If you’ve been around any sort of news source in the past few days, you’re probably aware that another celebrity – Lindsay Lohan – is going to jail.

Being in her 20’s, many individuals from my age group may know of Lohan from her appearance in Disney’s The Parent Trap (1998).  She more or less disappeared from the public eye until her appearances in Freaky Friday (2003) and Mean Girls (2004) in the early 2000’s.

Soon after becoming successful Lohan began to join the list of criminal celebrities.  After being involved in a traffic accident in early 2007, Lohan was given her first DUI which was promptly followed by a second one two months later.  After failing to attend a scheduled DUI progress hearing in May 2010, a warrant was issued for Lohan’s arrest.  It was later determined that Lohan had violated her probation and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

The day her jail sentence began, it didn’t seem like there was any other news to report.  Our beloved CNN even provided a live feed of Lohan reporting for her jail sentence.  The Twitter account @CNNbrk, supposedly for “Breaking News” sent these Tweets letting the account’s over 3 million followers know that Lohan was on her way to jail and was in handcuffs.  Her father is also making an appearance on Larry King Live to talk about the jail sentence.

I say enough with the celebrity coverage!  Seriously America, we have more important things to worry about then which celebrity goes to jail.  People go to jail everyday for DUIs, what makes a celebrity going to jail so entertaining?

Instead of being concerned about celebrities like Lohan, why don’t we start worrying about solving more important issues?  The economy, the homeless, the unemployed, the hungry, AIDS, cancer, our dying troops, and the BP oil spill and its cleanup are just a few things that come to mind that are more important than Lindsay Lohan.  America is supposedly still in some of it’s worst economic times in history.  Record numbers of people are without jobs, yet the media is worried about celebrities’ personal lives.  I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense to me.  Our country could be so much better if we actually got down to business on some of these more important issues.

I’m well aware that our fascination with celebrities’ personal lives has always existed and that it probably won’t be changing anytime soon, but I challenge you America that the next time a celebrity goes to jail or gets a speeding ticket, think “Is this really that important to my life?”

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this post.

Springfest – noun.  The official name given to a yearly gathering at University Park in Grand Forks, ND.  The event occurs every May on the Saturday before the University of North Dakota has final exams, starting before noon and finishing late in the afternoon.  In addition to the events in University Park, many bars in Grand Forks hop onto the Springfest bandwagon by opening at 8 am, offering early-bird drink specials, and some even serving breakfast.

Many students at the University of North Dakota look forward to Springfest, a raging party held at University Park, as a way to “relax” and “de-stress” after a long semester and right before final exams.  Due to several concerns, I have chosen not to participate in Springfest for the reasons illustrated below.

Reason 1 – Promotion of Drinking at UND

The University of North Dakota is often concerned with how they rank in terms of binge drinking.  According to The Princeton Review, UND is ranked 18th of all US colleges in partying.  While many students are proud of this high number, I’m sure that UND administration is not – especially considering that UND ranks #5 of all US colleges for students who study the least.

UND offers activities on the weekend to attempt to reduce its rank as a party school, but some say that UND might not be doing enough.  “Nightlife” is a program that offers events on and around UND’s campus on the weekends as a safe alternative to drinking.  The residence halls at UND also offer events for their residences such as movies, games, etc.  What is concerning to me is that Springfest occurs in University Park, just a couple of blocks east of main campus buildings.

If UND really wanted to reduce the level of alcohol consumption, I feel the UND administration should speak out against Springfest.  It appears, however, that they have more pressing matters to deal with, like wasting the last few years changing the school nickname (but I digress, that’s another discussion altogether).

Finally, the most important thing to consider about UND’s apparent disregard of Springfest is its proximity to Finals Week.  Springfest is held the weekend before Finals Week – the most critical week of the year for most students, in which they take cumulative exams to measure what they’ve learned throughout the course of the semester.  I’m no doctor, but imagine if you will what a full day (and potentially weekend) of binge drinking will do to a student’s test-taking ability immediately before they have a grueling week of exams.

