Spring 2015 V. 5 Issue 3
Interact with your printer Roommates turn their house into a quirky museum
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BOOT CAMP
JMU sorority girl joins the US Army
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Do’s without the do Easy hair tutorials that only look complicated
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TABLE OF
contents
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Four creative JMU students devote their Harrisonburg home to a museum all about printers. Up-do’s, half-do’s and braids, oh my! Step-by-step instructions to get formal-ready hair without the hassle.
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The story of one JMU student who’s both a sorority girl and an Army soldier.
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Dear reader,
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Lauren Hunt Caroline Alkire IJ Chan
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Lauren Hunt Hannah Peterson Maggie Graff Erin Williams
ADVERTISING STAFF Blake Harvey Mitchell Myers Katrina Delene Hunter White Kaitlyn Rocchiccilli
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Thanks for picking up our last issue of the year! Putting this project together over the last two semesters has been the experience of a lifetime. We tried to make a final print edition that was one-third quirky, one-third helpful and one-third interesting. After reading these stories, we’re sure you’ll agree. As we bid adieu to our editorship and graduate, we want to say thank you (again) for checking out Port & Main. Look for more to come next year!
-The Editors Corey Tierney Editor-in-Chief
Amanda Ellison Art Director
James Chung Photo Editor Mallory O’Shea Online Editor IJ Chan Copy Editor
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Story | Lauren Hunt Photography | Erin Williams and Maggie Graff Submitted | Portraits courtesy of the Harrisonburg Printers Museum
Modern-day Gutenbergs Four roommates turn their house into a printer museum and it’s, well, exactly what you’d expect . . .
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“I’m sorry we don’t have a complementary PB&J for you tonight,” Nick Saunders, the curator of the Harrisonburg Printers Museum, says to the visitors in the tour group. “Our intern and PB&J maker is out getting bread right now.” Saunders lets the group into the museum and leads them through the foyer and into a small den on the right that is packed to the brim with printers. There are Christmas lights strung around the room, giving off just enough light to read the placards beside each printer. “You’ve caught us a little early,” he says. The scheduled tour doesn’t start for another 15 minutes or so. “If you don’t mind, we’re going to go get ready. Please, have a seat.” The Harrisonburg Printers Museum is housed in a small house in downtown Harrisonburg which is marked by a printer strung from the roof. The museum is open for tours from 5 to 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoons. The house doesn’t only hold a museum, it also provides opportunities for community involvement. It’s housed several alternative bands, including Juan Wauters and Tahnstarssbandht, and boasts printers signed by members of both bands. Tim Moore, Saunders’ roommate, is the president and excavator of the museum. He started the idea for the printer museum in late 2012 when the four roommates were sophomores. “We were coming up with a name for our Relay for Life team and I decided to name the team ‘Interact With Your Printer,’” Moore, a senior industrial design major, says. From there, the idea developed into the museum. “Our job here is to be a steward and a collector of printers and we do that every single day of our lives. Now we’re proud employees of the Harrisonburg Printers Museum.”
The nonprofit museum showcases printers that have been donated by friends, family and Winchester Municipal Waste. It aims to educate the community about the world of printing. When the four roommates come back downstairs, the tour group is given some fizzy drinks in lieu of the missing PB&Js. The tour begins; Tyler Bisson, a senior English major and the museum’s inkologist, pops a cassette tape into a boombox that’s set up in the hearth of the fireplace. The room fills with synthesized melodies. “I’ve made some tunes to accompany the tour,” he says. One of the first things the guides show the group are the lightweight, “semi-portable” printers. “This is the arrow display,” Bisson says. Four small pieces of plywood, tied together with rope, are anchored into the wall and hold a printer on each level. “None of these printers are over five pounds.” He takes a Lexar P707 off of the top of the display and tosses it across the room to Thomas Eastman, a senior quantitative finance major and the museum’s chief financial officer, who then tosses it to Saunders before it’s placed back on the shelf. “Very portable,” Saunders says. “It just falls right into your arms.” Looking around the room, there are printers in every available space. Some are in displays on bookshelves, while some are simply stacked on top of each other. There’s a pyramid formation of printers stacked on the mantle of the fireplace in the living room. “You’re catching us kind of in a transitional period,” Bisson tells the tour group. “Winchester Municipal Waste, just this Thursday, dropped off twelve printers.” The museum P&M, Spring 2015
