Sock it to Me

FIGHT CLUB: This morning, the kids got off to a rousing start with a few rounds of Pillow Punchers.

They're over-sized boxing gloves that usually don't hurt too badly when you get socked by them.

Kirby and Laika even got in on the act, going mano y mano (perro y perro?) along side the kids.

Fortunately, the fight session ended with no hurt feelings or bodies on all four counts. 

ORDERLY FASHION: We're still working on learning all of the U.S. presidents, in order. We've listened to the Animaniacs' song about presidents a couple dozen times, but we're still not there yet. 

So today, I had the kids find a list of the presidents in order online, and had them write their names on portions of index cards. 

I also had them write the # in order of , as well as which terms the officeholder fulfilled. In writing down the term fulfillments  I was pretty amazed to look back at how tangly so many of the terms were. In my lifetime, the only exception is Nixon, who, um, 'left' partway through his second term. But during the 1960s and back to the beginning before, there were all sorts of blurred terms for various reasons.  

GOT SCIENCE?: This evening I took an online quiz from The Union of Concerned Scientists. I was proud to score 100 percent in a challenge that "pits your knowledge of climate change against public officials, media personalities, and political hacks." Those guys can't fool me! 

For my time and efforts, I'll be receiving a "Got science?" sticker for my car. Sweet!

OL' FAMILIAR: Today, I received a Tweet letting me know that a photo of CJ I have parked on Morguefile was used by a blogger. 

I checked out the link and found it was used by a woman who's a writer living in good ol' Vancouver, USA. Small world, as for many years, I was a writer living in Vancouver. 

The blog post is about how kids can get their works published. Cool! I'll have to have the student body here at MPA check out some of those avenues!

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: We would be remiss if we didn't mention that today marks the 9 year anniversary of rover Opportunity landing on the planet Mars. Built for a 90-day mission, that "Energizer" rover is still going, and going and going! As I said to the kids tonight, "That rover has been working on Mars longer than you've been alive, Annabelle."

Right now, it's working in the Matjevic Hill area of the Red Planet. Here's a photo recently taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam). 

                                          Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

In case you're wondering (I know I was!) the photo above is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) straight-line distance or 22 miles (35.5 kilometers driving route distance) from where it landed 9 years ago.