Marko’s Halloween Party

What is the nerdiest costume I could possibly have for Halloween? Any guesses? How about a vector? Yep, that’s right. A vector. An obscure meteorological vector that many or most atmospheric scientists don’t even know exists (I can only kind of explain what it is, it’s a bit hard to grasp). Well, I don’t know if it’s the absolute most nerdy thing I could possibly do, but it’s gotta be right up there. But I wasn’t the only vector at the party, Walter showed up as a Q-vector (another, slightly less obscure meteorological vector), meaning that since I was a C-vector I had to be pointing 90 degrees to his right (yes, we even cut out little cardboard arrows from an old box — we spared no expense!). We decided to make these really nerdy costumes because Paul (Dr Markowski, our prof for grad synoptic) had specifically asked everyone not to wear anything that was overly dorky to his party last night, which was practically an invitation to do just the opposite. 😉 So while Walter & I definitely had the nerdiest costumes on the night, there were some other pretty creative costumes at Marko’s house last night, including Paul in an evening gown and tiara, Shabbott as FudgeEms, Aviva & Justin as trees, and Jim as Brian Monahan (a former grad student, now on-air weatherman down in Fort Myers, Florida). All in all it was a good time and a fun party, it’s cool getting dressed up and seeing what other costumes people come up with.
After going to the 9am service this morning at the E Free church, I decided to tag along with Frame, Kerrie & Caren to a mass at the Catholic church, just to see what it was like. Shannon & Andrew will probably be somewhat disappointed they weren’t around this weekend to see me go there, but it’s not my fault they both decided to go home this weekend. 😛 I’d never been to a Catholic mass before, and it wasn’t all that different from what I’d expected. I’d also been to liturgical churches before, so while it was certainly very different from the services at my church, it wasn’t totally foreign to me. I’m glad I went, to see first-hand what it was like, and now hopefully I’ll be able to convince some of them to come visit my church some Sunday. 😉
Speaking of church, check out these hilarious Lutheran t-shirts! The lutefisk one is really great, haha.
Over the last few days I’ve gotten a few more photo albums uploaded to my website, a couple to the Penn State section from the end of last fall semester, and a few to the Cumberland section over Christmas break. I’m almost caught up to New Years…
Well, I think I’d better finish with doing laundry and maybe start packing a bag or something. Tomorrow afternoon Walter & I will be heading down to suburban Washington, DC (Laurel, Maryland, to be exact) for a workshop on ensemble forecasting from Tuesday-Thursday. Our advisors want us to go down there and report back on what went down, so our only real orders are to “take good notes.” At least we don’t have to present anything while we’re there, and the workshop is in the same hotel we’re staying in, so that’ll be nice. Maybe I’ll post once or twice from down there if anything interesting happens.