Jared's One Blog

« December 2008 | Main | February 2009 »

January 31, 2009

In the 'Zona Again, Part 2

And now for my post about the second part of my trip to Arizona earlier this month. And as promised, this post will be much more photo-heavy! So I mentioned in Part 1 that what Alex & I had planned or thought would happen before the trip often didn't turn out quite that way. Our original plan before we flew down there was to rent a car (probably at the airport) on the afternoon of Thursday the 15th after my talk at the AMS Conference so that we could go up to the Grand Canyon. But plans changed, and for the better! While we were staying at their place the weekend before the conference, my cousin Melissa & her husband Jeremy graciously volunteered to let Alex & me borrow their Ford Explorer for our drive to northern Arizona!! We were both amazed at and grateful for their generosity.

Being we didn't have a rental car during the conference though, we took the light rail back to our motel in Tempe, and Melissa drove out there to to come pick us up (and all our stuff, which we'd left at the front desk all day). While we were waiting for Melissa, I did what any good son would do: call my mom and mention how I had on shorts and sandals, was sitting on some lush green grass, with my back against a palm tree, in the shade so that I could take a break from being in the sun. Meanwhile, I knew very well that it was well below zero and they had a fresh addition to the snowpack in northwestern Wisconsin. ;-) Anyway, after getting back to Avondale and getting the Explorer loaded up, it was close to 5:30 before we actually started heading north, so most of our drive up was in the dark. We stopped in Flagstaff for some supper and to pick up some food to have for lunch the next day on the trail, so it was close to 10pm before we got to our hotel in Tusayan, a couple miles south of the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park. I think I got paid back for my phone call to my mom telling her how warm it was in Phoenix though, because while the temp was near 75 in Phoenix (elevation ~1100 ft), it was a good 50 degrees colder in Flagstaff and Tusayan (elevation ~7000 ft). There was also plenty of snow on the ground from a bit south of Flagstaff all the way up to the Grand Canyon. Alex & I definitely didn't linger outside up there any longer than we had to!

On Friday the 16th we had set our alarms early enough so that we could get up to the rim for sunrise. When our alarms went off, we decided to give up on the sunrise and sleep for another couple hours. Side effect of yet again staying up really late and talking, I guess. :-) By the time we parked at Mather Point up at the rim, it was getting on toward 10am, I think, and temps were in the low-mid 30s. Especially with the breeze up at the rim, it was nice and cool for the start of a long hike!

We started out at Mather Point:

Then we walked west along the Rim Trail to Yavapai Point:

We continued our hike west, coming next upon Grandeur Point:

Then it was onto our last stretch of the Rim Trail before we came to Grand Canyon Village:

A panoramic view from the Lookout Studio in Grand Canyon Village, looking down Bright Angel Canyon:

A little after 11:30am, it was time to strike out down Bright Angel Trail!

We were mindful of the advisories to allot one-third of our time for the hike down, and two-thirds for the way back up. Not wanting to get caught on the snowy and icy trail below the rim after sunset, we kept our eye on the clock and continued to hike down about 2.25-2.5 miles from the rim. Because of how snowy and icy the trail was, it was hard-going and pretty tiring to walk down:


This was our view when we stopped for lunch a little before 1:30pm, roughly 1600 feet of elevation below the rim:

We really wanted to make it to Three-Mile Resthouse, but if it would indeed take twice as long to hike back up as it took us to hike down, then we really didn't want to risk going however much further (half-mile? three-quarters of a mile?) it was to the resthouse. So we reluctantly gave up before our goal and started the trek back up the trail:

Much to our surprise, it took us the same amount of time to hike back up as it did to hike down. So as it turns out we almost certainly could've continued hiking down to Three-Mile Resthouse, but oh well. That gave us time to rest and relax a bit as we walked back toward our vehicle along the Rim Trail, and that we didn't have to book it to get to a good viewing spot for sunset.

