STAR WARS DAY: Today was all about getting our geek on. Specifically, celebrating Star Wars! The kids (and I) look forward to this day all year long.
Naturally, a celebration is more fun when you involve other people. And so, tho we just started taking classes through the Family Learning Program at the South West Community Center last week, we thought it would be fun to foist a bunch of sugar and artificial coloring on our new friends. :)
The cookies were a hit, I think. The tray pictured above, plus about 50 percent reinforcements, was gone within an hour.
Interestingly enough, while we were waiting for it to be Bollywood time, I told the kids I spied a stack of books. Annabelle went over and what does she return with ...
Aargh! Not Jar Jar! Way to ruin Star Wars Day, Annabelle! UGH!
Just kidding. Kind of. ;)
I didn't read the book because I can't stomach anything Jar Jar, but I do know that however long it was, it was too short given what a BIG mistake he/it was for the Star Wars franchise.
The kids both really enjoyed their classes mostly - until the very end in CJ's case. He apparently did something horribly, horribly wrong at the end of his class and failed to save his programing project. When he came to me, stricken, after the class was over, I told him that ANYONE who uses computers often has the gawd awful experience of having their work go kaput. Sometimes it's operator error, sometimes it's hardware, sometimes it's software. In any case, it sucks.
FORCE FOOD: We played with our food in big ways today. I'd seen a Death Star watermelon awhile back and ever since then, I've wanted to try to replicate it. No easy feat.
We had a couple of super cute round 'personal sized' watermelons. CJ stared one (with a dark green rind) and Annabelle started another. Poor CJ's was SO hard to cut through, I wound up helping him lots (and would up bleeding due to the effort). In the end, this is what we came up with ...
Annabelle was such a trouper. She worked long and hard and came up with this all by herself.
She wasn't very happy with it, but I told her that perhaps it could represent the Death Star as it was being rebuilt per Luke's strike on it, and that made her feel better.
Meanwhile, we also bought a cantaloupe. I started to carve it and found it to be ever so much easier than the *&^% watermelon. Christian did the vast majority of the work on it, and it turned out fabulously!
Of course, our dinner was Star War themed, too. We had Han burger for dinner, with a side of Frie Fighters. :)
And dinner started with a toast of Jar Jar Drinks with Cantina scene music playing in the background.
Dessert was poor ol' Han Solo encased in carbonite. We felt bad for him, but it tasted good. :)
Hope your Star Wars Day was good and May the Fourth be With You, Always.
FUNHOUSE: CJ and Annabelle each had a few minutes to mess around with Photobooth software and camera in the school library. Posted here are a few of their creations. I've dubbed the one above "Leno."
And here's a Glow Bee ...
Up next is CJ in "Talk Two Much" ...
Lastly, it's "Tilt a Whirl." Actually makes me a little dizzy to look at it.
HOUSE HUNTERS: This morning the kids and I went on a mission. A friend is moving to town and she needs to find an apartment. 'Cept it's hard for her to find an apartment because she hasn't moved here yet. And so, I reminded her I'm a Professional Mystery Shopper :) and volunteered to do a reconnaissance mission for her.
The kids and I headed down to the Des Moines area. We don't know those digs at all, so it was good for us to explore and learn, and it was more practice learning about maps and directions for the kids.
I gave the CJ and Annabelle some tips about what to look for while we were checking places out and they did a pretty good job. CJ, especially, took it seriously, jotting down notes about various pros and cons of places we saw.
Unfortunately, I don't think we found The Place today, so another hunting session could very well be in our future.
Q&A: All day (and night) every day (and night) I am questioned. No, not in the "where were you on the night of August 18?" interrogation-type of questions. I'm asked for answers to questions on a wide range of subject matter. It's like I'm a contestant on a never ending trivia game show. CJ asks about 80 percent of the questions, I'd estimate.
Today, he was spitting them out at such a rapid-fire pace on our drive to LEGO class, I decided for 5 minutes I'd jot them down. They were:
"Can you tell the temperature based on crickets chirping?"
"How do slugs move?"
"How long has the Tootsie Pop ad been on?"
"Do you think we could use Mario Paint to do (a version of) 'Somebody that I used to know?' "
and last but not least,
"Back in the early days, 'gay' used to mean happy, right? Why did it change?"
