Clara Raubertas // Freelance Web Design, Web Development, and Web Consulting // Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts clara raubertas design. development. consulting.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been working on a particularly exciting new project: launching Parallactic Consulting — a new web design and development company in Boston and Chicago!

I teamed up with some friends and fellow U of C alums to form Parallactic; it’s awesome to get to work with this much combined talent and experience (as you can see). With both more personpower and a greater variety of skills and experience, we should be able to take on much larger projects than any of us can do as individuals. I’m pretty excited about what’s in store for this!

I’m still accepting small/mid-size projects as an individual, but for larger projects, I’m steering people toward Parallactic - spread the word!

Scav this year was so much fun! Being on the alumni team was particularly exciting… I got to see old friends and connect with new people. I always forget how exciting it is to spend a lot of time with University of Chicago people; they have a particular kind of intellectual energy that’s not very common elsewhere. It was also great to participate in an alumni event that had some of the characteristics of traditional alumni events (for example, I did a lot of business networking, which I didn’t expect!), but was framed by this context of doing fun, silly stuff together. I’m looking forward to promoting this team to more alumni for next year as a fun alternative or supplement to stuff like the official Alumni Weekend.

When I first saw the list, I was a little disappointed, as there weren’t as many clever items that grabbed my attention as there had been in previous years. But the more I got involved in actually working on the items, I realized the list was actually better-designed than previous lists in a crucial way: the items were chosen because they were fun to do as much as or more than they were fun to think about.

Here’s some of the items I worked on or participated in in some way this year:

13. Take your fashion show to the streets! The city has kindly provided mannequins. If you want to park your car you have to feed the meters, but for this item you have to dress them. [7 points, 3 bonus points if the judges can recognize whom you’re making fun of]

25. Find a slide whistle and an open mic night at a Chicago bar. Impress them and you’ll impress me. [13 points]

36. Scavegon Trail #1: As the University expands, a certain breed of adventurous souls race to reach the fabled new land south of the Midway known as the Oregon Dormitory. Come to Main Quads, Missouri, at 4 pm Thursday to see your pioneering quartet off on the first leg of their journey. Who will you be? A banker from Blackstone? A farmer from the Fallers? A carpenter from Chamberlin? Their first task is to test the sturdiness of their newly constructed, flat-bottomed wagon and the fortitude of their oxen. Like all Scavegon Trail events, in addition to points the winner of this race will win valuable medicine to stave off deadly diseases. Overall Scavegon Trail points awarded for costumes, wagon construction, and number of pioneers alive by the time you reach the Oregon Dormitory. Set a Grueling Pace! [ ε points]

44. Pigs in a blanket, a BLT, and a cup of Joe? That’s far too easy. You’re gonna need your expert slang slinger or you’ll be lost like zeppelins in a fog. Bring your diner dexterity to our favorite greasy spoon, Scott’s Hamburger Heaven, at 11:30 pm Thursday for the Short-order Shout-out. Only one lingo literatus per team, and eighty-six the cheat sheets or the to-go orders won’t be the only ones taking a walk. [3 points for showing up, 25/15/5 points for placing]

56. Scavegon Trail #2: At 3 pm Friday your trailblazers arrive at C-Bench Rock. To supplement their food supply for the long journey still ahead, they are going to go berry picking. But one of your pioneers seems to have lost the use of her legs, another the use of his arms. They are going to have to team up to get these berries back to the wagon.

60. Ronald McDonald is an amicable fellow, and we would all bend a knee in allegiance to our Burger King, but don’t the local restaurants deserve a mascot of comparable level? Choose a Hyde Park restaurant and design an appropriate mascot. If it’s a legit mascot, you’d better have a legit commercial filmed in front of the establishment. [17 points]

61. Blog about your day. Now write it all out by hand with quill and ink. Now transfer it to a wood carving. Okay, you still with me? Now inscribe it in a tablet of baked clay. Bring us the electronic, paper, wood, and clay blogs. Now that’s what I call a chronological scale of blogological technology. [9 points + an understanding of what our ancestors had to go through in order to bitch about their problems]

91. Scavegon Trail #3. What was the best part of this game again? Oh yeah, hunting! After berry-picking, your grizzled foursome arrive at Fort Linnaeus to get some food and have some fun. But there are some tough choices to make. We’ll provide the animals and ammunition.

102. Our Vampire is a tracker. We saw his mind. The Hunt is his obsession. Bring your blood to the DCAM, room 5G, between 8 am and 4 pm all week or he’ll have to come for it himself. [α points]

105. Holy Mackerel! Proselytizing wall fish. [12 points]

106. Settlers of Catan: Human-Sized Edition. Bring your game pieces to (Place TBA) at 3 pm Saturday for a rousing throwdown. All game pieces must be made to scale. The hexagons must be large enough for a person to stand on comfortably (two feet across should do) and look absolutely gorgeous. Game pieces will be assigned at the Oddity. [23 points to build, 12, 9, 6, and 3 points to first through fourth places]

141. Production stills from the following movies [as many as you like, up to 2 points each]:
• Battlestar Helvetica
• Wingdings of Desire
• Comic Sans of Iwo Jima
• The Fall of the Times New Roman Empire
• or one of your own device.

159. Camp Scavvahunta, we hold you in our hearts. Few things are more evocative of the lives of young Americans than the noble institution of summer camp. This Friday, at 7 pm (set up at 6), round up your wagons, pitch your tents on the Eckhart Quad, and get ready to hunker down for a night of good ol’ fashioned fun at the Scav Campout. Festivities will involve a Scav counselor cookout and an assortment of delectable camp activities. We will begin by testing the capacity of both your brains and maws with the “Chubby Bunny Spelling Bee”. Then, the Scavvahunta Follies! Each team will present a short skit recounting their team history in a particular style to be assigned at the Captains’ Oddity. Finally, a massive battle royale Capture the Flag game on the main quads. Each team must bring their own uniquely recognizable flag and will be assigned a random position on the quads to serve as home base. Each team should have at least one tent set up on the quads for this event—expect it to be occupied until 11 pm, for we are the young Americans. [δ points]

201. “They say the Scavhunt brand is growing stale and they need a swell new ad campaign to really push the product. Get the boys down in Creative on this, pronto—the ScavCorp board of directors will be here Sunday and we need to have poster-sized mockups ready!” [25 points for the mockups at Judgment and for blanketing campus with your Scav ad campaign throughout the Hunt]

225. Put your insides on your outsides with a series of epidermal anatomical diagrams. [One major organ system per team member, 10 points per system depicted, 5 bonus points if a pregnant woman models the reproductive system.]

242. On Thursday just before midnight, in Scott’s Hamburger Heaven, actually get an item out of one of those damn skill cranes. [25 points]

Photos? Of course there are photos!