Magnolia Preparatory Academy

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

2012-02-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

NERD ALERT: OK, I'll admit it, we've been looking forward to today since we read months (years?) ago that Star Wars movies were going to be re-released in theaters in 3D.

Of course, the exuberance of that announcement was quickly diminished when we found out it wasn't going to be in real world chronological order, but in Star Wars episode order. That meant that "Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace" would be first.

Jar Jar Binks.

Ugh.

Nevertheless, we were there for opening day, our family of four and five other people in the theater (two tweens and three people my age, each solo). For a moment here, I have to rewind and report that this opening day experience was a far cry from that rainy day in 1999, when I dropped Rick and Kennedy off at their middle school, headed to the theater in downtown Vancouver and sat on a cold, wet sidewalk for five hours to buy opening day tickets. (And on that memorable day, I was The Only Female over 20 in the blocks-long line that was overwhelmingly teen and 20-something males).

Tickets in frozen/numb hand, I raced back to Ridgefield, picked the boys and a couple of their friends up at school (which they ditched early for Star Wars, oh yeah!) and, by god, we saw it on opening day. Good times. (I'll never forget the boys' friend Steve being so nervous during the pod race scene that he ate a drinking straw. LOL.)

Like I said, a little different this go round. We didn't even buy our tickets ahead of time online today. Somehow, I knew it wouldn't be packed to the rafters. ...

That said, and Jar Jar aside (yes, he's even MORE annoying in 3D), I was glad that CJ and Annabelle had the opportunity to see any Star Wars movie in the theater. We laughed, we cried (Anakin leaving his mother, sniffle), and we cheered (CJ and Annabelle both started clapping uproariously when the movie ended).

Still heart Star Wars. A saga for the ages. I'm sure I can come up with some curricular-type activities to tie into the movie

DIGITS: The kids' math book is moving them right along through multiplication. A couple of days ago, the new exciting development was multiplying two-digit numbers by single digit numbers. Today, they were multiplying THREE digit numbers by single digit numbers. Exciting stuff. And since we were doing that, I pointed out to and demonstrated for them that they also had the know-how to multiply a single digit number times a number in the thousands, ten thousands and upward. It's the same concept, just carried forward.

They're still not quite where they should be as far as having their multiplication tables memorized, IMHO, but I have to admit, that cheezy multiples of four song to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" has come in handy for them.

MORE ON MARS: I'm still plugging away on the presentation for Tuesday. At least today, I am now concrete in exactly what I want to cover, so now it's 'just' a matter of getting together the words and graphics to make that happen.

I went through the first half of the presentation today with CJ and Annabelle, and they were an enthusiastic audience, so that was a good sign.

As I'm reviewing these materials and thinking about it all in terms of how a kindergartner would feel about it, I am remembering what my impressions and hopes for Mars were when I was 5. Back then, before all of the data from the Viking missions, we (a whole lot of science fiction writers, and me, et al) really and truly thought there might be Martians living on the Red Planet.

I didn't expect them to be like us, but I did expect something - or someone - there. I'm starting to relive what a disappointment it was to find out it was a desolate landscape devoid of some kind of humanoid neighbor.

Even still, the Red Planet is fascinating. The very first photo any spacecraft took of it was in the year of my birth - 1965 - by Mariner 4.

Not a lot of detail there, but fascinating in its own mid century modern way. ;)

The Viking missions pretty much made it clear that we wouldn't be hosting any Martian exchange students any time soon. I suppose instead of grousing, I should be more grateful that it also meant we weren't going to be invaded a la "Mars Attacks" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

CROSS-BLOGGING: I received a nice email today from author Jeanne Walker Harvey letting me know she had posted CJ and Annabelle's artwork, inspired by her book "My Hands Sing the Blues" about artist Romare Bearden on her blog. You can see it here: http://jeannewalkerharvey.blogspot.com/p/kids-artwork.html

Space Case

2012-02-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH: I saw this 'motivational poster' today on a friend's Facebook page and couldn't help but agree with it.

And while I'm griping, can I just also point out that we humans haven't set foot on a heavenly body other than Earth since Apollo 17, in December of 1972. That's a damn long time. I was thinking about this quote we saw on the wall of the special NASA exhibit in San Diego in December.

And now, almost FORTY years later we in the U.S. don't even have our own way to get our astronauts to the International Space Station any more.

Yeah, I know private enterprise is supposed to be stepping in, but guess what - just today it was announced that SpaceX's unmanned launch to the ISS has been delayed again. The launch was supposed to be on Feb. 7, but that date slipped a few weeks back, and now it's being pushed out even further. To late April, at the earliest.

No one ever said it would be easy, I suppose ... It just feels like so many giant steps backward for mankind sometimes.

MARS MINDED: In happier news, I spent a good part of the day thinking and reading about the Mars Science Laboratory, currently zooming toward Mars.

I've been invited to give a talk to a couple of kindergarten classes. This Tuesday I'll be giving a half hour presentation about Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity project. I'm happy to have the opportunity to do so, but egad - it is not coming together quickly and it's totally my fault.

I have props to bring in, but I'm also putting together a fun PowerPoint presentation with relevant and (hopefully) captivating still shots, lots of audience interaction, a cool video of the launch, and an artist's animation of the landing.

The hard part of this task is I keep finding more, More, MORE interesting stuff and I wind up reading, watching ... and getting further away from being done. Not good. But look, isn't this a gem?! How am I supposed to ignore stuff like this?

Four is a Magic Number

2012-02-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play with a Slinky while using headphones. The result, as CJ found out, is a knotted spaghetti of wires.

CJ tried, and failed, to untangle it. I gave it a go but quit when I was ready to take a knife to the Slinky and/or the headphones. Miraculously, Christian managed to get them separated.

About 10 minutes later, I found CJ playing Slinky while wearing his headphones again. Needless to say, I put a stop to THAT immediately.

ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Science class in Shoreline was fun, as always. Today we were learning about how to measure the wind. To get started, we went outside - with bubbles. That was enough to bring the Major Squirrel out in the kids. Lordy, once they knew bubbles Bubbles BUBBLES! were involved, let's just say, the thinking caps and listening ears were on a bit crooked. :/

However, I think most of 'em did finally get the drift (pun intended) that the bubbles they blew were all floating in the same direction due to the prevailing wind.

Once back inside, the kids learned a new learned a new word that's fun to say - anemometer! And they each got to make one, too. The supply list was simple - a cardboard square, a couple of drinking straws, some tape and four small plastic cups.

They had a blast (pun intended) testing their anemometer with a blow dryer wielded by their teacher. You can barely see CJ's aeromometer spinning here. It's going so fast it's just a blur. Good times.

THE ROOT OF THE MATTER: Today we took a closer look out our carrot growing project in the Root-Vue planter. And lo and behold we saw (are you sitting down?) ROOTS! Spindly lil' white things, it's hard to imagine they'll bear fruit (er, vegetables).

Beloved reader Undine suggested in a comment on yesterday's blog post that we might consider thinning the herd, so to speak, to increase our yield. I think that's spot on advice, and so tomorrow we'll partake of some judicious pruning.

FOUR SCORE: I can't tell you how many times in the past couple of days I've thought, "Damn you Schoolhouse Rock! Why didn't you make a catchy tune to help people memorize their four-times-whatever?!"

We're now doing double digit x single digit numbers in math, and really the kids are mostly OK with it - until there is as problem involving 4 x something. They simply haven't memorized their 4s and it's really slowing them down.

So, at the kids' urging, I went searching on YouTube for some catchy multiplication of 4s songs. What we found were mostly HORRIBLE. There were songs that were sappy and not memorable, There were some that were downright annoying. After listening to way too many, we finally found one to the tune of "Row, Row, Row your Boat," catchiest and/or least annoying. But it's still not great, like say, this ...

Getting By

2012-02-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES: Yesterday we went on a nearly 4-mile hike and spent half the day outdoors. Today, not so much. The kids have been battling a cold since last Thursday or Friday, and for whatever reason, their colds both took a turn for the worse today. CJ, especially, was a faucet, shall we say.

So today was low key. We managed to get a few things done. We checked on our carrot 'garden' in the Root-Vue grower. We think the carrots are growing gangbusters. What's funny is we can't see the roots in our "root view" grower. So far it's just the carrot tops. When we remove the white shield from in front of the dirt all we see so far is, well, dirt. Maybe when the carrots get bigger we'll have something more exciting to report.

FOLKSY: Yesterday, we read a folk tale titled "Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky" by Elphinstone Dayrell. It had to do with Sun wanting to be a good host and inviting Water and his friends into his home, without realizing just how much volume Water and Co. would take up. Eventually the Water People pushed Sun and his wife Moon all the way up to the sky.

After reading the book, we talked about folk tales and what their genesis might be. I pointed out that often, they were attempts at explaining something that people didn't understand. "Oh, so they're like religion!" CJ analogized.

I asked the kids to each write an 'explanation-type' folk tale that related to something in our solar system. They got right to work and this is what they came up with. ...

Annabelle: "Why Mars is Red"

Once upon a time... Mars was hanging out with his friends Phobos, Deimos, and Earth, then Mars decided to tell Earth a joke. "Hey Earth! What do you get when you cross a planet with water?" Mars asked.

Mars waited a long time for an answer because Earth was talking to its moon!

By the time Earth turned around, Mars was red because he was angry. And he stayed like that forever.

CJ: "How the Moon Got Its Craters"

It was a regular day in the sky, The Moon said to the Sun, "Hi! How's your day, Sun?" The Sun didn't hear the Moon. The Moon looked at the Sun for a while, waiting for an answer.

The Moon stared for so long, He was blinded. The Moon, in confusion, walked around and smacked into sooo many other planets. After a while, the Wrong Way Planet said, "STOP!!!!!!".

The Wrong Way Planet also said "Moon, as banishment, you will be stuck in Earth's gravity and at dark!!!" So, the Moon is banished. And sometimes, it would come up in the day, hoping not to get caught. This is especially hard, because the Moon is blind.

TWEET SENSATION: A few days ago, CJ registered for a Twitter account. His motivation was that he wanted to start following the Tweets of some of the principals behind the game Minecraft. He was certain that would be an avenue to insider type info.

This afternoon he asked if could send a Tweet to one of the game's creators asking about access to the latest version of the game. I gave him the go ahead, but told him I had to proof read it first. And so, he wrote to @Jeb_ "Um.,. can you give me the link to the latest minecraft snapshot please?"

Brilliant, don't you think?

I cautioned CJ that @Jeb_ no doubt gets dozens/hundreds of similar questions a day from game fans and not to expect a reply from @Jeb_. An hour or so later, when we checked CJ's account and his @Connect, lo and behold was the info CJ was seeking! It wasn't from @Jeb_, but someone named @DreamyNotch had replied with links to two of the latest Minecraft updates. Needless to say, CJ was pleased and he checked them both out. Behold, the power of an 8-year-old with a Twitter account!

Good Times

2012-02-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

SATURN DAY: On Saturday, we headed down to The Museum of Flight to get in on their Family Fun Workshop, where the kids had a chance to make Saturn V rocket replicas.

The Museum supplied all the materials: corrugated cardboard to build each of three stages of the rocket, card stock for the nosecone and tail fins, markers to pretty it up, and tape to hold it all together. (I'm pretty sure Scotch tape wasn't used to hold the original Saturn V together.)

They worked methodically, and were proud of their finished products.

When we arrived at the museum, we found out that there would be a special Black History Month presentation that afternoon, with the guest of honor being Dr. Bernard Harris Jr., the first African American space walker. We got there at 11 a.m. and his talk wasn't until 2 p.m., but we didn't have trouble finding ways to kill the time in between.

For instance, CJ and Annabelle each got some practice docking with the Hubble Space Telescope in a simulator.

They also logged some time virtually piloting old fashioned bi planes.

And every time we go to the museum, we discover something we haven't seen before. Like here, Annabelle learns about WWII German flight formations.

And they checked out a couple of real cockpits.

At 2 p.m. we made our way to the auditorium and listened to a thoroughly entertaining and inspiring talk by Dr. Harris.

He had some great messages, especially for the youngsters in the audience. One was "You are an infinite being with infinite possibilities." The other (my personal favorite) was, "Do not let the fool next to you destroy your dreams."

Saturday was also Michael P. Anderson Memorial Day at The Museum of Flight. Though Anderson was born in N.Y., he called Spokane, WA, his hometown. He went to Cheney High School, and attended the University of Washington here in Seattle, where he earned bachelors degrees in physics and astronomy.

He rode aboard Endeavour for STS-89, a mission where the shuttle docked with MIR. STS-107 (Columbia) was his second - and tragically his final - shuttle mission.

There is a gorgeous statue of Anderson at the Museum. (In the background, you can see the old red barn, where Boeing got its start.)

Saturday was a wonderful day, and hundreds of people were there to honor the fallen hero and to hear Dr. Harris speak.

SUNNY MONDAY: We did some writing and math this morning, but the bulk of our afternoon was spent outdoors. We parked near the east end of the Magnolia bridge and, for the first time, walked the waterfront trail to downtown Seattle. I don't know why we've waited 5 years to make this journey, but it was worth the wait!

I'm mostly going to let the photos do the talking. It was a nearly 4-mile round trip and we enjoyed every step (or scoot, in the kids' case). Here's one of our first turns.

The rock the kids are standing on here is part of an art installation. And yes, they *were* singing the "Rocky" theme while standing triumphantly atop it.

The photo above has a ferry, a grain elevator, an ocean going vessel, a part of Century Link Field, Mt. Rainier, the port, and Elliott Bay. Not a bad panorama.

The cool graphic above can be found at the King County Water Treatment facility along the bay.

We saw a wild looking net setup and wondered what it was all about. Fortunately, there was a sign to tell us!

We encountered a towering totem pole ...

Luckily, there was a sign telling all about it, too.

Another great view - this one includes the public fishing pier at Myrtle Edwards Park. It's open 24 hours a day.

CJ and Annabelle did some "wishing" instead of fishing today.

Here's Annabelle whizzing past two Seattle landmarks.

Yay! We made it to the Olympic Sculpture Park!

OH, AND BY THE WAY: We made some Mars cookies today, complete with sugary polar caps.

Rings and Things

2012-02-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

SWEET BLING: A couple of weeks ago I spied what looked to be a fun, easy Valentine-themed craft in "Family Fun" magazine. The only supplies needed were two pipe cleaners and a Hershey's Kiss to craft a sweet, showy "ring." Simple!

Unfortunately, the instructions (yes, even complete, with photos) in the magazine weren't that clear, but we managed to fumble our way through and came up with this ...

and these ...

MINDS ON MARS: Just after breakfast, I showed the kids a photo on my computer screen without telling them what they'd be looking at. I had them guess what it was. Annabelle guessed it was a close up of a cookie. CJ mulled it over a minute and then suggested, "Mars?"

IMAGE: NASA/JPL/Univ. of ARIZONA

Bingo!

The photo, on the Discovery News! Web site, is of barchan dunes, which are wind-driven piles of soil moving across the Martian landscape in the direction of their steepest slope. The photo was taken from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

In other news, we also watched a video about the potential use of "tumbleweed" rovers on Mars someday. Fascinating!

And today we took delivery of a stuffed "animal," er, planet. A soft and snuggable Mars! I challenged the kids to find Gale Crater on it, as that's where Curiosity will be landing come August. It took them a minute or two, but they did hunt it down.

TREASURE HUNTING: We went to the Goodwill in SoDo today. It's a big place and there's always lots to look at. Today, CJ seemed to have an eye for fine art. Like this ...

Oh, he so desperately wanted to buy it! He was sure it was some super valuable treasure - even after I showed him that under the $4.99 Goodwill price tag was atop a Ross Dress for Less price tag which also read $4.99.

A few aisles later, CJ spied this beauty and was again enchanted. You will be shocked to learn we also passed this gem up. Though CJ was bummed, he soothed himself by getting a players guide about the game Metroid.

SIDE TRIP: It was such a beautiful sunny day, on the way home from SoDo, I wanted to stop at a park. But not just any park. ... Ever since we moved to Seattle, I've been wanting to hunt down the curiously named Bhy Kracke park, on the southeast slope of Queen Anne hill. Just a couple of blocks from my paternal grandparents' former home, my sister and I used to visit it once in awhile when we'd be visiting Seattle.

Though we had not heard of crack in the '70s or early '80s, based on activity witnessed there in that time frame, I think it used to be "buy dope-y" park. But I digress.

Today, the park is and has a new looking play equipment that the kids enjoyed exploring, including a climbing wall they made short work of.

Annabelle talked CJ into going to the receiving end of the communication station and then took the opportunity to "Rick Roll" him. :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, words "by cracky" were used as a popular expression of surprise or delight at the end of the 19th century and Seattle resident Werner H. Kracke was known to say it all the time, according to the Seattle Parks and Recreation department. The words became Kracke's favorite expression of surprise or delight, to the point it became his nickname, though he spelled it "Bhy." Kracke lived for many years on the upper level of where the park.

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: Today, the moon hung in the bright blue sky. It reminded me we had yet to viewing some groundbreaking video beamed back from "Ebb," one of GRAIL's twin spacecraft. Taken on Jan. 19, it shows the far side of the moon - the side we Earth-bound humans don't ever get to see.

Before cuing up the video, the kids and I talked about how and why we only see the moon's "face" - because the moon rotates around its own axis in the same length of time that it takes to orbit the Earth.
I found one kind of OK video on YouTube on the subject, but we liked the "Synchronous Rotation of the Moon" video better.

