« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »
December 31, 2007
I'm With Fred
I'm back in State College now. I haven't gotten much sleep the last couple nights, so I didn't feel much like going out and partying at Shawn's for New Year's Eve. Instead, I figure I may as well get all unpacked and settled back in and whatnot (I already made a monster grocery run to Wegmans to replenish my empty shelves), so I can get to bed at a (relatively) decent hour tonight and hit the books tomorrow morning.
I haven't talked a whole lot about politics on my blog lately, but with the "Hawkeye Cauci" happening on Thursday (finally...), I figure it can't hurt to announce who my horse is in this wide-open race. Like most conservative voters, I wasn't thrilled with any of the original top-tier candidates (Giuliani, Romney, & McCain) -- while each of them have areas in which they're pretty solid, I just can't trust any of them further than I can throw them, based on their records and positions in other big areas. Same thing now goes for Huckabee, who's nothing but a liberal who happens to be pro-life. When any candidate is running purely on identity politics ("I'm a woman, vote for me!", "I'm a minority, vote for me!", "I'm white, vote for me!", or Huckabee's virtual slogan, "I'm an evangelical Christian, vote for me!"), that's a major black mark in my book. Sorry, but when running for public office (especially when this isn't a theocracy), you need to run on ideas, not identity. I'm sure Huckabee would make a fine pastor, but he's done nothing to convince me that he'd even be a competent president. In fact, I have to say that I'd prefer *any* of the other Republican candidates over Huckabee. He's really rubbed me the wrong way since he busted his way into the top tier. Ron Paul is intriguing, because while I strongly disagree with his stance on the Iraq war, I respect the bulk of his views, because they're almost all about limiting the power of the bloated federal government.
The candidate that most closely represents the majority of my political views in this campaign, however, is Fred Thompson. While it's true that he hasn't done the best job of explaining himself and getting his views out there since he threw his hat in the ring late last summer (which has been disappointing to me), he's proven himself to be a calm, deliberate, thoughtful candidate who isn't going to pander relentlessly to interest groups like everyone else. And that's precisely the sort of person we need in the White House. He's also the only Republican candidate who has outlined specific proposals for tax reform, social security reform and immigration reform. So while there might be a couple issues here or there where I might disagree with Thompson, by and large I agree with him on most of the big stuff, certainly far more than any of the other candidates.
Here's to hoping Thompson can put up a strong showing in Iowa on Thursday, and thereby gain momentum heading into the other states' primaries. I'm with Fred!
Posted by Jared at 09:53 PM | Comments (1)
December 30, 2007
State of Hockey
[On location in Minnetrista, Minnesota]
Sigh, Christmas break is over for me. Well, at least the Midwestern portion of it. Now comes the significantly less fun study/cramming phase for the next few days in my apartment back in good ol' central PA. My brother Aaron's gonna take me to the Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport tomorrow morning, and then my flight's slated to depart around 10am, and after a brief stopover in Detroit I should be landing in State College by 4pm. Oh, and do I have New Year's Eve plans yet? Nope, nothin' yet. Even though I probably won't feel like doing it, it's more likely than not that I'll just wind up studying tomorrow evening. New Year's Eve is overrated anyway. :-P
But at least I got in one game night over break with Nathan & Laura, on Thursday night after Bible study when we played a very competitive game of Power Grid until late into the night. I love board games...
Yesterday my oldest brother Nathan and my Mom drove me down to the Twin Cities to my other older brother Aaron's house (where I am "on location" currently). After they left Aaron & I left for downtown Saint Paul to go to the beautiful Xcel Energy Center for the Edmonton Oilers vs Minnesota Wild hockey game. 
We didn't have tickets, so we had to walk around a bit before the game and find someone outside the arena who was selling good tickets for a not-too-ridiculous price (it was still gonna be a major splurge though). There were surprisingly few scalpers selling tickets outside the X though, but we did manage to find a pair of really good tickets -- row 14 behind the penalty box, basically right at center ice. 
