– Heather & I weren’t even planning on doing this one. We just happened to be at the Marina getting a windsurfing lesson on our first full day on the island, when the Marina guy (Poga, more on him and windsurfing later) insisted with a big smile that we stay for the paddleboard race. We said we’d never paddleboarded before, but he said it didn’t matter, and that we’d get a t-shirt out of it. So that sold us! Basically, we could either stand or kneel on a windsurf board, and paddle out a couple hundred meters against the surf, turn left for a hundred meters, and then paddle a couple hundred meters back into shore. The wind was whipping up some decent waves coming into shore, so I thought the way out would be really tough, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be.

– It took me awhile to find where the field was, and by the time I showed up it was almost halftime. I jumped in for the 2nd half, and played well (I was happy about that, playing with a bunch of military guys!), but when that game was over that was it. Supposedly a few other teams were supposed to show up to have a tournament, but only two teams did. So I got a free shirt for playing 10-12 minutes of frisbee. Not bad work!

– Around a couple hundred people showed up for this run. It’s so hot and humid on the island, it was nice that this was an evening run, starting around sunset. It’s still plenty humid in the evening though, as the dewpoint is almost constantly 77 degrees F. I hadn’t done much running in the previous 6-8 weeks, so that combined with the humidity made me okay with finishing the race in a sluggish 33 minutes. Hopefully I’ll be able to do the 5k at AGU in San Francisco faster than that!

– This was one of the highlights of my entire trip! Rachel & I went down to the Marina at 7am one Saturday morning, loaded up on an LRV (think of what the boats that landed at D-Day), and ferried across to the northeastern tip of the island, at Barton Point. The first 10 miles of the ride were on a trail through the jungle, where we had to dodge coconuts, crabs, rats, and roots. Not long after we started it rained pretty hard for awhile, which turned the trail to mud, adding new obstacles. Some of the puddles were quite long and deep with no way around them, and my feet would go into the muddy water when I pedaled. In one of the puddles I was trying to power through, my momentum came to a sudden halt on a submerged coconut. My shoes and legs were literally covered in mud, it was crazy!

After we got to the R & R Site (just north of the East Point Plantation on the east side of the island), we had 9 miles on a gravel road through forest and jungle. There were fewer obstacles to dodge, but there were still plenty of big puddles. The puddles weren’t necessarily cleaner, but after the Plantation they were gray and chalky from the chipped stone gravel, instead of mud brown. So gradually the brown mud I was covered with was replaced by gray mud, haha. Then at mile 18.5 was a much-welcomed refreshment station at GEODSS (Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance; I may write a separate post about our tour of GEODSS) with fruit, water, and Gatorade. But it was only the halfway mark. (For the first 10 miles there was water every mile, but only every ~3 miles afterward.)

From then on it was 18.5 miles on paved road. By this point the sun had come out and it was really hot. I was able to keep up a pretty good pace with Rachel until the donkey gate at about the 12 mile mark, but from then on I was really struggling (and Rachel went on ahead). I was very tired and very sore, but I kept going with frequent breaks. Though I was exhausted, I didn’t want to give up — I wanted to finish and accomplish this. Eventually I made it, completing the race in 5.5 hours! I walked around like an old man for the rest of the day, sore in just about every muscle and joint in my body (and I had to work a 9-hr shift right afterward!). I’m not used to biking any distance; other than my ride around Rottnest Island near Perth a month ago, it had been around eight years since I’d ridden a bike more than about 5 miles in a day. I’m sure the going would’ve been easier if I had bike shorts, or if I’d had a road bike for the last half instead of a rental mountain bike. But hey, I still did the Tip to Tip!

– I got pwned by three Filipinos. Totally pwned like I was a Scrabble n00b. It was a bit humbling, haha. Of course, my chances weren’t helped my missing three straight turns; two were lost when I challenged words others made (and they were in the Scrabble dictionary, including “gleed” … huh?), and then another was lost when someone successfully challenged a word I tried to make. Oh well, I still had fun and got a t-shirt out of it!

– Rachel was on shift out at the site, so Heather & I convinced Adam to come out of his room and have a little fun down at the pool. Each of us had to swim 50 meters, or one full down-and-back lap, with our bodies in the middle of an innertube. Heather led off, Adam was second, and then I was our “Team Awesome” relay anchor. I went 110% the first 25 meters, and then around the 35 meter mark I started dying; I’m definitely not used to swim races! I still managed to catch one other team to place us second out of four in our heat. It wasn’t good enough for a “medal” though (14 teams total). The sudden burst of exertion was a little much for normally-sedentary Adam though, as he hurled in a garbage can on the way back to the barracks. Heather & I felt kinda bad for “making” him do it, but he was a good sport about it, and fully recovered a few minutes later.

I’d say that’s pretty good variety! There have been plenty more events that I haven’t done, such as 6-person indoor volleyball tournaments, 400-m swims, 500-m ocean kayak races, bowling tournaments, doubles tennis tournaments, doubles table tennis tournaments, quarter marathons, duathlons… Most of those I didn’t do because I had to work, or they were team events and the other people down here didn’t feel like doing those. Seriously, there’s a lot going on, it’s great!

One “unofficial” activity is the Diego Garcia Hash House Harrier runs. Heather & I both participated in two of these. The runs themselves involve trail running as a social event. The trail is marked by spots of flour periodically, and as you pass each marker you need to yell “ON-ON!” so that the people behind you know where the trail is. There are also markers occasionally for clothing exchange (where one item of clothing must be exchanged with another hasher for the rest of the run), for the guys to wait while the women scout out where the trail is, for the women to wait while the guys scout out where the trail goes, for pausing to dance a jig, and most importantly for “BEER NEAR.” Yep, there are multiple breaks during the run for drinking a beer (that’s probably how hash houses worldwide earn the nickname, “a drinking club with a running problem”), haha. There are even markers for false trails too, which are evil. Anyway, the trails can go pretty much anywhere, including on trails through the jungle, through mud puddles, along the beach, into the lagoon, through barracks buildings, along a road… I think the military’s restricted areas are pretty much the only off-limits places for hashing. The runs themselves are pretty fun, but then afterward is the “circle time,” where “infractions” are handed out (with insults and fairly crude songs sung — not such a fan of some of the songs), new members welcomed, some veteran hashers given a hasher alias, etc. Unfortunately the circle time on my two hash runs has been an hour and a half (as long as or longer than the actual run itself), which is waaaay too long. Hash run: lots of fun. Circle time: tedious, boring, and a bit uncomfortable. Circle time should be limited to half an hour, tops. There are hash houses around the world apparently with lots of odd and eclectic traditions, so maybe I’ll check out one in Colorado at some point. But anyway…

On top of the official MWR activities, the gym and pool are both free to use, which I mentioned in my last post. I took good advantage of those, I feel like. All sorts of sports equipment is free to rent at the gym too, including stuff like golf clubs and tennis rackets. Bikes also only cost $15 to rent for the whole month. Incidentally, there was a bit of a language barrier at the bike rental place though, so I wound up purchasing a cateye bicycle headlight and taillight for $10 instead of renting them (but I think the taillight fell off sometime during the Tip to Tip, bummer), and because none of their helmets were anywhere close to fitting me, I had to “purchase” one from them for $10, but it’s not at all clear to me if I’ll get my money back when I turn in the bike or not. If not, it was still a cheap rental for a month!

