Sandy Strikes Land

Image: Cooperative Institute for Meterological Satellite Studies

OH, SANDY!: Today the news was nothing but Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. And with good reason. She's one mother of a storm. Look at the size of her/it. It looks like it's going to swallow 2/3 of the Eastern Seaboard.

Tonight as I type this, reports of flooding, wind damage and loss of life are rolling in, and at least 3.6 million people are without power. When tomorrow dawns, I'm sure the photos and video of the aftermath are going to be shocking.

I had a feeling the featured movie on BrainPOP would be hurricanes, and I was right. I had the kids watch it today and we talked about hurricanes and how dangerous they can be. We also talked about how we are fortunate to have the technology that gives people warnings about approaching hurricanes, which helps boost preparedness and can help minimize loss of life.

GETTING CENTERED: We spent most of the weekend at home, working on the remodel/addition and/or Halloween costumes. This afternoon we decided to get the heck out of here and headed for Pacific Science Center.

We haven't been to PSC for a month or two, which is a long stretch for us. Turns out this isn't the best time to visit. They're in the middle of some renovations of their own, and a large chunk of their main display building is closed. You can't even walk from one side of the center to the other, you have to exit the building, cross the courtyard, and re-enter. I'm sure it will be wonderful when the exhibit opens, but in the meantime, I feel especially bad for out-of-towners or first time visitors who don't know that this isn't normal.

We started out in the dinosaur exhibit, which is enticing from a distance. It's when you get close and take a good look at the dinos or try to use one of the interactive dino displays that it disappoints. Many things don't work, and the dinos definitely look like they're on their way to being extinct.

For instance, you can't tell in the shot above, but the long-necked dino in this photo has gaping holes on the underside of his neck, likely from the strain of the animation.

After the Land of the Lost, we walked over to the Gemini capsule

PSC's globe was featuring live-time weather satellite maps, no doubt because of Sandy's antics. In just a few short seconds, we were able to watch the storm taking shape and barreling down on the Northeast seaboard.

The kids took a spin on the bikes which demonstrate how many calories you're burning. CJ was proud that he spiked it.

In the lobby of the IMAX movie theater, CJ tickled the ivories.

I'm pretty sure he was playing "Three Blind Mice."  While he was making music, I was enjoying this view. ...

TAKING WING: Our main draw to the science center today was the movie "Flight of the Butterflies." It's the story of Dr. Fred Urquhart, a scientist who spent 40 years watching and wondering about monarch butterflies and their migration patterns.

Born in 1911, Urquhart was obsessed with monarch butterflies since his youth in Canada. He grew up to be a zoologist/biologist, as well as a teacher and university professor. After lots of trial and error, Urquhart found a way to tag butterflies, and he and his wife Norah founded the Insect Migration Association. They enlisted thousands of "citizen scientist" volunteers across North America. Through that network, in 1975, Urquhart learned that the remote Transvolcanic Belt of central Mexico is where the millions of monarchs migrated to each year.

Urquhart was able to travel to the remote monarch-filled mountains before he died in 2003, at the age of 90.

The award-winning film did a wonderful job of sharing Urquhart's compelling story, while teaching us all about the beautiful butterflies' life cycles. It was visually stunning and the 3D was amazing. If you get a chance to see it, do!

The movie's Web site has some educational tie-ins we'll be checking out tomorrow. 

DRAGON HOME:  Sunday morning we watched SpaceX's Dragon capsule undock from the International Space Station. Here's a nice, short video of the maneuver.

Just a few hours later, the capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean (at 12:22 our time), a few hundred miles off of Baja California, Mexico.

The splashdown was successful. Here's Dragon bobbin' in the deep blue sea.

Image: NASA via SpaceX

The capsule, here on the back of a boat, was recovered intact, which is good, considering it was carrying more than 1,600 pounds of cargo and research back from the ISS.

 Image Credit: NASA via SpaceX