Jared's One Blog

« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »

October 31, 2006

Ensembles and More Ensembles

[On location in Laurel, Maryland]

There's not too much to report from Day 1 of the NCEP/NWS Ensemble User Workshop. Things got a bit interesting after the first session when some guys from the NWS and NOAA were having a rather heated discussion, with one NWS guy (Rich Grumm, State College WFO) wanting the resources in AWIPS to make more probabilistic forecasts available to the public (such as, "in five days it'll be in the 50s"), one of the NOAA guys responding that the superiors at the NWS recently voted down a proposal to do just that, at which point another NWS guy angrily responded that they were only providing for the government's stated requirements of NWS, i.e., deterministic forecasts (such as, "at 2pm five days from now the temperature will be 53 degrees"). Nothing like raised voices to snap you to attention from a drifting mind mid-morning. ;-) Basically one of the main themes out of today was that the "weather community" needs to communicate the uncertainties inherent in forecasting to the public much better than we are currently. Though it was somewhat amusing when one of the Air Force guys raised the point that for all this talk about uncertainty, none of the presenters had any error bars in any of their results. :-)

The second session of the morning was drastically less exciting, however. Not only was the subtopic rather dry, but all three presenters were Chinese and really weren't at all fluent in English. One of the guys was racing at breakneck speed through his broken English (couldn't understand him), another was speaking practically in a whisper (couldn't hear or understand him), and the other was just mostly unintelligible.

Fortunately the two afternoon sessions were much better. All six NCEP (Nat'l Center for Environmental Prediction) Service Centers (Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center, Aviation Weather Center, Climate Prediction Center, Ocean Prediction Center, and the Storm Prediction Center) gave summaries of how they're using ensemble forecasts in their products, and I was impressed with a lot of what they do. SPC has really got their act together too, let me tell ya. When a severe weather watch box is issued, they even give the probabilities that damaging tornadoes, hail or wind will occur within the watch area. And they're also doing cool things like forecasting the probability of 3 inches of snow melting in 3 hours (a proxy for accumulation on roads). Hopefully tomorrow's sessions will be interesting.

With the midterm elections just around the corner, it's newspaper endorsement season! If you want to see what is quite possibly the most negative written endorsement ever, scroll to the bottom item at this page. It's absolutely hilarious! On opinionjournal.com's "Best of the Web Today" feature, I've been following along in their "Unenthusiastic Endorsement Watch" segment the past few days, and as good as the others have been, this one definitely took the cake!

Well, I guess I should stop wasting time and start maybe trying to work on my Grad Synoptic homework a little bit... Maybe...

Posted by Jared at 09:15 PM | Comments (4)

October 29, 2006

Marko's Halloween Party

What is the nerdiest costume I could possibly have for Halloween? Any guesses? How about a vector? Yep, that's right. A vector. An obscure meteorological vector that many or most atmospheric scientists don't even know exists (I can only kind of explain what it is, it's a bit hard to grasp). Well, I don't know if it's the absolute most nerdy thing I could possibly do, but it's gotta be right up there. But I wasn't the only vector at the party, Walter showed up as a Q-vector (another, slightly less obscure meteorological vector), meaning that since I was a C-vector I had to be pointing 90 degrees to his right (yes, we even cut out little cardboard arrows from an old box -- we spared no expense!). We decided to make these really nerdy costumes because Paul (Dr Markowski, our prof for grad synoptic) had specifically asked everyone not to wear anything that was overly dorky to his party last night, which was practically an invitation to do just the opposite. ;-) So while Walter & I definitely had the nerdiest costumes on the night, there were some other pretty creative costumes at Marko's house last night, including Paul in an evening gown and tiara, Shabbott as FudgeEms, Aviva & Justin as trees, and Jim as Brian Monahan (a former grad student, now on-air weatherman down in Fort Myers, Florida). All in all it was a good time and a fun party, it's cool getting dressed up and seeing what other costumes people come up with.

After going to the 9am service this morning at the E Free church, I decided to tag along with Frame, Kerrie & Caren to a mass at the Catholic church, just to see what it was like. Shannon & Andrew will probably be somewhat disappointed they weren't around this weekend to see me go there, but it's not my fault they both decided to go home this weekend. :-P I'd never been to a Catholic mass before, and it wasn't all that different from what I'd expected. I'd also been to liturgical churches before, so while it was certainly very different from the services at my church, it wasn't totally foreign to me. I'm glad I went, to see first-hand what it was like, and now hopefully I'll be able to convince some of them to come visit my church some Sunday. ;-)

Speaking of church, check out these hilarious Lutheran t-shirts! The lutefisk one is really great, haha.

Over the last few days I've gotten a few more photo albums uploaded to my website, a couple to the Penn State section from the end of last fall semester, and a few to the Cumberland section over Christmas break. I'm almost caught up to New Years...