Then there are all sorts of water activities down at the Marina, about a mile away from Downtown. At the Marina you can rent snorkel gear for free. Sadly, I only took advantage of that once, going snorkeling out near our research site in Thunder Cove. I had problems with water getting in my mask though, and there weren’t flippers that fit me, so I didn’t feel comfortable venturing too far out into the coral where it wasn’t safe to put my feet down. The Marina also offers sailing classes periodically, but we didn’t do that.

One thing I did take advantage of at the Marina was windsurfing. Your first lesson is FREE, and then after that it only costs $2/day to rent a windsurf board/sail. Seriously. Two dollars. So I went down there a few times, but not as much as I probably should’ve. Anyway, my first time I spent falling down a lot (big surprise). On my second time I figured out how to stay balanced much better, and learned how to turn around. On my third time the wind and waves were much stronger than I’d previously experienced, so just staying balanced was a big problem again for me. And then I didn’t go again for awhile, but my fourth time was yesterday. I spent an hour and a half unsuccessfully trying to figure out how not to get pushed into shore. So I asked Poga, a really cool guy who’s the head of the Marina, for a few tips. After another couple of tries it finally clicked and I fixed what I was doing wrong! So I was able to end on a couple of really good runs (really good for me, anyway), including several turnarounds. On my last run I saw a sea turtle playing in the water right in front of me, so I just started watching it instead of paying attention to what I was doing — of course I lost my balance and fell right over, haha. Still pretty cool! And on an earlier run I saw a big stingray swim right under my board!

Add on to that all the lagoon and ocean beaches that there are to visit (I’ll make a future post dedicated to DG beaches and beach photos), and it makes absolutely no sense for people to say there’s “nothing to do” on Diego Garcia. There’s heaps to do if you’re willing to get out there and enjoy this beautiful island and all it has to offer!

Oh, and we can make our own homemade recreational activities too, such as “let’s try to cut open a coconut by cross-sectioning it with a small knife and make a big mess in one of our barracks in the process, only to discover well over an hour later that there’s no water in the coconut after all”:

I just launched my last radiosonde (I’m working the overnight shift tonight). I watched it sail up into the starry sky until darkness hid the balloon. It’s kind of sad that this adventure is drawing to a close. But with only 23+ hours left on the island, I’ll try to make the most of it!

First, our accommodations. We’re staying at the Navy Gateway Inn & Suites (or Chagos Inn, it’s sometimes called). Most people refer to them as the barracks though, because all the military personnel are housed in the 30-ish buildings of NGI&S throughout Downtown. It’s a pretty standard motel room, and is permanently air-conditioned (we can’t adjust the temp). All in all, not too bad. All four of us are up on the second floor. Rachel, in the next room over, doesn’t even get most of the TV channels I get, and her microwave repeatedly blows the circuit after 20 seconds of use, so apparently there are some ghetto rooms. Also, the tap water isn’t safe to drink anywhere on the island because of high trihalomethane levels, so we have to fill up 7-liter coolers with water from “potable water” tanks outside.

We get a few channels on the TV through Armed Forces Network (AFN News, AFN Sports, AFN Prime Atlantic, AFN Prime Pacific, AFN Xtra, and AFN Movies, each of which has a hodgepodge slate taken from various networks in the US), plus stuff like Sky News, CNN International, Turner Classic Movies, Star Movies, and NatGeo. TV reception isn’t great though, and is usually pretty terrible during the day for most channels. What’s puzzling is that reception usually seems pretty good in the mess hall and other places at times that it’s bad in my room. Oh well.

Here’s what street signs look like on DG. The map of downtown that the motel gave us doesn’t have street names on it though, so it took a bit longer to figure out how to get around.

A couple blocks down the road from our barracks is the Ship’s Store, which has everything from Diego Garcia souvenirs to bicycle supplies to DVDs for rent to alcohol and groceries. Most everything’s pretty cheap, actually. For instance, bottles of Tiger Beer are 95c each, 12-packs of Bud Light cans (eww) are $3.55, cans of Mountain Dew are on sale for 10c each (!!), postcards are 25c each, and cans of Pringles are less than a dollar. I noticed that ice cream is a bit expensive though. When fresh produce arrives, a green “FFV” flag (fresh fruits and vegetables) is flown across the street from the store, at which point the store gets kinda busy.

There are a few restaurants in town, all of which are fairly cheap. The cheapest is across the street from our barracks, the “mess hall” (Seven Degrees South Cafe), which has breakfast for $2.40 and lunch and dinner for $4.25. Another favorite of mine is the Officers Club, which is situated at Eclipse Point and has some awesome views. The O-Club has a all-you-can-eat great Sunday brunch for $10, make-your-own-pizza for $7.50 on Thursday nights, 15c wings on Tuesdays… I’m there a lot, let’s just say. Both the O-Club and the mess hall require that you wear shoes (no sandals), the mess hall prohibits tanktops, and the O-Club requires you to wear a collared shirt. All the other restaurants on the island (United Seaman’s Service, CPO Club, Island Room, Peacekeeper’s Inn, Mean Gene’s, the food court, which has Smash Hit Subs, Hot Stuff Pizza, and C-Street Cafe) are fine with flip-flops. And just about every sit-down place has pineapple iced tea for 70c a glass, which I think I’m addicted to.

There’s also a chapel just half a block down the road from our barracks, the Chapel in the Palms. I’ve been there the last two Sunday mornings for their Protestant contemporary worship service. It’s pretty small, but it’s nice to be able to go to church while I’m here and see what Christian life is like here. The band is a group of Filipinos, but they’re honestly not a very good band because they’re not together musically. But the chaplain likes to sing a traditional hymn a capella during the service too. After this week’s service I overheard him tell someone he’d have a wider selection of hymns if anyone could read music and play it on the piano, so I volunteered to play this coming Sunday. Getting involved! I also was invited to a primarily Filipino Sunday evening church service, so I went to that a couple weeks ago, and a Bible study in the barracks last Wednesday night. Another small, neat thing about being invited to both of those was that I got fed home-cooked meals, and right before that I had just started to complain about always having to eat out for every meal. Thanks God! It’s been nice to meet some of the Christians who are stationed here, both military sailors/airmen and FIlipino contractors. One of the military women even commented that she was surprised to meet a scientist who was a Christian, as she thought all scientists were atheists. So maybe I’ve been an encouragement to them by being here, too.

Being surrounded by the lagoon on one side and the ocean on two sides, there’s plenty of pretty scenery around town too.

There’s also a really nice gym that’s free to use, and a swimming pool that’s probably the highest point on the island, as it’s built into a manmade hill. And by highest point, I’d estimate about 5 or 6 meters above sea level. This island is very, very flat. The pool is nice too, especially since it’s outdoors and isn’t overly chlorinated.

All in all it’s not a bad life here in downtown Diego Garcia. The beer selection could be better, but I’ve been spoiled by living in Colorado, haha. It’s nice being able to walk everywhere, and also to be no more than a 5-minute walk from the ocean or the lagoon. And it’s been fun to meet some of the “locals” too. Hard to believe I only have one week left here…

Late on Saturday night (Diego Garcia time) I found out the news that former PSU defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky PSU Athletic Director had been indicted by a Grand Jury with 40 counts of felony child sex abuse, for abusing 8 boys over a 15 year span, and that Tim Curley and VP of Finance were indicted by a Grand Jury with the charges of failure to report abuse (a misdemeanor) and perjury (a felony) by the same Grand Jury for covering up the scandal. I was shocked and horrified.

