humans have meandered into this page.
|
|
Right about the time when I was doing my senior project in college I had a particularly close set of friends. We were all engineering students and I spent most of my time doing work on the VLSI lab. Ironically, I don't think that I was ever classmates with any of them. We had this tradition of getting dunked into the school fountain on our birthdays, inevitably we all wound in the fountain. Here is a picture of that very fountain.
Now please keep in mind that we were college students, we were a little silly, and most of the time, we were also very tired. There were a number of graduate students that use to wander in and out of the hallways at all hours of the day and night. For whatever reason, we started calling them trolls. We also wondered where these trolls would actually eat. We reasoned that there must be a place somewhere called the Troll Café. [Did I mention that we were very tired?]. Somewhere along the line the name stuck.
So, welcome to the Troll Café. I always thought that maybe someday I would actually open up a restaurant called the Troll Café, but it hasn't happened yet. I suppose the next best thing is to have a virtual internet café… and here it is. I'd like to introduce the patrons to the Troll Café:
Ana Braga - A dear friend of mine, an idealist. Now married. She works at the university.
Suzanne Egan - She and I used to chat for hours; we haven't done that for a while. [Hint... Hint...] Aside from being an engineer, she is also a philosopher at heart.
Lorena Patti - Easily one of the happiest people I know. Silly when you need cheering up, but extremely serious when you need a friend to listen. I think her nickname was Psycho.
Francis Ng - Another Chinese person among the group. He once called me a banana… yellow on the outside white on the inside.
Vincent Crupi - Although I never really spent that much time with him, he was as big a part of the group.
Somewhere along the line we've lost track of a couple of folks: Colleen and Carlos. We drifted shortly after I left Miami.
There's always Aileen. Now technically, I didn't meet her in college, but that's were we became real friends. Apart from being one of the most tolerant and understanding friends, she is also an awesome sister.
And then there are George and Ted. We were first friends and then roommates, which is actually a good argument that friends should never become roommates. We actually all met when we were freshmen.
George Rapp - A former Army Ranger, now married with two kids. I think he is the middle of moving from Germany to North Carolina. We used to do Tae Kwon Do together.
Ted Holden - Also an engineer; he now works here in the Seattle area. We used to be very competitive. Probably the closest thing to a big brother I had. I was best man at his wedding. [Oh, Ted… I still outscored you on that Statics exam]
Gwen Segal - Although we weren't in school together for long, we have managed to keep in touch for a while. Hi Gwen!
Lino Ho - A cool Chinese/Panamanian friend of mine also from the university. He is also trilingual.
Although this was primarily a study group. We also grew very close during the time in school. As a matter of fact, I have kept track of a number of these folks as well.
Iva Ryan - Very cool. Devoted engineer, wife, and mother… and obviously a good juggler.
Seema Christensen - [Sorry if I misspelled your last name]. Recently a new mother; I hope she's doing well.
Loret Lopez and Madhavi Subbarao - The reason I list them together is because… well, they were always together. After years of losing touch, I have managed to track them both down.
March 2, 1998