Fantastic! First off, I was very impressed with the X. It was the first time I've ever been inside the Xcel Energy Center, and while I haven't been to very many stadiums, I can see why many people regard the X as the best stadium/arena in all of American sport. I mean, it was nice (and I'm not talkin Minnesota Nice, I'm talkin really nice). 
As for the game itself, the Wild started out playing like crap, giving up a short-handed goal to the Oilers barely before everyone had settled into their seats. The Wild trailed 2-1 at the end of the 1st period, and then about halfway through the 2nd period the Oilers scored their second short-handed goal of the night to take a 4-1 lead on Minnesota, which drew hearty and deserved boos from the 18,500-strong sellout home crowd for their mental lapses and poor effort. 
The Wild did get one back shortly before the 2nd intermission to draw within 4-2 and get the crowd back in the game. After a would-be Oilers goal was disallowed at the start of the 3rd period, the Wild came storming back, tying the game at 4 with 5 minutes to go in regulation, sending the game into overtime (giving us even more hockey for our money!). Not too long into the extra "sudden-victory" period, an Oilers penalty gave the Wild a power play, and the Wild scored on it! 
What a great game we picked to go to! A one-goal, come-from-behind victory that went into overtime, what more could you ask for? For them to come all the way back from a 4-1 deficit and win the game after playing like crap for the first period and a half was pretty cool to see. Very much worth it, in my opinion, and a heck of an introduction to professional hockey! I also recorded video clips of the Wild power plays in the 1st period and overtime on which they scored their first and game-winning goals, respectively. Someday I'll get those posted, either to my website or to YouTube. After the game Aaron & I went over to one of his neighbor's houses to watch some UFC fights, including a really good fight between Chuck "Iceman" Liddell and Wanderlei "Axe Murderer" Silva. Ultimate fighting is pretty entertaining, I must say!
During the Wild game I was also getting frequent updates from Jeff [Frame] via text message about how both the Patriots-Giants game and the Alamo Bowl between Penn State and Texas A&M, in which the Nittany Lions beat the Aggies 24-17! Thanks for all the texts, Jeff!
Well, I'm guessing that this might very well be my last blog post (except for possibly one or two pretty short ones if I feel like it) until after I'm done with the PhD Candidacy Exam (January 7th and 9th). Wish me luck! Happy New Year, everybody!
Posted by Jared at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2007
Boxing Day Blogging
[On location in Cumberland, Wisconsin]
Apparently all I needed to do to see some appreciable accumulations of new snow was a change of scenery. After getting piddly amounts of mostly sleet in PA the couple weeks leading up to Christmas break, I come back to the Upper Midwest and suddenly we've gotten snow almost every day I've been home! We've gotten over a foot of snow since I've been back, it's fantastic!
The blitz of visiting with friends and family over break has continued. Back on Friday night I went into Cumberland with my younger brother Jake to hang out at the Corner Bar and Club Cumberland, because we figured there'd be quite a few of our friends from high school out, just like the last couple years, what with it being the weekend before Christmas and all. There were a few people out, but not nearly as many as I was anticipating. I did get to talk for a little bit with some people though, including Profe (my Spanish teacher), Pete, Lindsay, Troy, Mike & Shaun, mostly hanging out with Mike & Shaun.
On Saturday afternoon I drove down to the Twin Cities to have dinner with a bunch of my friends from GAC Physics. Along the way I stopped in Taylors Falls, MN to take some pictures of the Saint Croix River and Interstate State Park, including the snowy panoramic above! 
Unfortunately not everyone from our physics class of '05 was able to make it, but we still had a pretty good turnout. After dinner most of us went over to Jolene, Zach & Ben's apartment 
near Lake Calhoun to hang out for a good long while. John, Carl & I wound up staying overnight there, and then early on Sunday morning Carl & I went with Zach & Jolene to their church in downtown Minneapolis.