While I didn’t read the Grand Jury report for myself, I know almost all of what is in it from quotes I’ve read from people who have read it. I’ve read some news articles, but for the most part I’ve been keeping up by reading BlackShoeDiaries.com, a Penn State sports blog/message board. The details that are contained in that report about what Sandusky did are revolting, and still make me sick to think about them. Those poor boys and their families… My heart goes out to them, as do my prayers.

So how did this blow up into a scandal that enveloped pretty much the entire administration of Penn State University? I’ll recap it here, since the national media has done an abominable job of actually doing accurate reporting about this scandal. So what follows is what I know of what’s been going on, presented as accurately as possible.

Here’s what we know from the Grand Jury report. Back in 2002, graduate assistant (and now wide receivers coach) Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky engaged in an unspeakable act with a 10-year old boy in the showers of Lasch Building (the football building). All parties ran away. McQueary talked to his father that night, seeking advice. The next day McQueary met with Paterno to tell him what happened, though it’s unclear at this point exactly what details McQueary told Paterno, but their Grand Jury testimonies agreed with each other. Paterno testified to the Grand Jury that McQueary was “distraught.” So the day after that (a Sunday), Paterno summoned Curley to his home to relay what McQueary had told him, and to arrange a meeting between McQueary, Curley, and Schultz. Schultz was also the overseer of the University Park Police Department, so Paterno likely thought that this was one better than simply notifying the police. The meeting between McQueary, Curley, and Schultz took place a week and a half later. McQueary testified to the Grand Jury that he went into lurid detail about what he saw; Curley and Schultz denied that, but the Grand Jury found their testimony not credible and charged them both with perjury as a result. Curley and Schultz then told university president Graham Spanier about the incident, but that it was something “inappropriate” that had made an employee feel “uncomfortable.” Curley and Schultz informed Spanier of their decision to ban Sandusky from bringing kids on campus (which Curley later admitted was unenforceable), and to take away his keys from Lasch Building. Spanier must have known that there was more to the story, but did nothing. As near as can be told, the matter was swept under the rug at this point, and no police investigation was ever started. For what it’s worth, Schultz testified that he thought the matter had been referred to Child Protective Services, but it never was.

Now for some backstory. It should also be noted that Sandusky was investigated in 1998 for a similar incident. Police even listened in to a conversation in which the mother of the victim met with Sandusky, and Sandusky even admitted to showering with the boy, but would not promise not to do it again. For reasons that are still unknown, charges were never filed against Sandusky in 1998. Unfortunately we will never be able to get answers from then-Centre County District Attorney Roy Gricar on why he never pressed charges against Sandusky, because Gricar mysteriously disappeared in 2005. His car was found next to the Susquehanna River in Lewisburg, PA, and his laptop computer was recovered from the river, as was his hard drive eventually (data unrecoverable), but no trace of Gricar was ever found. In 2009 investigators announced that they found Google searches stored on Gricar’s home computer shortly before his disappearance for how to destroy a hard drive in water. Then a few months ago his daughter had him legally declared dead. I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened in that bizarre disappearance, but anyway…

Another interesting thing that comes from the 1998 investigation of Sandusky is that shortly after that, Paterno informed Sandusky that he would never be the head coach at Penn State, and basically forced him into retirement in 1999. That was puzzling at the time, because Sandusky was one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, and was just assumed to be the heir-apparent to Paterno. Did Paterno know about the investigation in 1998? He testified to the Grand Jury that he did not know about it at that point. Paterno and Sandusky were very good friends for a long time, as Sandusky worked for Paterno for about 30 years, but their relationship did appear to change around 1998. At Sandusky’s 1999 retirement banquet, the normally loquacious Paterno spoke for only about a minute.

Sandusky also founded a charity organization in the 1970s called The Second Mile, for disadvantaged and at-risk youth. Sandusky and The Second Mile appeared to be doing wonderful, wonderful work for a long time. Sandusky and his wife were also unable to have children of their own, so they adopted eight kids. Sandusky was always around children, and ran youth football camps at Penn State until 2009 (incredibly).

Fast forward to 2008. Administrators at a high school in Clinton County (PA) became aware of Sandusky, who was a volunteer football coach at the school, repeatedly abusing a boy on school grounds (pulling him out of class repeatedly, despite not being the boy’s father). School administrators immediately banned Sandusky from school district property, and notified police of the incidents. That eventually led to the Grand Jury investigation from 2008-2011, which culminated in the indictments handed down last weekend. That a Grand Jury had been convened to investigate Sandusky was known approximately a year ago, though. Yet Sandusky was still allowed on the Penn State campus as recently as last week.

It was chaos once the news of the indictments broke on Saturday. Shortly after the news broke, PSU president Spanier issued a statement offering his “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz, praising their honesty and integrity, and saying he was confident they would be “completely exonerated” on the charges of perjury and failure to report abuse. There was not one mention of sympathy for the victims. This mind-blowingly dumb statement poured gasoline on the raging inferno of a PR disaster on Penn State’s hands. As a result of his asinine, heartless statement, and because of his role in the cover-up (being intentionally ignorant of what actually happened and not taking it to police), I sent an email to President Spanier with the subject line “please resign,” and I calmly laid out my case for why I thought he was no longer fit to lead our great university.

From the moment the scandal broke, however, the media has been howling for the blood of Joe Paterno, and only Joe Paterno. They claim that he didn’t do enough to stop Sandusky by following up on the investigation or reporting it to the cops. But let’s review the facts here. Paterno received an eyewitness report of an incident (again, we don’t know how detailed) from someone who worked for him. Not being an eyewitness, Paterno decided to run it up the administrative chain of command (which, by the way, is what Pennsylvania state law requires in these situations), and arranged the meeting with McQueary, Curley, and Schultz. At this point, Paterno thought he’d alerted the proper authorities, who would conduct an investigation. Unfortunately, those administrators covered it up and did nothing. We DO NOT KNOW yet whether or not Paterno followed up with Curley and/or Schultz, but from what’s coming out of the Paterno camp, Schultz assured him that an investigation was happening. Schultz even said he thought that CPS had been brought in. If he told that to Paterno, what more is Paterno supposed to do? To wit, the Pennsylvania Attorney General praised Paterno in this case, saying he’s been very cooperative and that he did what he was supposed to do. That’s not been enough for his detractors, though.

The media coverage has been one-sided against Paterno, to the point that the media has hardly mentioned Sandusky, Curley, or Schultz in the past few days, the only people to have actually been indicted with crimes. There’s virtually no outrage about McQueary failing the victims by not calling the cops right away. There’s virually no outrage about Curley and Schultz failing the victims by covering up this scandal and not reporting it to police like they were legally mandated to do. The reporting has been abysmally inaccurate too, which is why I’m linking to this article yet again. The media is outraged at his heinous moral failures, yet he’s pretty far down the list of people to blame for this:

1. Sandusky
2. Curley and Schultz
3. Spanier (and anyone else in authority who knew enough to know something bad happened)
4. McQueary
5. Paterno

I understand that there’s probably more Paterno could’ve done, but we don’t even have all the facts in yet to make that judgment. That doesn’t matter to the media jackals.

On Sunday night, Curley asked to be placed on administrative leave so that he could focus on his criminal defense, and Schultz, who was only serving in his post on an interim basis after retiring from it a couple years earlier, resigned entirely. Meanwhile, there was total silence from the normally very talkative Spanier for days. Penn State University was leaderless.

