Gruffy

TRICKY: The kids received a new issue of Highlights and I flipped through it this morning. They have a new science themed section and one of the stories explained why a straw looks broken when you look at it sitting in a glass of water.

I quickly grabbed a glass of water and a straw and replicated the 'trick,' and called the kids over ready to astound them. ;)

In my best all-knowing Alec Trebek/sanctimonious voice, I instructed the kids to study the glass and asked them why the straw appears to be broken.

I stood back, smiling smugly and giving them a couple of seconds to think about it, eager to share with them my new found knowledge ... until Annabelle piped in with, "It's because of the refraction of the light!"

Doh! My shining moment was stolen. How DARE she know the answer!? hahaha

As Highlights explained, when you look at an object, it's the light that's bending, not (in this case) the straw. When light is going through different mediums it can be bent or refracted differently. In this instance, the light changes direction when it goes from air into the water, or vice versa. 
 
MOHAWK ROCK: This afternoon we tuned in to our favorite Internet based radio station, Third Rock Radio at 1 p.m. They were having a guest DJ at that time slot, NASA Mohawk Guy (Bobak Ferdowski) became a sensation following the night of Mars Science Laboratory's landing. The vast audience tuning in was expecting to see a bunch of old school, button down shirt and tie wearing dudes, not a young guy with a mohawk and stars dyed into the short hair on the side of his head. 

Ferdowski played a nice mix of music, everything from Fire + Ice to Japandroids. Good stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if they invite him back some time. That is, if he has time time. He's probably a little busy in his job as flight director for MSL's cruise mission phase and director for the surface science mission.

GRUFFY: About 7 this morning CJ asked me who the Billy Goats Gruff are. I told them they're characters in an old folk tale. I hopped onto YouTube hoping to find a picture book on line featuring the story. There were scads of them. We watched.

I also found a Web site that featured three different tellings of the story. I had the kids read each of them and then asked them to then make a couple of columns on a sheet of paper and compare and contrast the versions.

Under "Compare" Annabelle came up with these items
- Two stories used trolls, two used wolves
- All of the stories used 3 goats
- In all the stories the goats are called "gruff" (except the German one). Note to Annabelle - hmm, guess that doesn't mean in ALL then, does it?

CJ came up with these 'Compare' items
- In all the stories there are three billy goats
- In all the stories the goats find ways to take advantage of the antagonist (?! yes, he wrote this!)
- In all of the stories the antagonist gets hurt badly
- In all of the stories the younger goat tries to pin it on the older goat to avoid getting eaten

For contrasts, we have Annabelle's first
- In all the stories the billy goats live in a different place than the other stories
- There isn't a bridge in all of them
And CJ's
- In one story the antagonist is a troll, in the other it is a wolf
- In one story the goats are called Gruff, in the other they have no names
- In one story, the antagonist tries to eat the goats because they have bellies. in the other it's because of  how fat they are

BEE IN A BLENDER: I received an email today from a Photoshop wizard letting me know he'd used some photos of mine of Annabelle in ballet class to create a composite image. Check it out, it's neat-o.
http://society6.com/AndreVillanueva/Photoshop-Creative-Magazine-Issue-93-Preview-1-of-2