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March 24, 2005
Bday was Fab...Can I Go to Sleep Now?
Mi chavo and I spent yesterday on holiday...he made breakfast, I decided to go to the Museum of Science and Industry (partly b/c he's been to the Field Museum a lot) and off we went. Didn't know it was on the South Side. Saw more of the lake getting there than I normally do. Including some really pretty waves crashing against the shore.
Stood in line for tickets - realized we should've bought them online, but neither of us has a printer (at home). Experienced a boy's love of trains (really, I've never understood the fascination...though I did always want to ride on the train in the "Silver Spoon's" mansion). Went through a boring toy exhibit (how do you make toys boring? Talk to a bunch of geeky computer scientists about automation and CAD), went through an exhibit on Oil (weird and clearly sponsored by the oil industry), then got in line for the Body Exhibit.
So the body exhibit includes bits of 200 cadavers - all people who donated their bodies to science. Through a process called plastinization, they were able to show real bits of the body never seen before by the public. It was fascinating, but a bit one-sided: almost all of the bits came from males and the only parts of the exhibit that highlighted women were a disturbing room on fetuses and a woman who died while eight months pregnant (her body, in a reclining position, was opened to show the fetus and how the fetus pushes its mother's organs to the side while it develops) and a couple of women's crotches. That's it. No comparison of male and female hips. A couple of cross-sections of boobs, but no full skeletons showing the differences between men and women's bodies. The only full female skeletons showed off muscles flexing while doing athletics. It was rather odd.
Then we had lunch.
Then we went to Game On - an exhibit on the history of computer gaming, which is really an excuse to bring together a cross section of games, starting with Pong and going through Dance, Dance Revolution. Visitors can play the games as much as they want (although you're asked to be nice and share with your fellow visitors) all for the $5 Game On admission price. What I don't understand is why Frogger wasn't included. That and how a family could be as rude as they were in hogging the Ms. Pacman machine. But it looked like mi chavo really enjoyed the exhibit, which was good.
Then it was on to an Omnimax presentation on "The Human Body," which I thought was going to compliment the exhibit we saw. Instead, it was a lot of dialogue and very little pictures from inside the body. Still, the human heart, lungs, ears, and especially the stomach were interesting to see so close and big. Alas, the image of a human stomach still sits badly with me (imagine watching an actor eat a salad then following a tomato into her stomach....ew). Plus, they showed someone popping a zit - in Omnimax widescreen vision. On the bright side, there were adorable babies included. Apparently, people are born with the ability to hold their breath underwater and this trait is lost around 6 months if its not helped along. So there were lil babies swimmin in the pool with their mommies. Oh, I tell you, they were adorable.
Then we went home and changed for our dinner, which I will describe in my next post.
For now, lemme just say I'm exhausted. I want to take a nap. A long nap. Sigh. Can't wait for the day to be over.
Posted by cj at March 24, 2005 01:47 PM