Well, I think I'd better finish with doing laundry and maybe start packing a bag or something. Tomorrow afternoon Walter & I will be heading down to suburban Washington, DC (Laurel, Maryland, to be exact) for a workshop on ensemble forecasting from Tuesday-Thursday. Our advisors want us to go down there and report back on what went down, so our only real orders are to "take good notes." At least we don't have to present anything while we're there, and the workshop is in the same hotel we're staying in, so that'll be nice. Maybe I'll post once or twice from down there if anything interesting happens.

Posted by Jared at 11:44 PM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2006

Vegemite Crackdown

As if US Customs officials didn't have enough things to do, like checking for illegal immigrants or inspecting baggage for terrorist devices or weapons, now they're cracking down on Vegemite. Harmless Vegemite. Okay, so maybe it's harmful to your taste buds, but whatever. It's really not so bad once you get used to it, and realize that it's not designed to be spread on as thickly as nutella (like many Americans mistakenly think at first). I hated it the first time I tried it, but it grew on me so that by the time I left I could actually tolerate it now and then. I never could bring myself to try a Vegemite & cheese sandwich like my friend Kieran was constantly urging me to do though, because I didn't wanna risk wasting a perfectly good piece of cheese. Now I'm kinda sad that I didn't bring a bottle of it back with me two years ago. Heck, it'd probably still be good. And when I say "good" I mean "not spoiled." I wonder if Vegemite is the Spam of bread spreads...

Yesterday was Jeff's birthday! Vic gathered a bunch of the grad students together a bit before noon to sing happy birthday and enjoy some of the ice cream cone-cupcakes he'd made for Jeff. Then in the evening a bunch of us took him out to dinner at Champ's, it was a fun time.

After I got back from dinner Dan, Shane, Bongsoo & Byran came over men's group to play some games and hang out for a bit. We played some Apples to Apples, teaching Bongsoo some new words along the way (such as "redneck," hehe), and after a bit Tim came by! We were all glad he was able to carve out a little time to stop by and hang out, since he still had a fair bit of stuff to do to get ready before leaving for Japan for a year this following morning. We're gonna miss having you around Tim!

The fall colours may be past their peak, but there are still plenty of good hues left on a few trees on the walk between Walker Building and my apartment. Maybe this weekend I'll take a drive over to Lewistown or something to take a gander at what colourful foliage is left. But then again, this weekend is looking pretty crappy, with rain starting tomorrow and lots of wind. I doubt there'll be many leaves left on any trees around here after this weekend with how windy it's gonna be.

This evening we had our fourth IM flag football game of the season, and it was yet another close, hard-fought game. After giving up a long touchdown play on one of the first plays of the game, we looked to be in trouble after Moyer threw an interception to set the other team up in good field position. Fortunately Steve picked off a pass on one of the next plays to keep us from falling behind by two scores. We led 8-6 at the half, and kept the game at that margin for most of the 2nd half before the other team went on a long drive, killing us with dink-and-dunk plays all the way for a touchdown to go up 12-8 with four and a half minutes left. We mounted a solid drive in response that got us all the way down to the 5-yard line or so, with a 4th and goal with 40 seconds left. The play was intended for Tim in the left half of the end zone, but I ran my route across the field and found myself wide open breaking toward the right half of the end zone. Fortunately Moyer saw me too and lobbed a pass my way, but initially both of us thought he'd led me way too much. Knowing that we'd lose the game if the pass fell incomplete I sprinted as fast as I could and managed to get to the ball in time, catching it and getting two or three feet in bounds in the end zone before my momentum carried me out of bounds! Our defense held on in the last 30 seconds to preserve the 14-12 victory, evening our record at 2-2. I'd never scored a game-winning touchdown in my life before (at least in a game that wasn't just between friends), either in flag football or ultimate frisbee, so I was pretty excited! I was just glad I was able to make it to the ball and hang on for the catch, since if I dropped it I would've lost the game for us. I doubt that Walter & I will be able to make it back from the NCEP Ensemble User Workshop in Washington, DC in time to make it to our final game of the season next Thursday evening, so if that ends up being my last game of the year that's not a bad way to go out! :-)

Posted by Jared at 11:57 PM | Comments (2)

October 24, 2006

Family Feud!

Tonight was the Chi Epsilon Pi initiation ceremony, and it was a blast. (Chi Epsilon Pi is the national meteorology honor society, and I'm an officer (the secretary/historian) for the PSU chapter this year.) After the free pizza and official welcome/initiation pledge to the new members, we had a fun game: Meteo 003 Family Feud! We divvied everyone up into three teams, undergrads vs grad students vs faculty, and they all were trying to guess the responses that 125 Meteo 003 (an intro to meteorology course for mostly non-science majors) students gave to the following questions:

1) What is the hottest place on Earth? (5 answers)
2) How many days per year are overcast in State College? (8 answers, multiples of 10)
3) What is a weather phenomenon you associate with damage? (6 answers)
4) What is something you associate with meteorologists? (8 answers)
5) In what weather phenomenon can you observe an "overshooting top"? (6 answers; everyone cracked up when they saw there were six answers to that one, hehe)
6) On a 500-mb map, where would you find the lowest pressure? (10 answers, which again cracked everyone up)
7) What is the warmest temperature ever recorded in Alaska? (6 answers, multiples of 5 in degrees Fahrenheit)
8) How many inches of snow fell in State College last winter? (7 answers, multiples of 5)

