In December of 2008 Steve and I went up to Rose-Hulman to see if we could find some super smart kids to add to our team. We interviewed students for two solid days, 8am to 5pm, which is fairly grueling. All work and no play makes us dull boys, so we also had a little fun on the trip too.

Our hotel was downtown and was owned by some rich guy that was rejuvenating the area. He had tickets to the ISU basketball game that he wasn't going to use, so he left them at the front desk. The guy at the desk (super friendly fellow) asked us if we wanted them, even though the game had already started. Of COURSE we wanted free basketball tickets! So we grabbed them and walked over to the arena.

Indiana State is where Larry Bird played college ball. He was on the team that made it to the finals and lost against Michigan State in 1979.

Here is the court. This was the arena where Steve saw lots of concerts in college, and also where his wife walked for her graduation.

Now we needed to find our seats. They were...

Courtside. Booyah!

It was really cool to sit this close. It's hard to tell what is going on though because I'm used to watching games from a slightly higher angle.

They retired Bird's jersey.

There is Sycamore Sam, the school mascot.

The cheerleaders did flips.

It turned out to be a close game. I was torn, because ISU was playing Arkansas State University. I had previously lived in Arkansas, but I also have two huge Sycamore trees in my yard.

Arkansas State brought the ball up and drained a basket. Ultimately they won.

Steve posed with Sammy the Sycamore. A lifelong dream come true!

The next morning we had breakfast at the Clabber Girl bakery. It's all restored now (they still make the baking powder in this same factory) and it's a nice place to get a muffin and a coffee in the morning.

We spent two days in this room interviewing people. (This is where we first met Jon, Jamie, Dung, and many other people that became good friends and did awesome work at Applied Science Fiction.)

That night we met up with Kevin and Carrie and played pinball until the wee hours of the morning.

For the final credit Steve and Kevin each had a flipper and it was a great example of sportmanship and pinball harmony. (These guys are both really good at pinball and have been playing since they were teenagers, so they can be a little competitive.)

That's it, thanks for looking.