Donation Number Seven

This was not a good weekend for me when it comes to football. First off the Gophers did a classic Glen Mason choke-job against a horrid defense at Purdue, then Penn State hung in there against #1 Ohio State in the ‘Shoe before Anthony Morelli quite literally threw the game away (making Andrew very happy), and to top it off Moo (Michigan St) blew a huge 17-point second half lead at home to Notre Dame — the annual Moo fade just when it looks like they’re doing well. On top of that several of my other Dirty Dawg picks all picked a wonderful day to lose. The NFL games on Sunday weren’t a whole lot better either for my Dawg (thanks New England), and the Vikings lost a heartbreaker to Da Bears 19-16. To watch that one I went to Damon’s with a bunch of the other meteo grads, including Andrew and Petters, who are both Bears fans. At least it was a good game throughout, and there was plenty of shouting at the TV and needling of each other to go around, haha.
Right after the first half of the Penn State-Ohio State game ended it was time to head over to the E Free Church for Julian & Suzanne’s wedding, the one I would’ve played in had I not fractured my finger (Sarah played very well in my stead, I might add). It was a really nice wedding, with the processional being “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt, but played and sung wonderfully by Blair from church. It may not sound like a traditional processional or anything, but it really fit. After the wedding Tim & I stuck around for awhile to help clean everything up, but neither of us went to the reception. I didn’t go primarily because I had forgotten to RSVP. It’s been a busy few months for weddings, this was the third one I’ve attended since June, in addition to being invited to another one or two.
We had been planning a hike with Penn State Christian Grads on Sunday afternoon at Shingletown Gap, but the forecast on Friday and Saturday looked so rainy for Sunday that we decided to cancel it. Of course, there didn’t end up being much rain on Sunday, and what was the weather like during the hike? Partly to mostly sunny. Oh well. I’d been wanting to watch the Vikings-Bears game during that time anyway, but the only motivation for pushing for the hike to be cancelled was that I didn’t think people would enjoy getting wet and muddy. We’ll see if people listen to my forecast next time. 🙂
Yesterday after work I had an appointment to donate blood at a Red Cross drive at my church, the first one that had ever been held there. From what it sounded like it was a big success too, with a whole bunch of first-time donors giving blood. That’s a very good thing too, because the Red Cross had some statistics there showing that here in the Greater Alleghenies region they are in absolutely dire need for every unit of blood that is donated. Most of the time they have less than a two day supply of almost all blood types, and quite often they have less than one day’s supply. One of the blood types they were in critical need of yesterday was A+, so I was very glad to be able to help out. The way I see it, I may not be able to save the world, but by donating blood I can directly help save up to three lives. I think next time I donate will be my eighth, totaling a gallon.
At IM softball tonight we pushed our record to 2-2 with a 16-4 drubbing of some poor team made up of all freshmen. They were probably the laziest team we’ve ever played (mostly refusing to do much more than walk or jog toward balls in the outfield), and really didn’t care that they were a bad team (they were laughing about it), but hey, at least they kept a positive attitude. I went 1-for-2 and I was just glad that my line-drive base hit up the middle didn’t hit their pitcher in the face, it missed only by a few inches. Barring a miracle in the standings our final softball game will be Thursday evening, perfect timing for the IM football season to begin next week at long last.
The Twins are in the playoffs!! They clinched a playoff berth last night by virtue of their victory over Kansas City and a loss by the White Sux. They’re still only a game behind Detroit for the Central division title, but hey, I’ll take the Wild Card, even if it means playing the Yankees, because it’s still the playoffs!
In less than an hour I’ll be 23! We’ll be getting an assignment in Grad Synoptic tomorrow, but hey, it’ll be better than my birthday last year when I had to spend the whole day cramming for a GFD exam the following morning. I’m used to having tests on/near my birthday, so it’s nice to have a respite from that this year for a change!