Since last week's blackout prevented me from watching hockey and less importantly updating this thing, I had better inform you that I've gone and put myself in danger. Grave danger.

Spring Break was a welcome refresher from the drudgery of being stuck out here in the snow. I was expecting to go down to Florida with the family and my friends. We usually go out sailing on our 12-metre, the Henry Clay Frick, win a couple of races, get schizzed out while Brinsley plows through a couple of piers, and turn Palm Beach upside down. Unfortunately, we didn't go this year. No, it's my sister Bootsy's Debutante Ball.

I don't really need to explain this, do I? You uncouth Midwesterners should be able to figure this one out. Well, I'll save you from looking anymore obtuse than you already are. A "Debutante Ball" is where the "Debutante," a young girl of good social standing, "debuts" into society as a young woman. Traditionally, it's where she socializes with the right people and hopefully finds a suitable boyfriend or future-husband.

So we arrived in black tie to the Plaza Hotel in New York for a grand evening out. Bootsy took her...

It's mid-April and I'm already looking forward to summer. One significant reason for this is the opportunity to barbecue various types of meat while standing out in the sun drinking a beer. I think most living, breathing Americans would agree that a barbecue is one of the most fun types of events out there. 

Any time I step up to a grill to get my food I'm confronted with the same choice that Americans have faced for generations: hot dog or hamburger? I had the opportunity to debate this question with some friends this past Sunday as I enjoyed the dining hall's new Sonoran hot dog, a generously sized dog covered  with mustard, ketchup, onions, green peppers, chopped-up garbanzo beans, and pickled jalapenos, all on a poppy seed bun. 

Everyone in this group of fellows happened to be eating either a traditional Honor Grill hamburger or a Sonoran hot dog, indicating that person's side in the debate. Although we all agreed that a good restaurant-quality burger trumps a hot dog any day, the question of your average cook-out hot dog vs. the equivalent burger was not so easily resolved. For starters, we ruled out brats for simplicity's sake. Veggie...

It's better than Christmas in July. It's Christmas in April. For the first time in Grinnell College History (and other grand, capitalized phrases), the football team trotted out to practice... in the spring.

The dark and mysterious grand poo-bahs of the Midwest Conference somehow came to the conclusion that it was finally necessary to allow a "non-traditional season" for football teams in the spring. NCAA rules mandate ridiculous standards, such as the inability for a coach to be with - nay, even look upon - his or her athletes when they do pretty much anything other than walk around (thank goodness competitive walking isn't an NCAA sport, or else the compliance manuals would be twice as thick). 

A coach can beg, plead and cajole athletes to do something, anything to train in the off-season; he could even put a sheet on the counter of the fitness center telling the athletes that, if for some reason they get the urge to lift, a specific order of exercises might be nice. However, nothing mandates athletic participation when the season isn't underway. Countless loopholes have been devised over the years, the most successful of which are devising practicum classes at the college in which...

I really like the people I work with. But every time I return home for Spring Break, I become apprehensive about seeing them again. Although the world of retail sales can sometimes be invigorating and emotionally rewarding, most of the time it isn't. Most of the time, I fold clothes and unlock fitting rooms for customers.

Working by myself is an outlet to get paid for peculiar behavior. I can quietly sing along to the atmospheric music of Seal and Michael Buble in relative solitude. Sometimes I'm even able to sneak into a fitting rooms and have a quick "Margaret Allen Fashion Show." Working with another individual is an entirely different story. Folding clothes next to someone else makes me very anxious - I feel pressured to fill the time with conversation, which is often challenging during a five hour shift. It usually only happens by mistake; I'll be folding clothes on a specific table and accidentally notice that a fellow employee was there before me. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can pretend that I was only temporarily placing the clothing on the table, and move my pile to an alternative folding location. But...

If there is one thing I've become particularly unaccustomed to in my time as a Grinnell College Football player, it is rest. My day usually starts at 6 AM and encompasses around 3 hours of working out and 7 hours of destroying my brain capacity with my academic workload. 

 I'm not one to complain, though. Having such a schedule keeps me disciplined, and will give me the opportunity for wistful "back in my day" speeches to future generations. I'm also the proud owner of a rockin' offensive lineman body, which means I am encouraged to eat anything and everything in sight. 

Every dog has its day, however, and I'm sure Tupac Shakur would have affirmed that every dawg has his day as well. For me, this means two glorious weeks off for Spring Break. As tempting as it was for me to head to Cancun and take part in a wet t-shirt contest, I opted to go the route of much-needed physical rest. 

Rest becomes more important to me the longer my collegiate football career drags on. My joints don't work properly anymore. When I had my sports physical the other day, the doctor bent my knee only too...

