Going Viral

THERE IS ANOTHER: Disappointingly, but not too surprisingly, early this morning Annabelle became feverish. That's right - now 75 percent of us are sick. ...

At one point, Annabelle asked if she could use my phone to send her dad a text message. I said sure. I was very impressed that she can dial his number, launch the texting screen and type away all by herself. She wrote: "Hi dad mom says that i might have a virus (my head feels funny)"

Nice use of parenthesis, Bee! When Christian wrote back that he hopes she feels better soon, she responded, "Thanks dad :D..." (She knows all sorts of emoticons, too, of course.)

Though I had all sorts of grand plans for today's schooling, her feeling puny changed that. So instead, we took a low key approach.

ON THE LOW DOWN: We took to the couch and read a trio of new-ish library books (all three titles were published in 2010).
"The Boy and the Moon" was brief but beautiful. It (spoiler alert) involved a crescent moon getting hung up in a tree. To rescue it, a boy feeds it apples from the tree. Soon enough it's a full moon and rolls to freedom. The illustrations - by author James Christopher Carrol - are beautiful (it's worth checking out his Web site).

Next up was "A Not Scary Story About Big Scary Things" by CK Williams. It followed a young boy as he walked home through woods supposedly inhabited by a ferocious monster. The kids found the watercolor illustrations (by Gabi Swiatkowska) a tad creepy - but compelling. The take away for both of them was mind over matter - that imaginary monsters are only scary if you let them be.

Lastly, we enjoyed "Clever Jack Takes the Cake," a tale of a poor boy's quest to take a fitting gift to the princess' birthday party. The storytelling was compelling and the ending satisfying. Six thumbs up. :) This evening, I found a great educator's guide (PDF) and a reader's theater (PDF) on her Web site. We'll definitely revisit those when the troops are peppier.

The kids each took Accelerated Reader quizzes on the books and aced them. Nice!

NOT SO GLORIOUS: While we've been watching the astronauts on the ISS all week on NASA TV, that wasn't the only big NASA-related news this week. In the wee hours this morning, NASA launched a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California - the Glory mission.

Not a manned launch, this mission was to send an Earth science satellite up on a Taurus XL rocket. Data from the Glory mission was supposed to allow scientists to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles affect Earth's climate. We checked out a great graphic (in PDF form) all about Glory on NASA's Web site.

We found a nicely done video overview about the Glory mission NASA posted to YouTube and watched it. And then I cued up video from the morning's launch for the kids to watch. It was exciting to see the tall rocket roar off the launch pad and see the stage separations.

And then we watched the post mortem, preliminary explanation of the mission's failure. That's right - Glory never reached orbit. According to a NASA press release, "The launch proceeded as planned from its liftoff at 5:09 a.m. EST through the ignition of the Taurus XL's second stage. However, the fairing failure occurred during the second stage engine burn. It is likely the spacecraft fell into the South Pacific, although the exact location is not yet known."

Can you say BIG, half billion dollar blunder? Yikes. :( What made it doubly painful is that on Feb. 24, 2009, NASA's previous launch attempt of an Earth science spacecraft (the Orbiting Carbon Observatory onboard a Taurus XL) ALSO failed to reach orbit when the fairing did not separate. Same damn thing. Guess their troubleshooting trees didn't work so well. ...

As disappointing as the news was, it was rich with lessons to be learned for CJ and Annabelle. We talked about what should happen next. Should NASA quit trying to launch rockets because of two failures? (The consensus was 'no.') What should they do differently next time? And so on.

IN THE PINK: By early afternoon Annabelle had rallied some. I asked her if she felt good enough to go to Pink Gorilla and import and retro gaming retailer. I'd promised CJ days ago we could go there Friday. I got a quick "Yes!" in response.

We went to their store in the U-District. We parked next to an apartment building that had these great faces staring down at us. Appropriately, there was a cafe called "The Ugly Mug" on the ground floor.As always, the kids enjoyed their perusing Pink Gorilla's inventory. It's a bit like being in a gaming museum, with items running the gamut back to the earliest consoles. Plus, there are lots of interesting Japanese titles to check out, too. CJ came home with a "new" Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom game for the Atari system, and a Mario Kart title for the Game Boy Advance (which he can play on his old DS).

CJ is definitely in his element in that store. It was amusing hearing him asking the store employee for 20-year old games I'd never even heard of. His knowledge of such things is darn near encyclopedic.