After we got back to Mather Point, we drove over to the carpark at Yavapai Point, and took in sunset just to the west of there:

We have a couple of amusing stories from sunset as well. First, take a close look at the right side of the photo at left, and you'll see a guy standing alone on a rock. I just happened to be looking over that direction, when the guy leapt to that rock from the balance-beam-like rock outcrop near it. I was in total shock to see someone so stupid as to attempt that jump, because that's no small distance, but his landing area was pretty small, as you can see. If the guy would've landed off-balance, he would've fallen to his death. Moron... In any case, this picture captures him in the three minutes or so that he spent pondering how on earth to get back. And sure enough, he leapt back to the platform rock, clinging to the front edge of it, before managing to climb up. I was just relieved that he made it back, despite his idiocy. He could've died had either leap not gone quite right...

The other antics at sunset were perpetrated by Alex & me (Alex was definitely the instigator though, haha). Below the main platform at the vista, there was another ledge that was easy to get down to, and Alex figured out that he could climb up another part of the rock, poking his head above the ledge from seemingly out of nowhere, which startled quite a few people. It was great! (And totally safe, I promise.) No doubt he snuck his way into a few pictures that way, haha. And so of course I tried it too, and though we tried to stage it that I was really struggling to hold on for dear life, I had a tough time keeping a straight face. :-) Then Alex went back to do it again, and we became sort of a tourist destination unto ourselves, amongst the people passing by to take sunset photos at the point!

All told, we hiked over 10 miles that day! It was close to 3 miles from the Mather Point carpark to the Bright Angel Trailhead, then we hiked a round trip of 4-4.5 miles on that trail, then we walked the ~3 miles back to Mather Point, then did a little extra hiking going to the Visitor Center and back, and to the place where we watched the sunset. We were pretty exhausted, but it was so worth it! I've always wanted to go hiking below the rim of the Grand Canyon a bit, and I was able to go with my best friend! By the end we were actually very glad that we didn't get up for sunrise, because that would've undoubtedly added an extra hour or two of hiking at the front end of our day, on two fewer hours of sleep. Once again, our original plans were tweaked and likely turned out much better! We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner back in Tusayan, at the Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse (wings, steak & ribs (which came with a baked potato, corn on the cob and salad), wine, chocolate mousse cake...). Judging from the bill and from how enormously full we were, I'd say we definitely treated ourselves! We slept pretty soundly that night too, as you might imagine. It just might've been the most enormous "food coma" that either of us have ever had!

On Saturday the 17th we drove back down to the Phoenix area, and it was a much prettier drive on the way down than on the way up, partly because it was in the daylight, and partly because we also took the scenic route down through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. We didn't stop anywhere because of time, but it was still neat to see all those cool rock formations and everything. Alex & I had decided that we'd try and see if we could get a taxi from Melissa & Jeremy's over to Mesa, and then one in the morning from Mesa to the airport, hoping that that would be cheaper than renting a car for a day. Well, let's just say that while well-intentioned, that was not our most brilliant idea of the trip. We called a couple taxi companies when we got to Avondale, and they said the cost would likely be up near $70 (meaning Mesa to the airport would probably be around $30). Gulp. Suddenly renting a car from the airport for $58 didn't seem so expensive. After a little while Jeremy suggested that we try to rent a car from an office near Avondale and see if we could return it to the airport. Our first try was Enterprise, but their Avondale branch had already closed for the afternoon. National's nearest wasn't all that close, but then fortunately Avis had a location still open just 3 miles away! We were able to get over there and rent a car for just $44, with the ability to return it to the airport in the morning. I wonder why we didn't think of that earlier, because that would've been wayyy easier. It would've also meant we could've made it over to Mesa closer to the 4pm or earlier that we'd said we'd be there, rather than 5pm. But hey, it all worked out!