We got a bit hysterical trying to recreate the Sun, Earth and Moon in our living room. I had the easy job. I was the Sun. I just stood in one place. CJ was the Earth, which meant he had to orbit me AND spin rather rapidly while doing it. Annabelle was the Moon, which meant she had to try to slowly spin while orbiting CJ. I think we'd need a much bigger living room to properly execute the experiment.

We finally got around to watching the GRAIL video. Neat-o stuff. In the footage, per NASA's explanation, "the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the screen as the spacecraft flies toward the lunar south pole. One of the first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of the moon is the Mare Orientale, a 560-mile-wide (900 kilometer) impact basin that straddles both the moon's near and far side.
The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact."

We watched it a couple of times.

Show Time

2012-02-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

EXPO DAY: Yesterday late afternoon, CJ said, "My brain hurts." I instantly thought 'headache' and wondered if he was coming down with something. Turns out he and Annabelle (who says her eyes hurt and her head feels fuzzy) both have a tiny little something. But since they're not feverish and/or runny, I took them to their music class this morning. "The show must go on," I reminded them. I figured they needed the practice, too, as they're performing with their class tonight at the school expo. We went home between music and LEGO class so they could rest up. While there, I put some finishing touches on several dozen Star Wars cookies, and we put the final pieces of the kids' poster together.

This evening we made our THIRD trip to Shoreline for the day. There, we checked out all of the other students' displays - everything from models of the solar system to sewing projects to LEGO robotics. Also on display was the group build project from the kids' LEGO class - the space shuttle on the launch pad. Very cool!

We had a bit to eat and then it was time for the live performances.
CJ and Annabelle and their music classmates performed a couple of numbers involving the xylophone. Here's a crappy, blurry, dark picture of that happening.

Afterward, we watched a series of performances, including piano, trumpet, upright bass, singing, a play (in Spanish) and more. A few videos were screened including an entertaining stop-motion animation short featuring LEGOs and one rather animae looking sci fi short that was technically impressive. CJ and Annabelle both had a great time this evening and can't wait until the next expo.

Every one of the 6-plus dozen Star Wars cookies disappeared. They were much appreciated, so that was nice.

SHARING: This afternoon via a comment on yesterday's blog post, we heard from author Jeanne Walker Harvey, who wrote "My Hands Sing the Blues," about African American artist Romare Bearden. She has started posting collages inspired by Bearden/the book on a blog: http://jeannewalkerharvey.blogspot.com/p/kids-artwork.html . Through the magic of the Internets, she came across our blog post in which I reported that the book prompted CJ and Annabelle to make collages (both of which are still hanging on our wall), and she wanted to know if she could share them in her blog. I told her "Of course!" of course.

OH AND ANOTHER THING: Day before yesterday, I received an email from the Director of Science Communications for Autism Speaks. They'd found a photo of CJ on my Morguefile.com account a few months back and used it for some publication. This time, their communications director was writing to see if they could use other photos of CeeJ for a brochure they're working on regarding science. I told them, "Of course!" of course. So, it's been a regular media blitz for us lately. ;)

SHADOWY FIGURE: First thing we did this a.m. was check the news to see what was up with Punxsutawney Phil. Turns out the groundhog saw his shadow, which supposedly means six more weeks of winter. Tell that to the flowering trees I saw today.

2012-02-01T22:06:00.000-08:00

MEASURING UP: As always, science class was loads o' fun today. There were two (count 'em, two!) mini field trips during class. The first was to a courtyard off the lunchroom, where the kids' science teacher had installed a rain gauge. It was a shade of things to come.

One back in the classroom, the kids found out they each were going to build their own rain gauge. Yee-haw! We can hardly start to

The teacher had a prototype, which we took outside (marking the second field trip) and the kids took turnes being the rain. :)

We're looking forward to using the rain gauges at home. So much so, that when we heard there was a low chance of rain this entire weekend, we all were a tad disappointed, if you can believe that!

SOMBER ANNIVERSARY: This is a tough (to put it mildly) week for spaceflight fans. In a span of seven days, this is the 'season' when NASA lost the Apollo 1 astronauts, the Challenger crew and today, the fine folks on board Columbia.

Tonight, we watched a short and bittersweet video featuring several of Columbia's astronauts. CJ, Annabelle and I all cried while watching it. :/ It's so excellent to hear the excitement in the voices of the astronauts- particularly of Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli army, and Kalpana Chawlam of India, representing their nations.

Damn, they were all so, SO close to coming home, mission complete. Little did they know, their fate was sealed when they left the launch pad and projectiles flew up damaging their heat shields.

Columbia was the very first oribter launched, STS-1, on Aprl 12, 1981, with just two astronauts aboard. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on 15 July 1975.

What a contrast it is watching STS-1 as compared to reliving Columbia's tragic end.

Eyes on the Skies

2012-01-31T21:49:00.000-08:00

WINDOW ON THE WORLD: We worked on some science stuff right out of the gate this morning. One of their assignments involved cutting out a picture frame, mounting it on a window and then classifying the types of clouds you see through it.

Today was a cloud bonanza. In the frame above, you see a cumulus cloud, but the sky also offered up cirrus and stratus clouds today. A nice variety.

The kids also did worksheets on reading a thermometer. I appreciated that they were on the Celsius scale, as we should have converted to that a loooooong time ago.

GROWING LIKE GANGBUSTERS: We checked on our Root-Vue today and wowie! They're growing like crazy. CJ and Annabelle will be crunching on carrots soon.

STICKY SITUATION: We continued to put together the kids' "Fun with Photoshop" display. Today's task: mounting each of the enlargements on a like sized piece of foam board - so they have a bit of 'pop' on the display.

Teaching the kids how to mount a photo using spray adhesive was tons of fun, let me tell you. Mercifully, we managed to get it done without completely ruining any of them.

WAITING ROOM: While CJ was in acting class, Annabelle and I had some fun and games. First, we played Yahtzee using a Super Mario themed set. I've never been much of a fan of that game - too much luck, not enough skill involved, IMHO. But it held Annabelle's interest - until some mental math on her part made her realize she wasn't going to win, and then she wanted to quit. About that time a boy from a school in the building came by with a teacher, who was trying to track down the kid's late parent via cell phone. So, the forgotten boy (a cute kid about CJ's age) happily played with Annabelle and our Yahtzee set. He'd never heard of the game before, so I explained some of the rules to him, but mostly he was drawn in by the Mario theme. I'm pretty sure the teacher was happy to have us help entertain the kid while the wayward parent was tracked down. A few minutes later, the dad arrived.

After Yahtzee, we played a game using our Scrabble SLAM! deck of cards. I have no idea what the official rules are - we just each held 7 cards in our hand at a time and took turns making four letter words, having to work with the word that was on the board.

While we were playing a teenaged girl came over and politely interrupted to ask the name of the game we were playing, saying,. "My mom homeschools my 7-year old sister, and I think she'd really like it," the young woman explained. I had to smile and share that we were doing some homeschooling that very minute. I gave her the game name and told her we'd made up our own rules, but that I thought it was still good spelling practice.

MATHS: CeeJ and Bee were introduced to a new challenge today - multiplying double digit numbers. Their eyes just about popped out of their heads initially. I quickly reassured them they could handle this. After all, these problems were just a single digit number times some multiple of 10, 100, or 1,000. I quickly demonstrated just how easy these types of problems are to solve and they got them all right.

Later in the day, we played around with a new math-focused Web site I discovered via a Tweet: Raytheon's Math Moves U. According to the site's about us section, "Raytheon believes that tomorrow's engineers and technologists need to be excited by and interested in math today." The site is aimed at middle school students, but CJ and Annabelle, who are considerably younger, found it plenty engaging.

They each created profiles on the site, and explored the games section. They had to do some math that, intially, appeared well above their level, but I was able to show them that by breaking it down, it really was stuff they could handle. For instance, one problem involved the info that 720 sheep can be sheared in 9 hours, and they were supposed to provide a ratio in its simplest form expressing that fact. I showed them how to dial it down, first dividing 9 and 720 by 3, and then by further dividing them by 3 again, and they understood that the ratio is 80 sheep in 1 hour.

HATS OFF TO HAM: We can't let the day go by without mentioning super Astrochimp Ham. Today marks the anniversary of his successful spaceflight, in 1961. For his flight in a Mercury capsule atop a Redstone 2, Ham was secured in biopack couch.

His flight was suborbital, and his vital signs and tasks (yes, he had a 'to do' list) were constantly monitored. Ham had a harrowing experience, as his capsule partially lost pressure, but the spacesuit he was wearing saved his skin.

Ham's heroic flight lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds. You can read more about it here:

Ham, Space Chimp

Go Go, Godzilla!

2012-01-30T19:46:00.000-08:00

THE WORK CONTINUES: The kids are still piecing together their "Fun with Photoshop" display board for a school expo on Thursday night. Today's creation: Godzilla Attacks Seattle! We took a photo of a 12" toy Godzilla they had, and CJ erased its background. He then moved it onto a cityscape photo I took from the Space Needle a couple years ago. Meanwhile, Annabelle scoured the Internet in search of the perfect photo of a shooting flame. She finally found it. CJ eliminated the background from it and Annabelle moved it over onto the composite of Godzilla and the city and made all the pieces fit. Fun stuff!

HILL HOPPING: Mid-morning we headed for Group Health, a couple of hilltops to the east of here. I had an eye appointment and I suggested Christian take the kids to get a flu shot next door at the same time.

Fortunately for the kids, they had an option of a nasal mist immunization. Apparently CJ politely ("no thank you') declined it when presented with the sprayer the first two times. When he was informed that his only other option was a date with a needle, he managed to accept the mist.

After I was done at the eye dr. (no change in prescription despite 3 years since my last visit - apparently my eyesight isn't fading as precipitiously as I thought it was), we all went to a super neat-o toy store just down the block. The Red Balloon has so many fun things for people of all ages. I could spend hours in there.

The kids love the place for the rainbow of M&M candies. They each got a small bag (four ounces) with several colors of their choice inside.

TENNIS ANYONE?: On Saturday, we wound up playing tennis in windy 40-something degree weather. Today was a tad bit nicer, and so we returned to the courts for another go round.

It was cool to see how much the kids' had retained from their Saturday experience. Today, they really hit the ground running, so to speak. Their strokes were smoother and way more of their balls wound up over the net.

Annabelle still misses a fair number of balls entirely. I would link this to two reasons: 1) She doesn't watch the ball all the way to her racquet and 2) She (almost) never stops talking.

I was surprised by the number of people who stopped to watch us 'play' tennis today. And, in case you are wondering, our 'game' of tennis consists of Christian alternately serving a ball to CJ or Annabelle, and them attempting to hit it back at him. My job is to be the golden retriever, running 'round the court shagging balls. One older couple with a baby in a stroller stood for a good 15 minutes and watched our antics. I know people couldn't have been watching because we were so good, so I can only presume they watched because we were so bad. Oh well, I'm happy we could provide some cheap entertainment. :)

After the tennis, we walked over to the playground where CJ and Annabelle got in a few good rides on the zipline.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS: We received news this weekend that we won a contest held by The Wing Dome - one of our favorite restaurants. During Snowmageddeon a couple weeks back, The Wing Dome challenged their Facebook fans to sculpt or create something out of snow that paid tribute to Wing Dome.

So, CJ, Annabelle and I toyed with a few ideas. I tried sculpting some over sized chicken wings out of snow, but quickly gave up. They looked like crap, and Wing Dome's wings are NOT crap. :) So, we went with a much easier approach. We filled squirt bottles with water, added some hardcore red and orange food coloring, shook 'em up and then I looked at The Wing Dome's logo on our 'frequent flier' card while I rather sloppily tried to reproduce it (that colored water came out too fast).

CHECK YOUR INBOX: Annabelle finally checked her email inbox for the first time in a couple of weeks today. There, she found a letter from Congressman Jim McDermott in response to her message to him urging him not to support SOPA and PIPA. Here's how McDermott responded:

Dear Annabelle:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I appreciate your taking the time to write to me on this important issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you may know, H.R. 3261 would allow the Attorney General or an intellectual-property owner to take legal action against individuals associated with an internet site dedicated to infringing activities (ISDIA). An ISDIA is defined as a website having no significant purpose other than engaging in or facilitating copyright infringement. It would also facilitate legal proceedings taken by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice against foreign nationals that are associated with delinquent d omain names that harm American i nternet users.

I share your concerns about the potential impact this bill could have on free speech, innovation, and creativity. H.R. 3261 was introduced by Rep. Smith on October 26, 2011. Although something must be done about internet piracy, I do not support this legislation or any that will harm the internet, free speech or innovation. The i nternet is an extremely important engine for economic growth, innovation, and communication .

If you are interested in following a particular piece of legislation through the legislative process, the website hosted by the Library of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov is extremely helpful. It provides a wealth of information about legislation under consideration in the current Congress as well as bills introduced in earlier sessions. The site is called Thomas to honor President Thomas Jefferson and his belief in public access to the workings of government.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I welcome your views, and look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Sincerely,

Jim McDermott
Member of Congress

I would say the letter is quite clearly boilerplate (he probably had several hundreds of emails on the same topic), but fine by me. He responded, he explained his position, and it is well written.

GOING MAINSTREAM: Last night I received an email from Linda Perlstein. She's a writer who lives on Queen Anne hill who just finished a story for Newsweek about urban home schoolers. I'd chatted with Linda a few months back, sharing some resources and some of our experiences with homeschooling. Her story just published, and she gave a link.

It was nice to see a mainstream media story that doesn't paint home schooling parents as a bunch of religious zealots. You can read the story here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/29/why-urban-educated-parents-are-turning-to-diy-education.html

2012-01-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

MORE MANIPULATING: We continued our fun with Photoshop project today. The only composite we completed was "Buzzes" - a famous NASA stock shot of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, but CJ and Annabelle introduced Buzz Lightyear into the equation. Good fun.

We took a photo of Buzz Lightyear, knocked the background out and then moved him over to join Aldrin on the moon. As soon as Buzz Lightyear had landed CJ said, "He needs a shadow!" I was impressed by that eye for detail. So the kids learned how to 'borrow' Aldrin's shadow and attach it to Lightyear's feet.

CHECK UP: Today we finally took the time to check on the carrot seeds we planted more than a week ago in our Root-Vue planter. And, guess what ... we've got signs of life! Lots of 'em, in fact. Around a dozen sprouts were to be found!

We're looking forward to seeing what develops. Stay tuned!

GLOWING ORB: This burning orange disk hung in the blue sky today. We came to recognize it as the sun. Hooray! We had to honor its rare appearance by going up to "hilltop playpark" (Ella Bailey Park). There, the kids rode their scooters, Kirby was a freak on a leash, and fun was had by all.

Here, CJ enjoys a sparkling view of Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier as he rolls 'round the park.

ROCK ME, AMADEUS: Thanks to a Twitter post from a math teacher, I became aware that today is Mozart's birthday.

Given that, we had to focus some time and attention on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this morning. We started by watching a BrainPOP video on the classical composer. From it, the kids learned about Mozart's childhood (he was a musical savant on tour for most of his youth). We learned about his work (oer 600 compositions - symphonies, sonatas, operas and more), and his life (including his marriage to Constance, with whom he had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood).

We listened to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" (a VERY cool visual representation of the song is embedded in the link in the title preceding), as well as Requiem in D minor, Mozart's last composition before he died at age in 35. (In fact, Mozart didn't live to finish it - another composer put the final touches on it.)

One other thing I learned today: The composer's baptismal name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.

SAD DAYS: The 27th of January marks the first of three somber remembrances in one week. Forty-five years ago today in 1967 the astronauts of Apollo 1, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White were killed on the launch pad in a horrific fire. Together, we read a very well written Scientific American story on the loss.

I walked on that pad - in their footsteps - back in November. While it's also the scene of great triumph (gloriously successful moon missions), for me, the sadness was what was smothering there. Likely the fact that the launch pad is so dilapidated, forlorn and neglected looking today contributes to that melancholy.

Off in a quiet corner, away from the pad, I spied these three benches, engraved with the fallen astronauts' names.

The risks of the mission weren't lost on those three, as evidenced by this 'joke' photo they staged for their supervisors.

As sad as the anniversary is, I was "glad" to see that Apollo 1 was at the top of today's Yahoo! searches. Gone, but not forgotten.

Jan. 28 will mark the anniversary of the shuttle Challenger disaster, while Columbia was lost on Feb. 1.

A historically awful week for the American space flight program, to be sure.

Shopping

2012-01-26T19:48:00.000-08:00

MANIPULATION: The kids have a show and tell type night at their north end school next week. For the two event last year, they made some Yoshi statues and wrote and illustrated some really great books ("Gingy and the Windy Day" and "Lolly Learns a Lesson").

This go 'round we kept it simpler. They are just doing a 'Fun with Photoshop' display. They had a couple of things they've created in the past to show - including this cute composite Annabelle did of her Pillow Pet bumblebee and some flowers - which we'll be using.

But most of what will be displayed is brand spanking new. Not surprisingly, most of today's creations were inspired by video games. Perhaps you noticed Donkey Kong atop the Space Needle leading today's blog post? In the first version the kids were working on, they were using an animated DK image they found online, but none of us liked the way that looked, so we ended up doing a photo shoot of a stuffed DK toy they have. Annabelle posed the toy around one of our kitchen lamps.

Then, CJ had to eliminate Annabelle (sorry, Sis!) and the rest of the background, isolating DK, and move him over onto a stock Space Needle shot we had.

During all of our Photoshopping, the kids used either a track-ball or a Bamboo tablet. CJ MUCH preferred the track-ball. The pen and tablet gave him fits.

Once Donkey Kong was done, we worked through a number of other photos, including this 8-bit dog from the first video game Rick and Ken ever played: "Duck Hunt." Instead of being in an 8-bit field like he is in the game, CJ inserted him into a real world field.

