There are some days when you get stuck in the crowd, blocked by slow feet and general human congestion.But then there are the days when you slide right by — a cutter on a bicycle, Marty McFly on a hoverboard. Wednesday was that better kind of day. The presentation to the brass at Tribune Interactive went far better than expected, and we walked into the sunlight on Michigan Avenue the best we had felt all quarter. Everyone else looked that way at least. I know I felt that way.

The Tribune presentation went amazingly well, considering where the week had started. On Monday, power-tripping librarians (like this one — ah, Ph) kept us out of the appointed room until 15 minutes before the presentation was to begin. Now, 15 minutes is the appropriate amount of time for many things, like changing your car insurance to Geico, but not for setting up several multimedia presentations. Heck, my computer takes a third of that time simply to boot.

Amazingly enough, this session went fine until the question and answer period, when Medill faculty reenforced the fact that they are, by most senses of the word, dinosaurs. A certain Medill broadcast professor stooped to openly insulting the other team's project. If he produced a TV show with their content, he said, people would "call it fluff." I could respond here, but the shot would be just as cheap. Instead, as Clair Huxtable would say, let the record show:

Google results (6/15/20202):

fluff news tv – 24,400 results

fluff news television – 13,400 results

fluff news nbc – 2,280 results

Presenting improved on Tuesday, when the crowd of Chicago new media industry people could understand the projects enough to ask relevant questions and make cogent arguments for or against us. Plus, there was food afterward.

Wednesday's trip to the Tribune concerned our class the most, but was ultimately the most relaxed and best of the three. The Tribune people were more than happy to have these crazy college kids come in and talk/sing their new media talk/song.

My team presented/sang about the Chicago Game, a news- and community-driven online game we invented. To open, we performed a rendition of "Sweet Home Chicago," Blues Brothers-style. Then through facts, figures, and a silent movie, we spent the next half hour hammering home our point: the Chicago Game can be a solid site and a successful venture for the Chronicle company. (Chronicle is a fictional company, comparable to our class partner, the Tribune company.)

It's too difficult to explain in the blog, but you can download our powerpoint if you want. (Note: It's a big file, thanks for the music.) In the meantime, you can take a look at our prototype (not fully functional) site.

But these are details. Done.

I've got Ghost of Tom Joad on the CD player now. It's a hot night in Evanston, and the fan's blowing on high speed in my room. It's the right kind of night for Joad. Springsteen sings the album so quietly, but the occasional harmonica or steel guitar come out strong from the mix, almost piercing in their volume rise. With Joad, it's hard to know where to set the knobs on the speakers. High to hear all the words, or low to keep the ears better? With the fan humming, the whole sound gets the right level of blocking. The words and the music come and go around some haze. But sometimes it's a blessing to be hazy. You can't make out yourself that well, and the distractions don't overtake.

Tomorrow's my last day of college work, a pretty important presentation to the heads of the Tribune Company's Interactive division. As the culmination of a quarter's work, my group gave the presentation today and yesterday to people who liked us and others who didn't (and told us so). The project's months have been full of meetings, friendly and angry, and presentations, practiced and real. For all of us, the days' work has meant being a leader, a supporter and a teammate. And tomorrow it'll all be over, in a dead halt of grades, soon-to-be-lost production and spotty remembering of what it was like.

"It'll all" isn't everything, for sure. The college life, the friends and the results, will still be there, but the college, the schooling, won't. If look to see you the chasm, it's scary. The end of college is a break peak.

But standing on the mountaintop, so to speak, it's no sin to ignore the next hill over. That mountain will be there when you get there. You've still got to walk back down your mountain anyway, and down is easier than up. Down is simple.

So it will be nice to walk out of the Tribune tomorrow, presentation, class and college complete. Hopefully that's how I'll feel. To put my bag on my shoulders and be another lone person in the sidewalk crowd. To be lost somewhere in the hazy story of the world, to fill a seat in the subway car, it will be nice.

I don't really know. There's been a basement, some computers and hats. Definitely hats. But "Willy and Poor Boys" is on the Discman now, so I don't much care.

I promise.

Details in a day or so. Possibly with embarrassing video.

You know it's a good day when you worked less than you did the day before. Yesterday totalled about 14 hours, 11 of them in the basement of the journalism building. Today has hit the eight mark and will go further, but not by more than a couple hours.

You know it's a good day when you ate better than you did the day before. Yesterday was no lunch. Today was Giordano's baby pizza.

You know it's a good day when your massive final project seems more possible than it did the day before. Yesterday our site didn't work on Netscape. Today it's cross-browser like it was born that way. Yesterday our content didn't make sense to our professor. Today after receiving an explanation, she loved it. Yesterday I spent three hours trying to think of a way to start our final presentation. Today the whole group bought on to a song-and-dance number, Blues-Brothers style. It'll be so, so good.

You know it's a good day when it rained less than it did the day before.

You know it's a good day when your music sounds better than it did the day before. Yesterday I had too much of a headache to turn on the Discman. Today the remasters of CCR's Willy and the Poor Boys and Green River arrived from BMG.

Bring a nickel; tap your feet.

