Tuesday 28 January 2014

Weather Forecasts on My Phone


The TV profile with CHCH in Hamilton

Yes it's Canada and yes it's January, but darned if it hasn't been a cold winter so far. And my cell phone seems to have a bug in it. Namely, whenever the temperature here in southern Ontario drops below -15oC or so, my phone rings like crazy with media requests! Even over the weekend, during our Syracuse road trip for the boys' gymnastics tournament, I ended up doing a phone interview at the hotel with a Northwestern University journalism student in Illinois about the effects of alcohol on cold tolerance. Apparently, if you google "faculty expert cold and alcohol" there I am!

They're all pretty fun to do, and the most recent one has been with CHCH TV in Hamilton, with my talking to their health reporter Maria Hayes about wind chill and manual function in the cold. We end up with my grad student Phil Wallace doing some snow angels.

Monday 27 January 2014

The Coolest Mexican Restaurant in Syracuse

OK, I've been offline with the blog for a long while, so let's renew with a blog about FOOD! We spent this weekend in Syracuse at the Wildfire Invitation gymnastics meet for the boys. Debbie searched out "The Mission" restaurant for us to try, and we went with the Siemens (Isaac competes with the boys).
What a totally cool place. First and most important, the food was fabulous (seafood enchilada for Tim and me, fish taco for Debbie, tacos and others all around). The decor as you can see is really neat too, with the kitchen right there in the shrine/altar area. Yes it was an actual Wesleyan Methodist church (2nd one in the USA) from 1847, and it was also a part of the Underground Railroad during the slavery era. There were lots of archeology from the basement areas, and our waiter Doug was a wealth of info and passion about the history. The church was also a meeting place in the early suffragette movement. The stained glass is all from the 19th century too.
Super fun night out. Thanks to the Siemens for the fun company too!