We also had some fun with one of CJ's favorite Internet memes - the Troll Face. CJ found a face that was a big enough file, then we found a Fremont Troll photo that would work.

CJ isolated the Troll face and put it on the Fremont Troll, but it just didn't look cohesive enough. I suggested CJ experiment with some of Photoshop's filters to make the two images fit together better. He settled on a "Stamp" filter that was bold black and white, like the Troll face, and fiddled with the settings a bit to make it acceptable to him.

And last but not least, ever since we saw a silly sign outside a pet shop saying something about "Raiders of the Lost Bark" CJ has wanted to do a composite of Kirby on that movie poster. Well today was the day!

CJ was the one who thought to change the headline on the poster. Before his work, it read "Indiana Jones - the new hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS."

CLASSY: The kids had music this morning. We always get there a few minutes early so they can play around on the instruments.

In LEGO class, CJ continued to work through a kit that's actually a collection of projects (building small animals ranging from a fish to a seahorse and more), while Annabelle put the finishing touches on her rescue helicopter.

Before class, the kids had a half hour of fun in the gym, where they played prison ball (sounds fun, eh? It's every-man-for-himself dodgeball) and scooted around on square skateboards. Good times!

Measuring Up

2012-01-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE: After a one-week absence due to snow and ice, we were back to the kids' classes up north today. Specifically art for Annabelle and then science for both of them.

The weather unit continues in science class. Today, each student got a thermometer, and they were able to experiment with them in warm water, ice water and room temperature water. I was happy that the lesson centered on measurements on the celcius scale. 0 = freezing - how easy is that to remember? That, and it's what the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world uses.

The kids each got to make their own thermometers, coloring different zones to delineate temperatures and the 'mercury' was represented by red construction paper.

Toward the end of science class, the Worst Shriek You Ever heard blared. Based on my decades of experience, I knew it to be a fire alarm. ;) CJ and Annabelle, bless their homeschooled little hearts, thought it was Armageddeon.

We all trudged out side as I explained to them it was a fire drill. Nothing to see here - just an exercise to make sure people know how to safely vacate a building.

It was a longish drill, tho, during which the littlest kids in their class really started shivering in their t-shirts in 40-something degree weather.

I was thinking the 'all clear' sound was way overdue about when I heard the sirens in the distance. Their wail grew closer - a fact that wasn't lost on the kids. I pointed out to CeeJ and Bee that we didn't see or smell any smoke and the school *probably* wasn't on fire. Of course, me being me, at that point I also felt compelled to share with them the fact that once when I was about their age, we had a fire drill and, I'll be damned, turned out the school WAS on fire thanks to cafeteria ladies out of control. ...

Fortunately, in today's case, the alarm was tripped by a preschooler who found the red box on the wall just too enticing.

Meanwhile, back to science class. I have to give MAJOR PROPS to the kids' science teacher. While we were outside wondering and freezing, she gathered the kids around and continued to teach. After all, the unit we were working on was weather, and we were out in it. She had the students scan the skies and note the various types of clouds. Fortunately, cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds were all visible at that time.

When we finally got the all clear signal, we went in and continued the lesson on clouds, happy to be inside and warm.

Visiting Hours

2012-01-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

BACK AT IT: We were back at the hospital in Clackamas a little before 8 this morning. It's quiet around there then. We beat the rest of the family there by a bit, so we continued the Monopoly game which was left untouched in our absence (a fact that made the kids very happy).

This morning, the kids started piling houses and hotels on their properties, which is when the game starts to get brutal.

We all visited with Gma around 8:30 a.m. Annabelle was happy to present more artwork for Gma's gallery (all of which was Annabelle's artwork). Bee was especially proud of a colored pair of elephants.

After our early a.m. visit, we went back to the hotel, the kids had a swim and we checked out by 10:30.

BACK TO THE BOARD: After checking out, it was back to the hospital for some unfinished business. The kids dove right back into the Monopoly game. Poor Uncle Jim, who had miserable luck rolling the dice, was bankrupt first. I went broke not too long thereafter, so it was down to just CJ and Annabelle.

They duked it out, but finally CJ landed on a property that Annabelle put a hotel on and we declared it a game, as his cash was wiped out and nearly all his properties had to be mortgaged.

The real estate bubble burst, it was time to hit the road. And what a miserable trip north it was. Windy and so, SO wet - raining sideways (right toward the windshield) a good part of the trip.

I knew we needed gas and some lunch for the kids, so I told them we could stop in Lacey (just north of Olympia) at a restaurant called Izzy's. I told them we all used to go there semi-regularly when we were commuting between Seattle and Vancouver before making the final move to Seattle. We stopped there, because Rick was in college in Oly at the time and it was a good place for us all to meet. CJ and Annabelle had no recollection of the place but when I explained to them it was a place you could go down a line and pick any kind of food you like, they got very excited. "That sounds like at a party!" Annabelle exclaimed.

Indeed, they were in heaven at Izzy's. Annabelle got to have fried chicken, mac and cheese, jo jos and pizza all on one plate. CJ had spaghetti, chicken and pizza. I had cautioned them ahead of time they should take tiny portions because they didn't want to be piggy, get too full and/or throw away food. Also, if they weren't full, dessert was an option. They were all over that, going very light on the lunch and wasting nothing. I was pleased with them. :)

For dessert they each had a steaming hot lil lava chocolate cake with a dollop of ice cream on top. They both declared Izzy's The Best Restaurant Ever. So, at least that part of our trip was good.

During the drive, Annabelle and CJ read several articles in Science News. CJ focused on ones about fossils and minerals, while Annabelle was less discriminating, reading everything. CJ also used my phone to do some research on the Great Star of Africa. He asked me about it and I told him I knew it to be a really big diamond but that was about the extent of my knowledge.

We found out that it's also called the Cullinan Diamond, that it was discovered in 1905 by miner Thomas Evan Powell in the Premier Diamond Mining Company site in Cullinan, South Africa. It weighed in at 530.4 carats. It is now in the possession of the British monarchy, one of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.

The nine largest pieces of the Cullinan diamond (after it was split) are pictured above.

BACK OUT: We were home about 30 minutes before it was time to pile back into the car (ick) and head to the University District for the first meeting of CJ's second session of acting class. He was happy to see his 'old' friends and afterward he declared the class "GREAT!"

On the Road Again

2012-01-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

WATER WORLD: Another weekend, another road trip. This time, it was a trip down to Clackamas, Ore. (which is where you'll see a not-so-angry Angry Bird and pig resting comfortably above). Clackamas is not your typical tourist destination but since Grandma R was going to be hanging out at a hospital for a few days there, we wanted to be in the vicinity. So we packed up and headed out.

We hadn't planned on leaving until later in the day Sunday, but for whatever reason, on Sunday a.m. I remembered that Clackamas is home to the North Clackamas Aquatic Park - which is a pretty darn nice indoor water attraction. There's a big wave pool, three big slides, a fountain, a diving board and more. It's not exactly Great Wolf Lodge, but at only $5 or so apiece for the kids, it's a screaming deal (as opposed to GWL, which is a couple hundred bucks for the family to get in on the action there).

The kids enjoyed about three hours of action there before we checked into our hotel and enjoyed the pool there, as well. :)

WAITING ROOM: We logged a good number of hours in hospital waiting rooms on Monday. Fortunately, the spaces were comfortable, if not downright inviting. In the second waiting room we hung out in, there was a nice selection of board games. First the kids played Candy Land with Uncle Jim. (CJ won handily.)

Next up was Monopoly. I'd forgotten what a great game that is for teaching math (all that adding and subtracting involved with buying properties, paying taxes and fines, calculating rents and such). We didn't have time to finish the game today. We're hoping it's still sitting right where and how we left it when we return to the hospital in the a.m.

YEAR OF THE DRAGON: On Saturday afternoon on a whim, we decided to attend the Tet festival at the Seattle Center. I saw some photos SC had posted on its Facebook page of a morning Dragon dance complete with a gazillion firecrackers and just knew the kids would totally dig it, so we headed town there for the 4:00 p.m. Lion dance and firecrackers.

It was frigid, with ice and snow still covering the ground. Fortunately, though, it wasn't raining or snowing. There were a couple hundred people in attendance, the vast majority of Asian heritage. A little after four the drum beat began and a couple of lions and a colorfully masked man began dancing around.

Just a couple minutes into their dance, the string of thousands upon thousands of firecrackers was lit and it was a nearly deafening, explosive display. CJ was jumping up and down with glee. :) If you look at this photo, you can see all the spent red shells.

While standing at the plaza where the celebration took place, I spied the Space Needle from a vantage point I'd not before seen it. It amazes me, every time we go to Seattle Center, I see the Space Needle in a new way.

The Big Melt

2012-01-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

DRIPPY: The good news is, the Mariners Moose is no longer covered in ice and snow. He is now a slushy, drippy mess, like the major arterials around town. The side roads are still treacherous. More rain and a wee bit warmer temperatures are promised for this weekend, which should bring some respite from the freezing stuff, but an unwelcome byproduct will be some flooding.

We ventured out today. I think we spent more time knocking snow and ice off the car than we did running our errands.

BOOKISH: Knowing we had a library due date to contend with, we spent the morning cleaning and organizing the book shelves in the living room and a bookcase in the kids' bedroom. We found lots of read books to return and several unread titles to devour.

And so, we four (counting Kirby) hunkered down on the couch and read down the stack for a bit.

One book we read was "The Watertower," by Gary Crew. The story was about two boys who go for a swim in the murky, dilapidated water tower. It was dark and weird - two characteristics I would usually embrace - but for whatever reason, in this instance we all found it just, well, dark and weird and off putting. The kids didn't like the book at all.

Next up was "Mail Harry to the Moon." It was about a boy non-plussed with his newish baby brother Harry's existence. Spoiler alert: The narrator changed his mind about his younger sibling. It was a nice enough book, but a bit young for CeeJ and Bee.

"Drummer Boy" by Ann Turner was a fictional account about a 13-year-old who joined the Union Army in the Civil War. The book featured really great illustrations by Mark Hess and an engaging, first-person narration. A historical note at the end said about 40,000 boys from age 9 to 17 enlisted as drummer boys or buglers during the war. We also learned that drummer boys were used to relay officers' orders to troops in the field when distance or conditions didn't allow verbal instruction. Recommended reading.

"The Toll-Bridge Troll" by Patricia Rae Wolff was a fun read about a school boy who had to cross a bridge every day on his way to school. Since he couldn't or didn't want to pay the toll, every morning, he had to think up ways to trick the troll (riddles figured heavily into this equation). Eventually, the troll figured if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and decides to go to school with the boy. Kimberly Bulcken Root draws a nice troll, BTW.

Our favorite book in the stack was "Home Run," written by Robert Burleigh with wonderful illustrations by Mike Wimmer. Along with colorful prose on each page sharing some of the Sultan of Swat's story and game day heroics, there was a baseball card inset featuring factoids about Ruth. One of the more interesting things we learned was that perhaps the number one reason Ruth hit soooooo many more home runs than other batters of the time is because the others choked up on their bats considerably, trying to swat or slap the ball, or "hit 'em where they ain't," as Wee Willie Keeler would say.

A 1921 photo from the Library of Congress collection (Digital ID LC-DIG-ggbain-32385)

REPRIEVE: Unfortunately, there's no rush on us getting the SpaceX model rocket done for a Feb. 7 launch day since it isn't happening. The launch has been pushed back indefinitely.

According to reports, engineers need time to complete additional hardware and software testing in the wake of a recent simulation (presumably a simulation that didn't go too well, eh?). As things stand now, it's not expected to fly before late March and it could slip into April, depending on other launches scheduled for the Air Force Eastern Range. Stay tuned.

POINT TO PONDER: First thing this morning I saw a Tweet reading, "Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars." It made me stop and think - and Google. ;) From what I could find, it's a Serbian proverb.

Ice, Ice, Baby

2012-01-19T21:52:00.000-08:00

SLIPPERS: Imagine my surprise (well, horror, really) this morning round 6, when I let Kirby out for her first time today and heard that unmistakable sound that those who have lived near the Columbia River and the Gorge in the Portland/Vancouver area for any length of time know and fear. That, and Kirby slid ATOP the crusted over snow instead of sinking down into it. That meant it was definitely precipitation of the nasty kind. It wasn't pouring rain, or thundering hail, or even sleet. No, it was that &%^ *$%# FREEZING RAIN. My first thought was, "WTH? This wasn't in the forecast."

I had the kids come outside (yes, in their slippers) so they could see the change that was taking place. They were surprised to find the concrete coated in a layer of solid ice.

We turned on the telly and watched the disaster unfold. Before long, I heard a 60-something meteorologist say he'd never seen or heard of this much freezing rain in the Puget Sound area. Initially the (revised) forecast said it would be coming down until 10 a.m. And then it was noon. And then 4 p.m. As you might expect, countless roads were closed. Highways were blocked with carnage, and Sea-Tac airport was closed. Some time before noon, Governor Chris Gregoire had declared Washington a State of Emergency. Some 200,000 people were without power (brrrr!)

Naturally, this morning we had a lesson in "What is Freezing Rain?" and talked about what causes it. I shared what I knew, but I also drew heaving from a nice explanation on an About.com article on the topic.

About 10 a.m., when it was initially supposed to stop snowing, but it was still coming down strong, I thought to take our Mariners Moose bobblehead outside. There he stayed for the next several hours. We went out and checked on him every hour or so, and took some photos during our visits.

As you can see, he started by accumulating freezing rain booties. Then some ice dusted his base. Next his muzzle (do moose have muzzles?) got a sprinkling which eventually turned to a drift. Meanwhile, he was up to his knees (do moose have knees?), and eventually his thighs. Poor guy. Hope I remember to bring him in before going to bed.

IN REVIEW: I decided our snow/iced in day would be a good time for me to get the monthly reports submitted that will keep us in good standing at the school where the kids take science, art, music and LEGO classes. I swear, every month before I write it, I'm thinking, "Geez, I hope we did enough academic stuff this month to make it look legit," and then HOURS later I'm thinking, "Dang, I'm just going to have to start leaving a bunch of stuff out," because I want to get it done. Without a doubt, Dec. 15 through Jan. 15 was busy busy busy for MPA.

FIRE IN THE NIGHT: All day long we were looking forward to a p.m. launch taking place at the Space Coast. It was actually an Air Force launch this go round. We watched Spaceflightnow.com's coverage of the 330-foot tall gantry being pulled back from the Delta 4 rocket at pad 37B. Atop the rocket sat a the fourth Department of Defense Wideband Global SATCOM military satellite (or WGS, for short) to be placed into Earth's orbit. The $464 million satellite was built by The Boeing Co. One of the things the satellite will do is add more speed and bandwidth to support transmission of high-resolution video collected by unmanned aerial drones. A good story about the importance of the satellite appears on Florida Today's Web site: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120119/SPACE/301190048/Launch-more-than-satellite-sendoff .

It was a beautiful launch that went off without a hitch. We could see each of the four rocket boosters separate, and then the rocket's stages separate. Do yourself a HUGE favor and look at photos of the launch on the VERY talented Ben Cooper's Web site: Launchphotography.com. The first one, especially, is jaw-dropping.

I actually got to see this rocket on the pad when I was back at Kennedy Space Center in November. I was standing on the launch site of the Apollo missions and could see it in the distance. Here it is through my telephoto.

BLACKOUT OFF: CJ and Annabelle were happy to find that none of their favorite Web sites were blacked out any more. The one day protest of SOPA and PIPA was over. The good news is, the protest caught the attention of millions of people, the media and (gasp) even politicians!

There's a great post on the Urban Times Web site about yesterday and its (positive!) fallout titled "This is What Democracy Looks Like": http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/27kD2r/www.theurbn.com/2012/01/this-is-what-democracy-looks-like/

TIV REVISITED: Today, we reviewed a couple of cool, informative posters we picked up at last night's "Tornado Alley" special screening, and we watched some footage of the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) when it appeared on "Mythbusters."

Afterward, I asked them to each write a couple paragraphs about TIV. I thought they did a pretty good job. Here's what they came up with ...

CJ: "Tornado Alley" is a movie about a group of people who want to catch footage of a tornado. But it isn't going to be a walk in the park. To catch footage of a tornado, you need one strong car.
   TIV could burst through a tornado. Later, TIV2 was made. Though TIV2 is missing some things, TIV2 is still a very good car!
   A sad thing that I know is when TIV missed a tornado. Another sad thing is when things get destroyed. But the thing that tops it all is when people get killed by the tornado."

Annabelle: TIV2 (the tornado intercept vehicle) is a vehicle made by Sean Casey, a storm chaser. TIV has forty-inch spikes that stick into the ground forty inches. TIV can lower its armor too.
   TIV has gone into many tornadoes, yet has missed many. TIV is a modified Dodge 3500. TIV has layers of armor in this order: aluminum, Kevlar, aluminum, steel, 1/2-inch rubber, 1/2-inch polycarbonate, 1/2-inch rubber, sheet aluminum.

CHECK IT OUT: Super cool, super short video of the ISS flying past the moon. Neat-o! http://www.universetoday.com/92797/iss-caught-between-the-moon-and-new-york-city/

Storm Chasers

2012-01-18T22:22:00.000-08:00

BLACKOUT: Imagine CJ and Annabelle's abject HORROR this morning when they tried to hop on two of their very favorite Web sites (Wikipedia, above, and Minecraft, below) only to find they were both blacked out.

Initially, CJ declared the people blacking out some of his favorite Web sites today trolls. I explained to him that he was entirely wrong. These Web sites are blacked out of their own accord, as a protest measure against legislation that could change the Internet as he knows it.