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“Our job here is to be a steward and a collector of printers and we do that every single day of our lives. Now we’re proud employees of the Harrisonburg Printers Museum.” showcases a total of 67 printers, although some are still being certified for use and qualifications. Saunders explains that the process is long and involves an intern of the museum banging on the printer with a hammer for 20 to 30 minutes straight to test the durability. Bisson then extracts any ink cartridges left in the printers for the ink display that’s located in the next room. The wide variety of printers provides a wide variety of learning opportunities. “What do a printer and a baseball have in common?” Saunders asks the group. “Besides the fact that they can be thrown around, like we just demonstrated. Any ideas?” The tour group exchanges confused looks and shrugs. “Okay, we’re talking speed here,” Saunders tells the crowd. Surprised laughter rings throughout the room. “Now, you can throw a 106 mile per hour fast ball right down the strike zone with a baseball, but here, we have a wide range of ppm, or page per minute.” “Pages per minute,” Bisson chimes in. “That’s how we measure speed here in the printer world.” “It’s the name of the printer game,” Eastman adds. Next, the tour moves on to a display of printers on a bookshelf on the other side of the room. “Let’s talk about the archeology of these printers,” Bisson
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walks over to the display and places a hand on the printer on the top of the display before turning to the crowd. “How old do you think this printer is?” he asks. Various answers between 20 and 40 years are shouted out and he nods. “All of those are pretty good guesses, but the actual answer is that this printer is as old as time itself. Because matter is neither created nor destroyed. “ The answer is met with laughter and some groans from the audience. “I just like to bring this up because people think about printers as just this junk thing, just objects,” Bisson explains. His passion for printers is apparent. “But someday your great, great, great, great grandchild, maybe, will have matter in his or her body from this printer when it goes back into the ground and is reabsorbed and recycled by the Earth.” Located in a living room across from the printer room, the ink display is a glass case set into the wall and filled with several ink cartridges from different printers displayed in numerical order. The true gem of the museum is Bisson’s favorite is a transparent ink cartridge from Staples. “[The cartridge] is a bit of a mystery because we really don’t know what printer this would go to,” Bisson says.
“Because as far as we are aware, Staples never made printers.” The newest edition to the museum is a wall of USB printer cords, which hang around the ink display. “The printer USB cable is one of the only universals in the printer world,” Bisson explains. He carefully removes one of the cords from the wall and holds it up for the tour to see. After the ink room, the tour group is in for a real treat: a live demonstration of an ink extraction. Bisson snapps on a pair of gloves, pulls a pair of goggles over his eyes and walks over to a large printer on a table in the middle of the room. He begins prepping for the extraction. The back flap is taped back with clear packaging tape to reduce the chances of him losing a fingernail because of it falling, he explains. He gives a demonstration of the flap falling. It slams shut with a decisive clack, which is met by gasps from the audience. “Sometimes the ink is hard to grab because you don’t have much grip,” he says as he begins working on getting the cartridge holder out from its resting place so that he can work on the ink. “Because if your hand slips it’s going to get stuck in the gears.” He works on the cartridge holder with a knife, and after a few seconds of struggle, the cyan cartridge pops out of its place. “There we go!” he says. “Look at the fat on that!” He holds it up to the light and examines it before checking the opacity by banging the cartridge on a piece of paper to shake out some ink. He then spreads it out on the piece of paper. “If [the ink is] at 70 percent opacity, then it’s usually good,” Moore explains. “This one actually is not looking good.” The ink cartridge is then placed in a bag to be arranged in the ink display later. Bisson returns to his work of extracting the other cartridges. He pulls out the three other standard ink cartridges, yellow, magenta and black. But this printer holds a surprise. “So this is actually really interesting, this is the first time we’ve seen this at the Harrisonburg Printers Museum,” Bisson says as he turns to face the members of the tour sitting on the couch. “What we have in this printer is photo black. Now, that the deepest black you can get. It’s true black.” Surprises like these are why the four love to run the Harrisonburg Printers Museum. It’s really opened their eyes to how most people interact with their printers. “They take them when they’re old and just put them in the basement,” Bisson says. “But they don’t get rid of them and that says a lot to me. It says that printers have a lot of sentimental value.” w P&M, Spring 2015
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Dress up, dress down
Hairstyles that easily impress, and are just as easy to do
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Story | IJ Chan Model | Kayla Marsh Photography | James Chung and Lauren Hunt
THE
BEFORE YOU START:
Fancy Up-do
Comb through your dry hair, making sure there are no snags or tangles. If you want, you can run curl mousse, heat protectant spray and/or a bit of hairspray through your hair. Just be sure that it’s smooth and dry by the time you start working with it.
