Dirigibles, Trains & Automobiles

TICKET TO RIDE: Yesterday (while surrounded by 1,000 microbrews at Chuck's) we spent an hour plus playing a new-to-us board game, Ticket to Ride. In the game, players cobble together different railway lines criss-crossing the United States and southern Canada. 

Once we got the rules down, game play was fast, which kept the kids engaged. I loved that they learned some geography while they were playing. While some luck is involved, how well you do depends largely on how well you strategize, something I'm a fan of when it comes to games. (Even as a kid, I hated simple roll-of-the-dice no skill games.)

Last night Christian was the winner, but CJ and Annabelle weren't too far behind him. I'm sure we'll be playing Ticket to Ride again in the future.

SHOW AND TELL: This afternoon CeeJ and Bee took their mega periscope to science class for show and tell. It was enthusiastically received by their teacher and classmates, and they were proud of themselves.

It was fun seeing other kids' inventions, from spy devices to a kaleidoscopic. Creativity is alive and well within that group. 

OH THE HUMANITY: Awhile back I pulled a book off the library shelf thinking CJ would be interested in it. Turns out I was right. This morning he was immersed in "The Disaster of the Hindenburg"

It's been several years - and maybe even decades - since I've watched this news clip. My god, I'd forgotten just how horrifying it is. The poor reporter on the ground was so traumatized by the scene unfolding, as was everyone, no doubt. 


Watching it, I find it impossible to believe that anyone survived that, but remarkably, some did. In fact, most of them did. There were 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crew members), and 62 of them survived the crash (albeit many with significant injuries). One member of the ground crew was killed, which is also remarkable watching how quickly the flaming ship came down. 

One man has assembled a remarkably in-depth "Faces of the Hindenburg" site, with photos and bios of most everyone on board: http://facesofthehindenburg.blogspot.com/

RIGHT ON: We are still working our way through the study guide that goes along with "D is for Democracy." Today, the kids did a worksheet involving vocabulary, and one about the Bill of Rights. One of the questions on the latter was "Write a paragraph explaining which freedom you feel is the most important and why you feel this way."

Annabelle wrote, "I feel that freedom of religion is important because it allows people to be free to study any religion they like. It also allows them to worship whichever idol they wish to."

CJ wrote, "I feel that freedom of speech is the most important. I feel that way because we can express our feelings to other people. Also, that means we can show what we are going to do if we run for President."

Speaking of freedom of speech and presidents, I saw the most asinine bumper sticker today. It read "Don't blame me, I voted for the American." 

What a moron. But being able to have a super stupid bumper sticker is his constitutional right, so God bless America, including people born in Hawaii and the "birther" driving the Chevy Aveo. 

STARRY, STARRY NIGHT: Today a Facebook friend posted a link to this sweet video, '100,000 Stars."

It's an amazing, interactive visualization of our stellar neighborhood, including real location data of over 100,000 nearby stars. It's definitely worth taking three minutes to watch it. (And you really should watch it on YouTube on fullscreen, BTW.)


And when you're done with that, take it a step further and better and check out the phenomenal Web site http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/ (its data rich, and takes a minute or so to load). There, you can control what you're seeing. (I'd suggest your first click be in the upper lefthand corner, on the circle with an arrowhead in it, as that allows you to take a tour of the site.