Reason 2 – Unequal enforcement of the Grand Forks Noise Ordinance

The Grand Forks Noise Ordinance has been a concern among the student population since it was passed in 2006.  Vaguely written, the Grand Forks Noise Ordinance allows for enforcement of the law based upon an officer’s opinion of what is “unreasonable noise”.  The noise ordinance, quoted below, states that anyone breaking the noise ordinance law is subject to a Class B misdemeanor – up to 30 days in jail, a $1000 fine, or both – which many feel is a little harsh for simply “being too loud”.  What is also interesting is that a similar law in Virginia Beach was ruled unconstitutional (source; Dakota Student).

Unequal enforcement of this law has come up in the past.  Last fall, a UND student spent two nights in jail for a noise ordinance violation at a downtown apartment.  What is interesting about this case is that the mentioned student was living in an apartment above Level10, a busy downtown Grand Forks bar.

“I can understand if someone is cited for a loud party in a residential neighborhood or something like that, but I live above the loudest nightclub in town on the busiest night of the week.” (source: Dakota Student)

As a member of the UND Greek Community, I have seen unequal enforcement of this law first-hand to us and our Greek neighbors.  What is interesting, though, is the enforcement by the University Police Department.  Many houses have recently been cited for simply having 10 or 15 people on their front lawn on weekend night, cited as “a disturbance to the public”.  What I would like to know is how are 10 to 15 people on the front lawn of a private house more of a disturbance than the all-day Springfest party in a public park?  It should also be noted that University Park is only 1/2 block away from the Greek housing that so frequently “disturbs the public”.

The Grand Forks Noise Ordinance:

9-0110. Noisy party or gathering.
(1) No person shall participate in any party or gathering consisting of two (2) or more people when said party or gathering gives rise to unreasonable noise likely to cause significant discomfort or annoyance to a reasonable person of normal sensitivities present in the area, in consideration of the time of day and the residential character of said area or building.
(2) When a law enforcement officer determines that a gathering is creating such a noisy disturbance, the officer may order all persons present, other than the owner or tenant of the premises where the disturbance is occurring, to disperse immediately. No person shall refuse to leave the premises after being told by a police officer to do so.
(3) Every owner of such premises, or tenant in charge of such premises, who has knowledge of the disturbance shall cooperate with such police officer and shall make reasonable efforts to stop the disturbance.
(4) The following shall be prima facie evidence in any prosecution under this section of the owner’s or tenant’s violation of this section.
(A) As to tenants, and owner if owner resides on the premises, if twice or more on the same day or if on successive days, any law enforcement agency is called upon to enforce the terms of this section either by citizen complaint or by personal investigation of a police officer.
(B) As to the owner if the owner does not reside at the premises, if after the owner receives written notice of three (3) violations of this section by the owner’s tenant at any premises owned by the owner in the City of Grand Forks within a six-month period, and after receipt of such written notice, the Grand Forks Police Department is called upon to enforce this section either by citizen complaint or by personal investigation of a police officer.
(C) Noise of such volume so as to be clearly audible at a distance of fifty (50) feet from the structure, or building in which the party or gathering is occurring, or in the case of apartment buildings in the adjacent hallway or apartment, shall be prima facie evidence of unreasonable noise in violation of this section.
(5) For the purposes of this section, “premises” shall mean:
(A) The building actually leased or owned by the person occupying the leasehold or real estate;
(B) The appurtenant lot and outbuildings of said leasehold or real estate; and
(C) The common entryways and exit ways of said leasehold or real estate whether or not these ways are privately controlled or commonly available to other tenants.

(Ord. No. 3546, § 2, 9-18-95; Ord. No. 3589, § 1, 5-20-96; Ord. No. 3807, § I, 8-2-99; Ord. No. 4113, § I, 1-3-06)

Conclusion

From what I mentioned above, it becomes clear what a large factor is in this situation: money.  Springfest is put on by local Grand Forks businesses and provides a large amount of income for them along with tax revenue for the city (not to mention the income from residential noise ordinance violations).  If you live in Grand Forks for any period of time, you’ll quickly realize that the people getting the majority of sanctions are the ones without economic ties to the town (i.e. students); while downtown Grand Forks bars such as Gilly’s have outdoor speakers aimed into the street but never incur noisy party violations themselves.

