Quinnipiac Graduation 2008: Reflections One Year Later

"Congratulations to the Quinnipiac University Class of 2008!"


That's what we heard a year ago today, and that was just about the same thing said to this year's graduating class yesterday (Congrats to the '09-ers that I know - but I can't wish you luck in your job searches until I get one myself being out a full year).

May 18th of xxx8 has traditionally been a good day for me. I hit my first Little League home run over the fence on May 18, 1998 (I still have my home run balls from that season marked up in pen!) and I graduated college 10 years later to the day (I probably beat Super Mario Bros. for the first time on May 18, 1988 and I'm buying a shit-ton of Powerball and Mega Millions tickets on May 18, 2018).

I'm sure most of my fellow classmates from that graduating class find it hard to believe that it has been a whole year since that day. In the 365 days following that fateful day, many of you have embarked on the next stage of your lives, hitting the ground running on your exciting new career paths, settling into your postgraduate apartments without looking back.

Well take a second to look back. Remember that day there were people sprawled out on the quad in front of the library as far as the eye could see? Our families, friends and faculty gathered en masse to witness the commencement of us fine, deserving young men and women, a symbolic coronation of academic achievement transitioning us from campus party-animals to esteemed and eligible candidates of the prospective proletariat.

We had just had the last of "the best times of our lives" while all still together as a class, and it was great a senior week, culminating one hell of a four-year period. I remember just being with everyone was awesome, and when Hodgdon, Oakey and me snuck off campus at 4 or 5 in the morning to climb Sleeping Giant across the street, we all talked about how much we'd miss this place looking with a breathtaking view descending upon the layout of the campus. So many great times were had there on the weekends (and weekdays with couches outside of Village during the spring of junior year with hundreds of solo cups). Never a dull moment.

Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -Matthew Broderick, aka Ferris Bueller

The McGangBang

Ok, this is going to be a short post, but one that I feel is necessary to bring up. My brother is 17 and is a junior in high school. We were talking about a possible trip to McDonalds and he said he wanted a "McGangBang." Out of breath from laughter at what I had just heard, I asked him what it was. He said it was a double cheeseburger and a McChicken Sandwich, with the chicken taken from that and put in the middle of the two all-beef patties.... What will they think of next???

The Two Weeks That Did Not Suck, Part II

So we were up and at 'em early the next morning because it's about 15-16 hours from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Pensacola, Florida, give or take. We had breakfast and were on the road by about 9:30 in the morning for a good planned stretch of driving on the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System (I like Ike!)

We took U.S. Highway 58 west passing by Norfolk and a lot of the other Hampton Roads cities in the area. It's a nice harbor complete with shipyards and a Naval Base... reminds me of old industrial America. A little further down the road is a city called Suffolk. We hit a lot of traffic there (never a good sign in the early-goings of a long haul) but we were stopped long enough to see a police car that had pulled over another car. Moving passed it we saw a cop on the ground struggling with a guy with long hair, trying to cuff him, and another officer running toward the scene. It was a scene straight out of the TV show "COPS" (and this was a Monday morning just after 10 a.m., mind you....drugs???) Moving along we saw two more police cruisers rushing toward the action.

The next few hours were inconsequential. Rural Virginia toward I-95, which turns into one of the most boring drives through the Carolinas. The original plan was to take 95 to 10 in Jacksonville. I kind of wanted to head further west because I've done the 95 drive down there on several occasions and wanted to try something new. After passing South of the Border (fireworks, hotels, amusement park, food...random. They must do well because they were in business back when my family and I drove to Disneyworld back in 1998) we got off the highway and grabbed a bite to eat and decided to head west on I-20 toward Columbia. I-95 in NC/SC is billboards and truck stops, 20 is more scenic with hills.

We bypassed Atlanta at around 7 p.m. that night and the Braves were playing against the Cardinals there at Turner Field. The game was on the radio but you get each station for only around two hours or so as you cover more and more ground. I kind of had rekindled thoughts of my classic fantasy to make a road trip around the country, stopping at every Major League ballpark, and sort of wanted to see the game, but it made absolutely no sense money/timewise.

We ended up that night staying at the Travelodge in Opelika, Alabama, across the Chattahoochie River and into the Central Time Zone (kinda near Auburn University.... Bo Jackson, anyone??) The next morning, both of us wearing Yankees caps, we discovered it was Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama, so people were naturally giving us strange looks, the people in the hotel started talking about Jair Jurrjens and the Braves. We made a stop for breakfast in Montgomery, the capital, before trekking the rest of the way south towards Pensacola... a good 21-22 hours from Clinton, New Jersey. This blog will continue in Part III.

The Two Weeks That Did Not Suck, Part I

kris oakey: Update your blog so i have something to read

I took a two-week sanity break from this job search to go on that road trip down south with my uncle Don... it finally took place! Back by popular demand, I will use this blog post to talk about it.

So I left the Northeast on Sunday, April 26th kind of hungover after a night of drinkin' with my friend Aversa and others. Now I never enjoy driving any considerable amount of distance when I'm hungover because I feel as if I'm autopiloting in an inattentive daze of simply existing.

This drive, however, wasn't that bad because the adrenaline of excitement kept me pumped throughout the entire 325-mile, six-hour trip to my uncle's house in Virginia Beach. I encountered a few hairy parts of the drive in and around Philadelphia. The tire of the minivan in the left lane in front of me blew out on 95 and the driver had to amble over the close left shoulder. I narrowly escaped. Then, by the airport, I passed a cop which I discovered way too late to make a valid attempt at slowing. I was probably going 80, slowed down to about 75 in the 55-MPH zone in which I was cruising. I dodged a major fine when he didn't pull out to pursue me. Gotta love city cops--too busy with homocides, robberies and gangs (real crimes) to dwell on the misdemeanors that small-town cops get off to prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law.

So I went down the Delmarva Peninsula going through Delaware, Maryland, and [that strange eastern part of] Virginia [which probably should still be considered Maryland] (hence the name of the peninsula with the three states). I stopped at a McDonalds in Maryland to get a Big Mac meal with a Coke and resumed the trip after that. Not long after that, Don called and told me he was going to start the grill with burgers and hot dogs (I jumped the damn gun as usual). While on the phone with him, I crossed into Virginia and the sign on the side of the road read, "Welcome to the South" and was decorated with a couple Confederate flags (still had my Yankees cap on!)

I was making pretty good timing but I had another problem. My 2004 Chrysler Sebring's engine shut off at a stop light about halfway between the Virgina border and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, and the oil light came on. I had no problem starting the engine again but it shut off again closer to the bridge after that. I was getting worried because this whole structure is over 17 miles long (much longer than the Verrazano, George Washington and Tappan-Zee bridges and both the Holland and Lincoln tunnels combined). I really hoped my car wouldn't die on me on the bridge, or worse, in one of the tunnels.


Fortunately, the next time the engine shut off was at an intersection passed the bridge in Va. Beach, and it started right up again (I should really take this issue up with Chrysler...oh, wait). I got to my uncle's house and relaxed with him and his girlfriend and had some BBQ and unwound with a couple of beers. What a trip getting down there, and it wasn't even halfway over....