Football and the Fight Song

Today I enjoyed the privilege of exploring the Floyd J. "Peck" Huntley Collection. Peck was a player at Oregon Agricultural College (I believe that is the third official name of OSU) in 1909, 1910, and 1914. Included in his collection where two specific items I practically drooled over.

The first was a 1914 copy of Harold A. Wilkins' "Hail to Old O.A.C.: A Rooter's Song," the precursor to today's modern OSU Fight Song. What made me very excited was the existence of a second verse of which I had no prior knowledge. Here are the lyrics:

Here we come with a toast and song for the college up on the hill,
We love its shady slopes and trees, Its mem’ries cheer and thrill;
But fondest thoughts when the years have run, Will be of teams and vict’ries won, Each man a loyal son, Hail to old O.A.C.

Chorus:
O.A.C., our hats are off to you, Beavers, Beavers, fighters thru and thru,
We’ll cheer for ev’ry man, We’ll root for ev’ry stand, that’s made for old O.A.C.
Watch our team go tearing down the field, Men of iron, their strength will never yield.
Hail! Hail! Hail! Hail! Hail to old O.A.C. 

We’ll rout hard for the baseball star who can knock out a long home run,
And cheer the man who kicks the goal, That means the game is won;
But mem’ries best in our Hall of Fame, Are for the man who’s always game, Win, lose, fights just the same, All for old O.A.C. 

Repeat Chorus

The modern Fight Song only uses the Chorus with a drum and chant interlude, and the modern "Hail to OSU" includes the interlude and omits the second verse. One thing I thought especially interesting is that the modern lyrics of "O.S.U. our hats are off to you" flows much better than O.A.C.-- it is refreshing to see a name-change actually improve the song.


The other thing I saw in the collection is probably much more interesting to almost everyone besides me: a ball used in the 1914 contest between O.A.C. and Idaho, played in Portland, OR.

Compare those laces to these!

Pretty cool, huh? 

Beginning anew: Tales of an Archivist

After abandoning my dusty and untrodden blog for many months, I am pulling it out of oblivion yet again, this time with a new theme: Tales of an Archivist. Ok, so I'm not actually a "real" archivist-- I am a "Archival Student Assistant"-- but I don't care, I like the catchy title, and I work it the Archives. Basically, I am just blogging about random things I find interesting while doing research at work.

So first, a few things about this change:

• It will only last until the Summer of 2012. Unfortunately, that is when I will have to move on as my employment in the Oregon State University Archives can't come with me to Portland when we move from Corvallis. 
• As I come across interesting factoids and tidbits in my work, I will be commenting on them here. Sometimes my geeky awe of my discoveries is too lengthy for Facebook, but where words can become too many, an url in my status fixes all problems!
• Information will generally be OSU related, since it will have to do with my work, however if you don't really care much about OSU, keep reading if you are a fan of sports, music, history, or random odd factoids and anecdotes!
• I will try to include pictures when possible! My own, I can include at-will, however once I have permission to do so, I will also include some official Archives photos as well.

Happy Easter!

Happy Resurrection Day!

A year and 7 weeks away...

As the busiest term of my time at OSU enters its 3rd week, I am starting to feel like I am making some serious progress towards my degree. The idea of graduating a year from June is actually a pretty good possibility, as long as I work hard and can get in a summer class or two. For a good analogy, this is the equivilant of if I was graduating in 3.5 years instead of 4, so I am pretty happy with the prospect. Of course, it doesn't hurt that this term I am taking the maximum credits allowed without a waiver. When the term is done I will be done with math, halfway through German, finished with my liberal arts core, and ready to write my thesis. In a pre-cursor to my thesis, I am taking a class on how to be a historian. The course brought me to the University Archives for the first time and even inspired me to learn how to use and scan from microfilche and microfilm! I am mulling over ideas for my thesis topic, and currently I am leaning towards exploring the legitimacy of anti-federalist thinking between the American Revolution and the American Civil War (or in lay-man's terms, I am researching if the orginal states thought of the United States of America as the United Countries of Mid-North America, much like today's EU or UN). We'll see where that ends up taking me...

iCalendar

My Army re-enlistment bonus (for the Reserves) arrived recently, and after paying off our bills, we spent a little bit first before putting the rest away into savings. When it arrives in about a month, we will be the proud owners of our very own iPad. It will even have an orange cover!

One feature of the iPad which I am excited about is the use of a Calendar App, especially because we plan on getting iPhones when our contracts run out this August (with a 2-year plan, we can get them for not too much, and we don't even necessarily need to have an internet plan to get use of this Calendar feature). We just signed up for a Google Calendar and are really happy with the features. We each have several calendars (work, school, personal, etc), and we joinly hold a family calendar, and the program lets us view any or all of the Calendars that we choose to view. Enter: the awesomeness of the iPad/iPhone. Using an App which uses a Google Calendar, on our iWhatever we can edit our calendar, and even if we are not connected to the internet, once we are, it automatically updates on the internet version as well. Basically, we can update our calendar no matter where we are, letting us keep our schedules entirely digital, even when we are not physically with each other.

