N8's Collegiate Engineering Feats:

N8's Collegiate Engineering Feats

A Timeline Covering his Rise and Fall:

Freshman Year
9/90 - Nate enters into the Lafayette College Engineering program, where he quickly realizes he is smarter than all of his professors (with the exception of Prof. Uz, who developed Nate's Positronic Brain -- see "The Story of Nate"). <Editor's note: "The Story of Nate" was recently (Nov. 2019) found>
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9/90 - Nate re-adjusts the phone system in his dorm, to make his new phone number 250-NATE ONE NATE NATE (250-8188).
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10/90 - Nate decides that, due to the ease of subject matter, he will double major in Mechanical AND Electrical Engineering.

12/90 - Nate decides to join the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternal Organization- not so much for the social aspects as for the challenging work the physical fraternity house needs.

5/91- Nate completes his tour of duty as a pledge, and prepares to become House Manager the following semester.

Sophomore Year
8/91 - While preparing to return to school, Nate decides to put air conditioning in his house. Not a window air conditioner like most people, but a full central air conditioning system. This task takes longer than the two days he budgeted for, and Nate's return to school is delayed by several days. 9/91- Nate repairs a 1969 window air conditioner he found in someone's garbage in Easton. It costs Nate a total of $1.20 to fix the air conditioner -- all he needed were some pieces of wire, duct tape, and a piece of a cardboard box.

9/91 - While fixing the air conditioner, Nate came up with the idea of the patented "Nate's Pillarless Loft System". The total amount of time from initial conception, to drawing of the plans, to alpha and beta testing, to the actual installation of the system was only 3 days! Incidentally, Nate licked each and every nail before putting it in the plywood and had to be medicated for the resulting dysentery he got from the rusty nails.

10/91 - When some members of the Pi Beta Phi sorority found out about Nate's Pillarless Loft System, they immediately commissioned him to design and build a system in their sorority house. They promised Nate a case of any beer he wanted. He quickly jumped to the call of duty, and built the loft.

10/91 - During College Property Inspections, the unauthorized pillarless loft was noted by housing inspectors, and Pi Phi was ordered to have the loft removed. The sorority once again called Nate for his services. He removed the loft he just installed 2 weeks prior, discarded of all the materials, and asked about his a case of beer. He never received his beer. He did manage, however, to steal 4 pairs of worn panties.
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1/92 - Over the winter, Nate completed the blueprints for his re-working of the house boiler system. Nate re-routed steam, and updated various flanges and fittings. Boiler efficiency was improved by 30% per Nate's calculations. I myself confirmed this while reviewing energy bills during my tenure as Treasurer.
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3/92 - Nate improved the ice generation capacity of the ice machine.

4/92 - For his countless improvements to the house, and mainly for the development of the Pillarless Loft System, Nate is awarded the Beige Jacket Award. All brothers rose to salute, and commend the occasion by reciting the Nate-nal Anthem, and sang the song "What Do You Do with a Positronic Brain?". Nate nearly splits the rear of the jacket while fitting it over his large frame.
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6/92 - Nate spends the summer doing fun engineering stuff, like getting Ed's Model A Ford to run for the first time since 1948. Ed's grandfather marveled at the ability of Nate to get his car to run again.

Junior Year

9/92 - Nate rescues the house television from the dumpster behind the Easton TV repair shop. The TV was broken (dropped actually) by Zamkoff. The TV repair shop deemed the TV to be completely and utterly unfixable. Nate, who knows more about fixing TV's than the guy that has fixed TVs for a living for 30 years, decides he will fix it. Nate orders the circuit board schematics from Toshiba in Japan, enlisting the help of Brother Jackson to translate English and Japanese.
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10/92 - Nate receives the schematics, fixes the circuit board, and puts the TV in the corner of his room. He also buys a Hi-Fi VCR, and puts in surround sound. His room now has air conditioning, a $600 TV, a state-of-the-art VCR, and surround sound. This is 1992, when stuff like this was cutting edge technology and no one in the house had any money to buy it!!

11/92 - While watching This Old House, Nate whips up a batch of his Special Sauce, which is added to Chief Mark's spaghetti sauce the following evening. 3 brothers get sick afterwards, and it is blamed on the Fried Food Fest from the prior day, but Nate knows better what caused the sickness.
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2/93 - Nate updates the PBX system in the house, which will allow state-of-the-art communications.

3/93 - Nate installs a secret tap system, which runs two kegs of beer from the kitchen though the house plumbing, and to the downstairs sink in an attempt to thwart campus security. It works.
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4/93 - Nate installs a new ballast in the outside fluorescent lights, and also updates the design of the lamps while he's at it. He increases the candlepower of the lights by 55.4%. Nate also purchases a new-to-us/used Kirby Heavy Duty Vacuum for the house, which has the ability to suck up pennies without getting clogged.
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5/93 - Nate does a complete tune-up of his Volkswagen Bug in 7 minutes in the back parking lot at dusk -- including valve adjustment.
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5/93 - Nate leaves for the summer

Senior Year

9/93 - Nate returns as a frustrated and angry Senior, and is less productive and generally more reckless than prior years. He comes back to school ready to party. He downs a half-bottle of Johnny Walker Red, and takes several rushes and bothers on a tour of the school's power and HVAC facilities at 2:30AM. Security stops all of them, and Nate pretends he was just looking for his notebook from his engineering class.

10/93 - Nate organizes a road trip to the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant in his Farfergnugen Jetta. After trying to avoid what he believes is a spent muffler in the middle of the road, he spins his car 180 degrees and goes off the road.

11/93 - After replacing the timing belt in his Jetta, Nate gives the worn out belt to Mr. Peterson, who proudly wears it on his antlers for many years.
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12/94 - Nate leaves for Winter Break.
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1/94 - Nate returns with his Volkswagen Beetle and loads it up for another road trip. He is 10 minutes into the trip, when he hits 2 deer simultaneously and he literally laughs as the whole incident occurs. One deer died on the scene, the other limped away and most likely died soon thereafter. The car's front fenders were both dented in, the headlights broken, and the car is donated to charity as it was now worthless except as a tax write-off.
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2/94 - Nate implodes a CRT (cathode ray tube) on the dock of the Lafayette Crew Team with one of Ed's dad's 45 year old M-80's.
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4/94 - Nate fixes my broken CD player (the only thing he fixed that year).
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5/94 - Nate graduates college.

Five Year Reunion

5/99- Nate takes the red-eye flight back to Pennsylvania, and sleeps though the entire 5-year reunion weekend. By the time he wakes up Sunday afternoon, everyone has left.

Posted by Webmaster at November 9, 2003 03:29 AM

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