Houseboat

When the topic of Raystown Lake, south central Pennsylvania's gem on the dammed (not damned) Juniata River, comes up, rumors abound. So we invited some friends from Michigan down to check on the rumors' veracity. So Josh, Steph, Charlie, Abby, Mike, Laura, Chad, and Kathi left dock on Boat #7 for a 3-day tour ... a 3-day tour.

First, Raystown Lake claims to have the second largest lake monster in the world. While the Loch Ness monster of Scotland takes the cake as larger and more violent, "Raystown Ray" measures a formidable 40-50 feet in length but is widely believed to be herbivorous - posing little threat to tourists past the initial surprise of seeing a large water dinosaur.

Although we did not see Ray during our Fourth of July weekend excursion (maybe he was scared by the booming fireworks), we did see many large objects in the water (this includes turtles, blue gill, seaweed, white whales, a river rat, and Chad, who now weighs a chubby 167.5 pounds after gorging himself while on vacation).

Second, we had heard claims of the people of Pennsyl-tucky. This is a group rumored to inhabit the area of central PA between Bradford in the north and Chambersburg in the south - a group that lives in Pennsylvania but, based on their appearance and behavior, should live in Kentucky. In a move not dissimilar from the Mormon trek from Illinois to Utah or the Seminole tribe's Trail of Tears, Pennsyl-tuckians reportedly moved north and east from Kentucky when semi-annual dentist visits came into vogue and mulletts went out of vogue, but lost a lot of their troops as they passed through West Virginia.

Rich Rodriguez's wife/sister, a member of this latter group, proved the truth of this rumor as she joined our houseboat for our tribute to the Pennsyl-tuckians - "Redneck/NASCAR Night" (see Coach Rod's wife/sister in the white tank top? It says Michigan on it - real trashy!).

During our Redneck/NASCAR Night festivities, we saw other houseboats float by with its cargo dressed in similar attire to ours. "I built this gut 12 oz. at a time," read one guy's shirt on an empty-beer-can-strewn Boat #16. His buddy wore cut-off denim with a picture of a wolf on it.

Excited to see that others had the same idea we did about dress-up theme nights, we yelled to Boat 16, "Are you guys celebrating Redneck/NASCAR Night, too?" We saw them three days later when we checked-out and they were still celebrating Redneck/NASCAR Night as they drove off in their pick-up trucks.

We did, however, get a chance to meet some locals, as an Amish couple joined us for our Celebrity Couple theme night. Moses and Abigail Klopfenstein got to spend some quality time with pseudo-Kid Rock and Pam Anderson, pseudo-Britney and K-Fed, and pseudo-Dwight Schrute and Angela. While Moses remained stoic and out of his element, Abigail seemed to enjoy herself. Finally, we celebrated 80s night in honor of the air temperature, the water temperature, the amount of times we played "Catch Phrase," and the decade in which we grew up. Chad played rock star, Josh played Miami Vice, Charlie played Caddyshack, Kathi played New Kids on the Block, Steph played Saved by the Bell, Abby played Cyndi Lauper, and Mike and Laura played Richard Simmons and Denise Austin.

I've Been Tagged

So...thanks in part to Zoetie, it appears Kathi has been tagged to list 5 random things about herself. Here goes...

1 - Since my parents never got me the cocker spaniel I always dreamed of having, I took matters into my own hands and found a pet. His name was Perky...and he was a bird...a dead bird...whose eyes would pop open whenever you squeezed his neck. Perky was a part of the family for 3 days until my parents found out about him (smelled him) and made me give him a proper burial. Best friend I ever had.

2 - Since my 16th birthday in 1997, I have had 9 jobs, 3 boyfriends, 7 different residences, 15 different hairstyles (and 1 perm!), 4 surgeries, 3 trips abroad, 5 bridesmaid dresses, 3 formal dresses in college, 2 prom dresses, and only 1 car. That's right, the white 1994 Grand Am is still alive and (barely) kicking.

3 - Sometimes my toes turn purple (more often than not actually). Weird.

