It wasn't supposed to happen like this

I can't believe this. JoePa is retiring at the end of this season. That means this Saturday is the last game he will coach at Beaver Stadium and I can't go. :(

This is so freaking sad. I feel like a little kid who just got kicked in the stomach and told there's no Santa Claus. I'm so sick at the whole thing. All the media talks about with regard to this incident is Joe, because that's the name they're familiar with (oh and BTW, if you're not familiar with the name Jerry Sandusky, you have no business being a so-called sports writer) so that's who they focus on dragging down.

Every article talks about how Joe didn't handle the situation properly. But I have yet to read the article that says how he should have handled it. Joe went to his superiors with the information and they did nothing. What else was he supposed to do? He couldn't go to the police and say "Somebody told me they saw something" - police don't answer calls like that. Why didn't the witness who saw the incident go to the police himself? He was an adult and as such, maybe HE should have been the one to handle the situation better. That's who I have issues with. Him and Jerry Sandusky. LEAVE JOE ALONE!

I know Joe is in his eighties and would probably retire soon, but it should not have been this way. I will always think of JoePa as the best college football coach ever. I was fortunate enough to attend many games as a student and as an alumni, watching him pace up and down the sidelines with those thick glasses and those ridiculous pants. I was even able to attend the 1987 Fiesta Bowl where underdog Penn State beat Miami to win the national championship my senior year - a memory I will never forget. I've even met Joe a few times on campus. He's like a God on that campus, and he could be as aloof as he wants, but he's not. He always smiles and says hello. Not a lot of sports figures are as friendly as that.

But everyone is reading all the negative press and jumping on the hater bandwagon. I understand not everyone went to Penn State and shares my love of JoePa, but I just don't feel like reading the negative bullshit anymore. The worst has happened - he's announced his retirement. I got the news, yeleld and swore a lot, slammed the phone down and went outside for a tearful walk. I don't need all the negative commentary. If something terrible happened to someone you really admire, would you want to hear someone else bash them? Neither do I. So I think I'm just going to avoid reading anything online for the next little while. I have enough else to do anyway. People need to realize the university is far more than this incident.

Oh, and for the record I am and will always be Penn State Proud!

A Whole Other Post

Okay, here it is. The story about the house.

I usually don't like to speak negatively of people, but it is difficult to convey what we've been through without mentioning some things about the previous tenants.

For the past 4 1/2 years we've been living in the basement apartment of a house, which the family upstairs was renting from the property owner. For whatever reasons I don't need to go into here, they were asked to leave and we were given the option of moving upstairs. The day before Irene, the moving trucks were there, they loaded up and were gone. So we went upstairs to see what the place looked like.

It's a much bigger space - 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, living room, dining room, work room, foyer and a porch. A lot of it was designed with a lot of thought in mind - a huge pantry with pull out shelves, bedroom closets with lights that go on when you open the doors, stuff like that. But most of the things had not been cared for in many years and there was a lot of damage and enough stuff left behind to more than fill a 30 yard dumpster.

We were able to work a deal with the property owner - 2 months free rent while we work on the place. So we're in the third month now, paid our first rent check and we're still working. I think he got the better deal.

The previous two months have been full of setbacks - problems with the utility companies, a sick bunny, a wall falling out, bad plumbing, etc. But last night I was able to walk into any room of the house I wanted and turn on a light just by flipping a switch. What a novel idea. It finally is starting to feel like the place is ours.

I wanted to do before and after pictures, but I only have the before pics. A few of them are below:

My future craft room (the yellow is going!):


Our future exercise room:

Future master bedroom:


Dining Room:

Living room:

Kitchen:

Scott's future work room (can you find the full size washer and dryer in this picture?):
Porch:

Where I've been

Actually, I've been here all along. Just been busy. You know, with stuff.

Staring with Irene. Bitch. We heard there was this big storm coming and there would probably be flooding. Our driveway always washes out, and we had just had it repaired from the Spring washout (no shit, WEDNESDAY before Irene the shit was fixed!) when Irene came in.

Oh great. It's raining. It's doing whatever it's doing, but it's early Sunday morning and I want to sleep. But no. Scott is waking me up excitedly saying "You have to come see this!" Whatever it is, won't it be much more impressive a few hours from now, like when I'm awake? Whatever. I put on my glasses and go look out the window. Wow - the pond is in the backyard now. Impressive. I go back to sleep.

"I'm going to take a walk outside and make sure everything is okay" he says as he wakes me again. "Okay" I mumbled. At least he won't be waking me up while he's outside. I go back to sleep.

2 seconds (I swear, it felt like 2 seconds) later there is a hand shaking my foot. "I may need your help with something." Oh, Christ - I know what it is. I distinctly remember asking SOMEONE to move the car yesterday. But it wasn't moved. So I got dressed and went outside to see this:



What the everloving fuck? Would the car start? Would he be able to get it out of there? Fortunately, the answers were yes and yes, but there was water in the floor pan and it smelled for weeks.

Yay! The car is safe! I can go back to bed! I go back in the house, put my jammies back on and step into the bedroom - splat! There is now water coming up through the floor in the bedroom - the only carpeted room in the house! So fuck sleep, I'm sucking up as much water as I can with a Shop Vac, but the minute I stop it just comes right back up. Scott goes to see if the neighbors need help and I just keep vacuuming. A few minutes later an alarm starts going off - I'm not sure where. It's loud and chirpy. then I remember that he put a water sensor in one of the hall closets in case water got in - that must be it.

So I'm vacuuming up all the water and I can't go shut off the stupid chirpy thing because the water will just get out of hand. Finally, Scott comes back as this thing is beeping away. "There's an alarm going off in the hall." I said. "I think there might be some kind of emergency." He shut it off and I continued.

After about an hour or so the water stopped coming in, but the carpet had sponged up most of it. We tried using a disinfectant, but there was too much moisture in the carpet for too long and we had to rip it out. We lost some furniture too, but we were fortunate - many people had it much worse.

Here are some of the photos:

The camp next door:

Our pond (I think):
The pool next door at Krucker's:
Scott in the driveway:
The other fun started the day before when our upstairs neighbors moved out, but that's a whole other post.