What happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force? In Japan they call it Sumo wrestling, a traditional sport to the gods of Shintoism that has become one of Japan's most lucrative professional sports. I have wanted to see this sporting event more than any other since I found out about it from a Japanese foreign exchange student I met in the first grade.
What happens when you put a 6'3", 165-pound sport philosophy grad student in a building full of 400+ pound professional wrestlers that are built like rhinos? The grad student gets hurt. No, I did not actually get into the ring with the pony-tailed human road blocks - I would've come back in two pieces. And no, I did not get a chance to put on the sumo uniform - it looks like they're wearing thongs the size of papasan chairs (neither skinny nor fat guys should ever wear what they wear).
I did, however, sustain an injury that prevented me from ever trying my hand (and gut) at Sumo. While walking around the crowded concourse of Ryogoku Kokugikan trying to find the gate to my seat, I made a fatal mistake that changed the course of the rest of my trip. I wore flip-flops. In all my haste to get to my seat and watch the scantily clothed obese men squat and ram into each other, I did my own ramming. While looking to my left and walking to my right, I rammed into an ex-sumo-wrestler-turned-usher. As I rammed into him, my upper body went flying backwards and my lower body got caught underneath him. My entire foot slid underneath his except for my right toenail, which violently ripped off my foot and stuck into the weight-flattened rubber sole of his shoe.
2. We were invited to our first wedding reception since becoming Keystone Staters. An alum of Chad's program exchanged vows earlier in the summer in California before having a reception back home in State College. After meeting him twice, Chad made enough of an impression on the new groom to receive an invite to the reception. Apparently impressions are easily made on this newly married sport philosopher, as Nigel the goat also received an invite. Nigel wore out his welcome quickly by drooling on the refreshments and becoming the party pooper - literally.
3. The transience of move-in week on campus reverberates to the surrounding mountain towns as well, as flocks of "mountain people" swarm to the tented fields of the Grange County Fair - America's oldest covered fair. Every industrial corporation, including Kathi's employer, expects a massive decrease in production during this week as its tractor-pullin', animal-showin', tank-top-wearin', chew-spittin', cousin-datin' employees flock to the fairgrounds in neighboring Centre Hall. To fit in, Kathi had Chad wear his favorite #40 Coors Light Sterling Marlin racing shirt. It worked - as Chad fielded numerous queries about Marlin's crash at Brooklyn (we actually did not see it, but learned to act disappointed).
4. To celebrate Chad's 28th birthday, Penn State invited its other 20,000 most die-hard fans for a pep rally the night before the opening game. We arrived 45 minutes early for 50th row seats to hear JoePa give a very inspirational speech about how he told President Lyndon B. Johnson to "shove it" when Johnson chose Texas as national champions instead of the undefeated Nittany Lions. Paterno's speech was so inspirational that he had students foaming at the mouth - so much so, that Kathi and Chad almost got spit on by a still-motivated fan from a 6th story apartment building later that night (beer may or may not have been a factor in the incident).
5. We arrived 2 hours early for our (Penn State's) game against Coastal Carolina and got seats four rows off the field. We tried yelling at JoePa before and during the game but he didn't hear us. Unfortunately, his players and assistant coaches seem to have the same problem.
6. In third-generation Carlson tradition, Kathi made Chad a red and white Waldorf Astoria cake for his birthday. This cake is time consuming and frustrating to make, but heaven-on-earth to eat. In the past, the baking of this cake has forced a normally serene Kathi to throw things, kick things, cuss, and hit the bottle in an effort to attain the frosting's right consistency. In only four short years, she is a WAWA (Waldorf Astoria World Authority). Shawna - best of luck as you make yours for Jeff.
In an effort to boost fan attendance, the Spikes offered a "Bring your Dog to the Game" Night on August 6. Neither Kathi nor Chad are dog-lovers (a better term for us would be "Dog-gedly Anti-Pooch"), but some of our friends have canines and so we joined them at the park.
After being pronounced man and wife, the bride and groom exited the chapel to NBC's "The Office" theme song and the entire wedding party rode on a purple-painted school bus to the reception overlooking barbed-wire fences and guards with shotguns (okay, now we're exaggerating). All four hundred guests had a great time since there were no fun-haters allowed.
At 11am, we decided to head out and hit the tennis ball around. We love playing tennis together. Since our wedding day, we have enjoyed playing tennis together more than any other sport. Our tennis dates started as Chad teaching Kathi how to play the game but have now progressed to competitive best-two-out-of-three-set matches. Kathi has really become a good player (or Chad is just an exceptional coach - you decide).
One would think that these brushes with greatness heavily favor Kathi during our matches, but they don't. Although Chad always loses focus when (somewhat) well-known players and coaches walk by, Kathi always gets self-conscious too, because they are usually gawking at her (even the women's basketball players).
This morning was no exception. At the gas station on our way to the courts, we saw Big Phil Taylor. Phil tips the scales at 6'3" and a beefy 330 pounds, and spent a great deal of last football season as a starting defensive tackle. However, Phil has made more headlines recently as the subject of what JoePa has termed "the media's witchhunt" of Penn State's football program. Last week Taylor was kicked off the team for repeated off the field incidents in which he violated public law (mostly fighting). 
Once we arrived at the well-maintained courts overlooking Mount Nittany, we changed from seeing great people to emulating great people. With the looks of Kournikova, Kathi had spurts where she played like Sharapova and others where she acted like McEnroe (Chad had to dock her one point for slamming her racquet down in disgust, she then slammed her racquet down again, using explicit language to tell Chad what she thought of his point-penalty). Apparently not everyone is happy all the time in Happy Valley, but it was a "great" morning nonetheless.
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.
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!).
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.
