Tag Archives: Barn

[There are photos at the end of this post - if you're too busy to read, scroll down before you leave]

Now that I’m in my last semester of just over 5 years of a Bachelor Degree at UBC, I have met my fair share of people over the years who I might refer to as ‘informers.’ Through these people I keep abreast of the goings-on of campus, things like parties, beer gardens, political gossip/scandals, random UBC trivia, etc. A couple of days ago, I received an email from a particularly interesting individual who has twice before given me very interesting information. I only just got around now to processing the info he sent me, as this is by far the most academically intense week of my entire degree: 4 midterm exams, 2 term papers, 1 position paper, 1 presentation, 1 long assignment, 2 grad school applications to finish, and the usual shifts at work. But I digress.

I was emailed by a guy I met last year at a beer garden. He saw my website a while back and this is now the third time he has sent me something to post. He sent a number of photos and with a brief explanation, so I have once again agreed to post the photos and paraphrase his email.

On February 16th, the new AMS (student society) President, Jeff Friedrich, took over from outgoing President Kevin Keystone. On the first day back from Reading Break, February 26th, Jeff walked into his new office to find a rather unique architectural structure had suddenly appeared. My informer sent me photos of the actual process that was undertaken to build the structure, and as far as I know I am the first person given permission to post these photos. Rumour has it that one or more of them *may* also be reprinted in the 432 next week, UBC’s Science Undergraduate Society newspaper.

On two prior occasions I have received photos of organized activities which all seem to link back to one thing: a black hand. If we should believe the rumours, the hand is supposedly the symbol of some shady group referred to as The Black Hand. No one seems to know anything about this group, or is willing to talk at least, and no one seems to even be able to tell me whether the monicker is the group’s real name. It appears as though the label has just been given to this nebulous group based on their call sign. The two previous examples of this group’s impressive work are still up in my website archives:

A man’s office is his castle
Foiled!

One commonality between the Castle left in the AMS President’s office last year for Kevin Keystone when he arrived and the newly built barn is the small red E added to the black hand logo. UBC students will quickly recognize this E as the symbol of the UBC Engineers, well known for their clever pranks including hanging a VW Bug off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in 2002 (click here for that story). My connections in the Engineering Undergraduate Society claim to have no knowledge of these events, and they sure keep a straight face when telling me, so I don’t know whether to believe them or not. I guess for now I’ll have to keep on wondering.

And now, for the photos: