eCSRU

January 2009

Welcome to the January 2009 edition of the FVPB e-CSRU, where you can find updates about the Virginia Pep Band, VPB alums, trivia and stories, and more! Please email your comments and news to caitlin.vogus@ orangevest.org. [All email addresses in the eCSRU have an extra space added to reduce spam.]

Keep in Touch with FVPB!

You can now subscribe and unsubscribe yourself from the FVPB email list. The FVPB email list is used to disseminate information about the VPB, alumni, and upcoming events. To subscribe, go to: http://tethys.ringofsaturn.com/mailman/listinfo/chowder. Pass the word along to other alums, and if you know someone who wants to receive these newsletters and doesn't, please direct them to the site to subscribe!

Trivial Pursuit – Pep Band Trivia

Test your VPB knowledge with our trivia question. Please email answers to Caitlin.vogus@ orangevest.org

This edition's trivia question is: Pep Band Mix 'n Match.  

Connect the following venues to the year in which the Pep Band was permanently banned from them:

Please email your answer to Caitlin.vogus @orangevest.org. The winner will be announced in the next e-CSRU and promptly acknowledged as the master of VPB trivia! In addition, why not post your memories of bans on the Pep Band in the FVPB forums?

In last edition, we asked: “What is the farthest the Pep Band has ever traveled by bus or car?”

The correct answer is: Ft. Lauderdale .

According to Google Maps, Ft. Lauderdale is 995 miles from Charlottesville.

The Pep Band traveled to Ft. Lauderdale for the MPC Computer bowl in 1999, when the Cavaliers took on University of Illinois. After performing at the U.Va.- Virginia Tech basketball game in Roanoke, the band jumped on the bus to travel directly to Ft. Lauderdale the next day, a 23 hour trip.

Although no one answered the trivia question correctly, honorable mentions go to Darrell Shahin (CLAS '81/'87) and Rich Downs ('90), both of whom guessed separate trips to New Orleans. According to Google Maps, New Orleans is 968 miles from Charlottesville.

Darrell writes, “My guess is our trip to New Orleans spanning New Years 1977/78 to support our Hoos in the little known Sugar Bowl Basketball tournament.   We beat Auburn in the final, allowing us to joke that UVA was the Sugar Bowl champion.   A memorable highlight was a hurricane-induced attempt to shout down all the Ohio State and Alabama fans (the night before the real Sugar Bowl) at Pat O'Briens by joining in their cheering battle and screaming for our dear old U   of V.   Came no where close to winning, but left a few puzzled souls wondering "I didn't know we're playing Virginia tomorrow".    Pep band loose on Bourbon Street!   Good time my friends, good times!”

Rich remembers another trip to New Orleans: “I don't know about total distance, but the Sugar Bowl trip where the bus broke down in Gatlinburg felt like the longest trip in the history of motorized travel . . .”

We Want You! – Upcoming VPB Events

Join FVPB and VPB at these upcoming events!

• Banquet. The Pep Band would like to especially encourage alumni to attend this year's banquet, the best band party thrown all year! Banquet will be held on March 14, 2009 in the West Oval Room of the Rotunda. For more information, contact Suzie Wright (sew8d@ virginia.edu) or Ryan Tanner (jrt3t@ virginia.edu).
• New Directors. FVPB is looking for a few good men and women to help with FVPB business and possibly become Directors on the FVPB board. If you're interested in becoming more involved with the VPB and its alumni, contact Evan Macbeth at evan.macbeth@ orangevest.org.

What Are Those Crazy Undergrads Doing? – Recent Pep Band Activities

The Pep Band had an active fall semester, spreading the scramble band spirit throughout the University and recruiting new members. Highlights include:

• Move-in Day Scrambling : VPB members suffered through heat and dehydration to bring some cheer to first years on move-in day.
• Football Scrambling : As always, the Pep Band entertained tailgaters and fans before home football games. The crowd at Camp Wahoo, near Clark Hall, has become a favorite audience, and the band never misses a chance to perform for them. In addition, the band played at Pancakes for Parkinson's, a charity event held on the Lawn, before the game on Oct. 4.
• Alzheimer's Walk : The band contributed their time and tunes to this worthy charity event to raise money for Alzheimer's research in September 2008.
• Washington Nationals : VPB members traveled to Washington, DC to perform the National Anthem before the Nationals game on September 2.
• Homecoming : Alums returned to Charlottesville on Nov. 1 this year to meet current students, watch the ‘Hoos play Miami, play frolf, and enjoy an FVPB-sponsored cookout.
• Caroling : The Pep Band filled grounds with holiday cheer through their annual caroling performance, ending at the Rotunda with the Good Ole Song, of course!
• Lighting of the Lawn : The Pep Band played the Good Ole Song before the lights were turned on in this annual U.Va. tradition. The band also celebrated the holidays with its own tradition, Grinching, the next day.

Ye Olde Story Time

Every VPB alum cherishes certain memories from his or her band days! FVPB invites you to share your favorite story on a specified topic in the FVPB forums.

This edition's question: What is your favorite Pep Band chant or cheer? When's your favorite memory involving a Pep Band chant, cheer, or sign?

Post your answer the in the FVPB forums, and FVPB will publish our favorites in the next newsletter. (Please note in your story if you do not wish to have it published in the next newsletter.)

What About the Old Farts? VPB Alumni News

Wondering what your VPB buddies have been up to? Here are the headlines of alumni news for the fall. If you have news you'd like to have included in our next newsletter, please email caitlin.vogus@ orangevest.org.

• Dave Black (CLAS '91), who practices government contracts law at Holland & Knight near Washington, DC, was recently elected Secretary of the Boards of Contract Appeals Bar Association and appointed to the Editorial Board of the Public Contract Law Journal. As some of you might know, federal contracting is a world laden with acronyms in which virtually every law, regulation, and concept is reduced to its initials for ease-of-reference (i.e., Federal Acquisition Regulation = "F.A.R."; Competition in Contracting Act = "C.I.C.A."; Contracting Officer's Technical Representative = "C.O.T.R.").   In an exclusive interview with the CSRU, Dave announced that his next career goal is to encourage the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (you guessed it, "O.F.P.P.") to establish an initiative for the comprehensive reform of existing procurement regulations to be called the "Federal Acquisition Regulation Transformation" or, in government contracts parlance, the "F.A.R.T." Dave tells the CSRU that he believes a bold F.A.R.T. is "necessary to preserve the integrity of the federal procurement system."   He expects that the final release of the F.A.R.T. will offend some circles of the government contracting community.   Dave believes that some contractors will challenge the F.A.R.T. as arbitrary and capricious but that the F.A.R.T. should ultimately withstand judicial scrutiny.   Dave also says that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform may call hearings on the F.A.R.T. and that House Republicans, who are anti-regulation, will likely want to cut the F.A.R.T.   Dave hopes that Congressional involvement will not change the general direction of the F.A.R.T.   Dave says that, ultimately, a strong F.A.R.T. "should increase competition and efficiency in federal procurement."   Good luck, Dave!

Alumni gather at Homecoming.

• Beth Freeborn (CLAS '98, Grad '06) and Jason Hulbert (Grad '08) were married on January 10, 2009 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Matron of Honor was pep bander Christine “Beta” Memering (CLAS '98, Nurs '02), whose daughter Elizabeth (Zabby) served as flower girl. Beth and Jason met at UVA while getting PhDs in Economics and are both currently assistant professors at the College of William and Mary.
• Brittany Maslowsky (CLAS '08) is serving as a volunteer with City Year in New York City. She was recently featured in on CNN's Young People Who Rock. You can read the CNN story at http://ypwr.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/07/city-year/ and watch an interview with Brittany at http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2008/12/12/ypwr.estrella.maslowsky.city.year.cnn
• Erin Seney (CLAS '00) and Bryan Smouther (SEAS '00, SEAS '04) survived Hurricane Ike with moderate flood and wind damage, and they are making repairs.   They would like to thank Matt and Sam Weyandt for letting them evacuate to their house, and then letting them stay when they couldn't return immediately.   Erin also graduated from Texas A&M University in December with her Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences and is currently looking for a post doc in AL, NC, and DC.

From the Bar with SeanMike and Marshall

Punches

Usually in college punches are an easy thing. Take a big bucket. Pour in juices, carbonated beverages, and tons of booze. Tweak until you can't taste the booze. Drink until everyone falls down.