Basically, knowing what the real answer was to any of these questions was not a guarantee of guessing the most popular answer, and sometimes not even of guessing any of the survey responses. After a slow start in the early rounds, the faculty held off the grad students in the final round to claim the victory, but everyone seemed to like the game and have heaps of fun, we were glad about that. If any of you out there want to try to guess what some of the responses were, feel free! I'll let you know if you were right or if you earned a strike. :-)

Well tonight I finally started to run SCIPUFF (the dispersion model I'm using) to create the model runs that will be a primary part of my thesis project. For the amount of model time I'm running it for and the amount of data I'm having it write out (and the huge size of my domain), each run will take somewhere between two and four days in real time to finish, I'm estimating (it just took 22 hrs for it to finish a test 6-hr model run, but I'm needing a 24-hr dispersion model for each ensemble member). Multiply that by 19 ensemble members that I need to do this for, and I might be able to be done with these SCIPUFF runs by Christmas. Ugh... But at least I'm starting to make real, visible and tangible progress on my thesis project.

Posted by Jared at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2006

So Much for Voting...

I guess I won't be voting in this year's midterm elections after all. I just got around this morning to checking if I could register to vote here in PA, only to find out that the voter registration deadline had already passed back on the 9th. So then I gave a call to the clerk for my township back home in Wisconsin to find out if I could request an absentee ballot, since my permanent address is still listed there. No dice there either, because apparently the State of Wisconsin passed a new law effective this year that requires ALL voters (even if they've voted in that precinct in elections in past years) to (re-)register to vote, and that must be done in person. Now, I take my civic responsibility of voting seriously, but not quite seriously enough to fly home for the November elections. I'm really bummed that I won't get the chance to vote this year (though I'm sure many of my friends are actually quite happy that I won't be voting...), but it really is my own fault for not checking into any of this stuff sooner. Sigh.

Last night was Tim's last Bible study with PSCG before he leaves for Japan for a year this Thursday (assuming his visa arrives), so after the study we all went out to Meyer Dairy for some ice cream. He's going over to the University of Tohoko in Sendai to do some thesis research in infra-sound before finishing up at PSU, which sure sounds cool to me. All of us in PSCG are gonna miss him, that's for sure. I wonder if I'll still be at Penn State when he gets back from Japan...

The snow geese are definitely honking in State College now. Today we had our first non-liquid precipitation of the season, which is always exciting. I heard from somebody that there were some very light flurries around 10 or 10:30 this morning, but I didn't see anything until this evening when I was driving back into Walker to do some research work. There was some rain, some snow, some sleet, a lot of waffling back and forth -- the precip was definitely pulling a John Kerry. Anyway, now that we're past peak fall colours, I'm ready for winter! Bring it on!

Posted by Jared at 11:55 PM | Comments (1)

October 21, 2006

Scary Moment

I've always dreaded the time of the semester when midterms roll around, but this semester is really the least stressed-out I've ever been about midterms. Hmm, maybe that has something to do with only taking one class, but I could be wrong. At any rate, our midterm for Grad Synoptic was this past Wednesday evening, and boy oh boy was it a blast. It was so fun I even decided to stay for three and a half hours. Now what better way could you imagine to spend an entire evening? I can't think of anything... In all seriousness though, the test was horrendously long, like two-plus homework assignments, yet Dr Markowski somehow expected us to finish it all in an hour and a half or two hours. Well, pretty much everybody was there past the three-hour mark, so his estimate was just a little off... I was panicking during the first hour of the test that I wouldn't even get 20 points on it, but I calmed down and kept pecking away at it, so that now I don't think I failed at least. But that's really all you've gotta try to do in a grad-level elective, just not embarrass yourself, because the grades really and truly don't matter. We've been told that in our other grad classes, but now that I'm past the core classes I really feel like I can accept that mindset, it's really relaxing!

We had our third IM football game of the year on Thursday evening, and the weather was much nicer (calm and 70 degrees) than last week (very windy and 40 degrees). (That nice weather ended mere minutes after the conclusion of our game, with a heavy rain that lasted till morning; we sure finished just in time!) Yet before the game even started our team had quite a scare. We were running a couple warmup plays before the game, and Glenn jumped up to try to tip the pass on the defensive line, but wound up falling and hitting his head on the ground. When I'd turned around from running my route, it only took about a second to realize something was very wrong, because Glenn was laying on the ground and not moving. So I quick called 911 on my cell phone while others were trying to find an IM trainer (and the IM refs didn't have a clue what the phone number for the trainers was, argh!). During the call he finally regained consciousness (he was out cold for probably a minute or two), but the paramedics still came and took him to the hospital in an ambulance. Long story short, he suffered a concussion but is otherwise okay; he was released from the hospital after only an hour. So he's definitely listed as "doubtful" for next week's game on our injury list...

