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October 29, 2009

Snowtober: Day 3

Remember the record-setting snowfall I wrote a couple posts about a couple weeks back? Well, this post is meant to close up that series of posts, as part of my continued catch-up blogging effort.

The snow continued into a third day. Tailgating was banned by Penn State for the homecoming football game vs Minnesota -- all the grass lots were closed (4-6" of slushy wet snow + unfrozen ground + lots of car and foot traffic = MUD PIT). To compensate for the loss of 20,000 parking spaces in the grass lots, they only allowed one car per parking space in the paved lots, and Penn State also arranged for 50 shuttle buses to ferry passengers free of charge from various parking lots all around town (Lowe's, Nittany Mall, Hills Plaza, high school, etc.) to the stadium and back. When I found out Saturday morning in the CDT that a free shuttle would be leaving from the high school parking lot every 10-15 minutes, my decision about how to get to the stadium became a very easy one, considering my apartment is right behind the high school. Walter & I both wish they had those free shuttles leaving from there every game, it was really convenient!

Up near the stadium, it was really weird not to see tailgaters as far as the eye could see, and instead to see empty, snow-covered fields. The atmosphere was rather subdued. As for the actual atmosphere (the one I study), it unfortunately warmed up to the point that the snow, after falling for 51 consecutive hours, switched over to a cold light rain a couple hours before game time, which continued throughout the whole game. That was unfortunate. I wanted to attend another game while snowflakes were falling (the first was last year vs Michigan State). The snow in the stadium hadn't melted yet, and OPP didn't have enough time to clear it out of the stadium, so instead they just shoveled it off the bleachers and into the rows.

The decision not to get rid of the snow entirely caused some issues, though. Namely: snowballs. Lots of them. After Penn State connected on a 47-yard field goal to take a 3-0 lead midway through the 1st quarter, we noticed that there was a vigorous snowball fight happening in the junior and freshman/sophomore student sections (if you look carefully, the photo at left shows a few snowballs flying). Seriously, there were lots and lots of snowballs flying, but they were all staying in the student section, and basically thrown laterally instead of forward (toward the field). And then, gradually, the senior student section started to get in on the action. And then there were some snowballs being tossed down toward the seats near the field, and then onto the field. As soon as a few snowballs landed on the field, the barrage really began in earnest, as more and more idiotic students started launching them. Nobody was safe, including those of us in the front few rows (I got hit by four massive snow/slushballs in row M), the Minnesota ballboys, Penn State's own players, some of Penn State's recruits, our cheerleaders, our dance team, our mascot, the chain gang, the line judge, and even Joe Paterno himself got hit (or only very narrowly missed). JoePa immediately turned around and glared at the student section, clearly very peeved. Eventually PSU moved all their players well down the sideline so they were no longer near the student section, and a couple players came down in front of the student section to plead with them to stop throwing snowballs. Eventually the public address announcer got into the act too, reminding fans that the throwing of objects (including snowballs) inside Beaver Stadium was prohibited, and that those caught throwing snowballs would be ejected and possibly arrested and/or possibly have their student ticket privileges revoked. While all this was happening, those of us in the first 20+ rows turned around and started chanting at the rest of the student section to try to get them to stop. All of this was to no avail, and the snowballs kept coming and littering the field. Some of them were landing very near players on the field of play during the game. We thought for sure the officials would call a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on Penn State because of the snowball-throwing fans disrupting play. In fact, at the end of the 1st quarter, it was to the point that those of us in the rows near the field were begging the officials to throw the flag. We figured that was the only way to get the idiots to stop throwing snowballs. Yet even with that the ref didn't throw the flag. Never in my life have I ever heard of (much less seen or participated in) a group of fans pleading with the officials to call a penalty against their own team. It was so bizarre. Anyway, the snowballs finally came to a halt in the early stages of the 2nd quarter once campus security showed up and ejected a couple people (finally). I don't know what took them so long to show up though, because the snowball fight had been going on for probably 20-30 minutes by that point, maybe longer. Also, by the time I got hit by the 4th snowball, some people around me felt sorry for me that I'd been hit by so many, while most everyone else near me hadn't been hit by any, that they were volunteering to "take one" for me if they saw one heading our way. That was funny.

