An excessively melodramatic recounting of La Bastille's first moments

After three days of fairly disastrous testing, we had finally reached a state of relative success with our diagnostics... we were all basically done for the afternoon, and Soren and I were the only ones left inside the library. Everyone else was outside waiting, watching the empty library wall...

We were a little hesitant to run Tetris... it was a big step up from our diagnostic tests, and failure would probably crush whatever enthusiasm the day had restored to us. I prepared Tetris to run on the building, just in case we decided to go through with it... I don't think the team outside really knew what we were doing.

I sat over the enter key for a few seconds, ignoring Soren's strong encouragement to just press it and get it over with. I said something to the effect of "If this works, Soren, you can graduate..." And I started the Tetris program with one hand on the keyboard and one hand crossing my fingers (really).

The radio was silent for a few seconds; I don't think everyone outside knew what was going on right away... Neel's first words over the radio were "Oh my god...", and the cheering let us know that everything was working. Soren and I were ecstatic, of course; this was Soren's dream, and there was finally some payback on all of our time. I wanted to run out and see it right away; Soren wanted to sit and reflect a little...

I didn't take the time to put my shoes on; I turned the keyboard over to Soren and sprinted up and down the library steps in my socks, closing the blinds on every floor so Tetris would look perfect from outside... then I ran out to the other Techhouse members, obviously cheering and yelling, and looked up...

I sort of wish Soren had been at the keyboard for the first game; it was his thing more than mine... heh... the only reason I was still there was because when we finally got it working, I was told "you will not be getting up from that seat for two weeks", sort of the way you can't move when you finally get the reception right on your TV or radio.

In any case, I was lucky to be at the controls when the biggest thing that Techhouse has ever put together was finally successful...

Dan Morris