, eat at a kosher pizzeria regularly, and have friends who have entire kosher kitchens. Not to mention, I actually know what kosher is (there was a fact box in the article describing Jewish culture and terminology).

I guess I figured it was treif.

I’ve spent the better half of today working on getting this blog up, and I have finally fixed the problem but not in a manner with which I’m satisfied. Specifically, I can’t get my Virtual Hosts to have different RAILS_ENV settings. I tried SetEnv RAILS_ENV production in the httpd.conf and .htaccess to no avail. If anyone knows what I’m doing wrong, I’d love to hear it.

Edit: This has been fixed.

I just found out about 43 Places, and I think it’s pretty neat. I went around the US map and highlighted all the states I’ve been to (and some I want to revisit). The pictures it brings up from Flickr are mostly really beautiful. One of them made me want to go to Greece.

The Caribbean: Where I’d like to go after Graduation

I’ve decided to set up shop once again. We’ll see how long it lasts this time. This is intended to be part scratchpad, part journal. Peruse at your own risk.

Always exciting to hear bad news at the end of your day.

Jack, Lisa, and Stephanie,

I was out of the office Friday but had a message from Joe Davidson in the General Counsel’s Office regarding the use of the academic seal on your grad announcements. I sent him your website and explained your situation. Unfortunately, there is a contractual agreement with the Bookstore regarding graduation announcements and in fact, Joe said you would need to cease the selling of the announcements (since ‘Rice University’ is also trademarked) you have created.

Sorry, I know this was not the response you were hoping for.

Jeff

Jeff is a great guy. He’s helped us out, did a bit of digging for us, and offered advice. I don’t mean this as a diatribe against him, but my favorite part is his signature.

Rice University is consistently ranked one of America’s best teaching and research universities.

It is distinguished by its size, selectivity, resources, residential college system, and collaborative culture.

Collaborative my tukus. It’s highly compartmentalized, segmented, and adversarial. Student organizations fight with each other and with the Administration. The Administration fights with the Faculty. The Faculty fight amongst themselves. Nobody likes the Thresher, and the Thresher bashes everyone.

I have enjoyed my time here and I cannot imagine having gone to any other university, but I will not be recommending to anyone that they attend Rice for at least another 10 years. See me in a decade, folks.