The reason this is exciting for us is that on numerous occasions, we have had issues with our schedules due to miscommunication and other similar factors. Work shifts end up getting cancelled because one of us signed up without knowing the other's schedule, etc. Having this system will go a long ways towards preventing future conflicts.

Basketball, Band, and the S.W.A.T. Team

I just got back from a CRAZY couple days in LA last night! As a member of Oregon State's Travel Band, I  augmented its scholarship group at the annual Pac-10 Basketball Tournament, at least until either the Men or Women lost. The trip featured way-too-early mornings, time on TV, and a police S.W.A.T. team and helicopter.

The trip started on Tuesday at Legendary Gill Coliseum where we loaded our buses. Before our buses arrived, I saw the Men's team depart. It was a bit weird seeing Craig Robinson in loose basketball sweats after only ever seeing him dressed nicely on the court. It was interesting watching the players up close and out of the spotlight.

We arrived in LA late that night, and after figuring out who was unlucky enough to sleep on the floor in our 2-bed, 4-man rooms, we got to sleep a little after midnight. The next morning, I, along with several other volunteers, reported in the lobby at 4:30 a.m. and went down to the Staples Center where KTLA was doing a live broadcast. Before we played, another mellophone player took out a can of orange spray-on hair dye, so we enjoyed orange hair for the day. We played the Fight Song in and out of commercials, got free breakfast, and got paid, so I thought it was well worth it!

Later that day was the first Women's game in USC's Galen Center where they played Arizona State. It was not expected to be close as we were the #10 seed and ASU was the #3 seed, though on the court, it was at least somewhat interesting-- they were down by a lot, but then for the last few minutes surged back to within five points, but no closer-- but we started to get really annoyed by ASU's band! Besides having a bass guitar with an annoying tinny sound (come on, really?) that made their tubas sound non-existant, they were bearable, though I was really glad when the refs told both bands to not play during the game because it got old hearing their stupid bass riff after every basket and foul (Our playing was just the drums after fouls). They also got really obnoxious too during their jeering because the did such a terrible job at heckling! While Stanford will always be the most annoying band in the conference, ASU is now my pick for either the #8 or #9 most annoying band in the Pac-10. As with any tournament, each band had its turn to play on alternating time-outs, though to be fair, during unscripted "free for alls," we did interrupt their band a couple times, though not before they started playing some boring 70s song during our Fight Song-- that is a crime you do NOT do!

After the loss, we had some free time before doing a short rally outside and heading into the Staples Center (home of the Lakers and Clippers of the NBA) to play for the Men's team against Stanford, who in addition to being annoying like ASU, are also terrible musicians since they are essentially, and self-admittedly, just a party group that happens to have instruments to go along with their beer. If you are unfamiliar with this "band," just know that they have a life-time ban at Notre Dame, recently ended a decade-long ban from the state of Oregon, and have a life-time ban from one of the major airlines.

Before the game, we started trading off with the Stanford Band with some music, and when the OSU Women's team filed in to the stands, we turned to play our Fight Song to them, and they waved back since they could tell we were doing it for them (as opposed to the fans seated in that general area). During the game, we also had a bit of fun. We got on the screen several times, and I was told I was on TV numerous times as well. Sitting in front of us was Orlando Jones, an actor from the movie Drum Line, and at one point we had some fun by chanting his famous line "One band, one sound" from the movie, to which he turned around, and with a grin, gave us a wave. I also was told that Gary Payton was in the audience, though I did not see him.

During the game, OSU played fairly well, and despite the most stressful 30 seconds I have ever witnessed in a basketball game, we hung on to win 69-67.

After the game was when the real craziness happened. When we got to the hotel, we were asked if anyone had a room above the 25th floor (the hotel has four towers with 32 floors each). Thankfully, none of us did. We did not really know what was going on except from rumors of a gunman. Inside the lobby, we saw police standing around, and one was even holding a shotgun! Later some of us even saw the S.W.A.T. team get into the elevator and what looked like a couple snipers, and I saw a couple of policemen with some riot gear and a cart with a shotgun attached. Inside my room I heard a helicopter, and when I realized the sound was not passing, I guessed it belonged to the LAPD as well, which turned out to be true when I went outside and saw it hovering near my room! I read the story the next morning on a KTLA report as well as what people had learned in the lobby. Apparently, a crazy man refused to leave after the hotel told him that his credit card did not process. When the LAPD came to talk to him at 7:30 p.m., he told them he had been smoking marijuana and doing narcotics, and that he had a gun, and by 4 a.m., they had put tear gas through the room's air vent before arresting him. All of this happend just a few floors above me! The funny part was that when talking about how this was one staff member's last trip with us, ironically, a comment was made that something big would happen that brought out the S.W.A.T. team.

