“We Foresee Future Storms”

As is probably obvious, my bracket is officially busted. The scenario for the PSU Meteorology pool was pretty simple heading into Sunday: “I win 1st place is Villanova makes it to the Championship Game; if Villanova does not make it to the Championship Game, I don’t win any money (i.e., I don’t finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd). So of course, with a scenario like that ‘Nova had to go out and have a horrible shooting day, falling meekly to the Florida Gators with nary a whimper. But at least mighty George Mason knocked off Connecticut to ruin just about everyone else’s bracket too. I’m always happy to see the underdog win, and it was great to see that UConn team lose, particularly since they played very uninterestedly all tournament. But hooray for it finally getting to be shorts weather on Sunday, it got up to 45 that day and has been in the 50s since, with 60s due up the next couple of days. Spring has finally sprung!
Monday I spent kinda twiddling my thumbs and looking at some last-minute extra practice problems along with most everyone else in the TA Office, until the Cloud Physics exam started finally at 6pm. I was prepared with my cheat sheet, and it did come in handy a couple times, but more for confirmation that what I was gonna put down on my test was actually kinda right. There was a bit more calculation and a bit less explanation than I was expecting, and while a couple of the questions were a little tricky to think about, I think I did pretty well. But I made sure to wrap it up by 8:40 or so (we only had until 9pm) so that I could make it back to my apartment in time to catch all of “24.” I mean, hey, I’ve got my priorities here. 😉
Tuesday I started both a bit of grading and some searching for potentially useful journal articles for my three upcoming term papers, but probably wasn’t quite as productive as I would’ve liked. Such is life. The best part of the day, though, as with any Tuesday, was the 25c wings down at Sports Cafe, and this week Vic tagged along with Daniel & I. Although the other plus of the day was not having to teach lab in the afternoon, since Dr Nese cancelled it for this week (hooray!).
Today I did a bit more grading (this lab really sucks to grade, I’m getting really unmotivated to finish them). Then this evening was the Chi Epsilon Pi (national Meteorology honor society) induction ceremony, though I’m not sure how much I actually deserved to be inducted into it. I’ll take it though. I know Frame’s really wanting me to be an officer next year so that he doesn’t have to do it again, so I’ll probably end up complying. Anyway after the free pizza and actual inductions (and after an translation of the Greek phrase that’s abbreviated XEP, which in English roughly means, “We Foresee Future Storms” — we all snickered at that after it was read), we played a game of weather- and State College-related pictionary, undergraduates vs grad students vs faculty. Unfortunately the undergrads wound up winning because all the topics they drew were the easiest of the bunch (like “State College, PA,” “Dr Nese,” “CAPE” and “The Weather Channel”), while we got stuck with having to draw things like “lee-side cyclogenesis,” “Accuweather” and “The Day After Tomorrow” (which I picked out of the hat after passing on “mass continuity”). I mean, how are you supposed to draw those things? At least Yvette & Paul had some moderately tough ones for the faculty (such as “mesocyclone,” “Doppler on Wheels” and “thermohaline circulation”), though Paul spent much of the game drawing Thomas the Tank Engine on one of the side boards for fun, it was great!
Residents in Oregon should be very concerned about privacy and their pocketbooks, because now the state is going to be taxing drivers per mile, not per gallon of gasoline, because cars are getting too fuel-efficient. In order to accomplish this the state is going to have to have a massive database that details every person’s driving habits. Can you say ‘Big Brother’?
Watch out for those cats in Connecticut, they can be pretty nasty. So vicious, in fact, that they get a restraining order issued against them.
And Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia set the record straight about a Boston Herald journalist’s story on Monday that Scalia made an obscene gesture in a Catholic church, in a blistering reply to the newspaper’s account of what happened. Go Scalia! I admire Scalia’s incredible intellect and sharp wit more than just about anyone’s, he’s awesome!
And finally, Hooters Airlines (I bet many of you never knew there was such a thing!) is being “put to bed” and no longer operating as a general commercial airline. I could probably make some sort of tasteless joke but I think I’ll refrain. Judging from the photo in the story I’ve linked to, it doesn’t look like too many people flew Hooters, so that’s probably why that airline’s going down.