[Leica] OT, but joyful: saloon keeper's daughter graduates

[richard.lists at gmail.com (Richard Man)]

Woohoo, party time!

Is she going to work for the big A in Cupertino? Nice that she comes
back. We are *not* looking forward for our Firstborn going to Philly
this Fall :-(


On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Brian Reid<reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> 
wrote:
> Day before yesterday I was part of an intimate little crowd of 11,000 
> people
> who sat in plastic folding chairs under constant threat of rain next to the
> Charles River while about 2000 people were conferred with degrees at MIT. 
> My
> youngest child, Elizabeth, who is a member of the LUG but has been too busy
> being a student to participate much this year, was awarded a Master's in
> Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her cap was attached to her
> hair with so many bobby pins that she needed her sister's help to get it 
> off
> her head afterwards. (Last year at her BS graduation, the wind blew her cap
> off just as the official photographer snapped the official picture).
>
> I only got to the ceremony 2 hours before it started, so I was seated so 
> far
> back that I couldn't see the stage. I did manage to get off a photograph of
> the Jumbotron video screen while it was showing a smiling Elizabeth, but I
> forgot that Jumbotrons are interlaced and set the shutter speed too high, 
> so
> the picture is a little odd. But she showed me the diploma afterwards as
> proof that she really was up there when they called out her name.
>
> Elizabeth's sister (Vanessa) and I did some stopwatch work during the
> graduation ceremony, and we determined that they were reading the names of,
> and finding diplomas for, and sending across the stage, 32 graduates per
> minute. If you are not astonished by that number, why don't you find a list
> of 32 names from 20 countries and try reading them out loud and see how 
> long
> it takes you. ?At least 2 of the test names must have more than 12
> syllables. You get no credit unless you pronounce them all correctly.
> Rehearsing is permitted.
>
> I didn't get any pictures because I didn't really want pictures of the 
> backs
> of the heads of other students' parents, and I was there to jubilate and 
> not
> to photograph. So I bought package C-7 from the official event 
> photographer,
> which will include a TIFF with right to print for family use.
>
> She's not flying home with me today because she's got a wedding to shoot
> next weekend here in Boston; then she'll fly home, soon to start an actual
> job in Cupertino, California.
>
> Thanks for listening. I'll probably stop smiling in a few weeks, but next
> year Elizabeth's sister will graduate from law school and I get to do it
> again.
>



-- 
// richard m: richard @imagecraft.com
// w: http://www.rfman.com
// b: http://rfman.wordpress.com