Penn State’s Osama bin Laden “Riot”
Last night my girlfriend and I were watching some foreign horror and afterwards I quickly hopped on MSNBC.com while she went to get a drink or something. Of course, the news that Osama bin Laden had recently been killed was all over. A quick look at facebook had a number of mentions that Penn State was "rioting" over it.
I've been to a couple Penn State riots. Usually they involve a lot of drunk people being destructive until cops on horseback come and force people to leave, sometimes macing everybody until they disperse.
We decided to go check this out though. I drove down to College Ave which was relatively peaceful and found a parking spot. But once we started walking towards Beaver Ave you could hear the roar and buzz of a huge crowd.
Thousands and thousands of Penn State students and State College residents were crowding the street. The police had given up on trying to stop it and had road blocks to reroute traffic around the street. In general the people were in a happy, celebratory mood. There was no fighting or anything, although there were people climbing on things. The street lights and the occasional tree were filled with kids. And people were being crowd surfed down the length of the enormous crowd. This included a guy dressed as Captain America and a guy wearing an all blue vinyl suit (ala Green Man).
The best parts were when the entire crowd would spontaneously start singing the Star Spangled Banner. This happened more than once, including one time when a guy on one of the balconies pulled out an alto sax and began blasting out the song while everybody joined in and sang. Pretty cool.
Overall, the mood was happy. I didn't see anybody that was obviously drunk (finals DO start this week after all) and people weren't being rowdy or destructive. I mean apart from the rolls of toilet paper that were constantly being flung around the crowd.
There were some fireworks being shot off, and I saw a kid walking around with a lit Lady Liberty torch. And a cheerleader did a backflip over a fire in the street...
I'm glad I checked it out for myself.
Chucks
Day two of unseasonably warm weather (aka chucks-wearing weather) and my feet are already sore. I really don't know how they used to play basketball in these.
Halloween Pumpkins!
Halloween is by far my favorite time of year... I've been checking off the seasonal stuff I've done so far. Basically, if something is made of pumpkins, I will buy it. Pumpkin coffee creamer. Pumpkin K-cups. I've made a bunch of pumpkin pies. I made this amazing pumpkin pie cheesecake. I tried to get the Pumpkin Milkshake at McDonald's but the machine was broken.
We carved jack-o-lanterns two nights ago. I made a scary face, my girlfriend made a castle.
Basically I love this time of year. And pumpkins.
Live the Questions
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
From: Waiting for the Click
hopefully the answer is yes
do you think
someday
we'll be like in our 80s
and be shriners
driving around those little cars
wearing fez caps?
Homeless on Christmas
My apartment burned down. Well let me be more specific. The third
floor of my apartment burned, my floor got the remnants of the 3rd
floor crashing down along with thousands of gallons of bellefonte
spring water. What was left was a cold mushy stinking heap of
wreckage; my life and everything I own mingled in among the debris.
I had just gone to bed. It was maybe 1am but I was still up. I was
watching something on the laptop near my bed, like I usually do to
fall asleep. I couldn't quite fall completely asleep though. As I
tossed and turned the fire alarm in the hallway went off. I groaned
and covered my head with a pillow.
From so many years of living in dorms with constant false alarms, I
acquired the bad habit of often ignoring them. I guess they've cried
wolf a few times too many.
Then knocking on my door. "gahh I'm tired let me sleep!"
I crawl out of bed and go to the door and peer out. A few people
walking around, but the alarm suddenly shuts off. "thank god" and I
close the door and climb back in bed.
More knocking. "fuuuck" I walk over and this time a cop is there.
"there's a fire upstairs. Everyone needs to get out.".
Wow its not a drill. I put shoes on, grab a coat and hat, my wallet
and keys, and my camera off the table. I figure ill take some
pictures of the fire and then wait this out in the heat in my car.
For some reason I thought to go back and grab my fire safe. I don't
know why. At this point I believed this would be some small kitchen
fire that would be out in 10 minutes. But I grabbed it. The one
fireproof thing in my apt and I took it with me.
But I knew it had important papers in it. A couple backup dvds. Some
notes and photos from girls I've loved. So I grabbed it. Nothing
else.
My most important things in my possesion were in a fireproof safe that
I moved into my car as I started snapping photos of a blown out window
which was spewing a bright stream of fire into the cold winter night.
I'm really tired so ill continue this later.
