Pictures of Poland

You wont miss this if you go to Warsaw. The communist Palace of Arts and Culture was built as a gift from the Soviet Union and was a much hated building during the years of communism by the Poles. I believe it's the tallest building in Poland but I could be wrong.

This was taken in Krakow. The building in the center is St. Mary's Basilica which is well known in Poland for it's bugle that is played every hour. The sound is always abruptly ended which commemorates a bugler who got a shot in the throat while warning of a Mongol invasion.

Pictures of Poland

This is typically what you'll see. Shops on the bottom, homes on top. There's a lot of people in Poland and you have to find a way to fit everyone.
The small white building is (or at least was) the church in Poznan. You can't really tell in the picture but everyone just parks on the sidewalks.
This is Warsaw (a sliver of it at least). Do you know where you'll be in Poland?
I thought I would throw this one in too. It did get colder than this but with the weather you're having now you'll probably think Poland is warm.

You'll see beautiful Cathedrals in Poland. Mary is also a very important person to many of the Poles.

Joke Show 09

I found the web site where the archives for A Prarie Home Companion are. I thought all of you would enjoy this one, it's the Joke Show from last year. Just click on the link and then look to the right and you will see the audio section where you can listen. Enjoy.

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2009/03/14/

Snowed in...AGAIN!

You've probably all heard about the massive storm that hit the DC area... it's one for the record books. It dropped 24 inches in about 24 hours. About 200,000 people were without electricity today... luckily that wasn't us! Church is cancelled tomorrow for the second week in a row and the third time this winter!! This pic is taken from our window.

This is a busy intersection right outside our complex. The tractor and snowplow were working hard there for most of the day. Usually a busy intersection, there were only a few vehicles that crossed through it today, their tires spinning... (We entertained ourselves a lot of the day by just watching the happenings outside our front window)
Our parking lot. Our two vehicles are the ones on the bottom right
Our bedroom windows. Our bedroom is upstairs and the roof is right outside our windows. You can see the drifts right up against the glass...

Our 4-Runner

Our garbage cans and grill
And the results... 24 inches!
Finally it stopped about 4 pm today. Ben was a trooper shoveling the sidewalks.

Beware of tanning!

So, I feel behooved to post this information taken directly from one of my class lecture notes.

Acutally, I probably shouldn't quote directly from the lecture notes... I don't think the lawyer in the family would approve! The long and short of it is that UV light causes cancer and there is no such thing as a safe tan since tanning is the body's response to skin damage. Basically when the skin is damaged by UV light the body responds by recruiting more melanocytes to make the skin darker. Any sunburn on your skin increases your chance of developing skin cancer. The UV light basically destroys your DNA and if you get exposed to enough of it your body can't keep up with the repairs. The longer you are exposed the greater your chances of developing skin cancer. Tanning beds are worse than normal sunlight because they use a wider spectrum of UV light than we are normally exposed to. This can lead to faster development of cancer and other harmful conditions. Long term exposure to the sun causes wrinkles and the aged appearance of several movie stars.

So you should try to avoid over-exposure to the sun and wear sunscreen when you are going to be out and about. And tanning booths are known as "cancer-coffins" among the dermatologists.

Anywho, I wanted to pass the word. Love you guys.

Dave

Sabbath Doings

Church got cancelled (again) because of the snow. Seriously. It was like five inches and we would have been just fine. But, I guess I'm not complaining. So instead we went to the services at the National Cathedral. I assume most of you Shahas have been there already, but here's some pics to show the splendor of the place. I think it's like the 4th or 6th largest cathedral in the world (we didn't really have time for the tour). This pic shows how deep the place is... the lit up area in the back is where the altar is and where the services took place. Unfortunately, all the seats you see didn't exactly fill up... just the first couple of rows.

The stain glass was breathtaking...
The altar...
The organ pipes... the organ sounded beautiful, although the actual service was a little drab.


On the way home we stopped to take some pics as the sun was setting. This is the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac. The river was like a sheet of glass.
The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is sticking out of the top of my head. Em wouldn't look at the camera because she was obsessed with the plane going over our head.

Bigotes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2EdEDVej2A

This is a really funny video. We should all get mustaches. Party on guys. Dave

RIP Mr. Salinger

J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye" undoubtedly the novel that influenced me the most growing up, passed away on Wednesday. The link below is for a nice tribute article from The New York Times. Thank you Mr. Salinger, for defining an entire age group regardless of generation and for being the one to truly write the great American novel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/books/29salinger.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Snow Baby

These were taken the first week of January. We no longer have all the snow that we did then, thank goodness. Lucy's hat is of course compliments of Nancy.

Welcome to Iowa

From the very first day we moved to Iowa, the locals warned us of the dreaded "ice storms" that grace each winter with their presence. Well, the ice has come and Iowa City has been turned into a giant hockey rink. You can't go anywhere on foot without feeling like you are going to fall on your face. Everything is literally covered in a sheet of ice and the pictures don't really do it justice.

My Yaktrax have really come in handy!

Will someone please tell me why I live here?!?