We had dinner that night with my dad's cousin Judy & Roger and their family, including my great aunt Mae (101 years old!), my second cousins Linda, Scott and David (and his wife Arlinda). It was so wonderful to see all of them again and talk with them for awhile. I wish we could've had a bit more time with them, more than just an evening, but that's how the week worked out with our trip to the Grand Canyon and everything. Alex played a song or two on the piano, and I was able to play "Magnetic Rag" from memory for Judy & Mae, the only song I could remember (I didn't have any music down there with me). I was really glad to get to see Mae again especially, since she was kind of like a grandma to me for a few years after my Grandma Lee died, because she spent so much time up in Minnesota from then until my Grandpa Lee (her brother) died a few years later. And with Mae growing increasingly frail, I knew that this was likely going to be the last time I'll see her, so saying goodnight to her was a bit sad for me. But she loves the Lord deeply, so I know that I'll see her again eventually. Anyway, even though we had an early 7am flight in the morning (and Linda had a slightly later flight herself), Alex & I stayed up talking with Roger, Judy & Linda until close to midnight. Their hospitality was absolutely incredible, and not just because Roger & Judy got up and had an enormous breakfast ready for us at 4:30am to send us off! Judy was so worried about us being hungry, even after all that, that she sent along some oranges from one of the trees in their backyard (and they were pretty tasty!). I've sure been blessed with some wonderful relatives. :-)

Our flight landed pretty late in Detroit for some reason (boo Detroit), which meant that Alex had to go straight to his Chicago connection, without stopping for anything. They even had to open the doors back up for him, because the plane was about to depart (his luggage caught a later flight though). I also had a little bit of an adventure with my connection to State College as well, because a few of us weren't allowed to board for several minutes. The reason? For weight considerations, the gate agent needed approval for the rest of us to get on the plane, but her superiors weren't answering the phone for several minutes, meaning she couldn't get approval to let us on. Sigh. Then when we finally were allowed to board (after scheduled departure), we had to sit at the gate for another 10-15 minutes. The reason? The pilot told us that he'd been "calling and calling" to try to get one of those carts that pushes planes away from the gate over there, but they were also not answering their phone or something like that. I've never had either of those two problems before in my life. These have gotta be at least reasons #3 and 4 on this trip that Detroit sucks! At any rate, I eventually made it back to State College safely, and Tim picked me up. I also lucked out and missed the worst of the cold snap while I was in warm, sunny Arizona. :-) Apparently my car battery did not survive the cold week though, as a door was open just enough to trigger the dome lights (which are intermittent anyway), which drained the battery completely. What a nice 'welcome back'...

It was a joy to spend so much time with Alex down in Arizona! It was cool that he was able to meet some more of my extended family down there too, and really fit in. And we were both touched by the amazing hospitality of Melissa & Jeremy and Marci & Marc in Avondale, and of Roger & Judy and Linda in Mesa. I wished the week didn't have to end, and we loved pretty much every minute of it. Honestly, neither of us could really think of a "least favorite" part of the whole trip in Arizona. It'd be so sweet if we could travel to some other cool places together in the future too, like Australia! :-D But for now it's back to work in our respective semesters, and just praying and waiting for word about Alex's grad school application to Penn State. Hopefully the wait is worth it!

Posted by Jared at 06:22 PM | Comments (2)

January 27, 2009

In the 'Zona Again, Part 1

And finally, I'm getting around to writing about my week-plus in Arizona earlier this month. It was the second time I've visited Arizona, the first time being back in March 2006 over spring break, and I had an amazing time the whole week! And don't say that I didn't warn you that this is a really long post!

One theme that I noticed throughout the trip was things not happening quite like we'd planned, but still managing to work out fine, or often even better than planned. The first of those changes of plans happened right after Sue, Kent & I landed in Detroit on Friday the 9th. We saw that Alex's flight from Chicago O'Hare was delayed due to snow, which would've left a very tight window for him to catch our flight from Detroit to Phoenix. I called him, and it turned out that he'd already been rebooked on a flight from Chicago to Minneapolis, and was going from there to Phoenix. At least I was still sitting next to Kent on the flight to Phoenix.