Did I mention these pinball ponderings were all in a 5-minute span?
What does he think I am, the Human Google?
And so, while he was in LEGO class, I used the real Google to get the boy some answers.
Regarding crickets chirping as a temperature indicator, I went to what has to be an authority on the topic: the Library of Congress. On one of their Everyday Science pages they report the answer is "Yes!"
Per the LOC, "The frequency of chirping varies according to temperature. To get a rough estimate of the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and then add 37. The number you get will be an approximation of the outside temperature."
Well shut the door! How 'bout that?! One question answered.
Next up, how do slugs move? Well, according to Wikipedia and a handful of other sources I read, a slug "moves by rhythmic waves of muscular contraction on the underside of its foot." (Keep in mind, their foot is nothing like a human foot.)
And in case you were wondering, you know that sticky trail the slug leaves? Well that mucus helps prevent damage to the slug's foot tissues. So there you have it, answer number two.
Third up, regarding the Tootsie Pop commercial question, I went straight to the source, of course. Per the Tootsie Pop people, the commercial featuring Mr. Owl, the too-impatient-to-lick spokesperson, first debuted in 1970. The kids watched the original ad, and then they watched a whole series of commercials (newer ones, as well as ones from around the world).
By the way, if you, unlike Mr. Owl, have had the patience to actually lick a Tootsie Pop all the way to the center, you can go to the Tootsie Pop Web site and download a (PDF) Certificate of Achievement called the Clean Stick Award!
As a sub-question on this topic, CJ also asked me if I thought there were any parodies of this commercial. I told him I was sure there had to be, since it was so widely known, and often parodies involve memes with a broad knowledge/audience. I wasn't a bit surprised when I checked YouTube and found a plethora of parodies (none of the ones I watched were particularly funny, IMHO).
And now, we turn our attentions to CJ's question about the infectious "Somebody that I Used to Know" song and making a Mario Paint version. I predicted in the car to CJ that someone had already taken that project on and that we'd find it on YouTube. After a quick search I found it here.
In case you're not familiar with the ditty, here's a link to the official music video for it. It's an interesting artsy concept (if you wait until about a minute in). Warning: If you do watch, you probably won't be able to get the tune out of your head.
And lastly, in regards to his gay old time question, that one was a bit harder to find a legit answer to and, unfortunately, the network security at the kids' school library would not let me find an answer to that question.
Per Wiki, "The word "gay" arrived in English during the 12th century from Old French gai, most likely deriving ultimately from a Germanic source.[1] For most of its life in English, the word's primary meaning was "joyful", "carefree", "bright and showy." Wiki goes on to explain (in great detail) how it morphed over the years to its current definitions and connotations. It's interesting reading.
COUNT BOEING IN: While SpaceX still waits to get Dragon to the ISS, meanwhile, other commercial space companies are gaining ground. Today, a NASA press release announced that Boeing successfully completed a second parachute drop test for its Crew Space Transportation (CST) spacecraft yesterday.
It's part of their effort to develop commercial crew transportation capabilities that could carry U.S. astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station.
The capsule (CST-100) was lifted by a helicopter to about 14,000 feet over the Delamar Dry Lake Bed near Alamo, Nev. Per NASA, "A drogue parachute deployment sequence was initiated, followed by deployment of the main parachute. The capsule descended to a smooth ground landing, cushioned by six inflated air bags. The test demonstrated the performance of the entire landing system."
Photo: Jesse Owens at the start of his record breaking 200-meter race during the Olympic games August, 1936, in Berlin. It's a reproduction of photograph in "Die Olympischen Spiele, 1936" p. 27.
JESSE REMEMBERED: Tuesday evening (after I'd already posted the blog), our family watched an episode of the PBS series "American Experience" about Jesse Owens. I really wanted CJ, especially, to see it since he had just finished reading a book about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Before the show started, I let CJ know that Owens' feats actually preceded Robinson's.
I also knew CJ would be interested in the story because of the Nazi Germany element of the story (CJ is interested in Nazi Germany because he can't understand how Hitler rose to power and was allowed to carry out his hateful agenda).
