Life of Steve

Congrats to the Pittsburgh Steelers for winning Historic 6th Super Bowl!

Last night my Pittsburgh Steelers won the Superbowl with a victory over the Arizona Cardinals (27-23) In the typical pattern for the Steelers wins this year they had a close, hard fought game with a late rally to pull ahead. We had our traditional Superbowl Party at our house so we had the chance to celebrate the win with all our friends together. Since this is only the second season for Coach Tomlin with the team to be able to achieve this Super Bowl Champions trophy is a big deal. Steelers fans really do expect their team to be the best every year and to get this far with the leagues toughest schedule makes it even more impressive. Great Job!

Obama will be cheering for the Steelers in the Superbowl

The first good decision Mr. Obama has made since being elected. Finally!

Notre Dame Fans throw snowballs at their own team!

How upset do you have to be as a fan during a game to throw snowballs at YOUR OWN TEAM? Even during the snow bowl at PSU they only threw the snowballs at the officials (Not that throwing snowballs at the refs is right either.

Article: Notre Dame Players Pelted by Snowballs Link

JoePa's Salary and the Press

This editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette really got me steamed today.

JoePa's Pay: Why did Penn State Fight Disclosure

Ok. Stupid Editor. Here is why. It's called Privacy. Please post YOUR salary on the Front Page of the newspaper. Oh you don't want to? That's right! JoePa should have been entitled to his own privacy just like you. But I REALLY wouldn't expect the editor of a newspaper (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE) to understand or ever respect such a concept.

So glad I don't actually pay for the newspaper and only read it online. Except for the Steelers articles it's pure crap anyways.

Penn State in BCS Championship in 2009?

I have had some fun following a site this year called "TicketReserve." What is neat about the site is it provides you the ability to buy and sell options which give the right and obligation to go to a Bowl Game if your team makes it. This makes for some wild ups and downs. Watching Ohio State's Option market tank after losing to Illinois and watching LSU's shoot back up after teams in front of them losing for example.

Anyways, the subject of this post was about next football season and PSU. This year the starting price for BCS Championship Options was in the low double digits. For 2009 the price is starting at $82/ticket option (Same as Michigan's starting price BTW.) So according to the Ticket Option market PSU is expected to do well next year (or at least trade well until we lose a game I suppose.) What does the market know that the rest of us don't? New QB, probably good defense, and good receivers all show potential. I suppose going to the Alamo Bowl is enough for me to start thinking about next year. Miami anyone? We'll see.

SEC Worshippers, Please stop whining about the BCS. You Lost!

I haven't heard this kind of pathetic whining from losers since the last two Presidential Elections. LSU should still be Number 1! It's not fair they dropped in the BCS rankings Waaaahhhhh!

Look guys! This is how it works. When you lose games you are expected to win you drop in the polls. I know Ohio State hasn't played anyone yet but they didn't lose to anyone either! If they really aren't good enough to be number one they will lose to someone. (Last Year's BCS Championship Game anyone?) I actually like LSU but they dropped. We still have a lot of football to play and upsets can happen to anyone anytime. (App. State anyone?)

I'm just getting tired of every time someone's team loses they whine about how unfair the BCS is. Except when their team is high up. Then everything is perfect (NOT!)

The SEC bothers me in particular because the argument is that the conference is harder because of better teams and the Big 10 is easy. Having one or two good teams cruise though all the conference play means that most of your conference stinks! (Not the reverse) Having lots of competitive games and teams in a conference that don't win every game makes for good football. (Big 10 this year for example.) Upsets make for good football. If the same (Big Money Schools) teams won every game every year it wouldn't be college football. (It would be Major League Baseball)

At least I can save my yearly rant about Notre Dame this year. A non-issue this year. Thanks for small favors. 

PSU vs. Iowa Football Game Trip 2007

Every year my Penn State Alumni College friends & Spouses all make the pilgrimage up to State College, PA for our Annual Football Game Trip. This year we chose the Iowa Game to attend on this past weekend. Our group of people coming with us on this trip grows every year and Mr. Steinberg (Brian's Father) decided to join us for his first Penn State Football Game this year!

We took Friday off as a vacation day so we could get up to Penn State early to walk around, hang out, have a few drinks, and get checked into the hotel before the crowds start to arrive.  Since my wife had not made it to the Penn State Creamery in either of our last two trips we decided to make this our first stop when we arrived at around 2PM on Friday Afternoon. (Typically we see lines hundreds of people deep for ice cream on Game Day so our early ice cream run was definitely the way to go!) After which we got checked into our hotel (Days Inn Penn State) which is right in the middle of town and went in search of some lunch. I took my wife to The Deli (which is another Penn State Staple) for some lunch out on one of the two outdoor patios where we had some great sandwiches.

