Back in Pennsylvania

Okay, I know it’s been a few days since I’ve posted, and a fair bit’s gone on, so in order to appease Josh’s anger, here goes. I apologize in advance for the ridiculous length of this post.
Last Monday evening I drove down to the Twin Cities to have dinner with all my old Gustavus roommates from 202 (Josh, Zach, Ben, John & Nate) down at Granite City Brewery in Eagan, which was quite good by the way. Josh came bearing small Japanese gifts for us all, including two action figures for me. And yes Josh, they’re sitting on my desk shelf currently, I’ll send you a photo as proof. I haven’t “lost” them, at least not yet, wink wink. In return I got Josh the book, “The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions,” which he seemed to get a kick out of. The Japanese are weird, plain and simple, I don’t know that there’s any other way to explain it.
After dinner all of us except Nate drove down to Gustavus, where Ben, John & I stayed in Zach’s apartment in Arbor View on campus. The four of us hung out and played various games, including “Power Grid” and “Carcassonne,” and had a fun time just hanging out. On Tuesday morning I woke up and wandered around campus visiting a few people, including Chuck, one of the profs in the physics department, and then I also stopped by and said hi to a few of the counselors in the Admission Office, where I worked for three years as a tour guide. It was good to see everyone again, though I wish I also could’ve connected with a few of my other friends who are still at Gustavus, but I didn’t have any luck getting a hold of them, oh well. And in my wanderings around campus I also took a looksie inside the newly remodeled Old Main building, and it’s soooooo nice inside. Definitely the nicest building on campus now, it’s quite lavish. It was the first time I’d been back on campus since graduation, and it felt somewhat strange being there but not being a student there anymore.
Tuesday afternoon on my way back from Gustavus I dropped John off at his place in Eden Prairie, and since I was in EP anyway I decided to swing by Choice Auto Rental (where I worked this summer) to say hi to them for a few minutes and see how everything was going. All in all I made it back home just in time, literally ten minutes before the start of the Orange Bowl, between Penn State and Florida State, which I’d been looking forward to all break long. Wow, what an exciting and tense game! Both teams brought extremely fast, hard-hitting and dominating defenses into the game, and it showed as both offenses sputtered for most of the game With the score tied at 16 with less than a minute left in regulation, PSU’s kicker shanked a chip-shot field goal, sending the game into overtime. At this point I was getting pretty worried, and I’d already been shaking and my heart had been racing and pounding for some time now. In the first OT, FSU’s kicker missed a long FG, meaning if Penn State could manage a score of any type they’d win. But the Lions’ kicker missed another FG wide left, aaaaarrgghhh!! In the second overtime both teams traded touchdowns, sending it into a third overtime session. The Seminoles’ kicker attempted another field goal, but this one hit the goalpost and bounced back into play, no good!! My parents were both well asleep by this point, so I started jumping up and down in the living room, but trying to land softly and not shout for joy, for fear of waking them up. Penn State made good on their ensuing possession, as the kicker finally booted a field goal attempt through the uprights, giving the Penn State Nittany Lions a thrilling 26-23 victory over the Florida State Seminoles in a marathon 3 overtimes. I was sooooo happy!! The only downside is that I had to be quiet, since my parents were sleeping. But we’re Orange Bowl champs, woohoo!!
I had lunch on Wednesday at Applebee’s in Rice Lake with Brooke, it’d been something like two years since I saw her. I’m glad I was able to see her for at least a little bit, particularly since she wasn’t able to come to dinner with Janelle, Abby, Martin, Sarah & I a couple days before New Year’s. It was good to catch up with what she’s been up to, and also to fill her in on what I knew of some of our other friends from high school and how they were doing. Before heading home to pack up my stuff, I swung by the radio station for a quick visit with some of my former co-workers there. Once my dad got back from work my parents drove me down to the Cities, meeting up with my brother Aaron part-way in Lino Lakes, where we all had a tasty pizza at Green Mill, a good restaurant I’d never been to before. By the time Aaron & I got back to his house, it was 10pm and late in the 3rd quarter of the Rose Bowl. I’d been hoping to catch a bit more of it, but at least I got to see a quarter-plus of that great Texas-USC game.
