A lot of people ask me what I do at work all day.  I usually explain to them that I’m a programmer so I do a lot of computer stuff, really high tech things they just wouldn’t understand.  They usually start praising me about how smart I am and how they wish they were me and this and that, you know the deal.  But I decided to finally post something that I can refer people to every time I get the question.  So here it is, what I do all day at work…

Computer Science Professional Ethics and Communications, the one class that stood between me and my undergraduate degree in Computer Science.  We were given quite possibly the hardest task we had ever seen in our 4 years as Computer Science majors.  The assignment was to make a presentation that would entertain our classmates which consisted of the nerdiest 30 people you will ever meet in your life (myself included).  It’s basically a room full of guys that resemble College Humor’s impression of a Best Buy manager.  But our professor wasn’t going to throw us in the lion’s den with no weapons.  He gave us some fine pointers on how such a daunting task could be completed successfully.  He showed us how Van Halen rocked it in their video for ‘Dreams’. WOW, how could we not make a great presentation after seeing that?  But it didn’t stop there, we were shown Steve Ballmer’s enthusiasm at a Microsoft keynote.  He even went as far as to show us how to entertain a crowd with a funny bit like the ‘Who’s on First’ skit.  At this point, how could we make a presentation anything less than genius?  So my good friend Conrad Weykamp and myself set out to make the best video anyone has ever seen…and we failed miserably.  Luckily there was enough footage to throw a video together and show we at least tried!  So here it is for the first time on the blog.  Just a side note, my face looks gross in the first scene, which is definitely not due to the lack of sun from sitting in my man cave and programming all winter.  Nor would my double chin brought on by Landshark and Bud Light Lime beer drinking have anything to due with it either.  I blame that on our terrible director and producer Chris Pusateri who was barely up to the task of filming the video in a day and then putting it all together in 2 days with an 8 minute time restriction (What a bitch right? And for those that can’t pick up on the sarcasm, Chris was an absolute champion and was the only reason we finished this video on time, or had any chance in hell of making it happen in the first palce).  So for your viewing pleasure, Conrad and Jordan’s Excellent Adventure.  OH! One last thing, the presentation had to be about our proposal for a contest to the FAA for a more efficient and environmental friendly method of removing snow and ice off airport runways (which we won).

So without understanding the full story, these images are just incredibly creepy…OK they are a little creepy even with the story, but I have come to accept that.  The story goes something like this.  My roommates in college had been huge Binghamton Bearcats basketball fans since freshman year.  I don’t think they missed a single home games our entire 4 years at school.  I however, being a Syracuse native, thought the Bearcats were a joke.  A team who has never been national champions, let alone gone dancing during March Madness is the last team I wanted to root for.  That all changed my senior year when I was finally convinced to go to one game.  The experience was amazing.  I remember saying, “Wait, that’s the one the player that got arrested for stealing condoms at Walmart?  AND they were Magnums?!  Wow this feels just like a Syracuse game.”  I instantly got Bearcat fever.  So flash forward a couple months to the America East tournament being held in Albany.  We of course had to attend this to show our support for our Bearcats.  We had been considering many ways to get in the heads of the opposing players, and I had come up with a genius idea.  I explained that we should scour the internets for a picture of one of the opposing teams star players posing with his father, blow this picture up to a life size poster, cut a hole out where the fathers head is, and put our faces into the poster.  Now if anyone can explain to me how this isn’t the greatest idea ever, please leave a comment.  Well the roommates didn’t think this was a good idea at all.  They actually thought it was one of the dumbest things they had ever heard, and I heard it plenty.  For the rest of the year whenever anyone had an idea, someone would pipe in, “and then we should get a picture of the dude and his father….”  Well for the remainder of the semester, when the opportunity was there I ventured into my roommates room to find pictures of them and their fathers/grandfathers.  So guys, I hope when you’re taking your big important lawyery tests at law school, or making the next great Pixar movie, you have this image stuck in your head and you realize what it could of done to our opponents during the America East Tournament.

–UPDATE–
Here is a video from when we first arrived at the tournament that I took on my iPhone where we actually discuss the idea (fast forward to the point where there is 2:35 left in the video to skip the meaningless convo in the beginning):

Chris Before:

Chris After:

Randy Before:

Randy After:

Dan Before:

Dan After:

I love you guys, don’t be too mad