On Tuesday afternoon, Paterno was scheduled to have his usual weekly press conference about the upcoming football game this weekend. Penn State made an announcement on Monday night that Paterno would not be taking any questions about the scandal, but only questions about Nebraska. Umm, what? Good luck getting the hordes of media from around the nation to abide by that request. So then about 30-60 minutes before the press conference is about to start, a Penn State spokesman announced that the press conference was cancelled due to legal concerns and would not be rescheduled. PSU just could not keep itself from pouring more and more gasoline onto the PR inferno, it was unbelievable. It was then reported that Paterno wanted to hold the press conference, that he had a statement ready about the scandal, and that he was prepared to answer questions about it. Therefore, it was the PSU administration who cancelled the press conference. Unbelievable. Then the Paterno family was reported to be trying to arrange an off-campus press conference at which Joe could speak. It was difficult to keep up with all the news developments coming out of Happy Valley.

On Wednesday morning, Paterno came out with a statement to announce his retirement at the end of the season:

“I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief. I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: To serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care.

I have the same goal today. That’s why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.

My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination. And then I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to help this University.”

Paterno’s statement showed the grace, dignity, integrity, and class for which he has been known throughout his 61-year coaching career at Penn State. He was the one of the only people in this situation to do the right thing (though maybe not enough), yet was being mercilessly and relentlessly pilloried. So he decided to fall on his sword. Shortly thereafter Paterno met with the team to tell him of his retirement, and both he and the team broke down in tears. Unfortunately the rest of the PSU administration doesn’t have even half of the class or integrity
that Paterno has.

Wednesday night the Penn State Board of Trustees met. Throughout the day it had been rumored that President Spanier was on his way out, and that was confirmed after the BoT meeting. They took action on Paterno too. Apparently about 10pm the BoT sent a messenger to Paterno’s house to deliver a piece of paper. The paper asked Paterno to call a phone number. He did, and two members of the BoT answered, one of whom said that he was “relieved of his duties” effective immediately. So Paterno, a coach of 61 years for Penn State (almost half of the 125 years that Penn State has existed!), and who did more for the university than anyone else in its history, was fired not in person. He wasn’t even fired with a phone call. He was fired by a note asking him to call them. What an utter disgrace. Yet another horribly botched situation by PSU administration. It upsets me how poorly they handled this. Here’s Paterno’s statement following his dismissal:

“I am disappointed with the Board of Trustees’ decision, but I have to accept it.

A tragedy occurred, and we all have to have patience to let the legal process proceed. I appreciate the outpouring of support but want to emphasize that everyone should remain calm and please respect the university, its property and all that we value.

I have been incredibly blessed to spend my entire career working with people I love. I am grateful beyond words to all of the coaches, players and staff who have been a part of this program. And to all of our fans and supporters, my family and I will be forever in your debt.”

While I understand the BoT’s decision to fire him immediately instead of allowing him to finish this season, I think it was the wrong decision. (And while I think it was a wrong decision, rioting was not the right response on the part of the students.) Part of that was the BoT’s admission that they still don’t have all the facts (they’re in a shoot first, ask questions later sort of mood). In essence, they caved to the media mob instead of waiting for the facts about what JoePa knew and did. Another part of that is based on who remains still employed at Penn State: Tim Curley and Mike McQueary (recall that Gary Schultz resigned on Sunday). If Paterno was canned for “not doing enough,” then how come McQueary is still employed? He was the eyewitness and had a far greater responsibility to call police than Paterno did. And Curley? He was the one whose legal responsibility it was to report this, but instead he covered it up, and is now indicted with charges of perjury and failure to report abuse. But they still have their jobs. How is that just??? If “not doing enough” is now the standard to fire employees, then the BoT better fire every other employee who knew anything about the Sandusky scandal, or who knew enough to know that something was going on. That’s going to be a lot of people, including janitors, and, as I believe will be revealed in the coming days and weeks, members of the Board of Trustees as well.

Believe me, there is a lot of rot in the administration of Penn State that needs to be excised. Paterno probably needed to go after the season, if not sooner. But Paterno should not be the scapegoat in this scandal, when he’s one of the only people who did something right in it. I am upset by the injustice of firing Paterno while several other people remain on the university’s payroll. The blame needs to be first on Sandusky for his unspeakable actions in violating at least eight boys, and second on Curley & Schultz who were told what happened and did absolutely nothing. That’s who our anger should be directed at.

This is the ugliest scandal in the history of American universities, and it has made me embarrassed to be a Penn State student. It’s shaken me. And I’m angry for what Sandusky has done to those boys, at the cops for not pursuing the matter further in 1998, and at the PSU administration for covering it up in 2002. There’s lots of blame to go around, that’s for sure. As ugly as it is, this is only going to get uglier as more victims of Sandusky’s come forward, and as the trials start. Also, more revelations are going to come out about who at Penn State knew what when — in other words, who else was party to the cover up. Penn State does need to clean house, absolutely. It’s just embarrassing how horrendously Penn State has handled this scandal since news broke. Every single step of the way, administrators have been throwing gas on the fire and making the wrong decisions (except their decision to fire Spanier, that was a good one).

The media’s behavior in this scandal has been utterly disgraceful too. How do these reporters sleep at night, writing such blatant inaccuracies repeatedly to aid their crusade to take down Joe Paterno? Shame on them all. I remain convinced that the main reason they targeted JoePa was because he’s the face of the university, and because he’s been preaching integrity for his entire 61-year tenure. It had to be that, because it surely wasn’t because he was anywhere close to the person who was most to blame. The media love to see people who preach morals and integrity fall from grace, and love to destroy them and bring them down to the muck. They take joy in that. These reporters should be embarrassed of themselves and of their conduct. They shouldn’t even enjoy the privilege of being called reporters and journalists. It’s astounding that the media wonders why they’re despised so much. It was incredible to me how much ESPN was clueless about why PSU students hate them so much — do they really not know? Yes, Paterno wishes he would’ve done more in hindsight, and he’s the only person involved to have expressed such a sentiment. That’s also telling. But seriously, let’s focus instead on the true villains and victims of this scandal.

We will stand strong and united through this scandal. We Are. Penn State. And as our Alma Mater says, “May no act of ours bring shame.” And as Paterno taught for decades, let us continue to have “Success With Honor.” Let us restore our repuation for that. And most importantly, let us pray that Jesus Christ will bring healing to this situation for all involved, especially the victims and their families.

“Downtown” is located at the northwest end of the island, and our research site is about six miles southeast of there. It takes a solid 15 minutes to drive from our hotel to the site because of slow speed limits that are very strictly enforced (speeding tickets are 10 British pounds per mph over the speed limit, and the Brit cops are happy to pull people over going 1 or 2 mph over the limit). The site is located on the U.S. Air Force base, at a place called Tent City (also called Camp Justice). Tent City is a field of cement pads that were poured to accommodate hundreds of troops during wartime operations based from Diego (such as Operation Desert Storm or the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom).

But right now Tent City is virtually empty, and our research trailers (shipping crates, really) are placed on two of the cement pads. One of our crates is full of a bunch of helium canisters, and the other crate is where we spend most of our time. That one has the computers that monitor the various scientific instruments that are on site.

