FIRST: Funny how it comes up in conversation

[galewind]

Okay, so I'm finding it exceedingly funny how FIRST is still managing to creep up into places in my life that I would normally not expect it to.

This weekend, I was chaperoning a Computer Science competition at The College of New Jersey, and I sat and talked with a few AP Compsci teachers about various CS issues. One of the teachers also commented that they taught robotics, but had never heard of FIRST! So I spent about 5 minutes straight talking about the competition, the spirit of first, the advantages, costs, etc, and basically became a walking FIRST advertisement.

Later in the day, I was having a reunion with some friends in the form of a LAN party. As I brought my computer down into the basement, I saw someone watching clips from the Chesapeake (sp?) regional on their own PC. I was thinking "Wow, more people getting involved with FIRST!" He was saying "oh, yeah, this is our robot, blah blah blah". I asked him what team he was from, and he said 365 (MOE). Afterward, I felt really stupid not recognizing it by his bright green hair. There were three MOE's there, all in all.

So now I'm finding that every facet of my life is being tainted by FIRST. It's a rare occurence anymore that something FIRST-related doesn't surface over the course of the day. Being a rookie, I'm finding this a bit overwhelming, but exciting at the same time. Are you all finding that FIRST permeates your life as well?

My biggest task right now is to get the 20 cubic feet of boxes stacked at my desk (more boxes than desk) to their appropriate place before the rutgers regional in 1.5 weeks.

Sorry for the rant! See ya at the J&J! ^_^