Upon Further Reflection

LEFTOVERS: We're still wading through all the great resource sheets and swag we brought home from the Seattle Science Festival. 

For instance,m on our way, in we found this new sculpture on Seattle Center grounds. Just north of the food court/Armory building, it says it's the exact center of the Center. The sculpture also gives some history of the Armory at Seattle Center, long before it housed a Starbucks and a Subway.

Today at lunchtime, the kids looked through a couple of pamphlets we picked up about tesselations, or "the tiling of a plane using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps" (per Wikipedia).

There were a few tables and displays at the Saturday science expo featuring tesselations. I don't think I ever knew that is what they were/are called. ... I thought it was just 'fun with patterns.' :)

One of the photos I forgot to post yesterday was of CJ extracting some fish (herring) DNA at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 

And on our way out of the event on Saturday, we saw (for the first time) the installation of the John T. Williams memorial totem pole. 

We'd seen it as a work in progress for a couple of years, since not too long after Mr. Williams, an accomplished wood carver, was walking in a crosswalk near Safeco Field in 2010 when he was gunned down by a Seattle Police Department officer. 

The totem pole was carved primarily by his relatives, and it is gorgeous. 

GULLIBLE: This afternoon we were out popping some tags, in search of a book shelf for Annabelle's bedroom. Of course, we found everything BUT that. It was a great day of treasure hunting. :)  One of the things we found was a classic Battleship game. We decided right away to donate it to one of our favorite places - Chuck's Hop Shop, where people enjoy good company, good ice cream, and did I mention they have 30+ beers on tap?

Anyway, as the kids were breaking in the Battleship game there this afternoon, at one point Annabelle looked up, and said, "Look! It says gullible on the ceiling." 

Of course, we all looked up, and it did, indeed, say gullible on the ceiling, on a tiny little label stuck to a beam. 

We kind of shrugged at it, but then Annabelle explained to us it is an Internet meme. Specifically, from this ...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b_bUNSM3Vo

LOL! Meanwhile, as we're all staring up at his ceiling, Chuck of Chuck's Hop Shop fame asks us why we're all staring at his ceiling. Annabelle says, deadpan, that, "It says 'gullible' on the ceiling."

Luckily, when Chuck looked up, it didn't cost him a lung. 

We then explained it was part of an Internet meme, and that the only reason we knew this was because our 8-year old told us so. 

Chuck thought that was pretty funny, and said he suspected one of his employees was behind it. 

UP AND AWAY: While most of American slept, the Chinese space program took another giant leap forward. Today, they launched a crew of three for what will be the nation's longest stay in space yet. 

Here's video of the launch. 

It's worth noting that Beijing plans to have its own space station and their astronauts on the moon by 2020, which is the same year the International Space Station is scheduled to retire.  It will be interesting to see how these next few years shake out. 

MADE THE GRADE: Awake with the dawn, about the first thing I thought of today was that we'd get to know what grade we got on our peer-reviewed creative projects in the "Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity" class. We know we've already passed the class via the quantitative route, but we did the qualitative exercise as well, to fun and a challenge. 

Happy, happy, joy, joy, our projects (CJ's poster/poem, Annabelle's humorous animation and my Einstein inspired cookies) each got high marks from a panel of peers. That meant we passed the class every which way - w00t!