No frickin way...I got too much range for that

Well I figure that I will start the inevitable wave of Frozen Four posts made by the Warner boys. And no matter how much we talk about it, I don't think that we'll be able capture everything about the weekend.

But for me, it has to start with the crap sundae that I was served as I tried to get to St Louis. My flight was supposed to land 5 hours before the puck hit the ice for the first of the semi-final games. I left my house at 5:15am and had what was supposed to be an hour layover in Washington. Well 10 hours later and 2 missed semi-final games I arrived at the Downtown Hilton at about 9pm. My plane in Washington (Dulles) had a mechanical problem and I ended up on a 7pm flight rather than the 8:35am flight I booked. Now I understand these things happen and I tried not to get too upset, but those of use that were stranded in Dulles were in unanimous agreement that we were left in the dark for most of the day. Here's some things we were told:

"Your flight is coming from Syracuse and had a small problem there, so we will be a little bit delayed."

"Your plane is here, we are just waiting to locate a cleaning crew before we can load you."

"Someone got sick on the plane and we have to wait for that to get cleaned up" (But I don't know where this one started, the previous two were announced)

"Your plane has a mechanical problem, but the mechanics are actively working on it and we should be on our way shortly"

And finally, "Your plane might not get off the ground today, so you might want try and get on another flight"

I finally got one a 7pm flight, much too late to see any hockey on Thursday. When I departed they still hadn't cancelled the original flight, then scheduled for a 10:15PM departure. They gave us $100 vouchers, but I have been actively working (and when I say it I mean it) on emails and letters to send out to United which I hope result in a free flight back west this summer. Thanks to Bubba, I can only speculate at this point how many times the phrases "hoser" and "snack on that for lunch" will appear in the letter.

But several angry shots of Jager and $2 pitchers from the Morgan Street Brewery later I put that behind me and was ready for fun. And it was. I'll save hockey details for another post, and share a few of my favorite pics of the Arch, which was amazing. I changed a couple to black and white because I think it looks really cool that way. One quick word on the FF experience. Hockey fans are incredible. There were some fierce rivals there, but off the ice everyone was so awesome and just wanted to see good hockey and have fun. And the championship game was incredible. Can't wait to see all the other pics!

We're number 66!

This is how you really know that nobody respects the tournament that you're playing in. Check out the spelling on the front of the t-shirt. Since I saw the picture I've been sitting here trying to think of a university that would sound funnier with only 1 letter missing, but I think they may have taken the cake with West Virgina*. The 2005 athlete graduation rate at West Virginia is 66%**. I wonder if these guys even knew. "Yes, we just won the NT!"

* Even just as hilarious is that the spell checker on here doesn't have a problem with Virgina.

** They calculate athlete graduation rates based on 6 years, I wonder of that is the norm? The main reason for this second footnote is that I feel like once I break the footnote seal I need at least 2....anyways, Let's Go Mountaineers, Let's Go Drink Some Beers!

Worst timing ever...

Ok this is pretty funny what just happened to me. One can get from my office in Oswald Tower to my house in a couple of ways. The easiest is the bus, which I wish I took today, that has a stop near my apartment and near my office. Or, one can drive to the football stadium parking lot and take a free loop bus that also stops near my office, which is what I did today. When I left Oswald Tower the sun was out. There seemed to be a thunderstorm brewing but I felt safe that I would easily beat it home. But you know what they say about assumptions. By the time the loop bus made it to Beaver Stadium it was absolutely pouring rain. But with no shelter to be found the only choice was the mad dash to the car, not easily done in flip flops.

Long story short, I got absolutely soaked, even though it was only about 150 yards to my car. My only solace was watching people wrestle with umbrellas as they made the same desperate dash. Why people think that an umbrella is going to do much good when the rain is coming in sideways I will never know. I saw no less than 5 get turned inside out by the gusts. To top it all off, by the time I got home the sun was out again. I guess it is true what they say about timing, and my lack of it was readily apparent this afternoon.

Keep your eyes on the clouds!

Just a little taste....

So this past weekend was the Sociology and Crime, Law, and Justice Graduate Recruitment Weekend. Last year I had managed to fake my way into having a few schools fly me out for these weekends. It is a pretty cool time. You spend a few days getting pampered with good food and, depending on where you go, some free booze too. Besides having to talk about your research interests about 100 times, it feels pretty good to have people tell you how much they want you to join their program. It is basically a nice ego boosting couple of days.

This was my first year on the other side as I had to help swoon the recruits this year, but in the process discovered a secret reason for these lavish recruitment weekends: It gives graduate students a little taste of the lifestyle we're supposedly working towards. As most people who live paycheck to paycheck know money is always kind of tight. As in, if I go drink some beers (and then maybe some more beers) some night than I might have to extend the amount of days at the end of the month where meals have no danger of being called mouth watering. Even though I repeatedly tell people that money isn't everything, they often counter by pointing out I only say that because I have none. Only time will tell with that debate.

But it's the life we, as grad students, choose to live and part of that is because dangling out there is a career (if we choose academia) that was ranked #2 in the US last year (you'll have to take my word here as I have no citation to document this claim). But every once in a while the higher ups give us grad students a little taste of the good life. So a couple times a year we might get treated to professionally catered meals with open bars, or as in the case of recruitment weekend a $40/plate brunch that would blow your mind. As a side bar here, I might have managed to eat $40 worth of food being that this brunch had everything from an omelet bar to a desert bar covered. As another side bar, it was really strange for me to go to a dinner where there were no trash cans to be found, despite the buffet and open bar. I probably walked around this professor's house for 10 minutes looking for a trash can or recycling bin before I realized that the servers circulating the crowd were on top of it. One of the servers found it pretty funny when I gave her all the crumpled napkins that had accumulated in my pockets throughout the course of the night.

So while the recruits are now gone and it's back to business as usual, it is only 363 days and counting until brunch at the Nittany Lion Inn. And I'm left with one important lesson: Throwing away plates and empty beer cans is hard work, pay someone to do it for you.

More Warner Jeep fun...

I really wanted to get this video out to the world since I took it becuase it is so awesome. During the previously mentioned trip to Meeteetse the folks and myself took a little day trip up the Wood River. I had just gotten the new digital camera and really wanted to shoot a video, so we thought what better way than to show the Jeep flexing its muscles.

So here is link to a YouTube video of the Jeep playin' in the water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__jJ4yGi-PY

Unfortunately my camera cannot do sound. Enjoy!

Some quality time with Willy

Before I moved to State College I spent a few glorious weeks in Meeteetse. Since I was pretty much by myself during the days, I put in some quality time with Warner Jeep. The Jeep spent the majority of the time posing and basically showing off. I know some of you have seen these pictures, but for those that haven't I think they are really great.

The Jeep also insisted that I take some in black and white so that people could really get the sense of that 'ole timey' feel.

Ok so this a test post to see if Maggie got her feeds to work.