As for the game, we played much better than we did last week, battling to an 8-8 tie at halftime, and I had two catches for first downs in the first half. Late in the second half we were tied at 14, but were in line for the win because we had 6 first downs to 3 for the other team (first downs are the first tiebreaker). They got the ball back with under a minute left and drove down the field, scoring a touchdown on a controversial play with 10 seconds left. Their team should've been called for several downfield blocking penalties on their scoring play, but the refs didn't throw a flag because their linemen were simply "running downfield" into our defenders. I'm sorry, but that's the definition of blocking downfield. Argh. I wish the intramural organizers would take a little time to train the IM referees and introduce them to the rules, it might be nice. Anyway, it was a tough way to lose 22-14, but we still played quite well the whole game I thought.

On Friday I was finally able to pick up at the post office a package that Josh had sent me for my birthday from Japan. Its contents: not a stuffed animal but a stuffed tea-drinking daikon (a giant Japanese radish), some daikon stickers, some odd stationery, and a plastic sushi toy set, haha. The Japanese have issues. Major ones. But I did manage to find a good spot for the daikon, on my office computer. Thanks Josh!

Katie & I tried to teach a few more people how to play Hand & Foot last night over at Jacob's place, but it didn't go so well. I think we've now established that eight players is a bit too much unless everyone is already really familiar with the game, because otherwise it just goes a bit too slowly to keep everyone's interest. Oh well. But while we were playing Hand & Foot there were a bunch of other people over there playing Risk and LOTR Risk, so it was quite a busy game night! We also fit in a few fun games of Fluxx, a really fun card game for mindless fun, because the rules/goals constantly change, rendering strategy essentially irrelevant, hehe.

I bought Jon's ticket for the homecoming football game today vs Illinois. I'd only been to one other game this year (Akron), and that one was kind of tainted by Ernesto's soaking rains. But it was a wonderful day for a football game today, and it turned into a much closer game than anyone would've liked. The Fighting Illini really are a pretty bad team, but they were dominating the Nittany Lions through the first half, en route to a 9-3 lead. Penn State's defense finally began to stiffen in the 2nd half, setting up a short field for the offense to pull ahead 10-9, and then right after that they returned a fumble 6 yards for another TD to go up 17-9. Late in the 4th (under 1:30 left) after Illinois had cut the lead to 17-12 we sacked their QB in the end zone for a safety, sending the Beaver Stadium crowd into a frenzy. Then the ensuing onsides kick was run back 29 yards for a touchdown, giving Penn State 9 points in a 10-second span, spurring them on to their 26-12 victory. So despite the margin and the exciting finish (my voice is pretty hoarse from all that cheering), I'm pretty worried about Penn State's lousy offense, which seems to be in hibernation mode. If they don't start playing with at least a little bit of a pulse on offense they're gonna get throttled at Wisconsin in two weeks...

And Happy Birthday to Josh and Mike! I hope you both had a great day!

Posted by Jared at 11:10 PM | Comments (2)

October 16, 2006

Depressing Game

Sigh. Penn State's defense played their hearts out against Michigan's offense and gave us a chance to win, but unfortunately the PSU offense could do jack squat against the Wolverine D. I knew coming in that Michigan had the better team, and that was definitely on full display last night in their 17-10 victory. And I knew that the only prayer Penn State really had to win this game was that it was at home at night (in front of 110,007 loud fans), but even that couldn't rescue the Nittany Lions this game. What killed Penn State was their porous offensive line, which led to a bundle of drive-killing sacks and starting QB Anthony Morelli and backup QB Daryll Clark to be both knocked out of the game, Morelli with a concussion, and Clark with what looked like could've also been a concussion not too long after that. Fortunately Penn State never quit, with their third-string QB leading them to a TD with 3:30 left to pull them to within a touchdown at 17-10, and we even got the ball back with 1:30 left, but it was ultimately too much to ask a third-string QB to pull off a miracle comeback against one of the best defenses in the country. Michigan simply out-played Penn State in this game, and I'm glad that the referees (finally) didn't play a major role in a PSU vs scUM game. At least the tailgate before the game was fun! Andrew & Vic came over to watch the game at my place, and Vic almost decided to spend the night over here instead of going back to his house, where he'd have to deal with a likely insufferable Jeff (a couple weeks ago Vic had said that either the Yankees needed to beat the Tigers or Penn State needed to beat Michigan, or else he'd move out of the house for a week just so he wouldn't have to be around Jeff, haha).

Talk about a gorgeous day that we had today. You really couldn't ask for a better day to go for a hike, which is what I did with a bunch of other people from Penn State Christian Grads. We drove up to Jo Hays Vista just south of town on Hwy 26 in Rothrock State Forest, and hiked down Jackson Trail for 1.5-2 kilometers along the ridge-top and back again, taking some long breaks at a couple beautiful vistas, overlooking the valley and the next ridge. It was really good to get out of State College and out into nature for a couple hours. I'll leave you with this panoramic shot I took today that turned out nicely.

