The Gold Record – how to lose it and how to get it back

They are status symbols for every musician, producer, singer, arranger, songwriter or radio station. They are framed copies of popular albums and singles – but instead of a store-bought record in the frame, the record itself is made ofย  gold.ย  And underneath the record is a special plaque, honoring that person as being part of…

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Endurance for Charity: How I completed “The 50-Hour Project”

Kevin Marshall’s friend Steve Henel spent the weekend playing video games – 24 hours of video gaming to raise money for charity.ย  I stopped by for a few hours last night, and he was bouncing through various video games on various platforms – including some game called Heavy Rain, which most of us were doing…

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The Housing Lottery

It’s one of the most stressful times in college.ย  You’re finishing your freshman year, and in addition to all your finals and study periods, you have to worry about where you’re going to live next semester. Welcome to the wonderful world of the college housing lottery. As a Hamilton College student, I was well aware…

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UAlbany 1, Hamilton College 0

Back when I was a high school senior and was sending out college applications, the guidance counselors recommended several colleges and universities in New York where they felt I would thrive best, and I dutifully filled out the applications and wrote the essays and gave my best efforts. Essentially, I applied to four colleges.ย  Here’s…

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The Delta Phi Bathroom

There was a lot of pressure on students at Hamilton College to pledge membership in one of the school’s nine fraternities and societies.ย  This was back in the 1980’s, when these frats had their own off-campus housing and their own social “frat parties” and the drinking age was as low as 18.ย  Yes, Frat Party…

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“Gremlins” at the Uptown Theater in Utica

So the last time I passed through the Mohawk Valley, I had my Nikkormat FTn in the car.ย  Of course it was loaded with a roll of Kodachrome, and of course I had to take some photos of things that I remembered from the time I spent at Hamilton College and the surrounding villages and…

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Studying for the Rocky Horror Picture Show

Nearly 30 years ago, I saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time.ย  I was a freshman at Hamilton College, and one of the college’s independent film clubs booked Rocky Horror for the weekend. I never saw the film before I went to college; I knew that it played for many weekends at…

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How I Almost Killed the Smith-Corona College Typing Cartel

For this post, we have to step into the WABAC machine and travel back to the early 1980’s. I was a student at Hamilton College, one of those “Little Ivies” tucked away in the bucolicย  farmlands of central New York. Back in those days, you were expected to provide fully-typed term papers to your professors.…

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