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November 29, 2006

Deer Camp Humor

I've been surprisingly productive the last couple days, even (and maybe especially) yesterday's post-vacation hangover day. Frankly I'm a bit surprised at my productivity, but I did need to be getting stuff done, and I do tend to work best when I'm under a bit of pressure to get things done. I spent a couple hours tonight here at home working on stuff for research, but I think I need to pause that for a bit starting tomorrow so I can get a jump on my homework that's coming due soon. And so that I can start practicing piano tomorrow evening for this Sunday's service. Apparently the worship set for this week's been in flux for various reasons, but Blair said he'd get me some or all of the music tomorrow, which'd be good, since Sunday is rapidly approaching...

I just thought I'd pass along this rather funny photo (at least I think it's funny) from "Deer Camp" at my house last week. My Uncle Gary, older brother Aaron, and two of Aaron's brothers-in-law (and one of his nephews) were up for deer hunting the weekend before Thanksgiving until Tuesday midday, before I made it back home. At any rate, Aaron shot a half-rack four-point buck (meaning the antlers on one side were broken off, but there were four points on the antlers that were still there), and I guess they all thought it'd be great to put the deer in a funny pose before they cleaned it and cut it up. So as you can see, they set up the buck behind Dad's brush mower, to make it appear as if it were pushing the mower, haha. I love northern Wisconsin. :-) I just wish I would've been there in person to see it!

This story about the military's new explosives-detection technology is way too cool not to bring up. Bomb-sniffing bees? Better bee-lieve it.

Posted by Jared at 12:28 AM | Comments (3)

November 26, 2006

Mom's Day Out

Thanksgiving is over and done with, le sigh. It was a good break though, but as a rule, not nearly long enough. Oh, and I accomplished absolutely nothing over break, but that was to be expected.

On Thursday Nathan & Laura and their four kids and Jake all came over for Thanksgiving dinner. I wound up playing several games of Battleship throughout the afternoon with my nieces Miriam & Rebecca. Jake played a couple with our nephew Andrew as well, and after cocking off to Andrew (who is only seven) about his sure-fire strategy to win every single game of Battleship, Andrew beat him! It was so hilarious when he came over to the couch and told Mom & me, "Uncle Jake is not the master of Battleship," and continued to talk smack back to Jake for a few minutes, haha! I'd rate that as one of the highlights of the day, for sure.

On Friday I spent most of the day hanging out with Mike over in Rice Lake, watching football and playing pool and stuff, and trying to convince him to consider applying to grad school at Penn State next year when he's a senior. :-) We also went to the theater to see the new James Bond movie, "Casino Royale." I really liked it, it's a great Bond film, and I think Daniel Craig makes a better Bond than Pierce Brosnan. I didn't initially know that this was a remake of an old Sean Connery Bond film, but I did know that it was sort of a prequel, so when there were brand new $100 bills and other references to 2006 I was somewhat confused at first. I had also told Mike right before the movie where my brothers & I were taking my Mom the next day, so when a Body Worlds exhibit made an appearance in the movie we both had a laugh. :-) After the movie we went over to the Corner Bar in Cumberland to meet up with Amy T., Pete & Dave for supper, and I hadn't seen any of them in quite awhile. Pete & Dave were definitely making up for lost time though, in the making fun of me department, haha. Anyway, they left after supper, but Mike, Amy & I stuck around and ran into a few other random people at the bar, which was fun.

