St Louis Science Center

I always thought that the Science Center looked quite cool from I40/64, with the domed roof & overbridge & the James S. McDonnell Planetarium with its striking architecture & cool colour changing at night. As the center is another free, child-friendly venue in St Louis, we paid a visit on a cold Sunday afternoon.

The center has more than 700 hands-on exhibits. We saw a life-sized animated Tyrannosaurus Rex & Triceratops, played a laser harp in Cyberville, explored the science of engineering in Structures (including building a replica of the St Louis Gateway Arch), checked the speed of some of the cars using I40/64 with the radar guns in the overbridge, visited the new 'Flight!' Gallery in the tunnel between the main building & the Planetarium, & spent a few chilly minutes in the science playground outside the center.

When we arrived at the center we saw that they were showing the latest Harry Potter movie on their OMNIMAX® screen. This is a four-story screen in a domed theater. The OMNIMAX is a high-fidelity, 70MM motion picture system that uses a specially designed IMAX® camera & the largest film frame in motion picture history - 10 times the size of a standard 35MM frame. The film is carried through the projector horizontally, instead of vertically & as the projection room is at the same level as the entrance to the theater, & has a glass back wall, you can watch the film running through the equipment. By using a fisheye lens on the projector, the images can be transferred accurately onto the curved, domed screen. The screen is really big & the picture very clear. Maybe it was beacuse we were sat right at the front of the theater, but both Cheryl & I felt sick whilst watching the film (which is apparently a common occurence with this type of projection technique).

We didn't get enough time to see all of the exhibits & so we'll probably go back again, but this time we'll give the OMNIMAX® a miss.

Billikens Basketball

Roger, who is one of my co-workers, kindly gave me some tickets to a Billikens exhibition game at the Scottrade Center. I hadn't been to the center since it changed from the Savvis Center, but other than a new digital advertising display that circles the center above the executive boxes & what looked like new TV screens in the center of the arena, it was just the same as usual.

Cheryl & Beth came with me & 'The Bills' didn't disapoint & played a really good game, beating the opposition 84 to 50. As usual, the St Louis 'pep' band were completely mad, jumping about all over the place whilst playing. The other SLU students attending the event also did a good job of trying to put off the opposition whilst shooting for the SLU hoop, with their foil covered boards & spinning spiral pole mounted pictures!

Elvis Has Left The Building

We were in downtown St Louis to watch a basketball game & thought that we would get a bite to eat before the game. Rather than eating at the Scottrade Center (formely the Savvis Center), since Union Station was only a few minutes walk away we thought we would see what was available in the food court.

However, once we got into the station parking lot, we changed our minds & decided to eat at the St Louis Hard Rock Cafe (which is next to the lake outside the station). Although this is more expensive than some of the other local restaurants, there is a good choice of food & the portion sizes make up for the higher cost. Plus, of course, there is loads of really cool memorabilia to look at. We sat in the raised area & so had a really good view of the whole restaurant. We also found out that Elvis had left the building - through the window we were sat next to!