Derelict of the Year 1995
Winner
Party
Thursday, 4 May 1995, 4:00 – 7:00 p.m., Dr. Greenlee's house.
Nominations
- Marshall Mundt: Derelictus Emeritus
- Alain Goriely: Clown School Dropout
- Bill “Forrest Gump” Flack
- Francisco Bido
- Robert “Copy Boy” Lanza
- Anu Rao: Gonzo Mathematician
- Barbara Shipman: The Anti-Derelict
- Mark Hays: Lifetime Achievement Derelict
- Regan Murray: Conscientious Schoolmarm
- Alain Goriely: Off the Road
- Jeff Nelson: Beamed Out
- Francisco Bido: Geek-O-Rama II
- Anu Rao: Brave 'Nu Hurled
- Karl Haller: Desert Dog
- John Friese: The Book of J
- Eileen Murray: The Flossy Lass
Marshall Mundt: Derelictus Emeritus
Without a doubt Marshall Mundt is supremely qualified by personality and by considerable experience to retain this august office.
Alain Goriely: Clown School Dropout
Once there was a guy from Brussels,
That place famous for chocolate and mussels.
He's really not that hard to spot,
For he's the one who seems to juggle a lot.
So, have you figured out who I'm talking about?
Well, just one more clue will be thrown out:
He's the one with all those curly locks,
The one who always wears those dinosaur socks.
Well, Alain's his name, if you didn't already know,
So let's begin on the derelict type stories: ready, set, go!
There was that time when the elevator door was shutting fast,
And Alain wanted in, although the door was just about clasped.
Quickly, an idea entered that mind of his — “I'll pry it open!”.
Well, needless to say, the elevator then became broken.
To give a talk, he traveled to Utah one fine day,
From Salt Lake, he needed to go 70 miles to where he would stay.
But something went wrong once he got to Salt Lake,
10 hours to arrive in Logan, it did take!
And then there is that roller-blading affair,
On his second day out, he bladed to school without a care,
But next thing you know, he went “kerplop”!
The problem is — just how to stop!
To help get his green card he has started,
A Clinton fan club, no members yet charted.
And to be a real westerner he did buy,
A truck with no engine and a useless door, oh my!
And let us not forget about that journey back in Jan.,
Where a 2 hour return became 8, can you believe it? I can.
It seems instead of South, he traveled South East —
In going to New Mexico we avoided 6 miles of ice, at least!
So for all this and more, without any fear,
I sincerely nominate Alain Goriely for Derelict of the Year.
Bill “Forrest Gump” Flack
Bill Flack, or “that walking guy” as he is more commonly referred to around campus, is best known for walking long distances all over the country for reasons unbeknownst to most mortals. He claims that walking heightens his thought processes. Here a sample of these thoughts provides more evidence that Bill is actually Forrest Gump's evil twin than that he is sentient: After finishing the first year core classes, Bill dropped out of graduate school during finals week to pursue a 2nd undergraduate degree. He reasons: “My undergrad days were the best 6 years of my life — I want to go back to them.” While walking, Bill also notices things that escape most mortal minds. For instance, the chemical names of certain organic polymers can, in fact, be sung aloud to the tune of “Deutschland, Über Alles”.
At times Bill thinks so hard that he fails to be aware of the world around him. Many times, he has been spotted colliding with moving cars. With qualifications such as these, Flack should be voted Derelict of the Year, and then have his legs broken.
Francisco Bido
Some say, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void.” Others say that the universe was created when a quantum singularity of mass and energy exploded with a Big Bang. Whatever you believe, it is irrelevant — the creation of the universe was merely the first in a long string of boring, meaningless events which have only recently lead up to anything of significance... for compared to the age of the universe, it was indeed only recently that Francisco Bido was born. Francisco is the seam where forward meets backwards, where plus meets minus... he is at once both genius and airhead, both neurotic and calm. He also wears a neat hat.
What evidence do I have to corroborate these claims? “Only” the following: (in reverse order...)
