Parents in Pennsylvania

I’d say this was a pretty enjoyable weekend overall. Even if it started out by actually having to study on “Study Day” on Friday when we had no classes… On Friday night after doing as much Fluid Dynamics as my mind could take for one day, I went over to Daniel’s place along with Chris (“P. Allen”) to watch the Penn State-Ohio State game that Daniel had taped last weekend. It was fun to see the game again from another perspective, especially since it was such a memorable and good game.
Well, my parents have now been to Pennsylvania for the first time ever. They arrived here in State College early Saturday afternoon, and brought good weather with them straight from Wisconsin. As I mentioned in my last post, prior to Saturday we hadn’t seen even a glimpse of sun or clear skies in nine days or so, so it was wonderful to have a mostly sunny (if a bit breezy) day at long last. Anyway, after grabbing some lunch and dropping off my bookcase, winter coat/gear and a couple other things in my room, we decided to take a drive out south and east of town a bit, in the Tussey Ridge area of Rothrock State Forest. The fall colours really aren’t all that special here in State College currently, but once you get out of Happy Valley they’re really quite a bit better. That was certainly evidenced as we were driving around on the lonely, unmarked gravel roads meandering through the woods along the ridge tops. There weren’t so many oranges and reds, but primarily yellow-leaved trees of various sorts, making the air rather golden in colour. They also brought Nathan’s digital camera along for the trip, so I was finally able to snap a few photos of the area around here. I’m feeling sad without my camera, which I’ve been told may be “another 4-6 weeks” to be repaired by Canon. Sigh. I just want my camera back!
We managed to find our way out of the woods before darkness fell, and got some supper at Cafe 210 during the last few minutes of the exciting but heartbreaking football game between Penn State and Michigan, in which the Wolverines knocked us from the ranks of the unbeaten on a touchdown pass as time expired (curse them!). (Though that had nothing on the classic choke job the Gophers had against the Badgers in the final two minutes, ARGH!) At least my parents got to experience a bit of a true college town atmosphere, as everyone in the restaurant was cheering or booing with every play being shown on the TV’s. After they went back to the hotel for the night I took some time to rearrange my room slightly so that I could fit in my bookcase, and then fill it with all the books I’d been storing with boxes sitting out on my floor (and then deftly sticking the empties back under my bed, hehe). I’m just glad to have a bookcase again, someplace to store all my stuff. Now my room feels whole for the first time this semester. 🙂
On Sunday morning I brought Mom & Dad by the church I’ve started attending out here, State College Evangelical Free Church, so that they could see where I’m going and meet some of my new friends. Then after a quick swing by the Lion Shrine for a few pictures and lunch at The Deli, we went over to the Penn State Downtown Theatre for a Research Unplugged seminar put on my a couple of Meteorology profs here at Penn State, entitled “Spin Cycle: How the Media Portrays Climate Change.” Let’s just say they weren’t exactly kind to the media and their breathless assertions about impending doom and global warming. It was so refreshing to hear a couple more people with graduate degrees in Meteorology repudiating a lot of the nonsense that the media feeds the public on this topic. Basically, they emphasized how a lot of the data being reported is taken out of context or the larger picture is being ignored. For instance, they showed how different facets of the climate, such as temperature, precipitation and tropical storm/hurricane data over the last century seems to be following multi-decadal (on the order of 30 years or so) cycles or oscillations more than anything else. In short, saying that climate changes is like saying that a circle is round — climate is changing literally all the time; it always has and always will. They also addressed the silly notion that we’re the dominant force affecting climate — they called that “ME”-teorology. They said that while we’re almost certainly affecting climate a little bit, any effects we might be causing are absolutely dwarfed in magnitude by even small variations in the sun’s output of radiation. My parents and I just really enjoyed it, it was a nice way to spend a couple hours, even if the chairs were uncomfortable. NOVA was filming it, so footage from “Spin Cycle” may be making it to a PBS show near you at some point.
Following that I showed them around Walker Building, so they could see the TA office where I (along with quite a few of my meteo friends) spend what sometimes seems like endless hours doing homework and grading, along with the Weather Lab and everything else. I kinda half expected Dr Clothiaux to be there, even on a Sunday at 5pm, but alas, he wasn’t around for us to drop by and visit him, hehe. So after swinging by my room for a couple final things, we went out for some pizza, before they went back to their hotel for the evening so that I could start getting a little caught up on my homework. I think their plans for today were to get up really early and swing by the still-under-construction Creation museum in Cincinnati, on their way to Indianapolis for the night to stay with some friends. They’ll be getting back to Cumberland on Tuesday evening. It was good to see them again, and to get a chance to show them around where my new digs are.
Today was a bit back to reality though, with classes, grading and such. For a little bit of fun I played some intramural flag football tonight. Our team (the meteo grad students, our team’s called “The Weather Underground,” which has more than one meaning) lost 28-26, which kinda sucked. I mostly played cornerback, and while I successfully broke up one pass I also got burned on another for a TD, when I bit on the quarterback’s fake, when he rolled out and charged toward the line as if he was gonna run it (like he’d done multiple times already that game). So I left the receiver to cover the QB, at which point he just lobbed it over my head for a score. Gah! But I was between a rock and a hard place, because if I had stayed with the receiver, the QB could’ve just waltzed into the end zone untouched. Oh well. Other than that I think I played at least decently well. And I would’ve had a chance to catch a two-point conversion pass at one point too, except when I made my cut (and was about to be WIDE open), I slipped and fell on a slick patch of ground, injuring my thumb a little in the process when I tried to break my fall. Sigh. Our team’s record is now 2-1 on the season.
And in a bit of sad news, a bus carrying the high school marching band from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, (a little less than an hour from Cumberland, where I grew up) from the Wisconsin State Marching Band Championships this weekend in Whitewater, crashed into a jack-knifed semi on Interstate 94 near Osseo, only about half an hour from Chippewa Falls. Three students, an assistant teacher, and the Chi Hi band director were killed, along with many others being seriously injured. It looks like the semi jack-knifed right in front of the bus, leaving the bus driver next to no chance to avoid the tragic accident. When I saw the headline on Google News earlier today about a fatal marching band bus accident on I-94 near Osseo, my heart skipped a beat, because I was worried that it was involving Cumberland’s bus on their way back from Whitewater, since they’d take the same route.