And then, after the initial hysterics died down, we had a little lesson about SOPA (short for the "Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA (an acronym for the "Protect IP Act," with the IP standing for 'intellectual property'). Together, we read Wikipedia's very thorough explanation of the proposed legislation. (it was the only part of their English Web site that wasn't blacked out today).

Regarding the proposed changes, CJ said, "Imagine a world without free knowledge! They should get fired for doing that!"

"People need knowledge!" echoed Annabelle.

"I would love to be able to take PIPA and SOPA down," said CJ.

Many of the blacked out sites (including Minecraft and Wikipedia) had links that made it easy for people to contact their legislators on the matter, so that's just what I had CJ and Annabelle do. CJ did so through an interface on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Web site.
Using a link from Wikipedia's info page, Annabelle navigated to the Web site of our Congressman Jim McDermott. Through his site, she sent him this message:

I am a 7 year old living in Magnolia and I found out about Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) today when trying to use Wikipedia - a great resource for me when doing school work, and when trying to play Minecraft, one of my favorite online games. Both sites are blacked out today to raise awareness about these bills.

I have read about how PIPA and SOPA might change the Internet and it frightens me. I use the Internet so much to learn things and I am really worried most of the Web sites I use might disappear forever if these Internet Blacklist Bills are passed.

I hope you will join Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon and other members of Congress, in opposing it.

Thank you!

So, thanks to two of their favorite sites being blacked out, the kids got an excellent lesson in the business of the Internet, censorship, and civics. We'll certainly be watching what happens with PIPA and SOPA in the future.

IN GRAINED: This morning's art project was having some fun with the sand art kit Annabelle got as a Christmas present. CJ filled a colorful giraffe, while Annabelle made a striped horse. They each made pendants, as well.

WHITE OUT: Today, Snowmageddeon finally struck Seattle. There were just a couple of inches of snow when I awoke around 5 a.m., and by midday there were probably 4-plus inches. That, and it was snowing sideways much of the day.

Around 10 a.m. a firetruck tried getting up our hill. It didn't make it past the end of our alley. There, it sat for about a hour while the poor firemen had to dig it out and then gingerly back it down the hill.

We did spend some time outside in the white stuff, tromping around and sledding down our hillside.

WEATHER WATCHERS: While the snow came down outside, CeeJ and Bee played catch up on the weather calendars they're supposed to be keeping daily for their science class. Truth be told, they were a few days behind.

Above, is CJ's work station. He carefully cut out icons and pasted them on the appropriate days.

DIRTY JOB: Another project we started today is the Root-Vue planter CJ received as a Christmas gift. It has an acrylic front so you can see your plants do their things. We carefully followed the instructions for setting it up.

The kids unanimously decided to plant carrots (over onions and radishes). The info says the seeds should germinate in about a week. Stay tuned for further developments.

TIV-RIFFIC!: This evening we braved the snowy roads to make the (mercifully very short) drive to Seattle Center for a special event. Filmmaker and storm chaser Sean Casey was there with his amazing Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV). Casey and TIV have been featured on Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" show, and are the stars of the movie "Tornado Alley," which we saw a few weeks ago in IMAX 3D. When we heard he and the armored car were coming to Seattle, we were jazzed. When the snow arrived we were afraid the event would be canceled, and though everything else at Pacific Science Center was closed today, the TIV exhibit was still on. Hooray!

We went a little early and enjoyed (mostly) happy hour at McMenamins first, although we did have to get up and move tables because we sitting next to The Most Obnoxious, Loudest, Most Foul Mouthed 20-something girl EVER. Though she continued to spew incessantly while we moved, the other people in her party noticed. We could still hear her 5 tables away, but she finally quieted down for a few minutes when her food came. Egad. Here's our lovely view before blabbermouth drove us away.

But back to the good stuff. We got to the center around 6:30 p.m.

We found TIV awaiting us under the Pacific Science Center arches.

We checked it out from all angles. That's one impressive, hulking machine (it weighs 14,000 pounds).

Before the movie Casey was in the lobby signing shirts and posters. Here's a crappy shot of him crouched down, signing the kids' TIV shirts. (My poor camera was so cold from being outside, its trigger wouldn't work properly.)

Casey talked for about 10 minutes before the screening, and then came out afterward to answer questions. Of course, CJ and Annabelle had questions. CJ asked, "What's the most annoying thing that ever happened to you when you were in TIV?" Casey got a chuckle out of the question. He said his annoying times have been when parts on TIV break and when people copy his vehicle.

Annabelle asked how the heavy armor moves up and down on TIV. Casey explained it's done with hydraulics.

The theater wasn't packed, but I was surprised there were as many people as there were (around 80 maybe), given the weather.

All in all, it was a busy day at MPA, especially considering most Seattle area students has school-free snow days!

Northbound

2012-01-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD: Today it was time to head back up north to home in Seattle. We said goodbye to Siletz, Ore., a few minutes after 9 a.m.

I was a bit nervous about how much snow we were going to see in our travels. And while the sides of the road were snow covered all the way to Portland, the roads were clear, except for some slush in the Coast Range (with a peak elevation of 770 at the pass next to Cline Hill, which is 1076 feet).

By noon, we were in Vancouver, USA. We stopped at one of our favorite pizza shops - The Blind Onion. Their mascot is Fred, a blind onion. Annabelle wasn't long in drawing her own version of Fred and a couple of friends.

We had the pleasure of G&G R. for company during lunch. After a nice visit it was back to the Honda for another 3 hour drive. Things were pretty smooth sailing from Vancouver to Seattle. In fact, north of Olympia or so, the roads were dry. We made it home in good time. There's no doubt you're in Seattle when you see this sign:

And now, we await Snowmageddon.

EBB AND FLOW: Today, NASA announced the new names for GRAIL A and B, the twin lunar mapping spacecraft. A class at Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., won the naming contest, suggesting Ebb and Flow.

CJ and Annabelle had submitted Castor and Pollux, but I have to admit, Ebb and Flow seems like a good choice, since the spacecraft are using gravity to map the moon, and it's the moon's gravitational pull that results in tidal changes here on Earth.

In all, 900 classrooms and more than 11,000 students from 45 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, participated in a contest that began in October 2011 to name the twin lunar probes.

Here's a photo of Leland Melvin, NASA Associate Administrator for Education, left, Maria Zuber, GRAIL Prinicipal Investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and James Green, Director of the Planetary Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, applauding the winning students during the big announcement. (Photo Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers)

The Scenic Route

2012-01-16T15:20:00.000-08:00

ROAD WARRIORS: On Saturday, we piled into the Honda, heading for Siletz, Ore. (about 20 minutes inland from Newport). On previous trips, we've taken I-5 all the way south to Albany/Corvallis and then headed west towards the coast. This go-round, we cut over to the coast at Olympia for a change of pace.

The scenery was different, which we appreciated. We drove through rain forests and crossed over many a river we'd never seen before. We caught glimpses of the ocean and saw a number of spots where Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery had camped out generations ago. (CJ, especially, loved Dismal Nitch. For whatever reason, that name just delights him.)

We stopped in Astoria briefly. There, next to the maritime museum, we checked out a really big anchor and saw a Coast Guard ship, Columbia. It was so windy and c-c-cold when we stopped, the river had huge white caps and big waves breaking on the shore. Here's a photo of CeeJ and Bee freezing while not smoking on the dock.

Though it wasn't planned, we stopped at Gearhart, Ore., when we spied a McMenamin's (Sand Trap) sign along the highway. Lovely place- great food and they even had Purple Haze on tap. Mmmm.

We stopped again in Seaside, so the kids could get some arcade action in. Funland was hopping for a winter afternoon - I can only imagine what the place is like when it's the height of tourist season.

The drive from Seaside to Siletz seemed to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r. We did finally reach our destination around 5:30 p.m., I believe. We'd left home about 9:15 a.m. Long, long drive. We had a nice dinner and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. Oh, and they got to open some great Christmas presents, so they were very happy campers.

WHITE BLANKET: Imagine the kids' delight when they woke up to a snow covered landscape. Time for some sledding!

Good times!

WATER WORKS: Come Sunday, we went to the Rogue Brewery for lunch. There, CJ sampled his first Mountain Dew (actually, his first soda of any kind). He raved on and on about how much he loved it - how he wanted "boatloads of it." As it turned out, he only had about four sips, but he wanted desperately to like it since it's the unofficial drink of gamers everywhere.

After lunch we went over to the Oregon Coast Aquarium which was wonderful.

I loved the nettles jellyfish.

These strawberry anemones were gorgeous!

It was cool being able to have sharks circling with no danger of becoming shark bait!

Fast Friday

2012-01-13T21:35:00.000-08:00

BARGAIN BASEMENT: How much fun can 52 cents buy? You're looking at it. It's a a heavily armored hamster, also known as a Kung Zhu, which is part of the Zhu Zhu pets line which, apparently wasn't all THAT popular with the masses since it was on clearance at Toys R Us today for 1.98. But wait, it gets better. Because this TRU happened to be going out of business, so the hamster was 60 percent off that clearance price, and then another 20 percent off, per yet another hastily hand scrawled-taped up sign saying another 20 percent off. Bottom line, the great treasure cost 30 cents. At that, we could splurge for the armor kit, which set us back 22 cents after discounts on discount's discounts. Nice.

Annabelle and CJ had some epic Kung Zhu battles this afternoon. They may never play with the things again, but we got our money's worth. :)

B&B: This morning we and a dozen or so others were at the first screening of the just re-released (in 3D, for the first time) Beauty and the Beast.

I was surprised how dated the film's animation looked to me. I watched it about 298 times with Rick and Ken on VHS back in the day, and it seemed fresh and new then. To my eye today, it looks every bit as old as the animated "Snow White" and "Cinderella" classics. Granted, they did work a little 3D magic, but it didn't pop off the screen at us.

That said, it's still a wonderful story and an amazing soundtrack. But I'll let the shorter pundints offer their opinions.

CJ: "Beauty and the Beast has very very good music. My favorite music is the ending music. I got to admit, that movie has some great music (also some sad music). Overall, Beauty and the Beast gets an A+"

Annabelle: "Beauty and the Beast was a good movie overall, but I'm going to focus on my favorite character, the beast. My favorite scene involving the beast was when he was dancing with Belle. I think the Beast was mean at first, later, he learend to love and turned human again."

SHORT STUFF: We did math and some reading, of course, today, but this post is going to be brief. We're heading south west tomorrow, hopefully ahead of the snow, and I have a ton of cleaning and organizing to do. Our next report will be from the road. :)

Bread Head

2012-01-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

ALTOGETHER NOW: The kids completed their group build project in LEGO class today. Look at that beauteous shuttle on the launch pad!

I usually go get some work done in the library when the kids are in LEGO class, but I overheard the teacher say she didn't have her usual helpers today, so I stuck around. Man oh man, do those kids have fun. Each kid is working on their own (different) LEGO kit, but they do a fair amount of visiting with one another and admiring each others' projects. It's 50 minutes well spent.

GYM RATS: The kids played in the school gym for awhile today. The game in progress which they joined was a modified version of dodgeball. There were three balls in play, and everyone is against everyone. The idea is to hit anyone you can. Last man or woman standing wins. If you get hit, you have to sit down where and when you got hit, and you can't get back up until the person who hit you gets clobbered by someone else. The kids had a blast, even when they got hit and had to wait.

STORE SCORE: We came home from Shoreline on surface streets rather than I-5 because the freeway was so backed up. Our path went past Value Village so we popped in to see what we couldn't live without. Today's treasure: Anpanman playset, straight from Japan.

Just a few scant hours ago none of us had heard of Anpanman. But when the kids saw the box covered in Japanese words, they simply 'had' to have it. And so, it came home with us. Annabelle got to playing with the set straight away. CJ, however, took to the computer to do some detective work.

Turns out Anpanman is a cartoon superstar in Japan. In fact, according to the Wikipedia article about him/it, Anpanman has been the most popular fictional character among people age 0 to 12 years in Japan in 10 consecutive years, according to research by Bandai.

Anpanman (a superhero with a bread head filled with red bean paste - he's the one with the red cheeks atop the kids' 'new' playset), was created by author Takashi Yanase in 1973 as a picture-book series. Today, it's a popular cartoon that has been airing since 1988 in Japan.

We hopped to YouTube, where I suggested CJ search for "Anpanman theme song." He did, and when we checked out the link, Annabelle almost immediately said, "I know that song! I played along with it on Pop'n Music (a Japanese video game where the player pushes colored buttons in synch with the music) at Gameworks)!" And sure enough, she was right. I remembered the song, too. Quite a coincidence.

Obviously, we're going to have to try to hunt down some Anpanman videos - maybe from the library? ...

MATH IN MOTION: Today via email, I received a link to a video of a piece of heavy construction equipment climbing a steel tower in Germany. We gathered 'round the computer and watched man and machine work together to defy gravity.

As we watched, I told the kids, "Someone did a whole lot of math in order to make this happen."

Watching and Waiting

2012-01-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

THRUSTERS ENGAGED!: The big news 'round our household today was watching and waiting for news on Mars Science Laboratory's biggest maneuver planned for the mission's journey between Earth and Mars. At about 3 p.m. Pacific time, the maneuver began.

Using a choreographed sequence of firings of eight thruster engines during a period of about 180 minutes, the spacecraft was redirected more precisely toward Mars to land at Gale Crater. The maneuver was necessary, as the trajectory resulting from the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch (I was there!) intentionally misses Mars to prevent the upper stage of the launch vehicle from hitting the planet.

FYI, per NASA, "the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft rotates in flight at about two revolutions per minute. Today's maneuver included two different components: one that changed velocity in the direction of the axis of the spacecraft's rotation, and one that changed velocity in a direction perpendicular to that."

The MSL vehicle has eight thruster engines on the cruise stage of the spacecraft, grouped into two sets of four. Today, a series of 5-second bursts were repeated more than 200 times during a period of about two hours for a total burn time of about 40 minutes.

As a result of today's successful maneuver, the spacecraft is now traveling 12.3 miles per hour (5.5 meters per second) faster than it was. As of 9 a.m. PST (noon EST) on Thursday, Jan. 12, the spacecraft will have traveled 81.2 million miles (130.6 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. It's clipping along at 10,300 mph (16,600 kilometers per hour) relative to Earth, and at about 68,700 mph (110,500 kilometers per hour) relative to the sun. So, so exciting! Annabelle set off a party popper tonight to celebrate Curiosity's successful maneuvering! :)

We're so SO happy to see Curiosity's mission going as planned. Meanwhile, dust off the hard hats and get ready for Phobos-Grunt to come crashing down within the next four days or so. (Be especially wary if you're in Afghanistan, where it's projected to plummet.)

MEANWHILE, BACK ON EARTH: We did earthly things, like math, and reading and science. Speaking of science, the kids' class today started a weather unit. For the unit, they'll be keeping a weather journal. To get it kicked off today, we took a 'field trip' out to the front of the building to observe the current conditions.

Here's Annabelle, an all too typical PacNW kid, being blinded by some January sunshine.

We gathered 'round the flagpole to check out Old Glory's status. Obviously, there was a bit of a breeze today.

Then, there's always the time-tested wet fingertip to the wind ...

As part of their homework, the kids will be keeping weather journals. Do us a favor, remind us that this is our homework. ;)

OOPS, IT HAPPENED AGAIN: In order to meet a rocket launch deadline, I absolutely had to haul some naked shuttle cookies to the kids' school and embellish them at a back table in the library while Annabelle was in art class, and CJ was toiling away on a physics-themed game on the computer. These cookies have to be on the Space Coast by next Tuesday, for a rocket launch party some friends of mine are having.

Though I tried to fly under the radar, eventually the scent of sugar was detected and several little boys gathered 'round. The first who spoke up asked, "When do we get to eat them?"

Poor kid. I had to tell him that they were all promised to people far away. I told him my friends were gathering for a rocket launch party. But the news got worse from there. "Of course it's not a shuttle launch, because there aren't shuttles any more," I clarified.

Well, you woulda thought I shot his dog. "No. More? SHUTTLES!?" he exclaimed.

"Um, yes. They're done. Retired. No more shuttles," I had to confirm. However, I was quick to follow up with the fact that the space program was alive and well. In fact a rocket shot off from California this morning, Curiosity's on its way to Mars, my friends would be seeing a rocket go up next week, and there will be many more rockets to come. Spaceflight isn't over, it's just evolving, I assured the kids. And then, I promised to make them all some of their very own shuttle cookies. All is well in the universe.

GONE TO THE DOGS: And speaking of the space program being alive, there was a lil rocket launch at the Wallops launch facility (Virginia) today. I had to re-read the NASA press release four times. It said, "A NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket was successfully launched this morning, Jan. 11, 2012, at 8:25 from the Wallops Flight Facility. This was a test flight of the vehicle being developed to support NASA suborbital science missions."

I couldn't help but picture puppies and ponder what all this had to do with Terriers and Malamutes.

Image Credit: NASA

Cute lil' rocket, isn't it? It doesn't look to be much bigger around than the light pole. Of course, it is a sub orbital rocket, so it's not exactly a Saturn V. It would still be a HUGE thrill to see in person.

Rocketeers

2012-01-10T21:29:00.000-08:00

ROCKET RANCH: We got our math over with early so we could get to a bit more fun stuff - like building a rocket!!!

We got a good start on the project today. First, we did a little work on the part that will eventually hold the engine. This involved some careful gluing. We also carefully applied the stickers to the fuselage and the nosecone, and they look nice and straight, which made us happy.

IN REVIEW: As a writing exercise, today I asked the kids to write reviews of the Peter Pan panto they saw on Sunday.