For whatever reason I didn’t get very much sleep that night, not that there was a whole lot to get. I woke up at 4:30, and left with Aaron at quarter past 5, so that I could get to the airport by 6 to catch my 7am flight. Ugh. I landed in Pittsburgh at 10am, and just sat around reading all of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and the first 100 pgs or so of “God Emperor of Dune” before Daniel’s flight arrived a bit before 5pm. The drive back to State College took awhile, partly due to missing an exit and kinda getting almost lost in downtown Pittsburgh, creeping rush hour traffic, plus drizzle, a few snowflakes and the occasional sudden wall of dense fog just for an extra dash of excitement. We also stopped for supper at a small family restaurant along the way in Delmont called Spaghetti & Steak House, which we discovered is a bit of a hidden gem, with large portions of good food for relatively cheap. And a cute cashier too. 🙂 It’s fun taking a little time to try out new places like that. It was around 10 o’clock before we got back to State College by the time it was all said and done, but along the way my muffler started making noise, likely from a big jolt when I pulled into a gas station. Sigh. I hate bad interfaces between the road and parking lots, argh!
After relishing a chance to sleep in on Friday, I had to go to Walker for a meeting with Dr Nese about Meteo 003, which as far as I know I’m still TA’ing this spring. And the sun came out for about 10 minutes too. The only reason I mention that is that it was the first time in about three weeks that I’ve seen any sunshine, it’s been so cloudy of late. I went on a bit of a shopping trip to restock my groceries, and I also picked up a crock pot at Target, which Nathan gave me some money for at Christmas. From there I went down to the Sports Cafe for a couple hours to resume the weekly tradition of trivia. Then to wrap up the evening I went over to Daniel’s place to watch “Memento.” It was the first time he’d seen it, and the sixth time I’ve seen it, and there were still new things I noticed. In fact, I came away from the film not totally sure what actually happened. That movie messes with your mind so much, but it’s so good.
Yesterday I got my muffler fixed at Midas, though it would’ve been nice had it been less than $240… At least they had the parts in stock so that I could be on my way 45 minutes after I got there. The back half of my muffler pipe was rusted badly, with a clean break in one spot and another spot that was about to break, so I got the mid-pipe and back muffler totally replaced, meaning that now my entire exhaust system is practically new, since a couple years ago I needed the front muffler and a portion of the mid-pipe replaced because of a hole and a bunch of rust. After that I swung by Target to pick up some DVD’s that were on sale for pretty cheap, “Hotel Rwanda,” “Anchorman” and “Dune.” Target’s marketing team’s gonna have a tough time figuring me out with those three radically different films, hehe. Then I spent the rest of the day just dinking around in my room, cleaning up stuff and watching some football, in addition to making my first meal in my new crock pot. 🙂
Daniel & I went to the 10:30 service this morning at State College Evangelical Free Church, then afterwards we were trying to figure out some flights for spring break, as he’s goin’ back to Alabama, and I’m going to Arizona. Daniel found a couple cheap flights on Orbitz and Travelocity, but gave up in frustration after going through the whole reservation process with both sites, only to have them say at the last minute, “sorry, but those flights are full.” Aggravating. But I did manage to find a pretty cheap flight from Pittsburgh to Phoenix with Delta, just $190. Not bad for it being $260 just yesterday! I’m going to Arizona to visit some relatives down there, and since my parents are also flying down there that week to see said relatives. I’m also hopin to go visit Cory down in Tucson, that’d be fun. And besides, it’ll be nice to go someplace warm for spring break in the first full week of March. 🙂
The Associated Press has an interesting story out about how the weather has become the modern-day boogeyman and an over-hyped staple on the news, which it is. I was reminded of that when I was home over break, and the news reporters were breathless about a potential 3-inch snowfall hitting the Twin Cities. Imagine that! Snow! In winter! In Minnesota! Perish the thought! The whole thing’s getting a little out of hand, I’d say. Now, they’d have a legitimate reason for making it a top story if it were snowfalls like Japan has had this winter. Just recently, some areas of Japan have received a stunning 4 meters (13 feet) of snow, paralyzing those regions. Now that’s a snowfall to get excited (or concerned) about.
Well, it’s time for me to eat a bit of supper before heading out to the Sunday night Bible study with Penn State Christian Grads. And then classes start tomorrow, le sigh. Break’s never long enough.