The drive back up to Cumberland was a snowy, windy one, with quite a bit of blowing and drifting snow making the drive interesting. We got about 8 inches or so up here in Cumberland, so it was a nice little storm. A few hours after I got back, then Aaron & Eve arrived with their two kids. 
Mike & Shaun also came over in the evening to watch the Redskins-Vikings game in sparkling HD. HD certainly didn't make Vikings QB Tarvaris Jackson see the field any better. That guy sucks. I really hope the Vikings draft somebody like Colt Brennan to be their QB. But it was still so frustrating to see the Vikings to play so badly in a game they had to have, where all they had to do was win to clinch a playoff berth. Now they need both to win this week and have Washington lose, else they'll be sitting at home for the playoffs. Given how they've played though, I don't really think they deserve to get into the playoffs.
Christmas Eve was a gorgeous day around here, and Ella and Mathias really enjoyed sledding on the fresh-fallen snow quite a bit. Anyway, we had our family Christmas celebration on the evening of Christmas Eve, so Nathan & Laura and their kids arrived in the afternoon, and Jake came over a bit before dinner too. 
And man oh man, Eve made quite a spread for Christmas dinner, we would've been hard-pressed to have a better meal at a restaurant. Aaron & I basically made the dessert ("stuff in a cup," as we called it, haha), 
but that was just a minor contribution to the whole thing. And then of course there was the gift opening and all that; I gave my dad a long-sleeve blue Penn State fleece, and from Aaron I got a Minnesota Wild t-shirt and winter cap (in a pink Victoria's Secret box, hahaha). Now I can be properly attired at the Wild game that Aaron & I are planning to go to this Saturday night. :-) And then who knew that "300" would be a fine Christmas Eve movie, too?
On Christmas morning Aaron took Ella & Mathias out sledding again, and this time I joined them. It was great snow for sledding (not very good for "snowball exchanges" (apparently the PC term for "snowball fights" -- argh!!) though), Aaron & I were making it all the way from the top of the hill by the garage just about down to the creek, which is a good long way. Aaron & Eve left after lunch, then Nathan & Laura and the kids came over for some sledding, games and dinner. Full days with family, just as Christmas should be. :-)
Today was a pretty lazy day overall, though overnight and into the morning we got another 4 inches of snow, meaning I had to shovel again. I really don't mind shoveling too much, especially since I really only have to do it a couple times per year when I come home for Christmas. Maybe my attitude would change if I had to do it every other day the whole 6-month Wisconsin winter again!
Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to some candidacy studying...
Posted by Jared at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2007
Smooth Sailing
[On location in Cumberland, Wisconsin]
Home again, home again, jiggity jog. On my way home from the Twin Cities last night, one sure sign that I was at last back in Minne-sooooo-ta was that I was able to order a walleye sandwich for dinner. You sure can't get good walleye in central Pennsylvania (or any walleye, for that matter)!
So the "weather porn" that I mentioned last week? Yeah, about that... Of course it didn't verify. These things never seem to. The forecast storm tracks kept inching further and further westward as the weekend approached, eventually indicating maybe we'd get a little sleet mixed in with the snow, then a fair bit of sleet, then finally by Saturday morning it was clear we'd be getting almost entirely sleet with a healthy mix of freezing rain/drizzle thrown in for good measure, before getting dry slotted. And that's exactly what happened. Sigh... It looked so promising for so long, too... It was so frustrating. Can't we please just get a good all-snow winter storm in here someday? It doesn't have to be a Storm of the Century-type storm, but a nice snowfall of a foot or more would be wonderful.