CJ wrote: "The Peter Pan Play was very great. We saw it on Sunday. I (and probably most other people at the play) heard VERY VERY funny lines. In my opinion the only downside is the actor for Peter Pan. The actors were very great (discluding Pater Pan and Nana). My favorite scene is the final battle with Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Overall, Pater Pan gets an B+."

Annabelle wrote: "When we went to Hale's Palladium on Sunday to see Pater Pan, the play was great! It was funny, too. My favorite scene was when they were singing "There's no such thing as crocodiles," all the kids (and us) were screaming "watch out," when the crocodile passed. It grabbed two of the three people, then on the last one, both the crocodile and the person went "aaaaah!" and the crocodile ran out the door towards Fred Meyer! Over all, the play was really good."

UP TOP: We ventured out this afternoon to get some physical exercise (also known as P.E.). We had the park to ourselves. The kids mostly played on the merry-go-round/carousel (since the slides were wet) and CJ spent some time swinging.

LEIF'S LODGE: We had to run over to Ballard this afternoon to return some library books and pick up some crafting supplies. While there, we walked past the Leif Erickson Lodge, a longtime fixture in Ballard, where once upon a time a whole lot of Norwegian immigrants used to live.

I explained to the kids that they'll hear people talk about Christopher Columbus "discovering America," in reality, Ericson was the first European to land in North America, and he beat Columbus by about 500 years.

INDIGNITIES: I suppose Kirby is lucky in that she doesn't have to worry about the kids trying to dress her up. Much. However, she does have to endure episodes like today. Annabelle was using her LEGO satellites and space probes to explore Planet Kirby in the Canine constellation.

This probe landed for a fur sample.

Play & Play

2012-01-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

PETER PANTO: Sunday afternoon we had the pleasure of attending a play at Hale's Palladium, just across the Ballard Bridge from us. It's not a fancy theater - basically a big garage-like building with concrete floors and folding chairs. "Why does it smell like bread?" Annabelle asked at the entrance. That would be because of all the beer they brew next door at Hale's Ales, kids.

The play was a British panto, which is short for pantomime. Not to be confused with mime, the silent form of acting which derives from the same root, this is far from a quiet performance. A panto is a British tradition of winter musical comedy theater. It's rowdy, rollicking experience, and audience members are encouraged to participate by booing and hissing at villains, cheering for heroes, and more.

This type of play play is an annual event there. Last year the kids saw a rollicking version of "Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs." This year's play was "Peter Pan." In panto, it's very typical for men to play women and vice versa, and there was plenty of that going on in "Peter Pan." The man playing Wendy and Michael Darling's nanny was hysterical! The actors were awesome, the house band was terrific, the dialogue and the songs were great. All in all, a wonderful production. I didn't have a real camera with me, so here's one crappy shot from my cell phone.

ROCKETBOX: Imagine our glee this morning upon finding our SpaceX model rocket kit had arrived. Yee haw! Can't wait to get this bad boy put together!

GAME TIME: Monday we spent most of our afternoon in one of the kids' favorite places on Earth: Gameworks. We had a couple of Groupon coupons good for all day game passes that we needed to use up pronto, so that's just what we did. (We also had a $25 Restaurant.com coupon to use for their restaurant, so our lunch was a screaming deal, too!)

The kids both played dozens of driving, shoot 'em up and beat 'em up games. They also played some old school arcade games (Pac Man and such), and a few rounds of air hockey.

There are a number of Japanese-language only games in the place. Sometimes that makes it a wee bit difficult for us to know how to play 'em.

Fortunately, the one above was about drumming to the right beat, and that's kind of universal, so Annabelle adapted just fine.

We rode the bus to and from Gameworks, since parking is so difficult to find and expensive in their part of downtown. The kids were excited that on the way home we got to ride an articulating bus, and they got to sit right in the middle. The seats they were sitting in were bolted to a disc-shaped section of the floor that swiveled as we rounded corners. Such fun! :)

POINTING FINGERS: I read an interesting story about the soon to be tumbling Phobos-Grunt spacecraft today. This article (on Ria Novosti's Web site). The story predicts the wreckage will land in Afghanistan and cites an interview with Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, in which Popovkin blames a number of elements for the missions failure. One factor he lists is the fact that it took too long (11 years) to build. More curiously, Popovkin seems to point a finger at external factors/entities, saying “today there is powerful equipment to influence spacecrafts, and the possibility of their use should not be ruled out.” Niiiice - how convenient to blame other nameless people outside of the project for its failure. Guess we should have had our cell phones on Airplane mode when Phobos-Grunt launched?

We Heart Art

2012-01-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

LUMINOUS: I've been sitting on a Living Social voucher for the Seattle Art Museum for months. No way I wanted to let that expire without using it, so we met Christian there late this afternoon. (We rode the bus and he drove there from work.)

The first thing you see upon entering SAM is Ford Tauruses (Tauri?). Lots and lots of them, including many hanging from the ceiling and speared with light sticks that flash and change colors. It's a pretty stunning visual effect, and the coolest any Ford Taurus has ever looked. (Called Inopportune: Stage One, it's the work of Cai Guo-Qiang.)

We made our way through the museum's many exhibits. I think I spent more time watching the kids to make sure they didn't touch anything or cross any lines, etc. than I did looking at art, but oh well. It's part of taking 7- and 8-year olds to a fine art museum. I won't lie and tell you they loved it all. There were parts they really liked, including the ancient Egyptian stuff, African, Native American and Asian masks. They were impressed by how old some of the items they were viewing were.

There were things neither they, nor we, could appreciate. Like .... THIS

A white canvas + a painted on black frame = fine art? Um, OK, I guess someone says so. CeeJ begs to differ.

The museum's special exhibit right now is Luminous: The Art of Asia. As described by SAM's Web site, it's a showcase of "the jewels of Seattle Art Museum's Asian collections, featuring 160 of the museum's masterpieces." Without a doubt, the kids' favorite item in the show was a wood block print of "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" or "The Great Wave" by Katsushike Hokusai. They knew it from "Little Einsteins." :)

One of the most visually stunning works of art we encountered was "Some/One" - an enormous robe crafted out of dog tags by Korean artist Do Ho Suh.

It's gigantic and gorgeous.We all were enthralled by it.

We were all absolutely entranced by a art-in-motion installation called "The Gate" enchanted all of us. The installation, created by Do Ho Suh of the dog tag robe above especially for the Luminous exhibit, is a two-sided movie screen that looks like a wall and ornate archway or pass through. On both sides, a film (mostly black and white but with spots of color) with elements taken from nature (birds, butterflies, and such) was projected. I'm doing a miserable job of describing it. Sorry. The good news is, SAM has a video of it posted on YouTube. It still isn't as great as seeing it for yourself, but it's worth checking out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-JVU1DmO4Rc

I think we'd all agree that the painting we found most arresting was The Visitation, ca. 1643, by Philippe de Champaigne, a Flemish artist active in France, 1602-1674. The link I included above shows a small version of it. I wish you could see the older woman's eyes more clearly. They were AMAZING. We all stared at her and marveled for awhile.

On the south side of the museum, we found a spot where kids could craft some art of their own. CJ took a pass, but Annabelle dove right in.

The hallway on the south side of the building is gorgeous, with a series of larger than life statues.

LOCKSTEP: It's neither warm nor sunny, but we needed to get out and get some exercise. Even though I didn't think we'd see any fish in the fish ladder, I decided we'd head down to the Hiram Chittenden Locks. I'm glad we went. It's always a special place, as it's at the confluence of fresh and salt water.

"This place is a ghost town" CJ said upon our arrival. And he was right. In the summer months, the place is so packed with sightseers from around the globe (I like trying to figure out all the different languages we hear there) and locals, sometimes you can hardly walk across the locks. Today, we had the run of the place.

Upon our arrival, we got to see a tugboat helping push a large ship (Green Provider, from Miami, FLA) through the locks. That was cool.

Then, we went out and watched the water coursing through the fish ladder. We checked out the educational displays in the underground viewing area, and listened to a narration about the fish and the locks' history. The narrator suggested we check out the visitors center across the water. Funny, in all of the dozens of times we've been to the locks, we never even knew there WAS a visitors center! There were no fish running whatsoever, but it's still an interesting place to check out from an engineering standpoint. We crossed over the dam and across the locks.

We went into the first (lovely, century old) building we saw, but it ended up being the admin building.

The search continued. We walked another 100 feet or so and found the visitors center, which was mostly a gift shop (cute stuff, might I note), but there were some vintage photos there, as well as a nice little theater running a film about the history of the locks. CJ, Annabelle and I comprised the entire audience. The kids clapped when it was over. :)

On our way out of the park, we spied a semi truck hauling construction equipment across a railroad bridge. Now there's something you don't see every day!

FALL TO PIECES: Space.com had a nice (wrong word, I know) infographic today about the coming crashdown of Phobos-Grunt. Here it is for your viewing, er, pleasure.

Source:LiveScience

RETEST: "Guess what today is?" I said first thing this morning. I held a roundish plastic toy in my right hand and showed it swooshing down toward my left and made a splashing sound.

"Another Orion splashdown test!" Annabelle said, excitedly. (Yes, this is the type of thing that excites us.)

I said to the kids, "Geez. This will be like the fourth splashdown test we've watched. Why do you suppose they're doing so many tests?"

I was proud of CJ when he immediately answered, "Well sometimes things don't go as planned."

Exactly!

There's video of today's splash down test here: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/orion-droptest-jan06.html

WEIGHTY MATTER: Thanks to a tweet from Neil deGrasse Tyson, we learned that every day the Earth weighs more than it did the day before. Why? "We plow thru several hundred tons of meteor dust per day," he explained.

Heads Up

2012-01-05T22:44:00.000-08:00

MAKE AND TAKE: Forgot to post this gem from yesterday - it's a helmet Bee made in her art class. I wish I had captured the fine detailing on the top and the back of it. From this angle, it looks a bit like something from a horror movie. ;)

She also made a fun ring toss game out of a one-liter pop bottle, some paper plates and some tape. She, CJ and Kirby played it today and had loads of fun.

WALLY WORLD: The kids have their l-o-n-g break between classes (3.5 hours) today, so we had time to kill. They played some math related games on the ever popular coolmath-games.com.

In one game involving ramps, gravity, momentum and other physics principles, CJ demonstrates how NOT to park a car.

The kids also played outside some. but it was really cold, so we didn't last too terribly long.

We would up going up to Wal-Mart in Lynnwood. Yee haw. There, we spent some time tooling around the toy aisles, looking for the worst toys we could find. This one was a contender. It's called a "Lots to Cuddle" baby ...

but to me it, it looks like Winston Churchill. A fine world leader, but lots to cuddle? Maybe notsomuch.

EASY OUT: In the kids' LEGO class, they're given kits to complete and when they're done, they get a photo taken of the assigned project. After CJ finished building a LEGO bird today, it was a chance for him to do a free build. How did he spend his free-form, liberated time? Well, he took about 30 seconds to craft this before raising his hand to let the instructor know he was done and calling it good.

"It's a shrunken head," he explained.

INCOMING!: Got an email today letting me know our rocket is on its way - w00t!

Weeks ago I learned that a model SpaceX Falcon 9 (rocket) and Dragon (capsule) Flying Model Rocket Kit would be available in the future. I signed up on Amazon.com to get a notice of when it became available, and yesterday that email came. We immediately ordered a rocket and it was shipped today. We should have it next week, which is good, because we need to get going on it!

Back on the day I attended the NASA Future Forum, it was announced that NASA had granted SpaceX permission to combine a couple of upcoming missions and gave them the go-ahead to dock with the ISS sooner than expected. If all goes accordingly it will be a historic event - the first time a commercial spaceship has visited the orbiting science laboratory.

The launch is scheduled for Feb. 7. We want to launch our rocket on the same day (weather permitting)!

CRAZY NEIGHBORS: We found out that the ISS would be orbiting overhead at 5:01 p.m., rising in the west. So at 5, the kids and I beat feet to the top of our lot and stood there, scanning the skies. The neighbors probably think we're crazy, as we can pretty frequently be spotted standing outside, scanning the skies. Next time maybe we should do it wearing tinfoil hats. ...

It wasn't until about 5:03 by my cell phone's time that I finally spotted it, to our WSW. It wasn't as bright as we're used to - I think that's because it's not quite as dark as it has been at 5 p.m. recently. In this photo, along with the kids you can see a bright planet (Jupiter or Venus, I'm ashamed to admit I'm not sure which), and just above and to the left is a light spot that's the ISS.

FYI: I used Photoshop to put the halos around the planet and ISS so you could see them better.

Another successful ISS sighting. I love how the kids never tire of seeing it. :)

MARK YOUR CALENDARS (& DON YOUR HELMETS): According to an AP report, fragments of the ill-fated Russian space probe Phobos-Grunt are expected to come back from whence they came on Jan. 15. As you'll remember, it was aiming for a Mars moon but never made it out of Earth's orbit was launched on Nov. 9. Per the AP story, "The failed spacecraft weighs 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons). Most of that weight, about 11 metric tons (12 tons), is highly toxic fuel." Hopefully, most of that will burn up upon re-entry. Fingers crossed. ...

TRICKY DICK: Did you know, it was 40 years ago today that good ol' Richard M. Nixon announced that "the United States should proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier into familiar territory," per NASA's "Image of the Day" info..

In this photo (image credit NASA), President Nixon and Dr. James C. Fletcher, then NASA Administrator, discussed the proposed Space Shuttle vehicle in San Clemente, Calif.

Image Credit: NASA

The real thing wound up looking a lot like this model. The Space Shuttle did, indeed, help make the space frontier (well, at least Earth's orbit) familiar territory. Ironically, that's also when and why a whole lot of people lost interest in what NASA was doing. After all, Star Trek taught us that space exploration is supposed to be "to seek out new life, and new civilization - to boldly go where no man has gone before!"

2012-01-04T21:12:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of NOAA

DOESN'T GET ANY CLOSER: Tonight I interrupted CJ and Annabelle chowing down on chicken wings to let them know that rightthissecond the Earth was passing the closest to the Sun that it gets all year. The event is called Perihelion, a term that's from the Greek word peri meaning "near" and helios meaning "Sun."

During the Perihelion, it's approximately 147,097,206.9 km./ 91.4 million miles from the center of the Earth to the center of the Sun. That's about 5,000,000 km less distance than in early July's Aphelion, when we're farthest from the sun (94.5 million miles).

I asked the kids why it's dark and cold out even though we're somewhat closer to the sun. Happily, they knew it was because right now we're both tilting away from the sun (winter) and facing away from the sun (nighttime).

Also on the Perihelion, the Earth is moving about 1 km per second faster than when it's Aphelion day in July. Fascinating, no? ;)

MAILBAG: This morning the kids spent some time refining and adding to the letters they've written for the Great Mail Race. Annabelle's letter is headed off to an elementary school in Rhode Island and CJ is writing to a school in Nevada.

They each shared a bit of info about their school in Shoreline, as well as some of their favorite things to do in Seattle. Both singled out the Space Needle and Seattle Center as their favorite spot. Nice that we live so close to the Center. It should be quite a year down there too, since 2012 marks the Space Needle's 50th birthday!

EYE DOCTOR: This morning I was wondering how in the world to single handedly get Kirby's eye drops administered and decided I couldn't do it. It was impossible to hold Kirby's head and body still while squeezing the tiny tube. So, I enlisted CJ to be the squeezer. :) He did a yeoman's job - once he was reminded the medicine was supposed to go IN the dog's eye rather than around it.

As you can see, Kirby appears no worse for the wear. In fact, as I look at this photo, I wonder how I ever noticed her eye was red to begin with.

THE RIDE STUFF: One of my New Year's resolutions is to have the MPA kids do more writing. To that end, today's writing assignment was to come up with at least six sentences about the kids' favorite ride at Belmont Park in San Diego. Before he put pen to paper, I wanted to help rather reluctant writer CJ generate some ideas and, therefore some confidence, which would help help him generate content faster. We reviewed how covering the who-what-when-where-and why is almost always a go-to approach in a report. And then I suggested to him he could also use his senses to help paint a picture. That suggestion was met with a blank stare. So, to clarify, I said, "You know, your senses. Name one of your senses!"

"My sense of humor?" he replies, 110 percent seriously. ROFL.

Naturally, our exchange led to a review of human senses. Afterward, CJ came up (and quickly, might I note) with a nice review: "My favorite ride at Belmont Park on our vacation in San Diego is the Giant Dipper. The ride looked and felt very scarey. On the ride, I heard people screaming. One of the reasons it was my favorite ride is because of the turns. Another reason it was my favorite ride is because it looks pritty at night. One more reason is because of the front seat!"

I told CJ I especially liked his first sentence. He packed a lot of info into it!

Annabelle wrote: "My favorite at Belmont Park, San Diego is the Giant Dipper! I like it because of that first dip. Yo go woooooooosh! And then SWISH!!!!! It's over soon, but super fun!

BACK TO THE BRICKS AND MORTAR: Winter break from the kids' northern school is over. Both CJ and Annabelle were excited to get back to class today, which I found encouraging. In fact, on the way to art class Annabelle said, "In normal schools, kids look forward to winter and spring break. We look forward to going back after break!" That was gratifying to hear and reinforces my feeling that our non-traditional path is helping make the kids happy, eager learners. (And yes, I do put big value on HAPPY. You can't measure it with a standardized test, but I think having a high rating on the happiness index beats the hell out of being miserable.)