While I don’t believe that my little post here will put a stop to Springfest, I do hope it causes people to think more about the impact Springfest has on the university and the surrounding community.  I’m sure that I’ve said something to spark a debate with my readers, so feel free to send me your thoughts on what I’ve said or anything that you may think about the situation.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to make house repairs caused by drunks from this weekend.

Last week was Spring break at UND.  While many others were relaxing at home or on some sunny beach, there were some that aren’t that awesome and stayed back in Grand Forks.  I was one of them.

My Spring break was not a complete waste of time though.  I used this time to do some work around Beta.  Specifically, I concentrated on the Dining room floor, which was in desperate need of refinishing.  With the help of a couple of other Beta’s, we were easily able to accomplish our task.

Here are a couple of pictures of the floor before we started.  It’s pretty easy to tell where the most traffic is on the floor – right where everyone slides their chair.

The floor looks significantly better after it’s been sanded.

One coat of stain and three coats of polyurethane later and we have a finished product.

Since we were done with the floor earlier than expected, we decided to sand and repaint the radiator heater covers in the dining room.  Here are the covers sanded and primed.

Once dry, the heater covers are installed.  They look way better than before when they had been painted with a brush.

The dining room with all furniture returned.

You can view all of the pictures from the project on Beta’s website.

This weekend brought another WCHA Fighting Sioux hockey series to the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks.  Normally I would be at the games, cheering on the team from the student section.  That has not been the case this year as I did not get season tickets due to the horrible change that was made to the student ticket distribution system.  I have been able to make it to a couple of games this year though by purchasing individual game tickets.

This weekend I was able to make it to Friday night’s game in style.  Through a source who’s name I will not mention for security reasons, I was able to get seats in the Green Mill Club at the Ralph.  I wasn’t sure what was all involved with this, but I knew it was going to be good.

Below is a picture of the ice from my seat an hour before the game.

After finding out how nice my seat was, I took advantage of the other benefits of the Green Mill Club, two free drinks before the puck drops.  We were also provided with some free appetizers which included fish sticks (which weren’t as bad as you might think).  Popcorn, pop, and water were also available for us throughout the game.

Around 40 minutes before the game starts, the teams come onto the ice to warm up.  You can see the teams below.

In all it turn out to be a pretty good game, with the Sioux winning 5 to 2 over the University of Minnesota – Duluth.  Although the tickets were only for Friday and I had to watch Saturday night’s game on TV, I’m looking forward to the next time I get to sit in the student section with my fellow hockey fans

My first featured project for Fall 2009 is an electronic quiz box that I produced in my Tech 201 class at UND.  For the project, we were to design a circuit that would allow a question to be answered but pushing a button and then the corresponding LED would light either red or green, depending on whether the question was answered correctly.  If the question was answered incorrectly, there is a buzzer that will also sound. The test administrator then needs to have the option to change what button is the correct answer, along with changing the corresponding incorrect answers.

Top view of the circuit

As you can see in the above image, the red push buttons on the left side are used to answer the question, lighting the corresponding LED on the right side.  The toggle switches in the middle allow for changing the correct and incorrect responses.

Side view of the circuit

Above is another angle of the circuit.  All of the parts are connected to a printed circuit board that I made.  The PCB is shown below.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for the circuit

The above PCB was my first experience with circuit board etching.  The estimated time to produce just the circuit board is about 1 hour.  After the board is made and the holes are drilled, the individual parts can then be soldered to the board.

The soldered components and board were then placed into a 4″ x 6″ plastic box.  Holes were drilled in the box to accommodate for the LEDs and push button switches.

Below are a couple of pictures of the box and circuit in action.

Correct answer = Green LED, No Buzzer

Wrong Answer = Red LED, Buzzer Sounds

Well that concludes this project.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please post them in the comments below.