Monthly Archives: January 2007

Overnight something like 7 inches of light, fluffy snow fell in the Twin Cities. My driveway only had like maybe 5 on it, but I’ll call it 7 because that’s what the radio is saying it is and it makes it sound even more winter stormy.
I’d like to take advantage of the snowfall to remind everyone to please observe proper snow removal etiquette when clearing your walks and driveways. I saw a few of you using your snowblowers after we had that 3 inch dusting a couple weeks back. Bad form, people, bad form.
Also this: It’s totally cool to wear your big winter boots to work, so long as you bring different shoes to wear once you’re there. And if you accidentally forget your other shoes, it is totally acceptable to stomp around the office in your giant winter boots for the remainder of the day. And if you want to wear them down to the cafeteria to get coffee yelling “THESE ARE ME COFFEE BOOTS” that’s ok, too. At least it’s ok by me. Maybe you’re the kind of person who would rather drive all the way home just to get a pair of shoes, and hey, more power to you. But if you are, methinks you’re exactly the type of person who needs to spend more time stomping around the office in a giant pair of boots.
Also this: WOW a lot of people took snow days today.
Watch out for skitchers.

We went over and checked out the new Rainforest exhibit at the Como Park Conservatory the other day. The official website claims the “$2.1 million exhibit is a total emersion experience which allows guests to visit an authentic neo-tropical rainforest and explore the relationships between plants and animals.” Um, yeah, ‘total emersion’ is maybe overselling it a bit – all those people waddling around in parkas kind of wrecks the ‘emersion’ – but my nutshell review remains this: pretty effing mint and totally worth the visit.
The exhibit is an out-and-back loop that runs through the looks-giant-on-the-outside-but-feels-oddly-small-on-the-inside new wing of the Conservatory. You get to see some cool turtles, a really, really neat giant fish tank, an anaconda, some spiders, and of course a ton of awesome plants. There’s other stuff, too. It’s all very well done. Especially the fist tank. I could sit in front of that thing for hours. Except for the fact that they have giant buckets of tarantulas right next to the fish tank. Creepers. Move along.
Also this: it’s super duper humid in there. Super. Duper. Every minute or so, steam comes blasting out of these hidden steam canons, JUST LIKE IT DOES IN THE RAINFOREST. If you wear glasses, be prepared for them to *seriously* fog up when you first walk in. If you have a camera, be prepared for it to seriously fog up, too. The awesome turtles are the first thing you ‘see’ when you enter, and it was both funny and sad to watch people whip out their new fancy Christmas cameras only to find that their lenses were glazed over with a think rainforest fog. (Mine took upwards of 15 minutes to clear up.)
We ate our picnic lunch in the new ‘restaurant’ in the expansion. They didn’t yell at us for bringing in outside food, which is good, because there really wasn’t anywhere else to eat and I [naturally] wasn’t jonsing to pay $6.50 for a kids corndog meal. Yikes.
After lunch junior and I tooled around the zoo for a few minutes. The monkeys were in especially good spirits. They must have known we were coming.
Get over there.
Como Park Conservatory [comozoo]
Tropical Encounters Exhibit [comozoo]