To celebrate the end of the semester, and primarily to celebrate Mario & Jon passing their PhD Comprehensive Exams, a bunch of us went out to Bar Bleu a week ago. Who wants to do studying on a Friday night anyway? :-P
I got my Christmas shopping all done on Saturday before the "storm" arrived, instead of studying for finals. This is the third year that my family's elected to have all the adults draw one name of a person for whom to buy a gift, and I must say it certainly reduces a lot of stress that would otherwise be there from buying gifts for a bunch of people. It also makes it easy to get all my Christmas shopping done in one stop. ;-)
My old laptop computer sold last weekend on eBay for $475 + S/H to some guy from Quebec, so I got that shipped out on Tuesday morning. I had hoped for a bit more, but I'm still satisfied with that price. If only I hadn't been so lazy and sold it back in August or September instead of December, perhaps I could've gotten another $300-$400 for it. Oh well. At least I got what I got, it's still a pretty decent amount.
I'm all done with Atmospheric Turbulence class! We had our final exam on Tuesday afternoon, and I think I did reasonably well on it. Just like the midterm, all the questions on the exam were (mostly) from the review sheet Dr Wyngaard had given us, and since I'd focused on the "key concepts" in those review questions, that turned out well for me. At least I didn't embarrass myself. Since grades don't matter much at all in grad school, that's really all I aim for in exams in classes anymore (other than actually learning the material, of course). It just doesn't pay to worry myself sick over trying to get an A.
Representatives from DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency) were up at PSU this week for a series of IPRs (interim/annual project reviews), as they have six research contracts with groups from Penn State Meteorology. And, as usual, the IPRs were conveniently held during finals week, just when all us students are most stressed out. But anyway, my project's IPR was the last one of the group, late morning on Wednesday. Joel & Sue gave me a half-hour slot for my talk and some question time, which was largely a recap of my M.S. thesis work from earlier this year, and I think it went fairly well. So once I was finished with that, Christmas break commenced!
In the last couple weeks when I was working on my presentation and scanning through some articles so that I could contribute to some slides that Sue needed for her talk, I suddenly came up with a potential topic for my PhD dissertation! So here's my idea (warning: contains jargon): Using WRF (and possibly MM5 and other numerical weather prediction (NWP) models), examine different initial/boundary condition & NWP ensemble initialization techniques for mesoscale short-range ensemble forecasting systems, and their relative impact on atmospheric transport & dispersion uncertainty, paying particular attention to both wind direction variability and atmospheric boundary layer height variability. For those of you who didn't understand all that jargon, I guess it could basically be boiled down to that I want to investigate how different ways of initializing weather models impacts uncertainty in predictions of where some chemical would be transported & dispersed after a release. I got pretty excited when that idea popped into my head, because I had been struggling for months to come up with a good idea for my dissertation topic. I still need to do a bit more of a lit review to see if someone's already addressed my topic, but I'm pretty sure it's a niche topic about which nothing specifically has been published just yet.
My flight was scheduled to leave State College yesterday morning at 6:10am, so I got up at 4am to get ready and finish packing, and Ash was nice enough to come by my apartment at 5:15am to take me up to the airport. It was my first time flying out of SCE, and from what I'd heard from other people, showing up half an hour early was usually plenty of time since it's such a small airport (only two gates and one security checkpoint line!), but apparently yesterday morning was abnormally busy. By the time I got through the check-in line and the security line, it was already after our scheduled departure time. So by the time everyone actually boarded, the plane was de-iced, and they had burned off over 500 lbs of excess fuel to make weight, we finally took off for Detroit at 7:10am. That hour-long delay caused me to miss my original connexion to Minneapolis/Saint Paul. If I would've been able to run a 4- or 5-minute mile pace I might've been able to make it all the way to the gate to catch it, but I decided it just wasn't worth it, seeing as how there are 15 flights per day on Northwest between DTW and MSP. So instead I just went to the gate of the next flight departing for MSP (about 45 minutes after my scheduled flight), and they put me right on it. So I only had to wait about 20 minutes at that gate before boarding my new flight, so it turned out to be way more relaxing than sprinting across the terminal of a huge airport. :-) And my luggage even managed to follow me onto my new flight too, so it all turned out nicely. I'm all for not letting myself get stressed out over anything while travelling, especially flying, because there's nothing that I can do about the process anyway. It is what it is, and for me it's usually worked out fine and I've gotten where I'm supposed to go, even if it's often a tad later than expected.
