Convention & Epcot

This is my third convention, and my first as an alumni. As usual, I got to see a lot of friends I hadn’t seen in a long time – a few I hadn’t seen in 3 years since the last convention. As an alumnus there wasn’t much for us to do. There were some nice sit down meals, including the gala banquet on Saturday night and there was a bit of programming on Saturday where we were trained in running the alumni chapter. The majority of the time was just spent hanging out with old friends and making new ones.Thursday afternoon as part of the convention schedule we went to a Disney park! I hadn’t been to a park in over 15 years, so I was excited to see what was new, or at least new to me. I went to Epcot and had a blast. I went on a mission to mars simulator which was pretty cool – they got you up to almost 2 G-forces. The next ride and arguably the best ride in the park was the GM Test Track. You sit in a car on a track and they drive you through scenarios simulating the testing of the car such as braking, swerving, accelerating, and handling. The last part of the ride is a barrier test, where you are supposed to accelerate and brake before hitting the barrier (a wall). On the ride at the last minute the door opens up and the car accelerates outside, and they throw you into high banking turns as you continue to accelerate. The car then accelerates even more through a straightaway hitting 110km/hr then turning into a high banking 180 degree turn. The ride was so good and the line was so short that I walked back on the ride a second time.

On our way to get to the other side of the park we decided to walk through an indoor area just to see what was there. Everything happened to be geared more towards kids until we saw this cool simulator that was like a large arm that twisted, turned and flipped 2 people in every direction possible. The lineup was not long and we decided to go on the simulator. Once we got to the front of the line we overheard 2 people asking questions about the simulator. We found out that it wasn’t just a boring old simulator but before you ride the simulator you get to design your own rollercoaster which you then get to ride on the simulator! How awesome is that? FYI, I thought it was super awesome, bordering coolest thing ever.

The rest of the evening was spent doing a few other rides and checking out the pavilions. I ended up eating a delicious turkey leg from the American pavilion and then we watched the amazing fireworks show.

Zack and I at Epcot

Me and none other than Mr. Potato Head!

AEPi's Gala Dinner with the Hebrew University guys L-R: Me, Shahar, Albert, Gil, Marty

Florida Convention Intro

It's the month of August, and everyone knows what that means - AEPi Convention! This year the 98th annual Alpha Epsilon Pi Convention is located at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. This will be my 3rd convention (2007 in Palm Springs, CA and 2008 in Chicago, IL) and first as an alumnus. Before heading to the convention I made a vacation out of it and planned a few days of travelling around Florida with my buddy Mike. Our destinations before Orlando are Miami, Key West, the everglades, Cape Canaveral and Daytona.

Picture taken on Daytona beach. Reads 'AEPi 2011' The donuts were conveniently done by the car!

Chicago boat tour

There was some AEPi convention stuff going on today, however I decided to skip out on it again - didn't really miss much. Instead I went on an architectural boat tour of the city. I took the city bus downtown, and just as i stepped off the bus it started to rain. Just my luck, as I figured I would be soaked while on the boat tour, and end up with crappy pictures. I had to pre-order my ticket, so I was going on the tour rain or shine without an umbrella or raincoat. Luckily 15 minutes before the tour started, the rain stopped, and the sky was blue as could be. The tour was an hour long and awesome - the tour guide talked non-stop, and there was a lot of interesting information, but there was too much info to absorb any of it.

Chicago from the riverCrazy mirror bean

After the tour, I got back to the hotel and got ready for the banquet. After 3 hours of dinner and speaches I got bored to tears and left to party. The speaches ended up continuing for another 2 hours. We partied late into the night, fell asleep for about an hour before we had to get on the bus at 6AM to come back to Toronto.

Me, Craig, Matt, and Josh before the banquet

Take me out to the ballgame

Another early morning full of AEPi stuff, and now skipping ahead to after lunch... Instead of going back to the AEPi stuff, which I had done last year, I went out and about around town in the daylight. This time we walked around the same areas of the city, however in the daylight it was completely different. We managed to get back to the Chicago Theater and get a picture in the daylight.

Joel, Jon, Jon, and me at the Chicago Theater

We got back to the hotel in order to get ready for our early dinner before we went to the Chicago White Sox vs. Boston Red Sox game. This was an ideal 5-star hotel pre-baseball game meal: burgers, dogs, giant pretzels, peanuts and Cracker Jacks! The game was a lot of fun. The White Sox won 4-3, and the game became close when Boston hit a 3 run homerun in the 7th.

