Scientia et Industria

The first museum of the Chicago trip was the Museum of Science and Industry. I’m going to preface the rest of this post by saying that I love museums. If I have to be vacationing in a city instead of trekking through mud somewhere, museums (and other related attractions) are an acceptable substitute for rocks and trees. Some museums even have rocks and trees inside them. The Air and Space Museum¹; National Museum of Natural History¹; American Museum of Natural History²; Metropolitan Museum of Art²; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston³; New England Aquarium³; Museum of the Earth⁴; Newport Mansions⁵; Casa Loma⁶; Boldt Castle⁷; Henry Ford Museum⁸; Greenfield Village⁸; been to them all, plus more. Do I see the same variations of old furniture, dinosaur reconstructions, rocks, art, planes, trains, and automobiles in all of these places? Yes. Do I care? Not a bit.

[If you’re keeping track of my travels, that would be ¹Washington, DC; ²New York City, NY; ³Boston, MA; ⁴Ithaca, NY; ⁵Newport, RI; ⁶Toronto, Canada; ⁷Thousand Islands, NY; and ⁸Dearborn, MI.]

The point is that even though I’ve seen other model ships, space artifacts, and plasma globes, we still spent six and a half hours seeing the model ships, space artifacts, and plasma globes at the Museum of Science and Industry. We started the day by making our way to the giant dome theater in the space center via the circus and I Spy exhibits. The I Spy rooms were fun; each enclosed area had a scene set up in it, like penguins playing poker, and a list of things to find in the scene. It was basically 3D I Spy. When we reached the space center, we looked around a bit, then saw a show about oceans and fish in the giant dome theater. The Museum of Natural History in New York City has a similar theater where I’ve seen a show about space and stars (twice). I’ve also seen the national parks show at the Henry Ford Museum multiple times, which should surprise approximately nobody at this point.

The draw of the giant dome theater is that the screen is above you and wraps around so that you feel like you’re surrounded by the show. It’s a cool experience to have every once in awhile. After the show, we watched some clips from the Apollo 11 mission as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon (while Michael Collins waited for them back in the command module). The Museum of Science and Industry is also home to the actual Apollo 8 command module. Apollo 8 orbited the moon for the first time and produced the Earthrise photo and Christmas Eve television broadcast where the crew read from Genesis while circling the moon. Of the crew, only Jim Lovell would go on to make another spaceflight, becoming the commander of the infamous Apollo 13 mission, while Apollo 8 was the last mission for Frank Borman and Bill Anders.

The Apollo 8 Command Module

The other main exhibit that we wanted to see was the U-505, a German U-boat captured during World War II. This is probably the biggest unique exhibit in the museum. The exhibit takes you through the events leading up to the capture and towing of the U-boat, complete with animatronics and torpedo sounds. Then the main room contains the U-boat itself, plus things taken from the U-boat such as cans of bread and enigma machines. If you’re doing the whirlwind tour of the museum, and only see a few exhibits, this should be one of them.

U-505

By this time, I was hungry, so we had lunch at the Brain Food Court. Yes, it’s really called that. No, I didn’t see any brains being served for lunch. Like our lunch the day before (and the day after) it was standard museum fare. Sandwiches, soup, salad, noodles, blue jello, etc. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again – I am not a huge food person. If it’s not too salty, greasy, or expensive, it’s good enough for me. Following lunch, we made our way through most of the rest of museum, seeing the model train, baby chicks, glacier pictures, bicycles, a 727, and the world’s largest pinball machine before calling it a day.

If you really like museums, you can definitely spend a whole day at the Museum of Science of Industry. If you like museums, at least go to see the U-505, the Apollo 8 capsule, the pinball machine, and the chicks. Because how can you resist baby fluffballs?

Fluffiness

Lions, Tigers, and Bears

Day two in Chicago: featuring the Lincoln Park Zoo. For the rest of this trip, my brother would be busy with work, leaving my mother and I to explore Chicago on our own. We took the train to Fullerton and walked the rest of the way to the zoo. At the zoo, we saw a variety of fascinating things, including trees, grass, benches, clouds, and signs. Also a seagull, because that’s what you really go to the zoo to see.

[If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m kind of that person. You know, the one who goes to the art museum to see a Van Gogh and spends more time taking pictures of the floor tiles. My favorite reasons for doing things are, in no particular order, 1) for the heck of it, 2) because I was told not to/to prove a point, and 3) to drive everyone around me crazy. I once ate a single potato chip precisely because the bag bet that I couldn’t eat just one (reason 2). I’m currently watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in chronological order just because I want to see Avengers: Infinity War (reason 1). While playing Codenames¹ the other week, I tried convincing the other team to pick washer no matter what their clue was (reason 3). Death? Washers are dangerous, and you wouldn’t want to get stuck in one. Gravity? Gravity is a force, and washers have a lot of centripetal force. And so on and so forth.]

Amazing.  What diversity of wildlife.

And we also saw some animals. They were okay, I guess.

Seriously, though, for a free zoo in the middle of a major city, the Lincoln Park Zoo has a surprising variety of animals and the zoo is well-organized, even with 347 different school groups running all over the place. They have indoor and outdoor exhibits featuring land animals, apes, primates, birds, fish, and mosquitoes. The last are native to Chicago and ensure you have a fully immersive and tactile experience. The size of the zoo means that you can see everything in a few hours. We ended up having lunch there, which was standard museum-style food at a reasonable price.

