A local electronics recycling program is not just saving the environment, but also providing jobs for people with disabilities. In April, CompuCycle, a Houston-based company founded in 1996 that specializes in recycling and refurbishing old electronics in an eco-friendly way, announced a partnership with the nonprofit agency Easter Seals Greater Houston for a larger campaign called WhatIF that will begin on Sept. 15. According to CompuCycle President Clive Hess, the main goal of this partnership is to give employment possibilities to Easter Seals clients with disabilities in Houston. "The partnership with Easter Seals came about because they provide job training in Houston for individuals with disabilities," Hess said. "Most people have a family member or someone they know who is living with a disability, so the WhatIF campaign touches on a personal note as well." Easter Seals primarily deals with clients with autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and other special needs, according to its website. Hess said Easter Seals clients will be working in CompuCycle's Houston processing facility testing equipment, sorting like materials and disassembling donated products. Easter Seals Greater Houston Chief Executive Officer Elise Hough said employment is a constant struggle for many individuals with disabilities. "We get frequent calls from clients struggling to find employment," Hough said. "Funding for programs like this is difficult to find, and the CompuCycle is unique because it has the potential to be self-sustaining." Hess said businesses have an incentive to donate electronics to CompuCycle because it is free of cost, which in turn means better business for CompuCycle and more ecofriendly treatment of used electronics. In addition to receiving donations from businesses, CompuCycle also hosts a number of collection events in the Houston area. CompuCycle accepts a wide variety of products including laptops, cellphones, game consoles, stereo equipment and even hair accessories such as curling irons, according to Hess. Rice Environmental Club President Skye Kelty said plans are in the works for Rice involvement with the CompuCycle collection program. "We heard about CompuCycle through the City of Houston sustainability program, and it's on our to-do list," Kelty, a McMurtry College junior, said. "It's an awesome company, and we're hoping to do a collection at Rice at some point during the year." In addition to providing jobs directly through the partnership, Hess and Hough said the program can help increase computer literacy among clients. "Our hope is to be able to employ approximately 50 clients at CompuCycle and ... a few hundred more per year could receive general computer training," Hough said. "CompuCycle is even hoping to donate some of the refurbished computers to clients who go through training." Hess said he hopes to expand the program regionally and even nationally."The program in Houston is the pilot project, but there is potential to expand," Hesssaid. "Easter Seals has chapters nationally, and CompuCycle has alliance partners nationwide." Hough said she hopes to see more programs like these in the future for individuals with disabilities. "From a training and hiring process, there are many attitudinal problems and physical barriers in the workplace for people with disabilities," Hough said. "I've never seen a program like this, and it shows how there is a chance for inexpensive, simple solutions to help the cause."
This Rice University Owls football team believed. That might be the most gratifying part of last week's 25-24 Rice victory over the University of Kansas. Even though there were plenty of reasons not to, this team traveled to Lawrence believing it could win. Ten-game losing streak? Didn't matter. Never having won against a Big 12 opponent? Didn't matter. A frustrating loss against University of California, Los Angeles (who, on a side note, is looking like a better and better team)? Didn't matter. You could tell before they even got on their buses for the airport that Coach David Bailiff's squad was carrying a certain swagger. Leading up to the game, players were out encouraging students to watch the televised game. That's not something you do if you don't believe you can compete. It's one thing, though, to take that swagger on the bus, and another to maintain it through the ups and downs of a game. And during the sixty minutes in Lawrence, there were plenty of moments where it would have been easy for Rice to let that belief, that swagger, slip away. Thanks to three first quarter turnovers, Rice squandered opportunities to take command of the game early and instead found themselves down 3-10. Still, the swagger remained. At the start of the second half, Kansas put together a long drive to go up 24-13. Still, Rice kept coming.And with less than five minutes left in the contest, Rice missed a potentially game-tying 2-point conversion attempt. But still, the belief persisted. The defense came up with a huge turnover, thanks to sophomore Bryce Callahan's second interception of the game. The offense converted on a critical fourth down in the process of getting into field goal range. And junior Chris