Life on the road

So Friday night here in Champaign-Urbana meant dinner at the Bombay Indian Grill (www.bombaygrillcu.com), while most of the other Nittany Lion media contigent searched for steaks and burgers.

We dare to be different.

We were a bit disappointed with the tandoori chicken (too dry) but give a big shout-out to the warm carrot pudding with cashews.

Later, back at team headquarters, at a Holiday Inn off the interstate, Joe Paterno attended the standard media social for about only 30 minutes before heading up to his room. He still seemed steamed over the blocked punt that ruined the Iowa game last week.

And that took us to Saturday.

Some of us figured the best way to spend a couple of hours on a breezy, cloudy, raw morning, complete with sprinkles, was to play a little pickup basketball.

We got a ball. Found an outside court, complete with pavement cracks and chain nets.

And the best part was that it was adjacent to Illini tailgaters and something called the Meat Science Laboratory, featuring the "meat sales room."

Looked and sounded kind of scary.

We played anyway, with long-standing, free-spirited columnist Dave Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News hitting his outside shots, teaming well with Daily Collegian beat writer Nate Mink. (Jones really was wearing a questionable Rutgers throw-back jersey).

We played and Dave and Nate actually ventured into the Meat Science Laboratory to find a water fountain.

I was still puzzled, though.

So a Web search found this, describing the place as "containing modern molecular and biochemical and cell culture laboratories ..."

I never did, though, find out about the "meat sales room."