What a Day!

IN SEARCH OF AN ASTRONAUT: What a wacky day it was. When we got up this morning, we had no idea we'd be tearing 'round town, looking for an astronaut, but that's what we ended up doing.

As I was checking my morning (e)mail, one (looong) one was from Pacific Science Center. It had news about the Seattle Science Festival, which we're very excited about, of course, but there were lots of other points of interest including this ... 

NASA Scavenger Hunt!NASA is hiding two mini astronauts every day this week in the city to promote Destination Station. Find a figurine and you'll get one free entry to the exhibit and a meet-and-greet with a real astronaut.
Here's one of yesterday's clues: On this lovely Seattle day, head over to where the Sun is Black; there's an astronaut waiting for you there!
See future days' clues via Johnson Space Center's Twitter feed, hashtag #DSSeattle.

My first reaction was, "Cool!" My second reaction was "Oh no!!!!" I mean, how could some NASA treasure hunt be happening in MY city all week and I didn't find out about it until this morning? DRAT!

Well, can't undo history, but we decided to get all over it while we still could. I hopped onto Twitter and learned the first clue would be given at 10 a.m. today. We got 'staged' to run out the door, watched for the clue and it came up at 10 sharp, reading as follows ...

Astronaut hunt clue: This astronaut is hamming it up with his bronzed friend Rachel, munching on fresh fish! Come snatch him up! #DSSeattle

Oh, so easy - that's Rachel the gold pig at Pike Place Market. Which is not so easy. Lordy, how I hate fighting the crowds there. But we had to try. We were out the door instantly and AMAZINGLY found a parking spot right in the market by 10:15. How lucky was that?

Unfortunately, when we got to Rachel, it was a friggin' ZOO. It felt like thousands of tourists and there was a camera crew, and some woman calling for security. Drat!  We went home empty handed.

Not to be deterred, we went about our day and set our sites on 2 p.m., with the next clue. It read ...

Astronaut hunt clue: This astronaut is taking in the art and hammering out a deal with his tall, hard-hitting friend. Go get him! #DSSeattle

Again, we were out the door instantly and I fortuitously picked the just right route to help us avoid traffic. 

We were to Hammering Man within 15 minutes. I prepped the kids as we approached about how I was going to park (a mid block U-turn into a loading only zone in front of the museum) and what they were to do (sprint for the statue!!!). As soon as I pulled to the curb the kids sprang out of the car and took off like NASA rockets for the statue about a half a block away. By the time I locked the car and caught up to them, they were doing the victory dance and talking to the PR person who had placed the astronaut. Sweet, sweet victory!

When we got home, we found the Tweet about the kids finding it on Twitter. ...

Kudos to this afternoon's winners, CJ and Annabelle who found our astronaut at @iheartsam's Hammering Man! #DSSeattle twitter.com/BarokasPR/stat…
— Barokas PR (@BarokasPR) June 6, 2013

and then they cracked open the astronaut to find the ticket inside that gets us a sneak preview of "Destination Station" at Pacific Science Center and a meet and greet with an astronaut. How cool is that?!?! 

What a day!

OPENING NIGHT: Today marked the kickoff of the second annual Seattle Science Festival, and of course, we had to be there! 

The event took place at the Paramount Theater. The theater was constructed during the campaign Paramount Pictures undertook in the late 1920s to have a grand movie palace in every major city in the country. The $3 million project debuted on March 1, 1928. On the occasion of its debut, the Seattle Times trumpeted, "Never has such a magnificent cathedral of entertainment been given over to the public. Indescribable beauty!" 

The title of tonight's program was "Beyond Infinity? The Search for Understanding at the Limits of Space & Time." Appearing were some physics superstars, including Dr. Brian Greene, who is famous for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory; Dr. Sean Carroll, whose research focuses on theoretical physics and cosmology; and Dr. Adam Frank, co-founder of NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog, and a researcher of computational astrophysics, focusing on star formation and stellar evolution. 

A highlight of the evening was the West Coast premiere of Icarus at the Edge of Time. Based on a book by Brian Greene,  it was a movie about a boy who challenges the formidable power of a black hole. The movie was accompanied by an original orchestral score by Philip Glass, performed by  the Garfield Orchestra under the direction of Marcus Tsutakawa.  And the movie was narrated by actor and STEM supporter Kal Penn.

Here's a taste of what we saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WpLFyAIxVfs

It was fabulous! I'll have the kids write a proper review of the evening tomorrow, as the hour is late right now.

MORNING: The kids have regularly been asking to watch "Unwrapped" in the mornings instead of cartoons. I'm all in favor of that, and this morning's episode had a birthday theme. First we paid a virtual visit to The Swiss Colony factory in Monroe, Wisconsin, where they make mini birthday cakes in the shape of a party hat (cone). It was interesting watching the shape slicing process - they used a high pressure (40,000 pounds per square inch) WATER jet, if you can believe that.  The cute little 'hats' are decorated by hand. 

You can see the segment on the cake hats on the Food Network's Web site, here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/swiss-colony-birthday-hat-cake/70761.html

We've never seen one of the hat cakes ourselves, so I visited the Swiss Colony Web site to try to find them. I had no luck there, so I Googled the product, which gave me a link to a page featuring them (here: http://www.swisscolony.com/catalog/section.jsp?categoryId=70), but when I clicked on the Birthday Party Hat Cakes link, it was broken. Oh Noes!!!  Maybe the party's over?

We also learned how Betty Crocker's candy cake decorations, those rock-hard, seemingly solid sugar decorations (flags, flowers, stars, words, etc.)  you set atop a homemade cake, are made. Their best selling design is the "Happy Birthday" letters. We saw how they were made at Signature Brands in Florida. They make 21,000 edible roses every day, and 4,000,000 decorations every year. 

The show also featured Happy Birthday paper plated being printed for Hallmark. The pattern that appears on the plate is engraved onto copper cylinders, with each color on the plate requiring its own cylinder. The plates are printed, coated (to help waterproof them), then they're cut, formed and shaped. The factory prints 800,000 plates in a 24-hour shift.