continued from Part 1

Later, we discover through another test that the strings are inadequate: they broke during testing. Someone comes up with the idea to use caution tape instead. The group sets off to rebuild the parachute and finish the poster. We split up to do so. I ditch the poster to let the girls bond over it.

All the guys are up in the lounge, rebuilding the parachute. Yeah, right. Cutting caution tape and tying it to a section of a grocery bag and army man is not a 11 person job. One guy rebuilds the parachute. The rest of us are watching TV and/or playing cards.

The next morning, the group reconvenes to work on the presentation of the parachute. The poster is not enough. Eventually, the presentation develops into a news broadcast format beginning with a reference to the downed original army man. My contribution? Yes, I did contribute — I felt guilty about the poster. I didn’t get to write it. I wrote the second draft. Minor edits. Note that I said second draft, not final draft.

Anyway, the presentation is a hit. Everyone else’s is boring. Some kid had a CAD presentation. For a glider. One that didn’t work too well, at that. Another group dressed in togas and gave themselves Greek names. Wow. And that relates to their project, how? Don’t look to me for the answer, I think I was asleep or zoned out during that part. Granted, it’s hard to make that kind of thing entertaining, but hey, my group succeeded.

Our parachute puts on an even better performance. After watching the parachutes do not so well, and the gliders dive-bomb, I was wondering how well ours would do. We send our representative up, he drops it. It falls rather lacklusterly. Then, about half-way down, a gust of wind picks it up. The parachute flies over everyone’s heads and off into the sky. Over the farm area. With my non 20-20 vision, it goes out of sight.

Controversy strikes. Were we disqualified because our guy let the parachute go before the judges said they were ready? Even if they decided docked us 30 seconds, we still outperformed the others by far. But a disqualification, that would set us back…

One hope was a redeeming second flight to seal the deal. The second flight was less awe-inspiring. However, we still did better than 99% of the groups. Another group also had a parachute a gust of wind picked up, but it didn’t even come close to the height ours went.

Awards are later presented, and our group triumphs over the controversy. It was too obvious that we won for them to disqualify us. We didn’t win for best presentation because I guess they wanted more groups to share the prizes. Whatever. Just a piece of paper.

At the time, it felt great to defeat everyone, but in retrospect, what was my contribution? Let’s see, I made some minor edits to the presentation. I started a mural on the chalkboard, but didn’t draw a thing on the poster. Hm…

Hey, I came up with the idea to split us up into committees! That was a good idea… even though other groups also split into groups…

So, what was my one unique contribution to this project? The word “committee.” Speaks volumes about me, doesn’t it?

I think it means, I’m not cut out to be an engineer. (Well, that wasn’t the only thing that convinced me, but I’ll save that junk for later.) I don’t want to help design and build something where I only contribute one tiny piece… or one tiny piece junked before the final design is created. Even winning so greatly didn’t inspire me to be an engineer. In fact, they weren’t even going to allow parachutes for the next session of engineering camp. Still, no go for being an engineer.

I noticed that I touched the parachute maybe once. I’d rather be in a position where I could tell people what to do, like, split up into “committees.”

That’s what I learned about myself, anyway, but what do you care? What can you learn from the parachute thing? If there’s too many people doing one project, shirk from most of the work, and then proceed in taking the credit.

Oh, that’s not a very good life lesson. But hey, what can I say? You got the cynic’s point of view. There is no uplifting lesson in here.

I’ve been sometimes referring to a “summer class” I took this, well, summer. Really, I should be referring to it as engineering camp. I mean, that’s what it was, basically. The program itself was more, but the class I chose… engineering camp.

That clarified, what did I do in engineering camp? (Besides participating in the duct taping of someone to the wall, that is.) The full inglorious story is something I could not tell well without boring you, and boring myself — something more suited for list form. However, I don’t want to write a list today. Thus, I’m sectioning off this story, writing one little tale about engineering camp.

To make us easier to manage, they split us up into groups, headed by a TA, or “team adviser,” who was sometimes accompanied by an “ATA.” It helped keep track of us during field trips, off-campus, or even just walking across campus.

There was also one more purpose of the group. Each team’s goal was to build something that stayed in the air for about 12 seconds, the same time as the Wright brother’s first famous flight. Suffice it to say, however, our flight did not need to be sustained or controlled. Just 12 seconds. Our materials were severely limited, and the “flier” had to hold a little army guy. Luckily, the army guy couldn’t have weighed more than two pennies, or even more than one.

The simplest solution was the one my group picked: a parachute. We used a bag, cut it into a rectangle, tied string to the four corners, tied the string to the army man, weighted the army man with some pennies, and we were done.

Well, except for the matter of testing. Our parachute was successful. Too successful, in fact. The wind caught it, and it got stuck on the roof. Efforts to free the army man were wildly unsuccessful, and mildly entertaining, at least to me. I didn’t help get it down; I just sat back and laughed at the vain efforts.