As for the rest of the game, Penn State's defense absolutely suffocated the Minnesota offense, and the Nittany Lions cruised to a 20-0 shutout. And despite the 38-degree mist and light rain that fell throughout the game, I wasn't nearly as cold during this game as I was during the Iowa game, which was at least 10 degrees warmer, but much wetter. I think the key was layers: I had on two t-shirts, a long-sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a poncho and a jersey. Count 'em, six layers. I definitely wasn't cold, even when I was being pelted by snowballs! My Minnesota and Wisconsin upbringing, which taught me the necessity of layers in cold weather, served me well. :-) I'm definitely getting sick of cold rain though. That made two games this year I've been to with it.

Posted by Jared at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2009

The Other Grand Canyon

Starting to catch up on a little blogging. Eventually I'll get around to writing about my road trip this past weekend to visit Alex and about how I was physically assaulted in the stands of Michigan Stadium during the Penn State-Michigan football game. How's that for a teaser?!

Earlier this month there was a two-Saturday stretch where I didn't watch any college football during the day. And you know what? I survived just fine, much to my surprise. ;-) On Saturday the 3rd it was the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK relay race that took up the entire day, and on Saturday the 10th it was the 4th annual PSCG Fall Retreat. During the retreat I didn't even have cell phone reception all day long at the lodge.

We actually started the retreat this year on Friday night the 9th, with the first talk by the retreat speaker at the Hollemans house. This year's speaker was Randy Newman, who has worked with Campus Crusade for Christ (PSCG's parent organization) since 1980, and recently has been involved in Faculty Commons, the faculty ministry of Cru, but also speaks regularly to grad students and undergrads. He's also worked for many years with the Chaplain's Office at the Pentagon, and speaks there every week. In addition to all that, he's written several articles and books, including "Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People's Hearts the Way Jesus Did" and "Corner Conversations: Engaging Dialogues About God and Life."

With the one talk Friday night and three talks on Saturday, Randy had a four-part series on the Christian worldview, where he focused on the four pillars of the Christian worldview. His first talk was on creation (Genesis 1), his second talk was on rebellion (Genesis 3), this third talk was about redemption (Romans 3), and his fourth and final talk was about consummation (Revelation 21). Randy Newman was a very engaging speaker, and I felt like I learned things from every talk.

I played keyboard at church on Sunday morning the 11th, partly as a change of pace from the piano, partly because I know Ben (who was leading that week) is a fan of having the keyboard play background strings in general. I didn't go to rehearsal on Saturday night because of the retreat, though. I usually prefer not to show up on Sunday morning without having done any practicing or rehearsal, but this week it worked out to do just the pre-service rehearsal on Sunday morning. As an interesting stat, this marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that I was in the worship band, and the sixth Sunday in the past seven (or the seventh of the last eight Sundays for which I've been in State College). I've just had a two-week hiatus though, with Paul & Ben doing a two-man set two Sundays ago, followed by the youth band leading worship this past Sunday (when I was out of town in Ann Arbor anyway). I knew I'd been playing a lot lately, but until I looked up the actual numbers, I didn't realize just how frequently it's been recently. And this wasn't a complaint that I've been playing quite a bit, because I do enjoy playing music at church, but rather just an observation.

After church on the 11th several people from PSCG were planning a road trip and hiking expedition to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. For those of you who didn't either attend PSU or grow up in PA, how many of you didn't even know that Pennsylvania had its own Grand Canyon? Well, there is one, way up in the desolate north-central part of the state, about a two-hour drive north of State College. Originally I wasn't planning to go up there, but then I decided fairly last-minute that I would go. I realized that I often have thought or said, "I want to go to the PA Grand Canyon sometime," or, "I should just take a drive around central PA some day when the fall colors are at or near peak," or, "I should just get out and do more stuff." So I decided I really should take advantage of the opportunity. I mean, seriously, how much work would I actually have gotten done had I stayed home? Anyway, we took three vehicles up there from State College, and I drove one of them because I wanted to come back before supper (also, Game 3 of the Twins-Yankees series was set to start at 7pm that night). The drive was pretty scenic, especially the 40-mile stretch of PA-287 between Jersey Shore and Wellsboro. We definitely hit peak fall color along that road! We could also tell we were getting close to the Grand Canyon because of all the kitschy tourist traps (like Animaland) and RV campgrounds.

