A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

NERD ALERT: OK, I'll admit it, we've been looking forward to today since we read months (years?) ago that Star Wars movies were going to be re-released in theaters in 3D.

Of course, the exuberance of that announcement was quickly diminished when we found out it wasn't going to be in real world chronological order, but in Star Wars episode order. That meant that "Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace" would be first.

Jar Jar Binks.

Ugh.

Nevertheless, we were there for opening day, our family of four and five other people in the theater (two tweens and three people my age, each solo). For a moment here, I have to rewind and report that this opening day experience was a far cry from that rainy day in 1999, when I dropped Rick and Kennedy off at their middle school, headed to the theater in downtown Vancouver and sat on a cold, wet sidewalk for five hours to buy opening day tickets. (And on that memorable day, I was The Only Female over 20 in the blocks-long line that was overwhelmingly teen and 20-something males).

Tickets in frozen/numb hand, I raced back to Ridgefield, picked the boys and a couple of their friends up at school (which they ditched early for Star Wars, oh yeah!) and, by god, we saw it on opening day. Good times. (I'll never forget the boys' friend Steve being so nervous during the pod race scene that he ate a drinking straw. LOL.)

Like I said, a little different this go round. We didn't even buy our tickets ahead of time online today. Somehow, I knew it wouldn't be packed to the rafters. ...

That said, and Jar Jar aside (yes, he's even MORE annoying in 3D), I was glad that CJ and Annabelle had the opportunity to see any Star Wars movie in the theater. We laughed, we cried (Anakin leaving his mother, sniffle), and we cheered (CJ and Annabelle both started clapping uproariously when the movie ended).

Still heart Star Wars. A saga for the ages. I'm sure I can come up with some curricular-type activities to tie into the movie

DIGITS: The kids' math book is moving them right along through multiplication. A couple of days ago, the new exciting development was multiplying two-digit numbers by single digit numbers. Today, they were multiplying THREE digit numbers by single digit numbers. Exciting stuff. And since we were doing that, I pointed out to and demonstrated for them that they also had the know-how to multiply a single digit number times a number in the thousands, ten thousands and upward. It's the same concept, just carried forward.

They're still not quite where they should be as far as having their multiplication tables memorized, IMHO, but I have to admit, that cheezy multiples of four song to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" has come in handy for them.

MORE ON MARS: I'm still plugging away on the presentation for Tuesday. At least today, I am now concrete in exactly what I want to cover, so now it's 'just' a matter of getting together the words and graphics to make that happen.

I went through the first half of the presentation today with CJ and Annabelle, and they were an enthusiastic audience, so that was a good sign.

As I'm reviewing these materials and thinking about it all in terms of how a kindergartner would feel about it, I am remembering what my impressions and hopes for Mars were when I was 5. Back then, before all of the data from the Viking missions, we (a whole lot of science fiction writers, and me, et al) really and truly thought there might be Martians living on the Red Planet.

I didn't expect them to be like us, but I did expect something - or someone -  there. I'm starting to relive what a disappointment it was to find out it was a desolate landscape devoid of some kind of humanoid neighbor.

Even still, the Red Planet is fascinating. The very first photo any spacecraft took of it was in the year of my birth - 1965 - by Mariner 4.

Not a lot of detail there, but fascinating in its own mid century modern way. ;)

The Viking missions pretty much made it clear that we wouldn't be hosting any Martian exchange students  any time soon. I suppose instead of grousing, I should be more grateful that it also meant we weren't going to be invaded a la "Mars Attacks" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

CROSS-BLOGGING: I received a nice email today from author Jeanne Walker Harvey letting me know she had posted CJ and Annabelle's artwork, inspired by her book "My Hands Sing the Blues" about artist Romare Bearden on her blog. You can see it here: http://jeannewalkerharvey.blogspot.com/p/kids-artwork.html

Space Case

AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH: I saw this 'motivational poster' today on a friend's Facebook page and couldn't help but agree with it.

And while I'm griping, can I just also point out that we humans haven't set foot on a heavenly body other than Earth since Apollo 17, in December of 1972. That's a damn long time. I was thinking about this quote we saw on the wall of the special NASA exhibit in San Diego in December.

And now, almost FORTY years later we in the U.S. don't even have our own way to get our astronauts to the International Space Station any more.

Yeah, I know private enterprise is supposed to be stepping in, but guess what - just today it was announced that SpaceX's unmanned launch to the ISS has been delayed again.  The launch was supposed to be on Feb. 7, but that date slipped a few weeks back, and now it's being pushed out even further. To late April, at the earliest.

No one ever said it would be easy, I suppose ... It just feels like so many giant steps backward for mankind sometimes.

MARS MINDED: In happier news, I spent a good part of the day thinking and reading about the Mars Science Laboratory, currently zooming toward Mars.

