A Good Day to Dye

FIT TO BE DYED: We've been sitting on a t-shirt dyeing kit for months now. Tired of moving it and plain white Ts around between cupboards and drawers, I decided, by gum, TODAY would be THE day we finally got to the project.

While the kids read the directions, I got things ready (put the t-shirts on boards covered with plastic bags, rounded up vinyl gloves, and added water to the three bottles with powdered dye in them).

CJ mixed the bottles of dye, they donned their gloves and outside (of course) we went to do the dyeing. This would not be a tie-dyed project, however, as the kids both decided they didn't want that effect. (That, and I think they didn't want to mess with rubber bands.) Whatever, their shirts, so they can do what they want.

It took all of 5 minutes for them to shoot splotches of dye on the shirts. Right now their custom creations are drying in our entryway. Stay tuned for photos of them modeling them. :)

BIG BEN: We decided to revisit another always-fun activity today - cartooning along with Bruce Blitz on Activitytv.tv.

We looked at our options and the kids chose to take on an illustration of Benjamin Franklin. The drawing starts by writing the number 100 in the middle of your paper - appropriate since Ben is on the $100 bill.

The kids had no trouble following along with the instructions.

I just wish we had some nice artist's type chalk and a couple of decent rapidiograph pens so their drawings could reach their full potential.

HAIL TO THE CHIEF: I knew President Obama was coming to the Seattle area today, and thanks to a Tweet, I saw that he was deplaning Air Force One at Boeing's Paine Field in Everett. I said to the kids, "Hmm, I wonder if Obama's visit will be covered live by our (local) news." So I flipped on the TV and the first words we hear were, "Ladies and gentleman, the President of the United States!" followed by a rousing rendition of "Hail to the Chief."

Sweet timing! So, we watched and listened to President Obama's message to Boeing workers, assembled media and the viewing audience. It definite

Nice of President Obama to give a hat tip to NASA during his speech. He pointed out that NASA technology had been integrated into the Boeing Dreamliner design. "Government research helped create this plane!" he said, pointing to the Dreamliner parked next to him.

The kids and I listened to the whole speech, which centered on keeping jobs - particularly manufacturing jobs - in the United States. Put simply: "I want us to make stuff. I want us to sell stuff,"  he proclaimed.

Sounds simple enough, eh? What could go wrong? ...
 
SWIFFERS, ANYONE?: Today I showed the kids this photo, and asked them if they could ID what it was of without any clues from me.

Hint if you need it - it's a top down view of something ...

Answer: it's the Martian Rover Opportunity, with its solar panels covered in a layer of Martian dust. This photo is also a good illustration of why rover Curiosity is NOT using solar panels. On Mars, the dust covering them interferes with their optimal functioning.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory offers info about the photo: "This self portrait from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows dust accumulation on the rover's solar panels as the mission approached its fifth Martian winter. The dust reduces the rover's power supply, and the rover's mobility is limited until the winter is over or wind cleans the panels. This is a mosaic of images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) during the 2,111th to 2,814th Martian days, or sols, of the rover's mission (Dec. 21 to Dec. 24, 2011). The downward-looking view omits the mast on which the camera is mounted."

ATLAS SHRUGGED: Once again, this afternoon we tuned in for the scheduled launch of the MUOS-1 Navy communications satellite atop an Atlas V rocket. The launched window opened at 2:42 our time, but there were three "red" exceptions at the time - all weather related. The countdown kept getting pushed back and pushed back until they were up against the end of the launch window and a scrub was called.
Sounds like they won't try again until Wednesday, at the earliest. Bummer, dudes.

OTHER STUFF: Annabelle and CJ both spent some time online today (I know, SURPRISE! eh?). CJ mostly read Wikis, but Annabelle spent some time on a Disney site where she could create some art. Here's one of her projects.

Cults 'n' Stuff

 

Translation: per RussiaTrek.org "We were born to make the fairy tale come true!"

LONG WALK: Midday, we watched part of International Space Station Expedition 30 Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov's six-hour spacewalk. They were working in the area of the Earth-facing Pirs docking compartment. It was interesting listening to them speaking in Russian and then hearing the translation into English.

The spacewalkers were moving the Strela-1 crane that's currently onboard to begin preparing the spot for its replacement next year with a new laboratory and docking module. More info about the space walk is available on the ISS mission page.