Once we arrived at the PA Grand Canyon (Leonard Harrison State Park is the actual name of the park, and the canyon itself is actually called Pine Creek Gorge), we took in the view from the rim for a bit, and then started the hike down the trail. It was a pretty hike, following Four Mile Creek for a good bit as it descended to Pine Creek.

I'm glad I took the time to go up there, it was a great hike. And now I can say I've hiked in three Grand Canyons - first in the Grampians (Victoria, Australia), then in Arizona and now in Pennsylvania. As cool as the ones here in PA and in Australia are, the one in Arizona is slightly more impressive. :-)

Posted by Jared at 11:42 PM | Comments (2)

October 16, 2009

Snowtober: Day 2

And it's still snowing (lightly). This record-setting snowstorm is not one anyone here will soon forget. After seeing several more flashes of lightning out my window last night (hooray thundersnow!!), I woke up this morning to a regular winter wonderland. There was about 3 inches on the ground this morning near my apartment, but more than that has fallen, as it's all been continuously and slowly melting, with temps at or slightly above freezing (other places around town have 6 inches already). While walking into campus, I became very glad that my car is parked a long way from any trees in my apartment building's parking lot. There are tree limbs down everywhere around State College, and 10,000 Allegheny Power customers here in Centre County are without power this morning. It's a total mess. Here are some of the photos I took this morning on my walk in:

As you can see, it was beautiful outside to see the rare sight of the snow and the fall foliage together in a single scene, but there was also a lot of damage as a result of the snow. This record-setting snowstorm isn't done yet either. Forecasts are calling for another inch of snow today, another 2-4" tonight, another 1-3" tomorrow, another 1-3" tomorrow night, and then a rain/snow mix switching to plain rain on Sunday.

And now the grass tailgating lots for tomorrow's football game vs Minnesota have been closed. That's not a surprise, because the ground isn't frozen yet, and this is a heavy wet slop on the ground right now, that's constantly melting bit by bit because the temp's hovering just above freezing and the light snow is occasionally mixing with sleet or rain. If the ground were frozen it could handle all the car and foot traffic of a tailgate, but not when it's like this, it'd turn into a huge mud pit. At least that'll make my decision easy about whether or not to endure the crappy weather to go tailgating. Now I'll just go endure the crappy weather at the stadium for the game tomorrow afternoon. :-) Some people have been complaining that just because we're playing Minnesota tomorrow, it doesn't mean that the weather has to be like Minnesota, haha. I really hope it doesn't switch to rain for the game, that'd be completely miserable...

Posted by Jared at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2009

Snowtober

Today was a historic day in State College. Never before has there been an accumulating snowfall this early in the season! Prior to today, the earliest accumulating snowfall in State College took place on 18 October 1901. Last weekend I said I was jealous of the early-season snow that was falling in Minnesota and Wisconsin. At the time I had no idea that I'd only have to wait less than a week to see some here in central Pennsylvania!

When I walked to campus this morning at 8:45am, I noticed what seemed to be occasional wet snowflakes mixed in with the cold 36-degree rain. Then around 10am the rain was really starting to switch over to snow in earnest. It waffled back and forth for a few minutes, but pretty soon stuck with snow, and was coming down at a pretty good clip. At that point, it was only a matter of time before the snow started to accumulate on the grassy areas and leaves. I'm normally excited for the first snowfall of the season, but today I was like a kid in a candy shop, taking a bunch of pictures both when I went to lunch and then after class this afternoon. :-) I mean, it's not every day when you get to witness a historic snowfall! And then to top it off, a bit before 9:30pm tonight I saw a flash of lightning out my patio window! What a great day for weather! Hopefully it doesn't switch back to a cold rain over the next few days. I definitely don't want mid 30s and rain during tailgating and the Penn State vs Minnesota football game on Saturday. I want more snow!

