PC in Pitt

mini park memorial day

The CU Sightings crew is finally back from sabbatical! The time away from the CU area really made us homesick and we were eager to get out and enjoy all that the metropolis has to offer this Memorial Day. So we packed up Zoe and headed for Champaign's mini parks, the subject of what will be a multi-part expose on this particularly quaint feature of the Twin Cities.

Our first stop was McCollum Park (originally named Mini Park VII) at 1060 S. Neil Street. This charming park, obtained by the Champaign Park District in 1990, stretches nearly two-tenths of a mile along the east side of south Neil Street between Honorary Tim Nugent Way and the attractive vacant lot to its north.

 

Given its proximity to the railway, the train, which makes frequent visits, makes this park a favorite with children who love to count the cars. Today's drizzle must have kept the other families away, but we enjoyed watching the Canadian National Railway cars bustling down the tracks. The capacious .9 acres allow plenty of space for football or picnics and with the other features the park has to offer, such as the billowing factory smokestacks, the entertaining playground rides for kids (like this adorable chicken),

or the medium-voltage electrical substation,

there's no end to the fun at McCollum Park. Convenient parking is located south of the park at the corner of Neil St. and Honorary Tim Nugent Way, just north of the Verizon Wireless warehouse. Admission is free.

Our tour of Mini Parks took us next to Mini Park II. Located at 3 E. Greet Street, this .2055 acre park, acquired by the Champaign Park District in 1972, stands at the gateway to Campus Town. Verdant, well-manicured lawn makes Mini Park II the perfect spot for spreading out a blanket and reading the novel you keep meaning to read or enjoying a candlelight dinner with that special someone. 

Zoe and Bunna really enjoyed the playground.

When we asked today's only other park visitor (well, he was more under the MTD shelter than a park visitor per se) what he enjoyed about the park he said, "People don't come to this park for the recreation, they come for the art." And so it is. Mini Park II is home to Champaign's only large-scale building mural. Painted in 2002 to commemorate the park's 30 year anniversary, this beautiful depiction of CU's diversity and commitment to the three BIG A's (academics, agriculture, and animal rights), "really puts the 'you' in CU," says our bus-riding park goer. "You can really see yourself in that painting!" Can you see us?

Convenient parking is located just north of the park at Hollywood Video or east of the park at CVS Pharmacy. Admission is free.

Stayed tuned to Bunna and Biff for the rest of the Mini Park expose and for your chance to vote on your favorite Champaign Mini Park.                               

catching up

Bunna and Biff have been busy and haven't had much time to keep up the blog. Last weekend they took advantage of the spring weather and visited Garth and Ane and their family in Chicago. They took in a little league baseball game, played a little wii, visited one of their favorite places in the Windy City: the Chicago Botanic Garden. May is the best month to visit the garden. Although the rose garden is not in bloom, many of the the other gardens are at their best. Zoe loved everything, but the Sensory Garden was her favorite because she got to touch and smell everything. Bunna and Biff managed to capture some of her funniest faces on camera; they also got some of their own funniest faces, but since they control content on this blog, no one else will ever see them! 

The most interesting thing about the garden is the gigantic statue of Joseph Smith. Bunna and Biff had no idea he was a gardener. They all had a great time.

catching up

Bunna and Biff 

zoe's night time antics

We'd hoped to report on some crawling around here. It's about time, isn't it? Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately for us since we don't have to chase her around) someone is a little slow on the uptake. Maybe it's the chubby, but very cute, middle that hinders her locomotion. Zoe's new tricks are ... well ... idiosyncratic. They don't actually qualify as a skills, but being the supportive parents we are, we celebrate them as such. 

