Where the Wild Things Are

CREATURE FEATURE: This afternoon, on a whim, we went to the Woodland Park Zoo with Rick, who had some discount tickets. Count us in, 'cause we're all about discounts, as you know.

As we arrived at the zoo grounds, Rick announced he needed to see the sloth bears, snow leopard, and the grizzly. Let's just say it was Rick's day. All of them were up and about.

The sloth bears were up first. We watched a sloth mom wander around as her two cubs wrestled with one another.

I noticed the mama bear looking into the small cracks of the rocks at one point and asked the kids what they thought that was all about. Annabelle guessed, "She's looking for insects."

Sure 'nuff, they're insect eating mammals. In fact, they have a specially adapted lower lip and palate used for sucking insects.

Given that they're from the Indian subcontinent, yet they're wearing what looks like a super heavy, long fur coat, I had to speculate that maybe it was more like hair than fur - so that they wouldn't get too hot. But what do I know?

We wandered around a bit and saw kangaroos and wallabies and a wallaroos (I'm not making that up).

We also came across some gorgeous Gray Wolves. They looked more white to us, but what do we know? We marveled at how closely they are related to our house dogs, but how far away they are in other respects. 

 We also speculated about how long our lil Havanese would last in the Gray Wolves' enclosure. ...

 They looked so pretty, docile and even domestic, but of course, that's not the case.

We made our way to the snow leopard exhibit. Upon arrival, the big cat was sunning itself at the back of the enclosure, far from us.  Imagine our surprise and delight when it popped up and made a beeline toward us!

 Exciting! It came within a couple feet of us (albeit separated by thick Plexiglas). Pretty kitty!

We also saw an elk with an amazing rack!

The penguins are always a hit, of course. 

At the zoo, the meerkats and komodo dragons are neighbors. 

This meerkat served as sentinel of the group. She was posted way above the rest, keeping lookout, while the others frolicked, slept and so on below.

The komodo dragon looks so serene, but it will eat you alive, given the chance. 

We spent the most time looking at the grizzly bears, who were on the move. 

 Amazing animals, are they.

 Look, it even smiled at us! ;) 

7/11

FANCY PANTS: Today we finally got around to transforming some super cute fabric Annabelle picked out weeks ago into some new pants. 

It was a super easy pattern - just two pattern pieces involved. First, Annabelle sewed the front and back legs together at the inside seam. 

Then she joined the front and back along the middle/crotch seam. Then it was time to sew the outside leg seam. Up next was creating the waistband casing, then inserting the elastic. 

Once that was done, it was time to hem the legs, and sew on the super cute buttons she picked out as accents. She's getting really good at threading needles! 

She was very specific about which buttons went where.  I told her I thought it took longer to sew the eight buttons on (four apiece on the cuff of each leg) than it did to sew the pants.

Of course, the work was worth it. Bee is very happy with her new pants.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: Imagine our delight when included among a stack of mail we received recently was a letter from Professor Lou (Bloomfield) of the University of Virginia. He was our "How Things Work" Coursera class we took that introduced the kids to physics.

In the last video lecture we watched, the professor encouraged students to drop him a postcard, so we did. 
I'm not going to post his whole letter here, but it was long, thoughtful, and encouraging. I'd sent a few pages of the kids' notes along with their postcards, because I thought he'd get a kick out of seeing how an 8- and 10-year old process the info he's sharing compared to the traditional college aged student. He definitely enjoyed  copies of the notes and said, "a person's age seems to be less important to learning or understanding science than their willingness to think." Amen. :)

On their postcards, the kids each told Professor Lou they hoped there would be a Part 2 to his class, and he said it's a possibility. We'll keep our fingers crossed. In the meantime, we (and you!) can check out his Web site Howe Everything Works - Explaining the physics of everyday life (http://www.howeverythingworks.org/).

SCIENCE SITE: We test drove a new-to-us science site today, Planet-Science.com. The site has articles, games, and experiments for students, divided into over and under 11 year old categories. 

Annabelle loved their jokes section. I think she read them all to me. My favorite: The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The engineer sees the glass as twice as big as it needs to be.

The site's "About" page tells us it was originally launched as a Millennium project nurtured by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and previously funded by the Department of Education and Skills. In 2010, it was re-launched under the ownership and guidance of Tinopolis Interactive, a South West Wales and London-based company which designs and builds eLearning and new media solutions. 