The DYNAMO site is an Integrated Sounding System (ISS) because several sounding technologies are in place here. In the bottom-left photo just above, there are five objects. The middle object is a 915 MHz radar wind profiler. Like the name suggests, it uses radar to measure the wind in a vertical profile and two angled profiles. The radio acoustic sounding system (RASS), which is the four satellite objects around the wind profiler (and integrated with the wind profiler system), measures atmospheric temperature using backscattered radio waves. The RASS turns on for five minutes at the top and bottom of every hour, and makes this lovely sound:

The site also has a ceilometer (pointing vertically) to measure drop size in clouds. That’s also a very handy tool to determine if icing is likely in the clouds above, up to an altitude of about 4 km. If it looks like icing might be a problem, then we need to add extra helium to the balloon to try to give it enough lift to get through the icing region. And we have a webcam to take photos of the sky periodically, but now we’ve been asked to start taking panoramic photographs since the webcam imagery is low-resolution. There also is a rain gauge and a rain collector from which we collect samples for isotope analysis (to try to determine where the rain came from). Here’s the inside of the main trailer with some of the computers displaying the real-time data that’s coming in (the one on the left is data from the weather balloon as it rises).

So what’s the process for launching a radiosonde (weather balloon)? Read below to find out.

1. Call USAF Air Traffic Control to get approval for launch. If there are incoming/outgoing flights in the near future, they’ll ask us to wait.
2. Recondition the radiosonde’s humidity sensor for three minutes to burn off any oils or impurities that accumulated during manufacture or transit.
3. Find a GPS radio frequency away from interfering signals, and program it into the sonde and the sounding program on the computer.
4. Hook up the battery pack (six insulated AA batteries) to the sonde, and verify that the sonde’s temperature, humidity, pressure, and GPS sensors are working and within tolerances. The GPS sensor allows measurement of wind direction and wind speed.
5. Aspirate the temperature and humidity sensors of the sonde in environmental (outside) air while shaded, and continue to verify that the sensors are operating within tolerances.
6. Fill up a weather balloon with 30 cubic feet of helium (or 35 cu. ft. if it’s raining, or 40 cu. ft. if we’re worried about icing aloft), and close the bottom of the balloon with a zip tie.
7. Unspool some thread from the spool attached to the sonde, and use another zip tie to attach the spool to the balloon. (As the balloon rises, the rest of the string will unspool and the sonde will dangle about 30 feet below the balloon.) This is usually the most finnicky step.
8. Remove the sonde from the aspirator, hold the sonde upright in an open palm, and release the balloon someplace where it won’t hit any structures or trees (only a worry in windy conditions).

Here’s a video of me doing steps 7 and 8 of a radiosonde launch:

It takes about an hour and a half to two hours for the sonde to rise high enough in the stratosphere for the weather balloon to burst (often as high as 25 hPa, or about 80,000 ft). We have to launch balloons every 3 hours (though right now we’re in a four-day stretch of launches every 6 hours). It only took a couple of launches under someone’s supervision to get comfortable enough with it to do it solo. There are four of us rotating through three shifts (0500-1400, 1400-2300, and 2300-0500 local time), so each time we get done with a shift, we have 24 hours until the start of our next shift. That way none of us gets stuck with any one shift. One neat thing about launching balloons at night (daylight hours are from about 0645-1915 local time) is watching the balloon sail up into the stars!

Oh, and when we have a little downtime during the balloon’s ascent or while waiting for the next launch, we can chill out and go for a swim at this lagoon beach about 100-200 yards away from the research site:

All in all, it’s not a bad gig here on Diego Garcia! Stay tuned for more upcoming posts about life on the island.

At the terminal we met Heather, the NCAR technician who’s here as our supervisor on the island. She was supposed to fly out the day before, but the DC-8 was on the fritz (she still had to wait for 6 hours at the airport the day before, though), so instead she wound up flying out the same day as us. After about 2-3 hours of waiting in the small terminal we boarded a bus that drove us out on the tarmac to where the C-17 was sitting. The safety briefing about the plane seemed pretty standard, until the guy at the microphone got to the part about lifejackets. Then he paused for a bit, clearly trying to figure out what to say next, and then simply said, “Umm, the lifejackets are pretty self-explanatory, you all know how to put one on.” I thought that was pretty funny, and not “by the book” like you’d expect the military to be.

The flight itself wasn’t as wasn’t freezing cold like we were warned it would be. I had on jeans and a t-shirt, and if anything, I was too warm during the flight because of the heat vent right above my seat. So the long sleeve shirt, hoodie, hat, and gloves that I packed are all useless until I land in Colorado in late November. However, the plane was pretty loud. When I had my earplugs in the flight sounded about as loud as a normal commercial jet, but I could barely hear the person next to me, so they were definitely doing their job. Also, the seats were quite uncomfortable, mainly because of the lifejacket that served as a “lumbar support.” During takeoff and a bout of turbulence mid-flight I was also really wishing there were windows to look out of while we were seated (each side had only two or three small windows in the entire main cabin). Here are some photos from the flight:

In the top right photo, my seat was next to the guy in the foreground at the bottom left corner (I sat to his right), so my view was staring at the boxes in the foreground. Scenic!

Eventually we landed in Diego Garcia at night, and got a cool stamp in our passports for British Indian Ocean Territory. There was even a British diplomat of some sort on the plane, and he was excited to get a BIOT passport stamp. We got a ride to our hotel from one of the students that we were replacing, and then Heather, Rachel and I walked down to the Ship’s Store (the general store) to buy a beer or two to celebrate that we actually landed on this remote tropical island. It was exciting to be here at long last.

Next time: some photos and stories from our first couple days on Diego! I’m going to try to make the posts about the island more bite-sized and frequent, rather than infrequent and novella-sized.

My first mission was to find some dinner, so I went to one of Singapore’s best hawker centres, Lau Pa Sat, near the Raffles Place metro station downtown (it took forever for me to find my way out of the underground mall at that station — Singapore’s quite fond of endless underground malls, it seems). Hawker centres are essentially food courts with hundreds of stalls selling various foods and drinks, and are generally pretty cheap (and cheaper than the actual “food courts” in malls). Apparently you can’t say you’ve been to Singapore without going to at least one hawker centre. After much wandering around, I settled on some Indian food for S$7 and some sugarcane juice for S$2. Sugarcane juice is quite tasty, I might add, even though the “pea soup green” color might not look terribly appetizing. It was also most welcome to have a cheap meal after burning through money like crazy for food in Australia.

After that I wandered around the CBD and Colonial District areas a bit, making sure to check out Merlion Park. The Merlion, a half-mermaid half-lion fountain, is probably Singapore’s most famous icon. And even though it was nighttime, the humidity in Singapore was oppressive (it’s practically on the equator, after all). Being in Singapore made me absolutely adore air conditioning more than probably any other place I’ve ever been. It was cool to see the CBD and waterfront at night though.

On Monday the 24th I took the train back into the city, first to the Little India neighborhood, roughly following the walking tour that my Lonely Planet guide set out. It’s a neat, colorful, scented place. The district was also even more abuzz and decorated than usual because Deepavali, a Hindu celebration, was going on. While walking around Little India I also went into a couple of Hindu and Buddhist temples. The Hindu temples in particular had many visitors because of Deepavali. Many candles and food sacrifices were being offered to the idols.

