Inappropriate kickoff

This Wednesday at 8 PM is the club's Winter Kickoff! Learn how to snow-kite! Snow-kiting is an extreme sport in which you slice across the frozen lake at motorboat speeds on a dangerous little contraption propelled by a kite. If you enjoy frostbite and/or have systemic nerve damage, you will love snow-kiting.

Also this week: This evening (Monday) and Wednesday evening, you can learn how to pleasure yourself (see copy of flyer at right). This event is intended primarily for, um, maybe for people who didn't have any close friends when they were in their early teens..? Another great offering from the folks at the Wisconsin Union! Check TITU for rooms and times.

On the rocks!

Oct 20 UPDATE: As a result of being left on the concrete steps for a whole day, the J-24 is totaled, so the club is filing an insurance claim on it to help balance the books. Note to commodore: whenever you need cash, just go out to a mooring on a stormy night, set a keelboat free, and in a few months if you're lucky you'll have another $10-25K in insurance money! (Just kidding. We know you'd never do that.)

It's everyone's worst nightmare: putting one of the keelboats onto the rocks. Well, last night's 40+ mph wind gusts did just that, and an odd sight greeted visitors to the lakefront this morning (see photo). Incredibly, the J24 is still sitting there, bouncing on the concrete steps, 12 hours later at sunset!

Here's a crutch for J-boaters on "HOW TO TIE A BOWLINE":

The gopher comes out of his hole, runs around the tree, meets the squirrel, they have a couple of drinks, then the gopher grabs the squirrel by the tail and tries to have sex with it, then they do a couple more shots, the squirrel runs up the tree and the gopher crawls back into his hole.

That's it! An easy bowline, tied the Hoofer way!

(Actually, it was the mooring that failed, but more than a few J sailors do have trouble with their knots.)

Raped and robbed--and lovin' it!

As if the controversial Wis. Union "renovations" weren't enough, the UW Alumni Association has just announced that the Union parking lot, concrete pier, and everything else along the lake will be torn up too, to be replaced with a grassy, utopian plaza intended to "honor contributions by alumni". That would be cash contributions of some $8 million. Obviously those alumni don't need to be honored. They need to pay more taxes.

This multimillion$ project is on top of dozens of other major building projects at UW-Madison. It's part of the Campus Master Plan to tear down more perfectly good buildings, e.g. Humanities, Van Hise, Engineering Research, and replace them.

Wherever the money for this billion dollar butt-fuck is coming from (rich people? the state?-hardly, seg fees?) it could be going to a hundred other things that are more important, like health care, cutting UW tuition, better instructors, more support for TAs, road improvement, toxic waste cleanup, alternative energy, ETC. You name it.

But that's not how the world works. Instead, some people rip others off, get rich, and then donate money for "utopian plazas" or other projects (read: buildings) that will carry their names. Meanwhile, overpaid administrators skip their meds and dream up shit like this, even as Wisconsin cuts school funding faster than any other state. UW's funding is being cut by some $250 million.

Note the glass skybox (theatre addition) present in the architectural rendering--plus, motorboat parking!

Save the Terrace & piers

Sept. 1 UPDATE: Architectural drawings produced by overpaid draftsmen are flying around now. Here are a couple of scary ones (at right). I feel sick as I type this. For one, the tunnel is slated to be removed! Then there is the overall ridiculous floorplan redesign resulting in a smaller shop, remanufactured lounge and chartroom, etc. The "boathouse" will be 10% bigger (woo hoo!)--but the canoes will actually be further from the water. Is it just me, or is that fundamentally retarted? Also, the new lakefront access is apparently off to the northeast, thus providing a poorer view of approaching storms while at the same time offering less protection from the rain!

The lower drawing shows the concretization of the lakefront. Does it remind anyone of Indiana..? This is sick stuff, designed by guys in suits working in high-rise office buildings (with input from deranged Union managers). Frank Lloyd Wright must be rolling over in his grave.

[Original post:] As many already know, Union Director Mark Guthier helped force through a referendum in 2006 slapping all UW-Madison students with an extra $192/year in seg fees for the Union (amounting to an extra $200 million students will have to pay over the next 30 years). The referendum failed twice before finally passing on the third attempt.

The extra fees were supposed to be used to (1) raze and re-build Union South (what a friggin waste), and (2) to renovate any run-down parts of Memorial Union and to bring it up to ADA code (i.e. wheelchair access). Guthier and his delusional, drug-crazed staff have since hatched a more grandiose plan for the $200 million. After all, that's far more money than they ever needed for actual renovations, so they've decided to add a huge, glass "lounge" to the theatre lobby. This will turn the west part of the terrace (above Hoofers) into a sunset-blocking monstrosity.

You can get more info and/or help stop this madness HERE.

Also, come to the open forum at the Union next Tues (Aug 30) if you can and voice your objections.

Help Hoofers get your piece of the pie!

There's a general club meeting next Thursday (8/25) to discuss what Hoofers wants in the way of renovations. A long-time instructor had this to say:

We want.... um, we want more boats! We only have 13 keelboats now! Waaaah! And we want a new shop, and a new lounge. And some new chairs too! Waaaaahh! And a new Lakelab! There's so much money in this booming economy, we want it all! We don't like our old stuff anymore. Waaaaahh! Oh, and we want new computers too--we only have Pentium 4's! Whaaaaaahhh!! (wipes eyes) And did I mention new lifejackets..?

So come to the meeting and get your two cents in. That's about all you'll see personally from the $200,000,000.00 seg fee increase forced through by Director Mark Guthier and his cronies four years ago. But if we get enough people to show up, Hoofers might stand to gain, and that would be good for all the paid hacks around here who rely on Hoofers for a job.

Thank you.

In the shadow of death, new life

Last night a new commodore was elected, more or less by default since the only other real candidate was overseas and couldn't speak on his own behalf. As usual, there was some chaos and confusion leading up to the election, e.g . TITU said the election was at 8 pm, Hoofers was telling people 9 pm, and the chalkboard by the tunnel said 8:30pm--until they changed it to 9 (at around 8:30). The club's facebook site featured a great post announcing the 9pm election--at 8:42pm. Way to go, Michelle! Yes, there was an email too, but who reads their email?

Immediately before the election, an emergency BOC meeting took place to discuss revoking a club membership. The victim was Jack Thorneau (not his real name), who was accused of various rules violations, negative interactions, etc--the typical crap. Of course, obnoxious behaviour isn't allowed in HSC--unless you're a current employee. To help provide the proper creepy atmosphere, Union staffer Susan Dibbell was summoned along with her $88,620 annual salary.

AUG 6 update: In a laughable and kinda creepy move, the time of the post announcing the election has been changed to 6:12 pm on the club's facebook site, apparently to try to make it look like club officers are really on top of things. You can tell the post time was altered because it's the only one out of order. Yes, I am bored, but OMG!