« Hoping for an "Elijah" Sighting | Main | Weather Porn »
December 10, 2007
Walker 911
And to think that before the weekend I didn't think I had anything to blog about! This weekend sure gave me enough interesting material, so since my time is short as we start the final week of classes this semester, I'd better get started.
We had a new, fresh covering of snow back on Wednesday from a clipper that came through. We got about 2 or 2.5 inches of snow out of it, which made for a really pretty (and cold) walk into campus on Thursday morning. 
I guess even writing about this is more than anything just an excuse to be able to stick in one or two pictures that I took that morning. ;-)
The weather markets were very kind to me this week, forecasting for Wenatchee, Washington. WxChallenge was also kind to me, as I was able to finish tops amongst PSU forecasters for the city (huzzah!). But despite being a western city in a mountain valley (making it somewhat unpredictable) plagued with data problems (mysterious spikes in temps overnight which always seemed to benefit me, problems with precip obs because the snow melter wasn't working, and spurious wind obs with gusts above 150 mph, etc...), I was able to make a decent amount of money in the markets. It took me the first forecast day to get used to the markets, so that by the time of the second market of the week my "aggression meter" was properly calibrated. ;-) But I'd say that making a tidy US$35 profit on just two forecast days was a fine intro to the world of the weather markets. :-D Unfortunately the markets are now on a hiatus (along with WxChallenge) until late January when we start forecasting for New Orleans for a couple weeks. On the plus side I won't have that as a distraction in this last week of classes and then finals!
Shannon came down for a visit this weekend, so after a few of us going out to eat on Friday night, we went to the Penn State Icers hockey game vs West Virginia. It was a fun game, as hockey games are wont to be, and #2 Penn State downed #13 West Virginia by a 5-1 score. After a relatively tame start to the 1st period, then it got rather chippy out on the ice, as both teams realized they really don't like each other. Let's face it, that's what makes for entertaining hockey. :-)
And then on Saturday night practically the whole meteo crew crowded into Brett & Lori's house to spring a surprise 30th birthday party for Brett. Lori had arranged it and given someone keys, and conveniently took him out to dinner so that we could all get there and lay in wait for them to get back. And we sure did surprise Brett, he was quite startled to see someone's silhouette when he opened the door! It was a very fun party, I'm glad we were able to pull it off as a total surprise.
My old laptop didn't end up selling on eBay. The highest bid at the end didn't quite meet my reserve price, so I relisted it this afternoon with a slightly lower reserve price, and international shipping options to Canada, Australia & Europe. Hopefully both of those things will make it a wee bit more sell-able. I guess I'll find out next Sunday afternoon... I really hope it sells this time, I wanna have it sold and shipped out before I head home for Christmas break.
The excitement today came with a phone call around 5:30pm from Caren, asking if I'd heard the rumors that Walker Building was on fire (!!). Now that got my interest sufficiently piqued, so I drove into campus to see what all the fuss was about and if there was any truth to the rumors. Well, there certainly was an armada of fire trucks outside of Walker and a flurry of activity. But as it turns out, I don't think it was a fire per se, but rather a space heater malfunction in room 401 (my office is 405, just at the other end of the hall), which filled much of 4th floor with smoke. 
Dr Clothiaux sent out an email tonight about what happened, and he said that no water had to be used to remedy the situation, which was good. Apparently the alarms malfunctioned and didn't go off (oops), but some of the grad students that were there at the time alertly called 911 and evacuated the building. Supposedly there's still a strong smoky smell on 4th floor, and I guess I'll find out in the morning. If there's anything worth taking a picture of on 4th floor, I'll post it. We'd always joked about something like this happening, but we never thought it actually would. I'm glad it wasn't any more serious than it was, that would've been a major inconvenience for everyone's research!
Posted by Jared at December 10, 2007 01:00 AM