Stunning

Wow.



There goes McCain's knock that Obama is too inexperienced.

I certainly hope that disappointed Clinton supporters are too savvy to fall for this blatant attempt at pandering. I mean - really - the high school down the street from me would constitute half the population of the town she was mayor of...

Under the sea

From planes to ships (and even a combine) - the past few weeks have been all about transportation for me!

My folks were in town to visit last weekend, and we made our first trip down to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was pretty cool!

We took the Coal Mine tour (explaining traditional and modern coal mining, particularly in Illinois), explored the Farming exhibits, and visited the massive model train exhibit (based on a "trip" from Chicago to Seattle).

Primarily, though, we toured the German U-505 submarine housed at the Museum. It was the only submarine captured in WWII, and recently the Museum constructed a massive underground hall to house it properly. The surrounding exhibits were informative and fairly cool in their own right.



The train exhibit.



U-505.



U-505 with torpedo.



My folks "driving" the absolutely immense harvester/combine.

Planes

My three least favorite days to live in Chicago have officially started - the annual Air & Water Show. (The cats, by the way, agree with me.)

If I'm in the Loop, it both looks and sounds like the planes are going to crash into the buildings. The "officials" issue reassurances that the planes are not allowed to "buzz" the skyscrapers, but I don't think the pilots bother to read those. If I'm at home, the planes on several of the routes turn right over our neighborhood - and it sounds like they're about 10 feet over our deck.

At least it's only three days, and the air show times are somewhat limited. I can make it to Sunday evening!

Bandwagon?

Even our cats are getting behind the Cubbies this year...

Climate change

Another day, another 238,000 households without power. (We, fortunately, are not among them. As evidenced by the fact that I am posting to this blog.)

Anyone who is skeptical about the on-going climate change should visit Chicago this year (and try to get a good night's sleep...). We have had more thunderstorms - and more dramatic thunderstorms - than I can ever remember having in a single summer, anywhere I've lived. I would be more entertaining if they didn't tend to hit around 1 a.m., and weren't strong enough to blast us awake. I'll still take it over earthquakes, tsunamis, etc., though.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

The more things change...

...the more they stay the same. It somehow feels very right to be rooting for the home team against That Team Up North. :-) And it was very satisfying to watch the Cubbies sweep the Brewers in Milwaukee - and take a 4+ game lead in the NL Central.

Of course, they then came back to Wrigley and promptly dropped one to the Pirates. I guess nothing's perfect!