Vignettes
Trying to play catch-up with a few things...
Super Bowl
Dad was excited about the outcome; he'd wanted Kansas City to win, and wanted Andy Reid to get a championship. I was rooting for San Francisco, which of course did well for the first 3 quarters until Patrick Mahomes decided to start playing. Jimmy Garoppolo, the 49ers' QB, is from the Chicago suburbs, and Robbie Gould was the Bears' last consistently good kicker (we still haven't recovered from the double-doink around here). Oh well. Oh, right, and considering Mitch Trubisky was picked before Mahomes in the draft a few years ago, there's been lots of "what if" talk about if the Bears had drafted him instead. What if, indeed. And I have to say, I was excited that a Nice Polish Boy (TM) scored a touchdown--that was Kyle Juszczyk of the 49ers. Per Wikipedia, he's the first Harvard alum to score a touchdown in a Super Bowl. Also, he's bringing the nickname Juice back to football.
Halftime Show
Shakira does not look like she turned 43 on Sunday, nor does she move like it. I half expected her to be in one of those Advil "What pain?" commercials the next day. I kept joking, hips don't lie when they're broken. (As a reminder, I was also born in 1977.) Contrast her constant moves to J. Lo, who was carried out and didn't move much until the pole came out. I had a feeling that was her daughter singing with her, and what a cool moment that must have been for both of them. I was disappointed that Pitbull did not make an appearance. Hello, the game was in Miami; when you think Miami musicians, he's the first one that comes to my mind. I mean, he played Naperville's Ribfest; surely he could spare some time to play the Super Bowl.
Oh, right--the beginning, with the seeming commercial that turned into a live shot with the little boy running all over the country with the football--that kid was awesome. The look on his face when he entered the stadium. Pure joy. And he was so charismatic. Hope that's not the only time we see him at the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl Ads
--The Groundhog Day rehash with Bill Murray was awesome. They pretty much *had* to do it, you know? It was shot in Woodstock, just like the movie, too. And, I saw an orange Jeep the next day, too, but nobody exciting was driving it.
--Snickers hole. Yes, please feed the selfie-stick people into it.
This far down the week, those are the only two that have stuck with me. Oh, the Take 5 bar one was funny, but we'd actually seen that a few days earlier when it played on the news.
Coronavirus Update
Congratulations to the Chicago area, as we have the US's first person-to-person transmission of the virus. All previous people were infected in China and came back to the States. This was the husband of the originally infected woman and we got word of it last week. Better news, I am going to Hoffman Estates on Saturday for solo contest. In even better news, someone at Conant HS--near the HE school--came down with whooping cough. Fantastic! Where are those masks mom bought recently...
More Animal Tails...er, tales
I'd meant to put this in my recent animal post and completely forgot, as I didn't check my notes. Last month there were multiple stories about a coyote roaming around the city, with a young boy and a man getting bit. Video showed this limping coyote walking up to the cameraman. He got trapped after about a week or two, and testing showed the same coyote bit both people. They're normally not harmful. This was quite the story in the middle of January, but now that the one was caught, things have been quiet.
Duolingo = Triolingo?
On Monday, I decided to add Latin to my stable of languages I'm attempting to learn. Latin was actually the first language I took in school; I spent three years learning it in high school. Really, you say? I had a classmate freshman year who talked it up, plus a fantastic teacher who made it really interesting, and given its Romance language status it's easy to figure some things out in French, for example. Of course, the problem is that Latin isn't a spoken language, so the way I remember things isn't the way I'm hearing them. It doesn't help that what I'm hearing is this computer voice--several different voices, actually--with an audible beginning and end to the recording that plays, like a tape starting and stopping. The voices...are kind of creepy, really. And of course it's starting off differently than my class; I haven't seen agricola dedit feminam rosam at all (that's "the farmer gives the woman a rose," if I remember correctly--the Latin, not the translation). Duo's website has a forum and I was able to look up some Latin threads. I must've seen it in an email, that Latin was a language to study, but it likely was a while ago and I didn't realize Latin was still new. I think it popped up in the past year. There are still bugs getting worked out. I'm not entirely sure I like it and will stick with it, but it's only been a few days. I'm perfectly happy focusing on French and German and then doing just one or two exercises in Latin. It's still early enough that I'm within the first checkpoint, having only completed two of the modules to level one.
Road News from 2019
I haven't seen it in action as of yet, but big exciting news--the full interchange at I-88 and Route 47 opened late last year. This is HUGE because you couldn't get off 88 at 47 if you were westbound, I believe. (This is not an interchange I ever use, but I would cross it when I went to Waubonsee.) We tease dad about his ride home from hanging out with his buddies one time a few years ago--he missed the Orchard Road exit and had to go all the way to DeKalb. You're talking 25 extra miles, one way, late at night when you're tired, have likely done some imbibing, and just want to get home. Now, it's more like 7 miles one way. (It's still so new that if you look at the satellite view of the interchange, the ramps don't exist. You could get on and go westbound from 47, and you could get off of eastbound 88, but you couldn't get on and go east or get off if you were going west. Weird. I don't know why it was like that.) As of ten years ago, it was still kind of rural in that area, north of the college--Seavey Road, just north of 88 at that point, was a gravel road between 47 and Bliss. Oh, the days of finding new and unusual ways home from school. I was able to find a route where I'd hit just one traffic light, which isn't possible any longer since both college entrances have lights now, so at bare minimum I'd hit two.