I have to think the classrooms that CeeJ and Bee sent letters to might not believe them in regards to their description of where they go to school, what with its always accessible popcorn machine, pizza parties, and classes you get to pick and choose - everything from art to LEGO robotics. Sounds too good to be true, in a way. :)

COINCIDENCE: We spent some of the time between Annabelle's a.m. art class and their p.m. science class in the library using computers. I was poking around the "for educators" part of NASA's site, looking for some ideas for experiments or lesson plans having to do with air, since that's what the kids are studying in science. I found a neat-o experiment called "Air Engines" that uses an inflated (but not tied) balloon attached to a straw to whoosh along a string.

Imagine my surprise when, during science class, that was exactly what we did! Such fun, and we brought home supplies to replicate the fun at home.

Rosy

2012-01-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

SWAG AND SWAGGER: Our first order of business this morning was picking Christian up at Sea-Tac. He was winging his way home after enjoying a first in 95 years Oregon Ducks' victory in the Rose Bowl.

Christian brought home t-shirts for himself and the kids. Oddly, he didn't bring me home a shirt emblazoned with the Ducks' logo. Now why do you suppose that is? Hmmm.

ROCKET REWIND: This afternoon a Facebook friend of mine from the #MSL #NASATweetup posted another Tweetup attendee's video of the event. The video was made by a man who is a news videographer in New York. It's well done - very professional and really captures the excitement surrounding the event. Here's a link to "MSL Tweetup Launch Day" if you're so inclined. (http://vimeo.com/34519970)

KNOW WHEN TO FOLD 'EM: Eyeing two huge IKEA bags full of laundry to be sorted, folded and put away, I decided it was time for a life skills lesson. "As long as you're alive, you're going to be wearing clothes and getting them dirty. You need to know how to fold them and put them away," I reminded the kids.

Certainly they've helped with laundry before, but today's task was a mountain rather than a molehill.

I decided to really put CJ to the test and asked him to help put sheets on my king sized bed. I put my side's two corners on first and left the hard ones for him. He managed to wrestle corners three and four on, which was good. Then it was time for the pillowcases. Annabelle had hers on in no time, saying, "It's just like dressing a baby!" Not that she's had any experience in that, but she made short work of it. And then there was CeeJ. He shoved, pulled, fought gravity, and worked up a sweat. He was struggling so mightily, you would think I'd asked him to rotate the tires on the Space Shuttle, not case a pillow.

After a few minutes, Bee gave him some pointers. He finally managed to finish the task. He'll probably have to go to bed early tonight, what with all the effort he expended.

SHAMPOO SUBMARINE: At some point today, Annabelle presented me with a bejeweled/bedazzled former shampoo bottle that had been transformed into a tricked out submarine. Love her upcycling. :)

SILLY SENTENCES: Tonight we FINALLY used a game that's been riding around in my car for weeks/months since checking it out at the library. Based on the popular Mad Libs board game, this was a card game, where players used cards to craft silly sentences. We played before and after dinner (at the Pyramid Alehouse) tonight.

The game was a lot of fun. We all came up with some humdingers, and the game was a great way to reinforce the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives). We won't wait months before playing it again.

GONE MAINSTREAM: If you read the blog regularly, you'll see from time to time photos of the kids holding a small poster with a Space Shuttle and a bunch of names/signatures (including theirs) on it pop up.

For instance, they held it when they visited Santa Claus and met Apollo astronaut Al Worden. Thanks to other poster signers, the placard has been on the top of Kilimanjaro, it's visited Stonehenge, been to the South Pole, and it has even flown on the ISS. Until now, the poster has mostly been an insider thing, known only to people who have signed it. But today, a story about it appeared in Technology Alabama, and it sounds like at least a couple of other outlets are going to run it.

Tim Taylor, the launch engineer at the apex of all of this, submitted the article and his email address was included along with the story (which includes quotes from a couple people you might know). Tim reports he's already received several positive emails from strangers about the story. Nice!

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

BUSY SUNDAY: We got back to our home in Seattle about 6:30 on Saturday evening. Kirby was happy to see us.

We did a little unpacking, had dinner, gave Kirby lots of attention, and went to bed about two hours before the fireworks were shot off the top of the Space Needle. The noise did wake me up, though.

New Year's Day dawned with blue skies, so we took Kirby to a neighborhood park and she and the kids romped around for a good hour.

MOON WATCH: Sunday afternoon, about 1:30, we started monitoring the progress of GRAIL B, a craft launched on Sept. 10 with its twin, GRAIL A, for the moon. Together, solar-powered GRAIL A and B will fly in tandem orbits, measuring the moon's gravity field in more detail than ever before. It's expected the data
will answer questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Unfortunately, NASA TV wasn't covering the arrival-to-orbit event live. However, a Tweet from @NASA_Eyes let me know we could watch it go down via the Eyes on the Solar System interface that I had the pleasure of seeing demoed at the Mars Science Laboratory Tweetup last November. Boy, are we glad for that Tweet. It was a remarkable way to watch!

We had a myriad of choices of vantage points, and put two different views on our monitors. "We're like Mission Control!" Annabelle declared.

After a few minutes, we discovered we could view the event in 3D! So, I dug out the 3D glasses we were given at the Tweetup, and when Annabelle put them on, her jaw dropped.

"I can hold the moon!" she exclaimed.

We watched GRAIL B creep closer toward the moon and a bit after 2 p.m., it achieved its lunar orbit. Per NASA's press release on the milestone,

"During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.

Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface. This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today."

Sweet!

THIS AND THAT: We cracked open the dusty math books today. The kids completed a rather longish assignment with 100 percent accuracy, which was great. We also FINALLY got around to putting together a great triceratops 3d puzzle the kids were given months ago. Annabelle was very pleased with how it turned out.

We also took on a baking project today - home made Cheez-Its(R). CJ's favorite food in the world might be Cheez-It(s) and so when someone posted a recipe on Facebook last night, I felt compelled to try it. It couldn't have been much simpler - just five ingredients (grated sharp cheddar cheese, salt, cayenne, butter, flour).

CJ was an eager participant in cutting the pseudo-Cheez-Its out.

While Rick, Annabelle and I found them delicious, CJ was non plussed. Apparently he'll accept no substitutes when it comes to Cheez-Its.

FURRY PATIENT: Yesterday morning I noticed Kirby's right eye was red and inflamed. Assuming it wasn't from her partying to heartily on New Year's Eve, I kept an eye on it. When it was still red this morning, I called the vet and we took her in to be checked out.

Visiting the office gave the kids a chance to learn about all sorts of stuff, like dog and cat anatomy and parasites.

I am happy to report Kirby was a Model Citizen at the vet's. She was very polite and quiet and compliant and the vet and technician loved her for it.

JUMPIN' JUPITER: Last night astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Tweeted, "This night & next: Seeking Jupiter and want to find it soon? It's a fist's width away from the half-full moon." Upon reading this, we three ran outside, spotted the moon to our south, held our fists in the air, and just as he promised, Jupiter was glowing brightly to the moon's east - a fist's width away. Talk about an easy way to stargaze!

AUTHORS: Last night, the kids were combing a Wiki about Minecraft and came across a dead end. There was no info about leggings - a kind of armor - in the game. When CJ discovered that he/they could actually author an entry, he got really excited. They jumped at the chance. They took turns typing. When Annabelle was keyboarding away, she reminded CJ, "You need to make sure I get my punctuation right, make sure I get full sentences or not, make sure I'm talking about leggings!"

They worked on it for about a half hour and did a nice job, listing the different types of leggings, how you craft them and why you'd want them. They even uploaded a screen shot of leather leggings. With great pride, they published it and CJ was happy to get some kind of badge or points for his efforts.

This morning, they went back to view their Wiki and ... it was gone! In its place was a re-direct to the category 'armor,' and there was a completely crappy, one sentence 'wiki' about armor, with multiple spelling and grammar mistakes. The kids were pretty upset. Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of wikis. I told them that's just the nature of a document anyone can contribute to or edit. It's great when competent people contribute, and it's awful when some MORON goes in and wrecks it. But it is what it is. I was glad I'd taken a photo of their work last night. :)

Califriday

2012-01-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is an out-of-order make up post for the day I missed (Friday, Dec. 30) during our vacation

BAD BOYS, BAD BOYS: The morning started out routinely enough. We were all up and about, going through the breakfast motions and talking about our day's agenda. I was standing in the kitchen, facing our bungalow's sliding glass/back door and I saw a man walking on the pedestrian walkway separating our place from very nearby neighboring places, just to the north.

Since it's a public walkway and a straight shot to the beach from the main north-south auto arterial in the area, dozens, if not hundreds, of people walk that sidewalk daily. However, this man wasn't forward-focused. I could see he was looking at each place he walked by - into windows and he glanced down into the mail box on our bungalow's back fence. To me, he appeared to be casing joints.

So, I kept an eye on him and sure enough, just two doors down and across the sidewalk he entered the neighbor's (minuscule) front yard and went right to the duplex's mailboxes. At first he started picking through the mail right there in the boxes. At this point I opened the back door on our unit and went out onto the patio and pretended to be looking for the kids' shoes. I purposely made a fair amount of noise in the process, hoping to scare the would be thief off. But, he was too addled or stupid or whatever. Instead, he picked the whole wad of mail up, tucked it under his armpit and went and sat down in the neighbor's front yard. Pretty brazen. At this, I told Christian, whose first reaction was to go say something to the guy. I quickly put a kibosh on that and told him to call 911 instead. Christian phoned in with our address, the address of where the mail marauder was, and a description of the perp.

The (alleged) mail thief eventually stood up, and then I saw him walking around the side of the bungalow where he'd messed with the mail, before coming back to walkway and heading east, away from the beach and back the direction he came.

About 30 minutes later, Christian, CeeJ, Bee and I were about to head out when an San Diego police officer showed up at our back door. At her request, we recapped what we saw and she said they'd picked someone up based on Christian's report/description and that they wanted Christian to go ID the guy. After talking a bit more and the officer finding out I was the one who actually saw him messing with the mail, she decided I was the one who should make the ID.

And so, I hopped in her big squad SUV and we rode about four blocks south to where the man was being detained. They had him in handcuffs, in an alley next to a very busy restaurant. A bit of a crowd was gathered, gawking. From across the street in the squad car, I was 99.999999 certain it was him, and when we flipped a u-turn and parked right next to him, there was absolutely no doubt about it.

I never even had to get out of the car, and the officer was careful to try to keep the detainee from seeing me, which I appreciated. The officer got out of the car to check in with her fellow officers and so I sat there for a few minutes. During that time, I read Christian's phoned in description of the guy, as it was up on her screen. He sure did a great job - it was spot on. Male Caucasian, medium build, mid 20s, dark green jacket with orange shirt underneath, green hat with orange bandanna underneath. By the time I was taken to ID him, his hat and bandanna had been removed, but it was obviously him by his height, age, face, complexion (Caucasian with lots of sun exposure) and hair color (orange).

It might sound weird, but as the young man was standing there, cuffed, unkempt and looking like the embodiment of miserable, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him. It surprised me that I felt that way, given his behavior I'd witnessed earlier in the morning.

PARKx3: On our final full day, we went to Belmont (amusement) Park not once, not twice, but THREE times. Our first stop was in the a.m. right after the police action. Annabelle happened to be wearing her fierce new motorcycle style boots and it occurred to me the heels on them might come in quite handy.

Sure 'nuff, when she stood next to the height requirement sign next to the Giant Dipper roller coaster, magically she WAS tall enough (the answer had been 'sorry, but no' just two days prior). Yee haw!!!!

In this second photo, CJ is in the front car, stage right. Bee and Christian are in the second car.

The Giant Dipper originally opened on July 4, 1925. According to the Belmont Park Web site, it's one of two original oceanfront roller coasters still operating on the West Coast. Its steepest drop is 73 feet. Overall, it's 2,600 feet of track and takes 1 minute and 45 seconds to ride. Here's a photo of it courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places.

Bee, CeeJ and Christian rode the 'coaster morning, afternoon and night, multiple times on each of Friday's three trips to the park.

There were plenty of return trips to the other rides, too. Bee took a few more rounds on the carousel (CJ never did hop on board that), and there was more bashing in bumper cars.

My favorite ride to watch was this wild, swinging thing called "Beach Blaster." Per Belmont Park's Web site, it swings passengers 60 feet in the air to 120 degrees in both directions. Annabelle was too scared to ride it the first day we went to the park. On Friday, however, she was a fool for it. Here, the three of them are facing the camera.

After the morning amusement, we met the rest of our party (G&G and Rick & Kennedy) for lunch at tiny waterfront cafe on Mission Bay. There were only four tables in the place, and our party of 8 took up half of them. We got off cheap, too, because we'd brought a couple of Restaurant.com certificates with us, knocking $50 off our bill for just $2. That's right, we roll with coupons, even on vacation.

SHELTERED: After lunch, we caravaned to the south, destination Shelter Island. There, we met up with Christian's former brother in law who is captain of the 115-foot yacht Ocean Pearl. He gave us a tour of the lovely, large boat, which had three spacious bedrooms, each with a posh bathroom. There's a large, well appointed living and dining area, and lots of spaces for outdoor entertaining.

We visited the bridge, where CJ was enthralled by all the buttons and monitors.

We also got a tour of the engine room, and learned the yacht's seven gas tanks (totaling 9,600 gallons in capacity) hold about $40,000 worth of diesel. Yikes.

Moored nearby the Ocean Pearl were seven beautiful boats, all handmade in New Zealand to traditional Maori custom. Called waka or vaka, the catamarans are ocean going vessels steered and sometimes powered by hand. They were funded largely by the Okeanos Foundation, Germany, which is producing a feature-length documentary on the fleet's voyage around the world called "Blue Canoe."

There's an entire Web site dedicated to the project: Pacific Voyagers.

While on Shelter Island, we saw some pelicans, and enjoyed the view.

So long, San Diego!

2011-12-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

WINGING AWAY: We had to leave beautiful San Diego today. The kids were bummed to leave, and they weren't alone.

We got to the airport a little after noon and then had 2.5+ hours to kill. We managed to grind it out, and our airplane ride was uneventful with one shining exception. Somewhere over Oregon, the pilot came over the intercom and said, "For all you space fans and star gazers on the right side of the plane, look out the windows and see the light heading east? That's the International Space Station."

I was bummed we were on the wrong side of the plane to see it, but SO happy he made the announcement. It created a bit of a buzz on board and I'd love to think maybe a few sparks were lit this New Years Eve and some new space fans were created!

We're too tired to unpack tonight, so we'll hit it hard tomorrow, during all the bowl games. Maybe I'll even get caught up on the blog.

Happy Thursday

2011-12-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

SUN DIEGO: I don't think the skate rental company was too happy with the woman when she checked her skates back in. The dork was walking around in the sand and yes, even the water, with them on. Geez.

Not a lot to report today. No museums, no amusement parks, just a low key day leading up to watching (on TV) a fireworks filled night with the Huskies in the Alamo Bowl. Crazy game. All that offense is fun, but I'm a fan of defense, too.

We did visit sprawling Mission Bay Park today. Gorgeous place with two playgrounds.

We hung out at both of them. In the "it's a small world" category, there was only one other family at the playground and when she saw the kids' Huskies' the woman said she used to live in Ballard - that's just 2 minutes north of us in Seattle.

Around midday, we were at the bungalow where we're staying and CJ stared up into the sky and said, "Goodyear." That could only mean one thing - the blimp!

When we returned to the beach this

afternoon, Annabelle was thrilled to find a castle and volcano she built a couple of days ago was still standing. Here she is, celebrating!

Back to Balboa

2011-12-28T21:41:00.000-08:00

HIGH TIDE: Right after breakfast this morning, we hit the beach. It was a good time to be out there - high tide and some decent sized waves. There were dozens of surfers bobbing out a ways from shore, waiting for the big one.

Annabelle really got the hang of riding on her boogie board on her belly today. She had big fun. CJ, not so much. His board took a chunk out of the top of his foot, so his outing was abbreviated.

G&G had a front row seat for all the action.

SCIENCE CENTER SAN DIEGO STYLE: We decided to make a return trip to sprawling Balboa Park today. Though we were out there yesterday to check out the Air & Space Museum, today, our sights were set on the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the San Diego Natural History Museum.

As good fortune would have it, our Pacific Science Center membership in Seattle got us into BOTH of the places today, thanks to a reciprocity agreement. Sweet! It saved us a bundle. (And yesterday, our membership at the Museum of Flight in Seattle got us into the Air & Space Museum for free!)

The kids loved the San Diego Science Center. There were so, so many hands on activities. They built an arch, climbed through sculptures, and scaled a geometric mountain. There was an entire room dedicated to building marble runs (something they have lots of experience in from their science class).

They loved building sculptures with shapes that looked like star bits in Super Mario Galaxy.

From the Science Museum it was on the the Natural History Museum.

There, we saw all sorts of prehistoric creatures.

We saw lots of skulls and other skeleton parts. It was great - many the displays allowed viewers to manipulate body parts. Here, Annabelle's checking out the mechanics of a ball joint.

There were several sea creature models on display, including a very large and scary shark hanging in the atrium.

We were about ready to leave the Natural History Museum when Christian consulted a map and noticed there was a mineral and gemstone display on the lower level. Perfect! The kids have both been so interested in precious metals and pretty stones ever since they began playing Minecraft.

So down to the basement we went, and boy, were we glad we did! The display was STUNNING.

There was a lovely mix of stunning jewelry and eye popping, huge gems/rocks/stones. Above is an enormous (about the size of four human heads) stone embedded with opals. And then there was this jade specimen. It was bigger than the two kids put together!

And then there were things like this lovely butterfly made with many gorgeous garnets.

Carved out of turquoise, "Neptune's Daughters" was a jaw dropper, to be sure.

CJ was just SO thrilled by it all. Just a day before we left for San Diego, he was combing the Internet, looking for a periodic table featuring gemstones. Imagine his delight upon finding an oversize, interactive one today!

