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April 23, 2008

My First Ballot in PA

It would appear that Operation Chaos worked, as Hillary Rodham Clinton has beaten Barack Hussein Obama in the Democrat Party primary for President here in Pennsylvania, 55%-45%. So we'll get to see these two candidates continue to bludgeon each other politically for a few more weeks, hooray! Hopefully this chaos lasts right up through the Democrat National Convention in August in Denver. :-) I thought about joining the thousands taking part in Operation Chaos, but as the registration deadline approached a month ago, I just couldn't stomach the thought of voting for Hillary, even for such a noble cause as this. So I stayed registered with the GOP.

Meanwhile, yesterday I voted at a voting booth for the first time ever in my life (in 2002 and 2004 I voted via absentee ballots for the generals, and in 2006 I didn't know about PA's 30-day voter registration deadline or WI's change in voter laws that required everyone to re-register in person), and I cast my ballot for Ron Paul as a protest against John McCain (and as practice for not voting for him in November either, haha). Voter turnout was higher than normal for a primary across the state and in PA-5 because of tight, meaningful races, and when I showed up at my precinct (Borough of State College, South Central 2) at 9am, I was Republican #24, and I saw that they were already up to Democrat #86, which wasn't unexpected because of the Hillary vs Obamessiah contest. It was interesting watching the election returns come in online last night. That's really a much better way of doing it in my opinion, then I don't have to suffer through listening to the repetitive, incessant inanity of the talking heads on the cable news networks.

Speaking of the doom our country faces no matter which of these three clowns gets elected to the presidency (just kidding, calm down), check out this hilarious parody by "The Eschatologians" (about a whole range of end times doctrines, haha) of a Justin Timberlake song at a church variety show in Orlando last year (h/t: Tracy)!

The signs of spring are all around State College these days. Ever since last Thursday when we got to the upper 70s, it seems like every time I walk around I notice more and more buds, leaves and blossoms coming out. It almost seems like it's happening by the hour (which it is). It's just so nice to be able to walk around without a jacket anymore. Spring sure feels so good after a long winter! The time for cookouts (not barbecues, I don't wanna irk my southern friends), picnics and tennis is definitely here! And before you know it, it'll be time for the church softball season to get underway (in two weeks actually, I think). And it also means the looming end of the semester, which for me means I only have a week left to try to get through as much as I can on my final project for Remote Sensing. I'm so ready for this semester to be over so that I can focus exclusively on my research for the summer.

Monday was a pretty busy day. In the afternoon I took part in a weather forecasting & economics research study that Caren helped to design. Basically, we were given a certain amount of forecast information, and based on that, had to indicate the maximum amount of "experimental dollars" we would be willing to pay for certain shares. The "market price" for the various shares that were pseudo-randomly chosen determined whether or not we bought a share in that temperature range. If the actual high temperature fell in the range for which we owned shares, we earned money. If we owned shares that didn't verify, we lost money. It was a fun little diversion for a couple hours, and I earned $21 from it. Thanks Caren!

The IM dodgeball playoffs were on Monday night, but unfortunately we were knocked out in the first round. It was a really close, intense, back-and-forth match, and I was able to knock one person out to help our team go up 4-1 before one of my throws was caught. In the end it came down to 1-on-1, with Jeff [Grabon] going up against a really good player from the other team, and that went on for probably close to two minutes, with each taking turns dodging the other's hard throws, before one of Grabon's tosses was caught. Sigh. At least we gave it a good run, and showed we belonged in the playoffs. Our quest for an elusive IM block will continue this summer in softball.

Also on Monday night I went with a few people from PSCG to go see Ben Stein's controversial new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." In this very well-done documentary (click here for a good review), Ben Stein goes on a personal odyssey over the span of two years to find out if scientists who are proponents of intelligent design (ID), or those who even mention it in a neutral light, really are treated fairly in academia. And the answer is a pretty resounding no, as he documents many cases of academics being fired and denied tenure for what they've said about ID. Many of the world's leading Darwinist scientists were also interviewed, including Richard Dawkins (author of such books as "The God Delusion"), and by their pronouncements it was clear the disdain and contempt they hold for anyone who doesn't toe the "party line" on Darwinism.

