This is a story about how we used to let our friends into our college apartment

"E90M3" (e90m3) 04/05/2019 at 14:09 • Filed to: None

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Back in fall 2010 I was a third year ChBE student at Georgia Tech. That same fall I moved into the North Avenue Apartments, specially the North Ave South building on the si xth floor . I was in a six person apartment with four friends and one rando. Specifically this apartment:

Now our apartment over looked the bus stops in the turnaround area or whatever it was called. Atlanta not being the safest city, there were gates to keep non-residents out.

Now, since you had to be a resident, not everyone’s buzzcard would allow them to pass through the turnstile. If you’re not an alumni of Georgia Tech and are wondering what a buzzcard is, it was what we called our student IDs. Here’s mine:

So in order to let people into the building, you had to walk down there and use your buzzcard to let people in. We did this for a while, until one of my roommates was like this is stupid, I don’t want to have to go up and down 6 stories to let people in. So he came up with a better method. Since as previously mentioned our apartment over looked the bus stop, he came up with an idea.

He had a nalgene bottle lying around and since it’s supposed to be almost indestructible, he figured a 6 story drop wasn’t going to harm it. So one day he decided to try his theory out; he put his buzzcard in the nalgene and dropped it out the window. Did it break? Nope.

For the duration of the time we lived there, me only for one more semester, him for another 1.5 years, we would put a buzzcard into the nalgene, open the window, yell “don’t catch it,” and then drop the nalgene. It was coming at you decently fast so the most prudent course of action was to let it bounce.

Leave it to some engineers to figure out a lazy way to let people into our apartment .

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:14

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My old BPA bottle has beet around for at least 12 years. I've broken three non-BPA bottles in that time. 

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:17

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Im taking notes I'll be in college soon.... interesting

Funktheduck > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:18

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I was only on campus at UGA for my freshman year. I lived on the 9th floor of my hall. I’m not sure a nalgene would survive that. One time we had snow on our level but it melted and turned to rain by the time you got to the ground floor. 

E90M3 > Funktheduck 04/05/2019 at 14:23

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There’s only one way to find out. 

Snuze: Needs another Swede > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:25

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Genius

Azrek > HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute 04/05/2019 at 14:26

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There is a fine and brilliant line between laziness and efficiency. It is a sense of harmony and bliss when you can achieve it. 

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:29

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*fondly remembers his college days*

*didnt have any college days*

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 04/05/2019 at 14:30

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Well, that makes sense since they don’t have Bounce Protection Additives in them anymore.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:31

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I’d gotten out that spring, so NAA were still a relatively recent thing.

The dorm buildings I was in didn’t have buzzcard access, just oldschool keys. I was only using Buzzcard access to get into MRDC, more or less.

E90M3 > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 04/05/2019 at 14:31

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I miss some aspects, but I have no desire to go back. 

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:33

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i dont miss any of it.... but a degree would have helped

E90M3 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/05/2019 at 14:34

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My freshman dorm was the only one where I had a physical key to get into the building. I lived in the ULC in fall 2009 and spring 2010, it had buzzcard access. After that it was NAS then the fraternity house.

I remember I didn’t get buzzcard access to the Ford ES&T building , ChBE department , until I was a third year or something.

E90M3 > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 04/05/2019 at 14:34

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Having a degree has been quite nice. 

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:38

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yep... i figured it would be

shoulda had one but my life went to shit in me teens and ive been working ever since.... all the experience in the world dont count for shit if you dont have a bit of paper for a lot of jobs

oh well... im just taking the scenic route... getting qualified certificate by certificate on the job

Ash78, voting early and often > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 04/05/2019 at 14:38

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I was actually just coming in here to talk about the removal of BPA and the brittleness. I don’t know if this is coincidental (ie, that the anti-BPA people coincided with the cheapening of Nalgene in general). But I never had a single problem in the BPA days. Now they seem to break a lot more.

Of course, when in doubt, just go with the translucent PVC bottles. They’re super flexible.

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:38

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Follow-up to my other comment (focus on Patrick lol):

Honeybunchesofgoats > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:39

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This reminds me very much of a one night stand I had with a friend in college. I didn’t have condoms, so I left to go buy some, but I left my wallet in her dorm room, which was on the 21st floor. I called and asked her to bring it to me, but she opted to put it in a lunch bag and throw it out the window.

It didn’t turn into a lasting relationship.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:43

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I still don’t get people who regularly say they wish they could be back in college. I worked my ass off in college (multiple 18 credit semesters and a part time job) and work is relatively easy in comparison and now I get paid instead for my work having to pay to do it.

facw > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:43

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Hmm, wouldn’t have worked for my dorm. We did initially have more relaxed restrictions, but they tightened things up after 9/11 (because sure, a college dorm is a prime terrorist target...), and made us scan in every time downstairs (previously there were open hours I think).

At my college apartment there was a door you had to be buzzed into, but it was sort of broken so if you pulled it hard enough it would open even when locked. So we just rang the bell (for plausible deniability, in case they said we broke it), and then immediately yanked it open.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:46

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I was in Smith, Hemphill (now Crecine) at the same time a buddy was in ULC, 8th (I think all three at various points), and visited Maulding regularly.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 14:46

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Amateurs.

We just cloned the NFC tags and put them on ridiculous objects to act as a “key”. If we liked you, you got a blank card. If we didn’t like you/begrudgingly tolerated you, you got a Thomas the tank engine toy or something stupid like that.

E90M3 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 04/05/2019 at 14:56

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While I didn’t take as many credits, engineering school was brutal at times. I had more fun my first year in the working world than I did at school. 