An good friend of mine from high school, Scott (he's the one who was in the Navy for a few years as a rescue swimmer), picked me up at the airport in the Twin Cities right after he finished up his last final exam of the semester. So for lunch we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings and had a couple drinks to celebrate the end of the semester, and we just had a great time all day hanging out, catching up and reminiscing. I'm so impressed with how Scott's changed over the last few years, and glad that he's become such a good friend. Scott & Katie definitely have a lot on their plates right now though, what with a new house, Scott in school, and their new baby arriving in Feb or March sometime, plus being incredibly active in church and Bible studies and everything. They're definitely an encouragement.
The early-break blitz of visiting friends & family will continue the next few days. Maybe late next week I'll take some time out to start studying for the Candidacy Exams again. It definitely feels good to be home again, even if exam anxiety is gradually growing ever-larger in my thoughts this Christmas break. Bloggish activity shall continue in the coming days as I feel so motivated.
Merry Christmas! And safe travels, everyone!
Posted by Jared at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2007
Weather Porn
Yup, that's what some of us jokingly call what the models have been indicating the last several runs in the past 24-30 hours: a monster snowstorm for PA this weekend! It's had us snow-lovers drooling and absolutely giddy all day! Usually "weather porn" is something we just laugh at as some far-fetched and ridiculous output of a model that predicts the perfect scenario for us to get an outlandishly huge storm in one model run, and we don't expect to see it ever again in any future runs (or in reality, for that matter). Here's a textbook example of weather porn, a Penn State e-Wall display of the 06Z GFS run this morning, valid for 12Z Sunday (and you don't even have to be a meteorologist to tell that it looks like something big and impressive is happening!):
This time has given every indication of being different, however. Most of the models are in rather marked and consistent agreement (for this far out, especially) that there's gonna be a low pressure system moving out of the deep south and up the Atlantic coastline, with the strong temperature gradient between the cold land and the warm ocean leading to what's called bombogenesis -- explosive deepening of the low pressure system. While it might not bomb out as ridiculously much as the model run above, it still looks like a powerful winter storm. In any case, as the system starts to bomb out, it'll cause massive amounts of precipitation in the mid-Atlantic states and throughout the Northeast, and it's consistently looking like the track is gonna be one that's very favorable for heaps of snow here in central PA late Saturday and into Sunday. Seriously, we're talkin north of a foot here! The projected precip amounts were even more than that earlier today (2-3 feet?!?), but hey, I won't really complain about a foot of snow (even though I managed to do just that in the Valentine's Day 2007 storm...). Let's hope this verifies, I'm stoked for the chance at a big snow!!
Congrats to Mario & Petters, who both passed their comprehensive exams today!
And 4th floor Walker didn't actually smell much of smoke yesterday. The only place that had an odor of it was the corner of 4th floor that's down by 401. And the damage wasn't anything picture worthy, as it was very minimal.
Posted by Jared at 12:17 AM | Comments (2)
December 10, 2007
Walker 911
And to think that before the weekend I didn't think I had anything to blog about! This weekend sure gave me enough interesting material, so since my time is short as we start the final week of classes this semester, I'd better get started.
We had a new, fresh covering of snow back on Wednesday from a clipper that came through. We got about 2 or 2.5 inches of snow out of it, which made for a really pretty (and cold) walk into campus on Thursday morning. 
I guess even writing about this is more than anything just an excuse to be able to stick in one or two pictures that I took that morning. ;-)
The weather markets were very kind to me this week, forecasting for Wenatchee, Washington. WxChallenge was also kind to me, as I was able to finish tops amongst PSU forecasters for the city (huzzah!). But despite being a western city in a mountain valley (making it somewhat unpredictable) plagued with data problems (mysterious spikes in temps overnight which always seemed to benefit me, problems with precip obs because the snow melter wasn't working, and spurious wind obs with gusts above 150 mph, etc...), I was able to make a decent amount of money in the markets. It took me the first forecast day to get used to the markets, so that by the time of the second market of the week my "aggression meter" was properly calibrated. ;-) But I'd say that making a tidy US$35 profit on just two forecast days was a fine intro to the world of the weather markets. :-D Unfortunately the markets are now on a hiatus (along with WxChallenge) until late January when we start forecasting for New Orleans for a couple weeks. On the plus side I won't have that as a distraction in this last week of classes and then finals!
