The Police in Concert

This has been a summer of shows for me – The Lion King, Indigo Girls, the NSO’s “Broadway Rocks”, and the NSO’s “Dial H for Hitchcock”. But the highlight for me so far has been The Police. (Followed very closely by The Lion King.) I’ll try to write up the other concerts here later, but I want to say a bit about The Police before it fades too much.

I originally bought 2 tickets for The Police’s concert in Pittsburgh. I wasn’t sure who would go with me to the concert, but suspecting that I would drag along poor Andrew. Then I remembered that my aunt Maggie and I sang loudly to The Police on a drive down to the Keys one summer, so decided to invite her. No sooner did I get the words “I have two tickets to The Police in Pittsburgh,” than Maggie was saying, “I’ll go.”

Skipping ahead over our road trip (we totally got “Pixburghed”), and our fun for half a day in Pittsburgh (we really, really go “Pixburghed”), we made our way to the concert venue relatively early. We figured that we’d rather get there early and twittle our thumbs than get stuck in traffic or parking.

The venue, The Post-Gazette Pavillion, was rather nice. It’s an outdoor venue, and there are several food and drink vendors set up in a couple of cul-de-sacs on either side of the stage and lawn. (Maggie indulged in a glass of wine and a beer; I stuck with a smoothie).

The concert itself was awesome! I heard later that the earlier concerts a year ago were a bit…er…well, not terribly good. But, this one was great – they seemed to have pulled it together over the intervening year. They played both Maggie’s and my favorite songs (“Wrapped around your finger” and “Don’t stand so close to me”).

Sadly, our seats were behind tall-boy and big-haired-girl, but there were large screens, so we could see most of what was going on. And, they sat down during Maggie’s favorite song, so we stayed standing and were able to see every minute of it.

As with any moment like this – one that you’d always hoped would come, but not sure it would – it ended too soon. Our trip back to the hotel was another little adventure, but I’ll have to decide later if it merits a blog post…let’s just say that this was the one time that having an airport hotel did not make it easier to find (hee hee hee).

Tags: music

Regrouping

I know things have been quiet around here lately. I was hoping that after I defended that I would magically find a new fount of energy which would result in a flurry of activity both in my life and in my blog. Truth is, I’m tired. I’ve been tired for months, and I have a feeling that it’s going to take an equal amount of time to recover.

We did take a long weekend in Myrtle beach a couple weeks ago, and I have to say that it did wonders for my morale. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I was truly happy. I went into sensory overload in the Build a Dino Store there, but a good kind of sensory overload. We played loads of mini-golf, and also played in the ocean.

(All of my Myrtle Beach trips are here.)

We haven’t gotten on our bikes this year yet, and that’s probably going to wait until mid-June, after I get back from a meeting in St. Louis. I haven’t gotten into my scrapbooking yet, though hopefully that will pick up this weekend. I have had loads of ideas for blog posts (pink? in a John Deere store??), but lose interest by the time I get to a computer. I promise that I’m coming back, and I’m getting less tired and more happy every day, but I have a feeling that its going to be a while before “My Silly Life” is terribly active again.

I’m trying, though.

Tags: build-a-bear, trip report

Chicago Report

I just got back from Chicago – thankfully the migraine that threatened this morning did not manifest itself into a full-blown headache. Still not feeling great, but at least I’m home.

Here are some of the highlights of the trip:

• I flew out last Friday, a few days before my conference, so my parents and I could play for a couple days. They drove out from Minnesota, and we met up at the hotel Friday evening.
• Saturday we went out to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where Frank Lloyd Wright had a house and studio from 1889-1909. We toured the studio and house, and then took a walking tour of the neighborhood where FLW had designed several houses.Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of the day, because I lost my camera somewhere between the end of our walking tour and our hotel. Sigh. Dad and I went back that night, and we all went back Sunday morning, but no camera.
• Sunday, Mom, Dad, and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry (after first going to get me a new camera). I’ve been once before, but it was 10 years ago, so I didn’t remember much, and I’m pretty sure that much of it has been re-vamped since then. We didn’t do any of the “extra” activities, like the IMAX or touring the submarine, but we still spent all day there. If you’re in the area, I definitely recommend it.
  
• Monday, Labor Day, Mom and Dad had to head back, so they dropped me at the conference hotel, and after I settled in, Jo and I walked out to Navy Pier. She talked me into getting her a second Chicago t-shirt, with matching shoes. I also stumbled upon the stained glass window museum on the pier – very cool.
  
• Tuesday I walked around downtown, seeking out some of the public sculptures that were listed on my “pop-out” map of Chicago. I ended up at Millennium Park. One thing that struck me on my walk was the amount of green in Chicago. Not in the downtown, strictly, but between the city and the lake. Chicago has refused to let developments take over the waterfront, and has left a strip of green between the waterfront and the tall buildings. There were points when I was walking through the gardens that I could have easily forgotten that I was that close to a large city. It was very peaceful.
  
