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Winter: Whatever the temperature, if there is no wind, it is a good day; if there is blue sky, it is a great day!

Michigan Technological University. Isn't "technological" a clumsy word? Consider that CalTech and MIT don't try it. They use "technology." They put it at the end. The California Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are smart people. Why don't we do that? "Technology" is easier, don't you think? Michigan University of Technology. It makes sense -- our mascot is a dog.

Life here means living at least one third of the year at or below the refrigerator temperature.

Snow is better than rain, and neither is best.

"What matters in life is what you do once the pain sets in." (?!)

The state mandates that we put our young children in seat restraints. It mandates that we buckle in the driver and front seat passenger. The state mandates these extraordinary safety measures to keep us alive. I want to use studs on my tires so I will not slide on a snow covered road into incoming traffic or over a cliff. The state will not let me because the state does not want to periodically re-surface roads. The state regulates me inside my vehicle, but I am not permitted to inconvenience that state to safeguard my life.

It's days like this that make me grateful for indoor plumbing.

Today I witnessed my first "broomball" game. I am speechless, but full of laughter.

There are only three kinds of people: those who shovel snow, those who moved to Florida, and those who are dead.

"Science is exact but the earth is arbitrary."    Chuck Young, MTU Professor

Considering the annual cycle of frost bite to bug bite and back, I have little use for Nature.

"It is not a matter of opportunity; it is a matter of will."

Four walls, fluorescent lighting ... I'm home.

"For each page of your thesis that you complete, you are entitled to a beer. That is why we call it a draft."

The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint being dead--it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows--O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared--such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked;" ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.
 

I will never get another Ph.D!

"Hold your head up. You are a dancer!"     Basak Anameric

The following exchange occurred at the end of a telephone conversation.

    - Wish you good!
    - Wish you good?
    - Wish you good.
    - I guess I'm not from California anymore.  I don't recognize that code.
    - Okay, Dave.  Bye.
    - Bye.

"There is no here here."

    -- Tomatoe, upon going outside the day after our worst blizzard. *

"... and, it works!"     Christine, the day after Dance Extravaganza 5 at the Dance Shoppe.

I love a woman in a three-piece suit.

Today I signed a contract to leave this beautiful place for a different beautiful place, Denver.