For Mama

Enjoy!

Sunday column: When did dorm life get luxurious?

Here I am circa 2000 in my Pearce dorm room with my first roommate (courtesy of Tech's sophisticated potluck system), Diane. She lasted two whole quarters at Tech!

On-campus life has come a long way since my days as a Louisiana Tech student.
I recently helped a family member move into a University Park apartment, and I was struck by the quality of the new housing facilities. For a moment I wondered what campus I was on.
It’s been about a decade since I loaded down my Honda Prelude with dorm room essentials and headed west on Interstate 20, destination: Tech. Student housing here in Ruston has advanced by leaps and bounds since then.
As a high school student, I got a preview of dorm life the summer between my junior and senior years when I enrolled in a class at Tech. For three weeks, my best friend and I traded our real life as Monroe teenagers for the freedom that comes with being college students. We moved into Kidd (remember good old Kidd? It’s now a parking lot) and stocked up on junk food, wielding our Tech Express cards and trying desperately to look like we belonged on a college campus.
Back then, dorm rooms didn’t have Internet connections. Heck, they didn’t even have thermostats. Every year that I lived on campus, my roommates and I would suffocate in the winter and freeze in the summer because the temperature of the entire dorm was managed by one master switch located somewhere across campus. I don’t know if there was ever a time when that particular arrangement made sense, even back in the ’60s, when many of the buildings were built.
I lived in the dorm for three of my four years at Tech. In my senior year, when I finally moved off-campus, I asked myself why in the world I’d waited so long. Now, though, for students lucky enough to live in University Park, there’s no real difference between living in university housing and living off-campus.
During those three years of dorm life, I had three different roommates and lived in three different dorms: Pearce, Kidd and Aswell. Each one had its own set of amenities and inconveniences.
There was one problem that plagued me from dorm to dorm through the years: ants. Even during my three-week stint as a faux college student I battled the dorm ants. They were back when I returned as a full-fledged freshman and were the reason I lobbied the housing office to get a dorm re-assignment (finding ants making trails through your underwear drawer would send you over the edge, too).
But alas, there they were again at the new dorm, and no amount of complaint calls from either myself or my parents seemed to get the problem solved. Eventually, I just made a habit of buying a can of bug spray every time I went to Wal-Mart (which was frequently back then, i.e. every other night). By the time I finally moved off campus, I was a pretty good shot. This skill also came in handy during The Great Cricket Invasion of 1999. I remember walking across a cricket-laden Centennial Plaza one day that year, relishing each step as I crunched crickets beneath my feet.
On-campus pests aside, life in the dorm wasn’t all bad. I met some interesting people and learned how to adapt — a skill, like accuracy in bug-killing, that will serve me for life.
It makes me wonder, though, about the new crop of college students who are living an entirely different Tech experience. Rather than playing racquetball at the Intramural Center and going bowling at the Bulldog Kennel, will they instead be holed up in the swanky UP apartments updating their Facebook profiles?
With individual bedrooms (what a concept) and kitchens, will students participate in the rousing conversations that would erupt from time to time in the Student Center or outside at the red tables? There’s a chance they could really be missing out.
University administrators have recognized — and rightly so — the need to upgrade facilities for the next generation of college students who have extremely high expectations. There’s no doubt that the new housing and recreation options Tech is working on will serve to raise the university’s profile and attractiveness to students and their parents, as well as faculty and staff members.
I just can’t help but indulge in a little nostalgia for the way things used to be, not that long ago. Back then, students walked to on-campus computer labs, because we didn’t all have iMacs. People passing by on campus would say hello to each other and stop and chat, because we weren’t all plugged into iPods or cell phones. And the dorm life — well, it built character, because it wasn’t nicer than our parents’ houses, which we’d just moved out of.
I bet the residents of University Park would say I’m just jealous — and they would be right.

Name that bug

Nick says it's a grasshopper, but it's like no grasshopper I've ever seen (then again, I'm not quite sure if I've ever been up close and personal with a real live grasshopper). Anyway, it sure was cozy on my sunflower leaf this evening.

Pet peeve

Why, oh why don't people return phone calls?
Or e-mails?
I'm not talking about just regular people — those unreturned phone calls and/or e-mails I can live with (or without, for that matter). It's the people who have important information that affects people's lives who don't return phone calls and/or e-mails that really send my blood pressure through the roof.
What gives?

One year later

The happy couple, one year later.

The secret to defrosting wedding cake: Move it from freezer to fridge the day before.