• Wednesday the conference began, and I started feeling ill. All-in-all not a bad conference, though I didn’t get in much networking, as I had hoped, because I’d just go back to my room after the sessions.

I’m glad to be home. It was mostly a good trip, besides losing my camera, skinning my knee, feeling ill, and nearly having a migraine while traveling. Huh. It doesn’t really sound like a good trip, does it. Oh well, it wasn’t as bad as all that.

Tags: build-a-bear, trip report

Sherlock’s Last Case

We went out to the Minnesota Centennial Showboat this evening to see Sherlock’s Last Case. This was Andrew’s first time at the Showboat, but hardly mine.

Back when I was in high school, my aunt Maggie would visit once or twice a year. This meant that my Mom was always looking for fun things for us to do when Maggie was in town. I don’t remember what year it was, but one summer Mom found an ad (or review) for the Showboat. We decided that it sounded like the perfect thing to take Maggie to.

Honestly, I don’t remember what shows we saw there. The experience, however, was always fun. The Showboat has generally played melodramas (at least in the summer shows we’ve gone to). This means that the show is generally a little campy, but also that the audience gets to participate by “boo”ing the villain and “yay”ing the hero. More than that, the show is always accompanied by “olio”s between the scenes. These olios often outshine the show itself. They defy explanation that will do them justice, but suffice it to say that they are silly, often hilarious, comedy-musical shorts.

I remember the Showboat being an old-fashioned paddle boat, complete with a large paddlewheel. I was a bit disappointed by the new showboat, which is really just a floating theater. According to the Showboat’s website, the boat I remember was shut down in 1993 for repairs. Sadly, it was destroyed in a fire set by a stray welding spark in 2000. A new showboat was commissioned, and opened in 2002. I suppose I can’t blame them for designing a new venue which would maximize stage and seating over a design with a paddlewheel, but still.

The current play is the first I’ve gone to at the new theater, and I must say that they have upheld the high standards I remember from my youth. The play was very well done, even if it was hard to tell sometimes who, exactly, the villain was. (At one point, the audience actually boo-ed Holmes, and egged on the man trying to kill him.) The olios were, as usual, a highlight, with the “Cover Girls” a personal favorite.

If you happen to be in the Twin Cities area and looking for something to do one evening, I highly recommend a show at the Showboat, no matter what that show might be.

Tags: trip report

Thar she blows…

I’d heard from one of the locals that the whale watching was spectacular this year, so I talked Andrew into going on a whale watching trip today. We took one of the three-hour tours out from Long Wharf (yes, a three hour tour…I get it, okay?). The boat took an hour to get out to the whales’ feeding grounds. There was a group of four whales feeding there – three grown whales and a calf. The whales would stay at the surface for a few minutes, and then dive (showing their flukes on the way) for a few minutes, reappearing later at some random location not terribly far from where they’d dove.

The calf got curious about our boat, and one surfaced on one side of it, swam under, and surfaced on the other side. My pictures don’t really show a scale, but s/he was about half the size of the catamaran we were on.

After we returned from the whale watching tour, we poked around Faneuil Hall, picking up a t-shirt for Felicia (she was here last November with us, but didn’t get a shirt because we couldn’t find a Build-a-Bear in a touristy area) and taking pictures of more of the Cow Parade cows. Finally we headed back to the hotel to rest and pack up for our trip home tomorrow.

Tags: trip report

Art Galore!

We spent much of the day at the Museum of Fine Arts. Andrew had read that they have the largest collection of Monets outside of Europe. So, even though Andrew is not a huge fan of Impressionism, he took me there. Fear not, there was plenty there for Andrew, too.

The museum had a large collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art. (Sweetie, I took the hedgehog picture for you. It’s an Egyptian vessel of some sort.)

They also had a great collection of antique instruments (plan little bit ahead for this one &150; the instrument room opens an hour after the museum, and closes about an hour before). In addition to some impressive harpsichords and pianos, they had some highly decorated harps and stringed instruments. Of course, I homed in on the case with a saxophone, which is pictured to the right. The other instrument in that picture is actually clarinet.

Of course, my favorite part was the Impressionism room. There were two of Monet’s Waterlilies and a slew of others. In the next room were a few Asian-inspired European pieces, including Monet’s La Japonaise, which I’m not sure I’ve seen before (in books or online, that is, since of course I haven ‘t seen it in person before). That’s the on pictured to the left.

After we left the Museum of Fine Arts, we poked around Boston Common for a while, seeking out some of the Cow Parade” cows.

Our final stop, for a busy, busy day, was a the Museum of Science for Body Worlds. Body Worlds is an exhibit of plastinized bodies. The exibition is touted as “educational”, though I might argue with that assessment. Certainly there was an educational aspect to the exhibit – there were rows of cases containing plastinized organs organized by the system they’re associated with (such as locmotion or digestion). These cases also showed some unhealthy examples of organs, such heart that had gone through a heart attack. And these cases were certainly educational.

