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

[jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols)]

Brian and Elizabeth,

Congrats to all of you.  That is quite an accomplishment, especially from 
MIT.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Reid" <reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
To: <LUG at leica-users.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 2:39 PM
Subject: [Leica] OT, but joyful: saloon keeper's daughter graduates


> 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.
>
>
>
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