The next day, members of the Travel Band went home while the rest stayed for next game, a loss to Arizona. It was dissappointing to go home early, though we got the last laugh because those that stayed had a really early flight the next morning instead of an afternoon flight like we had, and their per diem was not much more.

After a crazy few days, I am glad to be home, even if I no longer can enjoy the weather in Southern California... but there is always next year!

It's Greek to Me

I am learning Greek! It is from my pastor since OSU does not offer it (and driving down to the ugly school down south is NOT an option!). So far I have just started learning the letters. So far I can write the lowercase letters for the first 12 letters, as well as others, out of 24 total. It won't help me identify much in Greek Life since the actual language rarely uses uppercase, so seeing these boring sweatshirts all over campus will continue to look Greek to me. Haha.

 So far, learning the letters has gotten me wondering if our lowercase letters were mostly borrowed from Greek as I can really see how some letters written sloppily could turn into English letters, and looking at some modern Greek examples compared to the Greek of the New Testament (the type I am learning), I can see this even more. As I learn the alphabet, my other task is to start copying down the first three verses of John from the New Testament so I can start getting used to the letters, as well as some other marks which accompany the vowels. It looks like it will be a long and arduous process for learning this, but it will be worth it when I show up to Seminary with a heads-up on an important subject.

MENCNW Concert

This weekend was the MENC (Northwest Division) Biennial Conference. MENC is the National Association for Music Education, though don't ask me how that ends up standing for MENC because I have no clue dispite spending a small amount of time considering the matter. This year, it was in Bellevue, Washington, and among the vast multitude of events was included a combined concert by local Army bands. The Oregon National Guard (234th) headed it up, with augmentation by the Washington National Guard (133rd), and my band, the 204th Army Reserve Band, and we had a guest conductor from DePaul University.

Except for some lodging the night before for a couple people (me!) pretty far away, the 204th's experience started early Thursday morning when we gathered into a couple vans and personal vehicles and drove up to Camp Murray in Tacoma for a rehearsal. Once there, we decided on parts. In the horn section, we had five players, and we settled on one per part with first being shared between myself and a horn player from Oregon. In the 204th, we had been given our parts in advance, although we had no idea what parts we were playing nor did we rehearse as we were only augmenting (in our case, rehearsing would be pointless just as testing an engine that is missing half the pieces would not work either), though it was evident that the "core group" had not either when the director made a comment to the effect of "it sounds like you are sight-reading," which was actually the case. The day went on with several hours of rehearsal, and we did get the pieces quite presentable. I even got a fun, albeit short, solo in the closing piece, although while the end result was decent, there were a few moments which many of us were nervous about.

The next morning, we arrived early to the convention center where we were surprised to discover some miscommunication had given us the wrong time; our warm-up time was cut short as we did not arrive early enough to really take advantage of it, but we persevered and even had a "singing-only" rehearsal before the performance.

The performance itself was somewhat bittersweet. The first piece was very exposed of and some further rehearsal time might have saved it from some mistakes, though the overall performance got better as the concert went on. It was not the best of concerts, and although I wish the audience might have been aware of the circumstances, it was a pretty good job for only having one rehearsal.

After the concert, I was amazed at how many of my Army colleagues knew people that they passed by in the halls of the convention. Most them are music educators, so of course it is reasonable that they would see colleagues and former classmates at the biggest event of their profession, but I admit that I did feel left out and wished I would see someone I knew. At the very end of my day at the convention, while waiting for our van, I saw a member of the OSU Marching Band staff (who I also know from participating in community theater), so I got my wish and felt like one of "the guys," actually knowing someone at the convention.

Overall, the MENC Convention was a fun experience, and dispite a few hiccups, my experience and invovlement went well.

You'll Thank Me Later!

If you have ever seen the hit show Monk, you probably have heard him tell people "you'll thank me later" when he would straighten a picture frame, someone's tie, or anything else that was not his due to his extreme case of being OCD. Thankfully, Mr. Monk is an extreme case, but I have been known to at least show a few mild OCD symptoms; if I go up the stairs two at a time, I am bothered if my legs do not skip the same number of stairs, and if I am touched on one side, I like to be touched on the opposite side to make everything symmetrical.

Each month, I have duty for the Army Reserves for a weekend, and for a few months, I knew I had this month's duty this weekend. It was on the calendar, so of course, I knew I was right. At least, I thought so. In retrospect, I do remember some talk of a change, though several boring factors kept me from realizing the switch was made.