E90M3 > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 04/05/2019 at 14:58

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That’s pretty ingenious. 

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/05/2019 at 14:59

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Memory’s a little hazy - I think I was in Maulding for my next to last year and back over at 8th South for my last year.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 15:04

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Yea, I was engineering too...I actually quit my part time job my senior year because I barely had time to sleep.

TheRealBicycleBuck > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 15:04

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Our buildings were open, but solicitation was not allowed. When a solicitor made it to our floor, we coordinated  to get the person into someone’s room and giving their pitched while someone else called the campus police.

We had more than one escorted off campus.

E90M3 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 04/05/2019 at 15:05

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Should’ve assumed you were also an engineer, it seems like half of us here are. 

Discerning > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 15:06

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They aren’t as indestructible if they are used and abused regularly. Particularly if they are filled with water. That said, Nalgene stands behind their product and they’ve given me a new one each time it has broken. I can’t seem to find a picture of the last one I broke. It was filled with water and it fell out of my hand and hit concrete. The entire bottom blew out.

Also, I’m amazed how much GT charges students for those dorms . Yeesh

E90M3 > Discerning 04/05/2019 at 15:11

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I think they’ve changed the composition of the plastic, I know this one was from at latest 2010. It survived the 6 story drop for at least 2 years.

They’re not what you’d call cheap, but it wasn’t my money. 

Under_Score > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 15:12

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On-campus housing past freshman year? What’s that? I can’t relate. My sister REALLY can’t relate.

Also, my sister is about to be a chemical engineer. She starts her job in a month or two. 

E90M3 > Under_Score 04/05/2019 at 15:17

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Let’s just say I found off campus housing to be a little sketchy.

Where’d she go to school?

E90M3 > Under_Score 04/05/2019 at 15:17

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Let’s just say I found off campus housing to be a little sketchy.

Where’d she go to school?

Chariotoflove > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 15:37

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I shared an apartment with two other guys my junior year. One guy started a note taking business with friends of his and would just give out his keys to those friends. I would come home at any hour to find a stranger sitting at my kitchen table. I talked to roomie about it, but he told me he can give his key to whomever he wants. In other words, he was a dick who didn’t get it. He also was terrible about paying his share of the utilities.

The next year, I got two friends for roomies instead.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > Ash78, voting early and often 04/05/2019 at 16:16

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I like the squishy opaque ones! I want one but I already have three nalgenes in rotation.

Ash78, voting early and often > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 04/05/2019 at 16:21

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I think we have about 10 :D

The wife and I drink out of them almost exclusively, but I’ve switched more to an RTIC tumbler for my “daily office water”

The only PVC one I still have is 1.5 liters, which is fantastic when hiking.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 16:34

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That’s a pretty civilized way to get in. The place we hung out my freshman year was an old adobe house in a questionable part of town (the house next door burnt down that year after the meth lab caught on fire). The way into that house for all of us was kicking down the door.

It was a situation where it was a shitty little house that a couple of friends had taken over the lease from some since graduated friends, who had taken it over from some long ago graduated folks they knew. The slumlord didn’t really seem to care about the place as long as money kept coming in and it didn’t burn down. That is to say that even the two guys who lived there didn’t care at all about it, and they didn’t have much skin in the game. They hadn’t paid the deposit, and I’m not sure the landlord even knew their last names.

Most of the furniture was made from lumber that was procured from various construction projects around campus. We kept an axe in the house just for fun. It was usually stuck into the floor by the blade. I may or may not have once carved the word “beer” into the door. Speaking of that door, one night one of the guys who actually lived there came home properly pissed (he actually was British) from the bar and kicked in the door instead of opening it. I was there when he did it, and one of us still has a grainy 2003 cell phone video of a reenactment we had him stage afterwords because it was so damned funny.

The door never got fixed. It was just propped back up in the door frame when someone wasn’t going through it. For the rest of that year, we all just kicked in the door whenever we went to that house (which was most nights).

DarkCreamyBeer > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 17:13

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This is defenestration, and was one of the offenses explicitly listed in the student handbook  which would get you immediately expelled from my alma mater.

Under_Score > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 17:41

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Yeah, there are reasons she didn’t go to Tech. I have a Tech pillow pet, though. It’s adorable.

She’s about out. A school with a blue horse is what I’ll say on here haha. There’s barely any on-campus housing for her school, and that’s how it is for me, too. At the same time, there are tons of student-only complexes nearby that are reputable and much cheaper.

E90M3 > DarkCreamyBeer 04/05/2019 at 19:19

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I’m assuming your alma mater wasn’t Tech. I assume it wasn’t in ours, but then I never read it; I was on my third strike by then anyways, underage drinking. 

E90M3 > Under_Score 04/05/2019 at 19:21

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Yeah that’s fair.

I had to google that one, and am still not sure, but based on a few things I know about where you are I think I had a decent guess.

None of the off campus places seemed appealing, also seemed more expensive for me. 

Under_Score > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 21:18

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It’s not in Georgia, but close. She’s heavily involved and busy with research, etc. , so she’s never home.

E90M3 > Under_Score 04/05/2019 at 21:20

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Fairly certain it was in a neighboring state; regardless, good for her. I was more just curious if she had gone to a major state school or something. 

Under_Score > E90M3 04/05/2019 at 21:21

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Thank you! She’s done well and has a job and an apartment already lined up. 

Svart Smart, traded in his Smart > DarkCreamyBeer 04/06/2019 at 02:39

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...Seems rather extreme, eh?

Svart Smart, traded in his Smart > E90M3 04/06/2019 at 02:40

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I’m actually kind of impressed by this level of ingenuity.