The kids enjoyed playing the games there. Annabelle and CJ both played "Mission Adaptation," a game where you have to take photos of creatures and plants native to a certain environment. Along the way, you learn factoids about how the things have adapted to their environment. 

And, they played "Fashionable Labs," a game that helps players raise awareness of what they need to know to be safe in a laboratory setting.

Annabelle spent a fair amount of time reading (and sharing) all sorts of facts about animals from the site's "Our World" articles. The site is content-rich. We can (and will) spend days combing through it.

FREEBIE: Twitter and Facebook feeds made it abundantly clear that today was free Slurpee day in honor of the date 7/11. This is typically the only day of the year the kids have a Slurpee, so it's a Big Deal for them. 

We headed to a 7-11 on Queen Anne hill a little after 11 a.m. and the kids were dazzled by their choices, including a Mt. Dew flavor. Oh happy day. 

Thank you, 7-11, and we'll see you next year. :) 

MARTIAN MOON: We've all spotted Earth's moon overhead, making its way across our sky countless times. Imagine being on the surface of Mars and watching the Red Planet's moon cross the sky. That's just what the Mars Science Laboratory did recently, and fortunately, it snapped a series of shots of it so that we can see, too.

The clip below is a combination of 86 frames MSL took on June 28. It shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, shortly after a Martian sunset. Phobos enters the frame in the bottom at the center and moves toward the top of the view. It's shown at an accelerated speed - the real time for the transit was 27 minutes.

Side Trip

LONG WAY HOME: Today was our very-boring weekly trip to Winco for foodstuffs. We typically take I-5 home, but an electronic freeway reader board let us know there was a wreck ahead, along with a 4-mile backup. No thank you. 

I took the next exit, which happened to be for Boeing Field. That meant we'd be driving right by The Museum of Flight, and I felt compelled to stop on in. As usual, I'm glad we did.

We see something new and/or do something different every time we go.  The first thing we did today was hit up a craft project in the side gallery. The kids had their choice of three different types of paper flyers to make. They each opted for the whirligig.

At first glance, the instructions looked a bit daunting. 

However, they took it step-by-step, and knocked it out in short order. 

Then, they went up to the control tower to launch their flying machines, which floated down to the gallery floor quite nicely (sorry no photo, I just had my crappy cell phone with me today, and it doesn't 'do' action shots).

From there, the kids wanted to pretend we were winging away to some far off destination, so we boarded a Boeing 737 in the Great Gallery. I had a nice window seat. :)  There was quite a bit of air traffic around me, as you can see.

We enjoyed a complimentary in-flight movie all about the history of commercial aviation. 

I enjoyed sitting in the business class section of this aged airplane. Its aisle was so wide and there was so much leg room compared to every commercial plane I've ever been on board. Heck, you could fit another whole seat in front of Annabelle!

From there, we went in to the Lear Gallery in the main building. Today, we lingered in front of the moon rock for awhile.

This rock is one of three lunar samples The Museum of Flight has on display. All three were brought back on board Apollo 12, which made its trip in November of 1969. This sample was gathered in the Ocean of Storms, near their lunar module's landing site. It's ilmenite basalt. Ilmenite is a titanium ore, and basalt is familiar to we Earthlings as the most common type of rock formed from lava. 

We also watched a short video about the Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975. Lordy, I remember that so well. It was amazing on two major fronts. First: SPACE!!!! Second, it was smack dab in the middle of the Cold War and here we were working cooperatively with the Soviets. Remarkable.

The mission involved Tom Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand in their Apollo Command and Service Module connecting with cosmonauts Aleksey Leonov and Valeriy Kubasov in a Soyuz capsule. They used a jointly designed, U.S.-built docking module to demonstrate that two dissimilar craft could dock in orbit. Of course, the bigger 'lesson' was the human factor.  As astronaut Brand observed, "We were a little of a spark or a foot in the door that started better communications."

You can relive the magic of Apollo-Soyuz docking in this 30-second video:

How lucky we were to meet Apollo-Soyuz Cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov last year at The Museum of Flight!

Today, we checked out Brand's flight training jacket. 

It reminds me how (relatively) small astronauts are. I think it would have fit CJ pretty well.

TOONY: Once again, today we used cartoons to help educate us. In fact, we killed two birds with one stone, using educational Animaniacs' songs while we exercised.  