The Chicago skyline from the baseball stadium

Sightseeing and Second City

This morning started off early, after a long night of partying. This morning started off hectic as I found out I had another interview with RIM this afternoon. In between the speakers all morning I was trying to track someone down in order to let them know that I can't make the interivew! We sat down for a nice banquet style lunch and awards. After lunch I ran back to the room to try and track down someone from RIM. Luckily I was able to finally get in contact with the interviewer. I had the interview on the spot and it went well (I found out the next day that I got the job!). It was perfect timing as right after the interview ended, I headed back to hear from the next speaker who was Jerry Reinsdorf - Owner of Chicago Bulls and White Sox, who is an AEPi Alumni. He talked to us about his experiences in AEPi and left plenty of time for Q and A.

There were a few more sessions in the afternoon before we all boarded buses to the famous comedy club Second City, where many Saturday Night Live stars start their career. We had the entire show booked out for AEPi, and it was non-stop laughter. After the show some of us decided to walk around downtown Chicago and see the city. We did some wandering with the hopes of eventually finding the famous Chicago Theater. Without luck, and the night getting late we decided to head back to the hotel. We hopped on a subway, and long story short we got lost and just decided to get off the subway and take a cab. Due to dumb luck, when we turned the corner after getting off the subway we were right at the Chicago Theater! The light weren't on, so we had to make a point in coming back tomorrow. We hopped in a cab and headed back to the hotel where we again partied the night away.

The city skyline at night

Chicago - The Windy City

AEPi convention #2!!! This time in Chicago. During this trip, I was scheduled to be writing 3 final exams. Luckily, I was able to reschedule them; I wrote two yesterday, and one the day before. It has been a very stressful past few days, but I'm happy its over with and that I'm heading to convention. Unfortunately once I get back I still have one last exam to write.

The day started out early, as we left for Chicago at 730AM, and left on our 10 hour bus ride. We rented a greyhound bus for 25 of us from different AEPi chapters in the area. The bus ride was long and the scenery was extremely boring. We stopped for lunch at a Burger King in the states, and one of us tried to apply for a job. Additionally, I had a job interview with RIM while on the bus.

We eventaully arrived at the hotel, and checked all out stuff into the hotel. We went out for dinner to a famous deep dish pizza place, where the food was amazing. After dinner we headed back to the hotel, where we heard some speaches and then began our first night of partying.

The Canadian Delegation

Israel Amplified Conference

Today, everyone was leaving the convention and going home to wherever they came from. New people were also arriving for the Israel Amplified conference. There were 100 people from different fraternities and sororities (mostly AEPi and AEPhi) who attended the conference from all over Canada and the US. Again, this meant another 3 days of speakers, seminars, lectures, etc. and oh yeah - partying. It was hard for me to keep up with the partying, as I had already been partying for over a week, and other people had just arrived ready to party. I managed to pull myself together and party, but by the end of the trip I was pretty much a walking zombie, barely staying awake. The conference was awesome, I learnt a lot, met a ton of cool people, and got some great ideas to take back with me.

94th Annual Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity Convention

Stoop and I got a lift to Palm Springs from two other brothers from Brandeis University in Boston, who happened to live in LA. The drive was awesome (except for the LA traffic). Seeing the desert, and all the wind turbines as we got closer to Palm Springs was really neat. The only discouraging thing was watching the digital thermometer in the car. It jumped at least 10 degrees Farenheit in about 10 minutes. Every day in Palm Springs it was at least 110 degrees, pushing 115 - but at least it was a dry heat!
There were over 500 people at Convention. It was awesome to meet new people from all over the US and Canada. In addition, I saw a lot of people I had met over the years on road trips and other regional conclaves, so it was good to see them again. We also saw the guys from UCSD and UCSB again and shared some of our crazy travel stories with them. I was already exhausted from travelling for 4 days, but there was no time to sleep at convention. It was another 4 days of partying well into the night, and then we had to wake up early (8AM) every morning for seminars, meetings, speakers, etc. We managed to miss the hottest part of the days, as we were inside from about 9AM to about 4 or 5PM pretty much every day. We did not have a lot of free time to ourselves during the day to go to the pools and enjoy the resort.
All in all, convention was amazing. I learnt a lot about AEPi, met a ton of cool people, and got some great ideas to take back with me.

The Canadian brothers who made the trek out to Palm Springs