Wet, Snowy, Messy Day

That snowstorm that dumped on parts of the central U.S. finally made it to Peoria today.  Amarillo, TX, got much snow, which made me wonder what Cadillac Ranch (we stopped there last June) looked like in the snow.  There are nice pictures on the web from previous snowstorms; I like picture Six on this site: http://www.pictorymag.com/showcases/texas/.  We did not get a lot of snow, nor a lot of wind, nor bitter cold, but we got wet, slippery snow that unfortunately came and went with the morning and evening commutes with snow and rain at other times.  Some schools out of town closed (some of these at about the time they were supposed to open).  PCS stayed open, but a third to half of the classes stayed home.  Bradley officially stayed open, but some classes were cancelled when either teachers or a large percent of the students in the class had commute issues.  The latter issue was the case for my Tuesday evening class, where we wound up doing a midterm exam via e-mail.  One of my students in that class reported that a car ahead of her on the road this afternoon rolled over.  The occupant (who it turns out was a neighbor of hers) was OK.

Frame Captures

Stills from movies made this weekend of Kristine's bridge finally collapsing and a cartwheel from Katie (see previous post).

Bridge-breaking and Tumbling

A couple of days ago we got a few inches of snow - one of the largest snowfalls of this winter. Today the Bradley University Civil Engineering Department did their balsa wood bridge-building competition at one of the local malls.  Kristine was on a team of four eighth-graders from PCS who submitted a bridge.  It failed at 68.5 lbs, which is less than the 200+ pounds supported by the winner, but quite respectable, especially considering they had some construction challenges.  Many other teams did not fare so well.  Katie spent part of the time mastering a video memory game built into a soda soda machine.  Later, we went to watch Katie at tumbling class, and after we got home, she did a little sledding in our backyard.

Meteor Explosion

Thankfully, the meteor explosion over Russia this morning did not kill anybody, which makes it easier to talk about this likely once-in-a-lifetime event.  The data are still preliminary, but the meteor explosion, estimated to be maybe 500 kT, released enough energy to register as about a magnitude 2.7 earthquake on seismographs. The explosion registered on the USGS earthquake site (look for the cursor in the image).  Interestingly, today's likely stony meteor was estimated to be about 17 m in size, which is a little larger to some estimates for the size of the more dense iron meteor that made the Odessa impact crater (see previous posts). See also: http://www.space.com/19829-russian-fireball-meteor-blast-infographic.html and http://www.space.com/19838-russian-meteor-blast-bigger-size.html. Meanwhile, a larger asteroid passed quietly quite near the Earth today, as predicted.

Indoor garden

We got some herb seeds last weekend and planted them in a little greenhouse tray during the Super Bowl last weekend.  Some seeds have already sprouted.  I ordinarily like snow, but since I can't play in it and it is a slip hazard I do not mind that we really have very little of it.  It is quite a contrast with the big snow we got two years ago around Groundhog Day.   I am looking forward to things getting green, however.  Our only other household plants are our poinsettia  - a leftover from Christmas at our church - and "Spike" - our agave cactus from Austin.  Things are pretty busy around here, especially with just one driver. Note also the boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the upper picture (Katie is a Daisy Scout). I have found out since the last blog entry that the warfarin is doing what it is supposed to be doing, but the break in my foot bone is taking longer than I had hoped to heal, so it is going to be at least another seven weeks of not putting weight on that foot.  At least that little bone seems to be healing straight and at this point there was no mention of pins, screws, etc.  Since my next appointment is on Holy Thursday the joke is that I am giving up walking for Lent.  Chinese New Year tomorrow - it will be the Year of the Snake.