If you’ve visited my site before, you probably notice it looks quite a bit different from last time. Read below to find out why.
I have switched my blogging platform from Movable Type to WordPress. I’ve been intending to do it for awhile, and have had a couple failed attempts recently, but I finally got it to work today. Now I have some work to do with fixing formatting, editing the look and feel of the website, adding links, functionality and other pages, and stuff like that. But at least I’ve succeeded in importing my all my posts from Movable Type!
I’ve heard lots of good things from friends that use WordPress, and it seems like a very solid blogging platform. I had an old version of Movable Type installed (from mid-2000s, and a complicated install that my old college roommate Josh took care of), and it was very bad at filtering spam comments. By that, I mean it didn’t filter any at all. It’s been tiresome for a long time to delete heaps of spam comments (sometimes dozens per day). Stupid robots. That was a main reason why I chose to switch. Ultimately though, I felt like changing things up a bit, and moving to a platform that gives me more control, and is more modern, better-supported, and easier to use. And with moving to Colorado and 2010 coming to a close, change is in the air, so I figured this was as good a time as any to make the move.
So hopefully I’ll be able to get everything looking how I want it soon, but for at least a few days, this will probably be a work in progress.
Greetings from Gunbarrel! I’m finally in Colorado! I can hardly believe my move is over; this fall went by soooo quickly. I’m glad the move is over though, because last week and this week, I’ve spent about 4500 miles riding/driving in a car (4100 miles in my own car).
I drove home to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, and brought with me a carload of stuff to leave there until Christmas/New Years. Then I drove back to PA after Thanksgiving, to pack up the rest of my stuff and tie up some loose ends on campus and whatnot. I got back to State College on Monday evening, and then on Wednesday morning I drove out again, so I was only back for about 40 hours.
Even with taking one carload of stuff to Wisconsin, I still had to leave some things behind last week. I put everything I possibly could into my car, but some things just wouldn’t fit (bedding, pillows, laundry basket Vikings waste basket, tower fan, cooler, liquor, kitchen stuff/food, skis, winter boots, work boots, PSU lawn chairs). It really was packed to the gills, and weighed down pretty heavily. I honestly thought I’d be able to fit everything in, otherwise I would’ve taken some stuff to Goodwill. Oh well.
I packed some boxes in my backseat Tuesday night during a very brief pause in the heavy rain, but unfortunately I forgot to close the rear passenger door on my last trip of the night. I didn’t discover that little detail until morning, and it’d been raining steadily all night and morning. The boxes and upholstery on my passenger side were soaked. ARGH. I had no choice but to pack more stuff in and soldier on, however, as there was no time to take stuff out and dry it.
By the time I had everything loaded into my car, the steady rain had switched to heavy wet snow, so at least I bid farewell to a snow-coated Pennsylvania, making it even prettier than usual (road conditions improved markedly once I reached I-80). So on Wednesday I drove about 10 hours (with only two stops) to the western suburbs of Chicago, where I spent the night with my friends Ryan & Sarah. On Thursday I drove another 10-11 hours from Chicago to a motel in Kearney, Nebraska (where I was introduced to the fast-food joys of Runza on Ryan’s recommendation; apparently Runzas are a Nebraskan delicacy, haha). On Friday I drove the remaining 6 hours or so to Gunbarrel (northeast Colorado is even more desolate than southern Nebraska).
I went on a big shopping trip to Target and Safeway yesterday to replace all the stuff that I had to leave behind and stock my pantry. My wallet shed several tears, I think. I don’t have any bedroom furniture yet though, so I haven’t been able to unpack very much yet. I’m hoping to acquire some this week — I can hardly wait to finish unpacking and make my room feel like home. In the meantime, I figured the best way to feel at home was to cook something: some tex-mex chicken hotdish from my Minnesota cookbook. It was a good way to learn where everything is in the kitchen (and to discover in the middle of prep that there wasn’t a can opener!). That just came out of the oven, so I’m going to dig in!
First day of work at NCAR tomorrow! I’ll post some photos of the house in a post later this week, hopefully.
[On location in Orlando, Florida]
I’ve got some time on my hands while at this conference, so I can catch up on a bit of bloggish activity.
I haven’t been to very many concerts before (I’m not including high school or college band/orchestra/choir concerts, I’ve been to plenty of those). But in the last month-plus I’ve added two more to the list. Both were epic: Muse and Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Here’s a list of the concerts I’ve been to: 1. Weird Al Yankovic, Aug 2003, Minnesota State Fair. Yep. Weird Al. At least I’ll always have a fairly unique answer to the icebreaker question of “what was the first concert you attended?” He put on a good show though, and changed costumes between nearly every song. Several of my roommates at Gustavus were huge Weird Al fans, and I went with them. 2. Minnesota Orchestra, Jan 2005, Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis). I’ll count this, because I had to travel and pay to attend. This concert was amazing, especially because they ended with Ottorino Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome,” which is one of my favorites (“The Pines of the Appian Way,” in particular). It was so beautiful, I think I got a couple tears in my eyes. 3. Phil Keaggy, Sep 2007, State Theatre (State College). My church co-sponsored this concert, and I decided to buy a ticket even though I hadn’t ever heard him play. He opened with “Shades of Green,” and my jaw dropped. Here’s a video of him performing it at another concert (he had some different improvisation at our concert, but you get the idea):
Phil Keaggy is without a doubt the best guitarist I’ve ever heard, and it’s going to take a unique and tremendous talent to top him. 4. Guster, Oct 2007, Bryce Jordan Center (Penn State). A small concert, but still fun. They have such a “California” sound, I was surprised to learn they were from Massachusetts. 5. Chris Tomlin & Matt Redman, Feb 2008, Bryce Jordan Center (Penn State). It was really cool to hear a few thousand people praising God together! This was for Tomlin’s “How Great Is Our God” tour. 6. Eric Hutchinson, Nov 2009, Knitting Factory (Spokane, WA). My cousin Jonathan and his girlfriend (now wife) Lindsey asked if I wanted to go with them to a concert while I was visiting them. I hadn’t heard of Eric Hutchinson before they asked, but he’s become one of my favorite musicians. Click here to see the music video for “OK, It’s Alright With Me.” (embedding disabled) 7. MUSE, Oct 2010, Value City Arena (Columbus, OH). I went to visit Alex last month for a couple days, and we took a drive down from Ann Arbor to Columbus [shudder] to see Muse in concert. Alex had already seen the show once before in Detroit back in March , but he loves Muse so much he was keen to go again with me down in Columbus. His one word to describe the concert in Detroit: “EPIC!” Here’s video from the beginning of the concert (not ours, from another place on tour):
Their show in Columbus didn’t disappoint! I’d have to agree with the adjective “epic.” We had floor tickets, and managed to wend our way pretty close to the center, about five rows from the front. There were three towers set up on stage, the bottom half of which was a platform which would go up and down for various songs, so that sometimes the band was playing well above you, sometimes on the actual stage. Each tower also had videoboards all around, which showed tons of different things throughout the show. Combined with the tremendous laser light show, there were lots of visual stimuli. During one of their last songs, they dropped some gigantic beach balls from the upper deck that were painted like eye balls; after a time, they’d explode, showering giant confetti/tissue paper everywhere. And of course the music was great. It was a great, great show! Very worth seeing live! Here are some photos from Alex’s camera (mine was too big to take in):
8. Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Nov 2010, Bryce Jordan Center (Penn State). I’ve long heard that TSO puts on a great live show, so I knew I should take advantage of them coming to State College. And just like with Muse, the hype didn’t disappoint. I went with Walter and some PSCG friends (a bunch of other meteo folks went as well, but were in another section). I don’t have any photos from the concert (again, I didn’t bring my camera because it’s too big to bother trying to get in), but I’ll try to describe a bit of what it was like. As a start, three of the musicians were lowered on platforms from the ceiling to the stage during the second song, jamming out during the whole descent. There were a couple of catwalks on either side of the stage, which for a couple songs in the second half lowered down so that musicians could hop on and go play halfway out into (and above!) the audience. Lots of head-banging from the guitarists, bassists, violinists and dancers. Musicians running from one end of the stage to the other while continuing to play, and even going out into the aisles in the crowd. Tremendous light and laser show. Fireballs (more fire than I’ve ever seen indoors before). Fireworks (and I don’t mean firecrackers, I mean legit fireworks). Like Muse, it was epic and over the top, and a fantastic live show. Here’s a sample video from a previous TSO concert, to give a flavor of it:
And the show was 2 hours, 40 minutes long — with no intermission to speak of! They started off playing the songs from their Christmas Eve and Other Stories album, and when they got to the last song from that, I noticed that some people got up to leave (presumably to beat the traffic, but what traffic is there to beat at night in State College??). When they got done with that song, they came back out and said they hoped we enjoyed the first half of their show, and that they had a lot more for us. They sure gave us our money’s worth! Moral of the story: never ever, EVER leave a concert early. Those people who left missed at least half of the show!
[end list]
I’d have to say my two favorite concerts were the last two, Muse and TSO, because of the scale and the spectacle of each. And they were only about 3.5 weeks apart! Anyway, those two concerts are definitely two of the highlights of my last couple months before my move to Colorado!
It may have been a month since I last posted to my blog here, but I haven’t abandoned it. I have a few things to write about from the last few weeks, but I haven’t had time yet. I’ll try to get to a couple of the “highlights” when I can. Maybe I’ll have some time this coming week while I’m in Orlando at the CBD Conference. I’ll be down there from tomorrow night through Friday morning, and am presenting a poster.
I don’t have much time left in State College now. I’ve wrapped up just about all of my work here at PSU. I had a PhD committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon (which went fairly well overall) to make sure everyone’s on the same page before I go to Colorado. Then I spent much of Thursday and Friday packing up both my offices in the Water Tunnel Bldg and in Walker Bldg, and backing up computer files that I want to keep. Packing up everything would make me a bit sadder if I wasn’t so excited to be moving on to NCAR in Boulder.
I’m down to just a small number of days left here in State College. I’m in Orlando this coming week at the CBD Conference, but I’ll be around next weekend. Next week I’ll be in MN/WI for Thanksgiving, and then after coming back to PA for a couple days after Thanksgiving, I’ll be hitting the road to Colorado, arriving in my new digs in Gunbarrel probably on 3 or 4 Dec. I have a lot of traveling in the next three weeks to be sure!
So my 27th birthday was back on the 27th of September, meaning it was my golden birthday. The weather was pretty crappy (steady rain all day), but apart from that it was a pretty great birthday! I was sufficiently distracted all day by the birthday wishes coming in on facebook, email, and phone, and birthday lunch and coffee were nice breaks during the work day as well. 🙂
I got home to discover that someone Tracy & Adrienne had gone on a serious re-decorating binge in the house and my bedroom in particular. Somebody else Isaac had an extra spare key made just so they could do all this:
Streamers on the front door
Hannah Montana background on my MacBook (no, I didn’t have it password-protected)
Hannah Montana piñata hanging upstairs
Fuzzy cursive letters spelling out my name on my bedroom door
Pink bed sheets
Hannah Montana fake-silk pillowcases
Stuffed animals on the bed
Justin Bieber magazine and Hannah Montana diary
Numerous posters of Justin Bieber, Twilight, or other “teen heartthrobs” who I didn’t recognize
Streamers and balloons everywhere
Trip wires in my closet and dresser that started playing songs (from greeting cards) when I opened them the first time
A scavenger hunt of cards hidden all around the house (including in the fridge), but which I found in a haphazard order over the span of three days (because I found the “closet music,” which I thought was the end), purportedly leading to a gift of a Colorado guidebook (which I accidentally found while looking for something else two days later)
Here are some photos of the “re-decoration”:
Even though this sort of thing has been done to me before (for my birthday and April Fools), I was lulled into a false sense of security by nothing happening last year. So that totally took me by surprise.
I went to dinner at Otto’s with a few people (mmm, Blau Burger with Flying Squirrel Ale and Red Mo Ale…), and after dinner we made our way to Kildare’s, the new Irish pub in town, where a few more people showed up. It was a really fun night! 🙂
And yes, I remade my bed with my own sheets after I got a ride back from Kildare’s. I was not about to sleep in those pink sheets, especially since they felt like sandpaper. I have more pride than that, haha.
Thank you to all of you who helped make my golden birthday a memorable and good one!
