Photo Contest - Katie Lawrence is Feburary winner

"The Colonial Club squad utilized their patented "motorboat" offense to deliver a sustained barrage of shots and goals against their feckless opponents. The stonr gic eplay of Joe Ulerich '07, David Stopher '07, Tommy Curry '08, Dan Pall '08, Duncan Roberts '09, and Gordon Franken '09 was backstopeed by a wall-like effort in goal by Nathan Morrison '08. Katie Lawrence '08 and Maggie Orr '08 were co-recipients of the Tournament Superfan Award. The crew is looking forward to defenind its title at next yera's icy competition!"

-Nate

Also paraphrased as...

"After traveling nearly 1,000 miles per player, A Colonial Club reunion in DC outclassed the local college competition in DC to become undefeated tournament champions!"

-Joe

Photo Contest - Rob Bernstein is February winner

"Eating too much at Rocky-Mathey Sunday brunch again."


Real Caption: Two sumo wrestlers leave early morning practice from a sumo stable, right behind the temple where I was living in Japan. I was specially invited to observe the practice by the stable master.
-Rob

Saints Super Bowl win is both a personal victory and hometown pride

Blake Williams and Tim Boardman stood on the confetti-covered Miami field just minutes after the game ended and held up a newspaper with the headline “World Champions, the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV.” After playing football together for 4 years in college, they stood together on February 6^th listening to deafening chanting of ‘Who Dat?’ The two kept on celebrating through the night, first in the locker room, then on the team bus, and oh yes, even at the star-studded hotel after-party. Tim said “it was a captivating experience, one which I will never forget sharing with Blake just like when we won the 2006 Ivy Football Championship together. Blake gets to add another Championship ring to his collection.”

February 6^th was also the first time in NFL history that a father/son coaching pair won the Super Bowl together. “It makes it so much more special that we did it together,” Blake said. His father, Greg Williams, has been an NFL coach for 21 years, and each Sunday their family felt like they “lived and died” depending on the outcome of each game. The father and son pair started working for the Saints in January 2009 and lived what turned out to be an unforgettable next 14 months.

Blake says the Super Bowl was different than the last two decades of watching, playing and now coaching footfall. “The whole season was magical. I’ve grown up in this business, and I’ve never seen a city and a sports franchise that are so intertwined. You almost feel like Drew Brees and Sean Payton are elected officials, the way that they represent the people and the things that they do for the community after they both came in the year after Katrina.”

The city of New Orleans certainly came out to celebrate after the team came home from Tampa. There were about 1 million on the parade route down St. Charles Avenue. Blake described the smaller city feel as being similar to high school football. “It’s different down in the Bayou; it felt almost like high school in terms of how invested the community is in the team.”

Meanwhile, up north in New York City on February 6^th, New Orleans hometown boy Walter Hopkins hosted 35 people in his apartment to watch the game. “It is difficult to express my love for this New Orleans Saints team,” he said. “I was nervously stuffing my face with shrimp and sausage jambalaya moments before we intercepted Manning to seal the win.” Walter fails to mention that he slaved away earlier that afternoon to cook 3 huge pots of steaming jambalaya for his guests.

“All I could think was that this Super Bowl was so big I'd be telling my grandkids about it,” Walter said.

PAW Column - Feb 24 - Kyle and the Mag 7

KYLE MCHUGH is currently stationed at NAS Pensacola, Florida. He passed his one year mark as an officer in the Marine Corps in October and graduated from The Marine Corps Basic Officer Course in early November. He reported down to Pensacola shortly after and has started flight school.

Beyond Kyle, I didn’t receive any updates from classmates about your interesting lives, so I’ll take this opportunity to talk about my world in New York. I am part of the ‘Magnificent 7’ Princetonians working for Bain & Company in New York. The cast of characters includes (l. to r.), AARON SOUZA, ADAM GROWALD, MATT FIELD, LUKE COHLER, REGINA LEE, DAN JONES, and DAVID VALENTINE. As associate consultants over the past year and a half, we have worked with clients in a wide variety of industries to help them achieve strategic results. Some of our most interesting cases have included: Aaron doing a salesforce effectiveness project for a technology company, Adam helping to redesign the operating model of a global insurance company, Matt working on growth strategy for a major US IT company, Luke traveling to Belgium to work on a corporate re-organization case, me helping to improve the royalties pay-out process at a major entertainment company, Dan working on supply chain in the beer industry, and David analyzing what leads to consumer satisfaction at a major department store. Out of the office, Aaron leads our recreational soccer team, and David is often seen tearing up the basketball court as we play other companies throughout the winter.

PAW Column - February 3 - A Beijing wedding!

Another wedding announcement! OWEN FLETCHER married Zhang Chen on October 24, 2009 at Traders Hotel Beijing, an elegant hotel in the China World Trade Center complex. The ceremony mixed Chinese and Western traditions, and the banquet featured of delectable local dishes. Owen impressed Chen's extended family and friends with remarks delivered in skillful Mandarin. Tigers in attendance included ROSS LIEMER, ASHLEY JOHNSON, EUGENE YI, and MICHAEL ZHANG. Now, Owen is returning to his life as the bureau chief at IDG News Service’s one-man office in Beijing, where he covers technology issues.

ROSS has been studying Chinese language for a year at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He says the campus is vast, home to 25,000 students, nearly as many bicycles, and former imperial mansions. Ross often runs into Olivia Hamilton '09, who works as an economics teaching assistant, a position than MICHAEL KRATSIOS will take over this month. In October, Ross traveled with two friends to Xinjiang, in far western China. Highlights of the trip included eating Uighur lamb kebabs, touring the bustling markets of Kashgar, and spotting wild camels in the Pamir Mountains.

EMILY KOSTEN went back to school in the United States last fall after taking a year off to work in the Boston area. She is in the Physics Ph.D. program at Caltech, and her research focuses on novel geometries for solar cells. Emily also got engaged to Joe Zipkin '07 last year, and they are planning to get married this summer!

Keep sending me your updates, and check out our class blogroll to see the exciting things your classmates are doing.