- CALM: This alone should qualify him for Derelict of the Year. Despite being in the midst of his first year of graduate school (widely if not unanimously considered the most stressful, at least for applied math), he has remained almost inhumanly cheerful and happy the entire year. He has often been seen drinking beer or wine on the eve of an exam or of a homework due-date, homework which he typically does ALONE and which he often doesn't begin until the night before. But does he ever seem nervous? Is his confidence ever frayed? Not a bit. In fact, you could even add “confident” or “fearless” to the “calm” label... what else could you say about a man who skis THROUGH moguls instead of AROUND them and who, in fact, learned to ski by flying down the mountain as fast as possible? “FEARLESS”, that's all you can say! (well, maybe you could say something like “stupid”, but then you could just file it under “airhead”!)
- NEUROTIC: Just when you think Francisco Bido is the epitome of cool and calm, he nearly kills you with a pointer stick! I refer to his recent brown bag talk, in which he repeatedly hit the ceiling and wall with his pointer stick, a condition which worsened as the talk progressed — he almost broke a light fixture and nearly put someone's eye out in the first row. He looked like he was conducting some weird speed metal concert. Want more neuroses? Have you ever noticed that whenever he and Joe throw a party, he can almost never be found during the first few minutes? He's off... somewhere... we think in the bathroom, doing... something... we think fixing his hair? Speaking of the bathroom...
- AIRHEAD: Yes, Francisco lives with Joe in a lovely house, and ever morning they each, at separate times, take a nice, hot shower. EXCEPT, that is, for the first 3 months they lived there. JOE had hot showers, but Francisco had ice cold showers — apparently, he didn't realize that you had to WAIT for the water to HEAT UP. (And seeing as how the water was so cold, he took mighty quick showers and finished them before they ever got hot.) It took three months before he mentioned to Joe that they should consider getting the landlord to fix the hot water. Then there was the Christmas party at Wayne's house, for which Francisco picked up a six pack of what he figured must be a good Irish beer — O'DOUL's! (He was rather upset when we told him it was non-alcoholic.) On another occasion, he paid $50.00 to rent a mountain bike for the weekend so that he could go on a mountain-biking trip with some campus organization. After declining several other social events for that weekend, he finally took the bike home, only to find out after riding to the meeting place at 6:00 a.m., that the trip was actually on the following weekend.
- GENIUS: After reading that last entry, you wouldn't know it, but Francisco is a genius. Despite his insane stick action at the aforementioned brown bag seminar, it was apparent that he knows a hell of a lot of complicated stuff about scattering theory and semi-classical limits. In fact, second, third, even FOURTH year graduate students from all over the department have come to him with questions about scattering and inverse scattering. In fact, many of us wonder why they haven't already given him a Ph.D.! Do not let his air-headedness fool you, he knows his stuff! (How else could he get away with being so calm?) But, being a first year, this just makes him all that much more of a derelict!
There are many other aspects of Francisco's greatness which remain as only whispered rumours — LEGENDS, if you will — circulating throughout the math department. I shall not repeat them here, as I do not have any direct evidence of their validity. (For example, I've never seen him naked.) If you have never met Francisco, look for him... he's the Dominican guy who often wears a brown safari hat and who talks like the aardvark from the Pink Panther. (That's Jackie Mason!) I'm sure you'll agree, Francisco is well deserving of that greatest of honors in the field of mathematics: UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA DERELICT OF THE YEAR for 1995!!!
Robert “Copy Boy” Lanza
We nominate office meister Robert, a.k.a. Copy Boy, to the post of Derelict of the Year. Although clearly aware of the unwritten understood mandate that all persons affiliated with the department be involved in theorem proving on a daily basis, Robert has successfully avoided this by pretending to hide behind the office photocopier. In actuality, even there he is seldom found. Using the twenty-four hour notice as an avoidance veil behind which he can pursue his true interest in time travel and dream analysis, he is nonetheless keenly aware of all that takes place around this hallowed ground. An expert copier, Robert consistently delivers a calming influence on many alarmed individuals. In the words of one person overheard in the elevator: “Yup, sure 'nuff, freaked the hell outta me. There I was this mornin', had to teach at 9:00 a.m., ya know, and at 8:15 the copies weren't in my box. I turned 'em in a good 25 hours beforehand. Gave him an extra hour just in case. I tell you, I was ready to hit the roof. But they weren't due 'til 8:20. So as not to make false accusations, I went to take a wizz down the hall, let some steam escape, and let a few minutes pass. Then I marched into that office ready to raise hell 'n such. But I'll tell ya, sure enough as I am standing here right now, there was those copies, waiting for me in my box. What a relief. Didn't need that pack o' Rolaids after all. With tears of joy in my eyes, I went off to teach my class. That Copy Boy. He comes through for you every time.”