Boswell split the uprights for the game winner. Rice never led until the end of the game. But they never stopped believing that they could. There were a lot of football-specific reasons to be excited about this game. The defense prevented the big plays that plagued them over and over again against UCLA. In the Kansas game, they didn't allow a single play over 30 yards. In the season opener, they gave up multiple plays over 70. The offensive line was more cohesive, giving up only two sacks this week, compared to six against UCLA, allowing quarterback junior Taylor McHargue to look downfield. Sophomore Jordan Taylor continued to emerge as a go-to receiver. He had nine catches for 101 yards, the first time he crossed the century mark in his career, and hauled in many of them in big time situations.The tight ends were active in both the running game and passing game, making important receptions and executing key blocks. The offense, as a unit, showed it can march the ball down the field. Its two touchdown drives were of 94 yards and 93 yards respectively. It also put together four drives of 10 plays or more. And Chris Boswell proved that he's not only long-range kicker, but a clutch kicker as well. Where his Kansas counterpart missed two field goals, Boswell went 4 for 4 including the pressure-packed game winner. All of these things bode well for the rest of Rice's season. But more than anything else, I'm excited for a team that dared to get a historic win, and a program that has now beaten a BCSconference opponent two years in a row. After the UCLA game, many fans walked away shaking their heads, saying it was classic Rice football to make it look like it might be close just to find a way to give the game away. But for a week and a half leading up to the Kansas game, and for sixty at-times-trying minutes during it, this Rice football team refused to give into that attitude. They kept believing they could win. And now they've given us a reason to as well.
Renowned local chef Monica Pope, whose prepackaged fare often fills a stall at the Rice University Farmer's Market, has completely overhauled her restaurant t'afia, now reimagined in the same location as Sparrow Bar + Corkshop. Nestled in the same midtown bungalow bestrewn with rope-lights, Sparrow presents Pope's commitment to locally sourced, seasonal flavors with a creatively exotic spin. In walking distance from the METRORail, Sparrow's environment mixes hip edginess with rustic romance. Alchemic touches, like water served out of Erlenmeyer flasks and salt stored in test tubes, lie atop dark, unfinished slab tables adorned with fresh wildflowers. Warm lighting emanates from glowing birdcage lanterns that hang from low ceiling beams and against exposed brick walls, and cushy red banquettes lend to an intimate homey environment. Roughly textured napkins give a tactile, rugged country feel. No detail goes overlooked; even the dessert menu arrived in a cute package, a note folded like something your third-grade crush might have handed you. The mellower sides of the Talking Heads and the Clash played softly over the din of forks, as well as some vaguely familiar acoustic Nirvana covers. It feels like Sparrow is trying to create some idealized home you never had. The food menu changes nightly, but the the wine and cocktail menus are solidly in place. The wine options are extensive, but they tend to get a bit pricey. The bar's main calling, besides the ultra-cool environment, are the $10 cocktails - nothing too creative or extraordinary, but sipped in a fancy cup in a cool place so close to the light rail, they are worth it. The food also was a tad pricey, with entrees starting at around $15. The dishes billed as smaller plates are generally savory enough to be eaten alone as a hearty bar snack or combined for a full meal. One of the tragic exceptions to this truth, however, was the shiitake mushroom dumplings plate, which was covered in a creamy blue cheese, honey and mascarpone sauce. Four petite lumps sat in the soupy sauce, but despite their rather sad appearance, the salty, earthy mushrooms blended perfectly with the sweet, cheesy sauce. One of the best sides was the crunchy brussels sprouts with miso glaze, which truly was life-changing to a self-declared brussels sprouts hater. The sprouts were grilled until they were slightly burned, which seemed to cure them of their usually detestable bitterness and made them delectably tender. Covering them with the sweet and sticky miso sauce made them as easy to pop in your mouth as candy. The Mac n' Cheese, which was served carbonara-style with peas and speck (juniper-flavored ham), was also especially rib-sticking, with a portion substantial enough to be an entire meal in itself. Perfectly al dente orecchiette pasta was the perfect medium for scooping up the salty egg and parmesan sauce in a classy, grown-up reinvention of the comfort-food classic. For an energetic bar and creative homestyle snacking, Sparrow is your place. It is definitely not the best place near campus to get the most out of your dollar, but it is worth a visit if you have something to celebrate - or you are just looking for an excuse to dress up and blow a little cash.