your hair back into a ponytail and secure it with a 1. Pull thick hair elastic. You can adjust the height and placement
of the ponytail depending on what kind of look you’re going for. For a more romantic look, you can pull it to the side and down toward your shoulder. I’ve put Kayla’s ponytail higher, at the middle of the back of her head for a more classic look. I’ve also braided a side section of her hair into the ponytail. Again, this is up to you. And if you can’t braid, have no fear — just flip to page 13 and I’ll show you how!
2.
Start curling 1-inch sections of your ponytail with your curling iron. I recommend using a 1-inch iron so that your curls will be easy to style while still maintaining that perfect, bouncy look. Vary the direction in which the curls spiral in order to avoid forming one big “banana curl” at the end. If you have trouble keeping the curled and uncurled sections separate, loosely clip the curled sections back with a claw clip. Continue curling until you’ve covered the entire ponytail.
one section of the ponytail and twirl it once around your 3. Take index finger, forming a 1-inch wide loop. Pinch the loop tightly
with your index finger and thumb, and place the outer surface of the loop on an area near the base of the ponytail. Secure it with one or two bobby pins. Keep working your way through your ponytail, looping and pinning every section. I usually work my way counter clockwise, pinning sections around the base of the ponytail until the hair elastic isn’t showing. If you have medium to long (or very long, in Kayla’s case), you’ll have to loop and pin your sections more than once and pin them on top of the loops you’ve already made.
you’re done, take a look in the mirror and feel the 4. When bun with your hands to see if any bobby pins are sticking
out. Spray your entire head with hairspray. Now here’s the fun part — if the braid’s not enough for you, grab your favorite flower pin or other hair accessory and embellish your creation any way you like. You can also gently pull small tendrils of hair from the bun to create a more relaxed, romantic look. And that’s it! Go look beautiful and have fun.
THE BEFORE YOU START: You can still look fabulous the day after your formal. Your curls from the night before will now have turned into loose, beachy waves. Still, like before, make sure your hair is free of any major tangles and is ready to be worked with. Now, on one side of your hair part, use a rat tail comb to divide off a 2-inch section of hair down to about where your ears are. Pull the rest of your hair aside away from this section, using a claw clip or an elastic to secure it out of place. Start at the top of the head by your hair part and section out three even locks of of hair. Begin forming a Dutch braid all the way down this section.
A Dutch braid is the same as a French braid, but the strands of hair pass under one another, instead of over. Keep braiding until you’ve reached the ends of your hair in this section. Temporarily secure the ends with a bobby pin.
Do the same exact thing you did in the previous step, only with the hair on the other side of your part. You should have two even, long braids on either side of your head.
THE Lace braid
Divide off a 2-inch wide section of your hair. At the top, make three even strands and separate them carefully with your fingers.
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Take the rightmost strand and pass it under the middle strand. Take the leftmost strand and do the same. Next, add some hair to the rightmost strand and pass it under like you did before. Now, pass the leftmost strand under without adding any additional hair.
Keep repeating steps one and two, taking care to add hair only to the rightmost strand every time. If you want the braid to angle down as shown, make sure the sections you add to the rightmost strand are longer each time. w
Easy braided, knotted half-do
Take the bobby pins out from the ends of each braid. Bring the braids together and tie a tight knot with them. The knot should rest on the middle of the back of your head.
Use one hand hold the knot together, and use the other to place a bobby pin in the upper right corner of the knot. Secure it against the back of your head. Repeat and place three more bobby pins in each corner of the knot.
Disassemble the ends of your braids. Make sure the knot is secure and that no bobby pins are sticking out. w
THE Dutch braid
Divide off a 2-inch-wide section of hair and divide it into three even strands.
Take the rightmost strand and add a small amount of hair from directly below. After adding, pass it under the middle strand. Do the same with the leftmost strand. Keep a tight grip on all three strands — don’t let any loose ends fall out.
