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January 10, 2007
Brooke's Wedding
On my last full day back in Wisconsin on Saturday, I borrowed Nathan's car and drove an hour from Cumberland up to Hayward to go to Brooke & Matt's wedding. Matt (who I'd never met before) managed to introduce a little humor into the wedding too; he said something funny that caught the pastor off guard and kept him chuckling for a minute or two before he could regain his composure and restart reciting the vows for Matt to repeat, haha. I can't recall ever being to a wedding where the pastor wound up laughing in the middle of the ceremony. I'd also never been to a winter wedding before (especially not one way up north!), but it was quite nice. They had it in the evening, so the only lights up front really were candles and white Christmas lights. 
And then after the wedding everyone was given a sparkler to line the way outside (it was pretty chilly!) and give Brooke & Matt a sendoff to their car. I thought the sparklers were a nice touch. The reception at Lumberjack Steakhouse was really nice too. There weren't very many people that I knew there (I thought there'd be more from our high school class, but I guess they wanted to keep the wedding fairly small), but I did get to meet a few people, including a fellow Penn Stater -- Brooke's younger sister Brittany's boyfriend Craig -- so that was cool. I was really glad that I was able to make it, it was a fun time and I was glad to be able to see Brooke on her wedding day!
It was kinda late when I got back from the wedding, so I elected not to pack at all until morning, which almost turned into a big mistake because I forgot to activate my alarm, causing me to wake up an hour late, oops! But I threw everything together in time (and surprisingly I managed to fit everything too, I was worried I'd have to have my parents mail a couple of books or some other things to me), and Nathan drove me down to the airport (my parents also had a wedding to attend on Saturday, out in central Minnesota). The drive back with Jacob to State College from the Pittsburgh airport was a bit dicey. Driving at night in the rain with lane-marking paint that's so faded you can't see it at all is no fun at all (it's rather disconcerting to discover suddenly that you've drifted partway across the center line or the fog line because they're barely even intermittently visible, it was seriously really bad). Fortunately Jacob was doing it this time, I've made that drive back from Pitt in bad weather enough. :-)
So now I'm back in State College, trying to get situated and settled again before the semester starts up Tuesday next week. I've been doing a bit of cleaning around my room, the apartment, and a little in my office too, though probably not much is showing there yet. :-) I've also been making progress on reading some of the journal articles I probably should've gotten to over break (but then it wouldn't have been a break, would it?), but perhaps not as much as I'd like. And then tonight I practiced piano for a couple hours, taking my first look at the music I'll be playing on Sunday morning. In addition to this Sunday, I'm also on the schedule for Jan 28 & Feb 18, so I'm definitely a pretty regular part of the rotation now.
Monday night was also the BCS National Championship game between Ohio State and Florida. For some reason I was rooting for tO$U and Big Ten pride (it would've been pretty sweet for the Big Ten to go 3-0 vs the SEC), while everyone else that came to Houserville to watch the game was cheering for Florida and doing the Gator Chomp (Jeff because he was a bitter Michigan fan; Vic because he just doesn't like Ohio State; Daniel because he's from SEC country and his Auburn Tigers can lay claim to being the only team to have beaten the Gators; Katie's also from SEC country; and Kerrie changed her mind of who to cheer for when she decided she didn't like OSU Coach Tressel's sweater-vest, haha). I only had a couple of chances early on in the game to lead a solo cheer of "O-H! I-O!" as the Buckeyes were surprisingly and completely dominated by the Gators in every phase of the game, holding the Buckeyes to only 82 yards (82!!) of offense for the entire game. Ohio State just didn't show up, and I don't know how you let that happen in the National Championship game. Florida held a 34-14 lead at halftime, and the 2nd half was excruciatingly dull, with Florida pushing the final margin to 41-14. Congrats to Florida though, they played a marvelous game and shocked the college football world with a huge upset. And now begins the long wait until college football returns anew in September.
Random thoughts/comments:
As typically happens in a state vs state rivalry, New Yorkers try to blame a lot of things that go wrong on New Jersey, but this time they have a legitimate case. It seems New Jersey swamps were responsible for stinking up the Big Apple earlier this week, haha. We always joke about how New Jersey ("America's Suburb," according to Jacob) can also be dubbed "America's Landfill," but this kinda brings new meaning to the phrase "New Jersey stinks," doesn't it?
Joe Bastardi of State College-based AccuWeather is making bold predictions of big storms and exciting weather yet again like he usually does (honk honk). What does it mean for a weather pattern to "live up to its full potential" anyway? A major cooldown is in the works for almost the entire country for at least a couple weeks starting with a big storm in the nation's midsection this weekend, and while I hope his wishcasting is correct about a very cold and snowy remainder of the winter (a la 1977-78), I'm not gonna hold my breath.
And finally, I'd never before been to a restaurant that didn't have any food. Until today. Daniel, Frame, Yorks & I decided to go to the Sports Cafe to get some tasty 25-cent wings for lunch. When we got there, the guy asked if we wanted wings, and said he'd count how many they had (never a good sign). The count? 18. No more due in until Friday either! And they weren't honoring their dollar menu until next week. Highly, highly lame. I know they'd been closed for most of Christmas break and just re-opened yesterday, but seriously, why are you open over the lunch hour while it's still Christmas break and the town's practically deserted yet (hence very few potential customers) if you don't have any food?
Posted by Jared at January 10, 2007 10:40 PM