As the school day wound down on Aug. 21, Steve Cox, a computational and applied mathematics professor, knew something had gone wrong. "A colleague said she had sent me two emails," Cox said. "I never received them. She didn't receive any of mine either."Webmail remained down for about an hour, preventing many faculty, staff and graduate students from accessing their email. Director for Systems, Infrastructure, Architecture and Cloud Strategy Barry Ribbeck said service for a third of Webmail users had stopped when one of the three servers housing Webmail went down.To mitigate the problem, Information Technology switched over to its secondary, off-site data center, restoring service to nearly all users, according to Ribbeck."In the process of analyzing what had occurred, we discovered roughly 200 users had lost emails from within a 20-day time frame," Ribbeck said. "We had successfully restored the emails of the 3,800 others who had felt the service error, but had some problems with a select few [users]."Despite devoting a straight 35-hour stretch to restoring emails, IT was still in the process of restoration for 200 users as of Aug. 29, although they did manage to salvage the message headers of all emails."Affected users know some information about the emails that haven't been restored: who sent them, when and the topic of each email," Ribbeck said.For future reference, one can always check https://my.rice.edu/ITAppStatus/ for status updates of all Rice IT systems. Ribbeck noted that Rice's uptime proved better than Google's (www.google.com/appsstatus) over the past five years. "In 2011, IT had a 99.9941 percent uptime," Ribbeck said. "We strive for 100, but randomness makes it hard."
When campus files into Sid Richardson College this Saturday for its annual '80s Party, students will wait impatiently for their escort along the xylem and phloem that is Sid's elevator. On this night, few students will venture down to roots below ground where one of Rice's lesser-known student businesses resides. This "underground" student business is Rice's only on-campus bicycle repair shop. Very recently founded, the shop first became operational in the spring of 2011. "Back when I was a freshman, there was a program called 'The Color Cycle,' where they took the old, abandoned bikes from RUPD and spray-painted them and put them around campus in a rainbow array," Sid Rich senior Michael Fuad said. "A few of us ended up taking a few of those bikes and repaired them and starting using them. That's where the idea [for the shop] started." Since that time in early 2009, the idea of opening a fully functional bicycle service and repair shop slowly became a reality for Fuad. "We began applying for grants my sophomore year, and through Envision and Wiess' Bill Wilson, we were able to officially open for Beer Bike in 2011," Fuad said. Last year marked the shop's first complete year as a business, but it has already become financially self-sustaining. At first, Fuad and fellow Sid Rich senior Ben Stark-Sachs donated their labor to get the business started, but they have since developed a business model that both pays the employees and keeps their small shop impressively stocked with parts and repair tools. With the help of Hanszen College junior Shepherd "Shep" Patterson and Duncan College sophomore Fernando Ramirez, the shop has been working to standardize hours of operation for the semester. While the shop is open every weekend afternoon from 12-5 p.m., during all other times of the week, the employees recommend making an appointment by emailing ricebikeshop@gmail.com. Even though the hours appear limited, the shop is usually very accommodating in scheduling appointments during the week. In addition to standard servicing and repairs, the shop also sells bike locks, helmets, lights, tubes and saddles at some of the most affordable prices in Houston. "We are set up with a bike supplier, like any shop would use, and we order all of our parts through them," Patterson said. "We pay wholesale prices and have an incredibly small markup." With little overhead, the Rice Bike Shop is able to pass on their wholesale savings to Rice students. For this exact reason, it also does not currently have plans to move out of its location in Sid's basement, a space that became available when Sid Rich permanently moved its weight room after the Barbara and David Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center remodel."It's adequate," Fuad said. "It helps keep our prices low and keeps our stuff secure." Even in this small space, the Rice Bike Shop community is excited for its second full