The first freeze

High today: 54

Low this morning: 28

Jump for Joy! Hug a tree!

Fall has finally arrived! It's about time.. we got our first freeze last night, went down to 28.

Mt Nittany is looking beautiful, especially when you can hike it and not get lost on the blue loop.

I got really excited last night picking which hat I should wear this morning.. haha, the one I bought in Homer last year was the winner..

Now where is that white stuff?!?

A Little Town With a Great Big Life

High today: 61

Low this morning: 52

One last look at Beaver Stadium after OSU kicked our butts..

Today was the last time I will set foot in Beaver Stadium for awhile. Next weekend is our last home game of the season, and my sister will be in town (yay!) so I won't be making an appearance at that one. I will miss the stadium that has packed over 110,000 people in it at once.

Random fact: State College is the third largest city in Pennsylvania on football weekends.

This town is insane on football weekends. The roads are not made to handle the traffic, roads shut down in favor of the football game. People watching is extremely entertaining. Everybody's super friendly and random high-fives are given out. Definitely an awesome place to be. I can't have asked for a better place to live for the last 4.5 years, except for the weather, ha ha.

Long live small towns..

It's a Lobstah Fest!

High today: 52
Low this morning: 48So not actually a "lobstah fest" but Alli and I were lobsters for Halloween this year. Thanks to LeeAnn sending me the AWESOME lobster hat from Maine randomly, I got the idea of dressing in red and turning it into a costume. Thanks to Alexis I have red pants, and thanks to Alli for picking me up some red oven mitts aka "claws" at Wegmans, I was all set!

Uh oh, it's Dorothy and the tornado!! Nice one, Phil.

Who ever thought dressing up like a goofball could be so fun? It's great to have one day out of the year where it's perfectly acceptable!

Get psyched

So this little book that is in my house called '2,002 Ways To Cheer Yourself Up' has a particular quote that gave me the tingles. Number 1,315 reads:

"Get psyched about the future."

Yes. That is it. I wish everyone could understand it!

But I am le tired

A crapload of work piled up this weekend that I should have been doing instead of going to Indiana. I knew that the next few days would be pretty sleepless in State College, but they are worse than I imagined. The tropical take home has been a nightmare, taking so far a little bit over 11 hours to do - and it's still not complete. On top of that I have a programming assignment due for my gis class at 3pm tomorrow that still needs over an hour of work. Haha and why am I blogging do you ask? Because I'm sick of looking at my work. Can't wait til tomorrow afternoon when the work should subside for a tiny bit and rest will come at last.

Hoosier Daddy?

High today: 69
Low this morning: 44

This weekend a group of friends and I road tripped out to Bloomington Indiana (my furthest point west on the contiguous US!!) to watch PSU thrash up the IU Hoosiers. Ok, we didn't quite "thrash" them but we still won 36-31. My good buddy Spinelli is going to grad school at IU for geography so we crashed his place for the weekend. I also got to see my buds Joey and Kelly who I spent many hours with last year it seems - they are both at Purdue, doing that grad school thing and working. It was really nice to see the three Indianans. I wish I could have brought them back with me. Laura, one of my roomies from the last two years flew in from VA so she was with us too - it was quite the gathering!

Stomping on enemy territory

The Penn Staters with our awesome mascot.

I heart the Lion!

Oh, and BIG NEWS! My application materials as of today are FINALLY complete for UAF (everything made it up there after 2 weeks of nervousness) I was told I should know by November 10th-ish. Let's face it, that's not very far away.. 2.5 weeks and I know the time will fly by. EEK EEK! Are YOU excited?!

And of course, a super special birthday shoutout to my buddy LeeAnn up in Maine! Happy birthday you old fart!

End Of A Chapter

.. and not necessarily a super successful chapter, but it was a fun ride. (literally)

ECCC Mountain Bike Eastern Championships were this weekend in the Catskills up at Plattekill Mountain, NY. Saturday morning was a chilly one, 33 degree claimed the weather channel, although it may have been slightly colder. In any case, the weather a week earlier had been 85 degrees, so it was quite the change. This last collegiate race was at the same resort my very first race was in 2004. I was dreading the course thinking it was the same one, but we started on TOP of the mountain instead of literally having to ride up and back down, thank GOODNESS! The XC course was an absolute blast - there were hidden drops depending what side of the rock you decided to go over - the right side of a rock would be an inch drop, and the other side would be a foot and a half drop. *Someone* accidentally went to the left on the one part and went flying off her bike after dropping farther than she thought.. I don't know WHO that was, ha ha.

Andy, Ryan and Jess staying warm.

This was a pretty sweet picture of me in the dual slalom race.

Andy suffering through 20 minutes of pain in the short-track XC.