Repeat steps one and two until you reach your desired length. I went to about where Kayla’s ears are until I stopped adding hair to the stands. Braid the rest of the hair and tie off with an elastic. For a messier look, gently tug on the curves of the braid to make the shape fuller. w P&M, Spring 2015
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Sisterhood meets
brotherhood JMU Sigma Kappa sister adds the Army to her rĂŠsumĂŠ
Story | Caroline Alkire Photography | Hannah Peterson
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Laurie Freeborn woke up one morning with a spontaneous idea. The petite, 5-foot-1-inch, 105-pound blonde freshman made a decision that shocked everyone, including her sorority sisters in the Sigma Kappa sorority. “I got up that morning and thought to myself, ‘I’m going to go down to the recruiters office today and join the Army,’” Freeborn, now a sophomore psychology major, says. Her announcement to join the Army Reserve was met with nothing but support from her friends, family and sorority sisters. To join, Freeborn had to leave school for the Fall 2014 semester — the first half of her sophomore year — and complete Basic and Advanced Individual Training training at Fort Leonard Wood, a military base in Missouri. Training for the Reserve was unlike anything Freeborn had ever experienced. Her ultimate goal is to eventually become an army police officer, which is one of the hardest positions to train for. Her entire company would wake up everyday at 4:30 a.m. and do physical training until 6 or 7 a.m. For the rest of the day she would either be doing teamwork drills, rifle drills or grenade drills, depending on which phase of training the company was at. The first nine weeks of training is known as basic training. Many times, this is considered the hardest phase. The trainees must drop and do pushups, and are disciplined heavily. Basic training challenges prospective soldiers physically and mentally. “Being part of the army is like being a part of a different culture,” Freeborn says. “I always have a permanent smile on my face no matter what I’m doing, so they were constantly yelling at me, telling me to drop and give them pushups because I couldn’t stop smiling.” Jennifer Polanco, a junior psychology major at Rutgers University, was Freeborn’s best friend and bunkmate at Fort Leonard Wood, and the only other sorority girl — a sister of Omega Phi Beta, a multicultural sorority — in their company. She describes training as “being told what to do, and how to do it 24 hours a day.” She and Freeborn bonded during their five and a half months at Fort Leonard Wood. “Freeborn was always trying to beat me,” Polanca says. “At first I didn’t think she was going to make it because she was so little, but she is definitely one of the toughest girls out there. She was my competition, and always made me work harder. She is so brave and determined and never quit.” At the end of basic training, the entire company must complete something similar to a giant obstacle course that encompasses everything the new soldiers have learned. Freeborn had to crawl on her stomach to avoid real
open fire. The trainees must also complete a ten-mile march with 60-pound packs strapped to their backs. When they were done, they sat around a bonfire to receive their value packs, signifying that they had passed training and were now part of the Army. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I had the worst blisters of my life from the march,” Freeborn says. “I bled through two pairs of socks and my combat boots. At the ceremony right after that, I finally got my value pack. I made it. It was the proudest moment of my life, and in that the moment I knew I had made the right decision.” Freeborn’s ambition to join the army stems from her family. Her grandfather, Don Iminski, is retired from the Army and her father, David Freeborn, was a master sergeant military police officer who was also involved in special operations. The military also has benefits, and pays for the education of its participants. Freeborn, however, knows that she would have joined the Army Reserve even without the benefits. Freeborn is back at JMU this semester, but basic training has made her a different person than when she left. She has a newfound interest in politics, and she thinks about her actions more than she used to. Being a private first class (E-3) in the Army Reserve also means she can be deployed at anytime. “I am totally in love with JMU,” she says. “But I would be content if I was deployed tomorrow. It is such an honor to serve the country that has served me so well.” Freeborn is currently in the process of switching over to the Army National Guard, because she was offered a full ride scholarship for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps for the next two years. Freeborn will be involved in Simultaneous Membership Program with ROTC, meaning she is in the National Guard and drills one weekend out of each month. She plans to commit to the Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty scholarship, meaning she will be in the National Guard for eight years after she graduates. Whether Freeborn is throwing grenades in Missouri or attending mixers in Harrisonburg, her determination and drive to succeed never leave her. She feels blessed to be able to serve her country and proud that she made it through training. “I got made fun of all the time for being a tiny little blonde chick, and it didn’t help that I was a cheerleader in high school and a sorority girl in college,” Freeborn says. “I stood out, but it made me want to prove everyone else wrong. I ended up finishing third highest female in my company for physical training, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” w
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