Oh, and one more thing. Which of these three photos below should I submit to the Gustavus Int'l Photo Contest? The deadline for submission is Tuesday the 17th, and I'd appreciate your input via comments or emails!

Posted by Jared at 12:26 AM | Comments (5)

October 14, 2006

Operation Kilverine

Well, our IM football team is no longer undefeated. We lost on Thursday evening 14-12 to a team that had lost 62-0 the week before. The cold, strong wind played a HUGE factor in this game though, as neither team was able to score into the wind (we led 12-0 at the half). Oh well. We've just gotta regroup now and go out and win our next three games.

Football weekends are a really bad time to go out on the town on a Friday or Saturday night because all the bars and restaurants are absolutely packed out, and traffic is extraordinarily bad with 50-80,000 visitors in town. So last night Jacob, Mario & I went over to Walter's place to play a game of "Lord of the Rings Risk." It's the second time I've played that version of "Risk," and I really enjoy it. With the different board and the extra rules nobody can use their traditional "Risk" strategy, so it's fun and new. It was a pretty long game, and after a good six and a half hours I managed to pull it out. It was kind of a strange game though, as in the late stages there were two separate battles for the same territory, where the invader had over 120 armies and the defender had over 50. Now that's a lot of rolls of the dice!

All the talk around Happy Valley this week has been about the Penn State vs Michigan game. This is definitely the most-hyped and anticipated game on the Nittany Lions' schedule this year, and it's been circled on the calendar ever since the Wolverines beat Penn State 27-25 last year on the last play of the game (I won't get into the series of atrocious officiating calls that allowed that play to happen in the first place). Penn State fans are extraordinarily bitter at Michigan, because the Wolverines have won the last 7 meetings between the two teams, and 8 of 11 overall.

With this game being televised nationally on ABC (okay, to the eastern two-thirds of the country), and with it being a night game (8pm EDT kickoff), the obvious comparison for this game is to the Ohio State game last year, which was a nationally televised game at night against a top-5 team. The major difference from last year to this year though (apart from PSU being undefeated at 5-0 and ranked in the teens before the Ohio State game, as opposed to being 4-2 and just outside the top 25 right now), is that last year all the excitement and exuberance in the week leading up to the game was more pro-Penn State than anything else, even though there's no love lost between PSU and tO$U (THE Ohio $tate University). This year it's quite different, it's almost more about distaste for Michigan than positive support for the Nittany Lions. Penn State fans hate Michigan more than any other team (myself included, though that also comes from being a Golden Gopher fan growing up and being bitter about never having the Little Brown Jug...), and there literally is so much pent-up rage against Michigan that I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there are riots or some such incidents after the game tonight in State College, regardless of the outcome. I really hope that doesn't happen, but it wouldn't be a total surprise if it does.

Anyway, with Jeff [Frame] being such a die-hard Michigan fan (it's his alma mater, so I guess that's kind of an excuse...), we couldn't let that slide without anything happening. So Vic & I hatched a plot, a covert operation dubbed "Operation Wolverine" to re-decorate Jeff's office for Friday morning. Before Jeff got to Walker, we showed up with plenty of blue & white Penn State clothing, shakers, signs, pictures, rally towels, a footy scarf, and Vic brought up their life-size JoePa cardboard cutout and snuck Jeff's beloved Wolverine stuffed animal out of their house. I've included three pictures here showing our handiwork. Take special note of the stuffed Wolverine: Vic bound and gagged it, and then hung it in a phone-cord noose from the ceiling. We didn't hang it until Vic performed some spinal surgery on it, however, in order to remove its two batteries, to prevent it from playing the Michigan fight song, "Hail to the Victors," when squeezed. When Jeff walked in and saw our display, the first thing he did was to squeeze the Wolverine, but got mildly upset when it didn't play anything, haha. Then he rescued it from the noose, but apart from that he liked the display and wasn't upset by it or anything. It's just some good-natured teasing, that's all. :-)

So what's my prediction for the game? Well, Michigan is ranked #4 in the country and I think is clearly the better team right now. If this game were being played anywhere other than here at Beaver Stadium at night, I'd pick Michigan to win. However, considering the absolute zoo that Beaver Stadium will be tonight (a stadium-wide whiteout, around 110,000 screaming fans, and everyone's of course more jacked-up for a night game), and with how fired-up the players undoubtedly will be, I think the atmosphere and emotion will carry Penn State to a 17-13 victory. I think it'll be a tough, defensive struggle, and the Nittany Lions definitely need to "uglify" the game to have a chance to win. If it turns into a shootout I highly doubt Penn State could keep up, especially with how good Michigan's defense is.

Hail to the Lion, Loyal and True
Hail Alma Mater, with Your White and Blue,
Penn State Forever, Moulder of Men,
Fight for Her Honor, Fight, and Victory Again

Fight on State, Fight on State,
Strike Your Gait and Win.
Victory we Predict for Thee,
We're Ever True to You, Dear Old
White and Blue.
Onward State, Onward State,
Roar, Lions, Roar!
We'll Hit That Line, Roll Up the Score,
Fight on to Victory Evermore,
Fight on, on, On, on, on,
Fight on, on
Penn State!

