Seasons Greetings

DECKED OUT: It's official - we FINALLY have all of our Christmas decorations up. It seemed to take longer than ever this year, not sure why. You'd think we'd be getting quicker, having done it a few times before. And yes, we busted out the 50+ year old aluminum Christmas tree again this year.

While we have a variety of ornaments, three clear themes do emerge. One is (big surprise!) space.

We have a bunch of Star Wars and Star Trek ships and scenes, of course.

Love this "City on the Edge of Forever"-inspired one. One of my favorite episodes, for sure.

But let's not forget science fact-inspired ornaments, as well - like this lunar rover!

 And then there are sports ornaments. Many, many sports ornaments.

 Sadly, none of my photos of Ducks or Beavers ornaments turned out. Hmm. ... Maybe next year. :P

And we have a forest of Elvii. Here is a trio.

And there's the army of nutcrackers.

JUST FOR FUN: Some fun holiday cheer to share.  First, this fun Web site where you type in your address and up pops a photo of your home in the snow. Based on the photo they used for our place, and knowing Google Earth like I do, I'm thinking that's where they got their photos.
http://pusher.com.au/clients/pusher-christmas-2012/

If you'd like to hear some more military band takes on songs of the season, check out the playlist on NORAD's Santa Tracker: http://www.noradsanta.org/?village=music

And speaking of military bands, check out this wonderful flash mob by the United States Air Force band at the National Air and Space Museum ( http://youtu.be/gIoSga7tZPg). Don't blame me if it brings a tear to your eye.


HE'S BACK:  Good news, wonderful Professor Lou Bloomfield of the fantastic "How Things Work" physics class we took on Coursera is offering that class again, starting January 13, 2014.

He sent as an email announcing it today. In part, in read:

I will be repeating How Things Work 1 this spring on Coursera.com, starting January 13, 2014. If you were not able to finish the course last time, here is a second chance. If you have friends and relatives who might find the course interesting or useful, I hope that you will encourage them to join us by sending them this link:
https://www.coursera.org/course/howthingswork1

A number of families took the course together last time and found the experience valuable and satisfying. One of my missions in life has been to show young people that science can be fun, interesting, and useful, so having families in the course is especially gratifying for me.

The most significant change this session will be the schedule. Rather than release episodes weekly, I will make the entire course available on January 13 and let you proceed at your own pace through the end of April. In this era of online learning, that freedom seems appropriate and I hope it will make the course fit your life better.

Lou Bloomfield
Professor of Physics
University of Virginia

I have to think he was at least in part thinking of MPA when he noted that a number of families took the class together last time, and he mentioned how gratifying it was to have young people learn that "science can be fun, interesting, and useful."

If you've been reading awhile, you might recall that when we completed the class during its first offering, we (each kid and I) sent Professor Lou a letter letting him know how much we enjoyed it and how much we learned. I also enclosed notes that each of the kids had taken. I also enclosed some notes the kids had taken, which were an interesting contrast in styles, CJ with his tryingtowriteverywordverbatim and Annabelle having comical, cartoony doodlings.

ALARMING: This afternoon, the Twittersverse and my Facebook feed asploded with news that there was an ammonia leak on the ISS.  While this captured any space fan's attention, I sat up extra straight, because when we saw Chris Hadfield, one of the audience's questions was (paraphrasing), 'What was your scariest experience as an astronaut?'

Without hesitation, Hadfield said an ammonia leak aboard the ISS when he was commander, and he was set to return home in just a couple of days. He recounted the experience for us and at the time I thought, "Hmm, sounds like a Much Bigger Deal than it was made out to be at the time." Ammonia is circulated outside the ISS to keep internal and external equipment cool.

As time wore on this afternoon, NASA reported it wasn't an ammonia leak after all, it is thought that a valve control in a pump module that is part of one of the station’s two external cooling loops. The flight control teams worked to get the cooling loop back up and running, and they suspect a flow control valve actually inside the pump module itself might not be functioning correctly. Apparently, when it reached its maximum temperature limit today, it automatically closed.

While they work to troubleshoot the situation, some non-critical systems have been powered down, and some systems were moved to the working loop.

Hopefully they find a quick and easy fix.