The Agrinautica

   From Wednesday afternoon until early this morning I have been in Davis. The main reason for my visit was that before I filed for graduation I had to file for my minors, and I could only do the latter in person.

   This I was able to quickly accomplish once there, however. I have now officially filed to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with an emphasis on "Peace & Security" and "Russia / Eastern Europe," and minors in Communications, History, and Political Science. Unofficially, thats Communication with an emphasis on conflict resolution and organizational communications, and the pre-law series of poli sci.


Episode 1: Welcome to Crazytown
   Wednesday, I came in on a 1:20pm SouthWest flight and took the Yolobus from the airport to Davis. At the Woodland mall bus stop I had to change busses. While there I saw two people talking about something. I'm not sure what, but one was trying to get the other's contact information and the other was saying he doesn't use a phone because he doesn't trust the phone company not to listen in. I filed them both under crazypeople in my mind.
   Unfortunately, one of them (not the one without a phone) got on the same bus as me and sat across from me. Of course, before the bus even started moving he started tryinng to start a conversation with me. Since I was dressed up, wearing a black tie, and had my briefcase, I thought it might be hilarious to tell him I worked for the government and then answer any further questions with "I'm sorry I can't discuss that," but on the other hand I decided he'd probably get all riled up about that and cause a ruckus.
   After asking my name and what I was doing, and finding me not to be a government agent, he pointed to some construction going on on the mall. "They're being very proactive here. They're building a watchtower on the mall." "Why?" "Oh five judges, the mayor of Davis, and some DAs are accused of kidnapping someone, so everyone is all freaked out." "Really? Who?" "Me!!" I proceeded to refile him under "completely off his rocker."
   Anyway, it turns out this guy was the infamous Crazy Joe Sherman, and basically he lived up to his description on the wiki page. He spent the entire time regailing me about how he is the victim of a vast conspiracy. It seems the more he annoys people, the more he thinks their reactions toward him are part of the conspiracy, and the more he feels like he's a rightious persececuted jesus character. He said he had just recently gotten out of 313 or so days of jail, where the other prisoners isolated and persecuted him on orders from the external religious establishment (because you know middle-class Davis churches have mad prison connections!). He also mentioned that he believes God has indicated to him that his true calling is to become a teacher -- which is somewhat concerning considering that several accounts on his wiki page allude to him having a creepy predilection for the company of young males. In a tangental note, wiki user MikeDurkee apparently thinks we should overlook his many creepy and socially dangerous behaviours because he is a "warrior of god." I would like to officially point at MikeDurkee and say "lol!"


Episode 2: Cover blown!
   Yolobus deposited me at the front of the school (from the student's perspective anyway, not to be confused with the Chancellor's idea of the "front" of the school, aka the back side, where important guests don't have to behold those pesky undergrads which burden down their business of corporate research). I was immediately spotted by ASUCD President Kareem Salem (The first ASUCD President since 2002 not to be sworn in by me). I took care of the Communications and History minors but the IR and Poli Sci offices had closed early that day. Ran into one or two more people. Went home and found the apartment much as a left it.
   Suprised the Court at their Wednesday night meeting, then went with Justice Harney to dollar pint night at Sudwerks, where we ran into Pete Markevich (whom you may recall recently survived a Senate witchhunt), along with Sen. Alexandra Frick.


Episode 3: One More Senate Meeting
   I had been reluctant to go to the Senate meeting, having been to so many in my lifetime that even Brent Laabs probably has yet to catch up to me. However, the Senate was considering a landmark bill to formally give control of the judicial rules to the Court, which is kinda big thing so I decided to go for that.
   Previous to consideration of the bill, a lot of the usual antics were re-enacted for the millionth time. Since budget hearings were this weekend, a lot of organizations came to "show and tell" how awesome they are in hopes of getting fatter budgets. Some guy with a penchant for beating dead horses harangued the whole Senate at length for being vaguely associated with someone who had during their free time expressed the political opinion that current policies are not satisfactory to ensure the safety and documentation of all immigrants. I found it highly ironic that his main point was that he thought the DCR event was immature, but I found it pretty immature that he was rightiously chastising the Senate for something they had no control over.
   Then representatives from the Muslim Student Association pre-emptively began defending the anti-semetic speaker they'd brought to campus, while at the same time attacking Jewish Senator Eric Friedman and the DCR immigration event. In short, business as usual.

   Anyway, eventually the bill came up and passed relatively quickly. I thought it was kind of ironic that they made the change in the obsolete Judicial Codes, which will soon be completely abrogated, rather than the general Bylaws or somewhere else where it'll remain, but it was largely symbolic anyway.