I have a soft spot for Animaniacs. It was one of my favorite cartoons when Rick and Kennedy were kids. I'm so glad The Hub has started rebroadcasting the shows. They were great on the first run, and they're every bit as entertaining and witty today. 

This one compilation features five of my favorite Animaniacs' songs: "Yakko's World," which lists all of the Earth's nations; "The Presidents" which (duh) lists all of the U.S.  presidents (up through Clinton, when the show originally aired); "When You're Traveling" (about time zones); "Wakko's America" (the names of all 50 states and their capitols); and "Yakko's Universe."
Good stuff, and the '90s equivalent of "Schoolhouse Rock."

Going Bananas

BANANA EXTRACT: Today we stumbled upon Scientific American's "Bring Science Home" series. What a wonderful discovery for us!  A STEM-related Facebook post pointed is to a step-by-step set of instructions about how to extract DNA from a banana. How fun does that sound? You had to know we were going to try it!

The first step was placing a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the freezer while we prepped our bananas. Next, the bananas were peeled and then placed in Ziploc bags.  

The kids used their fingers to smoosh the bananas into a pudding like consistency, with no lumps remaining. 

Then, it was time to fill a measuring cup with a half cup of water and a teaspoon of salt. (We doubled that, because the kids were each doing their own banana.)

The saltwater was poured into the bag, and the bag was resealed. They then gently mixed the saltwater and the mashed banana together for about 45 seconds. 

Next, it was time to add a half teaspoon of dish-washing detergent to each of their bags, and then they mixed them gently again, taking care not to make it become too foamy.

We topped two narrow glasses with coffee filters, and they carefully poured their banana mash into the filters.

They watched as much of the liquid oozed down into their classes. After about six minutes, we removed the filters from the tops, and our glasses looked like this. ...

They each had an inch plus of cloudy liquid on the bottom.  It was time to take the rubbing alcohol from the freezer. The kids each carefully added an inch-plus of rubbing alcohol atop the cloudy banana extract. They did so slowly, to keep the liquid layers as separate as possible. Here, you can see the clear liquid atop the cloudy.

The instructions said to wait 8 minutes and watch what was happening. We did just that.  We started to notice bubbles and some kind of stringy substance forming between the layers.

Our instructions told us this area between the clear and cloudy was where the DNA pieces were clumping together!

When our 8-minute timer rang, the kids stuck wooden craft (Popsicle) sticks into the cup and spun them in place, per instruction, trying to capture some of the stringy middle layer. 
They each successfully did so, and were thrilled to see banana DNA on their sticks!

We even added a little color to the mix to try to see glass' contents better.

How cool is that?! Now that we have mastered banana DNA extraction, our next project will be creating a Frankenanner! (I think we need to trademark that name.)

Absolutely loved the experiment idea, and how well its steps were written. I also loved that the article included an "observations and results" section. From it, we learned that the materials we used in the activity each played a role in the DNA extraction. For example, "the detergent or soap helps to break down the cell's outer membrane, and the salt helps to separate the DNA from other materials in the cell. And because the DNA doesn't dissolve in alcohol, this substance helps the DNA clump together in a separate layer."  Thank you, author Molly Josephs!

Bravo to Scientific American, and we'll be doing more of their "Bring Science Home" experiments in the future.

RETURN OF AFRONANA:  Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I received an anonymous comment about the Jan. 10, 2013 entry for this blog. The writer came upon MPA in what can only be called, a highly unlikely way ... by researching bananas with afros. Yes, I'm serious.  Here's the comment. ...  

Hello from sunny St. Pete Beach, Florida! On the way to work this morning, in a rather trafficky part of town I saw something bouncing around the lanes and thought "That looks like a banana with an afro!" Even though my Tuesday plan was to put nose immediately to grindstone, I had to do some "research" regarding bananas with afros to see if they were really a thing. And apparently, they are! Have you recently been travelling in or around St. Petersburg, Florida? There are lots of actual Nana's here (with and without afros), and tis the season for visiting grandchildren! Please advise and I will drive through this intersection very slowly on the way home tonight!

Our blog for Jan. 10 included a trip to Goodwill, where we found a fascinating assortment of items, including this. ... 

So apparently 'our' afronana has a twin in Florida. How 'bout that! It was very nice of the St. Pete Beach researcher to drop us a line, dontcha think?