By the time we finished lunch and some shopping around town we still had some hours to kill before the rest of our friends were to arrive. Since the last couple of years we spent our Friday Afternoons on the patio outside of Cafe 210 this year we decided to hang out for happy hour at Mad Mex's outdoor deck while waiting for Brian, Mike, Marc and Sarah to get into town. Mike arrived around 6ish and joined us for a few drinks until we heard that Brian and his Dad got into town. Although Mad Mex's deck was very crowded on this summer-like weekend (October with Temps in the 80's!) we did get two seats at the bar. When Brian arrived we went to the Allen Street Grill for a late dinner.

Game time on Saturday was at 3:30PM so we began our tailgate at around 11am. We had unseasonably warm weather for October and a bright sunny day. This year we brought two SUV's (Mine and Marc's) to bring all the tailgating gear and to have two spaces worth of space. Since the parking Nazi put our SUV's back to back we had the perfect spot to set up. We were even realtively close to the stadium! My wife had convinced me to get a blue tent the previous weekend for the tailgate which gave us a nice shady area to hang out, cook some burgers and sausages, drink some beer, and enjoy ourselves before the game.

We were lucky this year and were able to get 7 seats in Beaver Stadium so we could all sit together. I also had a great view of the stadium since we were pretty high up. In addition, our seats were close to the Visitor Section. The Iowa fan's were pretty annoying since they would cheer loudly at every minor play. In response we decided to do the same (which resulted in me almost losing my voice by the end of the game. Penn State's offense started to come together and we did manage to win the game by a good margin.

Our tradition is to have dinner at least once at The Tavern per trip and this year was no exception. We had about  a 90 minute wait after the game which gave us time to walk back to the hotel and get freshened up before dinner. The dinner was excellent with a very friendly waitress which is typical of the food and the service at The Tavern.

After Dinner we needed to go back up to the fields around the Stadium to get our cars and drive them back to the hotel. We decided to take The Loop bus from down to the East Halls area of campus to get our cars since it is now free to students and other people. It was just us and mostly students on the bus. Once we got to the stop before ours the bus picked up a large number of students from the dorms which packed the bus. At that point I started to worry about us being able to get off at the next stop but I wasn't prepared for what happened next. All the students on the bus started loudly singing a song they will sing at the games. I don't know the name of the song but it goes something like this: " HEEEEEY BABY! I GOTTTA KNOOOOOOWW, WILL YOU BE MY GIRL!" We all just looked at each other. The loud noise and packed bus prevented the bus driver from realizing we all needed to get off at the next stop. So then we started screaming at the bus driver and the students did the same until we stopped and got off the bus. (Not a minute too soon.) Then we were free from the audio assault and able to get our cars for the drive back.

On Sunday we got up early and went to Perkins for Breakfast (This is also becoming a tradition of ours) and discussed the weekend, the game, and also which games to consider for our trip next year. It was another fun weekend and I think our plan for next year will involved longer tailgating times and less eating and drinking out (Since we are getting too old to want to hang in packed bars with young kids all night anyways!) It's been great these last couple of years and I am looking forward to many more great PSU Football Trips in the years to come!

(For more Pictures check out the PSU vs Iowa 2007 Album!)

Penn State- Notre Dame Game

Since I did manage to get season tickets to Penn State Football this year I decided to go to the Penn State Notre Dame game at Beaver Stadium. It's a shame that these two teams don't play each other more often because of the excitement this game generated. This game had the second highest attendance of any game at Beaver Stadium with over 110K people in the stands.

This was only a quick trip for me. I drove up early Saturday Morning to avoid a lot of the game traffic (Since this game wasn't going to start until 6PM.) I arrived just before 10am and went to my High School Friend, Gary's, apartment. Gary graciously offered to let my friend Brian and myself at his apartment Saturday Night. Once Brian Arrived we started to pack up the food and beer for our tailgate and then headed to some stores to buy Brian a Rain Jacket and some Cigars for Gary.

While we were at the Cigar Store we did meet the Owners Dog ( A very nice Yellow Lab) that kept us company while Gary was deciding which cigars would be best to take to the Tailgate where Gary's Finacee (Christina) and many others had already started to tailgate at 8am that morning. We considered taking the bus from town to the Stadium but after about 10 minutes of waiting we decided to just walk up to find our tailgate party.

We arrived at our tailgate party (already in progress) and called our friend Mike to swing by to say hello before the game. As always the PSU fans go all out for the pre-game tailgating. Since it was a particularly warm day in Happy Valley I saw some props that seemed more in place at a Jimmy Buffet Concert than a football game. One tailgate I saw had a full bar setup with a small swimming pool filled with water in front! Our tailgate had two large water coolers full of Sangria. Along with burgers, farm fresh hot dogs, smoked meats and cheese, the cookies and chips I brought, etc. More than enough food and drink to make it difficult to leave my chair to head to the game.

Brian and I headed to "TailGreat" in the Bryce Jordan Center. It is a pep rally along with both the Blue Band and the Notre Dame Marching Band playing some music for us. Honestly most of our motivation was not love of music but our desire to use a non-porta-potty restroom and also get some time in the air conditioning prior to game time but it was still a nice event to see.

