A Pale Blue Dot

ANTI-PANIC DEVICE: Math meltdowns are not all that uncommon around MPA, so when I saw this eraser at a cool little shop (Lucca) in Ballard yesterday, I had to get it. 

SAGAN REMEMBERED:  A Pulitzer Prize winning author, professor of Astronomy and Space Science and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University and host of the amazing, Emmy award winning "COSMOS" for PBS, Dr. Carl Sagan was a science educator extraordinaire. Nov. 9 was his birthday, and though he's been gone years now, his legacy lives on.

Thinking about Sagan, I immediately start feeling guilty for not showing the kids any of the "COSMOS" series. :/ Unforgivable and definitely on the 'to do' list!

I did play an excerpt from "A Pale Blue Dot" for them this morning. It was inspired by an image taken on Feb. 14, 1990, by Voyager 1, at Sagan's suggestion. As Voyager 1 was moving beyond the last planet in our solar system, it was turned around for a look at Earth, 4 billion miles away, from whence it came.  Our blue marble appears as a tiny sliver of light, just a little over one pixel. 

This video is definitely worth three minutes of your time!

GAMERS DELIGHT: This evening, we headed south to Tacoma's Pantages Theater. Destination: Video Games Live™ "an immersive concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time played by a live symphony orchestra" (per their Web site).

We'd never been to this theater before. At 9th and Broadway, it has 1,169 seats and it's designed "in the tradition of the Palace at Versailles," per its Web site. I've never been to the Palace at Versailles, so I'm going to have to take their word for it. Apparently it's a restored 1918 Vaudeville house. The place is gorgeous and intimate. I doubt there's a bad seat in the house.

The Tacoma Symphony Orchestra was directed by the VGL touring conductor Emmanuel Frattiani. They covered everything from Pong through Halo, and lots in between. 

We all loved every minute of it, including a tribute to the Sonic the Hedgehog series (hence the gold rings projected below). 

Good times!