It's a puzzle!

I have found a couple of game sites on the web I frequent where there's a lull at work. Tweeler and Big Fish Games have games in both PC and Mac format. Games have a free play mode as well as the ability to download a trial. Tweeler games free trial can be as long as 80 minutes, while Big Fish's trial is an hour. The graphics are excellent and, at $6.99 for 90% of their games, you can't really go wrong. The best part is that if you find a game you like, it sometimes is on sale at Big Fish for $2.99 as they have daily specials.

I'm partial to the time management games, where you have to accomplish so much in a given time, or the puzzle games where you move a certain number of pieces in a given time. I also like the find object games but can be frustrated when you are out of hints and can't find an object. This impedes your progress through the levels. I like the puzzle within a puzzle game where I can earn additional hints by doing other puzzles.

We were walking through the museum and reached the section about modern farming. One of the ways the museum heightens the experience is by making the floors, walls and ceilings part of the exhibit. Witness the carpet in the farm section.

Not only did I laugh at the 'holstein-ness' of the carpet but the pattern reminded me of a game where you have to align the squares to one another to create the ultimate picture.

So, if I rotate this square one turn to the right and this square one turn to the left, the one below this one has to go to the left while this square has to go to the right. No, that's not right. Let's turn this square 3 times left and this one twice right.

You folks just go on. I'll be here awhile.

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb

This museum does spotlight technology.

I needed to use the little girls' room. In place of knobs and faucets, there was this. You stuck your hand under the right area and, viola, soap and warm water. No knobs. No blobs of soaps. No adjusting to get the right temperature. No trying to find the automatic on switch on one of those faucets that sits there, mocking you because the sensor is the size of a poppyseed. It's all stainless steel, so it's also easy to clean. It was one large trough.

To the right along this sink, just out of the photo was a small icon for the dryer. But someone walked in at that point and I thought they would find it odd I was taking photos of the bathroom.

After lunch and a full cup of tea, I used another restroom and saw this hand dryer.

It looks straight out of a bad sci-fi movie. In the movie, the evil scientist has taken over the museum and installed these innocent looking hand dryers. You stick your hands down into this and the two pieces clamp together. You're sucked into his laboratory where he turns you into mindless mutants following his every command.

No, it's not that cheesy. You stick your hands into the area highlighted in orange and a blast of hot air dries your hands in about 10 seconds. It doesn't sound possible, I know, because we've all been exposed to those hot air dryers that tell you to hit the button, stick your hands in the air flow, rub them around for 30 seconds until the air ends, then wipe them on your pants because they aren't dry. 10 seconds. I swear. The air wasn't uncomfortably hot. There was a lot of it and it was powerful. I think kids might have some difficulty keeping their hands in the flow as it was that strong.

In the movie, "Desperately Seeking Susan", Madonna's character uses the old style air blowers to dry herself off. You can't do that with this. The air is kept right inside the area where you stick your hands.

Yes, I'm impressed and you could jokingly say, "Doesn't take much to impress you, does it?" But what's also impressive is that these technologies make bathrooms cleaner, cutting down on paper towel waste, and reduce energy consumption. It probably costs a bundle to retrofit a public bathroom and, let's face it, if you are Macy's, Nordstrom's, Bloomingdale's and their ilk, this is not what you want your lavatories to look like, a wall of stainless steel. But in other locations where the masses go, this would be quite effective at doing what needs to be done.

In a museum spotlighting new technologies, you expect something bright and shiny everywhere.

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb

Not your typical museum food.

I don't remember food at the museum being this good. I remember the museum had a Pizza Hut outlet when we were members. Finnigan's Ice Cream Parlor is still there. I remember long tables and a series of cases with packaged food. Nothing was fresh and the walls were lined with vending machines to supplement whatever you pulled from the case.

Not anymore. The vending machines have been scaled back and there was a bakery/cafe near the food court. We opted to go to the food court because there were a lot of choices.

To the left is Carole's lunch. She got mostaccioli with meat balls in marinara sauce, red devil's food cake and apple juice.

David got macaroni and cheese, rice, a chicken kebob with a dinner roll, German chocolate cake, an M&M cookie and apple juice.

