Lunch with Grandma.

We went up north to visit Grandma Brown and take her out to lunch. We had a nice time.

Brazil

I was going to lecture in an Advanced HIV Pathogenesis Course at the University of Sao Paulo. When I went to the airport I learned that I needed a visa to go. I didn't have one. The chance of making it to the course seemed to evaporate. I needed 2 miracles, a rescheduled flight and a visa by Friday. I got 2 miracles and made it. Unfortunately 3 days late. With the activities of the meeting I was very busy and didn't get to do anything extra. Sao Paulo was fun. The people were nice and the restaurants excellent. THis is the view out of my hotel room.




On Monday afternoon we visited the Butantan Institute. Its a facility where they make antitoxins against the venom of poisonous animals such as snakes, spiders, and scorpions. This snake was not poisonous. They wouldn't let us play with those.

Cabin Fever

March is always the most difficult month. They say "it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb". Winter is waning, but not in a hurry to leave. Its 38 degrees outside and cloudy. Good reason to have a little fire and toast some marshmallows. Looks like the boys are having some fun. Hopefully Spring is just around the corner.

Happy Birthday Bart

15 years old. WOW! time is flying by. He does play the part well.

Great Game, sad outcome.

It was February 5, the day after my 50th birthday. I was at the Illinois - Northwestern game. I was lucky to have a seat. The game sold out early. There are lots of Illinois fans in the Chicago area and its a popular game. Illiois was ranked 24 in the polls. I am lucky to know Dr. Ngai. He has many friends at Northwestern and he was able to get me a ticket. He goes to every game. It was not just any ticket. It was in the 5th row. Off the corner of the court. Here is a picture of Ngai and myself at half time.



Here is a shot of the court from my seat. Great view of the players and the action. Great atmosphere for a Big Ten game. And the refs were letting them play. it was a close game. It was a great game.



This is Willie the Wildcat. Quite the fierce kitty. It was my second Illini game of the year (see Dec 18 post). It was the second loss that I saw. Northwestern 71, Illinois 70. Bummer. The Big Ten games are brutal. Very competitive. Hopefully they make the NCAA Tourney. The first and second round are at the United Center. If they get their act together maybe they will be able to start the tourney in Chicago. Although, so far this year playing in Chicago has ot been very lucky.

Its a Blizzard!

It has been years since there was a big snow storm in the Chicago area. I can remember of number of times in recent years where a big storm was predicted but did not materialize for us. Anyway, this year the forcasters nailed it. They predicted it would arrive in force about 3 and it did.

Here is a picture during stopped traffic on my way home. This was about 2:30. Starting to get nasty. I am glad I got headed home early




As you can see from the live feed on traffic flow, the traffic got quite horrible. I got out of the the city just in time. At one point the commute was projected as 3 hours to reach the outermost suburbs.



So the plan was for me to make a series of continuous updates to the blog to follow the storm. However, the power went out about 5:30 pm killing the plan. The family mobilized and we got our big generator going in the garage. We were able to watch TV and be quite comfortable. The power was restored in a couple hours (amazing) while the Blizzard was going full blast. We were watching our neighbor try to snow blow his drive and there was a big flash (transformer exploding?) followed by the power going down again. This time it was down for the night. At 3 am all of the light going on in the bedroom woke me up. I got out of bed and shut off all the nearby lights and went back to bed. This morning, the house had power but the furnace was not working. We called the service guy. Turns out that if the exhaust pipes are covered with snow it won't work. Bart and I dug them out and now we have warmth. We are back in business.

Here is a short movie of the Blizzard in our back yard. The wind was really blowing as you can see.



So they are saying that we got about 20 inches of snow. Its really hard to tell because of the blowing and drifting. In some places the snow is more that 3 feet deep. In other places, you can see the ground. Anyway, the wind is mostly gone and now we are getting a serious dump of lake effect snow. Best to just stay in at this point. Here is a picture of the big drift that formed just outside the sliding door to the patio. Has to be almost 4 foot since its a big step down to the patio.



The snow stopped about 10 am. Now it was time for the cleanup. We had a bunch of drifted show just outside of the garage. The snow really accumulated there. We hire a guy we call "Mr Plow". He does a great job. But the plow couldn't do much with this mess.



As you can see the drift was big enough for Bart and Alex to grab the rim of our basketball hoop.



After a bit of work we were able to clean out the driveway. Should be able to get back to work tomorrow. They just cancelled school for Thursday. Big cold front coming in. Below zero temps and ubercold windchills will make life interesting. It was the third biggest snowstorm in Chicago area in 126 years of records. 70 mph wind gusts make it the strongest Blizzard ever recorded here. I have to say that I personally enjoyed the experience, except for the losing power part. A Blizzard is much more entertaining with electricity.

No Superbowl this year

Bears vs. Packers. Winner gets the Superbowl. I was able to go with Ken, Diane's brother. The buildup was monumental. The energy at kickoff was remarkable. The Packers scored early. Our quarterback Culter got knocked out of the game. The 3rd string quarterback led a charge at the end of the game. We were in position to tie it at the end. Alas, the Bears lost, 14 - 21. Damn. I guess we weren't expecting much this year so making it to the NFC championship game was great. But losing to GD GB Packers is hard to take. I am sad :( Life goes on. Back to work.