Now entering Osage county

An intimate portal to an OK family home as the equilibrium shifts. Surprising laughs.

Nespress yourself

All colors lead to brown.

Free February @ the Art Institute

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P-P-Poker face

Pete was feeling lucky after Kevin's quarterly poker tournament - I suppose being a beginner makes one's "strategies" difficult to predict.

J Apple Crisp paper

A new personal record! Most figures in a manuscript.
For IUCr journals, this feat carries its own punishment - having to upload all 17 tiff images individually over more than an hour.

New Year, New Calendar

I'm particularly chuffed with this year's calendar. Flower pics by an X-ray technician and photographer (just like me!).

...at the local super Target

"Pepperidge Farm... That's in Victoria right?" --Greg
"Its a biscuit!" --Ben

"Vegemite in aisle 2 then?" --Karena

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Acta Cryst Scandal

Only those with less than 2 Acta E papers are beyond suspicion.
http://journals.iucr.org/e/issues/2010/01/00/me0406/

Valentine's Season

With pink/heart-themed merchandise debuting on shelves the day after Christmas, it was clear that we needed to modify our cookie format to keep up with the times.

Ski Hogadon, WY

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Gingerbear

With more than a foot of blowing snow outside, a polar bear sighting was not entirely unexpected.

Doh-notopia

Two dozen pots of Play Doh transformed into a Jurassic landscape.

Merry Christmas

"Peat"... that's not total unlike coal - maybe someone didn't quite make the "nice" list this year?

You know you're in WY when...

...you're fenced in by horse-riding cowboy silhouettes.

Ski Eldora, CO

First trails of the season in Colorado - a small detour on our cross-country trek to Casper, WY. Our ski legs were surprisingly functional for their first outing - perhaps helped by the local microbrew.

Made some new friends too...

In the Heights: a New Musical

Part Rent, part rap, part West Side Story = less than the sum of its parts.

Noah & Melissa

Now 7, Noah was overdue for his first visit to Chicago, and arrived for a weekend of fun, bringing his mum along for the ride. We started off the day with a little work experience where Noah quickly located the pile of surplus Halloween candy.

We then headed downtown to the Shedd Aquarium where the fish always seem to be upstaged by the other aquatic life. Favorites this time included this colorful snake and friendly Beluga whales who obligingly popped their heads to say hello. Who would have thought that they change the shape of their forehead to make different sounds?

We secured seats early for the new Fantasea show in the oceanarium which meant a long wait for the show to start... While Noah enjoyed the dolphin tricks, most of our party thought it was quite overproduced.

We concluded our kid-friendly day in Chicago with a visit to the Lego store on Michigan Ave.

X7b-user

I scarcely landed in Chicago before taking off again for Long Island. We're visiting Jon at the NSLS to help him break in his oh-so-shiny new detector.

Les Egouts de Paris

Having visited Paris on several previous occasions, an alternative perspective of this beautiful city's history seemed like a good idea. And so we ended up in the Paris Sewer museum - a series of displays in underground tunnels with only metal grates between the soles of your shoes and the running effluent.
The guide book's description as "oderiferous" was accurate.

(Free) Museum Sunday

Entry to the big Parisian museums is free on the first Sunday of the month, i.e. today. Despite throwing the doors open, the entry queues were still long... something to do with the rainy weather no doubt.