Friday, September 15, 2006 Experience Erie for $l5 or less By Ashley Bressler staff writer Penn Slate Behrend is a wonderful place to live and spend sour college years, not just because of its many clubs, organizations, fun activities and welcoming social environment, but also because it is located in the city of Erie. Students don't always choose to venture off-campus due to their limited funds or transportation restrictions, but must of all because they have no idea what's out there to do. There are many reasons to stay on campus, but there are also many reasons to get out and explore Erie's varied attractions. As each sea son changes, the possibilities are delightfully refreshed, promising hundreds of options just waiting for students to take advantage of. As the majority of students at Behrend are not migmallv from the Erie area, they may not know all that it has to offer. Some of Erie's most refined attractions are also the most expensive, and not exactly practical for the typical, starving student budget. Luckily. Erie does offer many fun, inex pensive attractions as well, most which can be experienced for SIS or less. Each weekend, stu dents can do something different off-campus without spending a lot of money. For those of you who are willing to get out. try something new and have at least SIS in your pocket; here are some great ideas for experiencing Erie outside of Behrend. A great way to get off campus to enjoy the beautiful autumn atmosphere is to venture down ABlh street to visit the Erie Zoo. The Erie Zoo is located at 423 W. 38th Street, which is just a short, 10-15 minute drive from the Penn State Behrend campus. The zoo has a wide collection of exotic, endangered and domestic animals, and is home to over 500 animals, representing an impressive array of species from all around the globe. Their animal exhibit features a polar bear, orangutans. African lions, zebras, giraffes and many more. Visiting the well-maintained and attractive Erie Zoo is a fun, relaxed outside activ ity that all can enjoy especially animal lovers. A must-stop at the zoo is the Wings of Wonder Aviary exhibit, where you can observe tropical birds from inside a cage. The brilliantly colored birds fly from tree to tree, chirping happily, and some are even friendly enough to land on your Like to write album, book, film or technology reviews? needs YOU! Please e-mail the Student Life Editor at smm4Bo@psu.edu you’re contributing to the page. T [TDEi IT L" <~\r & - shoulder. The giraffes are also very entertaining as the father and baby love attention from passing zoo-goers. The petting zoo offers the opportunity to have direct contact w ith the animals. Here, you can pet, brush and feed donkeys, llamas, goats and other domestic animals. On a warm autumn weekend, the Erie Zoo can be the perfect escape from the ordinary schedule of classes, homework. Bruno's cafe and dorm life for students. The zoo's prime season is from March 1 through October 31. but is open until late November. If you want to experience the exotic, head over to the Erie Zoo before it closes for the season. Admission to the zoo is only $6.50 plus tax for adults over 12 years of age (and $5.50 for senior citizens.) The zoo opens at 10:00 a.m. everyday and closes at 5:00 p.m. The easiest way to get to the Erie Zoo is to take a left onto the Bayfront Connector when leaving campus. Follow the Bayfront for approximately two miles until you come to McClelland Avenue. Turn left onto McClelland Ave. and follow it to the next stop light, where you will turn right onto 38th Street. Then, simply follow 38th Street for 3.5 miles, and you will see signs for the zoo on the left. The six-mile journey is easy to make and it will be well worth the effort. For more information about exploring all that the Erie Zoo has to offer, go to their website, www.eriezoo.org, or call (814) 864-4091. Student Life interested Axhlev Bressler/THH HKHRHND BH.U'ON Ashley Bressler/THH BKHRKND BKACON Intramural programs prove popular on campus By Scott Muska staff writer Intramural sports have been an important part of campus life at colleges and universities across the country for a number of years, and Penn State Behrend is no exception. At Behrend the intra mural sports staff offers over 20 sports for the students and faculty to compete in. Rob Wittman is now beginning his 16th year as Behrend’s Coordinator of Intramural and Recreational Programs, and he wants to see as many stu- dents as pos sible become actively involved with the intramural sports scene Wittman says that “Even if you don’t feel you can play the sport, or don’t know how, come anyway and have fun.” There are many rea- sons for students to get involved in intramurals, and Wittman thinks that a break from studying is one of the most important, he said. Some students may be hesitant to join in these sports and activities because they don’t know what the level of competition will be or what kind of intensity they will be dealing with during the events, but it can be enjoyed by anyone. "There are a lot of teams that know that aren't really