Tunneling Under the Midway--Urban Speleology
I went on a tour with the facilities manager of the University to learn how our campus gets our energy. Eight students and I were given a tour of the University Steam Plant--which was pretty cool (and the staff that work there are really nice). I was shocked to learn that the University spends over $6 million in Natural Gas each year; but at least we've been improving the efficiency of how we use it. The best part of the tour was starting out at the steam plant and walking in the underground steam tunnels for about half a mile or so as they tunneled under the midway. It was hot and sticky inside, with calcium carbonate deposits on the floor of the tunnel along with mud and water. Most of the time it was easy to walk along, but sometime the pipes would be overhead and you would have to scrunch down and walk underneath them on little bridges. It was kinda neat to know that you were in a tunnel underneath roads and people above, it felt like an adventue. I wished we could have walked the entire way to the center of campus and popped out of one of the grates to end the tour. The tunnels (which are all over campus) were build in the 20's by the Army Corps of Engineers, and guess it used to be a tradition for different classes from the UofC to explore inside and write their names. Now though, there are locked gates every few hundred feet.
Next Friday I'll be going on another tour. This time I'll get to see the off-limits part to the Reg (in the basement) where most of the controls are to the campus and we'll get to explore some tunnels down there. I'm looking forward to it.
More Proof: I Really Am Turning into my Mom
I went to Walgreens and the Coop to drop off four rolls of film to be developed. Outside in the courtyard of the surrounding stores the Hyde Park Garden Fair was going on. At first I quickly walked through just to have a peek at all of the plants filling up the sidewalk, and I was proud of myself when I walked away emptyhanded and went into the Coop to buy some groceries. But then, when I was leaving I just couldn't resist going back. My family likes to garden, and when I was little we used to have two big vegetable gardens in our back yard--I used to get so happy and excited to plant the corn and watch it grow until finally I could pick it and eat it fresh for dinner. And the carrots too--they taste so much better when you've handpicked them right out of the ground. Along with lots of vegetables (tomato, rhubarb, corn, carrots, squash, pumpkin, articoke, broccholi, califlower, plus more) and fruit (a grafted apple tree where half produced red and half produced green, a plum tree, grape vines, blueberries, raspberries, and best of all: marionberries!) my parents have both loved planting many other plants in our yard. My mom loves giving people tours of her plants and explaining little details about each one--it's really cute how happy she gets to do this. Sunflowers, Cosmos, Calalillies, Foxglove, Lilac, Lily of the Valley, Violets, Geraniums, Marigold, various types of fern, Rhododendron, Heather, tons of Roses, Iris, and over a hundred more. I used to tell my parents that they spent more time, energy, and money on our yard then they did on our family (teasing of course). Now when I call home it's so hard to get my parents to answer the phone because most of the time if it's still light outside they're working on planting, landscaping and maintaining our 1.5 acres of yard.
I've become a sucker for plants, just as my best friend Kate is (her mother and my mother are very similar in their love of the outdoors). So when I went back to the Garden Fair I spent at least 20 minutes roaming around looking at every single plant there until I decided on spending (too much money) $3.00 on a cascading white Geranium which is now sitting in the living room of my apartment.
The Matrix Reloaded The crowd to get in at the Michigan Ave theatre was ridiculous! Once in though, the movie was ok. I'm not really a fan of science fiction though, so it was hard for me to appreciate the movie, although I did enjoy a lot of it, and some of the fight scenes were great (while others were a little much). It was funny though, because after this week in Paleontology doing a lab on the Uppper Paleozoic, all I could think about was how much the machines in the matrix looked like crinoids--specifically the anthus, with the theca and brachioles.
I went on a tour with the facilities manager of the University to learn how our campus gets our energy. Eight students and I were given a tour of the University Steam Plant--which was pretty cool (and the staff that work there are really nice). I was shocked to learn that the University spends over $6 million in Natural Gas each year; but at least we've been improving the efficiency of how we use it. The best part of the tour was starting out at the steam plant and walking in the underground steam tunnels for about half a mile or so as they tunneled under the midway. It was hot and sticky inside, with calcium carbonate deposits on the floor of the tunnel along with mud and water. Most of the time it was easy to walk along, but sometime the pipes would be overhead and you would have to scrunch down and walk underneath them on little bridges. It was kinda neat to know that you were in a tunnel underneath roads and people above, it felt like an adventue. I wished we could have walked the entire way to the center of campus and popped out of one of the grates to end the tour. The tunnels (which are all over campus) were build in the 20's by the Army Corps of Engineers, and guess it used to be a tradition for different classes from the UofC to explore inside and write their names. Now though, there are locked gates every few hundred feet.
Next Friday I'll be going on another tour. This time I'll get to see the off-limits part to the Reg (in the basement) where most of the controls are to the campus and we'll get to explore some tunnels down there. I'm looking forward to it.
More Proof: I Really Am Turning into my Mom
I went to Walgreens and the Coop to drop off four rolls of film to be developed. Outside in the courtyard of the surrounding stores the Hyde Park Garden Fair was going on. At first I quickly walked through just to have a peek at all of the plants filling up the sidewalk, and I was proud of myself when I walked away emptyhanded and went into the Coop to buy some groceries. But then, when I was leaving I just couldn't resist going back. My family likes to garden, and when I was little we used to have two big vegetable gardens in our back yard--I used to get so happy and excited to plant the corn and watch it grow until finally I could pick it and eat it fresh for dinner. And the carrots too--they taste so much better when you've handpicked them right out of the ground. Along with lots of vegetables (tomato, rhubarb, corn, carrots, squash, pumpkin, articoke, broccholi, califlower, plus more) and fruit (a grafted apple tree where half produced red and half produced green, a plum tree, grape vines, blueberries, raspberries, and best of all: marionberries!) my parents have both loved planting many other plants in our yard. My mom loves giving people tours of her plants and explaining little details about each one--it's really cute how happy she gets to do this. Sunflowers, Cosmos, Calalillies, Foxglove, Lilac, Lily of the Valley, Violets, Geraniums, Marigold, various types of fern, Rhododendron, Heather, tons of Roses, Iris, and over a hundred more. I used to tell my parents that they spent more time, energy, and money on our yard then they did on our family (teasing of course). Now when I call home it's so hard to get my parents to answer the phone because most of the time if it's still light outside they're working on planting, landscaping and maintaining our 1.5 acres of yard.
I've become a sucker for plants, just as my best friend Kate is (her mother and my mother are very similar in their love of the outdoors). So when I went back to the Garden Fair I spent at least 20 minutes roaming around looking at every single plant there until I decided on spending (too much money) $3.00 on a cascading white Geranium which is now sitting in the living room of my apartment.
The Matrix Reloaded The crowd to get in at the Michigan Ave theatre was ridiculous! Once in though, the movie was ok. I'm not really a fan of science fiction though, so it was hard for me to appreciate the movie, although I did enjoy a lot of it, and some of the fight scenes were great (while others were a little much). It was funny though, because after this week in Paleontology doing a lab on the Uppper Paleozoic, all I could think about was how much the machines in the matrix looked like crinoids--specifically the anthus, with the theca and brachioles.
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