A Visit to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo

Last Saturday, I visited the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, along with a couple of my brother St. Louis Seminarians. I've already posted a gallery of my pictures from the zoo, but I wanted to also post a little more information about the visit, and also compare it to the Saint Louis Zoo, from my home town.

The Omaha Zoo has a very distinctive 'Desert Dome,' which is one of Omaha's landmarks. Inside a glass-enclosed dome, the air is very arid, and there's an environment able to support a variety of desert life, including different flora and fauna. Unfortunately, since I visited the dome last, later in the day, it was much too crowded to spend any time taking pictures, so I only had a few from there, including the picture below of a bird about the size of an owl, but with the largest beak:body ratio I've ever seen!

Below the Desert Dome is a very dark and dank amphibian exibit, also including a few bat caves. One odd thing about this area was the fact that, when crowded (as when I was there), half of your time is spent avoiding bumping into other people (especially small children), as the environment was nearly pitch black. It would've been a much more interesting area if it hadn't been so crowded.

As we arrived to the Zoo, we headed over to the Zebra section, and were greeted with an unusual display (at least, in my experience): an ostrich was chasing all the zebras around, showing them who was boss. The ostrich looked like it didn't like us there, either, but there wasn't anything the ostrich could do about that (thankfully!):

Walking around the zoo, there seemed to be an abundance of peacocks serenly strutting about, but none of them showed us their beautiful feathers until late in our visit, when we happened upon one who was unphased, even when a small boy was pulling on one of its long feathers!

We also went through the monkey and gorilla areas, said hello to the sea lions and river otters, visited the lions, tigers and bears (oh, my!), notice a few hogs, rhinos, and other four-legged critters, and walked through the Zoo's bird cage. We weren't able to visit the jungle exhibit, nor could we get into the butterfly house, due to the long lines, but we did get to walk through the most excellent aquarium, which had some breathtaking displays, including a walk-through aquarium with fish, sharks, etc. all whizzing over your head:

All in all, the zoo was a good diversion for a Saturday morning, but if you want to visit, make sure you get there early! We arrived right at opening time, and it wasn't too crowded, but all morning the crowds were getting thicker and thicker, to the point of making certain areas of the zoo unenjoyable to be in. Admission was $11, which, for what we got, was worth it. But, coming from St. Louis, where we have an excellent and free zoo, I felt a little put off by the high price of admission. Some of the exhibits at Omaha's zoo didn't seem to be kept up that well, but they do have some unique exhibits and are working on a whole new area of the zoo, which I'm sure won't disappoint.

A fellow Kenrick-Glennon seminarian also visited the zoo, and offers his pictures in this blog post.

Live Twitter Feed in the Sidebar

I've succumbed to the twitter bug (or bird, as it were). I signed up for the service, and you can now see my twitter feed over on the left sidebar of this blog, under the main links section, on the blog home page. I'll likely be upgrading to an iPhone soon (I have an old one right now, but it's not activated...). Once I get the phone, I'll likely just post a few twitters here and there for some of the smaller things I'd like to blog about, but can't. Of course, when large events occur (such as Ordination Masses), I'll still be posting to this blog.

Pope Texting Youth in Australia

It seems like Pope Benedict is literally getting 'in touch' with the youth, as he is having text messages sent to many of the participants of World Youth Day [APF - Google]...

Back from My First DCI Show (Drum Corps International)

I just returned from a Drum Corps show with a few seminarian friends (one of whom played for the Madison Scouts in '04) that was held in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Drum Corps is an affiliation of something like 20 groups that tour the country putting on shows and competitions in different stadiums. They play loud and proud, and really get a workout running around the field to get into all the different formations they make. It's a pleasure to watch, even though one of the corps wasn't able to make it tonight. I'm getting to bed, but here's a quick shot of the Phantom Regiment (from Rockford, IL) from an iPhone of the event (I'm testing one out for now—we'll see if it can keep up with my casual shooting needs):

Natural Family Planning (NFP) and Contraception

In my class in Human Sexuality at the Institute for Priestly Formation, I decided to work on an article for my project. I chose the topic of Natural Family Planning, comparing and contrasting it to methods of contraception, as I am interested in possibly pursuing this topic further in my research and writing for my master's thesis.

I have posted the article in the 'Articles' section (makes sense, doesn't it!) of this website under the heading "Natural Family Planning and Contraception." Please read through it and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.