If you wanna hear some of the above songs or other fight songs for the Big Ten, click here!

Well, it's time for me to make some lunch, go pick up Andrew and then ruck up to the tailgate! I'm so pumped for the game, even though I don't have a ticket! It should be an absolutely electric atmosphere everywhere in this town too all day, it'll be fun!! Be sure to watch it on ABC tonight at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central, and be sure to cheer for the Nittany Lions!!!

WE ARE... PENN STATE!!
FOR THE GLORY OF OLD STATE, BEAT MICHIGAN!!
LET'S! GO! P.S.U.!

Posted by Jared at 12:06 PM | Comments (2)

October 10, 2006

Retreat!

Hooray for there being no classes this past Friday! Even though it's still fairly early in the semester, having a day off now and then is always a welcome thing. In Penn State Christian Grads we took advantage of the Fall "Study Day" by having our first-ever Fall Retreat. We'd been planning the retreat since summer, and rented out the Stone Valley Recreational Area Experimental Forestry Lodge, which is about half an hour outside of State College in the middle of nowhere, past McIlvaney's Fort. We got started around 10:30am with a time of worship, and then Ashley, a Campus Crusade staff worker at (University of) Michigan Christian Grads who is in the process of transitioning/moving to help us out here at PSCG, gave a couple of really interesting talks about "The Heart of a Grad Student" and "Trusting God with Our Desires." Essentially, both talks were discussing what it means to approach being a grad student from a Christian perspective, and they provided some very good food for thought and discussion. In the afternoon we had a bit of free time to do whatever, and several of us took a hike in the forest surrounding the lodge we'd rented out. For a lot of it we were kind of blazing our own trail a bit, but we made it back just fine and in good time. :-) After supper we had another worship session and some more discussion and a prayer time. We wrapped up by 7:30 or so, putting the close on a really valuable retreat. It was a day well spent with the other 18 or so people that came, with getting to know all of them a bit better, thinking about and discussing all of these issues, and just getting to relax a bit.

Upon our return to civilization after the retreat though, my cell phone all of a sudden received six new text messages that had been sent to me at various stages during and after the Twins game, informing me that they lost Game 3 in Oakland 8-3, allowing the A's to complete a 3-game sweep and advance to the American League Championship Series. That was rather disappointing, but the Twins still accomplished quite a bit this year, coming back from a 25-33 start to finish 96-66 with the Central Division title. There's a lot to look forward to for next year, particularly with Torii Hunter coming back (the Twins picked up his $12 million option for next season), and especially if Francisco Liriano can make a successful return from the elbow injury that kept him out of most of the last two months of the year. 2007 should be another exciting year in baseball's best division, the AL Central. But as for what remains of this year, I was thrilled to see the Yankees and their $220 million payroll choke once again, this time to the Detroit Tigers, who are just three years removed from a 119-loss season. Incredible. I kinda hope they go all the way, AL Central pride!

Saturday was another lazy college football Saturday. Andrew came over to watch the Penn State-Minnesota game with me, a game that got far more interesting than it should've been. With their poor red zone execution the Nittany Lions kept letting the Golden Gophers hang around, and they eventually forced overtime. The Gophers scored a TD but then promptly missed an extra point, at which point you just knew the Gophers were going to lose -- they keep coming up with creative and agonizing new ways to lose close games each year -- but they actually should've won this one. Penn State threw an incomplete pass on 4th down on their OT possession, but were rescued from an embarrassing loss by the officials with a questionable, ticky-tack pass interference penalty on the Gophers. It technically was pass interference, as there was contact made before the ball got to the receiver, but it wasn't severe enough to warrant a flag at any point during the game, especially not late in the game, in my humble opinion. Penn State went on to score the tying touchdown two plays later, and won 28-27 when they actually converted their extra point kick. I think it's safe to say Penn State escaped with that win... I was cheering for Penn State during the game, but not quite as wholeheartedly as I would've against any other team (like Michigan or Ohio State, for example).

This Sunday morning was the first time I'd played piano with the worship team at State College Evangelical Free Church, and the first time I'd played piano in public since, oh, the summer of ought-three. We had rehearsal on Saturday evening, and it definitely took some adjustment to get used to playing with other instruments/vocalists again, I hadn't done anything but play solo (and I hadn't even done much of that) since I accompanied a couple vocalists way back in freshman year at Gustavus in 2001-02, if I recall correctly. But anyway, once I got into the swing of things it made it easier to follow the changes that Blair was wanting to make. I kinda botched the first song in the first service on Sunday morning, but nobody claimed to have noticed, so I guess that's good. I did manage to fix several of my mistakes by the time the second service rolled around though, so that was good. Despite the mistakes that I know I made, I'd say it all went pretty well, I was fairly pleased. I think I'll probably be volunteering my services at the piano about once a month or so (potentially more often) for the duration of my time here in State College, whether that's 7-10 months or 3 years.

