Jared's One Blog

[On location in Spokane, Washington]
I have some free time on my hands while my cousin Jonathan is at work and while other people are here checking in on my aunt Marilyn, so I thought I may as well catch up some on my blogging backlog…
Last weekend my younger brother Jake flew out to State College from Wisconsin to come visit me. It was pretty cool that he did that, especially since it was his first time ever flying or venturing out that far from home. I tried my best to entertain him and show him a good time, and in the process we both got pretty tired. I think he enjoyed his visit too.
His flight arrived early afternoon on Thursday the 12th, but not before he had to put up with some of the “interesting” things that sometimes happen on flights. For instance, on the MSP-DTW leg, he was stuck ahead of a kicking and screaming 2-year old kid whose parents thought everything he did was just the cutest thing ever. I’m actually impressed that Jake waited until after everyone deplaned in Detroit to have a short chat with the dad. Anyway, when he got off the plane all the monitors indicated that his DTW-SCE flight was cancelled. In the process of finding out that it was not cancelled, but instead merely delayed a couple hours, he had the pleasure of dealing with at least one thoroughly unhelpful gate agent, who told him to go back to the original gate for the DTW-SCE flight and ask the agent there what was going on, even though there was no agent at that gate. He was definitely ready for a drink after all that finally got straightened out, haha.
Right after picking him up from the airport I took him to Wegmans for lunch, and then we went back to my apartment for a bit so that he could take a nap and whatnot, not having slept much the night or two previously. For supper that night I took him to Pickle’s downtown, after swinging by Lions Pride so that he could buy a PSU hoodie. Then we went to Hollemans to watch “The Office” and some football, and so that he could meet several of my friends from PSCG (he’d met Ash before, when Ash came out to Minnesota with me for Aaron’s funeral last year).
On Friday the 13th we got up early and hit the road at 8am for Washington DC. With Jake never having been out east before, he wanted to take a day trip somewhere to see someplace other than the university (and I don’t blame him!). We parked at the end of the Metro red line (Shady Glen) and rode the train in to Union Station near the U.S. Capitol Building. It was a cool, grey day in DC, with the remnants of Hurricane Ida just offshore, but fortunately it only was rainy and windy for the first hour or so that we were in DC. We were both fearing a washout, so we were glad it was actually dry most of the day. We did a TON of walking, going from Union Station around the Capitol Building, then to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in search of a food court (which was closed that day to our chagrin), then the rest of the way down the National Mall, by the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. Then we walked up to the White House (after having to double back a few blocks because of missing a turn), and walked all the way back to Union Station along E Street. It was interesting to see how many people were using their flash to take photos of the White House at night, especially given we were a good half mile away from it. I kinda doubt their little flashes could reach that far, haha. And several times during the day Jake was whinging (a little Aussie lingo there) about how much walking we were doing and that I wasn’t walking slowly enough. I basically told him he needed to suck it up. 😀 Right before heading back to PA, we also met up with an old friend of his from Wisconsin who’d moved to the DC area, who Jake hadn’t seen in 9 years. That was actually a big reason why he wanted me to drive him to DC, I suspect. 😉

(All these pictures were taken with a camera of Nathan’s that Jake brought out for me to borrow for the weekend and for my trip to Washington that I’m currently on, since my camera was being fixed by Geek Squad. Thanks Nathan!)
After getting back to State College at almost 1am Friday night, on Saturday morning we left at 9am to go tailgating. Unfortunately we didn’t have some necessary supplies, so we wound up spending almost an hour driving around making various stops before we finally went up to campus for the tailgate. As a result we were only able to be there for about an hour or so before it was time to head up to the game. Oh well. On the plus side, the tailgate was set up by some parents of the younger meteo grads, so there was actually good, homemade food there. Yum! And Jake and I did manage to fit in one game of pong (good side: we won, hooray!; down side: we played with skunked Iron City, blech!). As for the game, Penn State was sluggish out of the gates, falling behind Indiana 10-0 on the strength of three first quarter turnovers. Ugh. Eventually PSU woke up and took a 24-10 lead in the 3rd quarter, en route to a 31-20 win. Jake said he enjoyed the game, but that he had more fun watching the crowd. The Blue Band had a really creative halftime show, with the Batman theme (forming the Batman logo) and the Rocky theme (forming a pair of boxers that even came together and slowly boxed a little bit!). And about Beaver Stadium, he said, “This place is huge.” Very observant, he is. 🙂

