Sub-Zero

Was off to chicago for the thanksgiving break, had a good time checking out Sears tower, Museums and the Aquarium in and around downtown chicago. Also, managed to touch base with few relatives in chicago.

Sears tower quite an amazing piece of construction. Some facts about the Sears tower:

Built between 1970-1973
Height, 1450 feet
110 Floors
Second tallest building in the world
Still hold the record for Highest occupied floor
Enough Telephone cable to wrap the earth 1.5 times, phew !
Elevator travels at 1600 feet per minute
Weighs 222,500 Tons
Two blocks wide
Covers 4.5 million square feet
Pretty good view of the city from the 93rd floor (luckily the weather was good, the place sucks during overcast conditions)

Other tall buildings in the area; Amoco Building and John Hancock.
Lake Michigan man, give it to mother nature, it is not a lake it is a sea., a fresh water sea ! People around the lake are really blessed, wish chennai had one such lake.

Shedd Aquarium was good too, but we were in a hurry and could not take our time to actually educate ourselves about those exotic marine life. Dolphin show was good, but that was the time I was really fuming, turned red and virtually was releasing super heated steam through my ears. My digital camera battery drained at the right time, Murphy's law yet again. Surprisingly, my Canon s410 does not have a battery level indicator and this is a big downside with the model. Ended up shooting using a use-and-throw camera. Came a foot close to a Beluga white whale, quite a breath taking experiencing. Simply could not locate the Piranhas, desperately looked for it, though. And coming to chicago weather; it's horrible, was sub zero for most of the time. Downtown was windy and all those that carried an umbrella ended up using it with the curvature facing the sky.

Flew back from Chicago on sunday morning and took the public transport back home. That day seattle went sub zero all through sunday night and early monday. Got ready for office and went to my car. The car was all covered with ice, make no mistake, ICE not snow. Had to scrape off the ice using my subway card. In about 5 minutes lost sense on my fingures. Desperately looked for the car keys and tried to put it in the key hole and guess what, the key wouldn't go in :-)

The car was frozen, the moisture in the key hole froze and I could barely insert the key. Went back into my apartment, heated my key and tried my luck. There was some improvement, I could get the key in this time but could not turn it. Believe me literally had to shove the key back and forth so that the friction could create some heat and melt the ice inside. After struggling for about 20 minutes managed to unlock the doors. Phew ! that's what sub-zero can do to you.