« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »
July 28, 2008
Only in Wisconsin
I've heard grumbling from the masses about my lack of bloggish activity in recent days. Let's just chalk that up to real life getting in the way. :-) I'll put up a post with pictures sometime soon about what I've been up to since then, but until that happens, I thought I'd at least post a few links to odd news stories from Wisconsin the last couple weeks.
First, an Appleton woman was charged with felony extortion for placing a microwaved rat in her food at a restaurant, and then demanding $500,000. Too bad (for her) the restaurant doesn't own a microwave. Or white lab rats.
Second, participants in the annual Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw in Prairie Du Sac on Labor Day weekend are already hard at work picking out the perfect cow chips. What a crappy job. (h/t Jeff [Frame])
And finally, if your lawn mower wouldn't start, what would you do? Look at the starter, the spark plugs, or something like that? No, that's far too logical. How about shooting the lawn mower with your sawed-off shotgun? Why yes, that sounds like a great idea! And that's exactly what a Milwaukee man did. And his defense? "I can do that. It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want." Disorderly conduct charge aside (he fired a weapon within city limits), you might not wanna try that defense when you used a sawed-off shotgun, a weapon that's illegal to possess to begin with (even in Wisconsin). (h/t Kent)
On Wisconsin!
Posted by Jared at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2008
Whirlwind of a Summer Vacation
[On location in Cumberland, Wisconsin]
Is my vacation seriously nearly over already? Didn't it just start? Well, I've been pretty busy driving all over the place the last few days visiting friends and family and whatnot, so here's some of what I've been up to.
Last Friday morning Carl, his friend Seth & I pulled out of State College at about 6:30am. It's not particularly fun to be starting a long drive on just 5 hours of sleep, but then again that's why Carl drove the first leg. And by the first leg, I mean from State College, PA, all the way to Tomah, WI (where Seth's parents met us so they could go back to Rochester, MN). I drove the rest of the way to Cumberland, and we went through a nice squall line along the way on US 53 from New Auburn to Rice Lake. I'm sure I would've enjoyed the lightning show and gusty winds a lot more if I wasn't driving! But we got to my parents' house in Cumberland a bit before 11pm, meaning we were on the road for just over 17 hours. Ugh. I was very glad to be out of the van finally.
On Saturday Carl & I drove down to the Twin Cities to go to the wedding of our friends Zach & Jolene. Zach's a former roommate of mine from Gustavus, and Jolene was in my physics graduating class at GAC. Their wedding was at Central Lutheran in downtown Minneapolis, and because the church is so huge, it seemed like it was a pretty small wedding because the guests didn't take up too much space. It was a nice wedding though, and pretty short too. Zach got a little choked up while reciting the vows too. Afterwards, Carl said that if he was told beforehand that only one of the two would cry during the ceremony, his money would've been on Zach. Right on Carl, right on. ;-)
 |  |
 |  |
The reception was at the Minnesota Zoo down in Apple Valley, on the Tropics Trail. It's a pretty cool place for a reception, actually, if a bit humid. It was also funny when the lemurs would go crazy and be yelling for a minute or two at a time. There was a bit of an adventure in the receiving line at the zoo too. I was getting ready to take a picture of Zach & Jolene when somebody (not me, seriously) accidentally dumped their beer on the front of Jolene's wedding dress. Oops. I wasn't sure if they'd appreciate me taking pictures of the stained wedding dress right after it happened, so I put my camera away just in case. But they were able to get it out quickly, so you couldn't even notice it.
During the dinner Zach & Jolene wouldn't kiss in response to glass-clinking. Instead, they had a whole series of questions written out about them (such as where they got engaged, where they had their first date, what's the only sports team they follow, etc), and if a glass-clinker wanted them to kiss, they had to answer a question correctly. Since our table had four physics alums (me, Carl, Seth, and John, who flew in from Switzerland for the wedding!), we decided to be a bit obnoxious and answer a bunch of questions. 