After the game we were exhausted from the last couple days, so we hung out at Walter’s for a bit, watching some more football and playing some games.
On Sunday morning I dragged Jake to church. 🙂 To be fair, I didn’t have to drag him, he came willingly, haha. I asked for the week off from the worship team because of his visit, so I wasn’t playing this week. After church we had the obligatory photo-op at the Lion Shrine and visit to the Berkey Creamery, sandwiched around stuffing ourselves with pizza at Home Delivery. After the pizza and ice cream, I seriously didn’t eat anything else the rest of the day! Later in the evening I took him out to Otto’s for a drink of their home-brewed beer, but by that point they were down to just three types of beer on tap and the kitchen had just closed. Oh well, the Ottonator is still good. We even ran into someone at Otto’s who was familiar with the Spooner/Hayward area in NW Wisconsin. Small world!
I dropped Jake off at the State College airport late on Monday morning. It seemed like he had a good time in PA, and was more interested in traveling to other places, now that he had a first plane ride under his belt, and could see that the whole process wasn’t that bad. I was glad he came out and that I could show him around a bit, and that he could get a taste of the world outside Wisconsin!
So now my parents have been out here once (Oct 2005), my brother Nathan & Laura have been out here once (Oct 2008), and my brother Jake’s been out here once (Nov 2009). Who’ll break the tie? 🙂 I do wish Aaron could’ve come out here at some point though. It would’ve been great to show him some of the great scenery here in Pennsylvania, and show him that while it might not be Colorado, it’s still really pretty out here. 🙂 And I wonder how he would’ve thought the atmosphere for a college football game at Penn State compared to the game(s) he went to at Nebraska back in the 90s…
Anyway, now it’s time for me to get ready to drive from Spokane to Yakima in a little bit. Jonathan will be swinging by on his lunch break to take me to the rental car place. I’m excited for Tim & Hilary’s wedding tomorrow, and looking forward to seeing them again this afternoon! Much more about my current trip to Washington will be coming up in a future post when I get a chance.

I intended to post this before today, but I didn’t have a chance (just as I haven’t written about my visit to Michigan a couple weeks ago yet either). I didn’t even get the songs picked out until Friday night, and then rehearsal was later than usual last night, at 8:30pm because of the Penn State-Ohio State game. The main part of sermon text this week was John 7:37-39, dealing with Christ being the source of streams of living water for us. As such, I picked out a couple of songs to go with the water theme. We had two new guitarists this week, Meredith and Carina, plus Mike on bass and Suzanne and Erin on vocals. A good-sized group!
Prelude: Unashamed Love – by Lamont Hierbert
I chose this song because of its call for us to calm our busy minds and focus on God and His sacrifice for us. I know I’m easily distracted, at least…
Song #1: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing – by Robert Robinson and John Wyeth
Song #2: I Need a Saviour – by Among the Thirsty
This was the first time we’d sung this song as a congregation, though Mike introduced it last week as a prelude.
Song #3: Breathing the Breath – by Matt Redman
This was the first time we’d sung this song as a congregation as well. I played it last week during communion, and a couple people commented to me how pretty they thought it was. So I decided to have everyone sing it this week! A YouTube link to the song is here, in case you’re curious to hear the version from Matt Redman’s “Facedown” album.
Song #4: O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus – by Samuel Trevor Francis
One of my favorite hymns/songs of all time. In addition to awesome lyrics (likening Jesus’ love for us to an ocean that’s all around us), it’s a beautiful Welsh melody in a minor key. Mike likes to give me a hard time for my fondness for songs in minor keys, but minor keys are just so awesome–I can’t help it! 🙂
Closing Song: As the Deer – by Martin Nystrom
I chose this to go with the sermon theme in particular: “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you.”
Now I’ll be on a three-week or so hiatus from being on the worship team at SCEFC. Next Sunday my younger brother Jake will be in town (he’s flying in from Wisconsin on Thursday), the Sunday after that I’ll be in Washington state (either still in Yakima following Tim & Hillary’s wedding, visiting family in Spokane, or somewhere in between), and then the Sunday after that I’ll be flying from Minneapolis to Detroit and then driving from Ann Arbor to State College, returning from spending Thanksgiving with my family in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
All of this upcoming stuff with Jake’s visit and then departing for Washington the day after he leaves is why I’m so frantically trying to get ahead on work. Oh yeah, and I have to make a poster by Wednesday to send with Walter to this year’s Chemical & Biological Defense conference in Dallas, as well as take an exam in my Numerical Weather Prediction class on Tuesday night. But even with all of this busy-ness, and with feeling so tired, stressed and worn down lately, I felt like I was able to get recharged to some degree this morning at church. Not fully, but at least some. Sometimes being forced to take a time out is the best thing for us. It’s really easy for me not to take time for God when life gets hectic…