Speaking of Russians in space, Christian pointed me to a blog today containing several posters from the early Soviet space program years. Very interesting graphics and messages, to be sure. Make sure you click on the link to the second collection of posters, where you'll find gems like this:

Translation, per RussiaTrek.org: To the glory of communism!

 
TESTED: The kids have both aced Accelerated Reader (comprehension) tests for "The 2,000 Year Old Man Goes to School." I saw the title on the spine at the library last week and wondered if it was based on Carl Reiner-Mel Brooks skits of my infancy. Sure enough, that's what it was. And inside the front cover was a plastic case containing a read-along CD. So, we listened to it in the car on the way to science yesterday. Ugh. I didn't think it was funny AT ALL. In fact, to me it sounded like a rather poorly edited together cobble of 'jokes' (complete with nightclub applause) from Reiner's stand up routines of decades gone by.
But CJ and Annabelle LOLed at it, and the "zany comedy" has good reviews on Amazon (where you can buy it for 1 cent), so I guess I'm in the minority here.  Hmpf.

SCRUBBED: We were all geeked up about the launch of an Atlas V rocket down in Florida this afternoon. The mission - Mobile User Objective System - 1 (MUOS-1) will be the heaviest payload ever for an Atlas V. The rocket will launch the U.S. Navy's newest generation of mobile communications,

Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed just 75 seconds before liftoff due to upper level wind conditions.

The launch is rescheduled for Friday at 2:46 p.m. PST, but the weather forecast is rather abysmal right now. We'll be watching though, you can be sure.  Live coverage is available on the United Launch Alliance Web site.

ORDERED: This morning, with glee, CJ announced that pre-orders for the upcoming Minecraft flavored LEGO sets were being taken. I took a look at the link CJ found for ordering, and it looked legit (CJ showed me the same link Forbes magazine had in an article about it), so we ordered a couple of sets. CJ wanted to order SEVERAL, but we settled for two (his and hers). It's not supposed to be shipped until summer. Hopefully CeeJ and Bee are still interested in Minecraft then.

If, for some strange reason, you want to watch the 'trailer' for the Minecraft LEGO set, here's a link to it. However, as a PSA, I must caution that if you're allergic to gamers or geeks, do NOT watch it. :)

FILED: While CJ and Annabelle were in their music and LEGO classes, I managed to get our monthly, 'really, we do lots of schooly-stuff at home' reports done for the district where they attend classes 2-days a week. It's always a big chore, but when I'm done, I always have a sense of satisfaction. By gosh, it makes makes me feel like we actually DO do lots of schooly stuff at home. :)

WHEN BOOKS COLLIDE: This morning, on the way to Shoreline, in the backseat, CJ was reading a book about ancient Egypt's tombs and treasures, while Annabelle was reading a book about space rocks. Like a tag team, they'd take turns sharing interesting factoids from the book they were reading. CJ shared a story about one Egyptian tomb having the bodies of around 70 servants in it, each found with a small cup next to them, presumably which once held the poison they drank - committing suicide - before they were entombed. CJ was appalled, asking why anyone would do such a thing. I reminded him that religion and cultural customs can be powerful - and told him that if they people hadn't killed themselves, there's a good chance they would be offed anyway, for the master supposedly needed servants in the afterlife.

Shortly thereafter, Annabelle shared a photo of the two-tailed Hale Bopp comet. (The image below is courtesy of NASA.) Hale-Bopp is thought to be the most widely observed comet of the 20th century. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, which is twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811, per Wikipedia.

Naturally, with the talk of mass suicides and comets, my mind IMMEDIATELY went to the cRaZiEs of the Heaven's Gate tragedy in 1997. And so, I told the kids about the religious sect/cult whose members, for whatever inexplicable reason, came to believe that the Hale-Bopp comet was being trailed by a mothership coming to take them home, and in order to get on board (in effect), they had to kill themselves (well, leave their Earthy bodies behind) to hop on board. Thirty nine people died (one of them being Nichelle Nichols' - Lt. Uhura of Star Trek's - brother).

Tonight I discovered that the Heaven's Gate cult's Web site is still up and running. Its (long dead) voice is in the present tense. Freaky.

It leads with "RED ALERT (flashing) Hale-Bopp Brings Closure to: Heaven's Gate." Whoever authored the page said that the arrival of Hale-Bopp was the "marker" which "made it clear" that the "arrival of the spacecraft from the Level Above Human" had come to take them home. Wow. Just wow.

