Happy Monday!

In spite of starting my day by splattering coffee down the front of my white shirt (and then not noticing for 3 hours, giving it time to dry, and walking around like that, oblivious), it's been a really good day! I had a fun but tiring weekend...it just so happened that we were invited to a variety of activities (lunch with friends, dinners with friends/relatives, a boat ride on Lake Michigan), all on the same weekend. We ended up missing one get-together, unfortunately, because of the jam-packed-ness of the schedule.

And the Cubs won--doesn't get much better than that!

you learn something new every day

After I heard someone at Starbucks order a "black eye," I had to consult Wikipedia when I got back to the office. It turns out that a "red eye" is one shot of espresso in a regular coffee; a "black eye" is two shots, and a "dead eye" is three shots. Ha, ha! So funny. I would feel a little funny walking up to a counter and asking for a black eye, though.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Has anyone heard of this? It's been getting some press of late since it's being used to help find adventurer Steve Fossett who went missing in Nevada. The basic idea is that humans still outperform computers on certain kinds of analytical tasks--in this case, visually analyzing satellite photos. The term "Mechanical Turk" comes from a supposed automaton invented in 1769 by a Hungarian nobleman. By showing off its complex gears and machinery, he convinced people that it really was able to beat people in chess, though in reality there was a human chess master hidden inside. The idea behind Amazon's tool is that if you aggregate the observations of hundreds or thousands of people, you can not only observe a lot more data, but also sort out the totally useless pieces of information.

So in searching for Steve Fossett, users look at thousands of small square pieces of satellite photo and flag those that might contain a clue. There has actually been at least one plane found--where 10 people flagged the same square and then searchers can see if this is an old plane crash site, or what. I'm completely fascinated by this technology; I even logged in with my Amazon account and searched through a few images.

Thursday Afternoon "Adventure" (a.k.a. "The Most Expensive Lunch Ever")

Leaving the office for the day at 2pm would ordinarily be a really cool thing. But leaving due to an allergic reaction to mango that I didn't know was in my lunch salad was not so fun.

Starbucks Curry Chicken Salad...$6.00
Benadryl...$7.00
Cab Ride to the Hospital...$10.00
Copay for ER visit...$100
Prescriptions...$60.00
Learning that I have not outgrown my childhood food allergies like everyone thought I would....Priceless.

If you thought you were a Cubs fan...

....this guy's got you beat.

He's building a scaled-down replica of Wrigley Field in a public park in his hometown of Freeport, IL. It's got everything from the ivy-covered brick wall (Cubs officials sent him clippings of the actual ivy), to the Harry Caray cartoon over the WGN press box. Lucky little league kids (and anyone who wants to rent it for $35/hour) will get to use it starting next year. Here's my favorite part of the article:

"Like so many ideas - both good and bad - the concept for Little Cubs Field was born in a bar. Five years ago, Garkey and a group of friends took a road trip to a baseball mecca: Rookies Food & Spirits, a sports saloon and restaurant in Mazomanie, Wis., which - as its main attraction - boasts a professional whiffle ball field.

Garkey looked out at the field that day and thought to himself: "It's too bad it doesn't look like Wrigley." Then a thought occurred to him. Why not build a little Wrigley Field? A few days later, he sat down with his wife and said, "Honey, I've got a crazy idea." Judy Garkey - an endlessly patient woman - told her husband, "Go for it." (Five years later, she says she doesn't regret supporting her husband's idea, but she does acknowledge that he has become "obsessed with completing it.")"

CSI: The Experience

We went to the CSI exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday; it was really cool. It was actually an interactive experience where each person or group is assigned a case (there were 3 options), is given a clipboard, and you start by examining the crime scene. Then you move on to various labs (trace, toxicology, autopsy, digital evidence, etc.) to figure out what everything means. There were lots of videos done by CSI cast members, as well as actual experts. Everything was very well done---looked amazing, and was both fun and educational. I left wishing it was longer, or that I could have solved all 3 cases. It's only around for another week, unfortunately. But it looks like it'll be at other locations in the future.

After the Storm

There may be a calm before the storm, but the aftermath is anything but! There are huge tree branches, and in some cases entire trees, littering the area near home. The photo here was actually one of the clearest portions of the sidewalk on the way to the train this morning. I'm very thankful that we didn't get any damage to our building or our car.

The river has flooded the main road near us--River Road is actually now a river in one place as well as a road. The traffic is being diverted down our street. Quite a mess. The view from the train was spectacular; I'll try to get some pictures later today.

It's so weird that much of our neighborhood--and even our block--has electricity but our building doesn't. We're going over to our friends' house at dinner time today with our cooler full of frozen meat---time for a barbecue! I had to empty the rest of the freezer and fridge this morning, which was already starting to drip onto the kitchen floor. It was a good opportunity to clean out some of the past-their-prime sauces and dressings. Now I have to actually clean the inside of the fridge, and we'll be ready for a load of new food! I think this is the third time in 6 years that we've lost a freezer/fridge full of food. I guess the lesson is to not keep it too full, since we don't have a big chest freezer or any other kind of backup plan.

Since the emergency lights only lasted 4 hours, it has been genuinely creepy in our condo building, even during the daytime. The interior hallways and stairwells are completely without natural light. We've been using flashlights, but I didn't want to take one to work with me, so this morning I used my phone to light the way down the stairs. Pretty funny, I thought.

The Tribune now says that there are still 245,000 people without power. I wonder how long it will be until ours is restored? Oh, well; at least it's summer and it's light for a long time, otherwise we'd have a more difficult time getting ready in the morning, or doing anything, for that matter.

I'm so glad it's Friday. I am looking forward to a nice weekend spent with family and friends, and enjoying our last use of our Museum of Science and Industry membership before it expires. So glad we get to see the CSI special exhibit.

iPhone to the rescue (sort of)

I discovered a very nice benefit of the iPhone: internet during power outages! The storm knocked ours out at home. I was able to see the weather radar. Our car had a near miss with a downed tree branch today, too. We're now on the way to our friends' house for dinner. We already had dinner plans and it's a good thing since we can't cook anyway.

Of course, lots of phones can access the Internet, but this one looks cooler. :)

Flooded streets + tree branches + rush hour = really bad traffic! But since the worst is over, this is much better than being at home in the dark!

new gadget!

So, I'm not usually the first person on the block to get a new gadget (though I always wish I was), but this time around I lucked out. My employer got me an iPhone (and they're going to pay my cell phone bills). So what if the intent is to keep me better connected to office email? It's very cool. There were a couple of glitches in the set-up and activation process, but overall it's really easy to use, and it is going to be nice to check my email on the train on the way into the office.

Post-vacation recovery

I've been home for 3 weeks, and I think I have finally made it through all of the digital photos, receipts, piles of stuff, etc. that resulted from my trip. It would not normally take that long, but I've spent the last 2 weeks recovering from a cold/sinus infection. I only missed a few days of work, but if I hadn't had a huge project due, I would have missed more and probably recovered faster. Oh, well...it's good to be needed at work. :) I "only" printed 120 of the 500+ photos that I took on the trip, and managed to get them all in an album already. It's not the prettiest looking album I've ever created, but it works just fine.