Some who protest the movie claim that the Darwinist scientists who were interviewed weren't told what the documentary was about, but I've also read that all the interviewees were given the questions in writing beforehand. Whichever's true, it really doesn't matter, because it doesn't change what they said in response to Ben Stein's questions when he interviewed them. And what they said, quite frankly, makes them come off as condescending, arrogant, closed-minded and desperate people. Some critics also claim that Stein is equating Darwinism with Naziism. That's blatantly not true! Stein is very careful to explain in the movie that he doesn't think that all Darwinists will become Nazis, but documents how foundational Darwinism was to eugenics and Nazi ideology. If Darwinism is taken to its logical philosophical conclusions, eugenics is one of the ugly places where it leads. Some critics also claim that "Expelled" is trying to get creationism and/or ID taught in the schools. That's blatantly false as well! I don't know how *anyone* can watch this film and come away with that message. Stein is merely pointing out (repeatedly) that freedom of speech and academic inquiry is being squelched in scientific circles, in that Darwinism is never allowed to be questioned. For the brave souls who do muster the courage to question it, their jobs are in jeopardy and their reputations are smeared. That this can be allowed to happen in a supposedly free country like ours is unconscionable.

In short, "Expelled" is a fantastic movie, and I highly recommend that everyone go see it. I'm probably gonna try to go see it again on Saturday too, assuming it's still in the theater here for a second week. I can only hope that this eye-opening movie causes more of an open dialogue about these issues in our society and in the academy, because it raises some very "inconvenient" facts (to the scientific establishment, anyway). I probably shouldn't hold my breath though.

Posted by Jared at 09:15 PM | Comments (3)

April 21, 2008

Blue-White '08

The craziness of Blue-White Weekend 2008 is finally over. Maybe tonight won't be filled with the sounds of drunk people being loud outside, cars without mufflers drag racing down area streets, intermittent fireworks/firecrackers, or occasional emergency sirens. The fairly steady rain today and tonight has no doubt put a bit of a damper on such activities, in addition to it being a school night. :-)

I went to the annual Blue-White Game on Saturday with Tracy, Kerrie & Dan, and it was a gorgeous day out, mid-upper 70s and partly sunny skies, a great day to sit back and watch some football. It was a record crowd for Blue-White Weekend too, with an estimated 73,000 fans taking advantage of the free admission to watch the game. It's just a glorified practice basically (think about that for a minute... our fans are so hard-core that 73,000 people showed up to watch a practice), but it's still fun to get a sneak peek at some of the players for the team that'll be on the field in 2008. One of the most interesting things to watch for was the battle for the starting QB position, between Daryll Clark and Pat Devlin. I came away pretty impressed with both, and it sure seems like whichever one gets the nod as the starting quarterback, or if they platoon at QB during the season (which I'd advocate, until one starts outplaying the other), they'll be better than what we had with Anthony Morelli the last two years. As thoroughly mediocre as Anthony Morelli was though, I thought it was pretty classless for the fans to boo him at halftime during some awards ceremony. Come on people, he's not playing anymore, get over it. And it's not like he tried to suck or make all those dumb decisions. But anyway, back to the game. The other really fun thing to see was how good our running backs look. On the third play of the game for the White team, redshirt freshman Stephfon Green took a pitch to the left side, made a move and was gone 57 yards up the sideline for a touchdown. Holy cow is he fast! It'll be fun cheering on Stephfon for the coming seasons too, because he was one of Heather's students last semester in her English 15 class, and she said he's a really good kid and everything. But anyway, Penn State's offense looked really good, definitely better than the last couple years in the Blue-White Game, that's for sure. Hopefully that bodes well for their ability to score points this coming season. :-) But perhaps the coolest part of going to the game was that they let the public out onto the field after the game, to walk around and take pictures and whatnot! It was awesome to get the chance to walk around on the highly-manicured turf of Beaver Stadium, and just look up in amazement at how enormous and imposing the stadium is when you're down on the field. Seriously, it must be intimidating to have 110,000 screaming fans on top of you like that. It makes me even more pumped to go to the games this fall!

To round out the Blue-White festivities, Kerrie had quite a few people over for a cookout and a game night. I had to leave for a couple hours in the middle of it though, because of worship band rehearsal at the church. But I did make it back in time for some Apples to Apples and some other fun taboo/charades-like game. I was pretty tired (and fortunately not very sunburned) by the end of the day, that's for sure.

Only a couple days till the Pennsylvania Primaries and the end of all the political ads on TV (for a little while, anyway). I guess I should figure out who I'm gonna vote for, particularly in the PA 5th district US House race, which has gotten particularly nasty over the last couple weeks. I don't think I'm gonna vote for either Shaner or Walker in that race, just because somebody's lying in that whole ugly spat (or both are lying), and I don't wanna pick the wrong one in the primary. And besides, if I can't find another candidate from the other seven that are running for that seat in the GOP, then that'd be pretty sad. I need to educate myself about all the local races too, so I don't go into the voting booth blind. Hooray representative democracy!

