On Shamma-lamma-ding-dong

No official times yet, but Mrs. P finished her first olympic distance triathlon today (that's 1.5k swim in a lake, 40k bike ride, and 10k run). She was hoping to be done in 4 hours (*very* pessimistic is what I told her, but she was sure she was going to struggle to beat 4 hours), and she finished in roughly 2 hours 45 minutes.

Not bad for a rookie.

Oh yeah -- for you UVa'ers out there, Winfrey "You can call me Vicky" Johnson did the race, too, and finished about 10 minutes faster than Mrs. P.

On another on-line political petition

If you would like to see at least the chance for some justice to be served for the loss of our civil liberties, go here and sign the petition.

On another politically active link

Now here is a less controversial topic than the previous one, but a politically important one, nonetheless.

In today's Daily Collegian, there was an article about increasing co-ed housing on campus.

As you can see, change happens quickly at Penn State.

:)

On a politically active link

I try to keep my politics mostly to myself, but every once in a while I can't help it.

This is another absurd appointment by Bush. He seems to enjoy appointing the least qualified, most controversial candidates for federal posts. Let's see -- let's find the doctor most opposed to the use of birth control, and put them in charge of the nation's family planning post. Let's appoint a law breaker to be the Attorney General. Let's select a Sith as Vice President.

Anyway, please go here and sign the petition if you agree that this is a boneheaded move by our bonehead-in-chief.

On Monday's match

Grading, grant writing, and weekend visitors have kept me from writing lately.

Anyway... I have to comment on Monday's match. The new team (9-0) played the old team (9-0). I was expecting it to be weird. It actually wasn't too weird, because once the match started I didn't really pay attention to the other side of the net, I just played my game. But before I knew it, we were up 10-3 in game 1, and it was getting tense. Capt. of the old team called time out to do what he used to do to me -- complain at them.

I'll give them all the credit in the world -- they started playing lights out after that time out, and they were digging better than I'd ever seen. They chipped away at our lead, tied it up, and then won game 1 17-15. It was getting really tense, though -- they were acting a bit arrogant about things, but they earned that right.

I was still feeling weirdly detached. I honestly didn't care that we lost game 1. I was just having fun playing with my new team. I can't say that for everyone, though -- three of the others were fired up and wanted blood in game 2. Unfortunately, we started game 2 playing crappy, and they were still on fire, so soon we found ourselves down 10-3 and then down 14-7 (that's game point -- the games go to 15). Anyone want to predict what happened next? We chipped away at their lead, tied it up, and then won game 2 16-14. The tension was only higher after that.

I'll admit to getting drawn in to some of the drama. I felt (although I don't know for sure) that I was being picked on (as was the other new teammate who was on the old team with me, too), so I decided it was time to pick back. We played like we played at the beginning of game 1 and the end of game 2, so we took game 3 easily 15-6.

They definitely got us -- they took game 1 when we were up big and they played really well overall. I took a ball to the nose pretty hard (didn't draw blood) and they hit over my block and past my defense. I scored my points, though, hitting two balls right at two of them. After the game we shook hands and had a pleasant conversation, and oh yeah, we walked away 11-1 while they left 10-2.