The Lion & the Mouse

PLAY TIME: Today marked the end of winter quarter of the kids' Friday classes, including their drama class. Since it was their last class, they put on a show! :)  Specifically, the Lion and the Mouse (or in today's case, Mice).

I was impressed when we walked into the room how all the kids were in character, including CJ, the lion, right down to his 'paws.'

Annabelle was a mouse. You can see her hiding out under the chair in the back of this photo.

And here she is, waiting for her chance to emerge and get into the scene. 

All of the kids did a good job, and the standing room only audience was appreciative.

Bravo!

BUSS STOP:  Yesterday afternoon, after yoga, a stop in a local brewery in Ballard turned into a spelling lesson for the kids. 

I saw a tent card on the table encouraging patrons to buss the table. I told the kids under NO circumstances should they BUSS the table, but they should clean it off after they were done. We then talked about how buss with two Ss means kiss, and with one s it means mass transit or cleaning your own table.

NEWS FROM THE PROF:  Today we had an email in our inbox, from Professor Lou Bloomfield of the University of Virginia. He's the guy teaching our physics class via Coursera. I think he's been reading students' postings in the forum. (Specifically, all the ones where people are freaking out about how challenging the quizzes are.) Today, he wrote, "If you are taking the homework quizzes, please know that I have made every question challenging intentionally -- thinking is central to learning physics and you learn more from questions that make you think. If you're getting more than half the questions correct, you're doing well!"

More than half = doing well!? That makes us feel really good about our scores! :)

3.14

8.38: This morning was no ordinary morning. With the dawn's early light, CJ realized it was Pi Day!!!!

Fortunately, last night we had the foresight to make an appropriate breakfast for this a.m. - apple pi!

It was delicious - a bit surprising since I didn't use a recipe for the crust or the filling. Guess watching all that Food Network has finally paid off!

Much to the kids' delight, dinner was pizza pie. We made that from scratch this afternoon. You can tell by the look on his face, CJ takes his pizza pie VERY seriously.

90+%: After the pi-riffic breakfast, we got down the serious stuff.  We listened to the seventh and final lecture in week 2 of "How Things Work," a physics class from the University of Virginia via Coursera, as well as a short summary of all the week's lessons. Then, it was test time.

It was H-A-R-D hard. Just a 10-question test, which meant that with every wrong answer, my grade slipped. :0  While I was reading the questions, many of which looked so foreign, I couldn't help but wonder if we should have bought the $172 textbook. ...

The only good news was that it was an untimed test, so when all of us got stuck on the same problem - a question about coins of different sizes, how fast and how far they'd fall, we went and got a handful of coins and started tossing and came to our own conclusion. :)

I'm not gonna lie. When I hit "submit," I was ready for the worst. I was only *sure* I had 4 of the 10 right. Um, that's a big fat F!

I waited the eternal two seconds for my results and ... I've never been so happy to see a 9/10 in my life!  Phew!

CJ and Annabelle did even better when they hit submit. :)

Have I mentioned how much we love Coursera? What an amazing resource!

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. ... 

Hike, Hop & Blocks & Balls

DAY OF DISCOVERY: Yesterday's blog was full o' info about our big day at The Museum of Flight on Saturday, so I neglected Monday altogether. Hence, I'm playing catch up today.

The weather forecast yesterday called for rain all darn day, so imagine our delight when we awoke to gray but dry skies. We hadn't gotten a good hike in all weekend, so I marshaled the troops and declared we'd be going to Discovery Park for a jaunt. 

We parked in the south lot and took the South Loop Trail down to the beach. 

The way down is a rather nice 2.5 ish mile stroll, mostly downhill. We skirted the old fort/military part of the park, past abandoned buildings and along this great rock wall. We could already see the Sound from there (peek over CJ's shoulder).

We checked out the sand pit, high above the Sound. I always wonder how the sand came to be so high above the present-day beach level. 

We're still a few stories above the Sound at this point. Lots of stairs and slopes to go down. 

The water is as calm as it gets ... smooth as glass.

 Once we hit the beach, CJ and Annabelle immediately set about trying to build a teeter totter. 

They didn't quite get the physics of it all down right. ...

We found some neat-o forts built from driftwood. This was one of the bigger ones.

And, of course, if you're down there, you have to check out the lighthouse, right?

 
The way back to the car was a bit slower. So. Many. Stairs.

We were tired but happy after the hike. It was a lovely way to spend a Monday morning.

