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This past Saturday, the Office of the Physical Plant hosted it’s eighth annual Trash To Treasure Sale.  63.4 tons of goods, collected mostly from students was assembled in Beaver Stadium for sale to the public.  Eager shoppers started to line up outside of Gate C around 4:00 AM.  Penn State Live reports that the line to get into the event stretched around to Gate B.  Estimates report that the crowd reached upwards of a few thousand people.
Hot items included multiple 52″ TVs, furniture and clothing.  Much of the inventory was reported to be in excellent condition, making items fly off …

Penn State athletics is currently sitting in 13th place nationally in the Director’s Cup standings. The Director’s Cup is an award administered by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and is given annually to the school with the best overall athletic program. The ranking is done based on the success of up to 20 varsity sports (10 men’s, 10 women’s) and uses finishes in NCAA national championships to determine points awarded. In the case of football, media poll standings at the conclusion of bowl season are used.
Penn State is currently fourth among Big Ten schools, behind Michigan (4th), …

We’ve already mentioned that we’re fans of Nittany Lions Quarterback Coach Jay Paterno’s twitter – but who can settle for only 140 characters at a time?
Jay has spent the off season occasionally writing entries in his personal blog – The HD Journal – and so far it’s proven the benefits of public figures embracing technology. In addition to asking direct questions about Penn State football, he’s shared his thoughts on Memorial Day, Major League Baseball, and Spike Lee.  Welcome to the blogosphere, Coach Paterno!
[Source: The HD Journal]

Remember Tom – The Wheel of Fortune Contestant who Ryan interviewed a few weeks ago? He apparently has a heck of a poker face.
That’s because Tom, who was contractually obligated not to disclose the results of the February taping of the popular game show prior to its airing (May 25th), didn’t even give us a clue as to how well he did.
Sabbatelli, a newly-minted Penn State graduate from Yardley, won $54,900 in cash and prizes on a show featuring college students that was taped in February, trumping contestants from Columbia University and Brigham Young University.
It may be weird that my …

On Wednesday afternoon, the University Park Airport held its triennial emergency response exercise. The University actually owns the airport, so it was responsible for executing the exercise. (Also, here’s a fun fact: it’s the busiest airport in the United States to not have a traffic control tower. They do have one in the works though.)
The exercise allowed Centre County to test how its various emergency response units would work together on an actual emergency– in this case, the simulation was of a FedEx cargo plane colliding with a 50-passenger US Airways jet.
Penn State Live has a list of all the …

I sat down recently with Cole Camplese, the Director of Education Technology Services at Penn State. Cole leads the group that is charged with fusing technology with education. Our meeting was downtown at the Rider Building in a room ETS calls the Cafe.
ETS has been making a spectacular push for students and faculty to utilize tools like blogs and podcasting over the last few years.  Seeing as we’ve pretty much got the blog part going for us here at Onward State, I thought we might try another ETS initiative- podcasting.
So without further ado, I’d like to present Onward State’s …

“We’re intercepting the storms, not chasing them,” said Markowski. “Half the time we don’t even see the tornadoes (with our own eyes) because we’re looking at the radars.”
Markowski, a Penn State scientist is part of a team of two faculty and seven students that are researching tornadoes this summer.  A grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has allocated around $9 million for this study.  Using real-time statistics from roving vehicles like temperature and humidity, the team is able to examine the delicate conditions in which tornadoes are formed.
According to Penn State Live, …

Last evening, Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology James Wang was interviewed on BBC Radio regarding his research project Acquine. Acquine is an online tool that rates photographs based on mathematical cues and provides the user with a rating out of 100. Professor Wang spoke about how his program goes about rating a photograph:
“We know there are certain rules, like say the rule of thirds or certain pictures with low depths of field give people a better impression. Or pictures with higher saturation or contrast give people a better impression. You know that all of this has been encoded …

In the face of the increasing acceptance and legislative support of gay marriage, some members of the Pennsylvania Legislature have decided to go the other way, so to speak.
State Senator John Eichelberger (R-Blair) thinks that the current PA Defense of Marriage Act preventing same sex marriage is not strong enough because it could be overturned. In his infinite wisdom, he recently decided the best way to remedy this situation was to propose a constitutional amendment.
The road ahead will be difficult though. In addition to facing a Democrat-controlled Legislature,
The amendment must pass both legislative chambers in two consecutive sessions and then …

Cole Camplese, Director of Educational Technology Services, shared this cool fact yesterday.
The second figure is surprisingly high… I’d be interested to know what the average and median numbers of tests taken by individual students were.

As Tim wrote Friday, the registration window for returning undergraduate and graduate students interested in football season tickets opens at 8 AM today.
Between now and 5 PM Sunday (May 31st), students must follow the instructions posted on GoPSUSports’ Student Central website in order to have an opportunity to buy tickets:
This mandatory pre-registration confirms your intent to participate in the student football ticket sale. To pre-register, please go to http://www.ticketmaster.com/venue/16740. The pre-registration process will mirror the actual sales process in June. As part of this pre-registration, you will go through the steps of “BUYING” your pre-registration, but no costs will be …

This is our 1000th post.
The past seven months have been great, but we’re just getting started. My question for you today is:
What should we cover in our next 1000 posts that we missed in our first 1000 posts?
Update: We had to highlight this response. Well played, sir. Well played.

Penn State student Nublan Zaki Norhadi was found dead Monday afternoon at Abrams Falls in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Blount County Sheriff’s Office rescue diving team found the body of Nublan Zaki Norhadi around 1:30 p.m. Monday about 30 feet beneath the surface under the falls, according to park spokesman Bob Miller.
Nublan drowned sometime on Sunday while visiting the park with a group of approximately 30 other Penn State students. The trip was not connected with the University.
“Two of his buddies attempted to rescue Norhadi, but were also being swept away and had to be pulled out by …

This parody of Straight Out of Compton by some guys at Penn State Behrend actually makes me miss Snowman’s snap-rapping.
But kudos for the line,
See, Penn State’s a good foundation
Not only good parties,
But a fine education!
I couldn’t have said it better myself.