The National Zoo and Re-Experiencing
Living in the National Capital region for a billion years, I do certainly get spoiled and cynical about what the city offers. For years, I would go into the office every day in very close promiximity to the National Mall, but so much of the time I just felt like it was really tour groups just getting in the way with their matching T-shirts and such. (one of these occasions was actually a group from my old middle school, but I couldn't think of a way to interrupt the kids without throwing everything off,) The Smithsonian itself just becomes places to go when I am entertaining out-of-towners. Of course this time we WERE meeting up with out of towners - college friend of the life partner and her family - so the National Zoo felt like a perfect fit.
Washington DC ruined museums for me in a lot of ways. With all of the museums in the National Mall area, and the National Zoo all being free to enter, it has always been hard for me to go to even good museums like the New England Aquarium without thinking that it feels like a ripoff having to pay more than zero dollars. "Like, this costs money??" This is a really priveleged view to have of course, but such is the charm.
Much to the children's chagrin, the zoo was panda free - well, at least it was Sunday. But there was still plenty around. Much of the fun came from the addition of cheeky Halloween decorations preparing for the Boo at the Zoo. The elephants were out in full force, as was the bird house. One of the fun features of the bird house is that the birds are not separated from the viewers - it could poop on you, though no prizes are awarded if that happens. The giant cat section - all the way and the end/bottom of the zoo - was appropriately awesome. We also explored the small mammals section. The life partner's friend was grossed out a bit by the naked mole rats - studying at a seminary, I guess she was not ready for that level of nudity.
But the memory of the day for me - as is often with these things with young ones - was seeing how all these kids had wide eyed views of the animals. I think of how they stopped at EVERY - SINGLE - MISTING station, even if it was not actually cold outside. I think of how excited my youngest was just riding the Metro and counting the stops and bounding looking for the right escalator. Well - the train ride, there is another thing I just take for granted.
A Big College Football Weekend
Week 7 was punctuated by the biggest game of the year to date, the Instant Classic between Ohio State and Oregon. My Ohio State correspondent was despondent about the officiating, which was decidedly odd and all over the map. (the final Offensive Pass Interference being an appropriate final straw) But more than anything, this was a game where Oregon was able to make one big play after another - not just clutch but explosive. Ohio State seemed iike the better team down to down, but Oregon got away from them enough and frequently enough to nose it out. Put another way - two good teams, let's see this again. The rankings as you imagine have a new #1.
Notes:
To refrain from last week, I don't think BYU is the 3rd best team in the country, but that win against Kansas State counts. They likely get a bye if the season ended today.
Clemson is probably better than their record - but outside of Georgia, the record is thin-ish. They were hurt by a tweak I made to the Strength of Schedule algorithm.
The SoS numbers changed. Instead of using Air Force as a reference team, I used Excel Solver to figure out what a team's rating would be to go .500 if they played every team. So the SoS rank is based on how you'd expect this imaginary .500 team would do.
Next week it's back to the SEC for the titan clash - Georgia at Texas.
The Army-Navy AAC title game lives!