Posted by Jared at 12:20 AM | Comments (3)

April 16, 2008

Dodgeball Perfection

We now have another reason that Walker Building is like a 3rd world country: broken windows. It appears that the construction crews, who've been on window-washing platforms all around the building the last couple weeks to put grout in the grooves on the outside of the building and to replace the caulk around the windows, cracked a window in Amber O.'s office this morning. Amber didn't really think too much of it early on, but as the day progressed the crack lengthened by about 4-5 feet and started to spiderweb. So she notified the office, who got OPP down there to take a look. They got pretty concerned at the amount of cracking, and the fact that the large window is not safety glass, meaning that it poses a large health hazard to Amber's desk, right below the window. So as a stopgap measure until they can get the window replaced, they duct-taped the cracks on the inside -- and on the outside -- of the window. Yep, an OPP guy actually went above and beyond the call of duty, and climbed outside onto the ledge to tape the outside. It should be noted that this office is on the 4th floor. Yeah... You wouldn't catch me out there for anything, that's for sure!

I've been a bit sore all day today, mostly because of two nights in a row of IM sports. On Monday night we had arena football. We had a couple of replacement players to play receiver, because Monday was the only date we could get, and our original WRs had to be out of town at a geosci conference somewhere. And somehow I got roped into being the starting center, so over the past few weeks I've had to learn how to snap. So for IM arena football, it's 4-on-4 on a short field, uses a foam football (which is dumb), each team gets 4 downs to try to score (no first downs), there are two 10-minute halves with a running clock (only stoppages for injuries), and if a player is flagged for a penalty, he must sit out for the next play and cannot be replaced (which gives the other team a 1-man advantage). So for our first game, we won it by forfeit, because the other team didn't show up. At least we were guaranteed of not going winless on the night. So for the second game, we got waxed 34-0. Ouch. Four touchdowns and three safeties. Not good. I had at least three dump-off catches that I got good yardage on, but we still couldn't punch it in. And then in the third game we lost 21-7. We would've had 14 points, but Steve, who was breaking away for his 2nd touchdown and had nothing but green astroturf in front of him, suddenly cramped up in both calves as he sprinted past the ten yard line, and promptly crumpled and fell flat on his face at about the eight. Steve's okay now, but at least we gave the IM trainers something to do. One thing the arena football debacle made clear for us yet again: all these 19- and 20-year old undergrads are much more athletic and in much better shape than we mid-20s grad students are. Sigh.

Last night we had the IM dodgeball tournament. There was enough meteo interest that we split into two full teams, and we played on separate nights. For our team, we had a definite strategy: Dan, Jeff [Grabon] & I were the runners to get our three balls on the right side of the centerline. I toss mine back to Moyer right away behind the attack line, who tries to peg one of the retreating players, and then if Walter, Steph or I got a ball and one of Dan, Jeff or Moyer didn't have one, we'd toss it to them since they had the strongest arms. And for the most part Steph was retrieving balls for us that went out of play, which was huge for us. Last year we didn't have much of a team strategy, and it showed as we went 1-7. Well, this time we went a perfect 5-0 on the night!! In the first game we didn't even lose a player! A couple times we also got down to just two players, at which point we called time out in order to get Moyer and either Dan or Jeff into the game, which in two games helped us battle back from being down 6 players to 2 to come back and win. I only got out twice from when people caught my throws, never got hit myself, and got two people out -- including the last person in our last game, to clinch our playoff berth. It was pretty sweet, I threw at the same time as Moyer & Grabon, but since they throw harder, their balls got to the guy first, causing him to turn around just in time for my ball to hit him square in the back. :-) So our quest for the elusive IM Block will continue on Monday night in the dodgeball playoffs! We'll have to make sure to bring the rule book and clarify it with the officials before the games though, because tonight the other meteo team got screwed at least twice because the refs blatantly disregarded rules that are very explicitly stated in the official IM rule book (they did it once in our game too). Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident in intramural athletics here at PSU. It's so aggravating when the IM refs don't even know basic rules about the sports they're officiating. For example: last summer in IM softball we even had to get out the rule book and explain to one of the refs what foul territory was -- and then she had to radio her supervisor to make sure we were right! WHAT?!?!? Poor officiating due to poor judgment calls is one thing, but is it really too much to ask for the refs actually to know the rules that are black-and-white?

Posted by Jared at 11:23 PM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2008

Rock Chalk Jawhawk Money, Woo!