Shannon came down for a visit this weekend, so after a few of us going out to eat on Friday night, we went to the Penn State Icers hockey game vs West Virginia. It was a fun game, as hockey games are wont to be, and #2 Penn State downed #13 West Virginia by a 5-1 score. After a relatively tame start to the 1st period, then it got rather chippy out on the ice, as both teams realized they really don't like each other. Let's face it, that's what makes for entertaining hockey. :-)
And then on Saturday night practically the whole meteo crew crowded into Brett & Lori's house to spring a surprise 30th birthday party for Brett. Lori had arranged it and given someone keys, and conveniently took him out to dinner so that we could all get there and lay in wait for them to get back. And we sure did surprise Brett, he was quite startled to see someone's silhouette when he opened the door! It was a very fun party, I'm glad we were able to pull it off as a total surprise.
My old laptop didn't end up selling on eBay. The highest bid at the end didn't quite meet my reserve price, so I relisted it this afternoon with a slightly lower reserve price, and international shipping options to Canada, Australia & Europe. Hopefully both of those things will make it a wee bit more sell-able. I guess I'll find out next Sunday afternoon... I really hope it sells this time, I wanna have it sold and shipped out before I head home for Christmas break.
The excitement today came with a phone call around 5:30pm from Caren, asking if I'd heard the rumors that Walker Building was on fire (!!). Now that got my interest sufficiently piqued, so I drove into campus to see what all the fuss was about and if there was any truth to the rumors. Well, there certainly was an armada of fire trucks outside of Walker and a flurry of activity. But as it turns out, I don't think it was a fire per se, but rather a space heater malfunction in room 401 (my office is 405, just at the other end of the hall), which filled much of 4th floor with smoke. 
Dr Clothiaux sent out an email tonight about what happened, and he said that no water had to be used to remedy the situation, which was good. Apparently the alarms malfunctioned and didn't go off (oops), but some of the grad students that were there at the time alertly called 911 and evacuated the building. Supposedly there's still a strong smoky smell on 4th floor, and I guess I'll find out in the morning. If there's anything worth taking a picture of on 4th floor, I'll post it. We'd always joked about something like this happening, but we never thought it actually would. I'm glad it wasn't any more serious than it was, that would've been a major inconvenience for everyone's research!
Posted by Jared at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2007
Hoping for an "Elijah" Sighting
The snow geese are honking here in State College! The first winter storm of the season is bound to arrive in a matter of hours, and the NWS has a winter weather advisory out for central PA. Unfortunately it's gonna be a bit of a mess, because it won't be an all-snow event. The models have been fairly consistent for the last few days, and it looks like it'll start out as snow here in State College tonight, with possibly 1-3" accumulating before it switches to sleet and freezing rain by mid-morning Sunday. The potpourri of wintry precip should continue until it switches to plain rain Sunday evening, before changing back to lake effect snow showers behind the cold front Sunday night. It's definitely not gonna be fun to drive around here on Sunday, especially if we get significant ice accumulations, and Monday morning could be interesting too. It wouldn't be so bad if State College borough actually tried to plow the streets *before* the storm ended.
I sold my first-ever item on eBay earlier this week! I put the original 1 GB (2x512 MB) of RAM from my new laptop up for sale (I upgraded to 2 GB of RAM). I had a $10 minimum bid on it, and entering the last day of the auction nobody had bid on it, which had me worried a little bit. But on the last day there were five bids and it sold for $26.01! Not bad at all, if you ask me. :-) Getting paid to get rid of stuff that would otherwise just be sitting on my desk is a nice deal, that's for sure. Now I've just gotta get my act together so I can get my old laptop listed on eBay. Hopefully I'll get that done today while watching football.