After that we got to the stadium and found our seats. Since I didn't attend the first game I really didn't know where they were or how good the seats were. Once we got there we were pretty happy. I took some pictures of the view from our seats. We also found out that our friend Mike did manage to get a ticket at a reasonable price from someone prior to the game and so we was able to watch it live as well. (Nice!) This game was declared the first ever "All Stadium White Out" and I have to admit it looked impressive. In addition, we did manage to beat Notre Dame this year which definitely made the trip worthwhile. We did see a Notre Dame Fan get ejected from the stands over closer to the PSU Student Section but the Notre Dame fans sitting near us were polite and nice to talk to.

After the game we went to Mad Mex for some beers and food with my friend Gary and friends. We only stayed out for a little while before calling it a night. We did see some extremely drunk college students (as usual) stumbling around town (some with a little help from there friends.) Brian asked me if we ever looked that stupid. Although I am not sure we probably did back then. The next morning we were up bright and early and after a quick breakfast at Perkins I was on my way back to Pittsburgh.

So this entire trip only lasted about 29 hours but it was nice to get up to PSU, see some friends, and watch PSU beat the Irish. Maybe 10 years some now we'll get the chance to do it all again. We'll be back for Iowa with even more of my friend and an even bigger tailgate of our own!

Big Ten Network now offered on Dish Network

I was highly annoyed that I couldn't watch the Penn State Season Opener Game this year at home on Dish Network. Considering that I actually live in PA it seemed crazy that I couldn't see or even order the game (at an extra charge) to watch it at home. The reason for this is that my current TV provider (Dish Network) did not have a deal with the Big Ten Network to carry the station (Comcast is still negotiating with the Big Ten Network at this time. Last Saturday only DirectTV had a deal to carry the Channel on Satellite.)

Well. Today I am happy. Since I found news on the Internet that the Big Ten Network is now being offered on Dish Network with a TV Package that I currently have. I just turned on my TV to confirm that it was actually being broadcast and (yay!) it is. I am still annoyed at the fact that the Big Ten Network exists (I didn't mind watching the game on ABC or ESPN) I am happy that now I can watch the games while sitting on my own couch, eating my own snacks, and drinking my own beer without having to either Switch Cable Networks or Go to a Bar. (Although watching the game at a local bar last week was fun I don't want a bar tab to be required for me to enjoy a College Football Game on TV.)

Won't matter for the Notre Dame Game on Saturday (Since that is on ESPN and I will be at the Game) However, it will be nice to see the other games later on in the season.

Penn State Football Tickets 2007

For the last couple of years I have been organizing the annual trip that my college friends and myself take to Penn State to watch a Football Game. We have been fortunate in that this will be the second year that we all have seats in a row together to watch a game. While I am happy that we have been lucky enough to enjoy the games lately the massive popularity that Penn State Football enjoys means it's not something we can take for granted.

Each year when I put in my requests for tickets I anxiously await news that my ticket requests have been fulfilled so I know that my friends and I will be set to go. I do remember that when I was a student at PSU back in the early to mid 90's I always got student season tickets every year I requested them. From the stories I have read in the Daily Collegian (Students Express Anger, Frustration Over Ticket Sale) a large number of students are not able to get tickets to watch Penn State Play. I feel sorry for them since I know that they have expanded the stadium since and still cannot meet student demand. It's pretty easy to do the math to figure out why  PSU expanded the non-student tickets. Regular Season Tickets went for $343 each, which assumes you are high enough on the donor list to even get them. Student Season Tickets face value is only $190.

Of course back then we always had student who were willing to re-sell tickets at a premium to their fellow students in need. Usually for an extra $25 or $40 a ticket. Some enterprising students are selling the tickets for much more these days. According to a Pittsburgh Post Gazette Article (Penn State Students Resell Football Tickets Online.) Student are selling those $190 season ticket for $1175 or $1500. (Over 6X and 7X face value respectively)  A quick glance on EBay, StubHub, and other Ticket Websites seems to indicate that tickets for Notre Dame start at $500/each (and go up) and tickets for Ohio State start at $300/each (and go up.) Almost makes you wonder what would happen if we had an undefeated season or something!

I suppose this demand does make sense on a cumulative level. Every year we graduate more and more PSU fans. Those who spent their college years watching and loving Penn State Football will still want to see the games (Just like my alumni friends and myself.) However, I hope that they do decide to hold back some tickets for the students and people who only want to (or can afford to) go to a single game here and there. With such an incredible demand for Season Tickets (Penn State Approaches Complete Sellout for Home Football Season)it will be tempting to cut back on the students and the single game seats.

I am definitely looking forward to the two games I plan on attending this Season (Notre Dame and Iowa) and hope we will all enjoy many more games at Beaver Stadium in the future. GO STATE!