Sunday, March 02, 2008

February Adventures

We've gotten a lot of snow this winter. Just about everyone is sick of it by now. About a week ago, the Northwest Herald reported that we'd gotten 69 inches of snow so far; only 5.5 inches below the all-time record set during the legendary '78-'79 winter (Chicago got 89" that year).

Wendy and I have started to notice a pattern. Right about the time the snow melts to the point where we can see patches of grass in our yard, a new snowstorm hits. Today was no exception. We opened the blinds, saw a patch of grass, and checked the weather: 2-4" of snow expected over the next few days.

I snapped these photos from our bedroom window the morning after one the larger snowstorms this year.





A few weeks ago the total lunar eclipse occurred. I shoveled and de-iced the deck the weekend before (which was a lot of work!), just in case it was clear that night. We lucked out and it was! Unfortunately though it was only 10 degrees that evening. So we put on as many clothes as we possibly could, wrapped ourselves in blankets, sat outside with a mug of hot chocolate and watched as much of the eclipse as possible. I think we lasted about 45 minutes, which isn't too bad. But we were really, really, cold.



Yesterday we drove down to Chicago and spent the afternoon at the Field Museum. We were drawn by a special exhibit on George Washington Carver. In college, we went to the George Washington Carver National Monument just outside Joplin, MO. At the time we knew him as "the peanut guy", but we soon discovered he was a much more fascinating person. In addition to being a scientist, he was an artist, a great educator, a tremendous friend and inspiration to countless people, and he possessed great humility and a great love of nature. His greatest contribution, though, didn't come from the laboratory, but from translating the results of science into knowledge and actions that the poor farmers of the day could use. We enjoyed the National Monument so much that this past Christmas we stopped there again on our way to Oklahoma. We found they'd expanded the building and put in several new exhibits, including some interesting audio interviews (Carver had a very unusual voice).

When we got home after Christmas, we saw that the Field Musuem was having an exhibit on Carver starting in February. We thought it a funny coincidence and decided to go check it out. We were not disappointed. I was especially pleased that they had a few more samples of his artwork. A lot of his artwork was lost in a fire, but the pieces I've seen -- mostly of plants -- are really good. It's definitely worth the price of admission.

After the Field Musuem, I dragged Wendy to a comic book store in north Chicago called Chicago Comics. It was cool; they had a large selection of graphic novels. And it was neat to see some of the north-side. Parking, as you can imagine, was a big mess, and I swear some of the cars parallel-parked along the street were so close to each other there's no way they could get out. Anyway, just to make things even, Wendy then dragged me to a store so she could go clothes shopping!


Finally, for our Wii-loving friends out there, we've started playing a new game that's a lot of fun: Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. It's flown under-the-radar a bit, but it's possibly the best third-party game available for the Wii. You play a young boy who wants to be a pirate, and the goal is to find treasure, but there are all kinds of puzzles you have to get through. It makes really good use of the Wii remote, and the puzzles are very clever. So far it's been a lot of fun.