Test 2

If you don't follow me on the Twitter Machine, then you might not have known that about a week ago I spent the last few days in sunny Orlando at the Happiest Place On Earth with the person who makes me the most happy.

Or, at least, spending many hours at the new Galaxy's Edge land in Disney's Hollywood Studios was certainly my Happiest Place On Earth!

The rest of this post will contain spoilers/images/videos of Galaxy's Edge - so if you haven't been there yet and want a "fresh" experience not knowing what to expect, get out now.

Good? Good. My highlights...

Firstly, the weather in central Florida in January is EXCELLENT for theme-parking. The high temperatures were in the low-to-mid-70s each day, and the lows got down to the mid-40s in the evenings. A bit chilly, but nothing that a sweatshirt and beanie hat couldn't take care of for us.


Lots of great opportunities to celebrate our 18 years of marriage (so far).






...and that's the most important part, right? This beautiful person chose me out of all of the other nerds and fanboys that are out there. And I'm mighty glad that she did.

Okay, the good stuff. Galaxy's Edge is awesome, on so many levels (both figuratively and literally). I'm not even sure where to start...

The land -----


Whether we were in the "docking bay" area (where the Millenium Falcon is located), or elsewhere within Galaxy's Edge, the painstaking detail was obvious. From the spires, to the cast members (Disney employees), everything felt like you were in a remote outpost in the Outer Rim.

Yours Truly with a Kuat Systems RZ-2 A-wing Interceptor.

The Happy Couple in front of an Incom T-70 X-wing starfighter.

Standing in front of a Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems TIE Echelon assault shuttle.

Cool starships aside, the other details are fantastic. The staff that work in the park are not dressed in a uniform way (see what I did there?). Rather, they are all dressed as if they live and work there, and are wearing things are normal for day-to-day life in a remote smuggler's stopover. Seriously, it was like being a Star Wars cosplay convention. The only way to differentiate between employees and costumed theme-park-goers was that the Disney cast members wear nametags.

Other little details were all of the place. Unfortunately, I didn't get any really good pictures of signage throughout Galaxy's Edge, but this shot of my light saber card (more on that later) gives you an idea:


While at the bottom it says, "green" in our alphabet, the top and center of the card have Aruebesh characters. According to Wookiepedia, "Aruebesh was a writing system used to transcribe Galactic Basic, one of the most used languages in the galaxy."

So, if you use the the translator at that link, you'll see that my card says "group" at the top, and "B" in the center. Restrooms (called "refereshers" in Batuu) are marked with Aruebesh instead of our alphabet. Other shops and restaurants are the same.

Very cool.

Food and drink ------

Some of the coolest experiences in Galaxy's Edge were not the rides, but rather the opportunities to eat or drink things that are a part of the Star Wars universe. Case in point: "blue milk".



Cool, right?

And there was so much more to see and do with regard to stuffing things in your face. A sweet/spicy popcorn stand and Ronto Roasters (a quick-service dining option where a droid is cooking the meat) are available for snacks and protein. BUT, if you're looking for something that is truly excellent - and I would argue THE highlight of our trip - look no further than Oga's Cantina.

Oga's replicates the vibe that was made famous in A New Hope at the Mos Eisely Cantina scene. From the music to the decor, you really feel like you're in a pub in the Outer Rim territories.



And I think that my favorite part is when the bar breaks into a song/chant that goes along with the music that DJ Rex is playing... "Kra Mer 5 - Una Duey Dee".



(The song usually goes on for another minute or so, but I accidentally cut it off - sorry!)

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• You need a reservation. We got two, one for each day that we had planned on being at Galaxy's Edge. However, we made some last-minute changes to our plan and spent an additional evening in Hollywood Studios, and we were able to procure a third reservation at Oga's. While waiting in the queue outside, we witnessed a very rude couple verbally accosting one of the cast members in charge of reservations outside of the cantina. 
• It's expensive. Drinks with alcohol range from 16 credits (aka, dollars) to 85 credits (for the beer flight served in a commemorative set of Rancor teeth). But you're not just paying for your drinks - it's the experience that I found the most valuable.
• You only have 45 minutes inside. Soak in the vibe and get some pics with DJ Rex. They will kick you out so that others can come in - hence the requirement for a reservation.

You get the idea; a total party atmosphere. But, while folks are swinging their drinks to-and-fro, Oga's is not just a bar that serves alcohol. There is a whole section of the menu where you can get non-alcoholic drinks as well. On our third visit we were sat at a table with a family of five (two adults, and three children aged 2-9). Everyone had a great time.

The rides -----

If Star Tours and Mission Space had a baby, it would be Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run. A great ride that requires you to press buttons and activate stuff mid-flight. You can be a pilot, a gunner, or an engineer. But the best part is that you really feel like you're riding in The Falcon. Heck the queue leading up to the ride has a Dejarik Chess table for your pose with:

Let the Wookiee win.