4 - Hi my name is Kathi. And I am addicted to...cutting coupons. It all started at Giant Foodstores in PA where they double all coupons up to a dollar. One time I paid $ .64 on a bill that should have been $ 18.73. Another time I paid $ 18.15 on a bill that should have been $ 86.29. I'm not sorry for my actions or the people I've hurt in the process. I can't help it...its who I am.

5 - Most of you would think I always walked the straight and narrow, but one day I did not. In the middle of winter of my 1st grade year I got kicked out of gym class. Mrs. VanderKolk was at wits end with our class and warned that the next person to say a word was "outta of there." However I missed that ultimatum while I was trying to tell the person in front of me in line that he needed to move up...he was crowding my space. Mrs. VanderKolk pointed me towards the door where I sat by the drinking fountain in the hallway wallowing in self pity until the 6th graders came walking down the hallway. I couldn't be seen, so I jetted towards the bathroom for what I thought was a few seconds while the older kids passed. 35 minutes later, the search party was successful in finding me . Needless to say, Mrs. VanderKolk learned her lesson to never kick me out of class again.

How could you kick that little face out of gym class? :)

Alrighty, that's all I got. I tag Corrie, Luke, and Grant.

Lake Placid

We spent most of Chad's First Quarter 2008 paycheck filling up on gas for our Memorial Day weekend trip up to Lake Placid, NY. Luckily, our trusty '98 Nissan Maxima (the younger of our two cars) is fuel efficient and so we had a little money left over for some crackers.

On our trek north through the Appalachians, we passed the city of Scranton, PA, home of "The Office" (if you didn't know that, then ... we will attack you with the North) and Dunder-Mifflin paper company. Although we didn't have time to stop and see the sights, we did see road signs that piqued our interest and brought back fond memories of our Thursday evenings from 9-9:30pm over the past few years. The Steamtown Mall is where Michael and the girls went to "dish" about Jan and other things. Lake Wallenpaupack is where the entire office took their "booze cruise." We can't believe these places even exist!! Is Schrute Farms, then, a real place, too? And where can we sign up for the "Michael-Scott-Dunder-Mifflin-Scranton-Meredith-Palmer-Memorial-Celebrity-Rabies-Awareness-Race-For-The-Cure-Pro-Am" 5K charity run?

We also noticed signs for Penn State University's Scranton Campus - and Chad almost wet his pants with excitement. A whole new world has opened up to us. We feel like Columbus sailing the ocean blue. Chad is thinking about transferring to this smaller branch campus and practiced his Michael Scott face and Kevin Malone smile (can you guess which is which?) for material if they do grad student interviews there. We don't think PSU-Scranton's Theatre Department will be needing his services.
We continued north through the Catskills and into the Adirondacks to a city that has hosted two Winter Olympics (1932 and 1980). Lake Placid, however, didn't even look big enough to host two county fairs. It reminded us of Beulah, MI - a town with some charm overlooking an inland lake where the men are men and the women are too.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Lake Placid's Hilton Resort hosted the 2008 conference of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) and Chad was scheduled to present a paper. Centrally located, the Hilton has a beautiful view of Mirror Lake, but since we spent all our money on gas and crackers, we stayed a mile and a half from the lake in the homely Swiss Acres Inn. The SAI did not have refridgerators in the rooms and we could hear conversations from guests in the rooms on each side of us and above us, but our reservation did get us one free scrambled egg at breakfast and a free drink at dinner (making it totally worth it - we got tired of crackers).

NASSH is the world's largest sports history organization and is a very reputable group. Sports historians, however, are often derogatorily labelled as "sports fans with typewriters." Whoever came up with that needs to a)come and see this conference to understand the depth and excellence of research being done, and b)quit living in the Stone Age - no one uses typewriters anymore.

Many of the conference's sessions were very interesting (to anyone that appreciates sports history - those people are called "nerds," and there were plenty of us them/us at the conference). Yet some presentations just didn't whet Chad's appetite. So he and the other three Penn State grad students at the conference decided to forego sessions on "Modern History of Snowboarding from a Jungian Perspective," "The Sacred Peace Run of the Wabanaki People," and "Anti-Semitism in the Lake Placid Club" to meet up with their families and hold their own Lake Placid Olympics.