Yesterday Nathan, Aaron, Jake & I (and Dad) took Mom out for a day to celebrate her 60th birthday, which was back on Sunday, to fulfill her birthday wish to spend a day with her four sons. So we all met up at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown Saint Paul and took her to the Body Worlds exhibit. They banned photography inside the exhibit, so I'll do my best to describe it. Body Worlds is an extremely popular traveling exhibit comprised of a whole bunch of plasticized cadavers and organs from people that have donated their bodies to science. It may sound morbid and gross, but it was actually really cool and very artistic. Very few of them had any skin on them at all, as the main object was to show the muscles, organs, arteries, nerves and skeletons of a whole bunch of people in a wide array of poses, to illustrate how the human body is put together. Some showed the skeleton with all the nerve tissue preserved, some bodies had only the blood vessels preserved (and nothing else), some were dissected into a series of cross-sections (not unlike cheese you'd get at a deli), and some showed the full muscular system, or the muscles peeled away to show the tendons and joints beneath. There were also many whole and cross-sectioned organs to demonstrate the differences between healthy ones and diseased ones (I was wishing I could take pictures of the healthy lung vs smoker's lung to make into an e-card to send to Frame, haha). And then the last thing in the exhibit was a really cool plasticized horse and rider, with the rider holding his brain in one hand and the horse's brain in the other. Again, it all sounds like it might be a bit crass, but it was quite cool and educational. Anyway, then after we were done at the Science Museum we drove over to downtown Minneapolis for dinner at The Oceanaire, which is definitely the nicest restaurant I've ever been to. It was also the best meal I've ever had, everything from the crab cake and steamed mussels for appetizers, to hash browns a la Oceanaire and wonderful creamed corn for sides, to my main dish of New Zealand barramundi in citrus soy sauce. Mmmm, it was all soooooo good... And then, knowing it was my Mom's 60th, the waiter brought out some flambe for dessert, spiked with Bacardi 151. :-) We just wanted to take Mom out somewhere memorable for dinner for her birthday, and I think we accomplished that, hehe.

We spent the night at Aaron & Eve's, and then after taking me for a drive through the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, they dropped me off at the airport for my flight back to Pittsburgh. Both the flight and then the drive back to State College with Jacob & Andrew were uneventful, and we're all back safe & sound here. Tomorrow's gonna be the start of a very busy week though (research, hw, piano practicing, etc), so I don't know if there's gonna be a whole lot of bloggish activity happening this week. You never know though. But first, time for a good night's sleep, to get the week started on the right foot. Hopefully.

Posted by Jared at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2006

Thanksgiving Break, At Last

[On location in Cumberland, Wisconsin]

Even though it was tiring, this past weekend was pretty fun. Carl came up from Baltimore for a visit this weekend, and so he was able to experience a true-blue (and white) State College weekend, what with there being a home football game and whatnot. We didn't get tickets to go to the game, but we did go up to the tailgate by mid-morning with Jacob & Andrew, making the 40-minute walk through downtown and campus to where it was all set up. (And the "Welcome Hunters" tailgate right behind us was the definition of "hey buddy," with their blaring country music, sawhorse-n-plywood tables, Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 solo cups, and the American, Confederate and Texas flags. Why does anyone, especially up north, still display a confederate flag? It's infuriating, but I guess if they wanna be dumb then they can go right ahead and proudly display it to everyone.) It may have been only 40 or 45 degrees and cloudy out, but it was still just about the nicest weather we'd had for a tailgate this fall since it was neither wet nor windy. We've really had terrible luck with the weather on game days this fall, but oh well. Anyway, after the power hour everyone else left for the game, and Jacob left to go play with his band live on the radio, Carl, Andrew & I made our way back to my place, catching the 3rd quarter of Penn State's thoroughly unimpressive 17-13 victory over Michigan State in their regular season finale, before leaving for Champs.

We decided to watch the Michigan-Ohio State game up at Champs to get a bit more atmosphere, and we got up there just in time, as people who arrived just after us weren't able to get a table for a really long time. Eventually Luna, Levy, Shannon and her parents joined us too. It was a great game to watch, with the Buckeyes coming out on top 42-39. I was even leading the occasional cheer of "O-H! I-O!" much to Andrew's delight and Shannon's dismay (a couple elbows to the side couldn't stop me, haha). I think a Michigan fan got to the projector though, because the only colours coming through were yellow (very brightly, I might add), and blue (though to a lesser extent). The reds of the OSU uniforms and the green of the field all faded into various shades of grey, it was strange. Anyway, the game, as good and entertaining as it was (whatever happened to those two supposedly stout defenses???), wasn't as close as the score indicates, because Michigan never had the ball in the 4th quarter when they were within one score. I'm just glad that the Wolverines lost, I really can't stand them. Now all sorts of people are clamoring for a rematch, but I really think that'd be a terrible idea. Michigan already had their chance; now it's time for another team, like USC or Arkansas, to get a shot. I might consider boycotting college football if Notre Dame gets into the title game (slurp slurp), or if they get put into the Rose Bowl to play Michigan for a second time this year I might skip watching the Rose Bowl for the first time in 15+ years. I really don't need to watch a game between my two most despised teams that's a rematch of a slaughter that already happened earlier this year.