   Quote of the Day: "You're the reason people don't take ASUCD seriously" - Brent Laabs to Commissioner Jill Weinstein after she expressed the opinion that ASUCD is just a glorified student club, rather than possessing any semblance of the legitimacy of a governing body.


Episode 4: Scrabble I
   After the meeting, several Senators, Justice Harney & I went to Sen. Dan Xie's house to drink and play scrabble. Since Joe and I were the ones getting the alcohol I of course brought them steel reserve (though Joe also selected some hard lemonade).


Episode 5: Campus Life
   Friday afternoon there were people with a big sign evangelizing by the flag pole, which is not terribly uncommon. However, in this case they were PASTIFARIANS bringing the glorious messege of the Flying Speghetti Monster to the unsaved! True heroes of faith whom MikeDurkee should have a frank chat with.
   Upon investigation these people were not affiliated with either Campus Crusade for Chaos & Confusion (C4), or AGASA, but were in fact merely persons whom the Flying Speghetti Monster in His sauceness saw fit to reach out and touch with His noodly appendage. Their unaffiliated status is clear evidence of the Truth of the supposition.
   Also there were some people in a bathtub on the quad wearing feathered headdresses. Typical. Eventually I noted that Rob Roy and Elise Kane were over there and said hi to them. (Here's a picture of both the Pastifarians AND the girls in the tub)


Episode 6: Life in the Trees
   Friday evening the internet went out at The Trees, which is just so typical. It didn't come back all weekend. Moreover, the internet connection was still there, it just wasn't recognizing the hardware address (MAC address) of mine or my roommates computers. This has been a frequent problem throughout the time we've had this provider, especially on weekends when the tech support is out, which once one actually gets ahold of the tech support is usually resolved by them simply resetting their system. Notwithstanding, you should rent my room at the Trees!!
   Anyway, Friday evening I took a nap in hopes the internet would come back, as I had no other form of entertainment in the midafternoon. By 7 I was getting desperate and decided to take the bus to campus to use the computer labs.
   I took the 7:18 bus in, only to find the computer labs close at 6 on Fridays! I could have sworn they used to be open till ten on Fridays. Anyway, there was still free wireless on campus but my laptop was at home and the bus I'd just come in on had left already. I waited for the next bus, the 8:10, until 8:20, when another person waiting for it suddently exclaimed that they'd forgotten the busses were no longer running since it was Friday evening. This left me with an hour and a half until I had anywhere to be. I called Justice Wheat to see if I could come over early for his shindig, but no answer. Despite the fact that that location was near campus, I started walking home because I had nothing better to do. It took half an hour to walk home from campus. It being then 9:00, I'd have had to immediately turn around and head back had John not called me at that point and said he could pick me up.


Episode 7: Scrabble II
   When I got to John's place, two of his roommates were trying to punch a second hole into a coconut ("double penetrate it"), and into which they then poured rum to make genuine coconut rum. They didn't like the result terribly much so I ended up drinking from the coconut all night. After I finished the original coconut rum I just poured whatever I was drinking into the coconut because it was funny. This resulted in some comments about my nut being sticky, along with other comments about people handling my nut, writing on my nut, etc.
   Anyway, despite the fact that John aimed to keep it "low key" a good amount of people showed up (but not too many, just enough to be awesome), and it was quite fun. My friend Shemek (who was a campaigne manager for the original Lead slate of the Huerta presidency -- but left ASUCD in disgust over their rampant corruption) joined me there. John Wheat and his fellow English-tutor coworkers from the Learning Skills Center played scrabble, but others were reluctant to engage such English aces in such a game. I thought it was funny that when the ASUD officers played the game, they argued about the rules and what the definitive set of rules was and other governance related questions, while the English majors got into arguments about what parts of speech certain words were.
   Anyway, it was good fun. Good work John Wheat & roommates.


Episode 8: Daytime Ruckus
   On Saturday Shemek and I hit the Hunan's Lunch Special around noon . Then we met up with Miss Rosejean Weller. Since we three were former Davis MUNers, and the Davis MUN Conference was currently ongoing, and especially since fellow former Davis MUNers Akila Radhakrishnan and Nishan Bhaumik, we resolved to crash the conference. Then the idea got better when someone suggested we do it drunk. So it being around 2pm we got some 40s of steel reserve and drank them, along with some jagermeister. And we were good to go!
   After this, the three of us went to woodstocks for more pizza and beer. Finally after a good afternoon of good ruckus causing we parted ways. I then returned to the conference for a little bit and guest spoke as a Russian representative. I may have still been a little inebriated, but that may have been an accurate portrayel of the Russian government. ;)


Episode 9: A Formal End
   Just as I was getting out of MUN, Brittawater Segerstrom called me and said I should come over and go to a volleyball formal with them. Which was pretty random but it was only a $12 formal and I didn't have anything else to do, and happened to already be dressed up for the MUN conference.
   Over at the M Street I joined Brittawater, Julie Parker, Kim Bowles, Sarah Jones, and a number of others.
   Eventually we walked from M Street to the event at the Senior Center. As there were initially more than a dozen of us, this took awhile, and by the time the front of our group got there the back had disappeared completely and some had found a ride somehow.

