Oregon State faces Missouri in the Sun Bowl today

After a miserable start this season, Oregon State rebounded nicely, winning 7 of their final 8 games this fall, including the giant win over USC. Now they're in El Paso for the Sun Bowl, which will start at approximately 11:00 this morning. Oregon State has 3.5 points on the Vegas betting line and even Fox Sports has predicted a win over Missouri.

In other non-Corvallis but making-Corvallist-happy news, congratulations to Cal for solidly trouncing Texas A & M in the Holiday Bowl. Say it with me now: WOOOOHOOOOO!! Pac-10 gets no respect, what? HA!

(Okay, I'm done. Until next fall, anyway!)

Local blogger making music debut this Friday.

Long-time Corvallis resident Chris Farrell will be performing this Friday, December 29th at the Interzone coffee shop on Monroe at 7 p.m. If you can, show up and show support for the local scene, especially since the Interzone is so darn cool. (However, they apparently let their domain lapse a couple of weeks ago, so don't bother going to the website right now.)

Break a leg, Chris!

Merry Christmas!

My wish for you, whatever Festivus/Solstice/Hanukkah/etc. holiday you celebrate (or don't) is the hippie credo: peace, love and happiness. Or is that make love not war? Either one works for me.

Calvary Chapel vs. Chip Ross Park

The Gazette-Times front page today features an article about the new development planned by megachurch Calvary Chapel near Chip Ross Park off of Highland Drive. Calvary has been temporarily housed in various sites for the past few years, currently holding services in the now vacant Westland Middle School.

This development is gigantic, folks. And it will sit adjacent to Chip Ross Park, the mostly undeveloped hiking park with arguably the best vistas of Corvallis. Calvary has purchased more than 50 acres and, in the very first stage of development, plans to construct a 27,000 ft² "worship center" with subsequent plans to put further buildings in the woods and in the upland prairie meadow that has just received designation as environmentally sensitive -- something the church plans to challenge to allow their "meditation center" plans move forward.

The park is currently a peaceful place to spend an afternoon. With 600 church members, a large new parking lot, a ginormous church building and the obvious sense of entitlement by church leaders to rape the landscape for God, there won't be much peace on the mountain by next fall. A group calling itself "Friends of Chip Ross Park" has started a blog covering the development plans for the region, complete with purty pictures that will assuredly be less purty as the development commences. Because this land is already within the Corvallis city limits, there is no review planned via the City Council. Boo.

Putting the "Oh for Christ's Sake" back in Christmas

Over the past couple of weeks, several letters have been written to the Gazette-Times arguing about the political correctness of "Happy Holidays" and "winter break" and proclaiming there to be a war on Christmas and even Christianity itself. I find this entire argument utterly bizarre, but it's all part of a national trend instigated by the organized evangelicals. If they can successfully make Christians feel as though their very faith is under attack, maybe they can mobilize them to reflexively vote for overtly religious politicians and policies. Or something.

Here are a couple of clue-by-fours for those of you who need them. If someone says "Happy Holidays" to you, they are probably being friendly and inclusive. Feel free to say "Merry Christmas" in return. I bet you don't receive the reciprocal sneer or spit in the face you may be expecting. It's a simple fact that many, many people in this country celebrate Hanukkah, winter solstice, Kwanzaa, Festivus or nothing at all. If they are friendly enough to give you a holiday greeting, don't be a jerk and ignore them or be rude because they didn't proffer up your chosen holiday. Sheesh.

If your kid is in school and mentions "Christmas break" or says "Merry Christmas" to another kid or a teacher, chances are good that there will be no penalty or detention. It is the school's responsibility to be inclusive to all kids, not just Christian kids, unless it's a Christian school, in which case nobody will be complaining that the vacation is called Christmas break. Winter break is an appropriate appellation for the school vacation that falls around this time of year, because not only Christian kids are out of school for two weeks.

(On the other hand, that might be the best way to rack up the converts -- simply state that only kids who actually celebrate a particular holiday can have the day off from school. Wouldn't that fill up the churches? I'd just grab a calendar and see which religion had the most holidays. Probably some nice Orthodox branch of Catholicism with lots of saints' days.)

Now, if you are Christian and really believe that you are being persecuted in this country simply because other people choose not to jump on your belief bandwagon, I'd like you to spend the next hour looking up "persecution" on the internets and let me know where you rank. Somewhere between torturing the Falun Gong in China and imprisoning the Ahmadis in Pakistan, maybe? Maybe one step below the kidnapping and executions of Chaldeans in Baghdad?