For a while I thought that my enjoyment of any particular holiday was directly related to what was being served for that holiday's central meal. 

...

I have been at school during Passover for the past two years, and not being Jewish enough to sit through an actual seder I have avoided the Chalutzim events, leaving me with the dining hall's matzo-ball soup, gefilte fish, and charoset as my only connection to what is usually one of my favorite dinners of the year.  It should probably go without saying that the dining hall fails hard when it comes to those staples of Passover.  I'm guessing there are no Jewish grandmothers back in the kitchen to pass on tips on how to make the best matzo ball.  I've heard that using seltzer rather than water makes for a much lighter matzo ball, which our d-hall's matzo ball soup desperately needs. 

The funny thing about Passover dinner, to me, is that all of the appetizers my family traditionally snacks on before sitting down for our 10 minute seder would probably be disgusting to me on any other day of the year. But why do I enjoy eating gefilte fish and chopped...

I was a little surprised to see the title of an article I was assigned to read for my psychology class. "Examining Memory for Heterosexual College Students' Sexual Experiences Using an Electronic Mail Diary" doesn't exactly sound like a children's book. Not that I liken my class readings to children's literature - that stopped after Freud - but I certainly didn't expect something that contained the word "sexual" twice. After realizing that I desperately need to review the rules of apostrophes (something about an "s" followed by an apostrophe seems unnatural and wrong - but also inexplicably satisfying), I began to read the article. The premise of the study was simple; for a period of one month, 37 sexually active college students were asked to document their sexual history on a daily basis. Six months to a year later, the students were asked to remember and rerecord their sexual activity from the previous month. Much to the researchers surprise, and to my great amusement, the college students grossly overestimated the amount of experienced sexual encounters. Whereas participants recorded (roughly) an average of five sexual encounters in their daily electronic diary, six months to a year later, that average jumped...

I am very particular about my food.  I try not to be so particular when instructing folks in the D-hall what to put in or on my food, but there are some things I don't compromise on.  Having copious amounts of onion on my sandwich is one of those things. 

Whenever I have onions in my food it is in excess. This probably started during summer camp when I realized that red onions could make just about any of the food they served us in The Lodge (our dining hall) many times better.  It started with onions on my salad, then onions on my sausage with sauteed bell peppers, and expanded to ever increasing loads of sliced onion in my pasta and even my mac and cheese! (Grossed out yet?)

It turns out most people don't like onions as much as I do.  I'm always reminded of this when ordering my sandwich at the 8th Avenue Deli.  I ask for "a little bit of lettuce," and my sandwich disappears beneath a mountain of shredded iceberg.  "Tomatos," and the mountain of lettuce is covered end to end with tomato slices, precisely placed so that each tomato is in contact with...

I had a bit of a rough week. I turned in an assignment late, I lost my favorite argyle scarf while cross-country skiing, and some idiot dinged the door on my navy-blue '81 3-series. So what's a preppy to do? Go out and drink copious amounts of alcohol to drown those sorrows. So, I donned my orange Princeton ascot, blue polo, and white cable-knit sweater and hit campus. But first I had to pre-party.

Now there are a few options for drinks. My personal preference would have to be the French 75, popularized by the Stork Club and a favorite of Lindbergh. However, I'm all out of French cognac so I stuck to the tried-and-true scotch and club soda. If not that, then vodka is always a good bet. Stephen's suggestions usually take the form of something called "Hawk-eye" mixed with anything between SODA (not "pop", you ingrates) and motor oil. I've been told it tastes like hand-sanitizer but judging the way it cleans the bottom of my rowing shell, I'm not too keen on it.

After "going Borneo" while listening to my Sinatra records, I got a call from Roger Khakum. It seems that he and the old...

Interactions with people working in the D-hall: they are sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but usually completely neutral. However, when they're not, it totally stands out.

When someone you know well is preparing your food, it's a good thing. "Yeah man, stir my pasta... no, that shit looks terrible but I'll take it anyway." Ordering people around when they're making you a sandwich at the "8th Avenue Deli" is particularly fun, especially if you're only half-joking when you're doing it, as I generally am.

Encountering a friend working on the other side of the food is also a nice reminder that rather outsourcing our dining services to a private company, Grinnell maintains its own dining hall. Dining Services pays relatively lavish wages to anyone who is willing to do or needs the work (which I can say from experience is not that bad). Having a bunch of students doing most of the work in the D-hall (even if they spend half their time dicking around, as a recent rant in the S&B suggests) gives the D-hall a communal vibe that I suspect few who haven't eaten at a school like NYU or SUNY-Stonybrook appreciate. It...