Bunna now calls her the "super suffocation kid." Biff says we should work on more constructive nicknames.

earthday in bunnaland: a vindication

Certain private conversations about, and the dearth of comments on, our most recent post: "our dinner with al gore," precipitates this clarification, this vindication if you will. Though the tone (meant more as a catalogue of our commitment to the environment, a précis to impress Al Gore) may suggest otherwise, the post actually contains very few falsehoods. Confessions: we did not actually invite Al Gore; we do not own a loom; Zoe's diaper, although cloth, did not feature any endangered species; and compost piles are expressly forbidden in our complex by-laws (or we would have one). The rest of the post is pretty much true. We meant no disrespect to Al Gore or other like-minded environmentalists. We are committed to our green lifestyle and encourage others to be kind to our mother earth. 

our dinner with al gore

We really wanted to celebrate Earth Day right this year, so we decided to invite a special guest to dinner. We'd never had a Nobel Prize winner in our home before, but we figured since he was going to be in the neighborhood we could at least extend the invitation. So we made plans. We figured that after appearing on "Oprah's Earth Day Event," he could hop on the 57 and drive down (we were sure he'd insist on driving a hybrid), and spend the evening with us. We usually eat dinner around 5:30, so he'd have to leave right after taping. We made a nice sign on recycled packaging paper and hung it on the sliding glass door, which we purposely left ajar so he could smell the compost pile in the backyard.

We made sure to wear the bamboo clothing we purchased at the clothes co-op this weekend (an amazingly versatile, renewable resource - but of course, we wouldn't have to tell him that!) and Zoe wore one of her cloth diapers - the cute one with the little prints of endangered species on it. Biff made wild Alaskan salmon while I cooked up some organic whole wheat pasta with homemade organic pesto and organic feta cheese, and we topped it off with a nice organic spinach salad. Very tasty and all cooked with energy from the solar panel we installed last summer. We figured we'd give him the special seat between the plastic recycling and the loom. When 5:30 came, we were all ready. Everything was perfect, except no Al. 5:45. Still no Al. 6:00. Nothing. What an inconvenience. Our food was getting cold and the guest of honor still hadn't arrived. Dejectedly, Biff took down the framed picture of Al at one of the screenings of An Inconvenient Truth and put it in his place. It just wasn't the same.

There was a somber mood at the dinner table, but we celebrated the best we could. We tried to console ourselves with thoughts of next year, but the Earth will be a year older and we never know what might happen.

Happy Earth Day.

earthquake in bunnaland: it's all yer fault

Growing up in the West, Biff and I remember the good old days of mandatory earthquake drills. Seismologists continually warned us that the "big one" was coming and so we were periodically startled by the shrill whistle of the earthquake alarm and herded under our tiny little desks by faculty reliving memories of being crammed into plywood fallout shelters like this one, that looks like a great place to flip through a book and eat a can of Campbell's tomato soup.

I could never manage to get my entire body under the desk. I had to choose between my head and my legs - and I was one of the smaller students.

So moving to the Midwest we thought we were trading earthquake drills for tornado sirens and twister preparedness seminars. We were wrong. Apparently we live near what the USGS considers the area of highest earthquake risk in the United States outside the west coast: the New Madrid fault. What do you know?

Early Friday morning we felt the tremor. I should say Biff felt the tremor. I was groggy and dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. It wasn't until later that morning, when we assessed the damage, that I realized what had happened. Our office was almost unrecognizable; we're still alphabetizing.


And our pantry? Well, we had to enlist the help of our neighbor, Albert, to help clean up all the glass. He got right in with both hands.


We'll try to post more pictures of the clean up.

volkswagen for sale

A while ago, Biff's friend posted his Volkswagen Bus to Craigslist in Salt Lake City. Bunna happened to be perusing the site (something he does now and again as a diversion from studying), when he ran into what seemed like a familiar seller. Here's the original post:

We thought we could have a little fun with him, so we created a bogus email account and asked a few questions about the condition of the bus. Here's a copy of the sent email from Billy "Bee" Bradford. The questions are worth reading.

He never replied. The bus is still for sale. It looks like Billy "Bee" will just have to find himself another ride, man.