Retreat!

Hooray for there being no classes this past Friday! Even though it’s still fairly early in the semester, having a day off now and then is always a welcome thing. In Penn State Christian Grads we took advantage of the Fall “Study Day” by having our first-ever Fall Retreat. We’d been planning the retreat since summer, and rented out the Stone Valley Recreational Area Experimental Forestry Lodge, which is about half an hour outside of State College in the middle of nowhere, past McIlvaney’s Fort. We got started around 10:30am with a time of worship, and then Ashley, a Campus Crusade staff worker at (University of) Michigan Christian Grads who is in the process of transitioning/moving to help us out here at PSCG, gave a couple of really interesting talks about “The Heart of a Grad Student” and “Trusting God with Our Desires.” Essentially, both talks were discussing what it means to approach being a grad student from a Christian perspective, and they provided some very good food for thought and discussion. In the afternoon we had a bit of free time to do whatever, and several of us took a hike in the forest surrounding the lodge we’d rented out. For a lot of it we were kind of blazing our own trail a bit, but we made it back just fine and in good time. 🙂 After supper we had another worship session and some more discussion and a prayer time. We wrapped up by 7:30 or so, putting the close on a really valuable retreat. It was a day well spent with the other 18 or so people that came, with getting to know all of them a bit better, thinking about and discussing all of these issues, and just getting to relax a bit.
Upon our return to civilization after the retreat though, my cell phone all of a sudden received six new text messages that had been sent to me at various stages during and after the Twins game, informing me that they lost Game 3 in Oakland 8-3, allowing the A’s to complete a 3-game sweep and advance to the American League Championship Series. That was rather disappointing, but the Twins still accomplished quite a bit this year, coming back from a 25-33 start to finish 96-66 with the Central Division title. There’s a lot to look forward to for next year, particularly with Torii Hunter coming back (the Twins picked up his $12 million option for next season), and especially if Francisco Liriano can make a successful return from the elbow injury that kept him out of most of the last two months of the year. 2007 should be another exciting year in baseball’s best division, the AL Central. But as for what remains of this year, I was thrilled to see the Yankees and their $220 million payroll choke once again, this time to the Detroit Tigers, who are just three years removed from a 119-loss season. Incredible. I kinda hope they go all the way, AL Central pride!
Saturday was another lazy college football Saturday. Andrew came over to watch the Penn State-Minnesota game with me, a game that got far more interesting than it should’ve been. With their poor red zone execution the Nittany Lions kept letting the Golden Gophers hang around, and they eventually forced overtime. The Gophers scored a TD but then promptly missed an extra point, at which point you just knew the Gophers were going to lose — they keep coming up with creative and agonizing new ways to lose close games each year — but they actually should’ve won this one. Penn State threw an incomplete pass on 4th down on their OT possession, but were rescued from an embarrassing loss by the officials with a questionable, ticky-tack pass interference penalty on the Gophers. It technically was pass interference, as there was contact made before the ball got to the receiver, but it wasn’t severe enough to warrant a flag at any point during the game, especially not late in the game, in my humble opinion. Penn State went on to score the tying touchdown two plays later, and won 28-27 when they actually converted their extra point kick. I think it’s safe to say Penn State escaped with that win… I was cheering for Penn State during the game, but not quite as wholeheartedly as I would’ve against any other team (like Michigan or Ohio State, for example).
This Sunday morning was the first time I’d played piano with the worship team at State College Evangelical Free Church, and the first time I’d played piano in public since, oh, the summer of ought-three. We had rehearsal on Saturday evening, and it definitely took some adjustment to get used to playing with other instruments/vocalists again, I hadn’t done anything but play solo (and I hadn’t even done much of that) since I accompanied a couple vocalists way back in freshman year at Gustavus in 2001-02, if I recall correctly. But anyway, once I got into the swing of things it made it easier to follow the changes that Blair was wanting to make. I kinda botched the first song in the first service on Sunday morning, but nobody claimed to have noticed, so I guess that’s good. I did manage to fix several of my mistakes by the time the second service rolled around though, so that was good. Despite the mistakes that I know I made, I’d say it all went pretty well, I was fairly pleased. I think I’ll probably be volunteering my services at the piano about once a month or so (potentially more often) for the duration of my time here in State College, whether that’s 7-10 months or 3 years.
I was 14-0 in picking NFL games this weekend, sweeeeeet… Too bad it didn’t gain me much ground in the standings, as pretty much everyone in the two pick ’em leagues I’m in had 3 or fewer games picked incorrectly. I’ll still take 14-0 in a week though. 🙂
Hey all you scientists (budding or established) out there, you wanna throw your students/professors/readers for a bit of a loop? Try using some of these crazy units next chance you get. Seriously, some of these are bizarre. Like a barn-megaparsec, a hobo power, or a Smoot. With these units, it’s even clearer that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42, to within a conversion factor. 🙂 Hat tip: Cory Christenson.
I think this county sheriff in Texas has got the right idea: force inmates in the jail to wear pink jump suits, sleep in beds with pink sheets in rooms with pink walls. It certainly seems to be helping to deter repeat offenses, which is one of the primary goals of incarceration, is it not?
And an Australian driver was recently cited for going 66 km/hr (roughly 30-35 mph) — in reverse! They’d been driving for about 20 km before being stopped, supposedly because their transmission “stuffed up.” In addition to the citation, I would have to imagine that the driver got one heck of a crick in his neck from driving in reverse for 13 miles!
And the National Weather Service is currently forecasting for 1-3 inches of snow to fall back home in Cumberland tomorrow. Talk about an early start to winter! There’s even an outside chance that we could see a few stray snowflakes here in State College on Thursday night, but I don’t expect that to happen. Fortunately the forecast for Saturday is looking up though for the much-anticipated football game against the hated 4th-ranked and undefeated Michigan Wolverines. It’s looking like it’ll be dry, thankfully, though it will be a bit on the cool side. My prediction for a game-time temp: 41 degrees. Hopefully the Nittany Lions capitalize on the incredible atmosphere and home-field advantage (110,000 screaming, jacked-up fans crammed into Beaver Stadium!) surrounding this game with a victory.
BEAT MICHIGAN!