Blue-White Weekend

What an absolutely gorgeous weekend this was! After getting some snowflakes last weekend, we had quite the gem for Blue-White Weekend: three consecutive days of bright, sunny skies and low-mid 70s — I can’t remember the last time we had a weekend this nice in State College! And I doubt we’ll have another weekend quite this nice for a long time. The odds just aren’t with us, sorry to say.
Saturday was definitely *the* day to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. First order of business? Blue-White Game tailgating, of course! Kristin & Elisa got a tailgate together for some of the Penn State Christian Grads and for some of their fellow sociology grad students. I actually didn’t get there till pretty late (if I would’ve known I’d wind up sitting in traffic on University Drive for half an hour, I would’ve just walked all the way from my place), but at least I was just in time to get a little food before they put everything away. I hadn’t expected that so many people would be out tailgating for a college football intra-squad scrimmage, but we are Penn State, after all, and it was a fantastic day outside. We went to the game, and it wasn’t all that exciting since it was just a glorified practice and all (the White team beat the Blue team 30-6, for what it’s worth), but it was still fun to sit outside and enjoy some football in the warm weather. Since it was just a practice, pretty much all of us left at the end of the 3rd quarter. There were 71,000 people at the game, an all-time record for the Blue-White Game. I’d say that about half of the fans at the game were wearing orange & maroon in support of Virginia Tech, too, which was quite heartening to see. And instead of the blue & white “S” Zone that’s typically seen in the student section, for this year’s Blue-White Game there was an orange & maroon “VT” Zone, which was very well done. The Blue Band also had on orange t-shirts, and the cheerleaders wore maroon shirts, in addition to the thousands and thousands of other students and fans that were showing their support for the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. The outpouring of support from the Penn State community has really been amazing. On Thursday afternoon I bought a bright orange long-sleeve Virginia Tech t-shirt from the Clothesline downtown. They sold 2,000 maroon, orange or white VT shirts on Thursday, and ordered another 10,000 VT or orange/maroon PSU shirts for Friday. And then there were other stores selling Va Tech shirts too, with all the proceeds from all the sales going to various charities associated with Virginia Tech and the families. Every time people wear these shirts, it’ll serve as a reminder to them and to everyone who sees them that we shouldn’t forget about the people down at VT, they’ll need our prayers for quite some time.
After the Blue-White Game, it was time to head to Dr Markowski’s house for a long-promised cookout from last semester in his Advanced Synoptic class. You see, we had some group projects to do toward the end of the semester last fall, and he promised that he’d invite the “winning” group over for dinner. He apparently had a tough time deciding which group did the best job, so he said he’d invite the entire class over. He had first scheduled the cookout for two Saturdays ago, but nixed it when the forecast called for snow. Having a cookout in the 30s is really unpleasant, but having one in the 70s is awesome, so he picked the right weekend to reschedule it. It was a really fun time too!
The fun didn’t stop there though, as then it was time to head over to Meaghan’s place for a party. They even had some fun games with prizes, including “Pin the Photon on Eugene” (they had printed a picture of Dr Clothiaux, our Radiative Transfer prof), and a “Joe Paterno” pinata that they had me hold out while Luna was taking swings at it with a broom handle. Perhaps not the smartest idea, but hey, by not being a stationary “tree” I didn’t get whacked!
Today was another spectacular day, but I had to do some research work. So I made it as tolerable as possible, by watching several episodes of the “Planet Earth” marathon on Discovery Channel while working. I absolutely love that miniseries, the cinematography is positively stunning and breathtaking. The shows are totally fascinating too, I’ve learned heaps about animals and ecosystems that I never knew existed before. Gaining new insights into just how beautiful, intricate and incredibly complex our planet and the life on it is puts me in even greater awe of how great a God we serve, who could create such a world!
And congratulations to my friends Joel & Rosey down in Australia, who got engaged the week before last! I’d been expecting this to happen for quite some time, so I’m glad it finally did, hehe. They haven’t set a date just yet, but I’m really hoping it can fit into the time next summer when my cousin Jonathan & I are planning to go down there. That’d be pretty sweet!