I found it super curious that one of their links was to a page titled "Our Position Against Suicide." Uh huh ...

I'll never forget in the news coverage of the mass suicide the photos showing the departed all wearing the same black Nikes with white swooshes. They had on matching black shirts, sweat pants, and armband patches with "Heaven's Gate Away Team" on them. Guess that getup was part of their religion? So bizarre. They each had $5.75 in their pockets, too? Is that the admission price for heaven, you suppose?

CJ is poring over the Wikipedia article on the group right now. Yikes.

BOOKED: Last night, realizing we have a 4-day weekend coming up (the kids have no school/classes next week and Christian has Monday and Tuesday off), I got a wild hair and decided we needed to go somewhere. So, after just a bit of research, it has been decided that "somewhere" will be the Olympic Peninsula. Christian has never been there and so that was one deciding factor. That, and it's close, it's scenic and I'd really like to go check out Fort Worden (I've wanted to do that ever since I helped Rick design a brochure on it when he was in middle school). And so, come Sunday we'll be heading to Port Townsend for a couple of days. Should be fun!

Not So Windy City

BLOWING IN THE WIND:  Today the wind was front and center for us. We started the day getting the kids' homework done. That involved taking the anemometers they made in last week's class and using them to make some observations

As you can probably tell from the non-plussed look on CJ's face, our morning wind experiment didn't go too well because there was no wind. BUMMER. We obviously shouldn't have waited until today to do the science homework due today. :/ Lesson learned.

In science class, the kids had big fun making a couple of other wind-related tools. First up was a pinwheel. It took some nimble fingers to get finished, but all the kids managed to complete the project and were quite thrilled with their pinwheels.

Next up, a weather vane. The students did a good job of listening to the instructions and completed their weather vanes in short order. Then we headed out side in hopes of catching some wind that would make the dozen or so weather vanes all point in the same direction. Mercifully, a small gust kicked up just long enough for the arrows to all point southwest.

BIRTHDAY BOY: Today, we observed the birth of Galileo Galilei by watching a BrainPOP video about the Italian scientist.

After the video, I asked CJ and Annabelle to write a bit about what they learned.

CJ wrote:

   Galileo was a great scientist. Instead of religion, Galileo did experiments. Galileo was born in Tialy, Pisa, 1564. Galileo believed that the sun was in the middle of the solar system. And he was right.

   Galileo went to court and he was forced to say that the Earth was in the middle of the solar system and was put under house arrest.Galileo died in 1642, and most of his theories were right.d

Annabelle wrote: 

   During his life, Galileo was a great astronomer. He tuaght us that we actually revolved around the sun and that Jupiter has more than 4 moons! He also said that (stuff) balls of different mass fall at the same rate!

   Galileo was put under house arrest just for his ideas! He had to stay in his house forever! After he died, Galileo's ideas were proved right!

My favorite this about Galileo is that he's a father of scientific method. How fortunate (and radical at the time) that he pioneered the idea that science should be based on observation and experiments (rather than say,  Aristotelian teachings).

BATTLE ART: Annabelle had art class this morning and she chose to make a dagger and a shield. Love it. Girl Power! 

AND BY THE WAY: When we were leaving Shoreline, we saw a string of helicopters flying overhead. I'd never seen a helicopter convoy before. After we got home, I learned from Twitter it was a fleet (flock?) of Blackhawks. Click on this link to see a cool photo of the swarm of them, posted by the Museum of Flight: http://twitpic.com/8kewlc

FLY BY: Tonight, after dinner, we checked out the live stream on NASA.gov's USTREAM feature. It showed a live view from the ISS of our Big Blue Marble. And thanks to a Twitter-based text alert, I knew that the ISS would be flying over Seattle, rising from the southwest, at 7 p.m. We had some rare clear skies and so of course we had to take advantage of the opportunity.

And so, we were at the top of the lot waiting to watch a bright white dot transverse the sky and at about 7:02.

It was an exceptionally bright appearance, and flew right over our heads. Unfortunately it disappeared in the clouds over Queen Anne hill.

SPA DAY: We all enjoyed watching the Westminster Kenned Club dog show last night - except maybe Kirby. She was mouthy and growly during the show and today she was looking a little rough (ruff?) around the edges. I told the kids I thought Kirby needed a little primping. And so, for the first time ever the kids participated in bathing her. CJ tried to talk his way out of it by noting the dog shampoo said, "Keep out of the reach of children." Sorry, bub, you're not getting off that easy. I told him that mostly meant he shouldn't drink or bathe in it.

