Bal'more Day Trip

To celebrate Labor Day, we visited the beautiful Baltimore inner harbor. The city of Baltimore has obviously spent time and money refurbishing this downtown area, and there's a lovely walk around the harbor, which is lined with restaurants, science and art museums, historic ship museums, and of course the obligatory Duck tours. It's a great outdoor space.

For us, the main draw was the Maryland Science Center and the Body Worlds 2 exhibit: The Brain, Our Three Pound Gem. Many of you have probably seen this exhibit or one of the two others currently touring North America. The exhibit presents real dead bodies that have been preserved using "plastination" to instruct and inform laypeople about human anatomy. The bodies are donated for this purpose, and the bodies are preserved and dissected to display the muscles, arteries, organs, and nervous system. (Skin and fat tissues are generally not preserved, although most bodies had eyebrows, eyeballs, and ears -- to make them look more like people, we think. Check out the link above for pictures.)

The bodies are each dissected differently and posed differently -- the "yoga woman" was in a back bend, the baseball player was midswing, and the soccer player was midkick. As if the method of preservation and the fact that real bodies are being displayed before you wasn't enough, the way in which they were presented was fascinating. You could see how the muscles worked together within all of the athletic poses and how all of our organs, muscles, and nervous system fit together. There were also many other pieces of plastinized damaged anatomy -- including a black smoker's lung, tumors, different kinds of cancers, and hearts.

It was very similar to the Mutter Museum, the medical science museum a few blocks away from our apartment in Philly. As the museum's slogan says, they are both "disturbingly informative."

Before heading home, we lightened the mood by checking out the Science Center's Chesapeake Bay exhibit, which featured a giant mechanical blue crab. And as we all know, Russ is obsessed with blue crabs. Here he is learning to commune with the blue crab.

Rusty in Denmark

Last week I went to a scientific conference in Snekkersten Denmark, which is about an hour north of Copenhagen at the closest point between Denmark and Sweden. Prior to heading up to the conference I hung out at 7 a.m. in a sleepy, jet-lagged daze which is captured by these pictures exhibiting my desire to photograph street food that I ate, evidence of Obama-mania in Denmark, old buildings, and myself in front of ships.

The science was excellent and I had a great time and met a lot of people. Here is me doing the science thing and pondering an insightful comment on my poster.

During the conference I got the opportunity to visit the Kronborg castle in the neighboring town of Helsingor. This is the castle that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet after either Shakespeare himself or a member of his acting troupe made an appearance there to entertain the Danish royalty. It is your classic castle, moat and all.

There were many pieces of original art in the castle, which have been slowly acquired in the last century from the thieving swedes who stole it all when they occupied the castle in 1658. The castle also doubles as a modern art museum, which makes for a fairly schizophrenic combination of visuals in the large old rooms. One piece of art makes me think that a friend, Kirk "eagle" VanderMeulen, may have some Danish blood. I'm of course referring to the figure off to the rights enormous calf muscles.

Here is the blow up.


After the conference I hung out in Copenhagen for a night before I caught my flight home. The city is excellent, but contrary to what I was expecting was actually quite tagged up. This lead me to feel more homesick for Philly.

How to eat blue crabs

Earlier in the summer I was very geeked up about going down to Delaware to eat some blue crabs on the beach. The trip was excellent, and we found ourselves at Ed's Chicken and Crabs, which was a pretty awesome crab shack. Unfortunately, I don't know how to eat blue crabs, and although I did enjoy them I couldn't help to wonder how good they would be if I could get actual chuncks of meat with out shards of shell in them. Needless to say there is plenty of vlog literature on the subject. Here is a couple chesapeak good'ole'boys telling you how to do it.

Princess Bride on the Banks of the Schuykill

We enjoyed a lovely evening out on the banks of the Schuykill River a few weeks ago. The local car sharing program was projecting The Princess Bride (and giving away free popcorn) along the riverwalk by the Schuykill River. It was fun to hear so many people simultaneously parroting that famous line, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Here are pictures of our friends enjoying the picnic and taking the chance to catch up on your sleep.

Above are our friends Ping, Carolina, and Pieter.

Pieter didn't last very long.

Here is Russell with Ping's dog, Cookie. Cookie is pretty cute.

Singed Flesh Burritos

Of course, these burritos do not include "singed flesh" in the ingredients list. But as you can see below, the first time I made these amazing burritos I did indeed char my right wrist. (Too hot of oil + onions = ouch.) Now every time I see that scar, I'm reminded of these damn good burritos. So I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone. Just mind the hot oil.

Picadillo Pork Burritos

1 pound lean pork tenderloin, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped

3 medium garlic cloves, minced

2/3 cup salsa or picante sauce

1/4 cup raisins

3 Tbsp silvered almonds, toasted (toast in dry, medium hot pan carefully for 3-5 minutes until golden)

1/3 cup queso anejo Mexican cheese, shredded

2 Tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped

4 flour tortillas

-Place pork in a large bowl. Sprinkle with cumin, salt, and cinnamon; toss well.

- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook 3 minutes; stir occasionally. Add pork mixture; cook 2 minutes, stirring often. Add salsa and raisins; simmer over low heat 5 minutes or until pork loses its pink color and sauce is thick. Remove from heat; stir in almonds, cheese, and cilantro.

-Heat tortillas according to package directions. Spoon 3/4 cup pork mixture onto each tortilla; roll up.

Yield: 4 amazing burritos.