I mean, we knew most of them, after all. :-) If we had gotten through all the questions, we decided that we'd start asking them questions. [evil laugh] After dinner was a bunch of dancing, which was fun. Jolene had even picked out some rap song for all us physics majors to dance to, haha. All that we were missing was a coffee table on which to dance! At the start of the dollar dance, a bunch of people lined up right away to dance with Jolene, but people were a bit slow to get in line for Zach, so Carl & I got the first two dances with him, haha. We closed the reception down too, it went till almost midnight.
 |  |
 |  |
It was fun to see everyone who made it back for the wedding. Seth, Carl & I stayed in a hotel that night, and in the morning went to Zach & Jolene's house in Minneapolis for a brunch, and stayed there until they had to head out to the airport to catch their flight to Paris. France, Italy, Switzerland & Austria sure isn't a bad honeymoon trip. :-)
After the brunch on Sunday, Seth went back home to Madison, but Carl & I drove down to Saint Peter for the Gustavus Physics Alumni Picnic. We got there a bit early, so I spent an hour walking around the campus taking a bunch of pictures:
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
There weren't too many people at the picnic, because they only announced it a month ago (only John, Carl & I showed up from our class, and we only made it because we were in Minnesota for the wedding). Next year's will be far more organized and announced way further in advance, Chuck said, because DC Henry will be retiring and it'll be the 10th anniversary of Dick Fuller's retirement. But it was really good to get a chance to see most of my former physics profs, with DC, Chuck, Paul & Mellema all there. Huber didn't make it though.
I spent Sunday & Monday nights at my brother Aaron & Eve's house in Minnetrista, Sunday night playing in a poker game with Aaron & his neighbors. Yes, I played poker. And I might've won had I not mistakenly thought I had a 6 on one crucial hand instead of an 8. I could've knocked out two people, but instead reduced myself to pretty much nothing. I bet the wrong hand and called two people's all-ins, argh! Wait, why am I telling a bad beat story? Bad Jared.
On Monday I drove into downtown Minneapolis (well, Saint Anthony, technically) to have lunch with my friend Dan, a fellow PK (pastor's kid) who I've known for probably 15 years. I got a little turned around in downtown trying to find where we were meeting, making me a bit late, which was unfortunate because he only had his lunch break and had to get back to work. I wish we could've hung out a bit more, but oh well. Maybe there'll be more time when I come back for Christmas.
After lunch, since I was already right near downtown, I decided to pay for another couple hours of parking so I could walk around and take some pictures. I didn't have really any pictures of Minneapolis, after all. ;-) I was just gonna go down to one of the parks along the Mississippi River to try to get some good views of the Minneapolis skyline, and then maybe walk around there for a bit. 
When I stumbled onto the Saint Anthony Heritage Trail, I figured what the heck, I may as well, and this seemed like something I'd do if I were visiting a new city. It was a nice little walk too, going along historic Main Street in St Anthony, by the old Pillsbury flour mills (some of which are actually still in use), over the Stone Arch Bridge (with good views of Saint Anthony Falls), 
and then along the southwest bank of the Mississippi, crossing back over at the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge. Even though I'd lived two hours or less from Minneapolis for most of my life, I'd never seen St Anthony Falls, except for fleeting glimpses from the 35W bridge (the one that collapsed last August), and I'd never been on the Stone Arch Bridge before. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for a walk too, sunny skies, low humidity and temps in the mid-upper 80s. 
Little did I know before I went on the walking tour that Saint Anthony Falls is the only legitimate waterfall on the entire length of the Mississippi River. Another fun fact I learned is that Pillsbury, with its flour mills in Minneapolis, was one of the first companies in America to offer its employees profit-sharing, way back around 1900 if I recall correctly. Monday was a good reminder to me that there are lots of fun and interesting places to explore, even close to home, wherever home happens to be.
Monday evening I went with my brother Aaron, his wife Eve and their two kids for a ride on Lake Minnetonka on their boat, Fortunate Lee. We went over to Lord Fletcher's, a nice restaurant that you can drive to either by car or by boat. 
Partly because it was such a stunningly beautiful day out, Lord Fletcher's was totally packed. We somehow found a spot to dock the boat, but there wasn't anyplace to sit on land. So we got our $4 half-pound burgers 
(that may have also had something to do with why it was so crowded, that and the 40-cent taps, haha) and just went out to the boat to eat. I'm tellin' ya, those were some awesome burgers! To enjoy the evening more fully, we just took a really slow cruise around the lake back to Aaron & Eve's dock. I love going out on their boat, that's for sure.