I was 14-0 in picking NFL games this weekend, sweeeeeet... Too bad it didn't gain me much ground in the standings, as pretty much everyone in the two pick 'em leagues I'm in had 3 or fewer games picked incorrectly. I'll still take 14-0 in a week though. :-)

Hey all you scientists (budding or established) out there, you wanna throw your students/professors/readers for a bit of a loop? Try using some of these crazy units next chance you get. Seriously, some of these are bizarre. Like a barn-megaparsec, a hobo power, or a Smoot. With these units, it's even clearer that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42, to within a conversion factor. :-) Hat tip: Cory Christenson.

I think this county sheriff in Texas has got the right idea: force inmates in the jail to wear pink jump suits, sleep in beds with pink sheets in rooms with pink walls. It certainly seems to be helping to deter repeat offenses, which is one of the primary goals of incarceration, is it not?

And an Australian driver was recently cited for going 66 km/hr (roughly 30-35 mph) -- in reverse! They'd been driving for about 20 km before being stopped, supposedly because their transmission "stuffed up." In addition to the citation, I would have to imagine that the driver got one heck of a crick in his neck from driving in reverse for 13 miles!

And the National Weather Service is currently forecasting for 1-3 inches of snow to fall back home in Cumberland tomorrow. Talk about an early start to winter! There's even an outside chance that we could see a few stray snowflakes here in State College on Thursday night, but I don't expect that to happen. Fortunately the forecast for Saturday is looking up though for the much-anticipated football game against the hated 4th-ranked and undefeated Michigan Wolverines. It's looking like it'll be dry, thankfully, though it will be a bit on the cool side. My prediction for a game-time temp: 41 degrees. Hopefully the Nittany Lions capitalize on the incredible atmosphere and home-field advantage (110,000 screaming, jacked-up fans crammed into Beaver Stadium!) surrounding this game with a victory.

BEAT MICHIGAN!

Posted by Jared at 11:04 PM | Comments (2)

October 09, 2006

Too Tired

I was planning on writing up a post about the retreat and what all went on this weekend, but since I elected to spend much of the evening in Walker Building trying to get a move-on on my research project, and go to Quaker Steak & Lube with Frame, Walter & Vic for Walter's birthday (Happy Birthday Walter!), I'm far too tired to sort through my pictures and write about all that. Especially since I really should be sitting in on undergrad Synoptic at 8am, ugh. Maybe tomorrow evening?

For the Glory of Old State... BEAT MICHIGAN!!

Posted by Jared at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2006

Season-Opening W

The intramural flag football season is finally underway! All the practice (a month and a half's worth) and preparation (our massive 10-pg playbook, haha) is now being put to the test, and we passed our first test tonight with flying colors. Our offense was on fire, scoring touchdowns on our first seven drives of the game, and our defense played quite well en route to a fun 38-14 victory for Mid-Life Crisis. It was 38-12, but Moyer took a kneel-down in the end zone for a meaningless safety on the final play to run out the clock. If anyone wants to come watch, we have four more games this year on each of the next four Thursdays at 6pm on IM field #1, right next to the music building.

Talk about another frustrating Twins game. Right after Grad Synoptic, Jacob & I went down to Bill Pickle's Tap Room downtown to catch the last half of the game. It was 2-0 Oakland in the 5th when we got there, so things were looking a bit down again. But then the Twinegmatics came to life in the 6th inning with back-to-back solo home runs by Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau. The front patio door at Pickle's was open to the sidewalk, and apparently I was cheering and shouting so loud that I could be heard half a block away, haha. But that was it for the positivity on the day, as in the next half inning Torii Hunter dove for a ball in shallow center field and missed it, allowing the ball to roll all the way to the wall, resulting in a 2-run inside-the-park home run for the A's. That totally deflated the Twins and killed all the momentum they'd just built, and they wound up losing 5-2 to fall into a 2-0 series hole. Now we just need Brad Radke, whose arm is practically falling off (torn labrum and stress fracture in his throwing shoulder), to give us a gutsy performance tomorrow to stave off elimination. We need to win two in Oakland to send it back to the Metrodome for a deciding Game 5, but I still believe!

In the other ALDS series, kudos to the Tigers for evening their series with the Yankees today 1-1! Whatever happens with the Twins, I want to see the Yankees lose.

Also today I got a letter in the mail from a somewhat anonymous friend at the University of Minnesota (judging from the envelope), and the only thing in the envelope was a 2006 Homer Hanky! But there was no note and no name anywhere, but while I can't be sure who it was at this point, I have a sneaking suspicion it was Jolene who sent it. :-) At any rate, whoever it was, thanks!! I hope to have a chance to wave it around on Saturday for Game 4, because I won't be able to catch Game 3 tomorrow afternoon, due to spending all day at the Penn State Christian Grads retreat out at Stone Valley, way out in the boonies.