Remember the record-setting snowfall I wrote a couple posts about a couple weeks back? Well, this post is meant to close up that series of posts, as part of my continued catch-up blogging effort.
The snow continued into a third day. Tailgating was banned by Penn State for the homecoming football game vs Minnesota — all the grass lots were closed (4-6″ of slushy wet snow + unfrozen ground + lots of car and foot traffic = MUD PIT). To compensate for the loss of 20,000 parking spaces in the grass lots, they only allowed one car per parking space in the paved lots, and Penn State also arranged for 50 shuttle buses to ferry passengers free of charge from various parking lots all around town (Lowe’s, Nittany Mall, Hills Plaza, high school, etc.) to the stadium and back. When I found out Saturday morning in the CDT that a free shuttle would be leaving from the high school parking lot every 10-15 minutes, my decision about how to get to the stadium became a very easy one, considering my apartment is right behind the high school. Walter & I both wish they had those free shuttles leaving from there every game, it was really convenient!
Up near the stadium, it was really weird not to see tailgaters as far as the eye could see, and instead to see empty, snow-covered fields. The atmosphere was rather subdued. As for the actual atmosphere (the one I study), it unfortunately warmed up to the point that the snow, after falling for 51 consecutive hours, switched over to a cold light rain a couple hours before game time, which continued throughout the whole game. That was unfortunate. I wanted to attend another game while snowflakes were falling (the first was last year vs Michigan State). The snow in the stadium hadn’t melted yet, and OPP didn’t have enough time to clear it out of the stadium, so instead they just shoveled it off the bleachers and into the rows.
The decision not to get rid of the snow entirely caused some issues, though. Namely: snowballs. Lots of them. After Penn State connected on a 47-yard field goal to take a 3-0 lead midway through the 1st quarter, we noticed that there was a vigorous snowball fight happening in the junior and freshman/sophomore student sections (if you look carefully, the photo at left shows a few snowballs flying). Seriously, there were lots and lots of snowballs flying, but they were all staying in the student section, and basically thrown laterally instead of forward (toward the field). And then, gradually, the senior student section started to get in on the action. And then there were some snowballs being tossed down toward the seats near the field, and then onto the field. As soon as a few snowballs landed on the field, the barrage really began in earnest, as more and more idiotic students started launching them. Nobody was safe, including those of us in the front few rows (I got hit by four massive snow/slushballs in row M), the Minnesota ballboys, Penn State’s own players, some of Penn State’s recruits, our cheerleaders, our dance team, our mascot, the chain gang, the line judge, and even Joe Paterno himself got hit (or only very narrowly missed). JoePa immediately turned around and glared at the student section, clearly very peeved. Eventually PSU moved all their players well down the sideline so they were no longer near the student section, and a couple players came down in front of the student section to plead with them to stop throwing snowballs. Eventually the public address announcer got into the act too, reminding fans that the throwing of objects (including snowballs) inside Beaver Stadium was prohibited, and that those caught throwing snowballs would be ejected and possibly arrested and/or possibly have their student ticket privileges revoked. While all this was happening, those of us in the first 20+ rows turned around and started chanting at the rest of the student section to try to get them to stop. All of this was to no avail, and the snowballs kept coming and littering the field. Some of them were landing very near players on the field of play during the game. We thought for sure the officials would call a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on Penn State because of the snowball-throwing fans disrupting play. In fact, at the end of the 1st quarter, it was to the point that those of us in the rows near the field were begging the officials to throw the flag. We figured that was the only way to get the idiots to stop throwing snowballs. Yet even with that the ref didn’t throw the flag. Never in my life have I ever heard of (much less seen or participated in) a group of fans pleading with the officials to call a penalty against their own team. It was so bizarre. Anyway, the snowballs finally came to a halt in the early stages of the 2nd quarter once campus security showed up and ejected a couple people (finally). I don’t know what took them so long to show up though, because the snowball fight had been going on for probably 20-30 minutes by that point, maybe longer. Also, by the time I got hit by the 4th snowball, some people around me felt sorry for me that I’d been hit by so many, while most everyone else near me hadn’t been hit by any, that they were volunteering to “take one” for me if they saw one heading our way. That was funny.
As for the rest of the game, Penn State’s defense absolutely suffocated the Minnesota offense, and the Nittany Lions cruised to a 20-0 shutout. And despite the 38-degree mist and light rain that fell throughout the game, I wasn’t nearly as cold during this game as I was during the Iowa game, which was at least 10 degrees warmer, but much wetter. I think the key was layers: I had on two t-shirts, a long-sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a poncho and a jersey. Count ’em, six layers. I definitely wasn’t cold, even when I was being pelted by snowballs! My Minnesota and Wisconsin upbringing, which taught me the necessity of layers in cold weather, served me well. 🙂 I’m definitely getting sick of cold rain though. That made two games this year I’ve been to with it.

Starting to catch up on a little blogging. Eventually I’ll get around to writing about my road trip this past weekend to visit Alex and about how I was physically assaulted in the stands of Michigan Stadium during the Penn State-Michigan football game. How’s that for a teaser?!
Earlier this month there was a two-Saturday stretch where I didn’t watch any college football during the day. And you know what? I survived just fine, much to my surprise. 😉 On Saturday the 3rd it was the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK relay race that took up the entire day, and on Saturday the 10th it was the 4th annual PSCG Fall Retreat. During the retreat I didn’t even have cell phone reception all day long at the lodge.
We actually started the retreat this year on Friday night the 9th, with the first talk by the retreat speaker at the Hollemans house. This year’s speaker was Randy Newman, who has worked with Campus Crusade for Christ (PSCG’s parent organization) since 1980, and recently has been involved in Faculty Commons, the faculty ministry of Cru, but also speaks regularly to grad students and undergrads. He’s also worked for many years with the Chaplain’s Office at the Pentagon, and speaks there every week. In addition to all that, he’s written several articles and books, including “Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did” and “Corner Conversations: Engaging Dialogues About God and Life.”
With the one talk Friday night and three talks on Saturday, Randy had a four-part series on the Christian worldview, where he focused on the four pillars of the Christian worldview. His first talk was on creation (Genesis 1), his second talk was on rebellion (Genesis 3), this third talk was about redemption (Romans 3), and his fourth and final talk was about consummation (Revelation 21). Randy Newman was a very engaging speaker, and I felt like I learned things from every talk.
I played keyboard at church on Sunday morning the 11th, partly as a change of pace from the piano, partly because I know Ben (who was leading that week) is a fan of having the keyboard play background strings in general. I didn’t go to rehearsal on Saturday night because of the retreat, though. I usually prefer not to show up on Sunday morning without having done any practicing or rehearsal, but this week it worked out to do just the pre-service rehearsal on Sunday morning. As an interesting stat, this marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that I was in the worship band, and the sixth Sunday in the past seven (or the seventh of the last eight Sundays for which I’ve been in State College). I’ve just had a two-week hiatus though, with Paul & Ben doing a two-man set two Sundays ago, followed by the youth band leading worship this past Sunday (when I was out of town in Ann Arbor anyway). I knew I’d been playing a lot lately, but until I looked up the actual numbers, I didn’t realize just how frequently it’s been recently. And this wasn’t a complaint that I’ve been playing quite a bit, because I do enjoy playing music at church, but rather just an observation.
After church on the 11th several people from PSCG were planning a road trip and hiking expedition to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. For those of you who didn’t either attend PSU or grow up in PA, how many of you didn’t even know that Pennsylvania had its own Grand Canyon? Well, there is one, way up in the desolate north-central part of the state, about a two-hour drive north of State College. Originally I wasn’t planning to go up there, but then I decided fairly last-minute that I would go. I realized that I often have thought or said, “I want to go to the PA Grand Canyon sometime,” or, “I should just take a drive around central PA some day when the fall colors are at or near peak,” or, “I should just get out and do more stuff.” So I decided I really should take advantage of the opportunity. I mean, seriously, how much work would I actually have gotten done had I stayed home? Anyway, we took three vehicles up there from State College, and I drove one of them because I wanted to come back before supper (also, Game 3 of the Twins-Yankees series was set to start at 7pm that night). The drive was pretty scenic, especially the 40-mile stretch of PA-287 between Jersey Shore and Wellsboro. We definitely hit peak fall color along that road! We could also tell we were getting close to the Grand Canyon because of all the kitschy tourist traps (like Animaland) and RV campgrounds.
Once we arrived at the PA Grand Canyon (Leonard Harrison State Park is the actual name of the park, and the canyon itself is actually called Pine Creek Gorge), we took in the view from the rim for a bit, and then started the hike down the trail. It was a pretty hike, following Four Mile Creek for a good bit as it descended to Pine Creek.