Testimony like this is hard to come by; yet, we hear it all the time. There can be no doubt that Robert should hold the post of Derelict of the Year.
Anu Rao: Gonzo Mathematician
Rolling around in the back seat like a pair of dice and staring like a frightened rabbit at the onrushing headlights of the black Jeep looming in the side window, I resolved, “Dear Jesus, if you let me live through this left turn, I'll nominate Anu for Derelict of the Year.”
And well she deserves it. Here in our math department at the edge of the desert, Anu is working to bring a little Hunter S. Thompson panache into our dry and dusty academic lives. Her damn-the-torpedoes driving style and willingness to go bumper-to-bumper with testosterone-maddened adolescents on Oracle Road provide a system-clearing blast of adrenalin to any future Fields Medalists fortunate enough to be occupying her passenger seat. Reliable witnesses testify to at least one episode in which she projectile-vomited a vile soup of bad alcohol and Thai food across three lanes of Speedway from the passenger window of someone else's automobile, bespattering the flanks of a passing white Oldsmobile and irritating the bejesus out of the trio of grizzled obese Legionaires inside. And while her canary-related behavior might seem bizarre even in the pages of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, it must be remembered that we are professional mathematicians, and as such have an obligation to Set An Example.
Anu Rao for Derelict of the Year! If we vote her in, she'll provide superior leadership in ever more excessive acts of dereliction. If we don't, it'll only spur her on to increasingly aggressive efforts — which means more danger for the poor souls trapped in her car.
Barbara Shipman: The Anti-Derelict
Known for her single-handed beating of the men's basketball team in daily matches, Barbara also enjoys joyriding the city bus and playing in the poppy fields. When she is not performing Ercolani impressions in her Wednesday help session, Barbara can be found avoiding us lost souls by hiding from her office; often, she is on the computers playing a round of checkers against opponents across the internet. Although she successfully escaped conviction in the recent computer break-in shakedown, those of us in the know are aware of the truth. Do not be fooled by her calm and refrained manner: behind those glasses exists a wild horse.
Mark Hays: Lifetime Achievement Derelict
To the young 'uns I feel an obligation
to contribute to their education.
Hence I will attempt to relate
tales of someone they should emulate;
a student whose acts of daily dereliction
merit our respect, mirth, and recognition.
This student possesses a somewhat keen intellect,
accompanied always by the dangling cigarette.
An expert in many fields, this humble fellow,
from quantum mechanics to computers to killer pesto.
Plenty of caffeine, hot dogs, & chips keep our hero on the go
(and buttloads of mind-altering chemicals, wouldn't you know!).
After 4 1/2 grueling years, he completed his thesis this January,
and through a bizarre ritual, has become considerably less hairy.
Nowadays he can be found playing DOOM: he turns, he shoots!
Prepared for any situation in surgically-implanted hiking boots.
So if you should happen to see him, one of these days,
be sure to bellow, “Howdy, Dr. Mark Hays!”
Regan Murray: Conscientious Schoolmarm
While grading her class homework Regan finds this very weird paper, and grades it — taking off quite a few points! It was actually her solution sheet!!! Not only did she miss a few math things, but she even didn't recognize her handwriting!!!