So the kids soaped her up and rinsed her down and Kirby had a little  more spring in her step this evening. ;)

LEFTOVERS: Yesterday was busy, so I forgot to report a couple things. First, while CJ was in acting class, Annabelle and I played a couple of games. First up was Candyland, which I basically despise because there is no skill involved. It's all luck/about what card you draw. You might as well just have a coin toss at the beginning, head or tails, win or lose.


Next up was Scrabble Word Play Poker. A lot more challenging and with infinitely more educational value. Not only did Annabelle have to make up words out of the seven letter cards she held, once she made the word there was math involved to calculate her word score (adding for the letters and some multiplication for cards with double or triple letter or word scores).

While we were playing, a couple passersby stopped to ask us about the game.

Also from yesterday, while we were in the post-presentation workshop room following the Mars presentation, there was a box of geometric shapes. CJ was very into it, and was happy with this construct, of which he took a photo:

Red Rover, Red Rover

DOG & PONY SHOW: Today was the really "big" show - our presentation about Mars and the Curiosity Rover at a local elementary school.

We went waaay early, to ensure the school's laptop/projector setup was working the way we needed it to. Good thing we went early. When we arrived, some Windows error messages the likes of which I'd never seen before were popping up on their screen. Not good. Not good at all.

Fortunately, we were able to work through all the many, Many, MANY technical difficulties to get the Powerpoint and the three Internet-based videos we needed (is Mars really red?, Curiosity's launch [we just watched parts of that one] and the 'trailer' for Curiosity's landing) to work.

While all this was going down, CJ and Annabelle were blissfully unaware - enjoying reading book after book after book in the library  :)

Fortunately, during the 30-minute presentation, everything worked just like we needed it to. (It was sooooo great to have Kennedy there running the Powerpoint on the laptop, so I could be up front by the screen, pointing things out to the kids.)

Because of all the questions and the to-be-expected over exuberance/squirreliness of the class, I probably only covered half the slides and material I'd planned on, but that was OK. We were able to share lots of info about Mars, Curiosity, and let the kids know that the first astronaut to Mars is sitting in an elementary school somewhere right now - and that it could be them or one of their friends!

MAN YOUR STATIONS: After the presentation, we moved into a different part of the school for a hands-on activity for the kids. They each got one of the Curiosity coloring/writing sheets I designed to work with. They had fun coloring them, and it was fun to see all their different versions of the Martian rover. I was impressed with the students' color choices, and how some added elements, like the rover's rock-obliterating laser and an American flag.

After they finished their sheets, they came up to a big Mars poster I had made using the super neat-o block poster program available online (free!) that lets you take any photo and turn it into a poster that you can print out with your standard home printer - you just have to trim borders and glue 8.5x11 sheets of paper together to form your poster. I used this photo to make a 3x3-foot poster of Mars for pennies:

If you look in the upper right quadrant of the poster, you'll see a circle in dark grey with what looks like a trailing tail down to the South Pole. That's Gale Crater, where Curiosity will land on August 5.

For today's deal-io, I had bought some plain white mail labels, cut them in half and quickly drew a tiny rover on each one of them. So, each student was given a sticker and I pointed out Gale Crater to them. Then I asked them to study Mars and put their rover somewhere they would live to explore.

It was fun to watch how seriously many of them considered the proposition. A couple of them asked about temperatures in various places and such. Great reasoning skills for a 5 or 6 year old!

When all was said and done, dozens of rovers dotted the Red Planet. I sure wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a photo of the end product. :/

After the kids finished their worksheets and had 'landed' a rover on Mars, they got a "cookie quiz" - one question related to the presentation today. (Is Mars really red? How many wheels does Curiosity have? Could you drive a car to Mars? etc.) Everyone was a winner, of course. :) This is what 60+ Mars cookies + a recipe/instructions looks like.

 As their 'prize' they each got one of the Mars cookies the kids and I made this weekend, as well as a take-home "Save the Date" sheet with info for how they could learn more about Mars and the Curiosity mission.

HEART OF THE MATTER: Of course today's 'to do' list had to include the kids making cards for their dad for Valentine's Day. I folded a piece of cardstock in half for each of them and drew a half heart for them to cut out along the line. They were amazed when they opened it up and it formed a whole heart. :) 

They each decorated their cards (complete with googly eyes) and added some kind words. We tucked the cards into a Magnolia (our neighborhood) coffee cup and put it next to the new fantastic remote control pillow we bought for Christian.