year in business and has some big ideas for the coming years. It plans to accept credit cards soon, and eventually, it wants to offer mobile tire fixes and various repair workshops inside the shop. "Ben [Stark-Sachs] and I have even been talking about creating a college course," Patterson said. "The 'final' would be a complete bicycle reassembly." So far, this semester has been the shop's busiest yet. The staff has been working repairs almost continuously since school began three weeks ago and is just now starting to settle back down into a more normal routine. This routine includes taking unclaimed and abandoned bicycles that RUPD collects around campus and returning them to proper working order. These restored bicycles are then sold back to community. Right now, demand for these refurbished bicycles is extremely high, and the shop has been forced implement a waitlist. These bicycles typically cost around $60. Fall semester at the shop sees mostly back- to-school repairs and basic maintenance on standard bikes, but during the spring, the shop takes a decisive turn toward performance. "We work on Beer Bike bicycles," Fuad said. "Those are obviously really high-quality, top-of-the-line bikes." While the shop mostly caters to the undergraduate population at Rice, it still offers its services to graduate students, faculty members, and Housing and Dining staff. "We even had a student from the University of Houston who was taking a class here bring his bike by the shop," Patterson said. Even though the Rice Bike Shop has not yet achieved the status of other student businesses, it plans to continue along its current path of slow and steady growth. It simply refuses to sacrifice on affordability and quality for the sake of expansion, and the management is comfortable with the shop's current steady revenue streams for the foreseeable future. The Rice Bike Shop is an excellent example of how entrepreneurial motivation can turn a good idea into an actuality.
Last Friday, the Rice University women's cross country team entered the Houston Invitational, marking the start of the 2012 cross country season. Even with the loss of last year's top four runners, including All-American and recently named Conference USA Woman of the Year Honoree Becky Wade (Martel '12), the women's team is looking forward to what hopes to be a promising season. The Houston Invitational proved to be a great opportunity for the team to prepare for their upcoming races. Rice entered the meet with six runners taking part in a two-person six-mile relay race at McGregor Park. Though the whole team did not compete in the race, the athletes who did run showed what looks to be another season filled with potential. The pair that consisted of fifth year senior Keltie John and senior Lindsay Miller finished in fifth place with a time of 38:17. Freshman Eileen Brady and junior Kylie Cullinan finished in eighth place with a time of 39:11. In 12th place was the team of seniors Amanda Gutierrez and Frances Hsu. They finished with a time of 43:25. Coach Jim Bevan was very happy with the team's performance at the race because many of these runners had not run for a long duration. With the first race of the season behind them, the Rice women's cross country team will look ahead to the Rice Invitational on Sept. 14, followed by a trip to Bethlehem, Pa. for the Paul Short Invitational on Sept. 27. Compared to last year's team, this year's squad includes four new freshmen and other returners that were unable to compete last year. When asked about the team this year, Bevan said, "This team will get better throughout the year. Because we are a mixture of new athletes and returners that haven't raced in awhile, we will need to progress as the season goes on." He described the team as having a wealth of potential and stressed that, "The team needs to focus on staying healthy and managing [their] daily tasks, both in training and in studying and life in general." The women's cross country team will be led by seniors Marie Thompson and Farrah Madanay, both ready for a breakthrough season. John and seniors Johanna Ohm and Marie Walsh both return from injuries, and sophomores Allison Schaich and Laura Michel both vastly improved over last year's season. Bevan also mentioned the hopeful return of a healthy junior Meredith Gamble, who is a past winner of the C-USA Freshman of the Year award. As for the incoming freshmen, Bevan highlighted the presence of freshmen Cali Roper and Eleanor Wardleworth, as well as the twins Audrey and Chrissy Wassef. The Rice women's cross country team looks to continue their success this season.
