Lift Jesus Higher

Two quick updates to take me away from more important grant writing.
First, it is snowing like crazy here today. It is way too early to be snowing. I normally love the snow, but when it is wet and heavy, and more than likely only to last half a day, I don’t want anything to do with it. I must say though, that the white contrast against the fall colors makes the foliage quite a site to behold.
Second, is that last night was choir practice. This year, we only have one tenor, but have two basses (very different from the first year when I was the only bass and we had 3 or 4 tenors). Anyway, for the good of the team (ie choral balance) I have made the switch to tenor—that is until we can acquire another tenor. Recently, we have been singing “I came to Magnify the Lord”, which is a gospel song. Well, to those who have sung gospel tenor before, you know that they might as well call it alto since the majority of the notes play well above middle C. This song includes a lovely repetitive part at the end that consists entirely of eeeeee-dddd-eeee-d-e-f . Once of that would be high enough for me, but it strings on for about 10 times altogether. Also, I personally enjoy a section that sings “lift Jesus higher” with d-e-f. I’m doing my best with it, but the squeaks and falsetto are often the best that I can do. A good challenge though that also offers amusement at my sake for the benefit of others.

Amtrak to the rescue!!! (yes that is an oxymoron)

It has been a wild and crazy couple of days here in PA. It turns out that our Japanese friend who was staying with us earlier this summer left for Japan yesterday. On Saturday he emailed me wondering if he could stay with us on Monday and Tuesday night while he finished packing and sending all of their stuff which was at our house. We agreed, of course.
Sunday:
He met me at Church and said he had a big favor to ask of me. I thought of a couple of things that he would probably ask me to do. I thought he would ask me to help take boxes for shipping to the post office, or hold any mail that still would come to our house, orsomething along those lines anyway. Well, he then informed me that his plane ticket was for departure from Philadelphia.
Toru: "I just wondering, if it's gonna be ok for you to drive me to Philadelphia airport on Wednesday? Actually, I already ask several others, but they all say no."
Dan's head: "no shit, they all said no?" (pardon my swearing, but I'm just letting you know what was going through my head). "no one want's to drag you rear down to Philly at 4am in the morning, and then drive back to State College, a trip of 8 hours minimum?"
Dan' Mouth: "let me think about it"
Toru: "ok"
Monday:
He came over and packed the entire day, though in the end we both determined that our house really looked like it had been hit by hurricane Toru, and that the next hurricane (I think we are up to T this year) should be aptly names hurricane Toru. Then on Monday night at 10pm, the next conversation takes place.
Toru: "I'm just wondering, do you have any boxes for ship overseas?"
Dan's head "Why am I not surprised?" "Foresight man, foresight!!!"
Dan's mouth: "no, sorry"
Toru: "Can you take me to Wal-Mart to pick up some boxes?"
Dan's head: "let's think about this a little. Why don't you call some of the major grocery stores and figure out if they have any strong boxes, before we run out in the approaching wee hours on a box hunt."
Dan's mouth: "call them and find out if they have any first"
Toru calls.
Toru: "nope"
Dan's mouth: "try some other places"
Well, to make a long story shorter, we eventually determined that the north town Wal-Mart did have some boxes after 11pm. So, at 11pm, we went to Wal-Mart, after a pit stop at another one of his friends houses, where he had some of his other things. After leaving the friends house (about midnight), we went to Wal-Mart, rounded up some boxes and headed for home. At this point, I also gave him the following option: to take him to Harrisburg, PA (about 1 hour and 45 minutes away) to the Amtrak station on Wednesday morning. He agreed, so all was well.
Tuesday:
I arrived home from work at 7pm or so to find that the car was missing. This was only a partial surprise as I had told him he could borrow it earlier in the day to take some boxes to the post office. However, the post office closes at 5:30 here in town, and with the worst traffic scenario, it would take 10 minutes to drive back to our house. He arrived back at 7:30ish (we never found out where he went after, sometimes it hurts the old noggin less if you just don't know).
Dan's head: "I'm really not at all happy that you have most likely just used our car for other purposes without my knowledge."
Dan's mouth: "Were you able to mail you packages?"
Toru: "nope. Well, I went to post office at 5:00, and ah..."
Dan's head: "Dumb ass, what in the world did you wait until 5:00pm for?"
