The American Museum of Natural History in New York is opening a skating rink this weekend. It’s made out of synthetic ice (saves energy) and will feature a 17-foot-tall polar bear made out of stainless steel.

Book your spot on the Legoland Inside Tour, the real deal in Billund, Denmark. June 2009, 3 days of Lego insider info, time with the model designers, behind the scenes at Legoland, and of course a factory tour. (via BrainLog)

A cat spent a weekend on a power pole in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. Seattle City Light finally dispatched a two utility crews and two bucket trucks to get him down before someone else risked the 26,000 volts of electricity to do it. Photos.

At Theo Chocolate in Seattle, Andy McShea uses his molecular biology background to make chocolate from actual cocoa beans. Other local chocolate makers are actually chocolatiers who start with purchased chocolate, not beans. He’s truly making chocolate, like the folks down at Scharffen Berger (he doesn’t have nice things to say about their parent company Hershey’s), and he does it with fair trade and organic chocolate beans.

Despite taking multiple precautions for fire-proofing their house, the Haroutounians of Yorba Linda, California still lost their home in the Orange County fires. A barrel tile roof, boxed eaves, brick and stucco siding and clean rain gutters may have helped stop the fire, but an ember got in an attic vent and all was lost. The vent had a mesh with quarter-inch holes. An eighth-inch hole mesh is recommended. Other fire hazards that can set off a house: wooden patio furniture, ornamental plants, mulch, and palm trees.

Growing up in Connecticut, the Mystic Seaport was a popular field trip for social studies class. A maritime museum with an emphasis on 19th century seafaring life, the highlight of a Seaport visit is stepping aboard the Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship in the world. At 167 years old, the ship has just been taken out of the water for restoration. The 3 year project actually began 10 years ago with the replacement of the shipyard’s lift dock, needed to haul out the 340 ton Morgan. Wood from oak trees felled by Hurricane Katrina will be used for replacement lumber along with yellow pine scavenged from around the southeast. The N.Y. Times has an article and slide show on the impressive haul out.

2008’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is in place in New York City, ready for holiday festivities. The 8-ton, 72-foot Norway Spruce came from New Jersey. After using it as their Christmas tree in a pot indoors for a few years, the Varanyak family planted the tree outside in the early 1930s. It was bundled up and cut down last week, then taken on a secret route out of town and into Manhattan, via the George Washington Bridge (neither tunnel into the city being big enough). I found a “bird’s eye” view of the tree at its old home on Live Maps as I did with last year’s tree. Popular Mechanics has an explanation of how it was hoisted upright and installed at Rockefeller Center. The tree will be lit on December 3rd.

It’s no surprise that Sharelle Klaus, founder of Seattle’s DRY Soda, had just given birth to her fourth child when she came up with the idea of a nonalcoholic, not-so-sweet soda. The significant stretch of pregnancy plus nursing time is the longest I’ve gone as an adult without alcohol and Klaus was on #4. I mentioned DRY Soda here in 2005 and they’ve recently added Vanilla Bean and Juniper Berry to their flavor line-up. Their Pioneer Square headquarters has a tasting room with champagne flutes. No ice please. Fun fact: Klaus’ signature is part of the minimalist design on the first four flavors, but the two new flavors instead feature the signatures of her first two employees.

Toscanini’s belt driven ice cream maker heads off the N.Y. Times’ tour of places for science lovers in Boston. The museums at MIT and Harvard are noted, alongside the famed Boston Museum of Science (you really can’t beat a one million volt Van de Graaff generator demonstration for entertaining science). The recommendations are capped off with suggestions for places to rub shoulders with the local geeks including MIT hangout, Mary Chung’s restaurant. (bonus image link: Make Way For Dumplings by Craig Swanson).

The low tire pressure warning light in my Subaru came on yesterday; we think it’s because of the dip in temperature. This was the second time I’ve seen the light. The first time my tire had picked up a nail. So I finally decided to look up how the sensor works, especially since I was complaining that it couldn’t tell me which tire was low. The Subaru “tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS)” consists of a sensor and transmitter in each tire, connected to the valve stem, and a receiver under the driver’s seat. The sensor batteries are expected to last 10 years or 100,000 miles. If the receiver doesn’t receive four signals, the warning light will flash, and although each sensor does have a separate ID code, there’s no method to determine where that tire actually is. All cars sold in the U.S. now must have TPMS and fancier cars do let you know which wheel is low.