Posted by Jared at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2009

Multi-City Thanksgiving Airfare Rigamarole

I've been keeping an eye on flights from State College to Spokane for a few weeks now, because I'm going to be in my former roommate Tim's wedding in Yakima on 21 Nov, and visiting the "Lee clan in Spokane" for a couple days before and after the wedding. It'll be my first trip to Washington state ever, and I'm really looking forward to it. And on the way back from Spokane, I figured I may as well have a few-day stopover in Minnesota/Wisconsin for Thanksgiving with my family, since I'd be flying through MSP anyway. At any rate, in the last couple weeks while I've been waiting for some details to work themselves out, prices for the flights I was looking at went up $300-400. For a multi-city itinerary (SCE->GEG, GEG->MSP, MSP->SCE), the cost this morning was a staggering $900.

Ouch.

However, for travel on the exact same dates, if you replace SCE in the itinerary above with DTW, the price magically drops to $520. Still not cheap, but it's around Thanksgiving, and that's a pretty substantial savings over flying out of State College. Factor in that I can drive the 6+ hours to Ann Arbor and stay with Alex the night before I fly out of Detroit (AA is really close to the Detroit airport), and park my car for free there, it really was a no-brainer. Even with the cost of gas and tolls to drive from State College to Ann Arbor and back, I'll still save $300 by flying out of Detroit. Heck, if my digital camera keeps acting up, I might buy myself a new one with that cost savings! (When I fly from MSP->DTW, I'll be able to hitch a ride with Alex from his house to the airport, as his flight also leaves around that same time... but he's flying MSP->ORD, then taking the train to Ann Arbor, instead of flying MSP->DTW, because it's way cheaper, oddly enough... so I'll get a shuttle from DTW to Ann Arbor, go get my car, and then drive back to State College that night, probably departing Ann Arbor before Alex even gets to Ann Arbor, despite his flight leaving MSP a half hour before mine. How's that for travel twists!)

However, I really could've done without the added hassle of trying to arrange the plane tickets through my credit card. First, the rewards center phone number wasn't published prominently anywhere, so I had to call general customer service to find it out. Then they said there was a $15 service fee for booking over the phone, but free over the website (at least they gave the URL in the automated message!). Then I tried the website, but it said there were no flights available those days. B.S.! So I called back, listened to some program details hoping that'd explain things, but it didn't, and I couldn't figure out how to back up a few levels of menus, so I hung up and called again. This time I talked to someone, and she said in order to book a multi-city itinerary I *had* to do it over the phone. I sensed B.S. there too (and was ultimately right), because the website allows you to do multi-city searches. She tried to plug in my same dates, and also came up empty, but found that if I picked a "major" airport to depart from, that it'd work. Apparently I can redeem my points for flights, unless they depart from State College. ARGH. I asked for a list of airports from which I could redeem my points (or a list of ones from which I can't), but she said she didn't think any such list was published anywhere. B.S.! Argh! So then I started searching their website again, this time using other departure cities like Pittsburgh. Then I thought of checking the cost of flying out of Detroit, since Alex lives so close to there. With it being so much cheaper, that immediately became my new favorite plan. But to book it through my credit card, the specific flight times were unfavorable (and it pretty much locked me in to a couple choices, even though the airlines themselves had many different flight options/times on the same days for the same price), and it would've used up all my points (nearly enough for two $400 flights or two $250 cash back rewards, in theory), plus charged me an additional $75 cash. It seemed that either the credit card travel agency was charging around $800 for a flight I could book myself on nwa.com for $520, or every 25,000 reward points was only good for a $250 airfare, instead of a $400 airfare. If the former, it would be far cheaper for me to get cash for my reward points and book the flights myself. If the latter, it'd be far less hassle for me to get cash for my reward points and book the flights myself, instead of being limited by the options from the credit card travel agency. Either way, I finally decided to book the flights myself over nwa.com and get straight cash for my credit card reward points.

Getting all this sorted out seriously took all morning for me. So while I'm glad that I finally have my flights booked to go to Washington and to go home for Thanksgiving and to get back to PSU afterward, I really wish this wouldn't have taken up my *entire* morning. But my November trip criss-crossing the country will all be worth it, it's gonna be fantastic!