Alain Goriely: Off the Road
...So in Arizona when the sun goes down behind me and I sat in my pickup truck, whizzing by immovable milepost singularities, Edith Piaf blaring from the speakers screeching wailing swirling through the vortex of my psyche like all those nights in the hash bars of my foresaken Eurotrash Disney, but I looked over at Bido Rado crashed, and the land I insult in frog drone overtones but which has called me back and I recalled the Rincons, the sun going down and sitting at the campfire watching the long, long skies over the desert and sensed through all that raw land I can see the math building and all the hallways going and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it and if we put them all on Maple randomly typing input one of them would prove Fermat's Last Theorem. We lit cigarrettes with burning marshmallows from the fire to save matches and tonight the stars'll be out and don't you know that if Jesus were older he'd be bald as my boss? The evening star was drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the desert dust before the coming of complete night that blesses the sand, darkens the washes, caps the cacti, and nobody, nobody knows what the hell I'm gonna do when my post-doc runs out, after all, juggling beanbags wasn't built in a day, and they won't let me back into clown school. I thought of Erker the absent anti-hero languishing in anguish in the naked pueblo who couldn't make the trip as the truck spit exhaust sending cosmic code smoke signals compiled by Apaches smokin' hashie in a patchie, my true cousins whom I must get to, but I feared I may be too tired from the skiing. All my Royal Cut tea was back home, and who is left to keep me awake? I had Piaf blowing her top and hitting a high C for a long time as the road crashed along and I thought the cops would come from the nearest precinct. Craig was in a trance. He didn't even notice when the tape ended, just blurbed Oh Wow and nodded off and after a while it was just me. All alone in the night I had my own thoughts and held the truck to the white line in the holy road, traversing the tangential component of the curvilinear coordinates of my knotted existence, my mind drifting momentarily to Utah highways and the lights of Salt Lake City infinitesimally glimmering across the mirage of the flats, above and below the curve of the earth, one clear one dim, and I reflected that the thing that simply connected us in this manifold was invisible, and to rigorously prove it to myself pointed to long lines of telephone poles that curve out of sight beyond the salt, until I realized that I turned onto the wrong Riemann sheet and would miss my talk at Utah state, and I'd better not make the same mistake here. I spent almost the entire night headed pellmell for the mighty border of New Mexico that stood a hundred miles ahead. I took Highway 70 like a June bug, cutting off the motor and floating it, passing everybody and never halting the almost periodic rhythmic advance that the mountains intended unconsciously, up, down, sideways, thirty degrees, forty degrees, π/4, straight until finally I fell forward as I'd done so many times at my workstation, but now onto the wheel. They all awoke, epiphanized by the be-bop crescendo of the car horn. Bird and Diz couldn't have blown it more maniacally.
“How much longer, Alain?”
“Mileposts are decaying to zero. We must be near New Mexico.”
“We're supposed to be going back to Tucson, you idiot.”
Jeff Nelson: Beamed Out
There once was an Applied Math student
Whom we all had thought was quite prudent.
He was known far and wide
For nettreking on the side;
He could sit for hours without movement.
And thus our young friend passed the time,
Quietly saving each dime.
He took the Quals, did quite well,
Then told the department to go to Hell,
'Cause he had better ways to spend his days, like sitting on the
ivory beaches of Barbados with women in skimpy grass
skirts, sipping exotic drinks and planning how to
spend his first million.