Oregon and Corvallis were listed among the least religious locations in the United States. We are home to the founder of the Pastafarian movement. Even so, there is a wide variety of churches and religious groups here, and not a single one of them is facing anything even resembling persecution. So please, just stop. When someone rips the Bible out of your hands and beats you with it, you'll have a valid complaint. When someone wishes you happy holidays with a smile, you just don't.

School transfer deadline approaching

Last February, Superintendent Dawn Tarzian and the Corvallis School Board decided to end the open enrollment policy in the CSD509J school district. Previously, kids could be enrolled at any school within the district, as long as there was room, on a first-come-first-enrolled basis. After Linus Pauling Middle School and the new Corvallis High School were built, however, there was a mad influx to each of these schools, leaving Cheldelin Middle School and Crescent Valley High School with student deficits -- 100 students at Cheldelin and 300 students at Crescent Valley.

Good news, if you want your children to attend Cheldelin or Crescent Valley: You won't have any difficulty enrolling your kids. Bad news, if you want your kids to attend virtually any other school in the district, unless you happen to live within the district boundaries (PDF) for that specific school.

If you want your children to attend a school other than the one in your neighborhood, you need to apply for a transfer before January 19, 2007. Conveniently enough, you can do this online. We prefer the academic options at Crescent Valley, but currently live within the CHS boundaries, so we've already gone through the process in anticipation of Corvallist kid's entry into high school next year. It was simple. However, we aren't attempting to enroll in a high-demand school. If you are in that situation, fill out the transfer form and then cross your fingers, because open spots will be assigned by lottery. If your request is denied, you can appeal, but you'll have to come up with a fairly compelling reason.

Home again, home again.

Apparently, I missed the nastiest windstorm to ever hit Corvallis. Trees are still down all over town, schools were closed Friday (the Corvallist kid was actually disappointed about missing a school cancellation, despite having the entire week off for travel) and some people in the outlying areas are still without power days after the actual event.

Cool. That's not what I wanted to write about today, though. I originally lost a post about this some months ago, and was reminded last week during a conversation with my brother.

I spent part of last week in New York, where I was born and spent my first decade. I moved to California and stayed there for much of my second decade (with an additional, shorter stint more recently), but continued to call myself a New Yorker, partly because I still spent parts of the year there and partly because I never felt at home in California. (I should explain that the part of California where I lived was akin to... oh, Lebanon. Fine if you like it, but it wasn't a good fit for yours truly.)

I continued to refer to myself as a New Yorker until I moved to Corvallis, which I instantly adopted as home. I've called myself an Oregonian ever since, even during brief interludes in other states.

But being back in New York made me realize that I'm still a New Yorker, albeit a bit rusty. It took half a day to get back into the pace, but it came back like a visceral memory. I was there this time as a tourist, but by the end of the week, giving my kid the drive-by tour of my old neighborhood, it felt like I never really left. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.

Or maybe it was just the pizza. Sorry, Cirello's. I love what you do, but it's not really NY style pizza.

I guess I'm a New Yorker and a Corvallist. Both places feel like home to me.

I'm not quite dead...

I've survived dead week, term paper hell and now finals week. I do believe I pulled straight A's. Not bad for an old broad, especially with chemistry sorely testing my rusty brain cells.

I also survived a head cold and a bout of food poisoning, all at the same time! This is the first time in a few days that I've been up and about and in front of the computer without there being a term paper and a box of cold meds involved.

And now, I'm going on vacation for a week. Flying east toward family and winter wonderland-type stuff, with a quick stop in Freedomland.

Sorry for the lack of writing, but I shall be back with a vengeance! Sometime around December 16th. Please leave the lights on for me.

Cool finally comes to Corvallis

That's right, kids... craigslist is here!

I have been a craigslist addict for some time, although rarely have time to feed my addiction these days. Plus, I grew bored reading Eugene posts and the Portland site moves entirely too fast for anyone with an actual life.

It's a fantastic place to sell old furniture, unload free things that you don't think anybody could possibly actually want, maybe even meet someone, although honestly, most of the posts looking for partners are a wee bit frightening. (Highly entertaining in a Schadenfreude sort of way, on occasion!) Granted, Corvallis is a small market and it will take some time for the site to actually become useful, but yay! Craigslist is here!

Caveat emptor! The site is universally beloved by scammers and spammers. If a deal seems to be fantastic, it probably isn't. Never pay money for an item until after you have seen it in person. If you decide to meet up with the woman who says she's a stewardess who will be in town for a few days, keep in mind that our airport doesn't actually have service from any passenger airlines. And if you see a post that is in the wrong place, full of porn (it's a free site, these things happen) or spam, use the "flag" buttons. You can also flag certain posts to be considered for the "Best Of" category, which is the best part of craigslist.