there to win. but just to have fun," says Wittman. “But at the same time there are some kids that played sports in high school and didn’t want to or didn’t make it to the varsity level in college that play. It gives them a good outlet for their competitive nature.” Though flag football and dodgeball are consis tently the most popular intramural events, Behrend also offers some more obscure sports that include, but are not limited to bowling, team triathlons, arena football and ping pong. Inner tube water polo, which begins in early November and kickball, which will kick-off in March are the two new events being added to the vast amount of options this school year. Ask ASCII: When the lights go out... By Logan Stack staff writer Dear ASCII When the power went out Wednesday, I lost my work. How can I prevent that? Did my computer get damaged in any way ? When my friend with a laptop said he could still browse the Internet for a while, why didn’t the net work turn off? - Nobody Dear Nobody, When the power goes out, your computer isn’t damaged. If the power flickers and your computer turns on and off rapidly, then dam age may happen. Power surges (like a light ning strike on the power line) can also cause damage. You can prevent power surges by getting a surge protector. Better ones often come with insurance so that if they fail, the company that made the surge protector will buy you a new computer. The surge protector companies only insure your hardware. Any data you lose, they won’t pay to recover. To prevent data loss when the power goes out, you can set most programs (like Word) to automatically save every minute or so, reduc ing the amount of unsaved work. In Word, go to Tools>Options, click on the “Save” tab, and make sure the “Save Autoßecover Information every: xx minutes” option is checked, and set the number of minutes to whatever you’d like. Watch Out!: Upcoming Events Astronomy Open House ‘Space Missions to Comets” rhursday, September 21, 7:30 p.m. Dtto Behrend Science Building tfusic at Noon Series Presents: Zum uesday, October 24th, Noon The Behrend Beacon I The deadlines to register for slow pitch softball and golf are unfortunately already past, but there are plenty more events to get involved in. Sand volleyball has a registration deadline of September 15. cross country September 22, and Hag football September 29. These and all other events can be registered for by visiting Wittman at his office in the Junker Center, e-mailing him at rww3@psu.edu or registering online. If a deadline for a sport or event is missed, contact Wittman, who is not as worried about official deadlines as he is concerned with getting as many students involved as he can. CONTRIBUTED me know when you sign up and I will get you on one,” says Wittman. As an incentive to get freshmen involved, Wittman has set up a point system for teams assembled that hail from Lawrence, Niagara, Senat or Perry residence halls. Points will be awarded for victories and milestones, and at the end of the year the team with the most cumula tive points will be honored at the Honors and Awards Convocation. A t-shirt will also be awarded. All information concerning the Behrend Intramural activities can be viewed at http://www.pserie.psu.edU/athletics/intramurals/w elcome.htm. Choose a sport or multiple sports that you may be interested in and sign up, assem ble a team if possible, compete and have fun. Saving the data takes about a second so there’s really no reason not to save often. If you are like me, and have a bunch of open web pages you’d like to save, you can use the Opera web browser, as it will save your open windows and reopen them all when next you start. There’s also an add-on for Firefox called Tab Mix Plus that does the same thing. You can get it at addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122. If you really want to make sure you don’t lose anything, you can buy an Uninterruptible Power Supply. A UPS is a battery that con stantly charges when there’s power. When the power goes out you have anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours to work or save your work (depending on how much money you spent on the UPS). All the Penn State servers have a UPS. When the power went out on Wednesday, the wireless network still had power from the bat teries. But the UPS told the VPN server that the power went out, and the VPN server turned itself off to make sure no data was lost. After that, laptop users could still connect to the wireless network, but couldn’t browse the Internet. The wireless access point doesn’t have to shut down, so it continued to work until the UPS ran out of power. Do you have a computer question? Then ask ASCII! Send an e-mail to ascii@psu.edu and you may see your question answered in next week’s column. Creative Writer s Ray Robertson Thursday, September 21 6 p.m., Smith Chapel Behrend’s Speaker Series David Hale Thursday, October 26 Teams can sign together and assem ble selves, but indi- viduals can also sign up for any “If you don’t have a team, let enes
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