Much geekery to be had here.

I always like to keep a few spare vacation days for the end of year, just in case something unexpected were to occur and I'd need the time off. Usually this just means I have a couple extra days to burn come December. Last Friday, MoPo and I pondered whether we should spend our day off sleeping in and being slackers or whether we should be ambitious and cultural and head on over to the Museum of Science and Industry. Astonishingly, the museum won out.

I've never been there before and was really, really impressed. I'd count these amongst my favorite things (be warned that there is much geekery beyond this point):

• The U-505 Submarine exhibit, the only real German submarine in the United States, now a national war memorial. It was definitely one of the most memorable exhibits I've ever been to because, you know, it's a real German U-boat.  The exhibit starts by acquainting you with the Battle of the Atlantic and describing how the American capture of the U-boat took place. Then you turn a corner and, remarkably, the submarine is right there, so close you can reach out and touch it. The Museum employs volunteers who go around talking to visitors; the one who approached us had served on an American submarine in the 1950s and chatted our ears off for a good 10 minutes (you could tell that this guy was the talker type--he even gave us a recipe for homemade muffins; how's that for random?). Interestingly, we found out that one of the POWs from the U-505 actually came back to work as a guide when the sub was moved to Chicago. However, while the standard exhibit is impressive enough, paying the extra $8 to go inside the sub is where it's at. You start to appreciate the living conditions of the 50-60 men who lived on that sub for 100 days at a time.  They had to sleep in rotations in order to share a limited number of cots, could not shower while only possessing one set of clothes, and had only two ridiculously small bathrooms for their use (of which they had to "eat" their way into the second one, since enough canned food for the entire tour was stored throughout the ship). The most telling realization I had, however, was that the Germans tried to recruit men under 5'6" for a very good reason, as I spent the majority of my time on board hunched over to avoid hitting my head.  
• The temporary Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit, which displayed many of his conceptual drawings, storyboards, and puppets (Rowlf! Gobo!). I didn't realize that Henson got his start by making short, eight second commercials. Nor did I realize how rough of a time it must be to man that Big Bird costume on Sesame Street.  A full body costume, Big Bird's head is operated by the puppeteer's arm (wouldn't his arm go numb after having it elevated for so long a period of time?) while using a camera wrapped around his stomach, located inside the costume, to navigate around the set. The exhibit didn't just address the creativity of Jim Henson but also the themes of much of his work, such as how people can work together and reach unique compromises because of their differences. I guess there's a reason why I own the complete Fraggle Rock series on DVD, despite it simply being awesome. :)
• They had smaller exhibits dedicated to tornadoes and tsunamis (where people could "control" the movement of the tornado or the strength of the tsunami), had a baby chick hatchery where kids can witness these little birds pecking their way out of the shell (I couldn't find anybody to ask what they do with all these baby chickens after they hatch), a really intricate electronic train set that was massive in scale, and so many other really cool things.

It was a good time, made even better by capping the night off with a delicious Indian meal.  Not a bad way to spend a day away from work!

-KP

Randomnicity (12.12.10 Edition)

Hello, all!

Another Thanksgiving come and gone; another Christmas *thisclose* to being here, and all that holiday family drama that drives a person like me, who tries to remove himself from any and all kinds of drama, absolutely crazy. To be fair, the drama wasn't all that ridiculous during Thanksgiving--it's just that my tolerance for drama ebbs and flows, and my threshold for it wasn't particularly high for it this last go around.

Anyway, let's get to it.