It was a one hour program and it did a nice job of chronicling Owens' rise through high school and collegiate ranks of track and field. The story was told through interviews with sociologists, sports writers, '36 Olympic Team members, and spectators of the Munich games. The documentary included lots of amazing footage of Owens competing. Man, what a runner he was! His form just looked light years ahead of the competition. There were also archival interviews with Owens. He was an educated, well spoken man who carried himself with grace and dignity on the playing field and off.
Footage from the Olympics was dramatic. I have to admit, that when I see film of streets lined with Nazi flags it strikes a chord of terror within. I guess that's "good" as humans should never forget the horror of those times.
We learned about Hitler's snub of Owens, refusing to shake his hand or even be photographed with him after he won his gold medals. We also learned that Owens had 4 gold medals instead of 3, as he and another African American athlete were subbed into a relay event at the last minute. One explanation presented was that Owens and the other athlete were replacing Jews were were on the US team, at the insistence of Nazi authorities. Apparently as much as Nazis disliked blacks, their disdain (understatement, I know) for Jewish people was even stronger.
We learned about Owens' post Olympic gold life, and how it was filled with struggles rather than accolades or riches, largely because despite his athletic feats, he was still a black man in a white man's world.
One aside, last night's program marked the the first time I heard the name Eulace Peacock. Dubbed “The World’s Fastest Human,” Peacock beat Owens in seven of the ten 100–yard dashes they ran against each other in 1935. However, due to an injury - he pulled a hammy - Peacock was unable to compete in the Olympics, and we all know how Owens did in '36.
I wonder if poor Peacock ever got past the 'what ifs'? But I suppose that's one of the reasons so many people love sports - the unpredictable outcomes and events, the agony and the ecstasy of it all.
AS THE WORM TURNS: After a week off for spring break, it was back to classes in Shoreline. Today Annabelle had art and they both had science class. (In art class she made a cardboard starship, in case you were wondering.)
Funny story I forgot to share. The kids were checking their worms a few days back and each declared one of their worms to be dead. They based their declaration on the fact that the worms were completely still and stiff, very different looking than before. I started in with the (now familiar), "What a shame, but they lived good lives" spiel. However, it's a good thing Christian was home at the time. He took a look and pointed out that he thought they'd just metamorphosed into their next stage of life. That's right, one is a pupa! Well I'll be darned!
And so we have a couple of hopefully not dead critters at the house. Naturally, the kids are very eager to see what the next change brings!
Meanwhile, in their science classroom, the milkweed bugs are reproducing like Tribbles.
Today, the kids worked on the concept of symmetry. A mirror came in handy for that.
They also made some spiders and butterflies, an exercise that helped them learn the proper body part names, like thorax, abdomen, etc.
CAKE WRECK: The kids were so SO excited when we happened upon a train wreck of a cake at the Shoreline Fred Meyer store today. We're all big fans of the Cake Wrecks Web site which chronicles bakery cakes gone wrong. I'd say the one we found is a good candidate to be featured on the site.
SLIP SLIDING AWAY: What you see below is a photo taken inside a processing facility at Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. In it, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) technicians attach the Dragon capsule to the second stage of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann
Dragon was supposed to make an unmanned launch to the ISS in March. And then it became April. Then May (the 7th, to be exact). And this afternoon SpaceX posted about a probably slip (delay) on Facebook.
There's a lot at stake here, as right now the only way the USA can get people or supplies to the ISS is via a Russian rocket and capsule. Dragon is supposed to be our Great Hope for the near future. I guess the future just isn't as near as we'd all hoped it would be. ... No word on the latest (and I do mean latest) launch date yet. More info here: http://www.nasa.gov/spacex.
SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE!: This evening, CJ, Annabelle and oldest bro Rick went to the final day of the Seattle Science Fiction Film Festival at Cinerama theater and saw what just might be the campiest movie in the history of cinematography.
"It was AWESOME!" CJ declared afterward. "You really should have seen it!"
Don't worry, CeeJ. Been there, done that multiple times.
PRETTY IN PURPLE: These gorgeous little flowers are ALL over our neighborhood. Seriously, by the thousands. Their show is short lived, though. A week from now, they'll just be a pretty purple memory.
OUT OF DOORS: We decided to go for a walk this afternoon. So many things are blooming now, the neighborhood is about at its prettiest. Above is our neighbor's enormous rhododendron. That window you barely see is on their SECOND story.
They have a big pink camellia, as well. Annabelle LOVES that blossom.
