Shoutout

I decided, with caution, to take CSCI 134 this semester. It has been a blast, much thanks to my two wonderful professors. Not taking CS earlier is certainly one of my greatest academic regrets from Williams.

Cascades

This is the "inside" film of Cascades, my favorite bell composition. Sorry about the difficulty of hearing the song; that's how it is inside the room. I think this is a better example of the ringing process than the actual sound. My entire recital is here and here.

Epic - Where I'll be working

Next year, I'll be joining a few other Ephs at Epic, an awesome company located in Madison, WI. I'll admit that when I initially applied, I thought of Epic as a long-shot - I didn't know if the position I was applying for was a good fit, and Wisconsin didn't even border any states I had visited. After this, though, came a whole series of interesting and fascinating screening methods, all of which I'm afraid I'm already too loyal to reveal. :P



What I will say, though, is that the screening process was smart enough for Epic to figure out that I had applied for the wrong job. And so, when I received an offer to fly out to Wisconsin, it was for a different gig - one that was much more exciting, and much better fitting my interests and aptitudes. But still - Wisconsin? My skepticism changed with two events.

First, my friend A, another Project Manager to-be, sold me on the company. That's a nice story by itself (I'll be going there with at least two other '11 Ephs, not to mention other Williams grads already employed), but consider the time: 2 am. And the place: a rugby pitch.

You see, A and myself were both volunteering for a 24-hour Rugby match for charity, happening between 8 am Saturday the 23rd of April and 8 am on Sunday the 24th, which also happened to be Easter. And so, after my midnight Easter vigil, I came down to the field. Drei asked about my employment situation, and I told him I was flying to this "Epic" company in Madison, not remembering that Andrei was from Madison, or that he would be working at Epic.

And so, standing by the pitch, as the players took a sanctioned break, I was sold on the company I hadn't visited yet. Flying there confirmed everything that Andrei had told me: Epic is an open company: the middle picture on the left shows the giant assembly hall where they hold a monthly all-company meeting where honesty and transparency are the name of the game. Their cafeteria uses a ton of natural light, and their corridors was wonderfully designed, as is their landscaping. The campus is gorgeous, no one has a cubicle, and in the winter, you can take underground tunnels between all of the buildings.

Most importantly, though, are Epic core values. I can't find them online anywhere, but here's a teaser:  Epic has a treehouse, recycles 65% of construction waste (and there is always construction thanks to the explosive growth), has a working farm with cows, uses a geothermal system to heat/cool the buildings, offers many neat benefits, and most importantly, holds confidentiality sacrosanct, even as the company allowed me, a recruit, to wonder around the various buildings to see for myself that the entire place was as neat as the smidgen I had seen on my tour.

What will I be doing? Essentially, I'll be making Epic's software work, which is precisely in line with what I hope to do with the rest of my life - to enable better processes to serve more people at lower cost. Epic is a fantastic place to start that journey, and I'm looking forwards to my time there.

Good Day

Life is good.

My Senior Recital

(text courtesy of the Williams Dept. of Music)

Program

The Williams College Department of Music will present a senior recital featuring William Slack on Thursday, May 12 at 4 p.m. in Thompson Memorial Chapel on the Williams College campus. This free event is open to the public.
Slack will be playing the Thompson Memorial Chapel Chime and the audience can enjoy it anywhere on campus where they can hear them. He will play pieces by George Alfred Grant-Shaefer, George Harrison, Howard Shore, Robert Wadsworth Lowry, Talcott Banks, and Richard Rodgers as well as some of his own original compositions.

About the Carillonneur:
William Slack ’11, of Decatur, Georgia, began ringing in 2007. He has performed and arranged numerous songs for the bells, from hymns to pop music, in addition to original compositions. Will also plays the piano, trombone, and djimbe, and has sung with the Williams Chamber and Concert Choirs under Brad Wells.

About the Chime:
Installed in the autumn of 1904, the Thompson Memorial Chapel Chime consists of 10 bells tuned in an Eb Major scale with an additional ninth and a flat seventh, accommodating music in the keys of Eb Major, Ab Major, and F Minor. The Chime is played via a console of levers that are directly attached via lengthy wires to heavy clappers, which the Carillonneur pulls into the bells with varying intensity, depending on the desired dynamic.

My most recent Record op-ed

I turned 13 on Sept. 11, 2001. Sunday evening, eight years to the day after George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, I ran home to Susie Hopkins after learning that the man chiefly responsible for that event had been killed in a firefight.