Word to the wise: a block of breaded and deep-fried cheese, even if slathered in marinara sauce, does not make a very good supper by itself.

After the game a bunch of us went out to the Phyrst to celebrate Kerrie's birthday. It was fun, but the Phyrst was horribly crowded since it was a home football weekend. So alas, there weren't any table wars happening, and we weren't able to hear the Phyrst Phamly band, though that did enable us to be able to talk to each other a bit. After standing in pretty much one place for about three hours though, I was getting pretty tired, especially after all the standing and miles of walking I'd done already that day.

After I got back from church on Sunday it was time to make some fruit compote and help Carl make a couple of pies for the meteo grad Thanksgiving celebration up at Houserville. Their 18-lb turkey was a bit tardy in getting done, but I think the waiting made everything taste all the better. There was so much food, I was a fan of everything that was brought, it was all so good! Two plates of normal food plus a full plate sampling every dessert was more than plenty to fill me up. I guess it'll just be practice for the family Thanksgiving meal this week. :-) We should totally do meals like that more often! Carl left for Baltimore right after the meal, and I made it back to my apartment just in time (literally, I beat Kristin & Caleb there by a few seconds) to host Bible study. After that it was definitely time to crash.

It was so hard to focus on Monday, I think my brain was already on vacation. About all I managed to accomplish was gathering together the stuff I needed to take home with me for break.

Yesterday I made the 3-hr drive from State College to the Pittsburgh airport with Andrew & Jacob, with Jacob on my same flight to Minneapolis, and Andrew on a flight home to Chicago a half hour later. Fortunately the long lines moved fairly quickly, and fortunately the security folks were nice enough to let me keep my Nalgene after they dumped out the water that was in it, oops. The flight was uneventful, and my parents arrived to pick me up an hour after I landed. Now I'm home at last and just relaxing. Maybe I'll consider doing some reading for classes/research, we'll see... If anything's gonna be accomplished it's gonna have to be today probably, since tomorrow's Thanksgiving, Friday will likely be filled with something, and Saturday my brothers and I are taking my Mom & Dad somewhere for my Mom's 60th birthday, which was last Sunday. Since we still haven't told her where we're taking her and since she reads my blog at least occasionally, I'm keeping it a secret from all of you too for the time being. :-)

[update at 5:35pm CST:] Check out the beautiful sunset that happened here an hour ago, reflecting in the icy skin atop the lake!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Posted by Jared at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2006

Fun and Anti-Fun

Tuesday night's fun: Going out to the Darkhorse to celebrate Shannon passing her thesis defense.
Tuesday night's anti-fun: Coming back to my laptop whigging out and giving indications that my hard drive might be on its last legs. Cleaning out old data from my external hard drive and setting up transfers of all my important files meant I got well over an hour less sleep than I would've liked.

Wednesday's anti-fun: Being witness to substantial bickering. Reading a journal article about growth rates of baroclinic waves of different wavelengths in the evening.
Wednesday's fun: Dozing off while reading said journal article.

Thursday's fun: Watching a squall line approach and then come through the State College area, dumping over half an inch of rain in ten minutes (storm total over 1.3"). From the 4th floor windows in Walker, watching motorists try to navigate the flooded streets (both Atherton and the intersection on the other side of Walker, by the frat house), and watching one car die in the middle of the giant puddle near the Walker intersection. Snickering at the local National Weather Service office issuing a Tornado Warning for Centre (ours) and Clearfield Counties upon examination of the radar. Dr Young saying during his colloquium talk, "That's like asking which is faster, a snail or granite?" Watching a very entertaining football game between West Virginia and Pittsburgh, including seeing Pitt return a punt for a touchdown, on probably what will be voted on as the play of the year in college football.