We learn important truths from our failures; young man, you must keep that lesson in mind.

So, as you told the young ladies you were with, you thought your good friend was from Britain. One day you asked him where in Britain he was from. He told you that he was not from Britain. He was actually from the United States.

What important truths have we learned from this failure? First, your friend talks like a snob. Second, you are an idiot.

All of my former Little League teammates who read this Weblog will be happy, in their twisted ways, to know that I am as bad a ballplayer today as I was in sixth grade (the twilight of my career). Catholic Undergrads played Sheil's Graduate and Young Adults group in softball on Sunday and lost, 21-7. The simple explanation: They play weekly in an Evanston softball league, and hold practice once a week as well. We meet once a week in a basement and discuss religion. (Or at least I assume we do. I've only been to one meeting.) The simpler explanation: We stunk.

Poor hitting, poor fielding, poor throwing, poor baserunning. And I was just as guilty as anybody on my team. I went 2 for 3 with two singles, but struck out in my first at bat and looked Ugly (capital U) in the other two at-bats. The Kevin Arnold voice in my head during the game: What part of "Wait on it" don't you understand? In centerfield, I had one running catch, but that was an inning after I ran in on a fly ball that went over my head.

I also tested my arm by trying to throw a runner out at the plate. My arm failed, as it should have. (A few yards wide left, bounced into the first base dugout.) Two-hundred foot throws on no practice are a bad, bad idea.

And then there's the baserunning. I didn't do anything bad on the bases, but when did I forget how to slide? I used to love sliding. When in doubt, I'd for the next base and usually get there. In grade school gym classes, I was always proud of taking out catchers during indoor kickball. But now…now I am too far from the ground. And I'm too out of shape to attempt getting there.

For four days now I've had nothing to say. To be honest, I don't care if you keep visiting my page when I haven't posted anything. But I feel the lack on my brain too, and that's what bothers me. It's the empty kind of feeling that comes when nothing captures your thoughts — when nothing interests you enough to force thinking.

There's been too much school work to do. The New Media Capstone is entering its final week and a half, and there's still so much left to be done. Scripting, design work, content writing, business planning, and presentation making. This process has been going on for the entire quarter, and now I would like it to end. I want to be the senior slacker, with my only stress coming from a summer subletter search.

I'd like to enjoy the last few weeks of my college career and have it be something to remember. I forget too much. I remember information about people, places and important happenings. If I've ever met you on more than one occasion, I probably could write at least half a page about you. But, the problem is, I forget the in-between times. Times like now, when the school work is dominating my head. Times of no or slow change just fall off my memory, and if you tell me that something happened during one of those times, I'll probably believe you.

It's disappointing to have these gaps. Here I am, a journalism student, and my memory is full of holes. I can remember the important details, sure. But I can't remember the substance of my life more than a few months ago. I can't look back and compare then to now or even discern how I've changed. I rely on other people for that, strangely enough. Their memories, their thoughts, our present interactions. Tricks, to rediscover what I've lost, briefly.

It's more than disappointing; it's scary. Here I am, trying to be a storyteller, for whom the substance, the in-betweenness, should rival the details. But I don't even know my own story to tell it. Does everyone's brain work like this? Is everyone afraid of losing their mind? I hope so, but I doubt it.

Richard Monopoli's real estate award this week intrigued me. When the award was announced, the auditorium full of people cracked up. So, given that Mr. Monopoli is probably an intense and driven businessman, this situation brings us to the task of maintaining Mr. Monopoli's deal-making, likely-Armani-wearing authority. The question: To keep a situation business-professional, what should Richard Monopoli avoid?

-Accepting a bank error in his favor.

-Maturation of his life insurance, Xmas fund and building and loan.

-Street repairs. General repairs.

-School tax. Poor tax. Income tax refunds.

-Inheriting.

-Going to jail. Getting out of jail free.

-Advancing to go. Going back three spaces. (Meaning to be interpreted later in 21st century.)

-Election as chairman of the board. Bank dividends. Sales of stock.

-A ride on the Reading, the nearest railroad (if it does not happen to be Reading; see "ride on the Reading" item), Boardwalk, Illinois Avenue, the nearest utility, and St. Charles Place.

-Doctor and hospital fees. Beauty contests. Grand opera openings. Services.

If you can't appreciate this song, stop reading now.

At West Virginia University, Daily Athenaeum staff writer Sara Bott rediscovered her state this week, including Cass Scenic Railroad. Cass is a pretty amazing place. Pre-college, I went out there with family every few years; we started going so far back that I can't remember how many times total.

Cass is out in the mountains, past Seneca Rocks but not quite to Charleston, and you'll find your ears popping away as you get nearer. The railroad was an logging operation until 1960, and became a historical tourist attraction after business died a slow death. But far from being a tourist trap, Cass is West Virginia at its best — gritty, modest and beautiful.

The steam locomotives, the switchbacks in the woods, the walk back down the mountain. It's hard to describe, and even if I was to write more, I don't think I'd do the experience much justice here. The Weblog's too far removed to explain it well. But I want to dig out my engineer hat when I go home.