We live, it is said, in a purple bubble here at Williams, isolated by mountains in every cardinal direction. Our lives are enabled and assisted through the efforts of hundreds of staff who provide us with security and services while we pursue our education. While the Internet has made true isolation less possible, we are sheltered here from hunger and the worst sort of injustices that have provoked the current Arab Spring.

Nate Krisoff ’03 departed from this shelter and entered the United States Marine Corps. The plaque commemorating his life and death on Dec. 9, 2006, sits alone above one of the back doors of Thompson Chapel, dwarfed by the long lists of names from other wars in which Ephs took greater part. He was a co-captain of the swim team, known for his one-liners and the blue and white Adidas tracksuit top that he wore everywhere.
After his death, his father, a surgeon, enlisted in the Naval Medical Corps to honor his son’s memory, serving a seven-month deployment at Camp Al Taqaddum, Iraq, among other places. I know of no other Ephs who followed Bill Krissoff’s example; Williams students are rarely found in today’s armed forces.

We serve in the government, yes, and I have no doubt that many ’11s, ’12s, ’13s and ’14s will leave this valley to accomplish great feats, but many of us will remain within the security and comfort that the privilege of a Williams degree will help to provide. We will not be able to claim the words of Professor of Rhetoric Carroll Lewis Maxcy’s 1926 eulogy:

“And some, in answer to the call of country, have gone out to battle for the common rights of men against the enemy. Some of them will not return to me, for they have given all they had, and now they rest at the foot of a simple cross or lie deep below the waves. But even as they passed, the music of the chimes was in their ears and before their eyes were visions of the quiet walks beneath the elms.”

I am not suggesting that Ephs commemorate Osama bin Laden’s death by enlisting in the armed forces; my own plans do not include military service, though I respect and honor my friends from home who made that choice..... (read the rest at the Record)

After four years of broadcasting...

 Thanks, DQ.

But I should really thank the amazing members of Williams's women's soccer team. They compiled a 32-3 record at home over 4 years, and a 70-7-3 record overall. That's thanks to an amazing group of 2011s who defended and attacked marvelously, making my job a lot of fun, even when it was REALLY cold on top of the metal scaffolding I watched and broadcast from.

The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

I realized why this mattered a little earlier tonight - it was closure.

Closure for 9/11, and the ongoing conflicts that have strained our military and our budget.

Closure of the annoyance that one man could do this to a country, and live out his days.

And I'm glad for that closure; hopefully we'll be able to draw down our investments, to some extent: we need to get our fiscal house in order.

Betty White: The Musical

An amazing performance of the most immediate of theatre. Williams is an amazing place: only here can an idea born of a hat's theme and a playwright's imagination for a 8 hour writing spree be turned into a full fledged musical, staged in a former dining hall with a talented cast.

:)

One disadvantage of working in an airport

Except for responding to requests/helping people, my productivity is absolutely shot. Announcements, airport TV, and people talking all make for a litany of distractions that keep pulling me away from my tasks.

Airline Delays

I'm enjoying a few hours in Albany Airport on my way out of state, and beyond appreciation for the free Albany WiFi, I'm reminded of how amazing it is that my 1000 mile trek can be accomplished in a day.

The world is fairly amazing, actually. Income inequality is up, yes, and there are a whole host of problems, but altogether, I think the progression of technology and development worldwide is a strong case that this is the best time in history to be alive. I can sit in this airport and access movies, TV shows, news, and my work, all without breaking a sweat.

So am I annoyed that I can't enjoy on campus? Yes. Am I going to lose a bit of sleep? No.

Oddly, my optimism has been restored by bad airport luck.

From Ben Smith:
Donald Trump used his New Hampshire press conference this morning to announce how "proud" he was to have made the fringe issue of Obama's birth certificate a central one, then to have forced the White House's hand in releasing another birth document.
Then he pivoted, in a tour de force performance, to a tone that his 2012 rivals will have to reckon with: Raw, unadulterated anger, which began with calling Obama stupid and demanding his college transcripts.....

This is a really dumb situation for Obama to be in - he's released the legally valid document, and now there's going to be a continuing standard of having to go above and beyond legal requirements if you don't "feel" American to people. This is made worse because he would have been "natural born" even if he had been born in Kenya, due to jus sanguinis. My question for WSO is a different one, though: should presidential candidates have to release their college transcripts, as this op-ed suggests?

The standards of privacy have obviously changed - the press corps that covered up Kennedy's affairs is no longer above tabloid fare, but I can't shake the feeling that candidates shouldn't have to be held responsible for what happened when they were 18-22: people change, right?

Do you think college transcripts are relevant to your future career, and public scrutiny?