Friday's anti-fun: Climate control in Walker (unbearably warm in most rooms). Narrowly missing out on first place in the grad student category for the two-week Jackson, Mississippi period in the WxChallenge national forecasting contest.
Friday's fun: Carl's pending arrival in an hour and a half or less! It's about time to start makin the spaghetti! :-D

Tomorrow's projected fun: Morning tailgating, watching the Penn State vs Michigan State game and then the Ohio State vs Michigan game on TV with Carl, Andrew, Jacob and whoever else cares to join us wherever we wind up. Being a rent-a-fan for tO$U and donning whatever extra Buckeyes gear Andrew has out here. Ohio State hopefully winning. Potential trip to The Phyrst on a Saturday night! Woo!
Tomorrow's potential anti-fun: If Michigan wins.

Sunday's projected fun: Going to church, making fruit compote and apple pie (Carl's creation) for the big meteo grad Thanksgiving meal at Houserville on Sunday afternoon! All the triptophane might cause me to sleep through PSCG Bible study at my place in the evening, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

As you can see, there's plenty of fun to be had in Happy Valley! I'd better get to it!

Posted by Jared at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2006

Wow I Must've Been *Really* Tired

Here's how tired I was last night after this weekend (see last night's post)... There was a fire in the neighboring apartment building on the 3rd floor this morning at about 5 or 5:30 or so. Our apartment is a corner one on the ground floor, and my bedroom window is right next to the driveway, which separates our building from the neighboring one by about 15-20 feet. The apartment on fire also was right next to the driveway, so was literally only about 30-40 feet from my window. There were fire trucks right outside with sirens blaring and lights flashing (literally right in the narrow driveway between our buildings, and just 3-5 feet from my slightly open window), there were generators running, they were breaking open windows, there was just a lot of commotion in general -- and I didn't wake up until my cell phone alarm rang at 6:15!! After a few minutes of laying there after my alarm went off the first time I noticed that it was a bit lighter outside than usual (due to headlights, I'd soon discover), I could hear an engine or two idling, and I could see a couple flashing red lights through my blinds. I peeked out and was puzzled to see two fire engines and a smattering of police cars parked out in the street doing apparently nothing except blocking traffic. So I went about my routine, and eventually saw my roommate, who asked, "So, did the fire wake you up?" I said, "Yeah, I heard engines running and saw some lights just after my alarm went off," to which he replied, "So no, you slept right through it. How did you do that?!?" That was basically the same incredulous response I got from Shannon & Steph, whose apartment is on the 3rd floor at the opposite end of the building, because they were awakened by the sirens and everything too. So that was the start to my day. Just thought I'd share. I've woken up for fire alarms and other commotion in the past, so I'm just really surprised that I slept right through sirens from fire engines parked RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. WHEN IT WAS OPEN. I'm glad it wasn't a fire in our building... Maybe this is a sign I shouldn't work myself so hard in the future. :-)

And by the way, I was able to find out that fortunately no people or pets were injured in the fire, they were all able to get out safely in time, but the kitchen of that apartment was gutted. I don't know what the cause of it was at this point.

Went to Shannon's defense this morning, and she did a good job. Still waiting to hear the outcome of the grilling by her committee and to find out if they passed her or not, keepin fingers crossed...

[update at 10:54am]: Shannon passed! Woohoo! Congratulations, Shannon!!

Well, time to get to work, for serious. Stuff needs to get done before lunchtime and 25-cent wings (last week they were down to 25 cents, but we'll see if that was a trend or a mirage) come a-callin at Sports Cafe with Daniel & Jacob.

Posted by Jared at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2006

Wake-Up Call

It's no coincidence that my recent lack of bloggish activity has directly coincided with a pretty stressful weekend. The first draft of a 2-4 page paper about our research project was due for 580, and since my advisors are wanting to show the final version of it (along with the 12-minute powerpoint presentation I'll have to create) to DTRA when they come up in mid-December for the IPR (interim project review), I thought I'd pass my first stab at it along to Sue & Joel. Wellllll, let's just say that the content and aim of the paper wasn't up to snuff, and I got a rather forceful email from Sue that was a huge wake-up call. I was basically in a panic the rest of the day and I'm sure I had a deer-in-the-headlights look all afternoon and evening, even after Dr Shirer gave the class an extension on the paper until this morning. It's at least up there with the most stressed-out I've ever been. So Thursday night I was in Walker until 2am catching up on reading and then writing summaries on some journal articles I needed for my lit review section (that's one of the things I was chewed out for).

