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Alumni in the News
With Foursquare,Life is a Virtual Game(CNN)
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Dennis Crowley '94, at Foursquare's headquarters in Manhattan's East Village. |
New York (CNN) -- Dennis Crowley was jogging across a New York bridge when he spotted something exciting: a cartoon mushroom, spray-painted on the sidewalk.
It looked like something out of Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros.," which Crowley grew up playing. He stomped on the mushroom as he ran by and had a sort of nerdy realization.
"I was like, s---!" he recalled. " 'I should get a power-up for that!' "
Since that moment several years ago, Crowley -- a 33-year-old who's always in a sweatshirt and wears an eyebrow-length mop of Justin Bieber-like hair -- has sought to turn adult life into a whimsical game. In his world, people should earn points and prizes for making random discoveries like that one.
His latest venture, a popular smartphone app called Foursquare, lets players use their phones to "check in" to the various restaurants, bars, art galleries and friends' apartments they visit in the course of their day. With each stop, they earn points; people who complete special challenges -- like visiting 20 pizza joints, staying out past 3 a.m. on a "school night" or being a serial karaoke singer -- get special merit badges, as if they were digital Boy Scouts. Click here for more
Xaverian grad drafted by NHL (Hometown Weekly)
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Chris Wagner credits Xaverian for helping him develop into the player he is today. "Playing at Xaverian gave me my foundation to learn to play with bigger, stronger kids," he explained. |
On the most important day of his life, Chris Wagner woke up earlier than normal. He ventured to breakfast with a few friends, and then sat on his couch, anxious. It was June 26, and a hopeful Chris opened his eyes that Saturday morning believing he would be selected in the NHL draft.
Surrounded by approximately 25 friends and family members in his living room, all eyes glued on the television, the message came in the form of a phone call from a friend of his in Los Angeles, where the draft was taking place. With the 122nd pick in the NHL draft, the Anaheim Ducks had handpicked Chris to become a member of their organization. Click here for more |