ASU Graduation

President Teleprompter (photo azcentral)



Longest, Hottest, Graduation EVER.

Seriously.

Graduates had to be there by 15:00. Long line in the parking lot, heck, long line to get to the parking lot. I actually got onto the field by 15:30. They ran out of water by 17:30. (good planning guys) The field was still in the sun until almost 18:00.

My parents and oldest daughter, had seats on the west side of the stadium. They finally had shade about 18:30.

Typical ASU lack of planning all around.

Now at no point did ASU ever get around to publishing a program or schedule, so even the grads didn't know if the ceremony was supposed to start at 17:00 or 19:00. We were just told that President Obama was supposed to speak at 19:00.

Around 17:00 there was a pre-game show. We got japanese drumers, the ASU gospel choior, some Navaho dancers, and other miscilanious 2-bit acts. The final act was Dash Cooper and his band, plaing old 80's rock covers. For the last song Alice Cooper came out. WOOT. Sang "School's Out" duh.

One of the graduating music majors sang the National Anthem. Holly cow we he good. Deep, Deep base, opereticly trained. Best singer I have ever heard sing the Star Spangled Banner. I even saw the president singing along, and after the anthem stop the singer to shake his hand.

Obama spoke around 20:00 for about a half hour. In all honesty, it was a pretty good speech. He started really strong and ended well. Somewhat week in the middle, and I wanted to throw up when he talked about fiscal responsibility. (Talk about pot meet kettle)

The theme of his adress: Your life's work is never done.

He also stuck arround and shoot the hand of everyone who graduated with a Ph.D, which I thought was actually pretty nice of him. Several of the female doctorate graduates huged President Obama when they walked across the stage, although I didn't see anyone hug President Crow. (wonder why)

At 21:00 Crow bestowed (en mass) the degrees uppon the Master's students, and I hightailled it to the parking lot. Fortunately my dad figured I would do so, and I only had to wait 15 minutes or so for him to show up. By this time it was WAY past my reservation time for Fogo e Brasa, so I thought I might have supper over at Bass Pro, as the seafood resturaunt there is actuaklly supposed to be pretty good.

No dice.

Rural road was blocked off for the presedential motorcade, so we had to go west on Rio Solado all the way to Ash.

Ended up at the Outback on McClintock and Southern 10 minutes before closing time.
I swear, this Outback has the bestg service of just about any of them. They cherefully served several parties that were refugees from ASU's graduation. (this location has always had great service BTW)

So in theory, I should be getting my Masters in Science in Physics. With ASU, there is of course, no way to actually verrify this or not. I guess we'll see if a diploma shows up in 10-12 weeks...