I don't want to go into much detail so that you can experience things for yourself. What I will say is that if you want to see Rise of The Resistance, there are no fast passes and no "regular" queue that you get into. Rather, you have to get a "boarding group".

To get in what Disney calls a "virtual queue" (aka, your boarding group), you have to be in Disney's Hollywood Studios park, through security, as the park opens. When we were there, park opening was 7:00 a.m. You can get in line to enter the park prior to the actual park opening, so we were through security and on Hollywood Boulevard prior to 7:00. At 7:00 on the dot, you can reserve your boarding group through the Disney Parks mobile app. When I tried it for the first time, I got us into boarding group 93 and I was doing it as soon as I was able. You need to move quickly.

For context, they boarded groups up until about number 120 that day. So I felt like we barely made it into the ride. And they didn't call our boarding group to actually experience the ride until late in the afternoon that day. Even when we arrived for our boarding group, we still waited in a queue for a good 35 minutes prior to getting to the experience.

BUT, what an experience it is!

In most theme park rides you wait through a queue, get on the ride, and have anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes of fun. With Rise of The Resistance, the experience is MUCH longer and more involved. It's not just a ride. It is absolutely worth the trouble of getting a boarding group and waiting in line.

Some highlights...






Is your interest piqued yet? I know!

All in all it was a great trip, especially for a fanboy like me. However, you don't have to be a life-long Star Wars nerd to enjoy all that there is to be had at Galaxy's Edge. I highly recommend at least one full day in Disney's Hollywood Studios so that you can experience everything!


Until next time, may the spires keep you!

Haunting and beautiful.

When we first heard the theme it was only one minute and eight seconds into the premier episode of The Mandalorian - and even that early in the series I knew it was going to be good.

This cellist's version is equally good. Enjoy.

Yes. NINE.

My brother absolutely LOVES the Fast & the Furious series of movies. I enjoyed the original film but thought long ago that they wouldn't be able to squeeze this many films out of the franchise. NINE?! Yowza. Anything past four movies was a surprise to me, and now we have more than doubled that.

However, when Han Lue shows up at the end of the trailer it really hit me. That is a great move on the part of the filmmakers. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you didn't know that Han was supposed to have been killed in the third film in the series, Tokyo Drift:

Although Han was killed in a car crash in Tokyo Drift, the franchise’s third movie, Fast & Furious, Fast Five and the majority of Fast & Furious 6 all took place beforehand. Han’s death was revisited during the ending of the latter and once more during Furious 7, with Dom and the rest of the crew believing that Deckard Shaw had successfully murdered him.

Still, the fans love the character (and director Justin Lin as well), so why not bring him back?

What the WHAT?

Thirty-six percent of admissions officers check applicants' social media profiles, up from 25 percent last year, according to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep.

The high-water mark of 40 percent saying that they check came in the 2015 survey by Kaplan.

Of admissions officers who have checked out an applicant’s social media footprint, about 19 percent say they do it “often,” significantly higher than the 11 percent who said they did so in 2015.

Of the admissions officers who say they check social media to learn more about their applicants, 38 percent say that what they found has had a positive impact on prospective students, and 32 percent say that what they found had a negative impact.

“In tracking the role of social media in the college admissions process over the past eleven years, what we’re seeing is that while admissions officers have become more ideologically comfortable with the idea of visiting applicants’ social media profiles as part of their decision-making process, in practice, the majority still don’t actually do it. They often tell us that while it shouldn't be off limits, they are much more focused on evaluating prospective students on the traditional admissions factors like an applicant’s GPA, SAT and ACT scores, letters of recommendation, admissions essay, and extracurriculars,” said a statement from Sam Pritchard, director of college prep programs at Kaplan Test Prep.

So, the article is a couple of weeks old, but I simply had to put my two coppers into this.

If we had time to check every applicant's social media footprint at Penn State, we would have to hire an ARMY of new staff. But, this is quickly becoming the era of the "holistic" or "comprehensive" application review. I'm not necessarily saying that it wouldn't be useful, but it would certainly need to have a process associated with it. Who on the staff is doing the checking? How does it factor into the rubric of the evaluation? Which social media sites would be checked (because my kids don't touch Facebook or Twitter - and that's where I spend all of my time!)?

Checking an applicant's social media profile(s) would certainly fall under the proverbial umbrella of holistic. But what a daunting notion.

Paging Daniel Radcliffe. Mr. Radcliffe, please call your agent.

Seriously.

At last, my long-awaited post on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  You know you've been on the edge of your seat wondering what I thought of the epic finale to 40+ years of saga!

The picture above is me and my brother, having just finished our first viewing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (aka, "TROS"). In case you cannot tell from our expressions, we kind of liked it.