Super Bowl
Dad was excited about the outcome; he'd wanted Kansas City to win, and wanted Andy Reid to get a championship. I was rooting for San Francisco, which of course did well for the first 3 quarters until Patrick Mahomes decided to start playing. Jimmy Garoppolo, the 49ers' QB, is from the Chicago suburbs, and Robbie Gould was the Bears' last consistently good kicker (we still haven't recovered from the double-doink around here). Oh well. Oh, right, and considering Mitch Trubisky was picked before Mahomes in the draft a few years ago, there's been lots of "what if" talk about if the Bears had drafted him instead. What if, indeed. And I have to say, I was excited that a Nice Polish Boy (TM) scored a touchdown--that was Kyle Juszczyk of the 49ers. Per Wikipedia, he's the first Harvard alum to score a touchdown in a Super Bowl. Also, he's bringing the nickname Juice back to football.
Halftime Show
Shakira does not look like she turned 43 on Sunday, nor does she move like it. I half expected her to be in one of those Advil "What pain?" commercials the next day. I kept joking, hips don't lie when they're broken. (As a reminder, I was also born in 1977.) Contrast her constant moves to J. Lo, who was carried out and didn't move much until the pole came out. I had a feeling that was her daughter singing with her, and what a cool moment that must have been for both of them. I was disappointed that Pitbull did not make an appearance. Hello, the game was in Miami; when you think Miami musicians, he's the first one that comes to my mind. I mean, he played Naperville's Ribfest; surely he could spare some time to play the Super Bowl.
Oh, right--the beginning, with the seeming commercial that turned into a live shot with the little boy running all over the country with the football--that kid was awesome. The look on his face when he entered the stadium. Pure joy. And he was so charismatic. Hope that's not the only time we see him at the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl Ads
--The Groundhog Day rehash with Bill Murray was awesome. They pretty much *had* to do it, you know? It was shot in Woodstock, just like the movie, too. And, I saw an orange Jeep the next day, too, but nobody exciting was driving it.
--Snickers hole. Yes, please feed the selfie-stick people into it.
This far down the week, those are the only two that have stuck with me. Oh, the Take 5 bar one was funny, but we'd actually seen that a few days earlier when it played on the news.
Coronavirus Update
Congratulations to the Chicago area, as we have the US's first person-to-person transmission of the virus. All previous people were infected in China and came back to the States. This was the husband of the originally infected woman and we got word of it last week. Better news, I am going to Hoffman Estates on Saturday for solo contest. In even better news, someone at Conant HS--near the HE school--came down with whooping cough. Fantastic! Where are those masks mom bought recently...
More Animal Tails...er, tales
I'd meant to put this in my recent animal post and completely forgot, as I didn't check my notes. Last month there were multiple stories about a coyote roaming around the city, with a young boy and a man getting bit. Video showed this limping coyote walking up to the cameraman. He got trapped after about a week or two, and testing showed the same coyote bit both people. They're normally not harmful. This was quite the story in the middle of January, but now that the one was caught, things have been quiet.
Duolingo = Triolingo?
On Monday, I decided to add Latin to my stable of languages I'm attempting to learn. Latin was actually the first language I took in school; I spent three years learning it in high school. Really, you say? I had a classmate freshman year who talked it up, plus a fantastic teacher who made it really interesting, and given its Romance language status it's easy to figure some things out in French, for example. Of course, the problem is that Latin isn't a spoken language, so the way I remember things isn't the way I'm hearing them. It doesn't help that what I'm hearing is this computer voice--several different voices, actually--with an audible beginning and end to the recording that plays, like a tape starting and stopping. The voices...are kind of creepy, really. And of course it's starting off differently than my class; I haven't seen agricola dedit feminam rosam at all (that's "the farmer gives the woman a rose," if I remember correctly--the Latin, not the translation). Duo's website has a forum and I was able to look up some Latin threads. I must've seen it in an email, that Latin was a language to study, but it likely was a while ago and I didn't realize Latin was still new. I think it popped up in the past year. There are still bugs getting worked out. I'm not entirely sure I like it and will stick with it, but it's only been a few days. I'm perfectly happy focusing on French and German and then doing just one or two exercises in Latin. It's still early enough that I'm within the first checkpoint, having only completed two of the modules to level one.
Road News from 2019
I haven't seen it in action as of yet, but big exciting news--the full interchange at I-88 and Route 47 opened late last year. This is HUGE because you couldn't get off 88 at 47 if you were westbound, I believe. (This is not an interchange I ever use, but I would cross it when I went to Waubonsee.) We tease dad about his ride home from hanging out with his buddies one time a few years ago--he missed the Orchard Road exit and had to go all the way to DeKalb. You're talking 25 extra miles, one way, late at night when you're tired, have likely done some imbibing, and just want to get home. Now, it's more like 7 miles one way. (It's still so new that if you look at the satellite view of the interchange, the ramps don't exist. You could get on and go westbound from 47, and you could get off of eastbound 88, but you couldn't get on and go east or get off if you were going west. Weird. I don't know why it was like that.) As of ten years ago, it was still kind of rural in that area, north of the college--Seavey Road, just north of 88 at that point, was a gravel road between 47 and Bliss. Oh, the days of finding new and unusual ways home from school. I was able to find a route where I'd hit just one traffic light, which isn't possible any longer since both college entrances have lights now, so at bare minimum I'd hit two.