Posted by Jared at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2009

My First mOUnTaiNBACK

Back in the summer I decided that I wanted to start getting back into shape, so I decided to start running again. I ran a bit early in the summer, but then fell out of the habit again for the most part until I got back from my visit to Wisconsin & Minnesota. I was usually just doing a little 2-mile loop, and often having difficulty even doing that without taking any walking breaks.

I wanted to get to the point where I could comfortably run 3-5 miles, but I was lacking some motivation to push myself to that point as quickly as I could. So of course the natural thing to do when I was struggling to run 2 miles was to say yes when asked if I wanted to join an 8-person team of people from PSCG for a 50-mile relay race, the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK, with only 4 weeks to train for it. I thought I'd probably be able to swing a 3-mile leg, but I was assigned a 4.9-mile leg. At that point I knew I had my work cut out for me to get my mileage up in time.

Right after agreeing to do the race, I started to wonder what I was getting myself into. Late that week I decided to start stretching my distance though, and one night I surprised myself by running 3.5 miles without stopping, my longest run since high school. At that point I knew I should be able to work myself up to 5 miles by race time. After another week or two I started doing a 4.1-mile loop, but kept having to stop and walk several times. Shin splints were killing me after every run though. And then when Alex came to visit a couple weekends ago, we went on a run together and I surprised myself by being able to do 5.5 miles with only one walking break (and no pain from shin splints afterward!). It made a huge difference to run with a friend though, as running is as much a mental activity as a physical one. And usually my will isn't enough to overcome my body telling me it wants to stop and walk, so that's something I've been trying to work on too over the last month. I actually have Alex to thank for a lot of encouragement along the way in the weeks leading up to the race.

Anyway, race day was Saturday, and we had to check in at 8:15am, before our relay wave started the race at 9:30am. It was a very foggy early morning, but as the fog was burning off before the start, I got to see a faint fogbow! That was pretty cool, I don't think I've ever seen one before. We really couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day though, by mid-afternoon the temp was in the mid 60s and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We were sooooo glad it wasn't raining!

The Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK is a 50-mile relay race, and it's divided into 12 legs, ranging both in difficulty (easy/mostly downhill to moderate to difficult/mostly uphill) and in length (3.2 miles up to 6.4 miles, I believe). It can be run solo as an ultra-marathon (the USA national 50-mile championships are held here every year, in fact), or as a team of anywhere from 2-8 people. Runners have to go in their listed order, though, so you can't just have your best runner do all the hardest legs. Our team name was "So Much Potential, So Little Kinetic" (we had five current or former physicists on the team), and our runners in order were Mindi, Adrienne, David D, Becca, Kerrie, Laurie, me & Isaac (with Mindi, Adrienne, David D & Becca all running the last four legs). When we dropped off Mindi at the start line and then drove up the road to the Transition Zone 1, we all felt really bad for Mindi, because the leg was about 4 miles, and *ALL* uphill with about a 900-ft rise (and two switchbacks). Talk about a tough opening leg! The course was all on roads that snaked through the ridges in Rothrock State Forest (no trails, thankfully, considering how rocky those are in Rothrock), but the forest roads were still open to traffic, in addition to the one support vehicle that each team was allowed to bring along to transport runners from leg to leg. So the basic way everything went was someone starts running, the rest of us pile in the van and drive to the next transition zone, get out, wait for our runner to come and hand off the baton to our next runner, and then we'd all hop back in the van and drive to the next transition zone, repeating this process over and over all day long. It was fun though! The hardest legs were #1 (Mindi), #4 (Becca), #10 (Adrienne) and #11 (David D), though some of the others (like #7, mine) weren't exactly picnics either.

