Las Vegas has a way of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. Case in point: today’s Photo of the Day taken by Flickr user Gustavo at the City Center entertainment complex. In the photo, monochrome lines and angles look more like a work of minimalist modern art than what they really are: balconies at a hotel.
Do you have your own optical illusion photographs? Upload your favorite shots to the Gadling Group Pool and your image could be selected as our Photo of the Day.
Location: Frederick, Maryland
Brewery: Flying Dog Brewery
Special Beer: Lucky SOB Irish Red
What It Is and Where to Get It: This brewery north of Washington, D.C., claims to brew its Lucky SOB Irish Red with “real four-leaf clovers handpicked at the brewery last St. Patrick’s Day.” Ahem. Look for their beer on draft only at pubs in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C., throughout March.
Location: Durango, Colorado
Brewery: Steamworks Brewing Company
Special Beer: Irish Car Bomb
What It Is and Where to Get It: Blended with Irish cream and Jameson whiskey during its second fermentation, Irish Car Bomb is “named for the beer’s effect not as a political statement.” Yeah, right. At any rate, the first cask of 2012’s Irish Car Bomb brew will be tapped at 3 p.m. on March 16.
Location: Lake George, New York
Brewery: Adirondack Pub and Brewery
Special Beer: Mocha Stout
What It Is and Where to Get It: Adirondack Brewery uses organic cocoa and ground Caffe Verro coffee in its rich stout. Look for Adirondack beer at restaurants throughout the Hudson Valley.
Location: Cleveland
Brewery: Great Lakes Brewing Company
Special Beer: Conway’s Irish Ale
What It Is and Where to Get It: This eco-friendly Cleveland brewery makes the “malty” Conway’s Irish Ale for the St. Patrick’s Day crowd. Great Lakes Brewing Company beers are available throughout Ohio and in 13 other states.
Location: Brooklyn
Brewery: Brooklyn Brewery
Special Beer: Dry Irish Stout
What It Is and Where to Get It: Brooklyn Brewery’s unfiltered Dry Irish Stout is brewed the traditional way, meaning that they use flaked raw barley rather than nitrogen to give the beer its foamy head. Dry Irish Stout is on tap at the Brooklyn Brewery’s Tasting Room as well as a few other restaurants and pubs in NYC and Brooklyn.
Location: Bend, Oregon
Brewery: Three Creeks Brewery and Silver Moon Brewing
Special Beers: O’Cosci Stout from Three Creeks Brewery; Shamrock Green Bridge Pilsner and O’Shawnigan’s Irish Red from Silver Moon Brewing
What It Is and Where to Get It: The central Oregon town of Bend has no fewer than 10 microbreweries along its Bend Ale Trail. Two of those breweries, Three Creeks Brewery and Silver Moon Brewing, produce St. Patrick’s Day beers, which are available on draught from the breweries’ tap rooms.
Location: Chico, California
Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Special Beer: Knightro – Celtic Festival Beer
What It Is and Where to Get It: Sierra Nevada beers are sold throughout the United States but you can only get the brewery’s small batch Knightro stout – and 14 other limited-edition beers – at its Chico Taproom and Restaurant.
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Brewery: Arbor Brewing Company
Special Beer: St. Pat’s Strong Stout
What It Is and Where to Get It: Arbor Brewing Company brews St. Pat’s Strong Stout, which has a “chalky, Turkish coffee palate” for the holiday. Also available each March at the ABC Brewpub are Espresso Love Breakfast Stout and a vegan-friendly Blackheath Sweet Stout.
Photo Flickr/miamism
We live in a world of genetically modified cotton, BioSteel™ goats, and pluots – in other words, a world where much of the nature surrounding us isn’t actually so natural at all. For this new world, Pittsburgh now has a new museum, the Center for PostNatural History, which aims to explore the complex interplay between culture, nature, and biotechnology. Opening on March 2, the museum will provide a unique look at how humans have profoundly influenced the very foundations of life on this planet, particularly in the areas of selective breeding and genetic engineering.
Director and curator Richard Pell says: “The Center for PostNatural History serves as a jumping-off point for thinking about how people shape the living world around them. Humans have been slowly domesticating plants and animals for thousands of years and during the last 35 years we’ve begun altering the DNA of organisms in very specific ways. A good portion of the living world is, in a sense, a cultural artifact reflecting the desires, needs and fears of human society. The CPNH is a place to explore that idea.”
The center aims to compile and preserve a comprehensive catalog of “postnatural” specimens – including some that will undoubtedly resemble something right out of a sci-fi movie. It will be open to the public on Sundays from 12 to 6 p.m., or by special appointment.
[via Grist]
On February 1, LAN Colombia will celebrate the airline’s inaugural flight to the United States when it touches down at Miami International Airport from Bogota. The event will be marked by a water cannon salute and will be attended by the iconic Juan Valdez (and possibly his mule Conchita) in an effort to promote his coffee brand-which will now be served exclusively on all of LAN’s long-haul flights.
So why might you be interested in hopping on one of the seven weekly flights between Bogota and Miami? Not only was Bogota named one of Gadling’s picks for best budget vacations in 2012, but Tayrona National Park on the Caribbean coast is one of our top picks for national parks to visit in all of South America. If you need more convincing, find out why Alex Robertson Textor things Bogota is the next Buenos Aires.
Feeling chilly? Chances are, if you’re not a resident of the following five cities, you really don’t have it that bad. The Weather Channel recently released a list of the coldest cities in America, according to NOAA National Climatic Data Center average annual temperature data from the last 30 years.
Caribou, Maine, came in fifth on the list. Dubbed the “Most Northeastern City in America”, Caribou’s average annual temperature of 39.7 degrees is partially due to a “polar vortex” over the Hudson Bay, which directs cold air from Canada into northern Maine. It gets more than 9 feet of snow each winter – youch.
Fourth was Jackson, Wyoming, with an average annual temperature of 39.4 degrees. Because of its proximity to Grand Teton, Yellowstone National Park, and Jackson Hole, Jackson is a popular tourist spot, but visitors should pack warm. Since Jackson is surrounded by mountains on three sides, cold air settles into the valley at night, resulting in morning freezes approximately 250 days of the year.
Coming in third on the list was Gunnison, Colorado, located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. With an elevation of 7640 feet and an average annual temperature of 38.1 degrees, visitors can expect freezes almost every day of the year.
International Falls, Minnesota, is the second coldest city in America, with an average annual temperature of 37.8 degrees. An all-time record low of -55 degrees has earned it the nicknames “Frostbite Falls” and “Icebox of the Nation”.
For the most part, researchers limited the list to cities with more than 5,000 people. The one exception was the number one spot, which went to Barrow, Alaska, located 5 degrees north of the Arctic Circle. With an average temperature of — get this — 11.7 degrees, Barrow is in a league of its own when it comes to cold. In fact, from late November to mid January, the sun does not even rise over the horizon. Brr.
[via weather.com, Flickr image via Bob Johnston]