Again, to make a long story shorter, he thought they would be open later, and that he could get it all done before they closed, ie, the mailing part at the post office wouldn't take so long. After listening to him bemoan the fact that the US doesn't have post offices open 24 hours a day, we told him that we could drop of the boxes for him the next day if he gave us the money to mail them, and then he proposed the following: to drop him off at the post office at 7am on Wednesday morning in Harrisburg with all of his boxes, and then he could just take a taxi to the station. The problem with this idea was two fold: #1 it was far more complicated then just letting us do it here in SC, and #2 the train he was going to take left at 7:30 (30 minutes after the post office opens). Still, he was adamant that this must be done this way, because he didn't want to be a bother to us (not like driving to Philly would have been). Rather than expand on the throbbing my head was going through, I obliged thinking it was his grave he was digging, and by golly, one more day of this backwards logic wouldn't kill me.
Wednesday
At 3am we load up the car. At 4am, we take off. At 6am, we stop at the train station to by his ticket. At 6:30, we arrive at the post office and unload all of our boxes, waiting for the doors to open. At this point, Toru realizes that all of the shipping forms that he had filled out the night before, were not in his bag, and most likely still on our table in SC. Ok, I should point out that up to and through this point Jori and I had been praying non-stop that somehow all would be accomplished on Wed, and that he would get on that plane for Japan. Read for multiple intercessions from God. First, we were able to talk with postal employees who were gracious enough to give us more shipping forms to fill out while we waited for the doors to open. Second, there was someone there who spoke fluent Japanese, and could tell Toru exactly how to fill out the forms. Third the doors opened at 7am sharp. Forth it only took about 15 minutes to mail all seven of his boxes. Fifth, the train station was only about 4 blocks away. Sixth, he made his train on time. Seventh: Amtrak strickly forbids taking more than two carry-ons on board, and there is no checked luggage. Toru, had three items. They let him on with all three.
Whew!!! I hadcontinuesg drive back to SC.
Wednesday night, the hurricane continiues. We were driving back from a concert and joking about how we would probably gPittsburgh from him, telling us he was still in the States, in Pittsburg or some place random CIRCUMSTANCESote to all those reading: NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CERCUMSTANCES, SHOULD YOU JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS!!! :)
When we arrived home, there was a message on our machine from Toru. HPittsburghll in the States. He was in Detroit however, and not Pittsburg. He made it to the airport where his connecting flight to Tokyo was, but the plane to Tokyo had already left without him. I called him back, and found out that his flight from Philly was delayed two hours, and therefore did not make his flight in Detroit. NWA put him up in a hotel for the night, and he was going to fly out on Thursday (Today) at 3:20pm. Hopefully he is now somewhere high in the sky on hiamendto Japan. I think I will sleep very well tonight.
Let me ammend this so as not to confuse you. It was bitter sweet to see him off. We had become good friends this last year, and we will miss him, but the timing issues of the past few days added for a little more stress than I would have prefered.

Make Some Noise!!!

Well, I have to follow up last weeks blog of football experiences with a new football experience. Unfortunately, we were not so fortunate to obtain tickets this week. Instead we were invited to our Japanese friends house for dinner on Saturday night while the rest of the town gathered in the Stadium or huddled around TV's. PSU's opponent was Ohio State which was ranked #6 at the time compared with PSU's #18 ranking. I was at the lab until dinnertime, which happened to be about the same time as kickoff. When I left the lab I could hear the noise of the crowd at Beaver Stadium (about 1 mile away from my lab), and the game hadn't even started yet (shows how much noise 109,000 folks can make). I had to walk/jog home, and as I was passing through the down town area (about 2 miles away I could still hear the noise). Even as I approached our apartment I could still hear the noise from time to time (about 3 miles away)!!! That night we didn't even need to watch the game at dinner, we could get a good feeling for how the game was going just by listening to the crowd from 3 miles away. Actually, in addition to the crowd at the stadium we could here shouts and the like from neighboring apartments in every direction, and also the synchronized honking of car horns. Yet another interesting experience.