Friday from 9-3 I was in an all-day meeting with our entire research group plus Ian (the creator of SCIPUFF, the dispersion model we're all working with), and by the end of that I was getting a much better idea of what my thesis project is actually about, and feeling much more calm about the work I had cut out for me this weekend. The meeting (coupled with not much sleep the night before) kinda wore me out, so I took the evening off, going down to the Sports Cafe for a couple hours with Andrew before comin back here to play some Fluxx and Cranium upstairs at Steph's place with a few people. That was a much-needed break, allowing me to come in fresh to spend almost all day Saturday (2-11) at Walker workin on the outline and then starting the paper (I figured that would be a better use of my time than going tailgating and watching Penn State crush hapless Temple 47-0 in the rain), and then all Sunday afternoon too. I polished it off this morning, and was very relieved to get an email back from Sue saying that this version was "*much* better." To paraphrase Moyer, hooray for advisors no longer hating the ground I walk on, haha. I think I'm gonna sleep very well tonight.

I was excited that Andrew & Kerrie decided to join me at church this Sunday. I wonder if they'll be back again in the future, it'd be really cool if they did. :-D

After the busy weekend I felt like taking the evening off, so tonight I went with Frame & Moyer to the Penn State vs UNC-Greensboro men's basketball game (yes, it's basketball season again, it's hard to believe). The Spartans put up a fight, keeping the game tied as late as 11 or 12 minutes into the second half, but the Nittany Lions finally pulled away late to cruise to a 69-56 win, putting their record at 2-0 on the young season. After their improvement last year with a very young team, I'm actually optimistic that the Nitts can be .500 or better in the Big Ten, and even sneak into the NCAA Tournament in March. Now that'd really be somethin' for a Penn State team that has a tradition of being a doormat in the conference! Are you in?

And good luck to Shannon at her M.S. thesis defense in the morning!!!!

Posted by Jared at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2006

Midterm Mixed Feelings

I was unable to vote in yesterday's midterm elections because of mixups about voter registration deadlines, but I was still very interested in the outcome of yesterday's races. Was I disappointed that the Democrats took over control of both houses of Congress? Absolutely. But was I surprised by that? Absolutely not. And, for what it's worth, here's my two cents on what went down: The Congressional Republicans deserved to lose. They did absolutely NOTHING in the last 3-4 years on topics such as Social Security reform, virtually nothing on immigration reform, they lacked the courage to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (which have allowed the economy to take off in the last 2-3 years), and then spent like drunken sailors on pork-barrel projects, earmarks, creating a new Medicare entitlement (instead of reforming the whole program, argh), vastly expanding the federal Dept of Education (which should be much smaller or even eliminated -- leave it to the states), and other things. And then on top of the massive spending several Congressmen were, shall we say, ethically challenged, if not outright crooks. People like that deserve to get thrown out of office at the ballot box, if not before, and that's the beauty of the American political system. Good riddance to them.

Basically, what happened last night was a failure of Republicanism, but not a failure of conservatism. The Democrats didn't win last night's election, the Republicans lost it. They lost it for many of the reasons I listed above, but also because the Democrats knew that in many districts they could not win if they ran a liberal candidate. As a result, several moderate to conservative Democrats got elected in place of Republicans. Conservatism (defined not as the dictionary definition of not wanting change, but rather as the set of ideals that American conservatism has come to represent in the last 30-40 years or so -- mainly centering around limited government, free markets, and the fostering of a culture of personal and fiscal responsibility) generally wins at the ballot box, and I'm convinced that if the Republicans wake up and get back to a 1994-type conservative mindset (especially emphasizing fiscal conservatism), that they will win in 2008. Unfortunately, that's a big if. And that's why I definitely consider myself a conservative and not a Republican. It's better to stay true to a set of ideals than to stick with a party that can constantly change its focus and its character. The plus side about the Democrats controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate? They'll have a fantastic chance to show the entire country just how loony and bereft of good ideas the MoveOn.org/Daily Kos wing of the Democratic party is, because they're the ones who will be in control (Pelosi, Kennedy, Waxman, Conyers, Murtha, etc). Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully the Dem win last night won't lead to cutting and running from Iraq without finishing the job like they forced in Vietnam 30 years ago. We all know how wonderfully that turned out for America...