I finally realized the change when I online to check the unit's online calendar. We just switched to a new system where our request for the hotel is done online, and I wanted to double check to make sure everything was ready to go, when to my surprise, not only did I not have a hotel request, but I did not even have duty! Four hours of driving, a very long night, and almost two tanks of gas were just barely saved by my OCD tendency of quadruple-checking everything. I have a habit of double, triple, and quadruple checking my suitcase, alarm clock, schedule, etc, and this time Mr. Monk's saying finally held true.

M*A*S*H and Civil War

GO BEAVS! Watch the Civil War today, and look for me in the Beaver Dam! I'll be wearing a Beaver Dam T-Shirt and a brown beaver hat, and I will be loudly cheering on the Beavers and heckling the grellow waterfowl.

And completely unrelated... have you ever seen M*A*S*H? I was introduced to the show while in Korea (I did, of course, know what it was, just never sat down to watch it before), and instantly became a fan. It is kind of weird as it is the perfect show to watch at 5 a.m. when I can't sleep, but I am less likely to turn to it during the day, but whenever it finds its way on to my TV screen, I can't help but get really into it. My first viewing of it: Army Training on Korean Hemorhragic Fever. Yes, our training actually was watching an episode of M*A*S*H, though don't tell anyone! I'm sure the Training NCO that day would have gotten in trouble if a few certain people found out!

Duck Hunting

I mostly try to leave this blog kind of an "OSU-Free" zone, mainly pertaining to athletics since I banter enough already on facebook, but I need to break the silence with this one. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

4364

I am now up to over 4300 words in my novel! I got into the 16th page last night in my writing as my creative genius took over and kept me up until after midnight, a full two and a half hours later than I had intended. My novel has been an ongoing project for a couple of years already, and the progress is slow, but for the first time, it is working. I did take a longish break recently while I took a fiction writing class, and although the class mostly applied towards short stories, I learned enough from the class that I decided to hold off on the novel until after the class was over so I could apply lessons learned. Last night I did a thorough re-edit and added some more pages.

For an idea of how big it is for me to have 16 pages... I have never gotten past 10 or 11 before, not because I did not have an idea, but because I would have this "master plan" for a story, but no idea of how to go about it. I would think of an epic plot where the main character goes from Point A to Point C, except I never really had more than a vague idea of what Point B was, much less what happened during Chapter 2 or 3, so while the first few pages were (at least I supposed to be) great, writers block and inexperience always trashed the rest of the story. Not this time! Besides having notes equaling the length of the story so far, I have literally spent hours going over the plot and character development, changing and tweaking it and fixing problems with it. I am finally getting somewhere.

Christmas Cookies

During our first Christmas, we started a tradition of making Christmas Cookies. Apparently this is a tradition that goes on all over the place, but it was a new tradition for me as I did not even know the exact meaning of "Christmas Cookie," other than that it referred to a cookie maybe cut in the shape of a tree or candy cane.

This Christmas, we added tools to our arsenal from last year of just a butter knife for each color of frosting. Since then, Deanna's intereste in baking, and subsequently cake decoration, has increased, so we decided to experiment with a pastry bag. We only tried it on one color, so it turned out that Red was the only color used with any great detail. It obviously worked, so next year we will hopefully have another color or two to add to our tool box.

My favorite cookie? The Oregon State "O" which was carefully shaped by hand!

Fiddling with my Computers

This weekend while in Vancouver for the Army Reserves, I was working on my personal computer. I had already spent several hours on my own formulating a spreadsheet in Excel and getting our unit up-to-date for the first time in over a decade, when tragedy struck. Don't worry, nothing happend to my file... but when I popped in a CD to make a backup at the request of our Unit Administrator, it start making this horrible clicking sound. Immediately I figured it was my computer's fault--after all, the panel on the end of my CD-ROM is broken and only connected in one of the two spots it should be--but I also thought it might be the disc's format.

I was wrong.

It was confirmed today when I tried to put my Fiddler on the Roof Soundtrack into iTunes. My computer still reads CDs just fine; it just is no longer capable of transferring data on to the harddrive. Some quick thinking got the CD ripped onto my PC's Window's Media Center, and from there, onto a thumbdrive, though not before a temporary longing for a Mac because the whole process would have been user-friendly and not like pulling teeth, like any media is for Windows. Don't worry, I recognized the error in my ways and stopped longing for the Mac within seconds, though I was still annoyed with Windows, as improved as Windows 7 might be. Anyways, a long story short, I used the thumbdrive to get it to the laptop and on to iTunes in a very long way around what is supposed to be a simple task. At least my iPod is updated now--I had lost the cord and misplaced my iPod, so needless to say, it had been a while. It is nice, though. Now I can listen to songs from somewhat of a tragic musical which can remind me of a sad plot involving a ruined wedding party, choosing between home and love, choosing between family and a lover, and losing a home altogether. Fitting title, considering my dad used to always play the world's smallest violin in a sweet song of sorrow when I didn't get my way. Pretty upbeat, huh? I think so.