infomercial

I made my first, and quite possibly only, infomercial purchase last week!
I had been looking for an exercise ball for a while, but hadn't yet broken down to make the puchase. One evening I was flipping through channels, and ran across this bargain! Only $9.95 plus shipping and handling! I didn't realize they would try to sell me 10 other items when I placed the order. But I'm very happy with my purchase - it has mostly replaced my office chair, and helped renew my motivation to lose those extra pounds from grad school. My favorite line from the video (I really just wanted the ball): "Don't tell me about bulky biceps. Extra food causes bulk, and that's a fact." This statement is made as he leads the class into bicep curls. Oh brother!!

Hippopotamus

Such a strange animal, the hippopotamus. They seem to be on my mind lately - did you hear about the baby hippo Owen, who was orphaned in the tsunami earlier this year? They took him to a game reserve, where he immediately formed a strong bond with a 130 year old sea turtle. The two now follow each other around and have been known to cuddle, which is all well and good until the hippo grows up!

But more recently, a good friend of mine came over for dinner last night and we started reminiscing about our luxurious game drive in South Africa. While we were there, our ranger told us that, while they look big and awkward, hippos run up to 30 km/hr on land and even faster in the water! Does this really pass the sniff test? I've passed this info on to other people, but after discussing it with Greg last night I finally looked it up to find the truth. According to wikipedia:

"While it is accepted that a hippo can run faster than a human on land, there are various estimates of its actual running speed. These vary from 30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph) or even 48 km/h (30 mph). The higher values probably refer to short bursts of speed. While underwater, hippos can move at 8 km/h."

While it appears that the effect of drag overcomes the effect of bouyancy for the hippo, I still wouldn't want to race one in the water!

Angels and Demons

I'm trying to do more reading, so I started with this highly intellectual novel. I had heard such good things about it, and had already read it's sequel.
Antimatter. Illuminati. Scandal in the Vatican. The problem with reading novels that are purportedly based on extensive historical research is that it can be tough to separate the fact from the fiction. It brought up all sorts of questions like: Are the Illuminati really connected to the Masons? Did they even exist? Is antimatter the future of alternative energy? Can you really breathe through all the oxygen in a library chamber?
But if you're up for a good, light read, I would recommend it.

Minnesota

This past weekend, instead of Mike coming back to Chicago I went up to Minneapolis to visit. We took his company-sponsored SUV up to the bottom of Lake Superior. In addition to discovering just how bad the gas mileage on a Buick Renegade is, I was reminded of how beautiful northern Minnesota is. I can see why Mike likes Minnesota so much!
This boat was our sole celebration of Halloween. It was done up in a Halloween motif, with lots of people dressed up in scary costumes jumping out at you! I pretended to be scared enough for both of us, 'cause haunted houses are much more fun that way ;-)