On a more serious note, I was just reading about the earthquake that hit in Pakistan. I couldn't help but notice that the quake was a 7.6, or 0.4 points higher than the quake we experienced two months ago in Japan. While there was little destruction in Japan, and only 1 death as far as I know, the quake in Pakistan has already accounted for over 30,000 deaths and maybe many more. I'm not sure what kind of quake they had, but I know the one in Sendai was 10 seconds of the up and down kind followed by 30 seconds of side to side. The up and down kind is the worst. I guess the point that I am trying to get here (be it ever so pathetically) is that the difference in structure and preparedness was the difference between catastrophe and a one day bother.

Random Procrastination Worthy Thoughts

I am so thankful that I don't have any allergies. I was recently talking with someone from another lab who said that she is allergic to mice (not very good since she is the primary care person for the mice in her lab). She has to put on a labcoat, gloves, mask, and the works before handling the mice. If a mouse were to run up her unprotected arm for instance, she would break out in hives all over. yikes. Yet she chooses to stay in this profession. There are many others in my lab and in town who have terrible allergies to tree pollen. Every now and then it kind of hits them out of the blue. My labmate even sneezed so hard and often that he had to be given a neck collar. Again, I am thankful I don't have any allergies. Actually, everyone should be thankful for that. I am a pretty grumpy and miserable person even with a common cold. :)

I am actually taking a break from writing my thesis proposal right now. I am also writing this on my not-so-new, new laptop. As you remember, my previous laptop was crushed in a recent bike accident. Well, some guy outside of my department heard about my mishap and offered to give me an indefinite loan of a laptop he had that was just sitting around. It isn't the newest or the fastest, but it is certainly functional. It is most convenient right now for writing my thesis proposal. Speaking of my thesis proposal, I have decided that it is a pain in the rear end. I more-or-less figured that it would be a pain, but now I really know that it is. It is a good learning experience though, and a good challenge despite the added stress of having to complete this far sooner than I am really ready to complete it by.

You may notice that I have modified the comments section. It has been rather annoying to find that spammers were leaving there comments on my blog (ie: computer programs whose sole purpose is to advertise). Now, you will have to complete one more step to post your comment. It really shouldn't be that much harder for anyone to do so.

Ah, now I remember what I really logged on to blog about in the first place. This past weekend Jori and I did something that we would never normally do--especially on a Saturday here in PA. We went to our first PSU football game. Our landlords normally purchase extra tickets that they give away to clients or employees, but there was a late cancellation, and they gave us two extra tickets ~$45 each. We sat right on the 50 yard line a few rows up. Absolutely great seats. We could see everything from the game to the crowd very clearly. The crowd, by-the-way was nearly 107,000 strong, and I can now tell you that that many people can make a lot of noise. There were organized cheers that the WHOLE stadium would participate in. The sound of that many people shouting "lets--go--p--s--u" would reverberate through the stadium and our ear drums. The crowd would also stand up and cheer the loudest when the opposing QB would be trying to communicate last minute instructions to his teammates. It must have worked because PSU shalacked the Minnesota Golden Gophers 44-14. The offense was good, the defense was good, and the crowd was a heck of a lot of fun--much better than watching on TV.

I have to admit, I have never really had much of an appreciation for the football fans who buy season tickets to games and then tailgate and plan important family events like weddings around football games. However, now I think that I can at least understand. I'm not sure I would plan my life around a football game, but at least I can understand why others might.

OK, back to thesis writing now. Please pray for Jori and I as we are both writing our thesis proposals right now, and are both on the busy side of things, and at times almost unbearably so. Pray that we may have diligence to complete our work, but also patience with one another and others as patience seems to be the first things to go when I am stressed/busy.