Niles got a vegetarian salad which he said was pseudo-Korean, fries and a dirt cup.

If you have kids, you remember this. It's crushed Oreo cookies, chocolate pudding and gummi worms on the top.

There was so much to choose from; a deli, a grill, a pasta and pizza bar, a 'homestyle' grill as well as prepackaged food. I was torn between pasta and a deli sandwich until I saw the make your own salad. It's a selection of mixed greens, chicken, dried cranberries and crispy noodles with a Thai peanut dressing. For dessert, I had double chocolate cake, of course and hot tea.

Yeah, it's pricier than pulling something out of a freezer case, but everything was fresh and it didn't taste like it had been sitting around for 3 weeks.

The other nice thing about the food court is that school groups, and there were many today, were not eating in that space. You could take your time to browse and make a decision without worrying that some 3rd grader was going to bump your tray and send your meal flying. We had a great meal without feeling rushed. That makes all the walking worth it.

Beverage: English Breakfast Tea

Deb

5 1/2 hours on the feet, but so worth it.

I went to the Museum of Science and Industry today with my daughter, her boyfriend, David, and her friend from high school, Niles. I had not been in the museum since early in the morning in January 2009 when my company's structural engineers did a study in preparation for the redoing of the west exit. We were there before the museum opened and didn't really walk around.

This place was originally built for the World Columbian Exposition, one of the few permanent structures. Daniel Burnham had the ultimate design concept for the fair and is credited with taking the swampy south side of Chicago and creating the lagoons that are still south of the museum. There was a very small exhibit of artifacts in the museum but I remember, when we were members, on the 100th anniversary of the building and the fair, a grand exhibit of the building and how it fell into disuse until rehabilitated. It has seen a number of additions and expansions. We were able to see about half of it in the 5.5 hours we were there.

Carole and David took hundreds of photos. As I have only one memory card left, I am limited to 25. This is one of the side hallways. These planes, originals, hang above the model railroad.

One of the highlights of the museum has been the preservation of the captured U-Boat, the U505. Briefly, in the week before the D-Day invasion, Chicago native, Captain Daniel Gallery, chanced upon the U-boat near the Canary Islands. In the span of 6 minutes, Captain Gallery and the ships and airplanes under his command disabled the sub. Men boarded the vessel and prevented it from sinking. It was then towed to Bermuda where it was searched and anything that could be learned was. The capture was kept completely secret until after the war and the sub went on a tour of east coast cities. It was decommissioned after the war and Captain Gallery convinced the Navy to give it to his hometown. It was towed through the St. Lawrence Seaway and into Lake Michigan, arriving at the shore across Lake Shore Drive from the museum. In September of 1954, it was moved across Lake Shore Drive and positioned on the east side of the museum. In 1971, my family made a trip to Chicago and I remember taking a tour of the sub.

On the occasion of its 50th birthday, it was announced that the sub was in dire need of preservation. Chicago weather is not kind to outdoor artifacts. Without some sort of preservation effort, the sub would become unsafe for tours. The museum launched its biggest preservation effort ever, to move the sub into a climate controlled area. My company provided vibration monitoring for the building of the room to house the sub. I was not on this project personally other than a few things at the beginning as I had several large projects in downtown Chicago to oversee.

In April of 2004, the sub was moved from its east museum site to a north site where it was lowered into the ground. Luke, who had worked on the monitoring project, was invited to watch some of the moving of the sub so we drove down and watched the machinery creep along toward the room where the sub would rest. I had not been to the exhibit since it had opened. We did not have time to take the sub tour as we wanted to see the IMAX presentation on the Hubble Telescope.

The exhibit is incredible. There is a lot to read and take in about the sub, the technology of the day and the capture itself. We were going to go to the Art Institute today, but that was scuttled in favor of spending at least an hour just walking around this area. This is an outstanding example of preservation.

The one thing that struck me about the sub was how much the rear copies the outline of a whale. I know I have seen photos of whales with their flippers down as they glide through the water.

While it does cost a fair penny to get into the museum, it's well worth the trip and the time.

Beverage: English Breakfast Tea

Deb