However, the crux of the exhibit were the full bodies that were on display. They started innocently enough with just a full body, then one with a man leaning back with his hands behind his head, and one with his arm extended for a handshake. But then they started getting weird. There was a woman in a diving position, but her front and back had been split with her organs standing up in the middle. But that was mild compared to what was to come. In the next room, there was “drawer man”, with random squares cut from his body and then pulled forward or pushed back to expose his insides. The most disturbing one, to me, was “ring man” who was displayed holding onto altheletic rings. He had rings of skin removed from his body and extremities.

I wasn’t creeped out by the exhibit, as I thought I might be (which might be surprising, since it was completely my idea to go, while Andrew wasn’t sure about it). I would quibble with calling it a primarily educational exhibit, though. In fact, I’d call art, albeit with a questionable medium.

Tags: trip report

Play time!

The meeting ended today, and so-as not to waste my free ticket to Boston, Andrew came up today so we could play this weekend. We had made reservations at the Hotel@MIT. Yup, I went from Harvard to MIT. I must be smart.

I have to say that any crappy hotel would have been welcome after the Harvard dorms (no offense to Harvard or my suite-mate, but I just hate dorms), but this was no crappy hotel. The Hotel@MIT was beautiful and geeky all rolled into one. What more could a geek like me want?

There are patent pages behind the front desk, robots in cases in the lobby, and classic pictures of MIT around the whole hotel. Just outside each room, there are sconces that look like circuit boards. The best part? The throw blanket on the bed is full of equations (see picture at the right – click to see a larger view)! Oh, and in the hotel information booklet in the room, the first tab is connectivity! Finally, a hotel that understands what is most important!

Tags: trip report

A visit to Lexington

One of the guys helping with the meeting I’m attending lives in Lexington and volunteered to give us a tour. Most of the meeting participants (18 out of 25) signed up to go along on the tour. We met at Lexington Green, the site of a skirmish between the British and Rebels. (Though, Bruce, our native guide, was quick to point out that everyone was British at that time.)

After Bruce gave us a great telling of the history, we walked around the square for about 45 minutes. Sara and I went to see Buckman Tavern and then walked the couple of blocks to the Hancock-Clarke house, where John Hancock and John Adams were sleeping when Paul Revere rode into town to warn them of the coming British troups.

We capped the evening with dinner at Not Your Average Joe’s. Good food, and I sat at the fun table, so a good time. (Except for the “bug incident” – one of the women at our table had a salad, and pulled something out of her mouth when it tasted oddly spicy. It was a shield bug. Eeew! But, the manager made things right, and we didn’t have any complaints…well the soman with the bug might have, but she seemed to take it well with a little humor.)

Tags: trip report

Having fun in Boston

I don’t have time for a detailed entry right now, but thought I’d drop a quick note. First of all, I’ve posted some of my pictures from our adventures yesterday to Harvard’s historic scientific instruments collection: check them out on my Flickr stream. We also took a tour of the Great Refractor, and I have just a couple pictures on Flickr.

Wondering what else I’ve been up to? Check out the pics below:

More later.

Tags: trip report

King Tut in Chicago

We actually made it to Chicago and the Field Museum just in time for our 10-10:30AM entry tickets to the King Tut exhibition. We drove to Madison last night, and then left this morning around 6:30 AM to get to Chicago in time. In fact, we should have had plenty of time, but breakfast took almost an hour. At a truck stop. Normally breakfast is very fast at truck stops, so we weren’t sure what was going on there. We didn’t get to check in at our hotel before hitting the museum as a result, but at least we made it.

The exhibit was wonderful! Way too crowded, but great to see none-the-less. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the exhibit (not surprising), so all I have are a book of postcards. My favorite thing in the exhibit was a cartouche-shaped box with Tutankhamun’s name in it and an elaborate necklace/pectoral.

After the King Tut exhibit and lunch, we poked around the rest of the museum, though we only took in a few of the exhibits. We were still rather tired from our drive and early start this morning. Of course, we had plenty of time to spend money in the gift shops. After dropping a few bucks, we went to check into our hotel and take a bit of a rest.

After resting, we ventured out of our hotel to find dinner. Just a couple blocks down Michigan Ave. was the Hilton and Kitty O’Shea’s – an Irish pub which had great veggie burgers.

The Taste of Chicago is also this weekend, just across from our hotel. So, we decided to check it out. Of course, as soon as we got very close, we started to get overwhelmed by the crowds. We didn’t actually taste Chicago, but I did get to snap a few pictures of the cheesy midway carousel.

Finally we went back to the hotel and crashed. Lots packed into one very tiring day!

Tags: trip report