On Tuesday I basically hung around Aaron & Eve's place until mid-afternoon, just relaxing and reading a book and whatnot, then I left to go have dinner with my friends Scott & Katie up in White Bear Lake. I had hoped to swing by either Fort Snelling State Park or Minnehaha Falls Park on my way there, but traffic was bad enough that I didn't have time. Oh well, maybe one of these visits home. Anyway, it was great to see Scott & Katie (and their 4-month old baby girl, Georgia!) again and hear what they're up to. It would've been fun to stay longer, but I had to let Scott study for his insane Chinese class he's taking this summer (class 3 hrs/day, 5 days/wk, for 10 weeks).
So I've been back in Cumberland since Tuesday night, trying to relax and basically not do much. Other than organize photos and blog, of course. ;-) Wednesday night I went over to my oldest brother Nathan & Laura's house for dinner and a game night. Five of us played Settlers: Cities & Knights of Catan, and I finally won a Catan game! I think it was the first time I've ever won a Catan game of any sort. But hey, I still typically have fun even if I'm finishing in last or next-to-last like is usually the case. It's just nice to win one at least once in awhile. :-)
Just for kicks, here's a panoramic of some cool wavy clouds from an approaching storm system I snapped on Wednesday morning right after I woke up:
I think my younger brother Jake's gonna come over tonight for dinner, and then I'll have seen all three of my brothers on this trip home. We're also planning to hit up the Science Museum of Minnesota on Saturday to check out the Star Wars special exhibit that's there. I've heard it's pretty cool. And then Sunday will be here, the last day of vacation, Carl & Seth will get here, and then at 5am Monday we'll set off for Pennsylvania. Another 17-hr drive, I can't wait.
Posted by Jared at 03:15 PM | Comments (1)
July 10, 2008
Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire!
[On location in Fairfax, Virginia]
To celebrate the 4th of July last week, I mostly just lounged around and did nothing. It was a vacation day, after all, and I was frustrated enough with work that I didn't want to do anything work-related, so mostly I just piddled around with stuff on my computer, read a bit, took a nap. Yeah, it was a lazy day. In the late afternoon I went over to Scott & Yvette's place for a fun meteo cookout. Can you get more American than having a beer while eating meat off a grill before blowing stuff up? I think not. But even though they have a decent view of the fireworks from their front lawn, I decided I wanted to get closer than 2 miles away. A lot closer.
Tracy, Amanda & Dan were all working at the bug fair tent all afternoon at the Central PA 4th Fest, and in return they were given several VIP tickets for free. As it turned out, they had a couple extra passes, so they asked if I'd like one. (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!) At first I wasn't sure how much better a view I could get in the VIP lot than I got last year behind the right-center field wall of Medlar Field. Oh how naïve I was for thinking that!
The VIP are for viewing fireworks here in State College is in a grassy field behind Beaver Stadium and next to Medlar Field that's used for tailgating for football games. The main advantage of it is that it gives you an unobstructed view of the entire fireworks display, including all the close-to-the-ground pyrotechnics that they set off (and those are *only* visible to those in the VIP area). So yes, while it costs $25/person to get in, and might seem a bit steep, after having sat there to watch the fireworks once, I don't think I'll ever watch the fireworks anywhere else if I have any say about it. Even if I have to pay for my ticket next year, I think I'd splurge. It's totally worth it.
Of course, it wouldn't be worth it if the fireworks display was any ordinary fireworks show. But State College has far from an ordinary display. According to FireworksGuide.com, here are the top ten July 4th fireworks displays in the United States:
1. New York City
2. Boston
3. State College
4. Philadelphia
5. Washington DC
6. Seattle
7. New Orleans
8. Buffalo
9. Lake Tahoe
10. Houston
That's right, State College has the #3-rated fireworks display in the country for July 4th shows (and #5-rated overall fireworks display anytime during the year). The show is 45 minutes long, and choreographed to a whole series of songs. Prior to the grand finale, they shoot off an average of 4 shells per second. And then during the grand finale, they shoot off an average of 49 shells per second. That's a lot of fireworks!!
