St Patty's Day

For Saint Patrick's day I went down to Chicago. They have a marvelous parade, and use some kind of weird algea to die a portion of the river vibrant green. It was fantastic! I went with Emily and Kami, two friends from Church, and we met up with some of Kami's friends for the day. I included am image of the part of the river that wasn't died just so you can see the difference. It is truly amazing, as only a couple of blocks were died and the two parts of the river didn't seem to mix at all.

To see all the pictures from that day, check out the following album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33450&l=9f1bf&id=510584672

My Rain Day

So adding to the assortment of weird weather problems that I have had since coming to Wisconsin...

Today I got to school a little late because it snowed last night and so the buses were annoyingly full. When I got there there it was completely dark, as there were no lights in the entire 12 story math building. This was okay in the classrooms and offices since there are lots of windows, but it made climbing the stairs interesting as it was pitch dark. But I started to teach nonetheless, we just restricted ourselves to the boards that had the most light on them. Then half way through my second class we had a man come in and say the building was being evacuated. So I am home for the day. Turns out that it poured last night and all the ice melted (Of course, there was a new ice layer this morning) and it flooded the bottom floor. And the electrical generator. So not only is there no light, there is danger of electrical problems. But hey, it means I get a day off. Must be pretty bad, though. UW refuses to cancel classes usually. We have even taught through a blizzard.

My Flowers

So I don't know how many of you know, but I have a strange obsession with Gerber Daisies. They are just so beautiful, and I love the bright colors that they come in. Now, in my life it has turned out that I have always had to buy my own flowers (except for a couple times when girlfriends got some for me), and it just isn't as much fun when you have to buy the flowers for yourself. But I now can officially say that a boy gave me flowers. And they are gorgeous. And so I want to share with you all my beautiful flowers.

I love the captial building

Most especially when it is shrouded in fog. Actually, I just like fog in general. I have a recurring urge to get myself lost in a forest whenever there is fog, which is quite often in Madison. It just makes everything so pretty and ethereal.

This is the apartment that I will soon be moving in to. We go tomorrow to actually pick out the apartment that we will have. Of particular interest is the large living room that will soon hold our piano, the gigantic walk-in closet, the dishwasher, and the washer and dryer in the apartment. If you cannot tell, I am way excited by the prospect. Because of my cat, I will have the room on the right as it has its own bathroom. Lisa will have the room on the left that is attached to the main bathroom. We have decided that the living room will be decorated in reds, oranges, and yellows. Which means I finally get to buy and hang those posters by Andy Warhol that I am absolutely in love with. I think most everyone will finally be happy that I have a room in my apartment that is not green... Now we just have to decide which kind of cat friendly blinds and curtains we are going to put on the sliding door. As we have to be on the first floor because of the piano, these are absolutely necessary, but I am slightly worried that Inkling will have a field day with any kind of hanging cloth... Hmmm, problem. Anyways, I just wanted to share my excitement. (And this seemed much funner than working on my complex homework like I should be doing right now.)

Ice Crystals and Hail

So the Ice Quake was on Wednesday afternoon, and on Tuesday we went from warm enough to melt all the snow in the morning to pouring hail in the afternoon to dropping 50 degrees by that night.

The pouring hail was quite interesting. And it hurt. We got so much hail that day that it looked like we had 2 inches of snow on the ground, only it was all hail. We also got some quite pretty ice crystals forming on the windows. So all together the weather has been just a little bit interesting recently...

Madison's "Earthquake"

And just because I thought you wouldn't believe it from me, here it is from the paper:

Lake Mendota ice quake shakes UW and MadisonBrief tremor hits shoreline buildings on ThursdayDavid Medaris on Thursday 01/31/2008 3:44 pm


There's a lot of expansion and contraction happening out on the big ice sheets that cover Madison's lakes in winter.Credit:Kristian Knutsen
A UW-Madison news release reports that this afternoon's brief tremor may be attributable to an ice quake. According to the release, dozens of employees in buildings along the Lake Mendota shoreline phoned UW police and the facilities staff to ask about the shaking, which occurred at about 12:50 p.m., lasted for two or three seconds and registered on a seismometer at the geology department.
The release goes on to state that ice quakes (or a cryoseism) are often synchronized with loud cracking noises, "are caused by large shifts in ice and are most commonly triggered by drastic temperature changes" similar to the significant thermometer variations of recent days, and may result in pressure ridges or other fractures in the ice.
Such events are not without precedent. There's a lot of expansion and contraction happening out on the big ice sheets that cover Madison's lakes in winter. One of the most dramatic such occurrences happened a little before noon on Jan.15, 1948, when seismographs measured a tremor at 3.8 on the Richter scale.
That's not much by the standards of California or other active earthquake zones, but press accounts of the time noted that the shaking was "accompanied by loud reports of breaking ice fields" and "had the sound and force of a blast." An account in the American Journal of Science ascribed the quake to "an ice fracture on Lake Mendota," and noted that it "was of sufficient intensity to shake some plaster off the ceiling of an office and to crack the sewer drain of one fraternity house."
The day after that tremor of 60 years ago, a group of geology students discovered "a four-foot overthrust in ice 1-1/2 feet thick."
Today's shake-up was minuscule compared to the reports from 60 years ago: UW-Madison geology Prof. Cliff Thurber estimates today's brief tremor at less than 0.2 on the Richter scale -- enough to be noticed, but well short of calamity.
The UW-Madison news release noted no reports of damage as a result of today's tiny quake.