Sure, if you want to be fancy, like SeanMike's third year portal mate, you can build a pump to automatically mix the punch and then dump in some 100% alcohol he “borrowed” from his job at NIH. Or you can cut up some fruit and throw it in.  The beach week jungle juices were basically punches that were notorious for having every single type of booze, fruit, juice and other mixers all thrown in and consumed until said falling down occurred.  They were delicious and dangerous.  But let's be honest, they weren't very elegant.

What a lot of people don't realize is that punch is one of the oldest drinks in America. In fact, in Imbibe! by David Wondrich, he points out that from about 1670 to the 1850s the mixed drink world was, in fact, dominated by punch. He even quotes a recipe from 1576.  Punch served the same end back then as it does today - to serve a crowd. 

One example of a classic punch is the Imperial Brandy Punch found in Harry Johnson's New & Improved Illustrated Bartender's Manual (1888.)  The recipe is as follows:

The Oldest Man Alive (TM) (Pete Kester) enjoys a beverage at Homecoming.

1 gallon seltzer or water
3 quarts Brandy
2 cups Jamaican rum
1 dash sugar
Juice of 6 lemons
3 oranges, sliced
a pineapple, pared and sliced
4 oz Curacao

Mix in a punch bowl.  Serves 20. 

In this example you see a lot of booze and some fruit thrown in for good measure.  Even though this is a recipe from 1888, it looks strikingly similar to a punch that could have been made at a Pep Band party.  The biggest difference is balance.  In the same manner as how cocktails should be made with the idea that each flavor balances the other flavors with none dominating, so to should a punch be created with that goal.  Look at the recipe above.  That's a lot of booze.  But it is balanced with water, lemon juice, pineapple and orange.  Only one dash of sugar is added - the fruit juices are enough to sweeten and balance the punch.

And not all punches are from the 19th century.  Cocktail Nerd (http://www.cocktailnerd.com/) who hangs out with us over in the Mixoloseum chat room (http://bar.mixoloseum.com) sent us Vi's Jamaican Rum Punch that - like the previous one - uses only a little bit of sugar but also uses a lot of spices:

Is there some punch in those squeeze bottles? (At Beta Bridge.)

1 750 ml bottle light rum
1 750 ml bottle anejo rum
16 oz dark rum
1 qt pineapple juice
1 1/2 qt orange juice
1 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground mace
1/2 tsp ground allspice
2 cups lemon juice
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 peeled and chopped pineapple
12 oz club soda

Peel and core a pineapple. Take half and chop finely; thinly slice the other
half. Stir the lemon juice and sugar together in a large punch bowl until
the sugar is dissolved. Add the chopped pineapple, light rum, anejo rum,
dark rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, allspice
and club soda. Stir well. Add one large block of ice. Garnish with pineapple
slices. Makes 35 (6-ounce) punch cups.

Today, with the resurgence of classic cocktails, you can also find a resurgence of punches. A “Punch Club” has started up on Thursday nights in downtown DC's Warehouse Theater and Café. Chantal Tseng at the Tabard Inn in Dupont Circle has put a “Barbados Punch” on the menu. When the speakeasy Hummingbird To Mars was around, each guest was greeted with a cup of punch, the kind varying from day to day.  Punches don't have to be made in a huge batch; Chantal's version of the Barbados Punch is made per customer and has brandy, Mt. Gay rum, lemon and orange juice, and guava jelly, topped with champagne.  Death & Company in New York City concentrates on punches intended for four people at about two drinks per person.

So next time you're having a party, why not make a good punch for your guests to enjoy?  It's easy to serve, easy to make and lets you spend more time with your guests.

Happy belated Halloween from the Pep Band.

Donate to FVPB

Start the New Year off right by donating to FVPB! FVPB provides monetary support so the VPB can keep doing all the activities that you read about in this newsletter! Donations can be made at    http://www.donortownsquare.com/donate_redir.aspx?ai=569&qs=XLJQL or by sending your donation to: Friends of the Virginia Pep Band, Inc., P.O. Box 4524, Charlottesville, VA 22905-4524. As always, donations are tax deductible!

Viva la Pep Band!

Friends of the Virginia Pep Band

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