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May 29, 2006
Memorial Weekend
Ahhh, Memorial Day weekend, the semi-official start of summer. The weather's finally been behaving like it's summer too, with temps in the 80s the last two days, and today and tomorrow slotted for around 90. I've gotta get used to the heat again.
Perhaps next time that I walk to the Sports Cafe for trivia I should actually check the radar beforehand, so as to avoid being outside getting soaked for the duration of a ten-minute downpour. But at least it was a warm rain. We were tied for first heading into the final question this week, but didn't wager enough points to come out in 1st, oh well. Second still isn't too bad, we still get free food next Friday. After trivia Jacob had a bunch of us over to his place to watch some "Family Guy" episodes, even though he had a 6am flight to catch for his two-week vacation to SE Asia. If I had to get up that early, I doubt I would've been up for doing much of anything.
It's been quite a fun holiday weekend so far. On Saturday afternoon nine of us drove up to the mini-golf course north of Bellefonte. Sadly enough, even though it's only 15 minutes away from State College, it was my first time outside State College since spring break when I went to Arizona (unless you count when I went to Clem's BBQ 5 minutes outside town about six weeks ago). I'm really not taking advantage of a lot of what this area of Pennsylvania has to offer, in terms of hiking or just driving around and looking at all the natural beauty around here. Sigh. 
But as sad as not venturing outside of State College is, this was my first time ever playing at a real mini-golf course. Yes, I've been a bit deprived. I think I did fairly well for my first time though, recovering from a bad first hole to nab a couple holes-in-one in back-to-back on the back 9 (and on the first of those I hit mine right after Daniel also had one, and on the second Jeff hit one right after me, so our foursome averaged a 1.5 over those two holes :-). We split up into two groups (Jeff, Rob C., Daniel & I, and Kerrie, Amber, Caren, Walter & Chris), 
and in my group Daniel & I managed to tie for first with 48, while Jeff was right behind with a 49, though none of us could quite match Walter or Chris, who both were a few strokes lower. It was a fun little mini-golf course (the giant buffalo was quite popular), I definitely think I'll be back at some point this summer for another go. Following mini-golf we all made a stop at the University Creamery on campus for some tasty ice cream (it being my first time there, I just had to get a Peachy Paterno milkshake, yummm). It tasted so good, especially on such a warm day. So I guess Saturday was a day of firsts for me, in a very good way.
Yesterday Daniel & I went to church, and Pastor Tober had a really good sermon on Acts 2. He asked us afterwards what we were smiling or chuckling about during his sermon, but he was crackin a few jokes, so what did he expect us to do? :-) And Ed, Ellen & Blair all seem to be responding to our requests for more hymns during worship time, there's been at least one or two hymns each of the last few weeks, which has definitely been nice.
Yesterday afternoon Jeff hosted a Memorial Weekend BBBQ for the meteo grads up at his place. There was much food and merriment out in the bright, hot sunshine (I almost sunburned, but not quite ... 
I'm not used to all this sunshine anymore, being at "StratoCu U" here in State College). We spent a few hours just tossing around the frisbee in the backyard and playing a little whiffleball. I totally wasn't used to swinging a bat though, so I'm extremely sore today from all the BP. Once it got too dark to play outside we all moved down into the nice and cool basement for a fair bit of Apples to Apples, which always provides for much amusement.
I've gotten quite a few more photo albums put together and uploaded to my Photos page, 11 to be exact. Now I'm caught up through mid-May of last year. It's progress, at least. Soon I hope to be less than a year behind. :-)
I just read a very fair piece out of the Washington Times about how the world's top hurricane scientists are split on the issue of global warming's effects on tropical cyclones, in response to the bit of hubbub being generated by Algore's new film, "An Inconvenient Truth." It presents what both sides are saying fairly accurately, as near as I can tell.
Whaddya know, the US Government finally got around to stop taxing us on our long distance phone bills for the Spanish-American War.
As if anyone needed more proof that the inside-the-Beltway types in the White House and Senate weren't taking the illegal immigration issue seriously, the White House recently compared illegal immigration to speeding. They just don't get it, they're completely tone deaf in Washington when it comes to listening to what the majority of people in the rest of the country are saying on the issue. The immigration "reform" bill the US Senate recently passed is a joke, and I'm hoping beyond hope that conservatives in the House of Representatives don't cave in to the pressure to adopt the Senate's version of the bill, though there seems to be a glimmer of hope that that won't happen.
I can promise to you that when I worked for a car rental agency in the Twin Cities we made sure there weren't large snakes in the car when we rented the cars to customers. Apparently the same procedures don't apply in Ohio.
This just in: the Northeast still has the "dumbest drivers," according to CNN.
And researchers in America and Britain apparently believe that they're only 18 months away from potentially creating a legitimate cloaking device, a la Star Trek. If they succeed, that could very well be one of the most revolutionary inventions/discoveries of modern times.
Well, it's almost time for me to head off to softball, I'm playing in a game with a team from my church. This morning I dug around in some of the boxes underneath my bed and found my glove that's actually never been used yet, I'm sad to say. But I'll start getting it broken in tonight at least. Hopefully a little exercise will make me less sore, even though it's 91 degrees out right now...
Posted by Jared at May 29, 2006 05:27 PM