Buzzed

ASTRONAUT IN THE A.M.: So, I'm reading news online this morning and on King 5's Web site I see a headline that certainly caught my attention. It read: "Space Needle announces contest to send person into space."

Win a SPACE FLIGHT!? Eep! But wait, it gets better - I read on and see that Buzz-freaking-Aldrin, pilot of the Apollo 11 lunar landing module and second man on the moon, was going to be at the Space Needle at 10:30 a.m. to help announce the contest.

That was all it took to light a fire under our backsides. It was 9:30 at the time, and we scrambled and were in the car by 9:45. We got lucky on parking and walked up to the Needle by 10 ... to hear Buzz ALREADY TALKING. Great, clearly the news report had gotten the time wrong. Good news is he had *just* started and we hardly missed a thing. Since there wasn't much pre-publicity (and some of what there was was wrong) we were one of just a handful of non-press people there, so we got to stand right next to the velvet rope, stage right and listen to Aldrin talk about the history and future of flight. A NICE way to start a Monday, I'd say.
His story of landing on the moon - with just 15 seconds of fuel left - was the most compelling part, IMHO. I have a tiny snipped of his speech (poorly filmed, might I add) on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyJR45scD3Y
Unfortunately, Buzz didn't do an official meet and greet with the public. The (very nice) security man told us that doesn't happen much anymore since stupid moon landing disbeliever Bart Sibrel and Buzz had a (very one sided) altercation a couple years back (that's one small punch for man, one big right jab for mankind!).

But after all the speeches were over, and Buzz gave some radio interviews, one of the security detail pointed out the kids to him and he turned around and smiled and waved right at CJ and Annabelle and gave them a thumbs up at a distance of less than 10 feet, so that was their astronaut encounter for the day. :) During Buzz's speech, a man was dangling from the Space Needle unfurling a banner.Not surprisingly, the banner was an advertisement for the Space Race 2012 contest.

Naturally, after the astronaut encounter, the kids had to visit the fountain. It was nice - they practically had the place to themselves!SUPER DUPER: While the kids were away on their camping adventure, they got a special delivery - a box from Japan containing a (insert choir of angels singing here) Super Famicom system! This game console was released by Nintendo in Japan on Wednesday, November 21, 1990. (The U.S. equivalent is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.)

The console looked to be in good order, but it didn't come with an RF (radio frequency) adapter or power supply. We were told by the Japanese seller the Super NES RF adapter we have should work with it and that we could find a power supply for it at Radio Shack.

Unfortunately, neither of those things turned out to be true. But five stores and a little MacGyvering later, BINGO! It's alive!!! CJ and Annabelle were so darn happy (and so were Christian and I, of course).
The console came with three games, including all Japanese versions of Donkey Kong 3 and Star Fox, so CJ is in import gamer heaven right now.DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: A cool Web site where you can download high-resolution NASA related posters. I love the one for STS-132 - "our" Atlantis flight! Love it that they're mixing two of my favorite things - baseball and the space program. And how clever they're with the Astros! :)

FAIRY DUST: Annabelle FINALLY lost her upper right tooth - a year and a day after CJ lost his upper right tooth. (I know this because I came across a photo of CJ's loss during the Great Archive Project this past weekend.)

Annabelle was eager for the Tooth Fairy to come, but not so thrilled with the Tooth Fairy taking her pearly white away. I told Annabelle the Tooth Fairy probably has plenty of teeth and suggested she leave a note requesting her tooth be left behind. So she did just that and whipped one out in about two minutes.

I love her illustration to go with the note - it shows her (gap in teeth) laying in bed, with CJ in his bed next to her, and the Tooth Fairy (with her tooth topped wand) standing over them, reading a note. Too cute!OVERHEARD: Today, between one of our five stops on the Great Super Famicom Mission, CJ and Annabelle were playing in the backseat. Their play involved them each being a character of some sort and lots of dialogue. At one point CJ said to Annabelle, "I don't know where you're going with this."

AND OBVIOUSLY: The family made it home from camping in one piece. :) By all accounts, they had a grand time. Hopefully tomorrow's blog will include some photos/video of their adventure.