• I finished reading Lamb last week and while the middle third of it was a touch slow, on the whole I rather enjoyed the approach (what did Jesus do for that missing 30 year time period in his life?) and humor ("What is this thing?" / "It's a Yeti. An abominable snowman." / "This is what happens when you fuck a sheep?" / Not an abomination, abominable.").  Christopher Moore says upfront that he's not trying to change anyone's religious views; rather, he is trying to write an entertaining story that anyone would enjoy. I think, for the most part, he succeeded (I do think that the uber-devout and the serious may not appreciate it as much as those folks who can laugh at life).  Personally, my takeaway was this: that true faith and religiousness spans across all walks of life, no matter what institutions you belong to or what rituals you practice--and that it is man who had a hard time accepting Jesus' preachings that the Kingdom is open for everyone. I'd recommend giving it a read.
• Keeping on the theme of religion, can I say it's a pet peeve of mine when people tell me that they'll pray for me? Unfortunately, I recently had a conversation with a family member about my religious world view. Mainly, that while I'm not convinced a God exists, I'm also open to the possibility of a God (in any shape or form). I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist. And, truly, it bugs the crap out of me when people talk about "God's plan" when it pertains to my own life. My successes are due to my hard work; my failures are due to my shortcomings. Sure, there are things that are out of my control (I may get killed in a fiery car crash by a drunk driver) and I am entirely OK with that, but don't try and take away my accomplishments by attributing them to somebody else. During this conversation, I tried to explain this sentiment, how I possess an internal locus of control (vs. the need to believe that my life is determined by fate or God, etc.), and how I believe my decisions are all my own, and I was informed that all this means is that I just don't believe in God. Fine. Maybe not. But like I said above, I don't don't believe in God, either. But now I'm hearing a lot of "I prayed for you on Topic X."  Even if I were an atheist, why would you tell me those things? It does nothing but irk me.  I will support you and understand it if you you are religious and believe in a God, but if I'm entirely OK with leading my life as I am, why should it bother you? It doesn't affect you at all. OK, rant ended.
• Let's shift this to something far less serious. How about fantasy football? This is only my third year playing fantasy and it is as every bit as life-consuming as you've heard. As reigning league champion (yep, that's bragging), I couldn't believe my atrocious 2-5 start to the season. The supreme worthlessness of Randy Moss (first round draft pick) and the injury of Pierre Thomas (third round draft pick) heavily contributed to that start, but somehow I managed to go on a six game tear and currently sit at 8-5 (thanks Michael Vick and Jacob Tamme!), ranked second out of 12 teams but, because of a divisional format, only hold a potential wild card berth at the moment. The real kicker of it? MoPo is in the same division (hell, the top three finishers from last year were corralled into the same division) and we go head to head this weekend. She's a game behind me at 7-6 and I'm fairly certain we're the only teams duking it out for the wild card. Everyone else would finish with seven wins or less. If she wins, we're both 8-6 and she advances to the playoffs because of the divisional record tiebreaker. If I win, I'm in. And in no way, shape, or form are we a competitive bunch and egging each other on (anyone seen the FX series The League?)... 
• I think I may have been the only one who actually liked the Packers' throwbacks last weekend.

• Oh, and because I keep forgetting to blog about this--I saw one of my favorite people at Lambeau when Green Bay played Detroit!

• Definitely taking two vacations next year. We're pretty committed to spending 7-10 days on the Big Island (I love Hawaii) and then we're trying to take another vacation with some good friends of ours. Getting that full extra third week of vacation is going to be awesome--if only the American capitalist mentality would provision for more vacation days!
• I just looked outside and all this blizzardy snow that the midwest got slammed with must have missed the northwest suburbs of Chicago (though it didn't miss the Metrodome---hahaha). Either that, or the wind has blown it all out of view from my apartment windows--it just looks like a light dusting out there.
• The next book I'm attempting to conquer is The Passage which, at about 180 pages in, seems pretty well written and is creeping me out.
• MoPo keeps asking me when I'm going to shave off my beard. I keep finding ways to prolong that decision. Truth be told, I'm not keeping it because I necessarily like it, but rather because I like that it's different (much like I grew my hair out to a ridiculous length last year).
• I finally succeeded in getting back into a gym routine over the course of the these last four weeks. If anything, the vacation planning was the final motivator I needed to accomplish this.  Now, if I'm just sitting around the apartment with nothing productive to do, or I partook of the beverages the night prior, I actually feel a little bad if I haven't exercised.  In essence, that need for external motivation has led to a new set of internal motivators, and that's kind of cool.

 Alright, time for my pre-game ritual of video game playing.

-KP