Cake and Rockets

TAKE THE CAKE: There was no Friday post because we were on a mission. A six-plus hour cake run, to be specific. 


We headed to Siletz, Ore., to attend the wedding of Christian's niece at Christian's parents' home. It's always a long drive, but this drive was particularly taxing because I was in charge of making the groom's cake, and to that end, we had a fair amount of fragile and perishable cargo on board and it was hot out and basically the whole way there, I worried that something was going to melt and/or break.

Fortunately, everything made it intact, and within about 15 minutes of arriving, I began making a half sheet cake layer, a couple of batches of Rice Krispie treats (which would become a forested river bank the next morning), and molding some back up bride and groom parts out of gum paste.

Saturday morning, I started making fondant and buttercream frosting around 8 a.m. and got to carving, sculpting, smooshing, smoothing, frosting, covering and decorating the cake for the next 6 hours. I was VERY happy to have super good help from Christian's sister Trina and her son's girlfriend, Leanne. They were great. Annabelle checked on its progress throughout the day, and helped a bit with mixing fondant and such. (It's worth noting that CJ and Annabelle contributed a lot of time to the project - they were with me every step of the way as I contemplated, designed, hunted and gathered supplies and so on.)

Though it looked like hell as a carved up and smooshed together mass in the morning, by the afternoon, the cake came together quite nicely. The weather and the wedding were lovely and a great time was had by all.


At the reception, there were fancy fluted glasses on the table. Annabelle informed CJ that when drinking from such a glass, you need to hold your pinkie out.

Worried about getting it right, CJ held BOTH pinkies out when drinking. :) 

BOUNTY: We haven't harvested hardly anything from our garden yet, but a couple of days ago as I was contemplating our gonzo-growing cauliflower plants, I noticed (gasp!) a couple of them actually had HEADS growing in them. Rather large-ish, appeared overnight type of heads. Sweet! So, tonight, we harvested one and it was part of our salad. Our first home grown cauliflower ever.

MORNING REPORT: At 10 this morning, we tuned into NASA TV for an hour long press conference all about the latest on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. 


I had CJ and Annabelle take notes during the presser, so that they could write a short report about it after ward. Here's how they summed up the event. ... CJ's is first.

In summer, on August fifth, 2012, the Curiosity Rover will get to Mars. According to NASA, it will be very risky to have Curiosity on Mars, due to its atmosphere. NASA also says that there could have been past life on Mars, as there used to be water on Mars, until it heated up. There have been two past rovers on Mars, which are Opportunity and Spirit. Curiosity will have to explore most of Mars' atmosphere to find even the smallest life. On July 16, 2012, an educational broadcast focused on the Curiosity Rover aired on NASA TV. There will be engines on top of the vehicle that the Curiosity Rover will come out of. On day 3 and 4, the Curiosity Rover will start taking photos for NASA members to look at and you might get to see the photos too.

And here's Annabelle's account ...

Curiosity is a rover that is going to Mars. Curiosity will be landing on August 5th, 2012, at 10:31 pacific time. Curiosity will be landing in Gale Crater, by Mount Sharp. By Mount Sharp there are minerals, but we are not exactly sure what they are. Curiosity is going to mine the minerals in the Martian soil, and study them under a laser! The laser is going to drill through excess rock to get just the pure mineral, and then it gets analyzed. Once the mineral is analyzed curiosity will store it and drill for more mineral. Curiosity will not only be drilling, it will be searching for microscopic life. it may find life, and it may not. But we at least hope it finds out what the minerals are by Mount Sharp. Curiosity will stay up there like its cousins that are also on Mars, Spirit and Opportunity. Curiosity, Spirit & Opportunity all have one thing in common, their mission. They are all exploring Mars just so we can see what it is like so we can go there, and maybe even live there. 

One of the questions from the media during today's press conference was about NASA's "batting average" when it comes to Mars missions. NASA Mars program director Doug McCuiston said he wasn't certain, but thought it was about 40 percent. "Mars usually wins," he admitted, matter of factly. We're sure hoping that NASA wins this go-round!

The photo below, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU, is of Gale Crater. If you look closely, you can seen an oval outline. That's where Curiosity is expected to land. 

The areas in red above indicate a surface material that is more tightly cemented together than rocks around it and likely has a high concentration of minerals. That's one reason this oval is an attractive target for MSL. It's thought that this texture could be the result of water that could have been present there some time in the past. 


In other NASA-related news, today marks the 42 anniversary of Apollo 11 blasting off, carrying astronauts who would be the first to set foot on the moon. 


To learn more about the mission, we visited the Web site We Chose the Moon. It's hosted by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.


On the site, we listened to mission control chatter from T-minus 5 minutes through lift off. We watched an animation of the launch, as well as archival footage. Exciting stuff, even 42 years later. Annabelle was absolutely jumping up and down when the Saturn V cleared the tower.

Photo: NASA