Loving the 80s

Sorry that I haven't posted anything in the past few days. You can blame it on the 400-pound gorilla known as Homecoming. But it's been an exciting time.

On Thursday afternoon, some of my friends in the BCM crew and I headed to the Mall to get started on our float. As I said before, our float design is Super Mario Bros. TJ sketched out a rough outline of how he wanted the float to look, and so we spent the better part of the afternoon and evening cutting out plywood, nailing pieces together, and fooling around with crazy chicken wire. We didn't have a ton of people, but everyone worked very well together and we managed to get quite a bit done before they turned out the lights at 1:00 am. TJ and I slept outside in a huge tent that Lauren provided (thanks!!!) so we could protect the float from any would-be trouble makers on the prowl at night. Thankfully, we didn't have any trouble and we managed to get a little bit of sleep.

Friday after Religion class (I made an A on my first Paul exam! Woo-hoo!), we went right back to work; since we got most of the foundation done the night before, we quickly got started pomping it. For a while, it was just Lauren and myself painting a mushroom-colored football for "Mario" to throw, and pomping his legs. Then we went inside for lunch in the DH (after I retrieved my PalaCard from TJ), and then I headed back outside and worked from about 12 to 3 in the afternoon. Eventually, more people started showing up and we really started knocking out the pomping. It was lots of fun and I had an awesome time getting to know a few people better. Later in the day, a few old friends who graduated last year came by to visit, among them Chris and EA Cox, Kat Garber, and Justin Nelson. I later saw Alan Parks (our family group leader from last year) and Jennifer Sims at the carnival. That was awesome, seeing the big group together again. I'm only sad that I couldn't go to Firehouse with them in the evening. I guess they assumed I didn't want to go, though I don't know where they got that idea. Oh well, it's not a big deal.

The Homecoming Carnival was cool, albeit not as thrilling as last year, but that's to be expected. We polished off the float, and it looked incredible! Basically, it's QB Mario dropping back to pass the mushroom-colored football with two Goomba defenders pursuing him, and wide receiver Luigi running a route with a Koopa Troopa cornerback chasing him near a yellow question block. In the background are four green warp holes, or pipes, with a Bell Tower mock-up in the center that's supposed to represent one of those defeated castles from the original NES Mario Bros game, complete with a star flag at the top. It's terrific how smoothly it all came together. Major props to everyone involved for making float construction so awesome!


Alas, I had to miss the actual game today pitting Furman against Elon on account of work. But you know, after not working for two weeks, I need to get some hours in if I'm going to have any sort of paycheck by next week. The Fighting Football Paladins took care of business in blowout fashion, thankfully, as they clobbered the visiting Phoenix, 42-6. I got to give Lauren a chicken salad sandwich from work; that's her favorite Chick-Fil-A food item, but for some reason the Furman CFA doesn't sell it. So that was cool. And I'm also quite happy Clemson took care of its own opponent, Temple, in equally convincing fashion, winning by a score of 37-7. Happy days!

Song of the Day: Super Mario Bros. theme (it just makes you want to go play the game)

Verse of the Day: "A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor." - Proverbs 22:9