Archive for July, 2009

Comic-Con 2009: Top 10 Costumes

Now that Comic-Con 2009 from San Diego is over, the pictures that everyone took while there are starting to hit the web.  This event has evolved into more of a large costume display party rather than somewhere to go to get information about comics, games, upcoming movies, or anything else you can find there.  However, this isn’t always a bad thing, since it provides some great pictures with people in them ranging from those who spent way too many hours designing their costume, to the ones who will look sexy impersonating any superhero or character out there.

Instead of displaying hundreds of pictures I’ve gone through many sources and have filtered out what I believe to be the top 10 costumes from this summer’s Comic-Con.  I’ve tried to get a decent variety and (mostly) avoid the common costumes such as stormtroopers, trekkies, princess leia, etc.

#10 – Killzone Guys

#9 – Tomb Raider

#8 – Zombie Girls – Looks like they are promoting the movie Zombieland, but that’s not too important…these girls are just hot.

#7 – Wonder Woman – one of probably many, but she pulls it off well.

#6 – Anakin Skywalker and Aayla Secura

#5 – Sephiroth

#4 – Nick Fury, Ms. Marvel, and Black Widow

#3 – The Baroness from G.I. Joe

#2 – Rikku from Final Fantasy X. Fairly simple costume but this girl looks exactly like the game character.

#1 – Big Sister from Bioshock 2. The high detail put into this costume makes it my top choice from this year’s costumes.

New Rose-Hulman President Matt Branam Visits RH Ventures

After the effective resignation of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s President Jakubowski on June 30th, a search committee has proven unsuccessful in finding a new replacement for the position, however an interim president was chosen for the 2009-2010 year.

His name is Matt Branam, who has an experienced career as an executive in the private and non-profit sectors. He will serve while the search is underway for a permanent successor to Dr. Jakubowski. Branam is a 1979 civil engineering graduate from Rose-Hulman and started his career early at UPS. Since then he has been a vice president at UPS and chief operating officer at the American Red Cross.

On Wednesday the 22nd, Matt Branam made a visit to Rose-Hulman Ventures to be a part of the summer distinguished speaker series. He personally greeted and spoke to all of the summer interns, staff, and many of the professors that showed up for the event. His speech constituted of “Things I’ve learned” and highly focused on having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish. Branam quickly talked about his childhood, his time at Rose-Hulman, and how he got his roots at UPS. The later half of his talk was about his opinions and ideas on how he is going to move Rose-Hulman in the right direction during his year stay to maintain the college’s prestigious #1 ranking by U.S. News and World Report, which is for any college or university that offers the bachelor’s or master’s degree as its top degree in engineering. Matt stressed that the Institute needs to establish a clear vision to accomplish this goal. Specifics on how this will be done were not mentioned, but he will pull from his background in private and non-profit leadership to find a solution. As one of his speech morals, Branam stated that having a clear established vision is the key component to success in almost anything you want to achieve.

First impressions from meeting Matt Branam for the first time and from his speech seemed very reassuring. He appears to be very intelligent and delivered his speech very well. It sounds like he already has some plans and goals in mind for Rose-Hulman, and is determined to see them through. It’s going to be a nice change to have a more gritty business attitude leading our college than one simply focused on academics and how to collect more money for the Institution.