And green is everywhere to be found. Here's the eastern border of Bay View Park by our place.
MOVE IT: For some exercise, we cued up "Just Dance 2" this morning. The kids take turns choosing the songs. Genres covered ran the gamut from the Charleston to walking like an Egyptian to hip hop. It was fun and 45 minutes of exercise without realizing you're exercising.
42: CJ finished reading "Jackie Robinson and the Story of All-Black Baseball," a biography he's been working on for a couple weeks now. Before 7 this morning he was telling me that for years, Negro League players weren't allowed to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. We looked it up tonight and it was 1971 when Satchel Paige, the first Negro League player, was inducted.
Of the book, CJ said, "It told me a lot about how (Jackie Robinson) crossed the color barrier and about the Dodgers."
IMPROV: CJ had acting class this afternoon. They're starting to develop scenes for their public performance on May 29.
LEFTOVERS: This penguin pose is from yesterday afternoon. The heavy metal bird is inside Pacific Place shopping center in downtown Seattle, near Gameworks.
YOU ARE HERE: This morning we finally got around to blowing up the universe. It's something we've been meaning to do since CJ's birthday.
You'll all be relieved to know that in this instance, the universe was a 12-inch Beach Ball Universe. Annabelle was happy she and CeeJ could have a hand and a lung in getting it up to size. "We were the Big Bang!" she declared.
According to NASA, 'This beach ball portrays an image of the oldest light in he universe, a direct remnant of the Big Bang. This light was emitted by hydrogen gas 380,000 years after the Big Bang, long before stars and galaxies formed."
In case you're wondering where you are relative to the ball, the Earth is in the dead center, and the red band around the middle is the Milk Way Galaxy. The full sky map was produced from data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) between 2001 and 2006.
The ball came with some literature which allowed us to find some great online resources that correspond with the universe, like this cool graphic showing how things came to be (at least per NASA scientists) ...
DEEP BLUE SEAS: We also took some time revisiting swag gleaned from HuskyFest a couple weeks back, one item being an info card with 3D graphics about the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's ship Okeanos Explorer, which was commissioned in 2008 in Seattle.
The former Naval surveillance ship is now a research vessel, bringing live images from seafloor to scientists ashore, as well as classrooms, newsrooms and living rooms. We watched astoundingly clear underwater footage of sophisticated ocean-diving robots at work here: http://interactiveoceans.washington.edu/visions11/video
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?: Saturday afternoon it was flashback time. The blast from the past came in the form of 1984's "Ghostbusters" Christian took the kids to see it at Cinerama, a theater originally opened in 1963, rescued from demolition, and then renovated by current owner Paul Allen. They all gave the theater thumbs up.
Cinerama can show 35mm, 70mm and original Cinerama format films using the three-projector system, and the place has some sci-fi film artifacts from the private collection of Allen. Ghostbusters is showing as part of the first annual Seattle Science Fiction Film Festival. We also have tickets for the Wednesday evening showing of "Flash Gordon," I had to laugh and agree with a comment I saw regarding the YouTube video of the theme song (by Queen). It read, "This is one of the worst movies ever made.....And I loved every minute of it."
POTTED: A whole lot of planting and transplanting was going on here today.
Per instructions on the Lupine packet, before planting them, we soaked the seeds to soften them and give them a bit of water reserve. The seeds came from Husky Fest, and the flowers they produce should be a lovely UW purple. Woof! :)
We moved the "pizza garden" veggies the kids started with their "Grow'ums" kit a few weeks back. We've got peppers, basil and oregano, and the Roma tomato plants are already going gangbusters.
Today, they started watermelon, Carnival (multi-colored) carrots, and more tomatoes.
While the kids toiled in the soil at the kitchen counter, I cued up The Garden Song, a pretty little ditty, this one version by good ol' John Denver.
THE 'WORKS: Today was blustery and gray, and this morning before 7 a.m. I was thinking it might be a good day to go to Gameworks, since I knew about a half-off play coupon through Goldstar.com and a great Restaurant.com coupon as well. I hadn't done anything more than think about it (no computer, no uttered suggestion), but within 5 minutes of waking this morning, out of nowhere CJ asked me, "When's the next time we're going to Gameworks?"
Great minds think alike, I guess. ;) And so, we went.