Aside:
Reason #1 (on this trip) that Detroit sucks: The airport lied to us. They advertised that they had a Little Caesars, but when Kent & I went to go find it, it definitely wasn't there anymore. It'd been replaced by something else, which means it was a disappointment.

Reason #2 that Detroit sucks: Our plane sat on the tarmac for a long time, and our flight to Phoenix took off about 45-50 minutes late because the lights along one of the two departure runways at DTW went out, forcing all departures to be routed through a single runway.
/Aside

When our flight landed in Phoenix about 11pm Mountain time, Kent & Sue were able to catch a ride to their hotels, but I waited around for Alex's flight from Minneapolis to arrive. Fortunately it came in a bit early, and because ours arrived late, I only had to wait for about half an hour. Not too bad! By the time we got our luggage, got a rental car, drove out to Avondale, it was already quite a bit later than we'd originally planned to get to my cousin Melissa & Jeremy's place. Matters weren't helped by the fact that we ran into some awful road construction at 1am on I-10 right before the exit we had to take (three lanes down to one lane, and then the exit was closed too, argh!), so after getting through that and finding a drive-thru that was still open to get some food, it was nearly 2am before we arrived at Melissa's. I felt bad about getting in so late, especially since Melissa waited up for us, but there wasn't anything we could've done.

We didn't get much sleep that night, because I drove Alex into downtown pretty early on the morning of Saturday the 10th so that he could go the AMS Student Conference. I chose not to go to that because I'd heard that it was aimed primarily at undergrads, and that there wasn't much there that'd be worthwhile to grad students. For lunch I went with my cousin Melissa and her two kids, my cousin Marci and her three kids (Melissa & Marci live literally next door to each other in Avondale, it's a pretty cool arrangement) to a nearby restaurant, where we met up with my second cousin Linda, her mom (my dad's cousin) Judy, and my 101-year-old great aunt Mae, who all live on the opposite side of Phoenix, over in Mesa (Alex & I stayed with all of them for a night at the end of the week). Basically a mini Lee family reunion! It was good to be able to get everyone together. It was actually Melissa's idea way back in November to get everyone together for lunch or dinner while I was in Arizona, and I'm really glad she thought of it. After lunch while everyone was visiting over at Marci's house, I drove back into downtown to pick up Alex about mid-afternoon, and we got back just before Linda, Judy & Mae left, so Alex got to meet them briefly. Then after supper with everyone at Melissa's house (homemade tacos!), Melissa & Jeremy kindly offered to drive into downtown with us so that we could drop off our rental car at the airport a day earlier than we'd planned and save some money! They even volunteered to drive us over to Tempe the next day to our hotel for the conference!

Aside:
Renting a car from Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport is ridiculously expensive. Even with being on Penn State's Emerald Club contract with National, which gets me almost 25% off, it still cost us about $58/day to rent a normal mid-size car --and that was only with having me listed as a driver, because it would've been another $25/day plus tax to add Alex as an additional driver, since he's under 25-- because the taxes, fees and surcharges that they add at Sky Harbor are about 65%... Talk about gouging the consumer! Here's a tip for anyone who might ever be traveling to Phoenix in the future: if you need to rent a car, and if you have any choice or flexibility in the matter, rent it from someplace other than the airport, especially if they let you return it to the airport for no charge!! You'll be able to have a nice dinner, or several nice dinners if you have the car for a few days, with the money you'll save!
/Aside