I've been invited to give a talk to a couple of kindergarten classes. This Tuesday I'll be giving a half hour presentation about Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity project. I'm happy to have the opportunity to do so, but egad - it is not coming together quickly and it's totally my fault.

I have props to bring in, but I'm also putting together a fun PowerPoint presentation with relevant and (hopefully) captivating still shots, lots of audience interaction, a cool video of the launch, and an artist's animation of the landing.

The hard part of this task is I keep finding more, More, MORE interesting stuff and I wind up reading, watching ... and getting further away from being done. Not good. But look, isn't this a gem?! How am I supposed to ignore stuff like this?

Four is a Magic Number

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play with a Slinky while using headphones. The result, as CJ found out, is a knotted spaghetti of wires.

CJ tried, and failed, to untangle it. I gave it a go but quit when I was ready to take a knife to the Slinky and/or the headphones. Miraculously, Christian managed to get them separated.

About 10 minutes later, I found CJ playing Slinky while wearing his headphones again. Needless to say, I put a stop to THAT immediately.

ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Science class in Shoreline was fun, as always. Today we were learning about how to measure the wind. To get started, we went outside  - with bubbles. That was enough to bring the Major Squirrel out in the kids. Lordy, once they knew bubbles Bubbles BUBBLES! were involved, let's just say, the thinking caps and listening ears were on a bit crooked. :/

However, I think most of 'em did finally get the drift (pun intended) that the bubbles they blew were all floating in the same direction due to the prevailing wind.

Once back inside, the kids learned a new learned a new word that's fun to say - anemometer! And they each got to make one, too. The supply list was simple - a cardboard square, a couple of drinking straws, some tape and four small plastic cups. 

They had a blast (pun intended) testing their anemometer with a blow dryer wielded by their teacher. You can barely see CJ's aeromometer spinning here. It's going so fast it's just a blur. Good times.  

THE ROOT OF THE MATTER: Today we took a closer look out our carrot growing project in the Root-Vue planter. And lo and behold we saw (are you sitting down?) ROOTS!  Spindly lil' white things, it's hard to imagine they'll bear fruit (er, vegetables).

Beloved reader Undine suggested in a comment on yesterday's blog post that we might consider thinning the herd, so to speak, to increase our yield. I think that's spot on advice, and so tomorrow we'll partake of some judicious pruning.

FOUR SCORE: I can't tell you how many times in the past couple of days I've thought, "Damn you Schoolhouse Rock! Why didn't you make a catchy tune to help people memorize their four-times-whatever?!"

We're now doing double digit x single digit numbers in math, and really the kids are mostly OK with it - until there is as problem involving 4 x something. They simply haven't memorized their 4s and it's really slowing them down.

So, at the kids' urging, I went searching on YouTube for some catchy multiplication of 4s songs. What we found were mostly HORRIBLE. There were songs that were sappy and not memorable, There were some that were downright annoying. After listening to way too many, we finally found one to the tune of "Row, Row, Row your Boat," catchiest and/or least annoying. But it's still not great, like say, this ...



Getting By

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES: Yesterday we went on a nearly 4-mile hike and spent half the day outdoors. Today, not so much. The kids have been battling a cold since last Thursday or Friday, and for whatever reason, their colds both took a turn for the worse today. CJ, especially, was a faucet, shall we say.

So today was low key. We managed to get a few things done. We checked on our carrot 'garden' in the Root-Vue grower. We think the carrots are growing gangbusters. What's funny is we can't see the roots in our "root view" grower. So far it's just the carrot tops. When we remove the white shield from in front of the dirt all we see so far is, well, dirt. Maybe when the carrots get bigger we'll have something more exciting to report.

FOLKSY: Yesterday, we read a folk tale titled "Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky" by Elphinstone Dayrell. It had to do with Sun wanting to be a good host and inviting Water and his friends into his home, without realizing just how much volume Water and Co. would take up. Eventually the Water People pushed Sun and his wife Moon all the way up to the sky.

After reading the book, we talked about folk tales and what their genesis might be. I pointed out that often, they were attempts at explaining something that people didn't understand. "Oh, so they're like religion!" CJ analogized.

I asked the kids to each write an 'explanation-type' folk tale that related to something in our solar system. They got right to work and this is what they came up with. ...

Annabelle: "Why Mars is Red"

Once upon a time... Mars was hanging out with his friends Phobos, Deimos, and Earth, then Mars decided to tell Earth a joke. "Hey Earth! What do you get when you cross a planet with water?" Mars asked.

Mars waited a long time for an answer because Earth was talking to its moon!

By the time Earth turned around, Mars was red because he was angry. And he stayed like that forever.

CJ: "How the Moon Got Its Craters"

It was a regular day in the sky, The Moon said to the Sun, "Hi! How's your day, Sun?" The Sun didn't hear the Moon. The Moon looked at the Sun for a while, waiting for an answer.