From Little India I walked over to the neighboring Kampong Glam district (referred to by tourists as the Arab district). After getting a good lunch at Cafe Le Caire (rated by Lonely Planet as the best Middle Eastern restaurant in Kampong Glam), I then checked out the beautiful Sultan Mosque. To go inside I had to put on a blue robe-like garment since I was wearing shorts. It was interesting to read the info boards promoting Islam. Some of that info sure didn’t seem to jibe with what’s going on in the world in Muslim countries today (especially about attitudes toward other religions or status/treatment of women)… In theory I wasn’t allowed in the main prayer hall since I am not Muslim, but one of the tour guides said I could go inside and pray to “see what it’s like.” I said that I was a Christian and respectfully declined the opportunity. The young man gently persisted, saying that Islam and Christianity were “pretty much the same.” I basically told him that I didn’t agree, but politely got out of that conversation. I just didn’t feel like that was the time or place to start a theological discussion, especially with a person who I didn’t know. After leaving the mosque I walked up past the Kampong Glam cemetery (and another mosque) on my way to a metro station.

I took the metro over to Dhoby Ghaut to check out the National Museum of Singapore, as much for the history lesson as for the afternoon respite in air conditioning. I only checked out the Singapore national history gallery, which was pretty neat. They handed out headphones and a media player to guide you through the exhibits. There really weren’t descriptions of the artifacts on the walls, only numbers to punch in to the media player to read or listen to a description. It was cool to see the history of Singapore from around 1000 A.D. to English colonization to Japanese invasion to Singaporean independence.

After an hour and a half in the museum I took the metro up to Newton to have dinner at the Newton Circus Hawker Centre. The touts for the various stalls were quite aggressive there, and the food was a lot more expensive than at Lau Pa Sat the night before. One tout said he had cold Tiger Beer (the ubiquitous Singaporean lager, which is actually pretty decent), and when he could see that I was at least interested, before I knew what happened he’d opened the beer for me and set it down on the table and put a menu in my hands. At that point I figured I should just sit down and find something to order. The Tiger Beer was well deserved anyway at the end of such a long, hot day. And you have to sample the local beer when traveling, right?

I made it back to the hotel in time to go for a quick swim in the pool, which, disappointingly, was no deeper than 4 feet. And as hard as they tried to create a tropical getaway atmosphere at the outdoor pool, the hotel and pool is still situated between the air traffic control tower and a runway. But oh boy did that pool feel good after walking around all day in the tropical heat and humidity!

There’s still more of Singapore that I’d like to see, especially Sentosa Island, but that will have to wait until after I get back from Diego. There wasn’t time to go see any more of Singapore the next day because of our flight. More on that — and Diego Garcia — coming up next time!

Mon 17 Oct: South Perth
After my arrival in Perth and getting a chance to wash up and whatnot, Bob & I grilled some steaks at a park along the Swan River in South Perth. The river nicely reflected the city lights of the Perth CBD. I also made the discovery that jet lag + very little sleep in the previous 72 hours + about half a bottle of wine = EARLY bedtime. It felt so good to sleep though!

I’d also just like to say how much I prefer Qantas to United or almost any American-based airline, especially for longer flights. On my flights between Singapore & Perth, every seat had its own monitor and media controller, so I watched two movies instead of sleeping. The food is also actually decent on Qantas. As an added bonus, Qantas serves ice cream after dinner, too! So there are more reasons why Qantas is my favorite airline, beyond the fact that it usually means I’m flying to/from/within Australia.

Tue 18 Oct: Fremantle
On the 18th Bob & I drove down to Fremantle, a vital port city at the mouth of the Swan River (Perth is 20 km upriver). We went to the Western Australia Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum has a 1960s-era submarine on display, the HMAS Ovens, and we got a tour through it from a former submarine sailor with the Royal Australian Navy. That was pretty neat, and my first time ever in a submarine. The Maritime Museum also had a host of other ships on display too, including the Australia II which won the America’s Cup in 1983, and a boat on which some guy made three consecutive world circumnavigations (one westward, two eastward).

Bob went back to Perth to go to work, but I stuck around in Fremantle for lunch at a brewery called Little Creatures (selling shirts that said “Drink a Little,” haha). This is where I was once again reminded just how expensive eating out is in Australia. My pint cost A$10, and my pizza (intended for one person) was A$21 (A$ and US$ are roughly equivalent at the moment).

Then I also visited the Maritime Museum Shipwreck Gallery. The museum was all about shipwrecks off the WA coast, focusing on four Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipwrecks, the Batavia (1629), the Vergulde Draak (1656), the Zuytdorp (1712), and the Zeewijk (1747). Many artifacts from all four ships have been recovered, and a part of the wooden hull of the Batavia has been recovered and reconstructed as well. The story of the Batavia wreck and mutiny is really a fascinating one.

Wed 19 Oct: Cape Leeuwin & Cosy Corner
On the 19th Bob & I drove 3 hrs down to the South West, a top vacation spot for Perth residents. It’s an area filled with spectacular beaches, more than a hundred wineries, and more than 300 caves.

Our first stop was all the way down at Cape Leeuwin, the southwesternmost point in Australia, where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. The odd currents that this creates, combined with numerous rocks and islands off shore makes Cape Leeuwin one of the most dangerous capes in the world; almost two dozen known shipwrecks have occurred offshore there. Cape Leeuwin’s picturesque lighthouse is the tallest in Australia, and is still in use. I took a tour up to the top, which provided some spectacular views.

After Cape Leeuwin, we made our way back up the Indian Ocean coastline on Caves Road to Cosy Corner Beach, Redgate Beach, and Ellenstown Beach, before spending the night at a hostel in Margaret River, the main town in the region.

Thu 20 Oct: Yallingup & Cape Naturaliste
On the morning of the 20th Bob & I took a private surfing lesson at Smiths Beach near Yallingup. It was Bob’s first ever lesson, and my second. In my first lesson, which was almost exactly 7 years ago at Lorne, VIC, along the Great Ocean Road, I never managed to stand up on my board, and only successfully rode into shore on my knees once. This time I was determined to do better, and I did! It took me a few tries, but I managed to stand up a few times on my board! I still couldn’t get up to my feet every time, but I know I made big progress. And with only two of us in the lesson, our instructor gave both of us quite a bit of very helpful attention and suggestions. The weather was also fantastic for the surf lesson.

Following the surf lesson we popped down the beach a couple kilometers to a place called Canal Rocks. These are metamorphic rock outcrops through which the pounding surf has carved several canals, making several islands. This was one of those special places where I could’ve spent all day watching and listening to the roaring waves.

After Canal Rocks we swung by a winery called Windgate. In the Margaret River region you can hardly throw a stone without hitting a winery, there are so many. Apparently I was uncouth with the order in which I tasted the various wines, but oh well. I didn’t buy a bottle (since I only had a couple days left in Aus), but Bob did. Believe it or not this was the first winery I’d ever visited and done a tasting at (my parents and I drove into a winery in New Zealand in 2004 but didn’t pop in for a tasting). Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Colorado are not exactly prime wine regions, to say the least.

Then it was off to Ngilgi Cave (pronounced NIL-gee). The tour of Ngilgi Cave was semi self-guided, and was quite interesting. Ngilgi is especially known for its numerous shawl formations, which are stalactites that resemble sheets or curtains; Bob & I thought they looked like strips of bacon. Mmmm, bacon… I think that Ngilgi was the first cave I’d been in since Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with my parents back in 1994.

After being underground for an hour, we popped up to Cape Naturaliste for a bushwalk. I didn’t feel the need to get a tour of the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse since it’s short and well inland. On that walk the wildflowers were quite spectacular, and we spotted a few whales in Geographe Bay as well.