My buddy Caitlin rocking the STXC course.

Ryan and Jimmy after a treacherous Mens A STXC race.

We watched the pro downhillers dominate the mountain

After watching the crazy downhillers, we had a rough time walking back down the mountain.. the slope was so crazy we had to lean back! haha.. slightly exaggerated here..


I wish I was cool enough to do this.

But I was cool enough to get a professional pictures on Derailed's webpage: http://www.derailedonline.com/gallery/gravity_east_series_finals_plattekill_2007/plattekill_ges_day_1_ds146

Sweet. May there always be dirt to jump and rocks to fly over.

Easterns This Weekend

High today: 52
Low this morning: 46
Weather: drizzly and can we say.. stratocu??

Hotttttttt. The Eastern Championship Mountain Bike Race Weekend is coming up! Easterns will always go down as the most eventful, most fun mountain bike races I've attended. It's the last race of the ECCC race season before nationals. I'm not going to nationals, I'll leave that to the fast racers. ;) But I WILL race the dual slalom course for the 2nd year in a row. Think a downhill mountain bike race, but instead of big rocks and dropoffs, there's dirt, berms, and jumps. FUN FUN FUN! I did it last year on a whim with my bud Ben Hoover and loved it. Completely wiped out on the trial run though and the boys caught this shot of me in mid-air. I look like I'm laughing.. I probably was.
Here's the actual run of the race last year. There's a video on youtube of the race and I print- screened these shots...
Will come back with some good pictures and videos from this final collegiate mountain bike race. :-)

To Hail You Say??

High today: 86
Low today: 64
Weather: T-storm, hail, and rain, 0.20 inches

Today the relief of this Indian Summer came, with a nice gust front this afternoon. I was at work watching the radar and knew I'd be in trouble if I didn't leave a bit early today for choir. There was a defined outflow boundary and the whole weather station was going ballistic as usual when weather happens. As I biked up to the music buildings, I knew I wasn't going to quite make it.. the raindrops began to fall when I was up on Curtain Road and traffic was blocking my speed there. Luckily it only began to really pour just as I was able to quickly lock up the bike and run under the roof. It was fantastic, the rain started falling, then HAIL!!! I can't say I've seen hail in State College for 3 or 4 years. Once I remember being in Walker and having pellets falling on the window sill.Random, but I just figured this out: 6 weeks down, 10 to go (9 of actual school) and 73 days til graduation! Oh I swear I'm not counting.. and if I end up back in Fairbanks then about 90 days til I return?? Definitely less than 100?? Yeah, I like the sound of that...

Soakin' Up The Sun

High today: 88
Low this morning: 59

Most people around here were happy with the warm weather until recently, now my peers are wanting fall and winter, believe it or not! They're known for complaining about the cold but this Indian Summer has been pretty intense. Today has actually been beautiful, hot - went up to 88 and it's lingering around 85 right now, but the humidity is low so it's enjoyable.

This weekend I was supposed to go to Maine for a race, but plans fell through because of complications with drivers and not enough participation. But that was ok because despite my desperate want to go to Maine, Alexis and Jonathan were coming this weekend for a visit! Ashley was also in town, as well as Frank, and a few other alumni friends who live out of town now. It was great to see them all, and it felt like senior year all over again! Ashley threw a tailgate for the Iowa game.. because none of us had football tickets and it was much more fun to chill out in the crazy heat with each other's company.

Falling asleep in the heat??

Al and I and the Jeep behind us I wish I owned.

These three are a part of my very first group of friends. The one on the right I've known since high school when we were in a math and science nerd program together.

Donati, you look surprised!

Fall is Trying to Come

High today: 86
Low this morning: 64
Went for a quick ride out to Scotia and around the outskirts of State College today. The leaves in the woods are trying so hard to change but it's been so darn hot!

"Are you getting somewhere..."

"...Or did you get lost in Amsterdam?"

Guster played tonight in State College. It's been awhile since I've been to a good standing (versus sitting in a chair) concert. Although I don't know a lot of their music, I really enjoyed what they played and enjoyed the attitude of the concert. The lead singer made a rap up about State College on the fly. It was quite entertaining, that's for sure. No pictures though.. wasn't sure how big the crowd was going to be so I didn't bring the camera.

Next weekend is Easterns, my last collegiate mtb race.. ironically at the same mountain that my very first race was sophomore year. I'm looking forward to it.. although the trail is a nasty one. I'm hoping the weather is good, the weekends have been beautiful and sunny all Fall, but it's way too hot right now (I was wearing shorts and a tank riding my bike home at 11pm). The leaves started to change because we had a few mornings in the upper 30s/lower 40s but now they are all confused. What is this, July?!