Once Upon Another School; A Robert Hastings Reprise

Like many students on the Auraria Campus, I used to go to a different school. I went to South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, S.D. SDSM&T carried on proud traditions of heavy, constant, drinking, frat house engineering projects, and having the worst male-to-female ratio of any coed school, ever (13 to one, in my class).

Really, I enjoyed my year at SDSM&T. Living in real dorms was interesting. My roommate was a comp sci major, and my neighbor was a paleontology major. We had our own paleontology musuem. Thanks to the wide variety of interests there, combined with the student's 'proud nerd' spirit, it was a cool place.

Also, it once brought Robert Hastings, UFOlogist, to its lecture hall. I attended, having never heard his name before, but the most productive thing that came of it was a distorted recording which I later integrated into a friend's post rock project. It was a good time.

Anyway, Robert Hastings is one of many people who professionally make themselves look sketchy. With a website that looks straight from 1998 and an email address that just somehow reminds me of biblical apocalypses, he's perpetually halfway there. In fact, to make him seem EVEN MORE legitimate, he has a self-published book, available through his site. He's a retired photographer-lab technician, so I suppose I can afford him some sympathy. Somehow.

And now, fortuitously enough, Robert Hastings has been stalking following hunting getting ready to eat me lecturing in colleges for years, and will be holding a lecture tomorrow in the Tivoli (kudos to anyone who knows exactly where). So, tomorrow afternoon I'll be attending his lecture here on Auraria Campus. We'll see if he's any more interesting the second time around. If we're lucky, I'll get to ask him some questions. Perhaps about ambulatory pasta.