We had a great anniversary, complete with Johnny's pizza (closest thing to B.J.'s, which we ate in the hotel on our wedding night), an exchange of mushy cards, a viewing of the wedding video (thanks Uncle Rod!) and of course — wedding cake! It held up in the freezer surprisingly well and tasted great (Nick had his doubts, but managed to polish off a few pieces). Here's to us!

Oh happy day

Here's what we were doing one year ago today. Wow! So much has happened since then, and we've got so much to look forward to.

Sunday column: Saints training camp

We got this close to Jeremy Shockey (still cute even with short hair)! But, it wasn't close enough.

QB Drew Brees was great about giving as many autographs as he could. We got his twice!

Nick: Tenacious autograph-seeker

Bill and Hollie, thanks for coming with!

My husband and I are in the same boat as many of you this summer: We can't afford to go on a vacation, no matter how badly I ache for the sun and sand of Florida.
But, never to be discouraged, we decided we still deserved a mini-vacation, as long as it was fairly cheap and didn't involve more than a tank of gas. Somehow, we came to the conclusion that a weekend trip to Saints Training Camp in Jackson, Miss., would satisfy our vacation cravings.
Nick is a huge Saints fan, and I was so desperate to get out of town that I wasn't going to be picky, despite my lack of football savvy. We recruited two of our good friends — also fellow Saints fans — and headed east last weekend.
Here are the perks of going to Saints football camp: It's free! Although you pay $5 for parking and fork out a small fortune for bottled water and Saints brand souvenirs, admission to the practice is free. You also have the opportunity to get up close and personal with the players, if they decide to hang around after practice and sign autographs. We were banking that they would.
Lucky for us, we timed our trip perfectly with the Saints' recent acquisition of one of Nick's favorite players — tight end Jeremy Shockey. He was on a mission to get Shockey's autograph.
Before we could get into the autograph frenzy, though, we had to wait through three hours of football practice. If you've ever sat on aluminum bleachers in the 100-degree heat for a few hours, then you've got a pretty good idea of what it was like.
The redeeming factor was the company we were in. I was shocked by the number of fans who showed up.
And the variety! It was a people-watcher's dream. Saints fans of all shapes, sizes, ages, backgrounds and levels of intensity flocked to Jackson last weekend to get a glimpse of the team so many love to hate. And I'd bet there's just as colorful of a crowd there this weekend.
While my husband and friends were studying the plays and passes happening on the practice field, I was taking in the crowd.
By far the most entertaining fan was sitting one person down from me. She caught my eye because she had two notebooks in her lap and a stack of papers she kept riffling through. Then I noticed she was taking copious notes about every move the Saints players and coaches were making.
Now, we reporters can usually sniff out our own, and she didn't strike me as a reporter. Plus, I was pretty sure the media had their own area and wouldn't be lumped in with the regular fans at Training Camp.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed this woman, who was probably in her 40s and definitely spent a little too much time in the tanning bed, was wearing a Saints cap filled with autographs. She was sitting next to a man with a digital camera fancier than the one we use here at the Daily Leader, and she appeared to be on a first-name basis with all of the players (at least, in her own mind).
I was mystified.
Who was this woman and what the heck was she doing? In-between scribbling notes, she participated in rousing conversations with the fans sitting around her about important issues such as separation and player statistics.
Then it hit me: She must be a blogger. My suspicions were confirmed when I heard her mention something she'd posted that morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get the Web site for her blog. But even without seeing it myself, I feel sure it is a very thorough, frequently updated fan blog that would make the Saints proud.
Crazy Blogger Woman wasn't the only interesting character I saw in Jackson. There was her sidekick with the camera, who was rocking some pretty awesome Saints socks. There was a trio of men who I could tell were from New Orleans (they had the "yat"). One of them was wearing a camo shirt with a straw hat and some fabulous sunglasses straight out of Elton John's wardrobe. Another had on a Saints helmet (remember, it was 100 degrees) that had "Go Time!" written on the front in black marker. Finally, I kept seeing a group of women in matching gold tops and black shorts who had the same hair style (a French braid) and matching Saints tattoos.
Clearly, these people are bigger fans than I.
When it was time for the autograph crush, it was every fan for himself. I thought I was making progress burrowing up to the front when I noticed a man on crutches using a crutch to lift a jersey over our heads and into the hands of his favorite player (Reggie Bush). Although it made me mad at the time, looking back I have to give him credit for creativity.
At the end of the weekend, we walked away with a couple of autographs and lots of pictures. Although Shockey evaded us this time, Nick has vowed that we'll be back next year. And the year after that, and the year after that.

For more information about Saints Training Camp, click here.