Kathi took these games very seriously, spending time stretching before our first event. It paid off for her as she won mini-golf on Pirate's Cove, defeating everyone in the field despite some strong gender bias sentiments early on. The boys she beat got a taste of what it felt like on the playground at recess back at Sandyview Elementary School in Overisel, MI in the late 1980s. When Kathi wants to win a sporting event, she does so (she also peed in the sandbox at Sandyview Elementary in first grade).

The next event was the Polar Bear Swim in Lake Placid. The crowd expected Chad to have a poor showing in this dreadful dip in sub-40 degree water because he doesn't have much body fat for insulation. However, once he took his shirt off and showed enough body hair to prove the theory of evolution, the crowd's fears subsided. Chad tied for second place, avoided hypothermia, and had to deal with other symptoms that accompany men in cold water.

The third, final, and most competitive event was the bobsled. Lake Placid natives take their bobsledding seriously, finding sponsors for their sleds and all. Feeling like NASCAR racers (and never wanting to feel like that again) we were in the Budweiser bobsled. Our competition included one sport historian that received his bobsled license in 1937 (one has to be 12 to attain that license - you do the math) and a British sport historian named Norman that spent the entire weekend flexing his calf muscles for the grad students and proclaiming to have the best gastrocnemius' (scientific term for calf) of any septo-genarian in the world. We will say it again, competition was fierce (old).

However, we never actually got a chance to compete. The judges at the starting blocks deemed Kathi to be perfect for the race with an athletic and petite body, but they disqualified Chad for having legs that are too skinny. They admitted that no one wants to look at his chicken legs in the saggy spandex outfits required for bobsledders by NY state law. Chad argued to no avail that it would look no worse on him than on the 83-year old expert or the 75-year old calf-y Brit.

At least we got to drive through Scranton on the way home.

Newest Penn State Convert

Much to Gampa's dismay, Grant became the newest Nittany Lion fan this weekend. It took a lot of time, but he really seemed to understand the pride involved with being a Nittany Lion (that's right, we brainwashed him). At last, a belly-showing, bottle-drinking, Beaver Stadium-going JoePa fan.

Mothers Day

Since LeBron James' mom rushed the court to defend her son after he was intentionally fouled, many other mother's have come to the aide of their sons. Its a liberating and empowering Mother's Day tribute to the women behind the powerful men of the world. Just as Gloria James tried to pick a fight with a man twice her size to stick up for her 6'8" 250-pound son, the Boyz II Men's moms told them they really love that annoying song "Mama," Donovan McNabb's mom said she will continue to serve Campbell's Chunky Soup, "Babs" Bush told the nation that her son really does know that Africa is a continent and not a country, and Stacy's mom has still got it going on.

Our nephew Grant had more than just his mother sticking up for him this Mother's Day. He had his "Gama" and "Auntie" there by his side. Grant's mother bought him a schoolbus tent that they set up in the basement. This schoolbus is not a normal length bus, in fact it looks like a "short bus." When Chad saw this, he could barely contain his excitement at this perfect opportunity for "short bus" jokes, plus it would be a few months until Grant outweighs Chad to be able to physically retaliate.

Unfortunately, no one else in the family found the "short bus" to be an object of humor except Grant's dad who made Chad promise not to make any "short bus" jokes on the blog (these are not "short bus" jokes as much as jokes about "short bus" jokes, or meta-"short bus" jokes, in philosophy lingo). Auntie Kathi and Gama came to Grant's rescue and had a great time with him in the schoolbus tent as they all sang/screamed, "The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

CityServe

"We're not going to have church. Instead we're going to be the church," our pastor told us a few weeks ago. Calvary cancelled all five of its weekend services and encouraged the church members to go out into the community and serve in place of coming to church for worship.

Our Life Group at church decided we would spend most of the weekend serving, since we are able-bodied and active people. Here are the highlights.

Strawberry Fields. We spent Saturday morning doing yard work at a group home. Our Life Group thought this would be a great opportunity to be able to work and interact with some people that may not get visitors a whole lot. However, when we arrived the social worker in charge of the home told us that all of the residents were non-verbal. Non-verbal is much different than non-communicative, as we found out. Pete, a wheelchair-bound resident that hadn't made a noise in over 10 years, started grunting intermittently as he watched us pull weeds out of the yard and landscaping. We thought Pete was explaining to us what it would be like to watch Monica Seles play Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon but found out later that Pete was trying to let us know that the crabgrass and dandelions we were pulling out at the roots were actually onion grass and tulips. Oops.

