OFFICIAL BUSINESS: Monday afternoon, we stopped by the King County Administration Building. I'd never been inside before, but had admired it countless times from the outside. I dig its appearance.
Turns out it was supposedly voted the ugliest government building in the country in the '70s, shortly after it was built in 1971. Hmph. I beg to differ. ;)
I actually really like its hexagonal windows and the diamond pattern on the exterior. (From inside the windows look kind of coffin shaped, by the way.)
We were there getting new tags and a new license plate for the Honda. I was not thrilled when I found out last week I had to buy a new plate. Turns out they're required by law in the state every seven years. That seems ridiculous and excessive to me. My existing plate looked brand new. But not like I had a choice, the law's the law. I tried to turn the lemons into lemonade by ordering a personalized plate. I mean, If I was going to have to spring $40 for a stupid generic plate I didn't need, why not spend $25 or so more and get one I liked? We should have it in about a month. Stay tuned ...
On our way out of the BEAUTIFUL building we - barely - noticed some artwork. The reason I saw barely is because it was up so high on the building, you really couldn't see it all that well.
One thing that we could easily see, however, was a plaque telling us all about the artwork "Rhododendrons" by Harold Balazs. Heck, there was even a phone number we could have called to learn more about it. It's part of the city's "Listen 4 Culture" program, which we'd never heard of before.Pretty cool.
MONDAY SCOOT: For our Monday exercise and outing, we walked/scooted from our place to Terminal 91, on Puget Sound. It's a 2.4 mile round trip. Below, CJ thinks he's taking a short cut. Annabelle reached the spot around that curve where the two paths reconnect first. Why? We talked about it and noted that although it was farther, she had a lot less friction to fight on her wheels. She had easy gliding compared to CJ, who had to fight the terrain.
The tide was pretty high, so we didn't have much beach to explore, but we clambered around rocks and checked out the gray cityscape.
On the way back, the kids had to trudge up a big hill. CJ won this 'race' ...
but they both celebrated at the top.
Insert "Rocky" theme here. :)
LECTURED: On Monday, we took our third astrobiology quiz. It was a bit of a toughie, with 20 questions covering a lot of information about DNA, RNA, and the building blocks of life.
We're now in week two of the class. This morning we listened to two short lectures. The first one was about the formation of the solar system and the early Earth. The second one was entitled "Conditions on the early Earth."
In the first lecture, we learned that solar systems form in molecular clouds of hydrogen, helium, and other elements. When they reach certain densities, they start forming structures and the clouds collapse. We learned the most crucial event in the formation of a solar system is the ignition of a nuclear furnace. A nuclear fusion takes place, and some other stuff happens (that's science talk, there!) and planets begin to form.
One interesting thing we learned is that beyond the Ice Line (relative to the sun) are gas giants. In our solar system, that would be Saturn and Jupiter. And we learned that the inner regions of solar systems have small, rocky planets (like Earth and Mars, to name two, in our solar system).
In the second lecture, there was much talk of rock records - though it was noted we have no rock record for the first 11 percent of the planet's 4.56 billion years. There was also talk about how early Earth's environment was different from today's. For instance, there was only a trace of oxygen in the atmosphere back in the day, as compared to it being 21 percent now. And the sun wasn't as bright, as it was in its "Faint Young Sun" period. So how was Earth warm enough not to become a frozen wasteland? Well, back then there was more methane and carbon dioxide in the air. These greenhouse gases likely warmed the planet and kept the oceans liquid, Another interesting factoid - back in the Earth's infancy, UV rays were higher due to little oxygen resulting in a minuscule ozone shield. While this could mean doom to biological materials, the methane might have formed a smog, offering some protection, per our professor.
TEST DRIVE: This afternoon, we loaded the bikes into the back of the Honda and went down to the Burke Gilman Trail, along the south side of the canal separating the north end of Queen Anne and Fremont. It was a nice, wide open, flat place for the kids to get used to their 'new' bikes.
I didn't bring a real camera, so all I have are these crappy cell phone shots. We traveled all the way from Seattle Pacific University, to under the Fremont and Aurora bridges, to South Lake Union, in the area of the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat. Gasworks Park was to the north.
Here's a photo taken shortly after the incident. CJ looks more miserable about it than Annabelle.
Here's bike-less Bee under the Aurora bridge.
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