After getting back from dropping off the rental car, Alex & I spent the whole evening hanging out with Jeremy (Melissa's husband) and Marc (Marci's husband). First off was some blackjack, playing with some Shrek Monopoly money. It was fun, but afterward Alex said he'd learned he should probably never to take me to a casino, haha. Then the four of us got the ping pong table set up in Melissa & Jeremy's garage, and had an absolute blast having a couple drinks and playing ping pong for probably 2-3 hours. We played doubles for a long time, then some cut-throat (three-person ping pong), and then decided to do a double-elimination singles tournament. Alex & I both lost our first matches against Jeremy & Marc, respectively, so we squared off for the right to keep playing. It was an awesome match, a match for the ages, haha. We were both hitting some ridiculous shots, with Alex winning the most impressive and tense rally at 19-19 on his way to the 21-19 upset, with Marc & Jeremy cheering us both on the whole way because it was such a fun match to watch. At least I'll call it an upset, because he hadn't beaten me yet that night until then, haha. ;-) Alex falling into a laundry basket while chasing a ball was pretty classic too!! We laughed a good long time about that one! And then we finished off the night by playing some SingStar on the PS2, but singing very quietly so as not to wake up Melissa or the kids, since it was 1 or 2am at that point. :-D It was such a fun evening, and quite honestly it was probably the highlight of the trip for both Alex & me (certainly at least one of the biggest highlights anyway), especially all the ping pong.

On Sunday morning the 11th Alex & I went to church with Melissa & Jeremy and their kids, at West Valley Bible Church in Surprise. I'd been to the church once before when my parents & I visited back in March '06, and once again I was impressed with the incredibly solid Biblical teaching of the pastor there. He had to have gone over something like 40 passages during the sermon, it was awesome! This was also the morning after the Cardinals had upset the Panthers in the Divisional Round of the NFC Playoffs, so everyone was excited about that, maybe no one more so than the pastor. He was pretty funny about it too, because when he was encouraging everyone to host a neighborhood Super Bowl party, he said, "Wouldn't it be awesome if the Cardinals were to make it to the Super Bowl? Of course, it wouldn't matter, because the Cardinals making the Super Bowl is a sure sign of the Apocalypse, so none of us would be around to see it, and the Cardinals wouldn't have a quarterback [Kurt Warner] anymore either!"

A bit later that afternoon Melissa & Marci drove Alex & me over to Tempe, and dropped us off at our hotel we'd reserved for the nights during the AMS Conference. The best part of our motel was that it was at the same intersection as a station on the new light rail line that had just opened up. Seriously, we only had to walk across half a street to get to the station! Talk about convenience! We promptly took the train into downtown to catch some of the poster session at the Student Conference, since a few of Alex's Valparaiso friends were presenting there. It was fun to meet some of them finally. Then when we went out to dinner with a couple Valpo people, we ran into Kent and a group of other people from Purdue and Nebraska at the Old Spaghetti Factory, so that was cool.

Monday the 12th was the first day of the AMS Conference, and the day that Alex & I caught the most of, in terms of going to various talks. It was fun throughout the whole conference to go see talks by other Penn Staters (the first morning, there was an entire session of PSU talks), and to meet up with alums like Carver and Yorks. I also met up with my friend Monica from high school at the conference -- how random is that? I had no idea she was down there until she sent me a text message. So that was cool too.

On Monday night there was an awesome party at the Hyatt downtown, the GOES party. This is apparently an annual extravaganza, where companies like Harris Corporation, Boeing and all the other corporations that work together on the GOES project (Geostationary Orbiting Earth Satellites, a series of satellites that have provided crucial meteorological observations over the last three decades) get together and just throw a party for everyone at the AMS Conference. Apparently they cut back this year because of the economic downturn, but they still had unlimited free alcohol, free food (the best prime rib I've ever had, plus mashed potatoes, salad and quesadillas), free "casino cash" (where you could play various casino games like blackjack and roulette, to try and win raffle tickets for prizes at the end of the night), free olde-time photos (Kerrie got one taken with our project's sponsor and a few other people, and Alex & I got one taken together, which was cool ... if I get around to scanning in a copy, I'll add it here). If that was "cutting back," I'd love to see what a "normal" party is like!!