I managed to get quite a few good photos of the fireworks with my new camera, using its preset fireworks setting (2 sec. exposure, F8.0), and my handy-dandy flexible tripod. And the flexible LCD screen allowed me to be able to keep my eye primarily on the sky, only needing to glance down occasionally at the LCD to make sure the fireworks were in the frame.
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
I also took seven videos, which I've uploaded to YouTube (I have much better versions on my computer):
Rodeo: Hoe-Down:
Sing, Sing, Sing:
Great Balls of Fire:
(and yes, there were several large fireballs that were set off)
Wizards of Winter:
Final Countdown:
 |  |
 |  |
As you can see from the videos and photos above, it was quite an awesome fireworks display! I'm already looking forward to next year's show! In fact, I'm considering volunteering with the 4th Fest pyrotechnics crew next year, because it'd be really cool to be a part of setting all this up. And it'd be another way to get a free VIP ticket again. ;-) But part of what makes the Central PA 4th Fest fireworks show amazing is that the whole thing is 100% volunteer. From the planning to the choreographing to the setup, it's all done by volunteers. And they start working in September to put together the following year's show. At least they get a couple months off, haha.
Today's the last day of the conference, woohoo! My talk on Tuesday afternoon went well. Walter gave his talk immediately after me, and our presentations weren't without some drama. The session chair, who for historical and political reasons has an axe to grind with our group at Penn State, asked kind of a snide question of Walter, but then during his talk (which he arranged to be immediately after Walter's & mine), the session chair launched into a rant in which he was basically slamming the entire basis of both of our talks. That didn't make our sponsors (who were also his former sponsors -- that's part of why he's so bitter toward PSU) very happy. I also heard via the grapevine that some other conference attendees likened the session chair's behavior to "academic child abuse," which I found to be a rather amusing term. Anyway, some people came up to both Walter & I at the end of the day to tell us how good they thought our talks were, and how out of line they thought the session chair was. Apparently we must've done something right. :-)
We have eleven Penn Staters down here in total, eight of whom have already given their presentations (Kerrie, me, Walter, Luna, Joel, Brian G., Brian R., Sue), and only Andrew has yet to give his presentation. There have been some interesting talks, and some really bad talks. I'm always amazed at how many people have now idea how to put together or give a decent presentation. At least today it seems like they have the microphone working fairly consistently. Prior to today it'd work intermittently, and so many people were talking so quietly that it was very hard to hear them.
The conference ends at 5pm today, and I'll get back to State College around 11pm tonight, meeting up with Carl and his friend Seth from Cornell. And then *early* tomorrow morning we'll start the 17-hr drive to Cumberland, Wisconsin. It'll probably be a few days before I get a chance to blog again though, because I'll be so busy on my "vacation." Busy in a good way though.
Well, this talk seems potentially interesting, so I should probably pay attention to it. :-)
Posted by Jared at 09:59 AM | Comments (1)
July 07, 2008
It's GMU Time... Again
[On location in Fairfax, Virginia]
The 12th Annual George Mason University Conference on Atmospheric Transport & Dispersion Modeling begins tomorrow morning, and for the third year in a row, I'm here in Fairfax for it. I give my talk, "Using NWP Ensembles and Meteorological Ensemble-Uncertainty Information to Improve SCIPUFF Dispersion Forecasts," at 2:15pm tomorrow, and I just finished up making some last-minute tweaks to it. Hopefully it goes well, because for various reasons I've been frustrated and not terribly confident with some of my material for the past week. I won't bother getting into that here right now though.
At any rate, hopefully one of the evenings while I'm here I'll get a post up with some pictures and videos from the awesome fireworks show back on Friday. I'm so eager for this talk to be over, so I can relax and essentially start vacation. Four days from now I'll be in Wisconsin!
Posted by Jared at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2008
Barbecue and Baseball, That's What Maryland Does
On Tuesday I took the last half of the afternoon off and hopped in a car with some friends from church, Ryan, Paul & Ben. (Apparently I didn't get the memo that it was orange shirt day.) We went down to Baltimore to go to the baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles. This was my 4th game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, 
and I absolutely love the stadium experience there. It was the first of the new "retro" ballparks, opening back in 1992, and they sure did a great job. As Ryan said, it's retro, but doesn't try too hard to be retro. (Trivia question: What are the only MLB teams *not* to have built (or be building) a new stadium since Camden Yards opened in 1992? Leave a comment with your guesses!)