ATOMIC:  A post from a Facebook friend in Belfast turned us on to a great TED-Ed cartoon all about atoms. The five-minute animation does a brilliant job of demonstrating just how small atoms are. I'll bet most people watching this learn something about atoms they didn't know before. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQP4UJhNn0I


MATINEE: This afternoon, we finally got around to screening the BBC's animated 90-ish minute version of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" from 1979. 

I'm sad to report the kids haven't read any of the Chronicles of Narnia. I was hoping this movie might spur them to do so, but they're in the throes of the Harry Potter books now, so it's probably going to have to wait.

They seemed to enjoy the movie - it held their attention - but the animation wasn't exactly Pixar, shall we say. The movie was showing its age. 

One thing I learned today is that it was directed by Bill Melendez, who is best known for his work on the famous Peanuts animated television specials.  

Horsing Around

 
A DAY AT THE RACES: Sunday, we decided to cash in a couple of Groupons we'd been sitting on for awhile for admission and concessions at Emerald Downs, the only horse racing track in western Washington. Located in Auburn, it was about a 40 minute drive to the southeast for us.

CJ and Annabelle had never been to a horse race track, and Christian, Rick and I hadn't been to one in a decade or two (or more).

We're cheap, so we parked in the free lot, which is a looong haul from the track, but they had frequent, convenient shuttles, so we caught one of those.

Once inside, we stood and stared and looked like complete newbies. We looked at the electronic betting machines like we were strangers in a strange land. Friendly Emerald Downs staff spotted us and our lost looks, and pointed us in the right direction.

The kids and I started looking at some of the educational displays.

We learned that the average jockey height is 5-foot 3-inches, and their weight doesn't exceed 118 pounds - including their 2-pound saddle! The jockeys work as 'free agents,' and compete for mounts. Winning jockeys receive 10 percent of the purse, while non-winners get a base fee.

We also learned that there are a whole lot of different types of shoes. Makes sense, given track conditions can vary so dramatically.

Soon, we set about studying the program and getting ready for the first race.

Annabelle's scientific method seemed to be picking the pony with the girliest name. In race 1, that was Princess Madison. 

CJ and Annabelle were railbirds for every race.

We had a great view of all of the action.  Here's Havana Red streaking to a victory.

 And some more action shots ...

We enjoyed watching the ponies parade to the starting gate. This rider was about Annabelle's size. Seriously. 

In the shot below, you can just barely see Mt. Rainier through the all-too-familiar haze. Bet it's gorgeous on those rare clear days.

We were there a couple of hours, for a total of four races. In the end, we were out $5.80 in losses, thanks to CJ and Christian's picks. Annabelle picked the winner three of four times. Rick didn't spend much, and it's a good thing, as his picks were pretty awful. In the last race he had (a tiny bit of) money on EVERY horse but the one who won. LOL.

A DAY AT THE FARM: Come Monday, we used up another Groupon - admission to Remlinger Farms, in Carnation, about an hour east of us.

The place began as a roadside produce stand in 1965. Today, it's a 200-acre tourist center with rides, farm animals, physical challenges, concessions, produce (of course), and more. They host over 200,000 visitors a year.

Our visit started off at the pony rides.

This is Apple. She is NOT a race horse. In fact, she was very sleepy and, fortunately, not CJ or Annabelle's steed.

 Annabelle rode Sweet Beet, while CJ mounted Carrot.

Here, the cowpokes hit the dusty trail. ...

From there, we headed over to the steam train. It was a slow, but fun little ride.

  
Afterward, they pretended to drive tractors.

From there, it was on to a couple of other rides. They tooled around in a Model-T.

And they pedaled around a track.

They enjoyed spinning in barrels and pumpkins, but their favorite attraction was the little roller coaster.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: This evening we watched a wonderful documentary, "Pink Floyd - the Making of the Dark Side of the Moon." Insightful, entertaining, thought provoking, absolutely engrossing, it's a track-by-track look at the making of Pink Floyd's 1973 album, "Dark Side of the Moon." Even if you're not particularly into Pink Floyd, the documentary, made in 2003, is a fascinating look at the recording process and how the band (with a LOT of help from engineer Alan Parsons) used sampling, looping, layering and other electronic-assisted effects that were super pioneering at the time.