Howe & Ser Moving Co., MIT vs CalTech, and Good Sportsmanship

The marvelous thing about sportsmanship is the ability to accept the high level of ambiguity that is essential to the requisite "give and take."

This past week several news outlets have indicated that the supreme academic achievements of the past year have been in the hands of the Massachusetts and California institutes of Technology -- MIT and CalTech. Well...maybe: on the 20th anniversary of the snatching of the CalTech cannon from that campus by a corps of creative studetns at Harvey Mudd College, hackers from MIT entered the CalTech campus complete with moving truck and forklift, secured the necessary papers to move the famous cannon, and snatched it for the long ride to the MIT campus where it now resides.

The beaver is the mascot and symbol of the well-deserved and industrious MIT campus -- administrators, faculty, and students, but especially the latter. When Howe & Ser Moving Co. dropped off the mysterious missing cannon on the MIT campus recently, it now was found to sport a replica of the gold "Beaver" classring earned by MIT students.

Also, now there is a catch: CalTech has filed grand theft charges and is coming after the prize --- and the students who managed to pull off the prank for the second time in CalTech history, well-soiled history, I might say -- and I do.

Here then is my cheer to the clever (which actually means good-natured, don't you know!) MIT undergrads who so well planned, orchestrated, and pulled off this wonderful long-distance effort, even marking the event with an appropriate and tasteful plaque to commemorate the effort, thus establishing the superiority of MIT ingenuity (and memory) over that that of their West Coast cousins. But no...CalTech established that the instant they filed the charges.

Neglectful and Delinquent

I have not been sticking to it of late: between volunteer obligations and family requirements I have been often outside of the home, visiting a close family member in the hospital, entertaining that family member in our home, adn travelling. I expect this will continue until at least mid June of Early July. That's just the way it is.