On Tuesday the 13th we didn't make it in for the morning sessions, partly because there wasn't that much that interested us, and partly because even though we went to bed at a decent hour, we just kept talking for a long time, as we seem to be very good at doing. :-) But on Tuesday evening was the Penn State AMS reception in one of the Hyatt ballrooms, for PSU students, faculty, alums and guests. That party was pretty fun too, with free appetizers and two free drinks per person. At the reception Alex was also able to meet Yvette (PSU prof) and we both talked with Sue for about half an hour, which was really good. And it actually turned out to be a good thing that Alex hadn't finished his personal statement or PSU grad school application just yet, because of some of the things Sue said to Alex.

On Wednesday the 14th we barely caught any of the conference, because we stayed in the hotel room pretty much all day so that Alex could finish his application to Penn State, which was due on the 15th. After he came up with a draft of his personal statement, we both spent a few hours editing it together. In addition to incorporating a couple things that Sue mentioned the night before, it also turned out well that he waited until then to do his personal statement, because then we were able to edit it simultaneously, and bounce ideas off each other. That wound up taking less time than if we would've taken turns editing it long-distance and emailing it back and forth. And I think it turned out better in the end because of it, too. The final product was a very good personal statement, in my opinion, and better than the one I had in my application. After tweaking a few other things, Alex submitted his Penn State app! It's exciting that it's finally gotten to the point where his application has been submitted, but it's also makes us both a bit anxious, in that there's no more that Alex can do -- it's all in God's hands now as the department's admissions committee considers all the applicants to the grad program here. Hopefully he hears back relatively soon...

The AMS Awards Banquet was on the evening of Wednesday the 14th, and Alex, Kent, Kerrie & I all sat at a table that we later found out was "reserved" for awards winners and their guests. But hey, in our defense, Dr. Zhang from PSU and the other people who were sitting here motioned that it was totally okay with them that we sat there, so I think it was fine. :-) The banquet wasn't all that thrilling in and of itself, it was like a typical banquet in that the food was good but the portions were rather small. They had some rather odd live entertainment though, a group of youth from the local Hohokam Nation tribe, performing some of their "traditional" songs (while they were wearing blue jeans and sneakers, mind you). One of the youths who introduced the group was pretty clearly winging it and seemed totally unprepared -- he even forgot the name of the songs they were performing. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the whole thing seemed incongruous with the whole rest of the evening. I thought jazz playing softly in the background would've been better dinner music. And I couldn't shake the feeling that the AMS hired them to perform largely for diversity and political correctness reasons, and so that they could soothe their consciences, that they were actually "doing something" to support indigenous cultures. But to me it just kind of came off that they were being put on display. I kind of felt bad for them too, because it didn't seem like that many people were even paying attention to them. I don't know, maybe I was reading too much into it.

After the banquet Alex & I met up with some of his other Valpo friends at The Big Bang, a piano bar on Mill Ave in downtown Tempe. I've never seen a bar that had two pianos set up before, much less featured. They had a group of musicians that rotated through, almost always having two pianists, and sometimes a drummer or bassist too, but they'd play all sorts of classic rock standards. It's a pretty cool concept! They also had monitors scattered around the bar, so even if you were at a place that didn't have a good view of the stage, you could always be watching the two pianists play the night away.

We got into the conference about mid-morning on Thursday the 15th, leaving all our luggage and stuff at the front desk of the motel. My talk was at noon that day, the last talk before lunch in the Atmospheric Chemistry conference, and it went well. I wasn't at all nervous about it because it was essentially the same talk that I gave at the IPR back in mid-December. I practiced it once on Tuesday morning at the motel just to make sure it was around 12 or 13 minutes, but that was it. As a result, I felt like I gave a presentation that wasn't quite as smooth or polished as some others that I've given, but Kerrie, Alex and some other people said they thought that actually worked quite well, because my pauses and whatnot gave them some time to think and catch up with what I was saying. I guess you could say I had a more conversational tone than some of my other presentations, where I'm pretty polished and somewhat scripted on what I want to say. But hey, given the reactions I got, maybe I'll start incorporating a bit more of that approach in my future presentations!