Speaking of football, I had a couple tears in my eye before the Army-Navy game today, when the Navy Glee Club sang the Star-Spangled Banner (one of the best renditions I've heard). It always touches me to see the cadets and midshipmen marching onto the field before the game, all the pageantry, and the passion of the players and the fans (and the spirit ads that both Navy and Army run during the game sure are fun to watch, too). On the football field they're the most bitter of rivals, but once the game is over they'll be serving our country together. None of these young men are playing with the aim of getting to the NFL; they only play for the love of the game and for the love of our country. In my mind, Army-Navy is the biggest rivalry in all of college football. Michigan-Ohio State? Auburn-Alabama? Texas-Oklahoma? As good as they are, they all take a back seat to Army-Navy.
This week I finally got around to joining the Penn State Prediction Markets. The Smeal College of Business and the Department of Meteorology here at Penn State set up a joint research project, to look into how stock markets can be used to predict the weather. Upon joining the markets, users are given E$100 (100 "experimental dollars," equivalent to US$10) of stocks in various temperature bins. Then it's up to the user to buy, sell or trade stocks in the bins of their choice, at whatever price they decide is a "good deal." Here's an example. If you purchase one share in the 40-41 degree bin for E$0.20, and the high turns out to be 40 or 41, then the person who sold you the share pays you E$1.00, meaning you made a profit of E$0.80. Likewise, if you sell one share in some temperature bin for E$0.35, and that temperature ends up verifying, then you must pay out E$1.00 to the person who bought the stock from you, meaning you lost a net of E$0.65. You can also "short sell," or sell stocks you don't actually have. For instance, yesterday I started with 0 shares in the 34 or colder bin, so I sold 25 shares in that bin for E$0.14 each, gaining me E$3.50, because I don't think there's any way that the high will be that cold on Tuesday in Wenatchee, WA (that's where we're forecasting for this week, because the WxChallenge forecasting contest that I'm participating in is also forecasting for Wenatchee currently). So as long as the high on Tuesday in Wenatchee is warmer than 34 degrees, I'll get to keep my E$3.50. If for some reason the high is only 34 or colder though, I'll have to pay out E$25.00, netting me a loss of E$22.50. It'll probably take me awhile to get the hang of it all, but it seems pretty interesting. And it'll give me a bit of an insight into how financial markets work, albeit in a simplified manner. I can decide to cash out at any time I want, at a rate of US$1 per E$10, with the caveat that I'm not allowed to participate in any future Penn State Prediction Markets once I cash out, so this'll eventually turn into a bit of money for me too!
I got some rather exciting news earlier this week. My friend Rob from Australia sent me a message on Tuesday morning that the Biblical storytelling/theatre group that he's a part of, The Backyard Bard, is hoping to do a US tour next year! In the past they've done shows on the stories of Esther, Daniel, the Judges and more, and this year they performed "Elijah," a dramatic storytelling of 1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 2 by Rob and his friend Simon. Here are a couple of trailers for "Elijah" from YouTube:
Their Australian tour of "Elijah" just wrapped up recently, and went very well by all accounts, performing at schools, universities and churches. They're looking for as many hosts as possible here in the US for their "Elijah" tour, so that travel costs for Simon, Rob & Rob's wife Simone (their tech person) can be split amongst all the hosts (churches/campus groups, etc). I'm *really* hoping that we can sponsor them for at least one show here in State College, so I've sent emails out to Pastor Tober at my church and the other officers at PSCG, in addition to many other friends, family members, and leaders of other Christian Grads groups around the country, hoping that that'll lead to a few more hosts for The Backyard Bard. We'll see what comes of all of that, but it'd be totally awesome to see Rob & Simone here in the States! I'm stoked to be able to do whatever I can to help them come here!
Posted by Jared at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)