Also, isn't it curious how the day after the Democrats win, the mainstream media is silent about potential irregularities with voting machines and counts and whatnot? It's quite different from the last few elections when Republicans won and the Left and their accomplices in the media threw a tantrum and were screaming about stolen elections and voter fraud, because it's of course impossible for them to lose fair and square... It seems that the Right has accepted the election results with dignity and a lack of childishness (for the most part), and has decided to be optimistic and turn their attention to 2008. A very different behavior.

Switching topics, Moyer passed along a very interesting story about global warming to me this afternoon. I highly recommend that everyone check it out, because it raises some very good issues.

Well, time to read maybe a little bit more in a journal article or work some more on the first draft of my paper for 580, and then definitely time for bed earlier than usual. I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should the last few nights, and staying up until 2am to watch election coverage sure didn't help. Oh well, I'll live.

Posted by Jared at 10:59 PM | Comments (6)

November 05, 2006

Operation Christmas Child

It's good to be back in State College. The workshop was starting to get really exhausting, especially with so many of the talks being rather dull and/or obtuse, in addition to the obligatory talks given by some foreign scientists speaking an almost unintelligible form of English (I think). Also, the organizer wasn't bulldogish enough about keeping the presenters on schedule that they wound up taking away half of our lunch period, again. Ugh. By the final afternoon of the workshop on Thursday was the actual workshop portion of the workshop -- they had everyone (and by everyone, I mean the half of the attendees that were still there on the third day) split up into different working groups to discuss various issues and come up with recommendations. Thing is, that was such little time for all these issues to be decided upon in the groups and then discussed with the rest of the attendees, that all the discussion had to be wrapped up a bit prematurely, causing everyone to request more workshop and less conference at the next workshop, whenever it's held. If that makes sense... Anyway, Sue & Dave will be debriefing Walter & me tomorrow morning about what we learned at the conference. We'll see if I learned enough to satisfy them...

Yesterday was a busy day. After watching Penn State and their anemic offense lose to Wisconsin 13-3, it was time to head over to Nittany Mall to meet up with a few other people from Penn State Christian Grads. As a group we were getting together to buy a bunch of gifts for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry run by Samaritan's Purse. After we bought a bunch of gifts we all went back to Ed & Ellen's place to wrap them and play some games once we were done with that. All told we filled up eight shoeboxes, one each for boys and girls in the 2-4 and 5-9 age ranges, and then two shoeboxes for boys and girls in the 10-14 range; we figured that for toy drives the older kids usually get overlooked a bit, so we decided to have extra shoeboxes for that category. We have no idea what country or countries our shoeboxes will get sent to, but hopefully they'll touch the lives of the kids that receive them, and their families.

Late Saturday night I joined a bunch of the meteo grads at Zeno's to watch "Cootie Brown," a jazz funk/fusion band that Jacob plays in on the congas and other auxilliary percussion. It was their first gig in State College, and we were all excited to go hear them. They played in Lemont once this summer but I couldn't make it (I was bummed I didn't get to hear the song about the Lemont-ster!), so I was really looking forward to this. And I must say, Cootie Brown is definitely the best band that I've heard in State College in my year-plus of living here. There's such an oversaturation of 80s/90s cover bands that it's refreshing to hear something different. That, and I really like that kind of music too. :-) The owner of Zeno's was pointed out to me, and I told him, "You guys really should hire Cootie Brown more often," to which he replied, "They'll be back." (And this was before he went on stage and jammed out with them during one of their last songs!) A few of us stuck around for both sets, all the the until they finished at 2:15am, so I was tired today but it was very worth it! I had tons of fun, and I can't wait until they play again here in State College!

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