Upon getting our bargain night $8 upper deck tickets (and our George Sherrill Orioles t-shirt jerseys, free to the first 10,000 fans), it was of course time for some Boog's Bar-B-Q. Mmmm, seasoned pit beef, slathered in BBQ sauce, onions and horseradish. If there's better ballpark food anywhere, I'd like to know. Boog's is definitely a highlight of any trip to Camden Yards.
As for the game itself, the Royals hit a solo home run in the top of the 1st, which bounced on the Eutaw Street plaza in right field, and hit a warehouse window on one bounce. Very impressive. It had to have been hit longer than 410 feet, a bomb. The O's came back and took a 6-1 lead with a 5-run 3rd inning. After the Royals got a couple back to make it 6-3, Ben & I decided to be photo geeks, and wandered around the stadium to take tons of pictures.
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
While I was in right field, Brian Roberts of the Orioles hit a homer to left field, putting the O's up 7-3. I made my way back to our seats for the last inning-plus of the game. In the top of the 9th, the O's put in one of their other relievers (because it wasn't a save situation). But after two walks accompanied one out, the fans grew restless and began chanting "We want Sherrill! 
We want Sherrill!" I attribute that more to the fact that it was George Sherrill t-shirt night, because Sherrill had blown two saves in the last two days. The manager brought him in, because it was now a save situation (2 on, one out, up by 4). Sherrill promptly allowed a 2-RBI base hit, eliciting groans from the Orioles faithful. But then he slammed the door shut and got the final two outs, giving the Orioles a 7-5 win over the Royals.
After the game the four of us drove up to a park on Federal Hill, which has a beautiful view of the Baltimore skyline and Inner Harbor.
By the time we got back to State College it was a bit after 2am, but it was a really fun evening. I'm especially glad I went, because as it turns out it's the last time I'll get to see Paul or Ryan before they move away to Atlanta and Louisville, respectively, since I'm gonna be out of town for two weeks starting on Monday.
Saying goodbye to friends is never fun, and this is definitely the time of year for that. Anke & Dave moved out to Fort Collins, Colorado a month or two ago, Stephanie left on Friday to move to Monterey, California, Vic is moving to Grand Forks, North Dakota on Monday, Meaghan's moving back to Dallas on Tuesday, and Lindsay's moving to Grand Rapids, Minnesota soon thereafter too. And then in August Daniel van N. will be moving back to South Africa. I guess that's the nature of academia though, with friends coming and going every year. On the plus side, with having friends moving all over the country, there's a greater chance of seeing at least some of them, almost no matter where I travel. :-)
To get all of you in the mood for the 4th of July, here's a video I took during the Grand Finale at last year's Central PA 4th Fest here in State College.
I'm definitely gonna be taking a bunch of pictures and videos at tonight's fireworks with my new camera and gorillapod! Hopefully the rain holds off until after the show is done. Happy Independence Day!
Posted by Jared at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2008
Lightning Is Bad For You
I keep seeming to write about lightning this summer. Fortunately, this time it doesn't involve anyone I know. Instead, I read about it in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Monday. But this isn't your ordinary lightning-strikes-man story. Not only was he struck in the back of the head by lightning (while hugging a gazebo in mid-air), but he's also cheated death numerous times in the past (seriously, read the article to count the ways). Also note what he plans to do in the future when he fully recovers -- speaking of which, how does a 345-lb man pop a wheelie on a motorcycle without tipping it over? Seriously, this guy needs to go play the lottery or something. And this article raised one more question for me: just what exactly was he doing with loose ammunition in his pocket? I mean, I know Mora, Minnesota is kinda rural (a bit over an hour's drive NNW of Minneapolis, between there and Lake Mille Lacs), but seriously, is there ever a reason to carry loose ammo in your pocket unless you're hunting?
Happy Independence Day everyone!
Posted by Jared at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)