BUILDING BLOCKS: Big news from Mars. Remember the scoop of soil Curiosity recently drilled and analyzed? Well, the mobile science lab's CheMin and SAM identified some of the key chemical ingredients for life in the sample. Sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon were all detected Plus, the rock also contains clay minerals, which suggests that long-ago the area was an aqueous environment, with salty and neutral water.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program said in a press release today. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

Sure, it would be a lot more exciting if there was life there right now, but even the prospect that once upon a time there were, potentially, "Martians" of some (even the single celled) sort, is big news. MSL continutes to amaze. Go Curiosity!

HOPPING ROCKETS:  SpaceX was most recently in the news for its successful launch and resupply mission to the ISS. But they've got other amazing irons in the fire, as well, For instance, they are working on developing a reusable rocket. Grasshopper is a leap in that direction. Obviously, having a reusable rocket could be a huge money saver, not to mention making for a more Earth friendly space program.

On Mar. 7, their Grasshopper launched, hovered for 30 plus seconds, reached a height of 262 plus feet (24 stories) and then safely landed back on the ground. 

Check out the short video of the exercise here (nicely set to Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire.'): 
.http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=0

CRAMMING: Today we spent a lot of time prepping for the kids' unit-end science test, which they have tomorrow. We also made good headway on this week's lectures for our "How Things Work" physics class through Coursera.

Let me tell you, this class is challenging, and I'm not even talking about the quizzes, I mean just understanding the lectures. We take notes, stop the video, and talk about what we've heard throughout teach presentation. The videos we're watching this week all have to do with the physics involved when there are falling balls. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But when he starts spewing formulas like g times (time squared/2) = velocity, I get a little nervous. ... 

Women Fly!

I BELIEVE I CAN FLY: Saturday afternoon was big fun for us. We headed down to The Museum of flight for some special WomenFly!-related events.

A week or so prior, I found out the Museum was offering free flights in small planes to girls and women, and signed Annabelle up right away for a spot on a 4-seater.

We got down to the Museum at about 12:30 and went to the signed in room. There, I was pretty much told I'd be joining Annabelle on the flight. Oh, OK. :) We were quickly ushered out to the tarmac. We were initially told this gentleman would be our pilot, but then he had to excuse himself to go to the potty, so we shifted to another plane this size.

Tom was our new pilot. He said the lil single prop plane only weighed 1,600 pounds. It was definitely smaller than my Honda CR-V on the inside.

We climbed on in, Annabelle and I in the back, pilot Tom and another young flyer up front.

We had a Teddy Bear for a co-pilot. That assuaged any flying fears, to be sure. ;)

We started out by heading south. We looked for Christian and CJ along the fence line at The Museum of Flight, but I couldn't pick them out. I think they're between the second and third white signs from the left on the fence in the photo below.

 We started climbing higher (thankfully) immediately.

As soon as we cleared the museum, I saw this fuselage and wing on the ground. It almost looked like it has crashed there. Wasn't super reassuring.

Annabelle didn't seem worried, though. Seriously, she acted as if she'd flown in a tiny plane all her life, like we were just going to the grocery store or something.

Soon, we took a 180-degree turn and started heading back toward Seattle, flying east of I-5. Nice views of Mercer Island and the Cascades.

Before long, we could see the ribbon of concrete that is the floating 520 Bridge over Lake Washington.

Soon, we took a turn toward the west ... right over Husky stadium!!!

I could see the renovations in progress and the squads running plays in spring training on the practice field!

Before I knew it, we were looking over the Ballard Locks (to the right) and Magnolia - our 'hood!

I could tell we were turning right over our neighborhood. I didn't try to pick our house out at the time, I just started shooting, knowing I'd find it afterward. The railroad tracks form the eastern border to our neighborhood.

Here's where things started to get funny. :) *Just* when we were flying over the golf course next to the tracks, Kennedy was down there teeing off!

And as I took a closer look and found our house, I could see that a car was parked in the alley next to our place. Based on its size and color, we deduced it to be Rick's car. That's right boys, we're spying on you, even when we're not home!

It was fun seeing kids scurry about the baseball diamond at the end of our block.

We were headed back toward Boeing Field.

First, we had to pass Seattle Center. Pretty groovy looking from this angle.

And before we knew it, the Boeing Field runway was in our sites!

As soon as we touched down, we dashed inside the Museum of Flight. In a small room off the theater, there was a reception for members with Dr. Ashley Stroupe of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What an amazing woman! A staff engineer at JPL, Stroupe works in flight operations for the Mars rovers. She's the first woman to 'drive' rovers on Mars (Spirit and Opportunity), and now she works with the Mars Science Laboratory. 

She was joined on stage by Kavya Manyapu, an aspiring astronaut and a current flight test engineer for Boeing.

They were both so well spoken, accomplished, driven, insightful and encouraging. They basically outlined a road map of how to be successful for anyone who should care to follow in their footsteps. Awesome!