   Anyway, after being there for a little while the group consensus seemed to shift towards a hankering to go to the bars, so once again the group set out on foot, this time towards Froggys on G Street. This brought the total walking distance up to 2.1 miles, and everyone still had to find their way home again (returning to M St would bring it to 3 miles. I don't envy the girls in heels).
   Eventually I walked with what was left of the group back up to fifth street, where they turned toward M and I turned to start my own 3 mile journey back to the Trees (since the airport shuttle was picking me up there at 5:15, crashing on a couch was not an option). Fortunately I happened to completely coincidently run into one of the girls who'd been with us earlier around Central Park. She had struck off by herself toward the Colleges but had felt very uncomfortable making the journey alone and so had called a guy friend, who happened to show up almost simulteniously with me running into her. As he was giving her a ride I managed to get a ride with him as well, which was quite a relief since I still had a very long way ahead of me.


Episode 10: The End
   Airport shuttle picked me up at 05:15am and my plane departed at 7:35am. Altogether, I had even more fun up in Davis than I thought I would. It was great seeing everyone again. There's so much more going on up there than down here in OC. I can't wait to come up with an excuse to visit again!

Last Day In County (Saturday)
   Met up with Shillelagh, her boyfriend Petey, Megan, and others at everyone's favorite location off El Toro. Then Shalane and Petey scampered off elsewhere while others of us went down to everyone's favourite location off La Paz. There we found Cool Kyle and Croat, among others.. and of course everyone's favourite Diedrichs employee, Ryan.
   Croat wanted to try to find himself a girl. Poor misguided Croat, girls are the devil. To this end there was trekking towards the Irvine Spectrum. Eventually a number of us ended up in a jacuzzi and that was excellent.. until security kicked us out because it was several hours after pool hours.

   What with the time change *shakes fist at it* I ended up with like two hours of sleep, and then ten minutes (seriously) to pack for home. Train from Irvine to LA, where Nishan was chairing at the MUN conference I was originally supposed to be at, and rode the remaining 500 miles up with him.


Picture of the Day

Pylon Abduction
power pylon at marguerite & olympiad
© Kris Fricke 2001

   Picking up exactly where the last entry left off, at about 05:00 Saturday morning, the big Model United Nations conference adventure began. For those of you who are oblivious, we, Model UN (MUN) at UCD put on an MUN conference for HS MUNers this weekend. I chaired DISC (Disarmament and International Security Committee), a committee of about 23 delegates.

   So I arrived home right at 05:00, spent almost half an hour foraging, Regan (our fearless and rather attractive Secretary-General) called to say she had arrived early to pick me up, at 05:30 whereas she was supposed to pick me up at 05:45, so I invited her in. I then proceeded to spend less than ten minutes getting all dressed up: remaining in the black dickies and docs I was already wearing (but tossing some shoe polish in my briefcase), I put on a dress shirt and a black tie, tossed some other things in my briefcase, such as my trusty gavel, and voila I was ready. We then set out for central control, Olson Hall on campus.
   Shortly Regan sent me in the reganmobile to retrieve her boyfriend, whose car wasn't functioning. I ferried him from her place to his, where the debris and rubble of a raging party the night before still occupied the whole interior and extended somewhat outside as well. Then we picked up comrade Nishan who looked very hung-over, and asked us to drive him to his car "at sutter hospital." "Uh, there's a story there isn't there Nishan" "uh yea, I'll tell you later." All in all, long story short, a number of chairs were all partied out from the night before, from completely seperate parties.

