The New Year

Part of the 6 states I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago was the state of Illinois (and Indiana in the driving route).  My friend KarmX kindly invited me to hang out with her for New Years when I explained I was a little bit at loose ends, so I drove to central Illinois on New Years Eve (after working that day).

My work desk all clean and ready for 2016.  It's already much messier after only one month!

We enjoyed playing some silly games like trying to throw and catch cotton balls, giant dutch blitz, picking up M&Ms with a straw, etc.  I even got to play some 4-on-4 basketball and lightning/knockout, so that was fun.  The next day I hung out with KarmX and her extended family.  Mostly we spent the day playing games including the game Splendor, which was a new game for me.  I didn't know very many people when I arrived, but by the time I left I felt like I knew a lot of those people.

On the way home I stopped at the Museum of Science and Industry in downtown Chicago.  My main purpose in going was to see the robot exhibit they had, but I also thoroughly enjoyed other parts of the museum.  I spent more than an hour in the weather exhibit, and I also toured the inside of the U505 submarine they have on exhibit.  If you ever go to the museum, I recommend taking the U505 tour.  It was as good or maybe even better than the robot exhibit.  I was kind of bummed I didn't find anyone else to go with me to the museum.  There was a bright side though:  I could spend as much time reading the signs and contemplating the science and industry in the museum as I wanted.  So that's exactly what I did.

German U-505 submarine captured by the U.S. during WWII.

Look closely at this picture.  See the bladder looking thing? with a scuba type mouthpiece?  See the googles and nose plug?  Check them out, and then read the detailed explanation in the next picture.  Very fascinating stuff.

Explanation of WWII German "scuba" gear.

Giant dials on the U-505.

U-505 torpedo room and bunks.  They described the conditions on the submarine during the tour, and they sounded pretty miserable.  No showers.  In the submarine for months on end.  Very warm temperatures.  "Hot bunking", which means someone else sleeps in your bunk when you're up and awake.  The upside is they didn't have to wear their uniform because it was so hot, and they were allowed to listen to "contraband" French music.

One of those Da Vinci robots that doctors use to do surgeries.

Robot speak.  Speaking of robots, January is the month the robotics season starts....

Oddly enough, while I was at the museum I ran into another engineer from my group at work.  He was there with his sister and her family.  It's a small world.  All for now.  More later on other states visited.  Happy 2016!

Business and Pleasure in Vegas

About a week and a half ago I "had" to go to Las Vegas to the Consumer Electronics Show. Work sent me.  That was 3 full days of walking around looking at booths on the convention floor.  And meeting vendors and stuff.  Then Uncle Bex flew in on Friday night and the party started.  Cuz Mowla also happened to be in town by coincidence on Sunday, so we saw her for a bit too.  I have lots of pictures, so I'll keep the words short.  Flat MelBMarvis was on the trip, but I didn't let her out of the hotel room because I forgot to bring her along.  The pictures can be my "bullet points."

On the way there, I had 5 hours of flight delays.  Enough to walk around and see all the gates at Midway airport.  And to find (and lightly use) the yoga room there.  It's in Concourse C if you want to go use it.  The delays were due to fog in Vegas and not snow in Chicago if you can believe that.  I made it to my hotel room by 12:30 AM Vegas time, which is 3:30 AM in my home time zone.  Uff-da.

Demos of virtual reality shoot-em-up video games.  You can get your exercise that way too.

Nice slogan.  Hear the spit hit the mic.

I believe they were trying to demonstrate you could take their mini projector anywhere, but they should have thought it through a little bit.  Because everybody goes camping to get in touch with the movies they can watch at home.

iFIT brought some Cirque de Soleil to CES. I was too slow on getting my camera out, but that one lady used that sheet hanging from the ceiling to do some fancy gymnastic moves.

The smart pillbox.  Sorta.  It sends notifications if someone doesn't take their medicine on time.  It can do some basic tracking to make sure you took the right pills.  I was slightly disappointed though.  I would have thought it would actually keep you locked out of your pills until the approved time.  But maybe there would be some failure modes that would need to be thought about if you did that.  What if someone dropped a pill and it rolled under the stove?  How do they get a replacement?

Nice view of the hotel work paid for me to stay at during the week.

One of the best shows to see on the Strip.  It's free, and I got to see it twice.

On Saturday Bex and I went to the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.  I would highly recommend it.  I think these pictures will tell you why.  Luckily we narrowly avoided a sunburn.

Petroglyphs from Native Americans.  I think this one says "Running Bear hearts White Dove" and "Galloping Deer was here".

Bex in an arch.

Finding shade to rest for the day until night falls and I can walk without getting super dehydrated.  Just like in all the Louis L'Amour novels.

Cliff Hanger.  ;-)

 

They charge $1 to use the bathroom there (but only if you poop).  One place had a sign that said they  charged $5.  That's a lot!

 

Cool geological formations.

Part of the hike to/from the Fire Wave Rock.

A cool "spine" in the rock.  Note how the rock is a lighter color along the spine.

Fire Wave Rock.

Silica dome and some very cool sandstone formations.  The white rocks are almost pure silica.  The reddish ones have iron in the silica.

Sunday afternoon and Monday morning we went to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to do some hiking.  We also went to morning meeting with Mowla and her sisters-in-law.  It's always encouraging to go to a meeting that isn't your "normal" one and have the spirit speak to you.

Cuz Mowla and Mex

Mex and Bex

Don't do it......

Ananias style picture of Red Rock Canyon area and the canyon mouth we hiked toward.

Bex captioned this "Camel in the Desert."  If you do yoga, you'll get that joke.

A couple cool looking rock stacks we saw on Monday morning.

 On our Monday hike I scared up a jackrabbit, and Bex scared up a coyote.  I kind of got a bit off track on the way back to the car, so Bex beat me there and had time to chat with Robert while she waited for me.  When I got back into Midway, winter was in full force.  It was a miserable drive home through the icy and snowy roads, and I made it home at 1:30 AM.  That's better than 3:30 AM I suppose, but it's still brutal when you're supposed to be at work at 8:00 AM.

Quick Update

It seems like it's been forever since I posted.  And maybe 3 weeks is forever.  It sure feels like I did a lot - maybe because I did.  I've been in six states in the last 3 weeks.  That feels like enough for a while.

Until I have more time to type, here are a couple things from last week.

This totally cracked me up, especially the instructions on how to use it.

I saw booths for this several times.  Is this quackery, or does this work?  Or a little bit of both?  Have any of my readers out there done real research on this?