Every time we hear them, we run to our east windows in hopes of catching a glimpse. We saw them doing some wild stuff in the distance today - straight up climbs like this ...
WIMPY MOVIE: Today was a day the kids have been looking forward to for weeks/months. The latest movie in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series debuted - "Dog Days."
Rick was kind enough to take them to see it late this morning.
When they returned home, the kids both said they liked it. Rick was markedly less enthused. In fact, he didn't have a single good thing to say about it. I didn't ask him to write a review, but CJ and Annabelle did.
CJ was afraid of spoilers, so he chose to write about the similarities and differences between he book and the movie.
In this review, I am going to talk about differences. 1, Locker room: In the book, Greg only has to walk past the nude people in the locker room with Manny. In the movie, Greg has to go in much more places to find where Manny went in the locker room. 2, Tingy: In the book, Frank Heffley throws Tingy in the trash because he thinks Manny Heffley is a big boy. In the movie, Dad still throws Tingy in the trash, only for Manny to get it, and also, the dog Sweetie rips it apart, destroying it forever, which makes Manny mad. 3, Sweetie: In the book, Sweetie is named by Susan Heffley. In the movie, Manny Heffley names Sweetie. |
Frankly, what he's written is completely cryptic to me. I guess he was successful in not spoiling anything.
Annabelle came up with the following ...
Today I went to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days". It was a good movie, yet it was not about just the "Dog Days" book, it was also part "The Last Straw." The movie was very good and was a medium length.
In the movie there are some tweaks to the content of the books, but I still recognized all the scenes. Like on one of the scenes, Greg was riding the 'Cranium Shaker' with Rowley, but in he book he went WITHOUT Rowley. this is one of the tweaks. And in the book, on the Cranium Shaker, you had to stand in a metal cage meant for one person only. But in the movie you sat on couch-like chairs and they would use those little things where it was like a cushioned child's seat belt.
Over all the movie was good and I liked it, the screen in the theater was nice and big and the sound was loud enough for it to feel like a movie, but quiet enough so that in the loud parts your ears would not bleed. The movie was obviously a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie, but the actor for Greg made him look older. I sort of liked this fact, it was as if Greg had grown a little since last movie.
GETTING SOCIAL: Today there were multiple NASA Socials held across the nation, ranging from Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to the Johnson Space Center in Texas to Florida and more. There were seven Socials in all. We listened (and looked) in via NASA TV, Facebook and Twitter, and learned even more about the amazing Martian rover, which is now less than half a million miles from Mars.
The excitement continues to build for Sunday night's landing of the Mars Science Laboratory. I read one Tweet from an MSL team member today who said co workers are starting to bring cots and bedding into work in anticipation of long work hours in the days to come.
One gentleman from NASA speaking at the JPL social today reminded those gathered and watching that this mission's "difficulty is off the scale of anything we've ever attempted before," and that "Mars is really hard." The fact of the matter is, less than one third of the missions to land on the surface of the Red Planet have been successful. "This is a very difficult thing," he summed up.
I know he's right, but I'm still hanging on to that whole "Failure is not an option" meme from NASA's Apollo days!
FAR OUT DJ: This afternoon, we tuned into our favorite radio station, Third Rock Radio, which streams live via the Internet. Today's very special guest DJ was astronaut Joe Acaba, broadcasting from the International Space Station.
The music sounded the same, in case you were wondering. ;) He played everything from Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away" to the Foo Fighters ("Times Like These" acoustic), and ended his 29-song set with Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole."
LIGHTS, CAMERA:
Today CJ asked me when we'll see the first photos from Curiosity. It was pretty clear he was hoping a crew was flying along side the rover, to film its descent and landing (also known as "Seven Minutes of Terror" but I explained that wasn't going to happen.According to a NASA press release today, "A set of low-resolution gray scale Hazcam images will be acquired within minutes of landing on the surface," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Once all of the critical systems have been checked out by the engineering team and the mast is deployed, the rover will image the landing site with higher-resolution cameras."
However, none of the images will be immediately available to the public - or even mission control, as it takes about 13.5 minutes for signals to reach Earth from Mars. I told CJ when he gets up Monday morning, hopefully NASA will have a stack of Curiosity pix for him to peruse. He asked me to wake him up early. :)
Curiosity has no shortage of cameras. Take a look at this graphic. ...
According to the press release, the very first images we see will come from the one-megapixel Hazard-Avoidance cameras (Hazcams) attached to the body of the rover (on its front and back). In all there are 8 Hazcams.
Curiosity also has four Navigation cameras (Navcams), at the top of the rover's "look-out" mast. The Hazcams have wide-angle, fisheye lenses, which are capped with clear dust covers designed to protect the cameras from dust that may be stirred up during landing
The (color!) shots I'm looking forward to will come from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI), which will acquire them as the rover descends to the Martian surface. MARDI pics are expected to be released some time on Aug. 6.
Once the rover's mast is deployed, its Navcams will begin taking one-megapixel stereo pictures 360 degrees around the rover, as well as images of the rover deck. These 3-D images will help mission specialists on the ground decide where and how to drive MSL and what rocks to check out.
And ChemCam (Curiosity's big "eye" on its "head") will provide a telescopic view of targets at a distance.
No comments:
Post a Comment