I didn’t sign up for Facebook until about a year ago. I had long since graduated from RIT. Facebook started out as a social network for Harvard students, then it expanded to other colleges. For a while registration required a .edu email address. Even now, in order to identify yourself to others as a student or former student of a particular educational institution, you need to verify ownership of an email address from that school’s domain.

I’m sure I’ve written posts in the past about my RIT email address. I couldn’t wait for it to be turned off. But now that I’m on Facebook, I want that address just so I can identify myself as an RIT alum. Enter: solution.

I think saw a link that pointed to this in Gmail, but I forget, and it’s unimportant. I feel like this is way under-advertised. If you go to https://www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/RIT/, you can get yourself an email address @alum.rit.edu. Get it hooked up, go into Facebook, identify yourself as an RIT student, bam.

So anyway, back to today. I was poking around VAX when I found:

Note: “SET FORWARD” at the “EMAIL>” prompt is now obsolete! For mail
preferences changes, including changing your mail forwarding, please
visit:

http://start.rit.edu

Of course, in VAX, the URL wasn’t a link itself, because it’s Telnet, not a web browser. Although you can use LYNX in VAX … hmm … Anyway, I checked it out. It’s really not bad. It’s got a lot of information and services, and it replaces and expands upon the old site (I’ll be damned if I can remember the URL) that you had to type in to register a computer on RIT’s network. It expands upon that site with some account management features. Seeing as how I’ve been stuck in this 23-months-and-counting grace period, and I’ve gotten probably 15,000 spams, I decided to check out the link to manage your mail preferences. It’s a neat page; There’s a box to change your forwarding address, a box to change your personalized address, a place to change your preferences for your listing in the campus directory.

Only problem is, it doesn’t work. I make changes to the fields, hit submit, and get an error message. After closer review I think it’s missing some radio buttons. Oh well. Not like I go there anymore.

It’s the email that really chaps my ass. I’ve told everyone I care about that I changed my address and I’ve changed my address for all the subscriptions I care about. Yet, on the chance that I forgot someone or something important, I check my RIT email every day. And I check it with webmail, which is slow as hell. If the address were inactive, at least someone would get an error message if they sent a message to it. As it is now, the message will be received successfully, and if I don’t check, it will go unread. The hypothetical sender would have no conclusion to reach other than that I am a thoughless prick.

So I check webmail every day.

Okay, I’m rambling. Where was I? My 528 page. I think the main page is funny, and actually looks okay, design-wise. I also like the Officer Profiles page of Ultra Audio, my fake company.

In other news, the DC area job search hasn’t turned up much. Employers want experienced workers. I just got out of college. Employers want top secret clearance. I had interim secret clearance. So it’s kind of slow. Hopefully something will turn up.

When the F did it get to be June? I graduated (sort of) about a week ago. Where did time go? I remember when a bright-eyed 18 year old was dropped off by his parents at Nathaniel Rochester Hall in September 1998, a little scared and a little excited. Of course, when I got back up to my room Kyle Prey was my roommate, but that’s another story. I’ve got to take four classes this summer to finish of my credit requirements, and then it’s out into the real world. I haven’t decided if I’m going to continue posting to Historical Context. I’m fairly concerned that, while in Allegany, nothing worth noting will happen. Nothing worth noting ever really happens in Allegany, NY. Tomorrow (or rather, later today) I’m going to pack up whatever I have left in 233 University Commons and drive it back to A-Town (that’s slang for Allegany, if you’re wondering). It’ll be good to spend some time in C-Monk (slang for Chipmonk). I didn’t live at home last summer, but Western NY sometimes has some pretty nice summer weather, and it’ll be nice to see it one last time.

I will miss the people I’ve met while here at RIT. I would list them, but I’d almost certainly leave someone off the list. But I won’t forget them. From 8125 NRH8 to 343 and 366 Racquet Club to 42 Weldon Street to Rustic Village to 233 University Commons … it’s been fun. – DP