I think I picked a good year to have a money-winning NCAA tournament bracket, considering the meteo grad pool that Moyer ran was $10/entry. I was in decent shape coming into the Final Four, with three of the four safely in (I had Texas beating Memphis, oops). Memphis didn't do me any favors by beating UCLA, but Kansas beating North Carolina is what really put me in a position to get into the top 3. The Jayhawks had me on a bit of a yo-yo emotionally in that game though: I was ecstatic as they jumped out to a stunning 40-12 lead early, then I was really nervous as the Tar Heels shrunk the lead down to 59-55, before Kansas finally woke up again and put the game away, much to my enjoyment.

The National Championship game was a dandy as well, between Kansas and Memphis. What was on the line? If Memphis won, Jacob, Kerrie & Walter would finish 1-2-3. If Kansas won, Maggie would finish 1st, and then Nat, Chad & I would all tie for 2nd, with the game's final score used as a tiebreaker (I had 77-71, Nat had 77-72, Chad had 61-58, though we all had UCLA and not Memphis in the title game). So when Kansas came back from 9 points down with just over 2 minutes remaining, tying the game at 63-63 on a miracle three-pointer by Mario Chalmers with 2.2 seconds left to force overtime, I was doubly excited, because it meant 1) that the Jayhawks still had a chance to win, and 2) that the final score would get high enough (but hopefully not too high) for me to win the tiebreaker. And with the final score being Kansas 75-68 Memphis, I moved into 2nd place, good for $60! Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

So what am I gonna do with all this cash? I think it's only appropriate for me to put winnings from college basketball toward other college basketball-related entertainment. Hmm, how about putting it toward a plane ticket to Spokane next winter so I can go to a Gonzaga game with my cousin Jonathan? I think that sounds like an awesome plan!

Oh, and the Penn State Weather Prediction Markets just closed up for the academic year, and I earned a pretty nice chunk of change (almost $120) for just over a semester's worth of work -- especially considering it took no initial investment of my own. It's cool when you can make money doing something you already enjoy doing anyway. I'm definitely looking forward to doing it for a full year next school year!

Spring has definitely arrived here in State College. It was gorgeous almost all week, with both Thursday and today being absolutely beautiful, in the 60s and sunny. I did take a break from all my work of editing my paper to play some tennis with Ben & Kerrie on Thursday, and even though I once again got smoked 6-0, 6-0 in two sets vs Ben, it was the best that I've played and served, so I was pleased. In addition to some warm weather, you can tell spring's here, because some daffodils started blooming around town this week, and many trees are starting to get buds. And next week's looking pretty nice too, though we might we some snowflakes and sleet tomorrow. But hey, at least we won't get as much snow as Minnesota's gotten from two storms in the last couple weeks, haha. That's one thing I don't really miss from the Midwest, big snowstorms in April.

The Penn State football team suffered a major, major blow yesterday, when star linebacker Sean Lee, the next great linebacker at Linebacker U, tore his ACL in practice. He's done for the year now, which totally sucks. He'll be able to get a redshirt and come back in 2009, but that's just an absolutely crushing blow for this year's team. One can only hope that the young guys behind him can step up and play well. After all the other aggravating off-the-field issues and suspensions that the Nittany Lions have had (not to mention the perpetually unresolved Joe Paterno contract fiasco), this was the last thing we needed. In any case, there's only one week to go until the Blue-White Game, so that can only mean it's time for videos like these to start coming out!

Posted by Jared at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2008

I Got Fooled Again

Yeah, this post is mostly just gonna be a grab-bag of random stuff I've come across on the web in recent days that I found interesting. Of course that doesn't mean that any of you will find any of this interesting, but hopefully this isn't a *complete* waste of your time!

Item #1: So apparently North Dakota has an oil field beneath it. A really big oil field. As in 200-500 billion barrels of recoverable oil, in all likelihood. Who knew? Apparently the USGS and petrochemical companies (for some time), but now that the price of crude oil is in triple figures per barrel, it's actually economical to recover the oil from the Bakken Formation. If Bakken is drilled (and energy companies are actively buying land in the Williston Basin in North Dakota), that could be a major relief to the US, allow less importing of foreign oil, drive oil prices down (and hence the prices of everything else in our economy down as well), and give us a bit more time to come up with a practical alternative energy solution. I wonder if NDak is gonna repeal the state income tax and each citizen of the state a check, like the government in Alaska does...

Item #2: I just discovered a comedy group in New York City called ImprovEverywhere. They "cause scenes" in public places all over the city, such as staging a musical with employees at a mall food court, sending 111 shirtless guys into the Ambercrombie & Fitch store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, sending in a bunch of shoppers to do synchronized slow-motion then regular-speed then frozen shopping at Home Depot, and many more. For an example of their fine and very funny work, check out this stunt from Grand Central Station (h/t: Tracy):

Item #3: I've read many analyses of what J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is about, but this is the first time that I've heard it's about property law.