Then it was back to Margaret River for the night again. Here’s a funny story. While Bob was off swimming laps in the local pool, I was sorting through some photos on my laptop in a common area of the hostel. At one point this eccentric-looking girl walked up and asked if she could sit on the couch too. Before I could even move all my stuff off that side of the couch, she plopped down. She had long blonde hair, a hat, a backpack, a CD walkman, a long white flower, an Australian hymn book, and a big bottle (white wine?) that she kept drinking from. She really gave off the crazy vibe (or the hippy vibe, I wasn’t quite sure at first). She had headphones on listening loudly to music, and I noticed she was very frustrated that her computer wasn’t working. Eventually, out of the blue, she blurted that she worked for the CIA. That caught my attention. I decided to play along and asked several questions. I’ll sum up her rambling, incoherent story. She said she was 34 years old (she looked about 23), that she was from Margaret River, and that the CIA recruited her when she was 16 to be a typist. She also said that the hostel was on UN property, and that that meant that WA cops couldn’t come on the property. She said her house had also been broken into three times, all three times with only her U.S. passport (despite being an Aussie) being stolen and nothing else. She then started quoting her passport numbers to me, and started them all off with an ‘H’ (which they don’t). Then she said she had a New Zealand police badge, because her mother was once a secretary for two years for NZ PM Muldoon during his tenure. It was bewildering trying to keep up with everything, haha. Eventually she got up and walked off for a moment, and the hostel clerk asked me if I knew her. I said no, and that she was “bat-shit crazy.” He said he’d heard reports from other hostel employees and guests of a woman fitting her description that was becoming a problem. A minute later I saw the hostel clerk trying to escort her off the property. I heard him ask, “You have to leave, can I get you a taxi?” To which she replied, “I don’t do taxis.” That was the last I heard or saw of her, but I definitely got my fill of crazy for the night!

Fri 21 Oct: Penguin Island & Perth
Bob had to work on the afternoon of the 21st, so we hit the road back to Perth in the morning. Along the way we stopped in Rockingham, a southern suburb, to take a ferry over to Penguin Island. Penguin Island is quite small (only about 45-60 minutes to walk around), but is a sanctuary for many types of birds, including seagulls, pelicans, terns, and fairy penguins. There’s also a penguin centre on the island that is home to several rescued penguins. We checked out a feeding there before heading “back to Australia,” as the ferry operator termed it. (I’m pretty sure we didn’t need our passports for the 5-minute ferry ride to the island though, haha!).

After Bob went to work, I made my way down to the Perth Mint. Unfortunately I was 20 minutes late for the last tour of the day, bummer. I’d hoped to watch gold being poured into bars, and to touch a huge gold nugget. I wandered back through downtown Perth, and made my way to Kings Park, a huge 9 sq. km park just outside of and overlooking the city centre. It was already early evening, so I didn’t go too deep into the park, most of which is unlit. I did stick around for some nice nighttime views of the city, though.

Sat 22 Oct: Rottnest Island
I got up in the morning and took the train down to Fremantle, where I caught a ferry out to Rottnest Island, about 20 km off the coast. There I rented a bicycle, as that’s the best way to get around the island (only a few support vehicles and small tour buses are allowed on the island; no personal or rental cars). The weather wasn’t great that day, about 70 degrees with occasional sprinkles or light rain (and steady rain for the last 30-45 minutes I was on Rotto), so instead of lounging around on one of the many fantastic beaches, I decided to ride my bike around to see as much of the island as I could. I did a complete circuit of the island, including all the way out to the western end, Cape Vlamingh, where I sat and watched three pods of whales offshore for several minutes. All told I biked somewhere around 30 km, which made me quite sore since I hadn’t ridden a bike in about three years! My favorite beach of the day was Ricey Beach. There was absolutely nobody there, and I wanted to linger more than the 20 minutes that I did, but I was still several kilometers away from Thomson Bay with less than an hour until my ferry left. I did just barely catch the ferry on time.

I had a hankering for fish and chips, so when I got back to Fremantle I went to Cicerello’s, one of the most famous seafood places in W.A. Considering everything was fairly expensive, I decided to splurge a few extra bucks for the “Cicerello’s Delight,” a A$32 seafood sampler plate, plus salad and chips. I was in shock when I went to pick up my order from the counter because it was so enormous. It caught the attention of some other diners too, who asked what it was. There was a bowl of clams, about a dozen kalamari curls, a couple prawns, and a couple fish filets (not sure which fish though). It was a lot of food! I managed to finish about 80-90% of it though (all except for a few kalamari twirls and a few chips), which prompted the manager to say to me, unprompted, “That’s a good effort! Many people can’t even finish half of that!”

A little damper was put on the day when I found out that an American diver was killed by a shark off Rottnest Island that afternoon, probably about the time I went for a dip at Ricey Beach, and only a couple beaches over from there. Kinda freaky. It’s the third fatal shark attack in the last two months in Western Australia: one was in Bunker Bay two months ago, not too far from where Bob & I had our surfing lesson; one was a couple weeks ago at Cottesloe, a Perth suburb with a very popular beach that Bob frequents (and which I visited last year); and now the Rottnest one. All the cases happened with cloudy skies, because sharks have a harder time identifying distinct shapes when it’s overcast. Still, it’s not worth living in fear of a shark attack, because it’s more likely that you’ll be struck by lightning or killed in a car accident.

Final Thoughts
I flew back to Singapore on Sunday the 23rd. My six days in Aus went by so quickly. I always wish I could have more time in Australia, but I guess that just means I’ll have to come back for a fourth visit someday! I just wish it weren’t so far away. I still have several other places on my Aussie bucket list to visit, including Uluru, Kakadu, Ningaloo, and Tasmania. Oh darn, a few more trips worth of sightseeing!

So now i’ve been in Singapore for a couple days (blog entry coming eventually), and my flight to Diego Garcia is scheduled to leave this afternoon. There’s a decent chance the flight will be delayed, but whenever I get there I’ll be with only 128k internet for four weeks. I’ll update my blog here occasionally, but there likely won’t be too many photos accompanying them. Let the main act of my Indian Ocean adventure begin!

[I would've posted this earlier, but it took awhile to get someplace with good internet long enough to upload videos. A couple of the videos are still "processing" on YouTube.]

The opening acts were fellow Christian bands/artists John Mark McWilliams, Chris August, and Gungor. I was particularly impressed by Gungor. They didn’t have their whole band, but only three people for an acoustic set. I really, really loved what they did! Here’s a sample:

Seriously, I would’ve paid the price of admission to hear Gungor alone. They were so good that when I got home I bought two of their albums (Ancient Skies and Beautiful Things) so that I could listen to them on my iPod on my trip. They’ll be the headliner at a concert in Colorado coming up sometime in the spring, and I’ll be going to that for sure!

As for this concert’s headliner, the David Crowder Band, they were awesome as expected. They’ve been making great music for 11 years now, with their 7th and final album being released later this year, and it’ll be sad not to have them on the Christian music scene anymore. Their variety of styles, everything from prog rock to bluegrass, is part of what draws me to them. Here’s a sample:

One of their encore songs was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra version of “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12-24,” which brought the house down. It was just like the TSO version, minus the ubiquitous fireballs and extra spectacle of a TSO concert. But with it being their farewell concert tour, I’m really glad they did some of my favorites from his albums, including “O Praise Him,” “Beautiful Collision,” and “I Saw the Light.”

I’m glad i was able to see The David Crowder Band in concert at least once before they’re done! And a night of worship was a great way to spend my last night in the U.S. before six weeks abroad!

