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