So, my brother Sean and his family traveled to Pennsylvania for the holidays. They arrived on December 23rd, late in the evening (after driving all the way from east Texas!). Sean and I made a blood-pact that we would wait to see TROS until we were together over the holiday break. If you're doing the math, that means that we would have to wait about a week after the movie was released before we went to see it. Hence my social media activity on December 20th:

A friendly reminder. #StarWarsTheRiseofSkywalker #DontSpoilStarWars #StarWars pic.twitter.com/bSpuqqg3qE

— Admissions Dude (@BertWMcBrayer) December 20, 2019

I had to remove myself from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter almost entirely for about a week so that I would not be exposed to any spoilers. And I was successful! All of the spoiler-worthy info in the movie was a surprise for me.

Before I go on - if you haven't seen the film yet you should stop reading now. There will be spoilers if you continue.

[...]

Okay, you're still here so you must have already seen the movie. Onward!

The short version: It. Was. Awesome.

The long version....

From the very opening, I was hooked. Kylo Ren tearing it up on Mustafar (the world where Obi-Wan battled Anakin Skywalker, and where Darth Vader eventually made his home) in search of the Sith Wayfinder was a great entre into the flick. We see Palpatine in the first five minutes of the film, after Ren finds him on Exegol, the Sith planet.

The plot is great; Rey is the granddaughter of Sheev Palpatine (aka, the baddest-baddie in the Galaxy Far, Far Away), and when Kylo Ren reveals this to her she isn't sure if she is good or bad. Add to that, she discovers that she can throw Force Lightning much in the same way that her grandpa-pa can.

She returns to Ach-To to be a hermit in the way that Luke did and - TAH-DAH - Force Ghost Luke comes to visit her. He says that he was wrong in thinking that way and that she shouldn't run from her destiny the way that he did.

We got lots of great scenes with Leia, despite the fact that Carrie Fisher passed away several years ago.

And there was what I thought was a fantastic sub-plot that found Rey and Kylo forming a dyad in the Force. The only way that Palpatine could be defeated was by the two of them joining forces (heh... get it? Joining Forces?).

Before I go any further, I should mention that I am one of those fans (seemingly a minority) that really liked Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. I thought that scenes like this one were magnificent:



(The most dramatic piece happens at 1:30 in that clip)

When the music (and every other sound) drops out, that grabbed me.

So, I point all of this out to say that as far as criticisms go, I didn't feel as much "art" in The Rise of Skywalker as I did in TLJ. The Last Jedi was a beautiful film. If you were to strip away the Star Wars aspect, it was still, simply put, beautiful. Maybe that's just me.

While seeing a lot of Carrie Fisher on the screen was great, there has been a lot of chatter and (likely deserved) criticism that Rose Tico (ably played by Kelly Marie Tran), who had a central role in TLJ, was seemingly sidelined in TROS. I felt this throughout the movie as well, and only learned afterward that much of Rose's sub-plot had to be left on the cutting room floor due to a decision by the filmmakers:

One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie [Fisher]’s footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together. As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly – so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.

...but it still left me feeling 'blah' in the theater.

Two more criticisms for you, then I'm done.

First, Finn. Throughout the entirety of TROS, Finn tells Rey that he needs to say something to her. By my estimation this happens at least three times. But, by the time that you've finished the 2 hours, 23 minute run time, Finn never resolves that tension. He never ends up talking to her privately. It is definitely inferred that Finn is Force-sensitive, perhaps even strong with the Force. On at least two separate occasions in the film Finn talks about "feeling" things. Like the kind of "feeling" that a Jedi might describe. The viewer is left to wonder if Finn will be Rey's first pupil (that is, if Rey takes up the mantle of the Jedi Order).

And last, The Kiss. Ugh. I don't even know where to begin.

So spoiler: Kylo Ren joins Rey in fighting Palpatine. They win, but at a great cost. As Rey lay on the ground (ostensibly dead), Ben Solo (formerly Kylo Ren) holds her in his arms and uses the powers of the Force (and the dyad connection that he holds with Rey) to heal her and restore life to her body. She awakes, looks into his eyes and says, "Ben!" Then they kiss.

For me, the "relationship" (if you can describe it that way) between Rey and Kylo has been developed to be that of a sibling one, not a romantic one.

My polling results found that folks (4 of 7) agree with me:

Writing up my thoughts on #StarWars #TheRiseOfSkywalker. I’m looking for lots of feedback on this, so please share with others.

Prior to watching #TROS, I thought that the relationship between #Rey and #KyloRen/Ben was:

— Admissions Dude (@BertWMcBrayer) January 11, 2020

Geez. Seven respondents.

Anyway, my alarmingly small follower-base aside, the point stands. When I was in the theater and Rey and Ben kissed in the final minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, I wanted to groan aloud. I restrained myself because, unlike my daughter, I am able to not make noises when watching a movie or television show. But I really wanted to groan.