Later, it was remarked that this was “true” engineering. All of us coming together and trying to solve this problem.

Yeah… Throwing a rubber ball covered in duct tape that someone found in the janitor’s closet is engineering? Linking together junk in the dumpster to form something that obviously would never come close to reaching the necessary five stories is engineering? Completely ignoring one girl’s suggestions is all of us coming together?

Call me a cynic, but while you’re at it, you’ll also have to call me right.

We get back, and so, with ignoring of this one person, everyone else suddenly realizes that 15 people in a group is unwieldy for building a simple parachute. I don’t want to brag, but I knew this wasn’t a 15-person job a long time ago.

I come up with the suggestion of splitting up into two committees. One to work on the actual parachute, one to work on the poster. (Another requirement was a presentation of the flier, including a poster.) Someone else suggests a third committee: a string committee. Yes, a five-person committee for the strings connecting the parachute to the army guy. A five-person committee. Four pieces of string.

Whatever. I argued against it, but I didn’t really do any work on the parachute, anyway, and I was outnumbered. I joined the poster committee. If you know me, then you might know that I am no artist, at least, in terms of drawing. Why did I join poster committee? Two reaons. One, I hadn’t done much work on the parachute in the first place. Two, I’ll be frank, it was to avoid work.

Avoiding work wasn’t all selfish. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything in the other two committees. Even split up, the job just was unwieldy for 15 people. At least with poster, I could try to do something, right? Meh, ends up, I didn’t do any work on the poster, anyway.

to be continued…

I figured out who it was! The mystery IMer, that is. Earlier, Kayla had told me that 510 was our area code. That’s why I didn’t give up the hunt for the person. Could it be coincidence? I doubted it. And, if it’s my area code, I might actually know the person.

I asked random people, “Do you know who this screen name belongs to?” My efforts were fruitless.

Enter Jason, once again. He says it sounds like someone who used to go to our school named Ryan Mendoza. That made sense. He was kind of big. The “doza” fit, and so did the area code.

Enter flash of genius. I remembered that Kevin hung out with Ryan, at least at one time.

IM Kevin. Does he know who the mystery person is?

Success! I have no idea why Ryan IMed me, but I figured out who he was, and that’s all that matters.

Mystery solved.

Now, what will come along now to balance things out?

I present you with a tale of mystery and cosmic balance:

The other night, or so, I was talking to Jason about greatness. Jason remarked that greatness requires a degree of specialization, or effort in one particular thing. That specialization comes at the expense of being lesser in other categories. He said he didn’t want the sacrifice. Or, I’ll paraphrase his more poetic terms: Life is like a buffet. If you pig out on sushi, you might miss the steak.

He believes in balance. (By the way, I’m more the opposite, which I’ll discuss in some later entry.) Yin and yang. Something has to give to make way for something else, or something like that.

Later in the evening, I’m talking online to Jenny (who, according to Stevie, is supposedly my “soul mate”). Amidst conversation of airports and airplanes, and the popcorn lady (you know, the one who answers when you dial popcorn), she says that her friend Kayla requests that I go to her livejournal to vote for something. So, I say okay. Jenny mentions that I may know Kayla. The other day, Kayla was looking at her buddy list and asked who my screen name belonged to. It had gotten on her buddy list, and she didn’t know who it was. The name sounded slightly familiar, but I didn’t know the person. A friend of a friend, perhaps?

We moved on in conversation… Suddenly, I remembered an incident a few years back. A person had IMed me out of the blue, asking who I was because the name was on her buddy list and she didn’t know how it got there. We had tried figuring out how we could’ve known each other, but to no avail.

After IMing Kayla, I deduced that it was most likely her. And, it was suggested that Stevie had put my screen name on her buddy list. It was a friend of a friend, I suppose, then. One mystery in my life, solved.

I was feeling good at that point, solving a mystery and all. Was tonight my lucky night? Could I solve another mystery?

I tried this entry on Jenny. Of course, no such luck, despite her claims to the contrary.

As I’m re-reading that old entry, an IM window pops up on my screen. This is pretty late at night, past midnight, who could be IMing me? The text is black on white. Times New Roman. Very default.

I know some people who use default text, but this screen name was unfamiliar. “This is ryan,” he says.

“Ryan… last name?” I query.

He says nevermind and goodbye.

Who the hell is this guy and how does he have the gall to do this?

I go on a tiny tirade about how he has bad timing. I just solved this mystery, and now, he IMs me, and I don’t know who he is.

I ask if he knows me — my name is Shawn.

He says “ya,” but I’m not sure if he was referring to my tiny tirade or the name thing. Whatever the case, he leaves. And I’m left with this mystery. Who was he?

Then, I’m reminded of another conversation I had with someone. Jason. Cosmic balance. One mystery solved, only to be instantly replaced with another.

EDIT: I hate to add something to this because the ending is so great, but if anybody knows who “bigdoza510” is, you would solve my mystery.