Flash Back Friday #4

I was 5 years old during the summer Olympics of 1976 and one of my earliest memories is of Nadia Comaneci scoring the first perfect 10's of the Games and winning Gold.
Nadia was only 14 during these Olympics and her performances on the balance beam and uneven parallel bars changed gymnastics forever. The Romanian gymnasts would dominate the sport for years after the 76 Olympics.
This performace on the balance beam is why I became a gymnast. There were times while I competed in high school that I felt like flipping and spinning was as effortless and natural as walking.
Enjoy.

New Exhibits at Chicago Museums

(aerial picture of Chicago's lakefront Museum Campus)



Chicago summers are one of the main reasons residents endure 6 months of Chicago winters. The lakefront, festivals, street fairs, concerts, the Taste of Chicago, Millennium Park, Cubs games, boating and the Museum Campus are just a few examples of all that the City has to offer.
Two of my favorite museums have opened new exhibits for the summer and I plan on visiting as soon as I can.
When my son and I lived in Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry was a monthly visit for us and it remains one of my favorite places to explore. The newest exhibit is Smart Home: Green and Wired, a 2500 square foot "green home" that has been built on the Museum's grounds. Described as a celebration of "exciting new directions in sustainable living and spectacular, environmentally-friendly technology". For more information, check out the Museums' website here: http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/smart-home/
Another of my favorite museums, The Field Museum has opened the new exhibit Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids which features life size replicas and preserved specimens of creatures such as the giant squid and the "Feejee mermaid". For more information check out the Museum's website at: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/mythiccreatures/

Fun Website

Check out the site at http://www.redkid.net/

Where is your Third Place?

I heard a great speaker this morning, Michael Stephens, an assistant professor at Dominican University and the author/blogger of www.tametheweb.com.
Michael presented the Hyperlinked Library (the slideshow is available on his blog) about how Web 2.0 is changing not only libraries but how we all interact with each other.
He briefly spoke of the "third place", your 3rd social environment outside of home and work. Do you have one and if so, where is it?
I know many of my friends would consider Starbucks their third place while Michael's was Panera. Mine over the last few years has definitely been school where my work and educational lives collided.
In todays world, your third place may be on MySpace or Facebook, maybe on AIM or even through gaming on Xbox. Where ever your third place is, I hope you are connected and balancing that life with your others.

Grad Weekend

Graduation on Saturday was an emotional and fun event and I'm glad my family was there to watch me walk across the stage to receive my diploma. My grad party was the highlight of a great weekend, thank you to all my friends and family members who attended. I'm going to have to throw another party to share all the gifts of alcohol I received!
(open bar at the party was a hit!)

Flash Back Friday #3

Back in 1979 my Grandma Distel got me hooked on the soap opera General Hospital. I watched it religiously through the 80's and 90's (thanks to the VCR and forwarding through commercials!)and right up until September 11, 2001 when soaps went off the air for weeks.
On November 16 1981 Luke Spencer married Laura Baldwin, in front of Elizabeth Taylor and 30 million people around the world. In a year of big weddings, fantasy (Luke and Laura) and reality (Charles and Diana), I stil think their over the top style and dresses are timeless.

I grew up watching Luke and Laura, Frisco and Felicia, Tiffany and Sean and Anna and Duke and I'm still hoping for my super couple adventure.
Enjoy the flashback.
I'm off line for the weekend, grad is only hours away!

Library of Congress

Have you browsed through the website of the Library of Congress before?
If you haven't checked it out it's worth a long look.
The online collections are amazing, from the American Memory collection of historical maps, photographs and audio video clips to fascinating Webcasts on topics ranging from Pirates to Poetry.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world as well as "the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress." It is one of the greatest research institutions in the world and the online catalogs and features are so vast one can never get bored exploring.
Check out the LOC here: http://www.loc.gov/index.html