Time to hit the links

While I'm not much of a golfer, I do look forward to my trips to various golf courses. Especially in the winter!!! This past week we finally got an appreciable amount of snow fall...10-14 inches (I guess it was worth the wait). So over the weekend I was finally able to dust off the XC skies and take a lap around the Penn State Golf Course. Since getting my own pair of skies, I've had the unfortunate luck of only being able to use them once or twice a season. Looks like this pattern may continue to hold true for yet another year as the high temps here are supposed to be in the upper 30s to mid 40s for the next week. Maybe I'll get a chance to go out one more time before all the snow melts:)

COLTS WIN!!!!

So what if the game wasn't that pretty and the commercials were less than fantastic...Superbowl XLI was one I'll always remember fondly. I had the pleasure of crashing a party with some of my friends from church (they actually knew the host, and let me tag along). Being in Eagles/Steelers territory, I was the only one there really rooting for the Colts, so it was my job to make sufficiently audible moans (when the Bears scored or recovered a fumble or when we failed to make an extra point) and cheers (when we scored, recovered a fumble, or caught an interception) throughout the game. No Superbowl party would be complete without munchies and sweets. I was quite impressed with the following contribution:

I like Ike!

This past week I attended two performances at the (Milton S.) Eisenhower Auditorium here on the campus of PSU. On Saturday I got to see the musical Cats. I was actually quite fortunate to have this opportunity, as when I first tried to get tickets they were all sold out. But at the recommendation of the box office clerk, I was persistent in calling 2-3 times a day to see if anyone had returned a ticket. Just two days before the show, I was making my mid-day check and was told that there was ONE ticket available, just enough for ME. It turned out that a couple I know from church were also attending that performance and were only 6 seats to the left of me (in the same row). All in all, a good show. It was fun trying to associate the actions of the actors on stage with certain characteristics I've noticed in my own cats at home.

My second trip to Eisenhower was on Monday when the school hosted LeVar Burton. You may remember him from as Kunta Kinte in the Roots miniseries (which first aired 30 years ago), as the host of Reading Rainbow (for the last 25 years, although--sadly--he's taped his last episode), or as the ever-popular, visor-clad Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was his part in the later that drew the greatest attention from audience members. Many of whom claimed that his character was influential in their decisions to become engineers. It was interesting to get some behind-the-scene stories from his work on all of these projects, as well as the story of his journey. I was impressed by his stage presence and use of language (duh--he's an actor who reads a lot of books). The overall message he presented that night was that YOU can do anything you set your heart on doing, and that everything that happens along the way has its purpose (perhaps one that you may not understand for a long time)...a great concept that I was glad to be reminded of again.

Please note that these photos were borrowed from PSU websites, as you're not allowed to take your own pictures in the auditorium.