I'll write about the last part of our visit a little later, including our trip up to the Grand Canyon. As text-heavy as this post was, the Grand Canyon post promises to be picture-heavy! It might be a couple days yet though, since I have a bunch of stuff to do for my Advanced Forecasting class today and tomorrow, as I'm in the group responsible for putting together the verifications for yesterday's forecast for 30-some counties in southern Missouri that were under Ice Storm and Winter Storm Warnings. Fun!

Posted by Jared at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2009

My Roommate's a Doctor!

Major congratulations are in order for my roommate Tim, who passed his PhD dissertation defense with flying colors this morning!! Way to go man! Five of us from PSCG (me, Kerrie, Adrienne, Daryl, Jenn) found our way over to the acoustics department to listen to Tim's defense, and he did a great job. I knew he had it all but sewn up when at the end of the "public" question time, one of his committee members told all the students in the room that if they wanted to see what a well-written thesis looks like, that they should look up Tim's 280-page beast (final page count could be higher after some minor corrections though). High praise indeed! To celebrate him passing, tonight a group of us from PSCG went out to dinner at Fuji & Jade Garden, which was fun. It's always good to show support for friends, especially when they pass certain milestones. So now that Tim's done with his doctorate, he'll be moving back to Pullman, Washington, at the end of this month to take a research position in his dad's acoustics lab at Washington State University (Tim comes from a family of famous acousticians). We're definitely going to miss you, Tim! So I'll be living in my apartment sans-roommate for a few months, until, God-willing, Alex is accepted into Penn State and can move out here -- in mid-late May, if everything goes well!

Sorry I haven't put up a post about Arizona yet. I know several of you have been checking back this week to no avail. It was an absolutely amazing week and I have a bunch of pictures from the Grand Canyon in particular, but I've been pretty busy in the evenings with getting settled back into the semester and everything else that I have going on, after having been gone for all but a few days since before Christmas break. Arizona stuff will be coming soon, though.

Posted by Jared at 10:49 PM | Comments (1)

January 09, 2009

Arizona or Bust!

I'm going to Arizona today, woohoo! I'm flying from State College - Detroit - Phoenix this afternoon/evening to go to the AMS Annual Meeting (which runs 12-15 Jan), and for a bit of vacation! Sue & Kent are on both of my same flights today, and then Alex is flying from Chicago, and on our same flight from Detroit - Phoenix (we even reserved seats next to each other, we'll see if that actually happens though)! I'm really looking forward to seeing some of my cousins again down there on the vacation that we have bookending the conference (Alex & I are staying with my cousin Melissa our first two nights, and with my second cousin Linda our last night in Arizona), and also to a trip up to the Grand Canyon with Alex after I give my conference talk on Thursday at noon! I sure hope we get a nice day to take a hike below the rim on Friday. If only we had an additional couple days after AMS too, then maybe we could have time to go see someplace like Zion National Monument as well. There's so much to see in the Southwest, and so little time. At least we'll get a day at the Grand Canyon, though! Last night I made hotel reservations for during the conference and for up at the G.C., and also reserved a rental car at the Phoenix airport for when Alex & I arrive tomorrow, so I was busy and productive while watching Florida beat Oklahoma the (Mythical) National Championship Game. This whole trip is going to be a blast, I know it! I'll put up a post from down there at some point if I can, otherwise it'll be a massive picture-filled post after I get back. Stay warm, everyone. :-)

Posted by Jared at 09:10 AM | Comments (3)

January 06, 2009

The Last Year of the Naughts

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all had fun and safe celebrations out there. For my New Year's Eve I drove down to White Bear Lake to spend the evening with my good friend Scott from high school and his wife Katie. It was a fairly low-key but fun evening, as a couple of Scott & Katie's friends and Alex also came over (Alex's family lives a mere 3 miles away from Scott & Katie, so it was a quick trip to go pick him up!). We played several games, enjoying some beer and a couple big bottles of champagne, before watching the ball drop in Times Square. It was way more fun than I had last year for New Year's Eve, when I was already back in State College and studying for the PhD Candidacy Exam, that's for sure!

