Brent Went to New York

At the end of February I went to a sociology conference in New York. Unfortunately, Billie had a weekend class and couldn't go. I offered Mom my spare bed but she said that she remembered New York so well from her high school senior trip that she didn't need to fly up from Florida to see it again.

A few pictures from my trip are available on Facebook here.

We now resume our regularly scheduled lack of updates.

Our Dining Room is Finally Ready for Dining

Our dining room has been painted since before we moved into our house. Unfortunately, it has lacked two things: a chair rail to divide the red paint from the white and a dining room table. We recently bought a dining room table to use when we have visitors (like Dad and Bonita, who were here on March 3rd) and that finally motivated us to put up the chair rail. The result is a dining room you can actually dine in! Here are a few pictures:

The view from our kitchen (note the fabulous berry wreath and pinecones-in-a-jar centerpiece!)

With our tablecloth (Billie seemed to think we need one; she also seemed to think it shouldn't be made of vinyl)

From the foyer (this view really shows off the complete lack of decorations)

IU Basketball in PA

For most of my time in graduate school I had season tickets for IU men's basketball. After we got married, Billie was also able to have season tickets for our last year in Bloomington. Since moving to Pennsylvania, though, we've had to settle for watching games on TV. On Sunday, January 8th we were able to go to a game in person because IU was playing at Penn State. We decided to go on Saturday to spend some time in State College and avoid driving five hours in one day just to see a basketball game. Here are some pictures from our trip:

We could see the football stadium from our hotel room window

Joe Paterno's house

Ready for the game (we'll pretend this picture wasn't taken when we stopped to eat on the way home)

Bryce Jordan Center

Pre-game warm ups

A rabid dog was on hand to scare unsuspecting children

The pre-game huddle

Tom Crean, looking relaxed, as usual

Ready for the tip-off

...and then the game happened...

Final score: Penn State 82, Indiana 88 - it was nice that they won but if they could have won more decisively the game would have been less stressful

Shaking hands after the game