While we were there, most of the animals were out/active. The kangaroos were lying on the ground looking very unkangaroolike, some of the apes kept hiding in the corner to avoid people, and the polar bears were nowhere to be seen, but we saw almost everything else. I enjoyed the small mammal-reptile house and the bird house. You get a high species to area ratio. If you have at least 2-3 days in Chicago, I would recommend the zoo, especially if you don’t like museums. It was free (my favorite price), I hadn’t been to the zoo in years, and they had penguins, so I left happy.

Some of the animals we saw - Clockwise from top left: rhino, zebra,

flamingos, giraffes, and penguins

On the way back to the train, we stopped by the Lincoln Park Conservatory. I’ve previously demonstrated my extensive knowledge of flowers and plants that aren’t native to New England (see two posts previous), so this was a quick stop, but it’s also free, so worth it if you have an extra half hour. By the time we got back to the vicinity of the Chicago River, we still had time for the river architecture cruise. Multiple people I have talked to say they really like this activity, but it was not my favorite. I liked it, and we heard some interesting stories about the buildings along the river; however, I still prefer museums where I can walk through at my own pace and read about the parts that I think are interesting (see next two posts) or hikes (because dirt, and trees, and sky). Based on other peoples’ opinions, I’d still recommend it, though I probably won’t do it again any time soon. Even after the zoo, conservatory, and architecture tour, we still got back to my brother’s condo with time for me to get some research done. Pros of computational research. Or a con? Wait a second . . .

Here is a plant we saw at the conservatory.

Here is the Chicago skyline as seen from the architecture cruise.

¹Codenames is played with two teams and a grid of words. Each team has a Spymaster who knows which words belong to their team. The Spymasters take turns giving clues to their team to try and get their teammates to pick the words that are theirs.

#SummerSlump [July 2018]

Revolution fans from the Jay Heaps tenure will know exactly what this means. Every year under Jay Heaps, the Revolution would have a disappointing to moderately encouraging start to the season, only to forget how to play soccer during the summer months. I want to point out here that I’m not trying to disparage or blame any of the players or coaching staff, just point out the team’s bizarrely streaky play during the summer.

In 2012, Heaps’ first year, the team went winless for ten games between July 14 and September 1, including 5 straight losses during this period. The next year, they actually seem to have avoided the summer slump, starting with only one win in the first six games, but never losing more than two games in a row the entire season. During 2014, the Revolution went eight straight games without a win from May 31 to July 26, but then came into form in time to go all the way to the MLS cup final to lose a record fifth final, this time to the Galaxy.

In 2015, they lost five straight from June 25 to July 11, but shortly after rallied to win six straight in August and September. In 2016, after drawing 7 of their first 10 games, the Revolution went from July 31 to August 28 (6 games) without winning. Then last year, they stumbled through the majority of the season, needing a strong fall performance to make the playoffs. Instead, they were murdered by Atlanta and Orlando within the span of two weeks. Heaps was fired, Brad Friedel was brought in during the offseason, and the first half of the 2018 season happened, which brings us to this July.

July 7, 2018, vs. Seattle Sounders, 0-0 T
Not a whole lot happened in this game, which you can kind of tell from the scoreline. It took seventy-three minutes before there was a shot on goal – a forty-yard attempt from Seattle that Matt Turner took care of by basically standing there and letting the ball fall into his arms. Even the Revolution social media team acknowledged the lack of excitement by posting a highlights video featuring kickoff, streamers, the final whistle, and postgame fireworks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tear my heart out, why don’t you?, July 14, 2018, vs. Los Angeles Galaxy, 2-3 L
This game, maybe more than any of the other games so far this season, captures the spirit of being a Revolution fan since 2008. After losing Cristian Penilla to a red card 23 minutes into the game, the Revolution went up a goal in the 28th minute. The Galaxy tied the game, but New England took the lead again shortly before the first half ended. They were moving the ball well and looked good up through around minute 75. It’s a lot to ask to be playing down a man and keep pressing, but the Revolution were doing it. Then in minute 85, the Galaxy’s Ashley Cole was baited into a second yellow and sent off. What the Revolution should have done was take the time to regroup, settle down, and prepare to play hard for up to ten more minutes. What they did was go into panic mode, watch the clock, and let momentum shift to the Galaxy. In the second minute of second half stoppage time, LA got a corner kick. I’ve been following this team for awhile, so my first thought was (depressingly enough) if they let in a goal on this set piece, they’ve lost the game. LA scored on the corner kick. In the third minute of second half stoppage time, after the restart, the Revolution were too casual with possession on the right sideline, lost the ball, and that’s how the Galaxy scored their third, and game-winning, goal.

Hey, Bobby, July 18, 2018, at Minnesota United FC, 2-1 L
Anything that happened in this match was ultimately overshadowed by the fact that former Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth chose this night to have the best game New England’s seen from him in awhile. To be fair to Shuttleworth, I liked him when he played for New England. You can’t say that he wasn’t invested in the game. He just inexplicably had this habit of letting in long shots while making ridiculous reaction saves. Also of note were a couple of Scott Caldwell shots, including a one touch outside of the foot attempt that was bound for the back of the goal if (guess who) Shuttleworth hadn’t showed up to make the save.

I Give Up, July 21, 2018, vs. New York Red Bulls, 0-2 L
Missed this game because I was playing board games with people from church. Can’t bring myself to watch the replay.

We’ll see what happens in August, but history is not on the Revolution’s side.

Record for July: 0W-3L-1D
Overall record: 7W-7L-7D