I've talked with other people who felt similarly, and described it as the "Disney-fication" of Star Wars. While I think that the kiss was both completely unnecessary and cringe-worthy, I think that Disney has done a great job at not "Disney-fying" the Star Wars Universe.

[Side note: next week the Wife and I will be headed to Orlando for a four day getaway and, while we're there, you KNOW that we're going to visit Galaxy's Edge. More to come on that later.]

I wish that J.J. Abrams would have just had Ben and Rey hug and gotten on with it. The kiss seemed forced (HA!), since the only romantic chemistry that I felt on-screen was between Rey and Finn (see my previous complaint about Finn).

BUUUT, I'm focusing on the criticisms. Don't let that fool you into thinking that I didn't like the movie - BECAUSE I DID!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a great way to end the saga, while leaving enough "what if?" questions lingering to continue to build on the franchise in the same general timeline. I've seen the film twice now (the Wife and I went to see it just after the new year). I'm going to reserve judgment in ranking within the entire saga, but based on my current feelings I think that it's probably in the top five. For me.

How about you? Have you seen the film? What did you think? Did you love Babu Frik as much as I did?

Just before the winter break, Lehigh University sent out a bunch of incorrect admission decisions:

Lehigh University accidentally sent a congratulatory email to 137 applicants not selected for early admission.

But within hours, Lehigh officials realized someone had emailed the congratulations to all who applied for early admission instead of just those who were accepted.

Students who apply for early decision can be either admitted, denied or deferred to the regular admission round. Lehigh expects to have 1,425 freshman next fall.

Bruce Bunnick, director of admissions at Lehigh, sent a follow-up email this week to apologize.

“Receiving the erroneous email after the disappointment of our decision must have brought confusion, frustration and perhaps anger, for which I again apologize,” Bunnick said in the email. “You deserve better and we will work harder to eliminate the human error that led to this mistake.”

Lehigh spokeswoman Lori Friedman reiterated the apology Friday and said Lehigh “intends to increase the safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

A parent emailed The Morning Call that his son was notified Wednesday that his son was rejected and then received an email on Thursday indicating he was accepted. That email included instructions about the next steps. A few hours later, he was sent the apology email that explained the mistake and that he was not selected for early admission.

In recent years, similar gaffes have afflicted institutions including Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University.

Seriously, this is an admissions officer's worst nightmare, and something that worry about often. See my previous post about the number of decisions that we released in December alone. Crazy.

I've talked about this before. Even though there are challenges with our systems, processes, and even staff, nothing keeps me up at night (or wakes me in the wee-hours of the morning) like the realization that something might be amiss and incorrect decisions could hit the streets.

While many processes are automated these days (in either the SIS or a CRM), there is always the potential for human error. I feel for the folks at Lehigh.

This is not a test. This is a re-boot.

This project started as a simple Tumblr blog in 2010 but hasn't had much of an update or a refresh in a long time. Since my work-life balance has started to have, well, some balance, I wanted to get back into some regular writing and commentary. So here we are.

In early 2019 I started to write a bit more frequently, and now we have a fresh new look and layout, and a sweet, sweet new logo as well!



(I started using Adobe Spark for some creative content stuff - and in the process created something of a new look for my style. Apparently, branding is fun!)

I spent a couple of days importing all of the old posts from the Tumblr blog (sans the Instagram cross-posts - you can get that info in the sidebar to the right, as well as all of the posts from an even older site that I created in the mid-2000s to keep family and friends updated) into one place. Now you've got over 250 posts that you can sift through when you're really bored. Go ahead, I'll wait.

[...]

Okay, all done? Good.

Though the moniker is "Admissions Dude" - and your humble host is indeed that - topics covered here will continue to be wide-ranging. Certainly you'll see some higher education and admissions-related stuff, but I'll also continue to delve into personal things as well. Family, friends, life, exercise, movies, music... and who knows what else?

Who knows? Maybe I'll tire of this thing again if/when life gets busy again, and then this will once again become a shell of an idea. But maybe not? Stay tuned to find out.

If you want to subscribe, you can hit the RSS. Or my Twitter feed will accomplish the same thing. Thanks for stopping by!

Rather, they are here!

If you're one of the two or three people that regularly reads my writing, you're probably wondering where The Dude has been for the past month? Well, let me break it down for you...

Summed up in three words: Family. Star Wars.


 Christmas Eve service at my mother's church (where she is the organist and choir director):




A family walk (to Sheetz for free coffee!) on Christmas day:






 Playtime with the cousins:




Lots of time spent at my new bar (more to come on that later):


One afternoon it was in the 50s outside so we went to a park:







Brotherly love:


Some cute BB-8 twinning:





My brother and his family at the Nittany Lion Shrine: