Greetings from Central PA

In a conversation with my little sister she recommended that members of our family should all have blogs so that we can keep up to date with each other's activities. I thought that it was a great idea and so while I wait for the second round of the NCAA Tournament to tip off I figured I would sit down and write my first post. While I didn't share her same problems with finding a name that wasn't taken (both codywray.blogspot and codywarner.blogspot were both available, I obviously settled on the former), I did struggle in deciding what I would post. Well a lot has happened over the past year and I think that is a good place to start.


To begin, in June of last year I packed up and left the great state of Wyoming and headed east. While some of my Wyo friends remarked that it was simply a return to my Yankee roots, the real reason was that I was accepted to Penn State's Crime, Law, and Justice Program. Somewhere during the course of my undergrad education I realized that having a real job was not on my radar yet and decided to forge ahead. So I made the move to Pennsylvania and started the program this past fall.



A lot of my friends with jobs - and subsequently money - think that I'm pretty insane to stay in school all this time. But I am a huge nerd and love to learn. But school can be a little overwhelming at times. I can only read so many chapters and articles in a given week before my brain has had enough. However, I've recently learned that there has to be a balance. While my thirst for knowledge will never been quenched, I cannot fill it completely with academics. So this past winter I started learning how to do a couple things that have brought a lot of peace and joy to my life.




First, thanks in large part again to my little sister, I learned how to snowboard. I had made a rather unsuccessful attempt some time ago and swore over my bruised body and ego that I wouldn't be strapping into a board anytime soon. Then this past winter thanks to several homebrews and some encouragement I decided to give it another try. Thanks to some quality instruction I was able to pick it up pretty quick and am now totally hooked. While I never felt any sort of regrets for not trying again after my first attempt, I learned a valuable life lesson this time around. It takes a lot of determination to get up one more time than you get knocked down - or fall in this case. And that lesson has helped quite a bit off mountain as well. Any grad student can inform you that you feel knocked down quite a bit.



The other thing I'm learning to do is brew beer. However, this is less of a learning experience than a fulfillment of a destiny. After having witnessed growing up countless batches of beer being brewed and then drinking some of the finest brews around over the holidays I decided my time had come. Luckily a fellow grad student had the same itch and we decided to split the cost on all the equipment, and unfortunately the finished product as well. The pictured batch is an Extra Special Bitter (ESB). Soon it will go into bottles and early next month into my belly. Hopefully some day I can reach the bar set by my pops and make beer that people really like.





Well my apologies go out to anyone that decided to read this, it got quite a bit longer than I anticipated. But when you learn you've got to share. Who knows what my next learning experience will be...I'm leaning towards traveling. This hick has never been outside the United States and I think it is about time to see the world.