Derelict of the Year 2002
Winner
Congratulations to Math Elevator #1.
Party
- DAY: Wednesday, MAY 1 (the last day of classes!)
- TIME: 6:30ish (you know how punctual the math. dept. is)
- PLACE: Senior Bill's House of Fun and Frolic... directions below
- There will be a keg, sandwiches, chips, salsa, soda, etc., but feel free to bring anything (legal) that you like
- Suggested donation of $3-5 for keg and food... think of it as a tithe
Directions (clues?) to Wild Bill McCallum's house...
- 5130 North Campbell Ave.
- Driveway just before Camino Los Vientos, on Campbell North of River Rd.
- Stone mailbox with three mailboxes, one with the number 5130 on it.
- First house on driveway.
- Do not park in access road.
- The phone number is 615-4569.
Nominations
- Tyler the Adventurer
- Adam, Steve, and Eric (as a trio)
- Chris Rasmussen and his partner in Dereliction Renee Lefebure
- Christopher Rasmussen: Stunt Driver to Carmic Attractor
- Jeff Selden
- Mathematics Elevator #1, Our Personal Trainer
Tyler the Adventurer
Tyler is a cool guy but despite his obvious efforts to conceal his true nature, he is a true derelict.
The first sign we had evidence of his dereliction occurred in the following e-mail received 4 days before he was due to depart on a scientific trip to Switzerland (generously funded by his adviser):
Alain, Something just occurred to me. Never having travelled overseas before, I don't have a passport. Will I need one to go to Switzerland? If so, how do I get one? Tyler
Tyler never went.
More recently, on another adventure, Tyler decided that he could make good use of an empty Business Class seat. No, no Tyler, there is no justice in airplane travel! Following a confrontation with a stewardess, Tyler spent the rest of his a trip to the last row of the plane.
If this is not enough to convince this fine audience, Tyler's thesis says it all. Under a seemingly scholarly title, his thesis his divided into three chapters entitled: Perversion, Whips and Hoses.
A naughty boy in the tradition of last millennium greatest derelicts.
Adam, Steve, and Eric (as a trio)
Most of us know that the first year is something to be taken seriously, the foundation and edifice upon which our entire graduate career wobbles. One easy measure of dereliction is to consider a certain concentration (if you haven't taught college algebra, this one might be beyond you): the three constituents of foundational slush are 1) mathematical cement, 2) social sand, and 3) sleep cavities. Exit questionnaires of former graduates with successful job placements indicate that the proper ratios are 85%/10%/5% for the first year, followed by 20%/5%/75% in the first two months of summer, followed by 95%/5%/0% in the two weeks leading up to the quals. Data for subsequent years is less consistent. At any rate, the data alone for the Friday before final exams should serve as a rough guide for the rest-of-year ratios. Adam, Steve, and Eric spent that particular Friday emptying a keg, sip by sip, gulp by gulp, until 5:30 AM (that is: until the sun came up), thereby achieving 0%/100%/0%. Friends, romans, countrymen: are these not the numbers to which true derelicts aspire? Are these not the pinnacle, the holy grail, of a derelictus maximus? Mind you, one can only hope that this nomination sits aside others of sufficient grandeur that this single night of dereliction will be insufficient to win the award. But should you, auspicious reader, come across other nominations for any one of these individuals, or should you personally be privy to information that has been withheld from the public eye, please take the present words as additional anecdotal evidence. If not this year, then one year: may the most derelictus of these three characters win the award!
Chris Rasmussen and his partner in Dereliction Renee Lefebure
This nomination is taking the unusual route of using a pair. This will be justified by the symmetry of the story I am about to tell.
See Chris prepare for a trip to South Korea.
See Chris get his passport photos.
See Chris get told by the clerk that his photos are too big.
See Chris get more photos.
See Chris get told by the clerk that his photos are too small.
See Chris get more photos.
See Chris get told by the clerk that his photos are now just right.
See Chris get a little angry.
See Chris mail his passport to the SK embassy.
See Chris wait.
See Chris find out the embassy has been moved.
See the post office guy be really lazy and not walk next door to the new embassy building.
See Chris find out his passport never arrived.
See Chris go back to the clerk.
(time passes without dereliction)
See Chris arrive in Korea.
See Chris take lots of pictures of Korea.
See Chris shamelessly try to beat a young Korean child in volleyball.
See Chris gloat over the 3-foot youngster when he does.
See Chris realize he has no return ticket.
(time passes without dereliction)
See Chris go to Montreal.
See Chris call (or have a friend call, we aren't sure which) Renee and leave a phone message.
The message goes something like this
"Hello, Press 7 if you would like to hear today's curling information. (pause) Thank you for pressing 7. I will now tell you about todays curling competition. (etc.)"
This goes on for some time.
Drunken sniggering is heard in the background.
See Chris call again and say,
"We just called you in case you couldn't tell. Snigger snigger."
(time passes without dereliction)
Now this is all rather amusing but is it really dereliction?
No. The dereliction begins when Renee completes the symmetry.
See Renee go to Montreal to see Chris.
See Renee realize in Chicago that she has no passport.
(Really not a problem since it is just the 51^st state we
affectionately call Canada. Renee's ID should be fine.)
See Renee and Chris eat dinner.
See Renee's purse sitting at the table long after dinner is over.
See Renee's license sitting in the purse long after the dinner is over.
See Renee now wonder how she could get on the plane.
See Renee pay $37 to have her passport FedEx'ed overnight.