Air and Space

2011-12-27T19:19:00.000-08:00

SPACECRAFT SAN DIEGO STYLE: Certainly the Air and Space Museum in San Diego would have been on our "to do" list no matter what, but knowing there was a limited time only NASA exhibit there made us extra excited to check it out.

There were many hands on displays, including one where people could build their own spacecraft. CJ chose to build a colony on Mars and he had to make a nuclear machine and he chose not to take all the supplies but to manufacture or grow some on Mars. His choices were good and the computer deemed his mission a success.

There were so many wonderful artifacts to view, but I think I enjoyed the quotes we encountered almost as much.

CLASS REUNION: This morning, we had the great pleasure of meeting CJ & Annabelle's BFF from Seattle preschool at Balboa Park. Their buddy moved here 1.5 years ago and we thought we might never see him again, but happily our paths crossed. It was great. The three picked up right where they left off. It was so cute. I sure wish we didn't live so far apart. :(

Down South

2011-12-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

HIT THE BEACH: While many Americans spent Christmas morning unwrapping gifts and lounging around, by 6:15 we'd crammed ourselves (four adults and two kids) into a Honda CRV, headed for Seatac airport, next stop = San Diego.

Mercifully, our flight was uneventful and we arrived in San Diego just before noon.

Here, Annabelle enjoys a snack outside of the Enterprise Rental Car offices.

Not long after we got to the place we're staying in Mission Beach, we walked a couple hundred feet to our west to make sure there was, indeed, a beach.

The kids got a little practice with a boogie board. They didn't catch any big waves today, but had lots of fun nonetheless.

MONDAY MADNESS: Today's number one on the hit parade was going to Belmont Park - a small amusement park conveniently located about a mile south of where we're staying. They rode the bumper cars over and over and over.

CJ was a roller coaster riding fool, while poor Bee was just an inch too short. :/ But she had fun on other rides, like this one featuring a fun vertical drop.

And the one, above, which tilted, whirled and rotated up toward the clear blue sky.

Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-23T22:07:00.000-08:00

SCOOT: Since today wasn't freezing or raining, I felt it important that we get out into the fresh air. So, we spent well over an hour at the neighborhood park. The kids were both itching to ride their scooters, so we trudged up the hill with them.

When we got there, a brother and sister duo a couple years older than CeeJ and Bee were there. The four fell into playing immediately. I mostly tried to be invisible (not an easy task with Kirby in tow). It was a good hour plus of physical and social play.

WTH?: While the kids were roping 'round the park, Kirby and I found dozens of daisies blooming. It's December. Winter. In Seattle. That is just not right.

EXPLOSIVE: We received a box from Nonnie and Bops chock full 'o Xmas goodies. We tucked the presents under our tree but couldn't help ourselves and set about setting off all of the explosives. We do love the smell of gunpowder!!!

Below, Bee models the streamers that came out of the party crackers.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS: This morning, we watched Soyuz 30 dock with the International Space Station flawlessly. Suddenly, the ISS's population doubled - from 3 to 6. Meanwhile, back on Earth, another Soyuz rocket (carrying communications satellites) blasted off - and failed miserably, its pieces falling back to Earth. :/ Makes me extra thankful the Soyuz carrying the astronauts succeeded. And it makes me feel extra chagrined that we have no other way to get our astronauts to orbit other than our Russian comrades aboard Soyuz spacecraft. :/

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: Tonight we watched with great interest NORAD's Santa countdown. Though Christmas Day is still a ways away by our clock, NORAD made it clear that St. Nick would be taking off just 50 minutes after the kids went to bed tonight. Sweet!

TWEET!: This morning as I was checking into Twitter, I saw a post from @GarlicJims offering a free pizza to the first five people who replied to a certain email address. I pounced on it (of course) and we got a free pizza. Sweet!

Jump for Joy

2011-12-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

GREEN SEEN: In our travels, CJ spends a lot of time looking down. Because that's the case, he's often finding treasures on the ground other people miss (money, hair clips, rubber bands, jewelry, etc.) Yesterday, at the park, he found what he was sure was a baby four leaf clover.

PLAYTIME: We did math today (addition and subtraction story problems with numbers in the thousands), read some, and did some writing, but the kids' A#1 activity was attending their yoga friend's birthday party at KidzBounce. It was a bit of a haul getting there (six miles east of Issaquah), but it was worth it once we were there.

It's a nice facility, with a good mix of inflatables. The kids spent nearly two full hours jumping, climbing, bouncing and running.

BLOCKHEADS: We had fun taking the "Pixel Challenge" on Yahoo! Games' Brain Games. According to Dr. Pawan Sinha of MIT, 75 percent of his test subjects could recognize faces with only 12x14 pixels' worth of information. Interesting. Apparently humans' holistic approach to viewing is the key.

GEEK SPEAK: I played a NASA audio describing a special mission for the kids today and asked them who or what the NASA announcer was talking about. I had to play it twice before Bee finally got it.

TRACKING: We finally checked in with NORAD today. HQed in Colorado Springs, the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization is responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada. Important work, but I have to think they're most famous for being the preeminent Santa tracking agency.

The kids each played around in NORAD's Kids' Countdown Village, where they solved word puzzles, had virtual snowball fights, checked out Santa's sled specs and much more. Good times!

SANTA'S LITTLE DETOUR: Ever wonder how Santa makes it all his deliveries in one night? NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have your answer: Santa's Little Detour.

After watching how fast the ISS streaked across the sky directly over our house at 5:21 this evening, I'm a believer!

Twister!

2011-12-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

MORNING MOVIE: Yesterday evening I received an email from Pacific Science Theater announcing the grand re-opening of of a movie theater onsite. To celebrate the improvement, we were offered free tickets to a show today. Well you know us - free = yes please!

We showed up at 10:30 for the 10:45 movie. I knew where the old theater was and so that's where we reported. However, we had to walk over and around CAUTION tape to get there and we were The Only People in "line." The doors were shut and there were ZERO signs indicating anything about any movie whatsoever. It made me wonder if we were in the right place, of course. So, I whipped out my cell phone and actually called guest services. Unfortunately, the man who fielded my call was rather rude. When I asked where the movie was showing, the smart a$$ said, "At Pacific Science Center." Well no $h*& Sherlock. I told him we were standing there, outside the old Eames Theater, freezing, and it was a ghost town with no signs or signs of life. He said we were in the right place. Super.

Fortunately, about five minutes after his "help" an usher came out and welcomed us, saying we were the very first people in the brand new theater.

We were SO happily surprised upon walking in. Last time we'd been there it was for a Lewis & Clark movie and the space, though functional, was hardly inviting. But the new and VASTLY improved PACCAR IMAX Theater is lovely. The sound and visuals were fantastic and the seats, with a mid century modern upholstery and wooden arms, were beautiful and comfortable.

Just moments after we sat down, the usher came over with free T-shirts for the kids for being early birds. Sweet!

The movie, "Tornado Alley," was thrilling and super educational. I was happy with how much focus there was on the science of storm chasing.

When we got home, Bee promptly set about making her own tornado chasing vehicle out of LEGOs. She invested a fair amount of time on it, and had interesting things to say about her different design elements.

STATION TO STATION: After the movie, we made our way to the Center House. With blue skies overhead, we stopped along the way for a Space Needle photo opp. Can you find CeeJ and Bee mixed in with the mosaic/mural?

The draw in the Center House was the annual model train display. This year didn't disappoint.

DRAWING BOARD: Not surprisingly, we had our eyes on NASA goings on today. We watched a replay of the early morning launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian, an American (from Silverton, Ore.) and a Ductchman, ISS bound. We checked out cool photos of the surface of asteroid Vesta compliments of . We checked out the parachute landing tests for the future Orion capsule.

And last, but not least, the kids took a crack at drawing the Space Shuttle. A few of my space geek friends had posted a link to cartoonist Shoo Raynor's tutorial on the topic. I cautioned the kids going in that this was not going to be the typical Activitytv.tv cartooning lesson. This drawing was a lot more complicated and realistic. That said, the kids were troupers.

They watched and listened carefully and were pretty darn proud of their results. Here's CJ's rendition:

and Annabelle's:

WE SEE THE LIGHT: Thanks to an automated Tweet from Twisst ISS alerts, we learned the International Space Station would be passing overhead at 4:42 p.m., rising from the southwest. We drove to the top of our hill and parked at Ella Bailey Park at 4:40 p.m. and started scanning the skies. It was dusk. We weren't there 30 seconds when a young girl started calling, "Hellooooo! Helloooo!" in our direction.

Turned out it was a friend of the kids'.

CJ called back her direction, "Hi! We'd love to play with you, but we're here to spot the International Space Station!"

Happily, that got their friend's attention. She came running over and together we scanned the skies. Problem was, just to the south of us was Seatac airport, so there were LOTS of points of light rising from our south. It got to be 4:44 and I feared we missed it when Annabelle cried out, "There it is!!!!"

Sure 'nuff, she was right. The ISS was blazing a slow, steady, bright path across the sky from southwest to northeast. It was a gloriously long flyover - several minutes. We watched it head over Magnolia, Interbay, Queen Anne, Fremont, and far, far beyond. It was great to be able to see it for ourselves, but the fact that we were at a park at the time meant everyone there overheard us and spotted it, as well.

It was neat to be able to share that the ISS has been in orbit longer than all the kids there at the park have been alive, and that just this morning, three astronauts lifted off from Russia, headed for the ISS.

How I love spreading the NASA news. :) It's amazing how much excitement a little squiggle of light can generate.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS: If you haven't seen the movie mentioned just preceding (a frequent 'star' on the list of worst movies ever made, starring a very young Pia Zadora, might I add), my advice to you would be to keep the course. That said, I couldn't help think of it when we watched a video (featuring real footage from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 100 percent Pia Zadora free) from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Fortunately, JPL's "Sleigh Ride over Mars" is a million light years better!

Games People Play

2011-12-20T19:44:00.000-08:00

TWO THE TEST: Last week, we were called by the Playtest folks at Microsoft about a partnered play test. CJ and Annabelle were happy to answer the call, so this morning, we visited the Microsoft campus and for an hour the kids did as directed.

I would love to tell you more, but I absolutely can't (as usual). We all signed non-disclosure agreements and intend to honor them. :)

Even though the PlayTest is a rewarding experience in and of itself, Microsoft is generous with gratuities. We call came away very happy. :) You can sign up for Playtesting at www.microsoftcom/playtest.

HOT DOG: As we made our way from the shadow of the Space Needle to Redmond, we were on the bumper of the biggest bun I've ever seen. It was the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.

I had fun watching other people doing double takes when they spotted it.

One of the things we wondered while following the Wiener was if there was more than one like it. I found our answer on Twitter tonight, via Wienermobile Tweets. Turns out there are at least five mobiles: IWSHIWR (which is the one we saw), LTLLINK, WNR MBLE, RELSHME and YUMMY. There may be a sixth, but I can't tell if KETCHUP is a vehicle and/or just a play on words.

THE WRIGHT STUFF: When it comes to photographs of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, you'll see lots of photos like this - a snapshot of their very first flight, covering 120 feet in 12 seconds, at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903, at 10:35 in the morning.

As historic as the photo above is, it's the photo below that really strikes me. Titled "Crumpled," it's part of the Library of Congress' Wright Bros. collection.

I had the kids look at both photos and we speculated about how the Wright Bros. might have felt when "Crumpled" was taken and asked them to write a few sentences about it. Upon reading them, you'd think that they were sitting next to each other conversing while writing. ...

CJ wrote: "I feel bad for the Wright Brothers when I see 'Crumpled.' I think the Wright Brothers got hurt when I saw 'Crumpled.' I think the Wright Brothers where sad when I saw 'Crumpled.' "

Annabelle wrote, "When I see Crumpled I feel sad for the Wright Brothers. When I think of Crumpled I think that they felt sad. When I see crumpled I think one of them got hurt! I think that when Crumpled happened, it was loud!"

After they wrote, we talked about how oftentimes failures lead to successes. Following the Wright Bros.' triumph on Dec. 17, the Library of Congress notes "An excited Orville sent a telegram to his father from Kitty Hawk asking him to inform the press, ending his telegram 'home Christmas.' Perhaps their earlier failures paved the way to success and added sparkle to their holiday celebrations at home."

Then, we poked around "The Inventive Wright Brothers" info on the Library of Congress site, which reminds me, I don't think I've mentioned it lately, but I really love, Love, LOVE the Library of Congress' "Teaching with Primary Sources" resources. As I sit here wearing my Evergreen State College sweatshirt, without a doubt one of the most valuable things I learned at my alma mater was the value of using source documents whenever possible (as compared to a text or other book that is someone else's retelling or representation of events). Through Teaching with Primary Sources, the University of North Carolina is "Bringing the World's Largest Library to K-12 Classrooms."

We also hopped over to The Discovery Channel's pages about the Wright Brothers. There, we found computer animations of the brothers' four flights on Dec. 17, and took a 3-D tour of the Wright Flyer.

CLOWNING AROUND: This is a leftover shot from yesterday, at Pike Place Market. On the lower level, near the magic shop, there's a mural wall featuring oddities - including "a real clown shoe." CJ gave the big floppy thing a quick once over. I kept my distance.

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

2011-12-19T21:59:00.000-08:00

SEATTLEITES: This morning we signed papers to refinance our home (without ever leaving home, which was sweet). And we did math, and a writing assignment. After that, it was a field trip into the heart of the Emerald City. First stop, Pike Place Market!

We just don't spend nearly enough time at the Market. It's so close to home, so colorful and SO Seattle. Today it was overrun with holiday shoppers and holiday season tourists, but we managed to make our way around the place, dodging flying Sockeye salmon.

Today, especially as we wound around the produce booths, I thought of my paternal grandma. She'd bring us down to the market, and as a kid I remember thinking, 'What a pain in the a$$ this is. Why can't we just go to the grocery store?'

But wandering around there today, I completely appreciated the sights, sounds, smells and farm-freshness of the produce at the marketplace stands. It's just heads and shoulders above a stroll through the produce section at Fred Meyer. Meanwhile, CJ and Annabelle were probably thinking, "What a pain in the a$$ this is. Why can't we just go to the grocery store?" :)

We bought a couple of little Christmas gifts and then headed for the Space Needle, and a rendezvous with one Santa Claus.

RED HOT ROCKET: Since moving to Seattle some 5 years ago, our annual Christmas tradition has been visiting Santa at the Space Needle. While Santa can be seen countless other places 'round Seattle, nowhere else will you find him in a red hot rocket sleigh, surrounded by mid-century modern decorations.

Another bonus of the Space Needle, Santa style? The free rocket-shaped sugar cookies for the kids to decorate. They covered 'em with frosting, shook some sprinkles on and enjoyed a lovely view of Lake Union while devouring them.

We stayed up on the Observation Deck for about an hour. Just before we left we were checking out Magnolia and other points west.

At one point I looked outside the glass immediately in front of us and said, "Oh, look - there's Pat Monahan," lead singer of the band Train, singer of hits like "Drops of Jupiter" and "Hey Soul Sister." I've know for years he had ties to Seattle on his wife's side, so it wasn't a big surprise to see him there. Though we're fans and he was just *thisclose* we kept our cool and let him and his family (including a tiny new baby, just a couple of weeks old) enjoy their visit to the Space Needle without causing a scene. I did manage to snap a paparazzi shot, tho. :)

Shortly before we left, the Sound and sun were putting on a colorful show.

We stopped for a couple more photos as we left the Space Needle. In this one, Annabelle is trying to fix CJ's smile.

WEEKEND REWIND: A few weeks back I signed Annabelle up for a cooking class at a cool Fremont bookstore that sells nothing but cookbooks. The class was taught by a rather famous local confectionery blogger. I thought it would be neat-o for Bee to have a baking lesson outside of our kitchen taught by someone else other than me. She was SO excited to go!!! Yeah, well here's her face a few minutes into it ...

It wasn't the worst two hours of her young life, but let's just say that it was a tad disappointing. The projects presented (a cake pop, a cupcake in a cupcake, and S'moreos) were inherently cool, it's just that there was was a real lack of opportunity for hands on participation during the class. And I should say that for a kid who hadn't done much baking or decorating, the class might have seemed engaging enough. But I kid you not, Annabelle could have taught this class.

Here's a photo of her (mini) cupcake in a cupcake - "hers" in the sense that she got to shake sprinkles on top of it. Let's just say, Bee expects a bit more ownership of baking projects. ;)

I think her favorite part of the day was coloring these cupcake toppers.

Easy Does It

2011-12-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

TAKE 'ER EASY: We purposely 'underscheduled' today because I had planned on having to be home all day waiting for the Fed Ex truck to make a delivery that required my signature.

So, we started our morning by picking up the place, by working through a couple of math assignments and by reading down the stack, as I call it. (You know that's a sign that we have library due dates approaching.)

Imagine my pleasant surprise when the Fed Ex man knocked at the door 'round 10 a.m. bringing these ...

Sweet! Though the tickets are for a game I won't be attending, as a lifelong Pac 10 (well, now 12) football fan I still got a thrill out of just touching them. : ) Word to the wise - if you want to go to the Rose Bowl, hop right on the Tournament of Roses official site on or before the last day of the Pac 10, er 12, season. That's how I scored Christian face value tickets that I know are legit.

But back to our day. We did math and read a number of books, including "Stuff," a cautionary tale about hoarding, and we watched a "Reading Rainbow" episode featuring the book "Mama Don't Allow," a book by Thatcher Hurd. The show demonstrated how learning to play a new instrument can be fun, but it's not easy. The show included a visit to an alligator farm and an interview with a professional jazz saxophone.

