New Leader Named

CHANGE IN COMMAND: While the world's eyes seemed to be on Vatican City, white smoke and the new pope, there was another change in leadership that went down today. 

This afternoon, about 18,000' overhead today, a change in command ceremony took place aboard the International Space Station. Col. Chris Hadfield was handed 'the keys to the car' by NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, who will depart the ISS tomorrow evening, along with cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin. That trio has been on station for 143 days. They should land in a field in Kazakhstan, northeast of the remote town of Arkalyk, at 8:57 p.m. tomorrow night.

And so, today, for the first time, the ISS has a Canadian commander. In a very nice gesture, they cued up "O Canada" during the hand off. 

Hadfield has been such an astronaut rock star since arriving on the ISS, constantly keeping in touch with earthbound types by Tweeting, posting to Facebook, sharing amazing photos, granting dozens and dozens of interviews, and even performing live music with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies and, more recently, sing "Moondance" with the Chieftains. Busy guy!

Hadfield even participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). During that AMA, one user asked him, "Any advice to a young person who wants to get into this field?" 

Hadfield replied, "Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become."

Hadfield's reply was made into a cartoon strip by talented artist Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils.  

Now, you can buy a print of it (above) from Zen.  I think it would be great to have one hanging in every classroom.

THAT TIME EGG-AIN: When we walked into the Shoreline building where the kids take science and math classes every Wednesday, we were greeted by a lobby full of people making pretty, Ukranian-inspired dyed eggs. It struck me that this is the third year we've taken part in that tradition now. (It also struck me that I don't know when Easter is this year. ...)

The kids scooped up some wax in metal end of the applicators tools called , They then held the metal end in a candle's flame to melt the wax, and then applied it (the black stuff you see in the photos) onto the egg. After that, the eggs went into the drink (dye), and then when they dried, we held the eggs over the flame, melting the wax off, and revealing the white egg underneath. Ours were abbreviated versions of the process, as we only had about 6 minutes to do all this, as we had to get to science class on time.  

I'm happy to report the kids both did well on their test. They each think they only missed 1 out of 12, which would be a low A. We'll find out for sure next week.

Speaking of science, we continued with the "How Things Work" physics class this morning. I feel like we have a little bit better understanding after this morning's lecture. Tomorrow is one more lecture for the week and then test time. ...