My run was leg #7, with a length of 4.9 miles and labeled "moderate difficulty." The name of my leg also was "Miles from Nowhere." It started out at mile 25.9 of the course, and I was greeted immediately with a "hill of death," a mile-long uphill section, rising 300 ft. I wanted to stop so badly toward the top, but when I saw the crest of the hill I was able to keep going. For the next third of a mile it was a downhill, descending 100 ft, but then from mile 1.3 to mile 2.5 of my leg, it was a long, gradual uphill slope, rising 100 ft. Between mile 2 and mile 3 I had to stop and walk twice because I got a bad side stitch, I was disappointed in that. I hate those with a passion. I still had the side stitch the whole rest of the run, but I made myself keep going and not walk the last two miles, partly because I knew stopping and starting again would only continue to make the side stitch even worse. Fortunately the last half of my leg was mostly downhill, descending 300 ft, although the last couple tenths of a mile was a gradual uphill slope. Ugh. Even with a couple walking breaks and the side stitch (which really slowed down my running pace), I was still able to do my 4.9-mile leg in 50 minutes. For me, a 10-minute mile pace really wasn't bad at all, especially considering the long uphill portions. I also passed three people, and only got passed by two (one person that I passed on the first hill passed me back on a walking break of mine when I was clutching my side, sigh). I was very glad to be done, but we had to hop in the van pretty much right after I got done to get to the next transition zone because Isaac's leg was pretty short, meaning I didn't get a chance to stretch before having to sit down for about 10 minutes. That was enough to make my legs sore for the next couple days. If I do this again, I think I'll try to stretch at least some immediately upon finishing, and catch my breath while doing that. Live and learn!

All told, our group did the relay in 7:34:52, which means our group as a whole was averaging a 9-minute mile pace. We were really pleased with that! Stunningly, the fastest ultramarathoner this year completed the course in a jaw-dropping 6:40:01. I don't know how that's even possible, to do 50 miles all by yourself on that hilly a course that quickly. Anyway, after the race there was a free dinner for all the runners, which included tasty barbeque chicken, pasta primavera, and free Yuengling. Gotta love the free beer on the "13th leg" to carb up post-race! :-) Anyway, though we were all rather tired by the end of the day, we all had a blast. I think many of us would like to do it again next year, including myself, and maybe we'll even get enough people together to have two teams from Penn State Christian Grads! Next year we've gotta bring some cowbells or something to make more noise and cheer everyone on, and maybe have some sort of fun themed costume for the race, like the Glenn and the rest of the pirates team had this year.

I'm very glad I agreed to do this and stuck with it. This provided me the necessary motivation to go running even on days when I wasn't too thrilled to go, and to push myself to increase my mileage when I wasn't doing a good job of doing that on my own. I don't anticipate that I'll continue running three times a week through the winter months, but maybe I'll keep up a once or twice a week running schedule, just to stay in shape a little bit. I want to get rid of my beer belly, after all. ;-)

Posted by Jared at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2009

Favreapalooza

I've heard a rumor that there's a Vikings-Packers game tonight on Monday Night Football, and that Brett Favre Brett Favre Brett Favre, who played 16 seasons for the Packers, is going to be lining up against his old team in a purple helmet and jersey. Could anyone verify this for me? You'd think that the media would at least cover this story a little bit and let people know about it. As a Vikings fan, I'm disappointed in how the media is almost completely ignoring this story.

[/sarcasm]

In truth, I'm excited for tonight's Vikings-Packers game, even though I'm still not used to seeing Favre Favre Favre in purple. Basically, I never want the Vikings to lose to the Packers, but I especially don't want them to lose this game, otherwise the Cheeseheads will be absolutely insufferable. I unfortunately will have to miss the first 30 minutes or so of the game due to an intramural flag football game tonight. As soon as the game's done, I might very well sprint to my car, hop in and speed home. :-) SKOL VIKINGS!!

And three cheers for the Twins! They've pulled another late-season miracle and have forced a win-or-go-home one-game playoff for the AL Central title with the Tigers! They were 7 games behind on 6 Sep, and 3 games behind with just 4 games remaining, so this is a pretty historic comeback. With this being the last year the Twins are playing in the Metrodome, I think it'd be appropriate for the one-game playoff to be at 11am today, to leave enough time afterward for the grounds crew to change the field from a baseball diamond to a football field for tonight's Vikings-Packers MNF game. Wouldn't a doubleheader like that be fun? Anyway, I'll take the extra game on Tuesday at this point. GO TWINS!!

Posted by Jared at 08:41 AM | Comments (1)