I wonder if this study will lead to all sorts of senior citizens toking it up in nursing homes in the near future... :-)

Posted by Jared at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2006

Pair of Aces

Man, what a tough loss for the Twins. Johan has a rough second inning in which he gave up two runs in an otherwise very solid start, but against Barry Zito of the A's that was too much. Zito didn't exactly have dominating stuff, but the Twins hitters let him off the hook far too many times by swinging at bad pitches and making other dumb little mistakes. There were a few other Twins fans aside from just Jacob & I that made the short trek down to Sports Cafe to watch the game, so that was kinda fun, but obviously it would've been more enjoyable had the Twins won, instead of losing 3-2 to fall behind Oakland 1-0 in the best-of-5 series. The Twins have dug themselves a hole, but I still believe they can come back and win. After Grad Synoptic tomorrow Jacob & I will be heading back downtown to catch the last half of the game. Go Twins!

The leaves are changing around here, and I noticed some pretty nice fall foliage in the neighborhood around my apartment, so I took a bit of a circuitous walk home this afternoon and snagged a few pictures. I think peak is gonna happen probably this weekend or early next week, which would be a week or so earlier than last year. And in addition to the leaves that are turning all sorts of different hues, on Sunday afternoon there was an absolutely gorgeous double rainbow that I took a few pictures of. It was one of the most beautiful rainbows I've ever seen, as both arcs were rather bright and visible in their entirety, from horizon to peak to horizon. There really aren't too many where you see the full arch, much less a full double arch. And there were places where I could see a hint of a third rainbow inside the primary arc. I tried to take a panoramic shot of the entire rainbow, but that didn't turn out well at all, le sigh.

I don't think I've ever in my life practiced piano for three hours in one stretch, but I came very close to doing that tonight. The time just sort of went without me noticing too much, although I was kinda tired afterward. On the plus side it's looking like I should be able to have everything down reasonably well before the worship team rehearsal on Saturday evening. And with all the time I'm putting in, that better be the case...

Posted by Jared at 11:06 PM | Comments (1)

October 02, 2006

AL Central Champs!!

I think I can probably be officially taken off the "injury list" for flag football, as the finger's back to 90 or 95% and I'm able to practice piano just fine without pain. At church yesterday Blair gave me sheet music for the six songs I'll be playing with the worship band next Sunday, so I went to work right away yesterday evening and tonight. I've put in well over three hours so far, and I'd say they're all starting to come along, which is an encouraging sign since I have less than a week to learn them. I'll be playing at both the 9:00 and 10:30am services on Sunday morning, so if I screw up in the first service I'll get another chance at redemption during the second one. :-) If it goes well I'll volunteer my services at the keyboard a few Sundays here and there, both simply to serve and to utilize the talents God has given me.

After getting back from Damon's yesterday, where I'd gone to watch the Vikings-Bills game with Shannon & Ken, I tuned in to the last couple innings of the Twins' regular season finale against the White Sox, which the Twins won 5-1. The sellout crowd stuck around in the Metrodome after the game though, because the end of the Tigers-Royals game was being aired on the Jumbotron; the Twins radio broadcast stuck around and described the action on the screen and the reactions of the crowd to every pitch. It was pretty exciting, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from the mlb.com GameCast of it as well. Finally in the 12th inning the Royals pulled through and completed their comeback from a 6-0 deficit to win 10-8, enabling the Twins to win the AL Central division title, their fourth in the last five years!! It's been a long road back, at one point being 12 1/2 games behind Detroit, but the Twins became the first team in major league history to take sole possession of a division or league lead for the very first time on the last day of the season. But hey, it's where you're at at the end that counts, and that's why they play all the games. Frame had previously all but pledged to cheer for the Twins in the playoffs (unless they're playing the Tigers of course), but he was still rather bitter today about his team choking and losing the division title, so we'll see if he comes around tomorrow. :-)

The first game of the playoffs is tomorrow at 1pm, and you can bet that Jacob & I will be taking a chunk of the afternoon off to head down to the Sports Cafe to watch Johan Santana take on Barry Zito. GO TWINS!! And then in the evening, you can bet I'll be cheering for the Tigers against the hated Yankees. I loathe the Yankees more than any other sports team, no question. I'm just glad that we don't have to face them in the first round, thank you Detroit!

An extra result of the Twins winning the Central and having dome-field advantage for the first round of the playoffs is that the Penn State-Minnesota football game will take place as originally scheduled this Saturday. If the Twins had won the Wild Card the game would've been moved all the way back to November 25th. It would've been nice to have an extra week to prepare for hated Michigan, but I think PSU will benefit more from playing Minnesota this week, to give Morelli and the other young guys a little more game experience before being thrown into the prime time, national TV meat grinder against the Stink Bears. Even though I don't have a ticket (and won't get one, they're going for tons of money), I'm really looking forward to the Michigan weekend, it's gonna be crazy here in Happy Valley!

There's more that happened the last few days, but I'm feeling lazy. And tired. Once again:

GO TWINS!!!!!

Posted by Jared at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)