Francisco Bido: Geek-O-Rama II
Code for: Derelict Transform Function (DT)
Input: New York City Geek (i.e., Francisco Bido) — alias “geek”
DT: geek => derelict
Initial Condition: Move geek to Tucson
for (month = August; month <= April; month++)
{
if (month == August)
geek arrives in Tucson and commences to cause much laughter
with his Seinfeld/Jackie Mason type expressions and voice;
else if (month == September)
geek rents mountain bike for class on the wrong weekend;
else if (month == October)
geek almost dies in an attempt to pick up a cat and pet it;
else if (month == November)
geek asks roommate if maybe they should tell landlord there
is no hot water after taking cold showers for 4 months, only
to find out that he just wasn't waiting long enough for the
hot water to show up;
else if (month == December)
geek shows up to party thinking he brought a great imported
beer, only to find out it is non-alcoholic O'Douls;
else if (month == January)
while (geek goes skiing)
{
geek tries to impress women on the bunny slopes by
missiling down at record speeds;
geek proves total incompetence at playing bizz/buzz
(multiplication game), and proves that you don't need
to know how to add and multiply to do math;
geek goes through moguls instead of around them
in attempting a black slope on his fourth day of
skiing — ever!;
geek shows extreme amount of confidence in Kodak by
taking pictures indoors without a flash using a
disposable camera;
}
else if (month == February)
geek claims innocence after guest house resident's Victoria's
Secret catalogue finally shows up in the mailbox — she
had seen it there several days prior and went back to get it
only to find that it was gone;
else if (month == March)
geek forgets to lock the door when using the fourth floor coed
bathroom and manages to give Lois quite a surprise;
else if (month == April)
{
geek goes camping (interesting in itself) and decides
to get up at 4 AM to see a wild animal — he saw
a humming bird;
also while camping, geek goes seeking some firewood and
brings back a tree;
geek gives excellent brown bag, but almost puts out a
light by swinging a pointer around like crazy;
}
}
derelict = geek;
return derelict;
Anu Rao: Brave 'Nu Hurled
My fellow mathematicians,
A new day is dawning for our department and we need bold new leadership to set powerful new examples of dereliction for us to follow. Where can we find such a leader? Only one person's deeds shine out like a beacon of dereliction to guide us through the dark night of conventionality.
We have a candidate who is not afraid to stand up for her right to make an illegal left. A candidate who will fearlessly spew out her opinions and her lunch from the window of any automobile in this department. A candidate who is financially conservative enough to suggest re-using condoms and bold enough to bring up the subject in mixed company. And a candidate who will let no one — student, administrator, or canary — (especially if she's under the influence of alcohol) stand in the way of accomplishing her goals.
You know who this person is. A new derelict with new leadership for a new future - Anu Rao!
Karl Haller: Desert Dog
See Karl. Karl sees dog. Karl likes dog. Karl buys dog. Ooops, no place to keep dog. See Wayne. See Wayne's nice house. See Wayne's new dog.
John Friese: The Book of J
This document nominates Mr. John Friese to the position of Derelict of the Year. In the category GradStu, this gentleman represents a classic example of the bizarre object. Allow us to denote it by J. One can find appearances of J in various locations, often unexpectedly, especially when interesting and delicious matters are afoot. Although standard axioms dictate J to be caught properly in one locale characterized by studious behavior, the bizarre object does not fit this description. Applying the usual homological functor to J results in a new representation which exhibits the surprisingly noisy and sometimes foul outbursts admissible by J. Although one might attempt to question the nature of J, it is usually J which questions the nature of everything else. The study of J is not a mere sojourn into the categorical wasteland; the vastness afforded by J is so rich that those of us in the know have come to describe our activity as explorations in “J-theory”. We usually consume jelly donuts at our study sessions, and this seems to help us see the object under study with almost physical clarity; that is, the food allows us to notice the strange attractor aspects of J. We often wonder how dull our own studious endeavors would be in the absence of such a grand and colorful object as J. Let us close by saying that although the local behavior of J appears well-understood, the global behavior remains a mystery. Although we encourage others to explore J-theory, we caution that your attention can be infectiously symmetric.
Eileen Murray: The Flossy Lass
(Very loosely based on “Come on Eileen” by Dexy's Midnight Runners)
Come on Eileen
You made quite a scene
Dental floss in your face
In the weirdest place
Come on Eileen
You made us all green
The floss up your nose
Through your mouth, so gross
Eileen, Eileen ta-roo-la-lay
Eileen, you scared everyone away
Come on Eileen
Your belching is keen
Your nose is so clean
You're the gross-out queen
Come on Eileen
You used to be mean
You'd beat the boys up
'Till you got that cute pup
Eileen, Eileen ta-roo-la-lay
Eileen, you call people retarded all day
Come on Eileen
You did the Grateful Dead scene
You no longer roam
You're with your puppy at home
Come on Eileen
Purple human bein'
You dress like a clown
And you floss like a retard
Eileen, Eileen the flossy lass
At least the floss didn't come out your —