While waiting at my gate at Denver I gave my parents a farewell phone call, booked my flights home for Christmas on Southwest, and then my first flight to San Francisco left about 10am. On that flight I chatted with a guy who works for a company in Boulder that makes LIDARs (including for NCAR). He grew up in Eau Claire, is a huge Badger fan, and proudly told me how much he and all Wisconsin fans hate Penn State and our “88-year old troll of a coach.” And then he went on a rant about how much he hates Nebraska and how he hopes they don’t win a Big Ten title for at least 15 years, haha. Methinks he doesn’t like change in the Big Ten! On another note, the Flatirons and Rockies were beautiful to fly over. I could see my neighborhood in Gunbarrel too!

In San Francisco I had barely enough time to snarf down some lunch (figured I’d better take advantage of my last chance to get good Mexican food for six weeks!) before it was time to board our 1pm flight to Hong Kong. Mechanical problems of some sort (a valve needed to be replaced?) forced us back to the gate for awhile, so we took off about an hour and a half late. On that flight I sat next to a guy originally from New Zealand but currently from New Orleans, who was on his way to a marine shipping conference in Singapore. We chatted quite a bit about global warming and the politics of all that, and also the relationship between science and religion, even though he wasn’t a Christian. He was a cool guy. I also managed to get a bit of sleep scattered throughout the 13+ hour flight.

I have decided that I much prefer flying Qantas for trans-Pacific flights than United. On Qantas each seat has its own screen, so you can choose what you want to watch, whereas United has one single viewing option at a time in the economy cabin, and most of it was crap. I also think Qantas is a touch more spacious, with slightly larger seats and slightly more leg room. I could be imagining things though.

Because of our 1.5-hr delay in San Francisco, we landed late in Hong Kong and had to go straight to board our flight to Singapore. Interestingly we had to go through another two security checks (including one metal detector) before being allowed onto the Singapore flight. The checks weren’t quite as stringent as the ones in the U.S. (didn’t have to take off my shoes, for instance), but my guess is that Singapore has tighter security than many other countries that have flights to Hong Kong (or maybe even HKG itself), and so wanted that extra security for inbound flights. (Or at least that was my guess until I went through security this morning, when I didn’t even have to walk through a metal detector!) That flight left a half hour late despite everyone boarding in time. It was also a 747, just like the SFO-HKG flight, and I had the same exact seat. I really felt like I had just done that…

So we landed at Singapore at about 12:15am this morning (Monday the 17th). After going through immigration and claiming my bag, I asked around where the “nap rooms” were that I’d read about (Lonely Planet advertised nap rooms in the airport that you could rent for up to 6 hrs for just S$40). Apparently the nap rooms are back behind security, and I needed a boarding pass to get back there. Of course since it was now 1am, the Qantas desk was closed. So I found a “viewing gallery” that had some rows of chairs set up. I tried to sleep from 1:30am to about 4:30am, but those chairs were not comfortable to lay on. Maybe I briefly fell asleep once or twice?? Eventually I gave up and went downstairs to wait for the Qantas ticket desk to open up, which it did at 6:30am.

I should just add here that Singapore’s Changi Airport is by far the nicest airport I’ve ever been in. It really is luxurious. There are plenty of free lounges everywhere, it’s incredibly spacious, very clean, and even the bathrooms are awesome. Also, once I got through security this morning I was immediately approached by an airport staffperson asking if I needed anything. I asked where the free internet kiosk was, and the woman gave me the username and password so that I could get on with my own laptop, instead of having to use the free computers. (Hence I could post this!)

Anyway, now it’s been 35.5 hours since I left my house, and in that time I’ve gotten maybe 4-5 hours of sleep. In one hour (9am Singapore time) my Qantas flight to Perth is scheduled to take off. After that 5+ hour flight, I’ll finally be DONE with airports and planes for a few days! I can’t wait! And I can’t wait to be back in Australia again! I’ll try to post at least once while I’m in Perth visiting Bob. Until next time…

Air Force Academy

Back in late August I took a day trip down to Colorado Springs to visit my friend Josh from high school, and his brother Justin. Josh gave me a tour of the U.S. Air Force Academy campus, which was pretty neat, especially since Josh is an AFA alum. The AFA Chapel was the highlight, as it’s such an iconic building. A very beautiful one inside, too. After dinner I played some Catan with Josh, Justin, and one of their friends. I’m glad I made it down there when I did, because now Josh and his wife Erika are moving back to Minnesota.

Camping Trip and Hot Springs

Eager to use my pricey new tent at least once this year, I organized a camping trip up near Steamboat Springs on Labor Day weekend with a few friends. I wanted to get away from the Front Range, so that’s part of why I chose the Steamboat area. With it being the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I was kind of nervous about finding a campsite since we didn’t have reservations anywhere. But lo and behold, we found a great spot at the first campground we visited, at Dumont Lake (9520 feet) right below Rabbit Ears Mountain — I’d argue it was even the best spot in the whole place.

After setting up our tents we drove up to Steamboat Springs to enjoy the Strawberry Park Hot Springs under the stars. We saw quite a few meteors, which was sweet. I’d been to those hot springs once before, last summer with Alex, but it’s a totally different experience at night. It’s a neat place, and the hot springs felt great on what would become a very frosty night.

It didn’t work out to camp any more the rest of this year, but I definitely plan to camp more often next year.

Hotdish Party

Yah sure, you betcha, I hosted a Minnesota hotdish party at my house a couple weeks ago! I encouraged people to wear flannel, rented the movie “A Prairie Home Companion,” and bought a copy of the book “How to Talk Minnesotan” to give away to the winner of “best hotdish.” There were a couple au gratin hotdishes, a couple tater tot hotdishes, a chicken alfredo hotdish, my beef & wild rice hotdish, a pumpkin bake, a [jello] salad, fruit salad, and a rice & beans salad. The party was a success, people loved it!

My 28th Birthday

For my 28th birthday last week a few friends joined me at C.B. & Potts for dinner. I definitely worked off my 4.1-mile run from that morning, with appetizers of buffalo wings, cheese dip, an entree of a “bacon-bacon-bacon” burger (with hickory smoked bacon, something called “chicken-fried bacon”, and chipotle bacon mayo, I just had to get it!), a free birthday ice cream cupake, and a good amount of tasty microbrew!

Weekend in Ann Arbor

Last weekend I flew to Michigan to go visit Alex. It was a very enjoyable weekend, as it always is hanging out with him. Among other things, Alex got us to the Minnesota-Michigan football game, which was a 58-0 curb-stomping for the Wolverines. Because Penn State wasn’t playing I could just sit back (or stand, since we were in the student section) and enjoy the game. Also because PSU wasn’t playing, I wore a Michigan shirt to the game to fit in. I didn’t want to get assaulted for a second time at Michigan Stadium, haha.

Another highlight of the weekend came when Alex & Anne took me rock climbing. I’d been rock climbing a couple times in the past year or so (once with Alex last year in Colorado, once outdoors this spring in Moab), but I hadn’t successfully made it to the top of a climb. This time I made it to the top of all three climbs I tried! The last two took a lot of perseverance, but I eventually made it to the top. I feel like I accomplished something, and now I’m more likely to try rock climbing again.

Also, every time I hang out with Alex I get motivation to learn how to play guitar. Maybe when I get back from Diego I’ll buy myself a guitar…

It’s going to be a busy week coming up, getting ready for my departure to Singapore and Perth, and a week after that, to Diego Garcia! Looking forward to my overseas adventures!