Item #4: Greenies are trying to use sharks to take jobs away from people like me. Too bad their pipe dreams are completely impractical; you can't be rid of us meteorologists so easily, mwuhahaha!!

Item #5a: Now that April Fools Day has past, I feel like I can safely post a top 10 list of April Fools' pranks for nerds.

Item #5b: So here's what actually happened on April Fools Day. Ashley, Caren & Kerrie hatched a plan over spring break to get as many of my friends here at PSU as possible (both in meteo and PSCG) to switch their Facebook profile pictures to the same not-so-great picture of me (which, incidentally, they got from one of my photo albums on my Facebook account, haha) for the whole day. It was pretty funny and very well executed. :-) It did take awhile for me to notice (what can I say, I was actually busy coding!), but well done everyone!

Item #6: This is just bizarre -- photos of toilet signs from around the world. Ooookaaayyyy, moving on...

Item #7: Have you ever seen a wind turbine blow up? I sure hadn't! Check out how this turbine in Denmark failed spectacularly:

And finally, Item #8: It's early April, and that means that not only is baseball in the air, but so is spring football practice! Penn State's Blue-White Game is coming up in just over two weeks, and our 82-year old coach, Joe Paterno, opened up a practice session to the media last week. He's definitely still got fire in his belly, and a lot of spunk (his "Get that shirt pulled down!" comment at about the 1:10 mark is great, haha). And he's running around like a spry 70-year old too!

I can't wait for Penn State football again! If we can rectify our quarterback situation, the Lions seem to have a lot of promise to be a very good team.

/Randomness

Posted by Jared at 11:39 PM | Comments (5)

April 01, 2008

Barack-atology

As with any Opening Day, hope springs eternal. I don't think there's any sport in which that's more true than baseball. I made sure to get home from Walker in time Monday evening to catch the start of the Angels-Twins game on ESPN2. I'm always optimistic that the Twins can do well, though that's a bit tougher to do when you're Opening Day starter is the washed-up Livan Hernandez... In any case, I don't think the Twins will make the playoffs this year, but I do think they can finish at or a little above .500 overall, which should be good enough for 3rd place in the very competitive AL Central. For this year's edition of the Minnesota Twins, I think that'd be deemed a successful season. Losing the best pitcher in the universe, Johan Santana, and 7-time Gold Glove center fielder Torii Hunter, will definitely hurt the Twins this year. But if our young starting pitching staff can gel and pitch reasonably well, and if our new young hitters Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez can both show good consistency at the plate, then I think the Twins could at least hang around in the playoff hunt. But hey, the Twins opened up with a 3-2 win over the Angels, so they're still on pace for perfection. ;-)

Speaking of hope, Barack Obama made a campaign stop in State College yesterday, on the heels of Bill Clinton coming to town on Thursday night. I didn't bother going to either one though. Over 6,000 people crammed into Rec Hall to see the former president on Thursday (he was an hour late though, as usual), but around 20,000 people crowded onto the Old Main lawn to hear Obama. It's not every day that a presidential candidate (or two) pays your town a visit, but even that curiosity wasn't enough to draw me out, so I just made sure to avoid the downtown/campus area. I'm sure I would've gone to hear them speak if there was any chance whatsoever that I'd ever consider voting for either one, though. Oh, which reminds me, I decided not to change my party registration for the upcoming Pennsylvania primary after all. It would've been fun to participate in "Operation Chaos," but I just didn't wanna have to buy all that soap for post-polling place. ;-)

Oh, and to continue with the whole Barack Obama theme, we took first place at trivia on Friday night with the team name: "Barack-atology: As close as Penn State gets to March Madness." I was proud of that one. :-)

My brackets are still alive, in the meteo grad pool anyway. I was hurt by Wisconsin losing to Davidson and by Tennessee losing to Louisville in the Sweet 16, but I got my entire Final Four in with the exception of Texas, who got housed by Memphis on Sunday. Bottom line: If Kansas beats North Carolina and UCLA beats Memphis, and then if Kansas beats UCLA for the national title, I will have won either the 65%, 20% or 10% share of the pot, depending on the final score of the championship game, because I'll be tied with two other people. But in any case, with all four #1 seeds making it to the Final Four for the first time ever, this should be a fantastically entertaining Final Four.

And this doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but Tracy & Daniel jogged my memory tonight of this hilarious video (original hat tip to Jacob a couple years ago, though!):

I wonder if there'll be any surprises to come on this April Fools' Day...

Posted by Jared at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)