See that these people should never leave the country.
[Needless to say all of these situations have been resolved and no people, monkeys, or angry cartoonists were harmed.]
Christopher Rasmussen: Stunt Driver to Carmic Attractor
Just a good ol' boy
never meaning no harm
been in trouble with the law
since the day he was born
This would have been fitting description of our fearless "King of the Road" before April 19. Many is the occasion upon which we have seen Chris, or the Road Warrior, as he used to be called, enter his car in the Dukes of Hazzard fashion... sliding across the hood and hoping through his open window. And if he should ever forget to leave his window open, the friendly neighborhood children open it for him using the old-fashioned "throwing of stones" method. Indeed, he is no stranger to the employees at Holmes-Tutle Ford. But these slight dents, scratches and extra seat belts give his car the Mad Maxian character it so desperately needed, not to mention the number of children who will now be able to attend college because their fathers are Ford-certified mechanics.
The exploits of the Road Warrior have gained the status of myth throughout the department. Many believed that this rouge's rough and tumble days as a stunt driver were over. And yet, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, an enlightened "Buddha of the Road" has emerged to take the place of the "King" and keep his insurance costs high.
The story of how the Road Warrior attained enlightenment begins late one evening on the way home from the math deparment. A feeling of restlessness had come over him as he quickly drove along 6th St. His years of stunt driving had nutured a kind of sixth sense which told him that carmic forces were working against him. To his right was a sporty little car, vainly attempting to keep pace. As he easily edged past it, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end. Some maniac with half a ton of aluminum had just shot through a stop sign and was headed directly for him. The instincts kicked in as he prepared to jump his car over the oncoming fiasco. But something caught hold of his soul and he was moved by a force more powerful than stunt driver training. It was at this moment that the Road Warrior was granted clarity of mind. He saw his place in the universe as a carmic attractor. He immediately assumed a meditative state known only as the "death grip" and began calmly singing a single note, the tenor's covetted high E. As the three cars collided and moved as one, he transcended the automobile and his stunt driving days.
O Fortuna. How we are moved by your whims. To have attained enlightment so young is a gift. Truly, we are in the presence of greatness.
Jeff Selden
A derelict is someone who puts something other than their graduate career at the top of the totem pole. Some choose sex. Some choose drugs. Some choose frisbee golf. Some choose sleep. Some choose San Francisco. (The last, gentle reader, was an allusion to our first great derelict, many many moons ago, one Sir Fortgang. If you don't know the story, don't rest until you've asked around.) With Jeff Selden, you don't have to search far to lay out the priorities on the man's totem pole: just check out his fancy bicycle, and you'll be facing his top priority. The man is obviously into quality transportation! Of course, some fool might try to argue that transportation is a most necessary link to graduate school, and who can fault a guy for maintaining an air of quality? If you accept this, then you haven't taken a close look. The bicycle is either drycleaned or spitshined on a regular basis, probably nightly, and we can safely trust that neither the man's wife nor his dog takes care of that. An astute mathematically-inclined reader will surely wonder: how could any of this possibly be true? How could Jeff have made it this far, courses, quals, manifolds, cohomology, forms, advisor meetings, office socialization, and so on, when he runs home each day to spitshine his bicycle for hours on end? Have not you (my dear reader) also secretly, perhaps even unbeknownst to yourself, been curious about this matter for a couple years now? A great sage once commented: to squeeze truth out of a man, pump him full of local beer. This finally happened, and Jeff revealed his secret. Not once, not thrice, but googalfold: he repeated, over and over, throughout a four-hour period, the mantra of how he learned to survive graduate school: in his first year he found an older grad student (a SuperTA, no less) who carefully explained one of the fundamentals of differential forms, starting with the maxim, "forms are things you integrate". (If you don't know what a form is, or what an integral is, or what they're good for, just ask Jeff: he'll gladly repeat his mantra yet again, in exquisite detail, especially if you offer him six or seven or thirty beers first!) Jeff confirmed the matter with a second SuperTA, and quickly charted his course through graduate school. The secret of the form in hand, he successfully navigated the narrow course through dangerous mathematical waters, avoiding most precipices, impressing professors and fellow students alike with his mastery of what to do with forms. Safe for the moment, his advisor out of sight, he has been enjoying beer, bicycle rides, spit shines, and mantra meditation ever since. He doesn't look like a derelict. He doesn't act like a derelict. I guess you could call him a closet derelict. But let the brew flow, and the closet door slowly opens. The man is a derelict, no doubt, and deserves your respect (and your vote!).
Mathematics Elevator #1, Our Personal Trainer
We all know how hectic our lives get nowadays. With work and school, who has time to exercise? It is so easy to fall into the trap of saying, "I'll exercise tomorrow".
Well, those statements are just the type of excuses that Mathematics Elevator #1 hates to hear. With years of experience as the mathematics department's personal trainer, ME #1 has made sure that each an every one of us get to spend a little time on the stairs. Sometimes ME #1 is like an aerobics instructor who schedules the workouts. But at other times, it is like an army drill sergeant, determined to pull us out of our work-a-day haze with a surprise workout on the stairs.
But let us not forget the more holistic side to ME #1. Haven't we all been comforted, at one time or another, by the creaking, grinding and popping of ME #1; clearly an attempt to recreate the "sounds of the womb" and make members of the department feel relaxed and soothed.
Yes, sir, no one has spent more time ensuring the continuing health of the University of Arizona Department of Mathematics than good ol' Mathematics Elevator #1.