I’m glad I took the time to go up there, it was a great hike. And now I can say I’ve hiked in three Grand Canyons – first in the Grampians (Victoria, Australia), then in Arizona and now in Pennsylvania. As cool as the ones here in PA and in Australia are, the one in Arizona is slightly more impressive. 🙂

And it’s still snowing (lightly). This record-setting snowstorm is not one anyone here will soon forget. After seeing several more flashes of lightning out my window last night (hooray thundersnow!!), I woke up this morning to a regular winter wonderland. There was about 3 inches on the ground this morning near my apartment, but more than that has fallen, as it’s all been continuously and slowly melting, with temps at or slightly above freezing (other places around town have 6 inches already). While walking into campus, I became very glad that my car is parked a long way from any trees in my apartment building’s parking lot. There are tree limbs down everywhere around State College, and 10,000 Allegheny Power customers here in Centre County are without power this morning. It’s a total mess. Here are some of the photos I took this morning on my walk in:

As you can see, it was beautiful outside to see the rare sight of the snow and the fall foliage together in a single scene, but there was also a lot of damage as a result of the snow. This record-setting snowstorm isn’t done yet either. Forecasts are calling for another inch of snow today, another 2-4″ tonight, another 1-3″ tomorrow, another 1-3″ tomorrow night, and then a rain/snow mix switching to plain rain on Sunday.
And now the grass tailgating lots for tomorrow’s football game vs Minnesota have been closed. That’s not a surprise, because the ground isn’t frozen yet, and this is a heavy wet slop on the ground right now, that’s constantly melting bit by bit because the temp’s hovering just above freezing and the light snow is occasionally mixing with sleet or rain. If the ground were frozen it could handle all the car and foot traffic of a tailgate, but not when it’s like this, it’d turn into a huge mud pit. At least that’ll make my decision easy about whether or not to endure the crappy weather to go tailgating. Now I’ll just go endure the crappy weather at the stadium for the game tomorrow afternoon. 🙂 Some people have been complaining that just because we’re playing Minnesota tomorrow, it doesn’t mean that the weather has to be like Minnesota, haha. I really hope it doesn’t switch to rain for the game, that’d be completely miserable…