West Branch Park. We have some real go-getters in our Life Group that have far more gall than either of us (that isn't saying much). When they said they wanted to go door-to-door at a trailer park asking people if they needed help with anything, we both scrambled for excuses to bow out. Luckily Chad has a collection of "excuse emails" from his students that finally came in handy. Kathi used the common "doctor's appointment" excuse (with women, you just can't ask questions when they pull that card) and Chad used the "my mom gets worried when I'm outside in the wind working up a sweat because I might catch a cold" excuse that a 23-year old former Golden Gloves boxer gave him last year before a tennis class.

Actually we joined our group Sunday morning at the (dirt road) entrance to the (trailer) park (not very) excited about serving the (mobile) community. Feeling like we had been transported to West Virginia, we put on smiles to serve. A bumper sticker in a window reading, "Have you hugged your assault rifle lately?" and a pick-up truck proudly displaying the slogan, "Dodge the Father, Ram the Daughter," on its windshield did not make us feel real comfortable but we had a great time rounding up stray garbage, sweeping off a roof and cleaning out gutters. It was a great experience for us and we hope we are able to help them again in the future.

Soccer Stars

The grad students in the Kinesiology department put together a soccer team in the men's minor league. The 120 teams in the men's minor league were divided into 20 divisions of 6, with the winner of each division moving on to the playoffs.

The Kinesiology Football Club (KFC) had a great season and finished second in Division L, missing the playoffs by one game. KFC squeaked out one goal victories over FC Daddyos, the 313, and the Yetti Brigade, and won by default in a rain-shortened game over a weak Penn State United squad. Did Chad take the IM season too seriously? Aside from scheduling two pre-season practices for his team, playing the last game on a sore and swollen ankle, and being inconsolable for days after the loss to the Erie Football Club, he actually controlled himself pretty well as he went the entire season without getting a yellow card (a feat he did not accomplish last season because of a blatant/instinctive (depends who you ask) elbow to the face of an opponent).

KFC did not win the championship but did take home a few awards. With an average age closing in on 30 they were hands down the oldest team, and with players hailing from 4 continents the team ran away with the United Nations Award. In a closer ballot, KFC lost to Doo Doo Butter, Sea Men, Balls Deep, and Team Name Pending for the worst team name.



Pictured (from left to right). Crouching: Dave Lunt - Utah (aka "Dirk Handlebar" from his days last spring sporting a mullett and a mustache. Dave used his background as a football defensive back in his role as containing outside back); John Gleaves - Portland (a national champion cyclist, John was the goalie and the assistant to the team's equipment manager); Chad (team captain, had to buy child-size shin guards to fit his skinny legs); Julio Gomez - Colombia (grew up in Miami, he dazzled opponents with his footwork on the field and awed his teammates by doing backflips after the games). Standing: Justin Schwartzwelder - Georgia (split time as the team's outside fullback, social coordinator, and fashion consultant); Joel Martin - Binghamton, NY (the defensive specialist turned down more lucrative offers from other IM teams to be a part of something (sorta) special with KFC); Matthew Llewellyn - Wales (the team's equipment manager that looks like Michael Scott, plays like Dwight Schrute, and dresses like Andy Bernard); Andrzej Przybyla - Poland (the attacker intimidated opponents spoke to them in Polish even though he was only saying that he had more consonants in his name than them); Herman Van Werkhoeven (the South African speedster has a natural resemblance to the main character in Grand Theft Auto). Not pictured: Alex Krasnick (the enforcer from Jersey, after the ref cancelled our first game because of an gutter-busting rainstorm he got a red card for telling the ref what he could do with his whistle). Special thanks to Kathi for taking the team picture and to Jana, Maria, Caroline, Kasha, and Katie (the team wives and girlfriends), and Zola, James, and Jeshu (the next generation of KFC) for putting up with the has-beens throughout the season.