The Moon stared for so long, He was blinded. The Moon, in confusion, walked around and smacked into sooo many other planets. After a while, the Wrong Way Planet said, "STOP!!!!!!".

The Wrong Way Planet also said "Moon, as banishment, you will be stuck in Earth's gravity and at dark!!!" So, the Moon is banished. And sometimes, it would come up in the day, hoping not to get caught. This is especially hard, because the Moon is blind.

TWEET SENSATION: A few days ago, CJ registered for a Twitter account. His motivation was that he wanted to start following the Tweets of some of the principals behind the game Minecraft. He was certain that would be an avenue to insider type info.

This afternoon he asked if could send a Tweet to one of the game's creators asking about access to the latest version of the game. I gave him the go ahead, but told him I had to proof read it first. And so, he wrote to @Jeb_ "Um.,. can you give me the link to the latest minecraft snapshot please?"

Brilliant, don't you think?

I cautioned CJ that @Jeb_ no doubt gets dozens/hundreds of similar questions a day from game fans and not to expect a reply from @Jeb_.  An hour or so later, when we checked CJ's account and his @Connect, lo and behold was the info CJ was seeking! It wasn't from @Jeb_, but someone named @DreamyNotch had replied with links to two of the latest Minecraft updates. Needless to say, CJ was pleased and he checked them both out. Behold, the power of an 8-year-old with a Twitter account!

Good Times

SATURN DAY: On Saturday, we headed down to The Museum of Flight to get in on their Family Fun Workshop, where the kids had a chance to make Saturn V rocket replicas.

The Museum supplied all the materials: corrugated cardboard to build each of three stages of the rocket, card stock for the nosecone and tail fins, markers to pretty it up, and tape to hold it all together. (I'm pretty sure Scotch tape wasn't used to hold the original Saturn V together.)

They worked methodically, and were proud of their finished products.

When we arrived at the museum, we found out that there would be a special Black History Month presentation that afternoon, with the guest of honor being Dr. Bernard Harris Jr., the first African American space walker. We got there at 11 a.m. and his talk wasn't until 2 p.m., but we didn't have trouble finding ways to kill the time in between.

For instance, CJ and Annabelle each got some practice docking with the Hubble Space Telescope in a simulator.

They also logged some time virtually piloting old fashioned bi planes.

And every time we go to the museum, we discover something we haven't seen before. Like here, Annabelle learns about WWII German flight formations.

And they checked out a couple of real cockpits.

At 2 p.m. we made our way to the auditorium and listened to a thoroughly entertaining and inspiring talk by Dr. Harris.

He had some great messages, especially for the youngsters in the audience. One was "You are an infinite being with infinite possibilities." The other (my personal favorite) was, "Do not let the fool next to you destroy your dreams."

Saturday was also Michael P. Anderson Memorial Day at The Museum of Flight. Though Anderson was born in N.Y., he called Spokane, WA, his hometown. He went to Cheney High School, and attended the University of Washington here in Seattle, where he earned bachelors degrees in physics and astronomy.

He rode aboard Endeavour for STS-89, a mission where the shuttle docked with MIR. STS-107 (Columbia) was his second - and tragically his final - shuttle mission.

There is a gorgeous statue of Anderson at the Museum. (In the background, you can see the old red barn, where Boeing got its start.)

Saturday was a wonderful day, and hundreds of people were there to honor the fallen hero and to hear Dr. Harris speak.

SUNNY MONDAY: We did some writing and math this morning, but the bulk of our afternoon was spent outdoors. We parked near the east end of the Magnolia bridge and, for the first time, walked the waterfront trail to downtown Seattle.  I don't know why we've waited 5 years to make this journey, but it was worth the wait!

I'm mostly going to let the photos do the talking. It was a nearly 4-mile round trip and we enjoyed every step (or scoot, in the kids' case).  Here's one of our first turns.

The rock the kids are standing on here is part of an art installation. And yes, they *were* singing the "Rocky" theme while standing triumphantly atop it.

The photo above has a ferry, a grain elevator, an ocean going vessel, a part of Century Link Field, Mt. Rainier, the port, and Elliott Bay. Not a bad panorama.

The cool graphic above can be found at the King County Water Treatment facility along the bay.

We saw a wild looking net setup and wondered what it was all about. Fortunately, there was a sign to tell us!

We encountered a towering totem pole ...

Luckily, there was a sign telling all about it, too.

Another great view - this one includes the public fishing pier at Myrtle Edwards Park. It's open 24 hours a day.

CJ and Annabelle did some "wishing" instead of fishing today.

Here's Annabelle whizzing past two Seattle landmarks.

Yay! We made it to the Olympic Sculpture Park!

OH, AND BY THE WAY: We made some Mars cookies today, complete with sugary polar caps.