50 Years of Smoot
 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/bre...0/post_23.html

Truly a great tradition.

Now, how many Smoots to the Moon?

I'm currently in Boston; I spent the day with the guys from MIT and attended the lunchtime BBQ. A reception followed in the evening. A great bunch of Brothers!

John, one week too early to catch the fall colors.

I've heard the brownstone chapter house there is awesome. Great view of Fenway from the roof.

It is really nice. As legend goes, it used to be Alpha's house. Can't confirm or deny it though.

If you look at MIT's house, and where Alpha's house used to be, it was literally a stone throws away. However, Alpha's house was more of an old, crappy, unsafe, falling down building.

The class distinctions between the two was hilarious. Here was BU in their old, run down house probably worth no more than $300,000 and just 200 feet away was MIT with their $10 million, jacuzzi, 5 story brownstone.

Smoots to the moon
 

I came up with 226961194.03 Smoots to the moon.

I love the Smoot story. My dad was at MIT a few years earlier than he and we always talk about it.
His kids went there too, but they were taller, so they couldn't redo the Smoot measurement.

I think I have the ultimate pledge task:

Find the shortest path, in Smoots, for a road trip between every single LXA Chapter house that ever existed.

That would have been a great task about 10 to 15 years ago, but now that everyone has access to a computer it wouldnt even be mildly challenging as it would have been say in the early 80s. Nowadays, the pledges would just have to search google for Smoot Measurement, to see how long a 'smoot' is (67 inches), and then just use mapquest to enter the locations of each chapter house to find the distance in miles, and then convert over at the end. I think the hardest part would be finding out where dormant or closed chapter houses used to be. Might even be better to change the task to just use the colleges weve ever had a presence at, houses tend to move around, whereas 90% of the universities we have had a presence at are probably still there. Still was a good idea though.

I think we should petition Congress to make the Smoot an official form of measurement.

We do have a couple LXA Reps and Senators.

I can personally attest to the fact that there is no jacuzzi in the house. there is, however, a wonderful view of the Charles river, a stunning view of Fenway Park, and an amazing assortment of very talented men whom I am proud to call my Brothers.

There used to be a jacuzzi years ago.

I've seen photos on their chapter page that had pics of the jacuzzi on one of the floors. It was a brag of theirs along with the view of Fenway from their roof deck.

jacuzzi would be scary
 

Given the weight of water and the age of those wood floors, I'd be afraid to go anywhere near it today

Live a little John. You mean if there were 3, half naked, 18 year old sorority sisters in the tub, you'd be afraid to go near it? ;)