Saturday in the Steel City

The softball gods have not been kind to us the last couple Mondays, and we have yet to have a game in which the mercy rule did not take effect. One of these days we’ll be in a competitive game, I can feel it. Last Monday we hosted Grace Lutheran at our “home” field, and they sure took full advantage of the ground rule triple rule for balls rolling beyond center and right fields (to compensate for the stiff disincentive against hitting the house beyond left field, of forfeiting the inning). I played the whole game in right-center, and my arm got quite the workout in the 32-6 loss. I had a couple catches, including one right before I would’ve run into a young pine tree, plus a couple more that were just out of my reach (one because of another tree), and one error. I was hitting the ball on the nose at the plate, but was only 1-for-3 to show for it, with a fielder’s choice grounder to short, a lineout to left, and then finally a single to short center.
Tonight was a bit more pathetic. We only got maybe three balls out of the infield on offense, just about everything was a grounder right at a fielder. Consequently, we didn’t get a runner as far as 2nd base until the 7th inning, when we managed to score a couple runs and avoid the shutout against Oakwood Presbyterian, 27-2. Our defense also gave up a lot of outs, which is tough to come back from. I played the second half of the game in left field, going 1-for-1 on catch opportunities. I hit two groundouts to the pitcher though, so that was frustrating. Now I’m just a meager 2-for-9 on the season. Ugh. Maybe things will pick up next week.
We’ve been embroiled in a real humdinger of a heat wave here in central PA the last few days. I broke down on Thursday evening and turned on the air conditioner in my apartment for the first time in 2008, and it’s been on quite a bit since, as each of the past four days has hit 90 or higher. And it’s not like it’s been cooling off at night either, as it’s only been getting down to 72 or so typically. And for the most part it’s been miserably muggy too (85 over 72 on the walk to lunch on Friday, ugh). It’s almost enough to make me wish for winter again. But then cooler heads prevail, and what I’m really wishing for are dewpoints that are 20-30 degrees cooler. Judging from how much I dislike disgustingly high dewpoints, I don’t know how well I could ever tolerate living in the Southeast or on the Eastern Seaboard. Or amongst the cornfields of Iowa, for that matter, where it gets the muggiest of all.
On Saturday nine of us from my life group at church took a couple cars over to Pittsburgh, to enjoy some fine yinzer cuisine and some Pirates baseball. After enduring some PennDOT-inflicted wandering through Pitt suburbia, we finally made it to Primanti Brothers for a late lunch/early supper. And we mostly went for the famously amazing sandwiches. I mean, where else can you get a sandwich with provolone, a half-inch stack of pastrami, a tomato, french fries, copious amounts of vinegar coleslaw, and a fried egg? And yes, it was absolutely delicious! I think I might’ve shaved a week off my life though. 🙂 After that we took a walk along the Allegheny River down to Point State Park, which is at the confluence of the Three Rivers that make Pittsburgh famous: the Allegheny & the Monongahela, which flow together to form the Ohio. Even though the weather was pretty disgusting in State College, it really wasn’t too bad in Pittsburgh, especially along the rivers. I mean, it was still hot, but there was a pretty good breeze to help things out. Heinz Field, where the Steelers play football, has its open end to the confluence, and I can definitely see now why the winds swirl around in there and make it such a tough place to play! All in all it was a really nice summer day in Pittsburgh to walk around and hang out with the guys.
Then came the baseball game between the Pirates and the Diamondbacks. We got seats in the upper deck behind home plate, so that we could enjoy the spectacular view of the Allegheny River, Roberto Clemente Bridge, and the Pittsburgh skyline. There’s definitely not a more scenic ballpark in America (and maybe the world) than PNC Park in Pittsburgh. I’ve been to games there twice before, but both times in the right field bleachers, which doesn’t afford one the awesome views that you get when behind home plate. As for the game itself, the D-Backs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the 1st, but then the Pirates clawed their way back to a 3-3 tie, with solo home runs by Jason Bay and Nate McClouth. I even happened to get McClouth’s entire home run at bat on video with my camera, complete with the fireworks as he rounded the bases! I’ve embedded the video below (my first-ever video posted to YouTube), and I was really happy with how my first-ever video on my new camera turned out. Arizona homered in the top of the 9th, and the Pittsburgh couldn’t work any magic in the bottom half, so the Pirates lost 4-3. At least it was an entertaining game, because it certainly didn’t look like it’d be one at first. It was a long day, but a fun day in the Steel City. And PennDOT construction in downtown Pittsburgh (surprise, surprise) made for an interesting time and some interesting adventures trying to get out of the city on our way back to State College. Maybe that’s how they boost tourism in Pittsburgh, because you see a lot more of the city when you’re forced to wander the city streets looking for a way out!

I’m finally starting on my actual PhD research now. Well, more like laying the groundwork for the research to happen, I guess. Last week I started the process of trying to get the WRF (Weather Research & Forecasting) model to work over at ARL. It’s a long process, because they don’t have all the necessary libraries to allow WRF to compile, and I’m not allowed to install them myself. Sigh. So I’ve had to wait for some of that to be taken care of, but in the mean time I’ve been editing my journal article, which is coming along quite nicely. Anyway, because now I’m starting to split my time between Walker & the Water Tunnel (ARL), my advisors are starting the process for me to get a clearance, so that I can be in the building more than just regular office hours if I so choose. That means that sometime soon I need to sit down and fill out this thick SF-86 form, where they pretty much want every detail of my life for the past seven years, and list all sorts of family members and friends for various things. So if the FBI happens to knock on your door to ask you about me, don’t panic, it’s just routine. 🙂
Can’t wait for the cold front and storms to roll through in the afternoon, I’m ready for this heat wave to be broken!