The last book we read today was "My Hands Sing the Blues - Romane Bearden's Childhood Journey." The very first page featured a striking collage - appropriate, as collage is what made Bearden a famous artist.. I immediately thought, "We'll make some collages after we read this."

We hadn't hit page 3 before Annabelle chimed in, "Can we make collages when we're done reading this?"

Of course. :)

And so afterward, I spread out all sorts of things on our kitchen island (feathers, shells, stars, stickers, magazines, foam, felt, silk, satin, and more) and asked the kids to create some kind of scene. Annabelle went to town, creating a collage she called "Sun and Moon Share the Day."

CJ went to town - in his own way. He carefully selected a few items to cut out and combine (one character from the front of a parenting magazine and three coins from a National Geographic). He carefully cut a surprised shaped mouth on the character and placed the coins in its hands, as well as one on its hat, since there were three coins and only two hands. He glued it on a sparkly black background and titled it "The Legendary Coins."

As I hung the collages up on the kids' bedroom door, CJ said, "Sorry about the lack of creativity," sounding sincere, right before he bounded off to play Minecraft.

BOXING: I recently bought a new crockpot (since my old one has exposed wires hanging out its front). Annabelle was thrilled not so much by the crockpot but by the box it came in. She asked if she could have it (of course). She punched a couple holes in it and wriggled into it and waddled her way over to me, declaring "It's a tadpole costume. I just put my head in it. And my torso. And squeezed my arms in too. It's a giant killer tadpole. It's gigantic, and so it scares you."

She waddled over to the bathroom door, to wait for CJ to emerge, with high hopes of startling him. Happily, he was not scared to death. Unhappily, he was unimpressed. Back to the drawing board for Bee.

ZIPPER: This afternoon, after returning a whole stack of library books, we hit the Discovery Park playground. There, the kids enjoyed the zipline, running around, and some swinging.

HARD HAT AREA: Poor ol' Phobos-Grunt, the ill-fated Russian mission to send a probe to a moon of Mars, is still incommunicado in orbit. But not for long. For, you see, it's expected to start crashing down to Earth in parts, come Jan. 6 or so. Tass doesn't mince many words in their story outlining what's to come: http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/299727.html

FRAMED: When we were leaving the kids' science class on Wednesday afternoon, I saw these words on a license plate holder: "Test your beliefs: Read, reason and research."

Writing Campaign

2011-12-15T19:33:00.000-08:00

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS: Today, CJ and Annabelle signed up to participate in The Great Mail Race.

Recently, the Shoreline school where they take classes received a letter from a fourth grade student, Ricardo, of San Francisco. Ricardo is participating in The Great Mail Race, a program started in the late 1980s by North Carolina school teacher Sarah Wiggins.

Wiggins started the program in hopes of improving writing skills and forging new worlds of experience. Ultimately, CeeJ and Bee's school is hoping to have students contact a class in all 50 states.

From Ricardo's letter we learned that he attends Cleveland Elementary and his school's mascot is the Peace Sign. How 'bout that?!

To participate, CJ and Annabelle were each asked to pick out a state. CJ said, "Las Vegas!" without hesitation. ;) We set him straight on the whole city/state thing. He ended up picking an elementary in Vegas - Berkeley L. Bunker Elementary, to be specific. Naturally, we were curious right off the bat whom the school was named after. Turns out Bunker was a senator from the Silver State. The elementary named after him is home of the Broncos, and based on their Web site, it looks like "Dare to Dream" might be their motto. One thing that caught my eye on their site is there's a "Report a Bully" link right on the front page.

Annabelle chose Rhode Island straight away. Then, the city of Ashaway was selected, because it starts with an A, like her name. Ashaway is an unincorporated village that had just 589 households in the 2000 census. Ashaway has a single elementary school - the aptly named Ashaway Elementary. According to their school's Web site, their mascot is the cougar, and they're "Roaring with Pride and Ready to Learn!" Hopefully, they'll be roaring and ready to respond to Annabelle's inquiry.

The kids have to write a letter to a class at their assigned schools with a little info about themselves and their school, and encourage them to participate in the Great Mail Race.

After they got their packets of info, the kids each got to color their chosen state in on a U.S. map, and put a pin in the map where their city is.

MUST BE NICE: CJ was up late, Late, LATE last night. Past midnight. And then he was up before 6 a.m. today. Upon upping he remarked on his short sleep but then added, "You want to know the funny thing? My body doesn't feel any different even though I stayed up almost all night."

Must be nice.

SHORT STUFF: This blog post is going to be succinct. I have to finish the monthly reports for the kids' Shoreline school tonight. It takes me hours to do it, because I have to go back through a whole preceding month's worth of blog posts, taking notes about what we actually did for education for the month and then report on it, subject by subject. While it is a chore, it's well worth it - doing that is what allows the kids to participate in those classes and use that facility for free, which saves us hundreds of dollars a month.

Air Apparent

2011-12-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

AIR EVERYWHERE: In science class today, the kids enjoyed learning more about air. Though you can't see it, it can provide resistance and pressure and it takes up space. Fascinating stuff!

To help illustrate these principles, the kids constructed parachutes and played around with them, noting how the air resistance is what works to keep things under the parachute from plummeting as quickly.

Please ignore the Crisco can on the counter behind CJ. Thank you.

In another experiment, the kids engaged in Hypodermic Wars! Just kidding. :) But seriously, they used a barrel and plunger (those are the technical terms, apparently), as well as some plastic tubing connected to another barrel and plunger to engage in some force air shenanigans. The plungers were a poppin'!

SANTA'S WORKSHOP: Somehow, the fact that this week is the kids' last classes before the holiday break escaped me - until about 6 this morning. So, what to do about spreading some seasons greetings? Whip up some more melting snowmen, I guess.

Our vintage oven and Kitchen Aid were both going to town before sunrise. We managed to get snowpeople families done for Bee's art teacher and the kids' science teacher in time. (In fact, I was accessorizing the snowpeeps in the school library while Annabelle was in art class.)

DECK HANDS: After dinner the kids and Christian resumed trying to get our decorations up. Geez. When/how did we acquire 13,812 ornaments? Seriously, we're nowhere near done.

While they decorated, I played catchup on the computer and served as DJ Xmas. This is one of the songs I served up was 12 Days of Christmas by "Straight No Chaser." We all loved it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

FLASHBACK: Tonight KCTS (our Seattle PBS affiliate) aired some of the more memorable episodes of "The J.P. Patches Show." The program ran from 1958-1981 (amazing!). Though CJ and Annabelle never saw one of his television broadcasts before tonight, they know JP Patches from his action figures at Archie McPhee and some live performances around town. In fact, CJ and Annabelle were present for Patches' final public appearance, which took place on Sept. 17, at the Fishermen's Festival at the foot of our hill.

I was laughing harder at the show than the kids, for sure. My gawd, it looked to be hugely unscripted and was frenetic, a la SNL in the John Belushi years. Funny stuff.

It's wild to contemplate that Julius Pierpont Patches, the Mayor of the City Dump, predated the Space Needle, Starbucks, Microsoft, the Seahawks, Mariners and Sonics, grunge music, the 747 and so many more Seattle milestones.

Show Time!

2011-12-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

SMALL STUFF: Because of all the fondant we make, we probably buy two- to three-hundred times more marshmallows than the average household annually. And since we're so frequently trolling the marshmallow aisle, we get to see the seasonal stuff they trot out from time to time. New to us this year are adorable little marshmallows shaped like gingerbread men. They even have a little ginger and cinnamon flavor to them.

I gave the kids a bag full of edible ink markers and asked them to decorate some of the puffly little things. CJ kept his design simple. Annabelle spent nearly an hour in all, giving each of her gingermallows a different look and a backstory.

SPLASHY: There was another splash test of NASA's 18,000-pound Orion space capsule today, so you know we were tuned in for it. Oh, how we do love watching a capsule make waves!

The test took pace at NASA's Langley Research Center, in the Hydro Impact Basin. Today marked the eighth and final test of the year.

Orion is slated to be the next deep space exploration vehicle, carrying astronauts into space and back.

In the video of the splash test you get to see three different angles. One is straight on, the other is from the side and the third and final view is the at-water level cam, which the kids love. When the capsule goes in, the wave it creates inundates the camera. Oh, how CJ and Annabelle love that. They squeal every time, meanwhile I'm telling them to hold their breath! ;)

We all got a kick of this photo NASA Langley's Media Team posted to Twitter ...

You can read lots more about Orion on NASA Langley's Hydro Impact Basin's pages: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/exploration/hib.html

HITTING THE BOARDS: Tonight was CJ's "Theater of Possibility" play. First, he had rehearsal for about 90 minutes, then there was a potluck for the families for about a half hour, followed by about 90 minutes of performance time. Here's a photo of him waiting in the wings. ...

CJ was one of the lead characters in the first of three mini plays presented tonight. His play was a drama about a boy named Tyler who is fixated on videogames to the expense of his schoolwork.

CJ did a great job - he nailed all his lines, enunciated well and even acted a little. ;) I was proud of him.

He was pretty proud of himself, too. :)

Annabelle got in on the act during some audience participation parts, so she was happy as a clam, too.

THERE IS ANOTHER: We read some breaking news on Spaceflight Now tonight. Looks like billionaire Paul Allen (formerly Microsoft, now of Trailblazers, EMP/SciFi Museum and Vulcan fame) is getting into the space business in a big way. He's teamed up with aircraft designer Burt Rutan, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and former NASA boss Mike Griffin. Under the name Stratolaunch, they're working together to develop an air-launch rocket system. It looks wild - and like it would work!

illustration credit: Stratolaunch Press Kit. Check out the video of the proposed craft: http://youtu.be/sh29Pm1Rrc0

It would use two jumbo aircraft the size of two 747s side by side to carry a liquid-fueled SpaceX booster rocket and capsule to 30,000 feet, where it would be deployed, firing hardware and burning fuel to launch humans and cargo into orbit.

It's exciting to watch this new era of spaceflight unfold. Maybe Buzz Aldrin is right. Back when we saw him at the Space Needle a few months ago, he predicted the commercialization of spaceflight would be like the barnstorming era of airplanes. Time will tell.

Sweet Weekend

2011-12-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

BIRTHDAY GIRL: Saturday afternoon the kids had a birthday party to attend. CJ's BFF from kindergarten has turned 9 now. I'll admit that made me feel a bit old. Before you know it, they'll all be in high school.

One of the activities at the party was decorating either a gingerbread house or train. Annabelle opted for a train. Everyone else at the party went for the traditional house.

CJ was one of the first decorators done. His design (below) was rather austere. Apparently he's a minimalist when it comes to architecture and landscaping. At one point I heard him explaining to the other kids at the table that some element of his design "is defying the laws of physics." Nice. :)

ROADIE: Right after the party, we hit I-5 southbound, for a special cookie delivery. It was an uneventful drive, and Kirby enjoyed having everyone in such close quarters. :)

We delivered about four dozen Christmas cookies to G&G in Vancouver.

It was nice to see the cookies go to new homes. These snowmen were starting to look at me funny. ...

REHEARSAL: Today, a lot of our time and energy was spent having CJ run through his lines. His big "Theater of Possibility" finale is tomorrow evening, complete with a live show for friends and family.

I was pretty pleased with how well he knew his lines today. I think it probably helps that the character is so close to him (a young boy who would rather be playing video games than doing just about anything else).

Other educational endeavors included work in their new math books (reviewing place values mainly), and watching a video from the library. Last week when we were there, CJ implored me to check "What's in the Bible" out. So, I did. He asked to watch it today. So, we did.

I'm trying to think of some nice things to say about it. By VeggieTales® creator Phil Vischer, it was more current than I thought it would be. One of the puppets, sitting in the backseat of the family car, made a crack to his mom about Carrie Underwood and letting "Jesus, Take the Wheel."

I also appreciated that the video shared that the Bible's 66 (give or take, depending on your religion) books had 40 some writers, and that it was written over the course of 1,600 or so years. I think this kind of info about authorship and era is important when you're pondering the nature and historical accuracy of a document.

Oddly (IMHO), much of the DVD was narrated by puppet pirates. And cowboys. And a humorless old 'woman.' I guess the producers thought pirates, cowboys and humorless old women would appeal to kids. And since they've made mega bucks making Christian-centric videos for children, I definitely have to assume they are right. But to me, the pirates and cowboys just seemed odd choices for narrators of a Bible-themed presentation.

CJ gave up on the video rather quickly, declaring it a disappointment. Annabelle hung in there for about 40 minutes or so, until Christian and I pulled the plug at 5, since the Seahawks were on Monday Night Football. (Insert crack about our priorities here.)

BEAUTIFICATION: We are *finally* getting some Christmas decorations up around here. Today, our beloved vintage aluminum tree went up. Annabelle enjoyed hanging baubles from its branches.

Future Forum

2011-12-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, at NASA Future Forum, The Museum of Flight, Seattle

TALKING ROCKETS: This morning I had the absolute pleasure of attending a NASA event called "Future Forum." Hosted by The Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, the forum brought together NASA officials and business and commercial space leaders. On the agenda was talk of advancing innovation, technology, science, engineering and education, and spaceflight's benefit to the nation's economy.

Speakers included NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, Seattle’s Museum of Flight President and CEO Doug King, and stellar panelists from Aerojet, Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, the University of Washington, Virgin Galactic and more.

It was extraordinarily interesting. Fresh from my Tweetup experience during the Mars Science Laboratory launch, I made it my mission to make a mini-Tweetup out of it. I Tweeted several soundbytes during the four-plus hour discussion, and was re-Tweeted multiple times by people I don't even know, which is a good thing in the social media world.. :)

I also took lots of notes, none of which I am going to transcribe right here right now. Be watching for a bonus
edition in the next couple of days. In the meantime, you can watch the forum on NASA TV's Youtube chnnel: http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision

I will tell you that one of the big announcements made today by NASA's Lori Garver was that the next "demonstration" test-flight for the SpaceX Dragon cargo freighter will link up with the International Space Station. This means SpaceX will be combining its two previously-planned flyby and capture missions into one. It's all (supposedly) going down on February 7, with a launch from Cape Canaveral. I am eagerly awaiting a story that includes a Russian response to/acknowledgement of this development, as I have to imagine they will definitely have something to say about it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, big brother Kennedy was entertaining his younger siblings. This included playing Mouse Trap and Jenga.

Ken told me he repeatedly tried to stress to the kids that you do NOT want to take the lower blocks out. What Ken (IMHO) failed to realize is that they, of course, know this, but they were more interested in having fun toppling the tower.

Speaking of CJ and Annabelle, here they are as the Wright brothers, I think. Ken took the photo at The Museum of Flight, when they all met me there after the forum.

Jingle Bell Rocked

2011-12-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

IN REVIEW: Today we were all a bit tired from last night's major shenanigans - an enormous concert that began at 4 p.m. and got over around 11. The kids and I rode the bus to the concert venue, Key Arena, so we could all ride home in one car (Christian and the car came straight from his work).

On our walk to the arena, we found a storefront with a nutcracker and ballerina. I had to get a pic of the kids with it, as CJ loves nutcrackers and Bee has a few years of ballet under her tutu. I just wish I'd had my good camera with me instead of the crappy one built into my phone.

The concert was sold out - about 17,000 people - and crowded, of course. It was an all ages show and I was surprised at the lack of kids at the show. I didn't see anyone younger than CeeJ and Bee, and only saw one other kid their age. There were a few tweens, but it was mostly older teens and thousands of 20- and 30-somethings.

Above is some band playing something, photo compliments of my crappy camera phone.

There were seven bands sharing the bill, and the crews changing out equipment between the groups did a great job. It ran like a well oiled machine. Like any show, there were high points and low points. I'll let CJ and Annabelle be the critics. ...

Deck the Hall Ball review by CJ

I think that the consert was good. Especially Foster the People because of "Pumped up Kicks." I think the worst band was death cab for cutie. Also, the consert was 7 hours long. Personally I think the best part was the food. Overall: B-.

Deck the Hall Ball review by Annabelle

Wen we were at Deck the Hall Ball we listened to Grouplove. I listened to part of Death Cab for Cutie, Young the Giant, Cage the Elephant, Foster the People and finally, Mumford and Sons. The were all interesting (except for Death Cab for Cutie) so I'll give it an A.

I was surprised the kids were up rocking through Mumford and Sons' very last strain around 11 p.m. They'd both gotten up before 6 that morning. Annabelle did power nap during Death Cab for Cutie. (Their music has the same affect on me. Not that they're bad - it's just, well, not very invigorating, IMHO.)

Here's a video of Bee dancing around the concourse (to the tunes of Grouplove) while we were waiting for Christian to show up. It's the first time I've used my camera video recorder. Who knew I had to turn the phone sideways to record a video. So, tilt your head while you watch. ;)

BUNCHA BOOKS: We've been plowing through the pile of recently acquired library books. Today's titles included "Fletcher and the Falling Leaves" is about a fox named Fletcher who is concerned by the trees changing come autumn. His concern grows into an understanding about the changing of the seasons and a tree's lifecycle. "Punctuation Takes a Vacation" was a fun read, about the chaos that ensues if there is no punctuation. The kids really enjoyed the accompanying CD with fun sound effects for the punctuation marks (naturally it reminded me of the famous Victor Borge reading punctuation marks aloud). "One Tiny Turtle" told the story of a loggerhead turtle from egg through adulthood. "Surprising Sharks" covered different types of sharks and stressed the fact that most are NOT giant man-eating creatures.

BRICKYARD: This afternoon the kids enjoyed their LEGO building class. Here, CJ works on some sort of law enforcement vehicle, while Annabelle (in the background) works on the group build - the space shuttle on the launch pad. You can see the class has the big orange external tank completed.