Homeward Bound

MERCURY RISING: Fifty years ago today - only 23 days after Yuri Gagarin of the then-Soviet Union became the first person in space - NASA astronaut Alan Shepard launched at 9:34 a.m. EDT aboard his Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space. His historic flight lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds.

We checked out NASA's awesome Freedom 7 page commemorating the anniversary. The interactive site lets you listen to an audio interview with Shepherd about his flight, get a good view of the Mercury capsule, see the trajectory of the flight, and there's a great video with interviews with Shepherd, his friends and family and fellow astronauts. There's a lot of footage from the historic launch day and we learned a great deal - including the fact that he peed his spacesuit while waiting on the launch pad during a 4-hour delay. :0 (The kids thought that was hysterical, of course.)

WIDE OPEN: Today we didn't have any classes or other obligations on the schedule. That was rare and nice for a change. We did some math and reading, but mostly the kids had time to do what they pleased. I think that's important - not every second of our days has to be scheduled, and when the kids have the freedom, they often end up in protracted, imaginative play sessions, as was the case today.Annabelle spent HOURS crafting things out of cardboard, strings, tape and glue.
Of course, they each also spent some time online and playing games. Annabelle was interested in the Kids CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Web site, mostly playing art-focused games.

Meanwhile, CJ test drove an old Sega Genesis game we found at Goodwill a few days back. Called "Dynamite Headdy," we'd never heard of it before, but at $2, we were willing to risk it. Today through research, we came to learn it's one of the highest rated games made for the Sega Genesis system. For its day and age, the graphics and game action are pretty darn good. It's an odd game - the title character works his way through levels by hitting enemies with his head, which is like a boomerang, shooting out and knocking into bad guys before retracting.

CJ computed that since there are three stages on each of the game's nine levels, he had 27 separate sections of the game to try to clear.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Curious, we visited the Web site of Treasure, a Japanese video game company (and makers of "Dynamite Headdy). The site is in Japanese, but our Google toolbar offered to translate it for us. How nice of them. But, er, I'm thinking it's not a perfect translation. For instance, a banner of Japanese characters at the top of the page was translated to "People affected by the earthquake was east of this time, I would like respectfully sympathy."

Speaking of Japan, I have been exchanging email with a source in Japan that might be able to hook us up with a Super Famicom system from his side of the Pacific. This development makes CJ VERY happy.

CINCO: We did not have a Cinco de Mayo lesson plan today, but we did make a trip to Fred Meyer to lay in supplies to make a nice dinner with south of the border inspiration. I served up stuffed poblano chilies and pork tacos for dinner. Rick, Ken, Christian and I enjoyed them; CeeJ and Bee had pizza.

After dinner, CJ did a magic trick for Rick and Ken. He was very pleased with himself. :)