   As to committee on saturday it proceeded very smoothly. I think it was already obvious very early on that the representative of China was attempting to use rat bastard tactics, which neither my vice chair nor I were fooled nor amused by.
   Doctor Wheelis guest-spoke in committee about our subject of Anti-Materiel Weapons. As usual he was for awesome. He even used the word "ethos" casually in an explanation. I challenged my committee to use the word correctly and gave I believe Japan a very rare 10/10 on a speech in which he actually did. Isn't MUN fun??
   During lunch time I drew a large picture of Trogdor on one of the sections of the chalk board that slides under others, wrote "TROGDOR: official mascot of DISC" next to it and slid it under the other chalk board. I then deviously bided my time until the perfect moment, which came right after I became exasperated at the infamous Bryan Brasher for his latest silly antics. I then casually slid the foremost chalkboard section down, revealing Trogdor in all his glory, and the committee erupted into cheers. Trogdor then became a staple of jokes in committee, resulting in pictures of "Space Trogdor" while we discussed the arms race in outer space, and comments of "We should go into substansive debate because TROGDOR SAYS SO" and "Trogdor likes In-N-Out."
   And on that subject In-N-Out became a major theme towards the end of committee at 19:00 on saturday, as we all had wistful discussions of the feasibility of making a group expedition to In-N-Out or sending a runner out to pick some up ("does anyone here have a car?")
   Immediately after the unveiling of Trogdor I heard the delegation of Russia exclaim "this is SO going in my livejournal!!" It was eventually discovered that Russia (supernovastar16), Japan (willnotheal), and North Korea (xtakenandhatedx) all had livejournals, and Japan even wore a livejournal shirt to saturday night activities. For awesome.
   During our hour dinner break at 19:00 I managed to get a ride home from Kris Edelmeyer eventually, arriving home at 19:45, took the fastest shower of my life, changed, went to In-N-Out with Kris (yes our MUN program has no less than two guys named Kris with a K), and returned to central control to eat my two double-doubles in the advisors lounge.

   Saturday night activities consisted of a scavanger hunt which apparently was well nigh impossible, and in the teen center at 3rd and B a delegate dance and showing of the movie Catch Me If You Can and whatsuchnot. I helped with the hectic dispatch of the scavanger hunt, and then spent most of my time being in a bad mood and being displeased that I was unable to get to Cameron's Party, an event I'd been allll about for at least the previous two weeks. The party you see was in easternmost east davis, and me now without a car had no way of getting there. And the tedium of not having a car drastically contributed as well to my bad mood (recall the 45 minutes it took me to get home), as well as possibly various other factors. And of course there was absolutely no alcohol at sat night activities. Soo different from college MUN.

   I got about four hours of sleep that night and despite waking up next to a Russian was one of few people people not to oversleep in the morning. Despite all the jokes several other secretariat members made about having gotten very little sleep lately, I have this strong suspicion I was the only one for whom four hours of sleep was an above-average amount.
   Call time for chairs I believe was 07:00, and committee began at 08:30, and proceeded until 12:00. During that time I was very impressed with my committee's ability to joke around and be for awesome without losing control and degenerating. The last hour consisted of the most orderly abject joking around I think I've ever seen. This included among other things speeches on what "emo" is (to clarify the joke award category of "most emo"). We then voted on a large number of joke award categories, of which I recall there was Most Emo, Best drawing/artist (there had been a number of very amusing drawings), Most Likely To Take Over The World ("well guys there's going to be a lot of burninating going on, our winner is TROGDOR!!"), Most Likely To Be a Real UN Delegate, Best Tie (I believe I won that, voted for as "The Republic of Snail," with my snail tie), Most Likely to Commit Muncest, and Cutest Couple (China and Japan awwww how cute!). The co-chair suggusted "Most Likely to Go To Jail" looking at me, ::shakes fist:: and another delegate suggusted "Most Likely To ENJOY Jail" looking at someone else, neither category was accepted.
   The delegation of Russia will hopefully post a number of pictures of drawings and such from committee that she took with a digital camera soon, as well as her thorough account of the conference. North Korea's reaction to recieving the gavel can be found on his livejournal.

   Aand Saudi Arabia, her friend from another committee, and Guinea made a book for me of The Many Faces of Trogdor after I drew Ska Core Trogdor for her (S.Arabia), because she was clearly Ska Core (Any of you OC Ska kids know a Sarah De La Torre?). This booklette included such things as Pizza Delivery Boy Trogdor, Train Conductor Trogdor, Ghetto Trogdor, Hooker Trogdor... it was for awesome. I was like "omg. I would hug you guys but... I'm not allowed to." (We were all advised that if a delegate tried to hug us during awards we should step back and get the table between us or soemthing. Wouldn want suspicions of statutory muncest going around).
   Closing Ceremonies were probably over by 14:00 at the latest, but I don't believe I got home till 16:00, psha on that.

   Aand yea thats everything that comes to mind right now. I think Russia is working on an entry which may be more thorough, cause I know you all want moremoremore detail, I eagerly anticipate her entry personally. Otherwise, I declare this entry concluded ::hammers the gavel::