DOGGIE: This evening we watched the Westminster dog show. What an interesting event it is. We learned lots about the characteristics of different breeds. It's hard to believe our dog Kirby is related to creatures ranging from a Great Dane to a Dogue de Bordeaux.

FAMILIAR FACE : Between doing tech troubleshooting and the actual presentation, we headed over to a coffee spot/deli nearby called Louisa's. When we were placing our order, I found myself kind of, well, staring at a person working behind the counter. The blonde hair done up in a bun atop the head distracted me a bit, but I *knew* I knew who it was. ... It took me about 15 seconds to realize it was Blayne Walsh, a Seattle-based clothing designer from Project Runway. I most certainly never expected him to be serving my daughter a grilled cheese sandwich or busing my table. :/

I'm glad he is garnering a paycheck and any job is better than no job, but I have to admit, it made me kind of bummed to encounter him in that way.  I really hope that  Blayne is still pursuing a design career-he is very talented. 

Mars Minded

TEST DRIVE: This morning we were almost normal. I yanked the kids out of bed about 7 a.m. so we could be to school by the first bell at 8:10 a.m. Of course, this wasn't CeeJ and Bee's school - it was one of their friend's schools. The school is TOPS (The Option Program) at Seward. It's an alternative learning center, part of the Seattle School District.

When Annabelle saw I was wearing a VISITOR tag, she asked why she didn't have one. Naturally, she was wearing mine within 20 seconds.

We went to the library to check the laptop/projection setup we'll be using for the Mars/Curiosity presentation on Valentine's Day. We found a couple glitches (their computer didn't recognize some of the hyperlinks I'd embedded in the presentation) but I think we can work around them - barring the Internets crashing.

WRITING 'BOUT ROVERS: CJ and Annabelle have been hearing enough about Mars and Curiosity lately, I figured it was time for them to do some writing about it.

I gave them each one of the sheets I designed for the kindergarten kids we'll be visiting tomorrow. It's a very blocky, kid-friendly version of Curiosity to color, along with with a few lines on the page to jot down what they've learned.

Annabelle wrote:
"Curiosity is a rover now being piloted to Mars to look for life. In fact, it's going there right now! Next time you see Mars in the sky, it looks sorta red, doesn't it? Back to Curiosity, with other rovers, like Spirit!

And also, Curiosity took ten years to make, so we hope it doesn't crash. Curiosity has a lab inside of it, with a beam that analyzes the dirt on Mars.

Photos of Mars have been taken before, we just want to learn more. Curiosity is taking a one-way trip to Mars so it will stay there. The end."

CJ wrote:
"Curiosity is a rover. It is going to go to Mars. It will see if Mars has life. If not, we will be disappointed. Curiosity will hopefully not crash.

Curiosity took ten years to make. Curiosity will not come back. Curiosity is the biggest rover yet."

ROVER PHONES HOME: Imagine our surprise today when the Mars Rover Curiosity sent me a Tweet!

Yesterday, in preparation for my Mars/Curiosity presenation on Feb. 14, I was trying to find out how fast Curiosity is traveling right now. I found one resource that says its rocket is moving 1.8 million miles a day. That blew my mind! But I was still curious about its MPH, so I sent @CuriosityRover a Tweet saying, "How many MPH are you traveling right now?"

This afternoon, the rover wrote back. (Nice of it to take a break out of its busy schedule, don't you think?). @CuriosityRover replied, "Right now, I'm traveling about 63,200 mph relative to the sun, 18,700 mph relative to Earth (Earth is moving, too)."

Very cool! Who ever thought that we'd be able to ask a interplanetary-traveling Mars rover a question and get an answer!?

IN OTHER NEWS: It wasn't all about Mars today (just mostly). We had an errand to run in SoDo, and while there, we spied a sign that said "50 percent off everything" outside the Salvation Army store. Of course we stopped in. We found several gems, including a cool wizards and dragons chess set for Rick's chess club, and a pogo stick - something the kids have been wanting for awhile now. It was just $6 - woo hoo!

After watching them attempt to get their po to go, it's clear they thought it was going to be a LOT easier. Neither one of them completed more than one jump, and you could arguably say they didn't even get one good jump in. But tomorrow is another day!