Alex & I stayed overnight at Scott & Katie's, and after dropping Alex off at his place on New Year's morning, I drove back up to Cumberland to watch the Rose Bowl at my parents' place in sparkling HD. The game started out promisingly, with Penn State and Southern Cal tied at 7-7 after the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter proved disastrous for the Nittany Lions though, as the Trojans outscored PSU 24-0, taking advantage of a number of befuddling mental errors and defensive breakdowns by Penn State. With a 31-7 halftime lead for USC, the game was basically over. At that point I was just hoping for Penn State not to mail it in, and actually come back and make the score a bit more respectable. And sure enough, they did, making the final score 38-24. There were even a couple glimmers of hope in the 4th that PSU could make it a one-score game and give themselves a chance to recover an onsides kick and make the game really interesting again, but it just wasn't the Lions' day. I wasn't surprised that USC won the game, because they're a very good team, but I was quite disappointed with how poorly Penn State played in the 2nd quarter, and how poorly our defensive secondary played all game long. Sigh. Oh well, it was still a fun season. After the Rose Bowl ended, I drove over to Nathan & Laura's to play a game of Settlers of Catan: Cities & Knights. I had originally planned to go over there a couple nights earlier, but the snowstorm we had that day made me decide not to go anywhere on the roads. I'm really glad it worked out for me to make it over there for at least one game night!

With the end of break upon us, on Friday I packed up all my things, loaded up my car, and drove down to the Twin Cities to pick up Alex. It was a great drive down to Valpo, with perfect road conditions and no precip (and a working heater!), and especially because of being able to share the drive with such a good friend. :-) We stopped to visit one of Alex's friends south of Rockford for a couple hours, and it was a bit after midnight before we rolled into Valparaiso. And then we stayed up till 4am jamming out in his dorm room (me on keyboard, Alex on electric guitar), since there wasn't anyone else in the whole building to be disturbed. Lots of fun, and hopefully just one of many more jam sessions to come!

After grabbing some breakfast with Alex at Steak 'n Shake (I wish we had those in PA!), I hit the road around noon Central, and got to State College before 9:30pm Eastern. That's the fastest I've ever done that leg of the trip, that's for sure, and largely because I only made two stops the whole way before State College (normally I might make more like four stops). I just wanted to get back, so was definitely pushing to make good time. The weather and roads were great again too, but I'd definitely have to say that Friday's drive with Alex was tons more fun and less tiring than Saturday's solo drive!

Penn State wasn't my only football team to lose a postseason game, though. I went over to Ben's on Sunday afternoon to watch the playoff game between the Vikings and Eagles. The first half was pretty competitive, with the Eagles taking a 16-14 lead. But then the Vikings offense went completely M.I.A., as the Eagles eased to a 26-14 win. Am I surprised the Vikings lost? Nope. They always find a way to choke eventually. Boy, do we ever need a starting quarterback... It was fun to watch the game with Ben though. I even got to try one of his Uncle Oinker's Bacon Mints. Let's just say the taste was... well... unique. Just try to imagine the flavors of bacon and mint all rolled into one. I never knew it could be done. It was certainly higher-quality than the Vikings second-half offense!

Yesterday and today I've put in a lot of work getting ready for next week's AMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix. The primary thing I've been working on is writing a short manuscript to accompany my oral presentation. The manuscript is due tomorrow, and today I completed a draft of it, woot! And I have a draft of my power point presentation already done, too! I'd call that a couple productive days at the office (and evening at home)!

Only three days until I leave for Phoenix!! I can hardly wait!

Posted by Jared at 08:06 PM | Comments (2)