Me and the Muggy City

Oh man. IT IS HOT HERE! And not just hot...it's muggy. Yuck.

If it weren't for the indoor gym at my place, I wouldn't be running at all. Because running in the humidity just SUCKS. I've done it a few times already and it is horrible. Just an fyi for all of you out there.

Days like today make me really happy to be working inside a building with AC, as opposed to years past when I would be sitting outside suffering in the heat of the valley while making sure kids didn't drown, or have too much fun.

Work and life has been interesting to say the least. My parents and little sis (yup, Mama and Papa T came a-visitin') came and hung out in Chicago...well, I guess you can't just come and hang out from San Francisco. For those of you who don't know, Papa T grew up just a few hours from Chicago, and Mama T's parents retired to about 30 minutes from here -- so it was like coming home for them! Since I had to work, you know, because that's what I am here to do, they entertained themselves during the week and they we all hung out together on the weekend.

I managed to work extra during the week, so I could leave work SUPER early on Friday. Mama T then took us on the Tour of Illinois, seeing the house where my grandparents retired in Lake Forest, the house she spent a few years in when she was very young in lake Bluff, and then her grandmother's house in Zion. Apparently, Zion was started as a very religious community, with a very "for the good of the community" socialist view. It was kind of cult-like...something that you can't find on any website because they like it covered up. Crazy, right?

On Saturday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry (really, a return for me), and spent an ENTIRE day wandering around the museum. We got to go inside the U-boat this time, which was insane! This sub is 15 feet across at its widest, and 7 feet tall at its best. 59 sweaty, stinky men in this sub for 3 months at a time...quite a lovely picture to be had. The average temperature on the sub was somewhere in the mid-high 80s...nasty.

I think one of the best stories about the sub was that the US had to ignore all Geneva conventions when it came to capturing the men on this sub. They had 58 POWs to hide, and they wouldn't let the Red Cross or the German high command know of their capture, because otherwise Germany would know that the US had access to their codes for their code machine, Enigma. This code machine was amazingly complicated (even for now), and was proving to be impossible to crack. The U-boat was caught just 2 days before the invasion of Normandy, and therefore the Germans couldn't know that the US now had their codes and other valuable machinery. I'm not saying it was right, but there was definitely a reason why the US did what it did. But the information they got was....invaluable.

I also went down the coal mine, which was a really cool exhibit on the history of mining and how it works. The best part was when I visited Abbott Hall, which had to do with (shocker here) Biomedical! Yay! The whole hall was filled with exhibits like this one, which is an expanded inside body view -- it was so cool! This is why I want to do what I do, I love seeing this kind of thing.

The best part of the Abbott Hall (they donated over $2M -- that why I get in for free) is that they showcased one of their products that I have been working on, a fluorescent probe for seeing cancer cells in the chromosome for breast cancer. It is very interesting technology, and I get to see it in action every single day. This is why I became a biomedical engineer, because I want to be able to help people. And everything Abbott does helps.

And then, we drove by what might have been the coolest part of the day (after the expanded innards, of course)...the Transformers 3 set! They're filming a large part of the movie in Chicago, and so my mom looked up where they were filming and we did a driveby....multiple times. Isn't it neat?! For about four blocks around, there were trucks EVERYWHERE, and then on two blocks were completely sectioned off and it looked like this photo -- just a bunch of "crashed" cars and mayhem and destruction. Susan, I didn't see any Autobots or Decepticons unfortunately.

Sunday, we slowed it down a bit and went and visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park, which is about 20 minutes away from where I am staying. I give him this, Frank Lloyd Wright was an incredibly gifted architect...but not the best when it comes to people skills or maintaining a home life. He was a truly gifted architect at the expense of his family and everyone around him. He really was a control freak -- he designed dresses for the wives of his clients so that they could match the house! The house in Oak Park was the first that he designed, and he and his family lived there for a long time. He only lived there on and off for about 15 years before his wife finally gave him the divorce he wanted and he moved away for good. We then took a driving tour, and since Oak Park is where he lived for awhile there's a bunch of homes around that he designed. He was very famous for telling the builders, when they asked how they were suppose to build to his crazy drawings, "I don't know. I just designed it, you have to build it". He also felt that people should really be appreciative of being able to work with him, and therefore when they came looking to him for payment he rarely had it. He died destitute and poor...like so many brilliant minds do.

Unfortunately, it was back to work on Monday, and while Mama and Papa T, and little T , went into Navy Pier and Sears Tower I was in meetings. At least on Tuesday we had our Employee Picnic, so I was paid to eat some pretty good food, play softball, and just generally hang out. It was a lot of fun, and I can see that the employees here are of the "work hard, play hard" type. I think I could get used to this!

Lesley