AN APPLE A DAY: We're so lucky - we live in the apple capital of the United States, if not the world. In any given grocery store we have a buffet of amazing apples available at a very reasonable price.
That's why this photo from the International Space Station really struck me. Photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member, off the the apple's right, you can see the ISS Progress 54 cargo craft, which delivered 2.8 tons of cargo to the station Wednesday. It launched from the Balkinour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 5.
It was one of those increasingly occuring 'hurry up' dockings. The cargo vessel reached the ISS in just six hours - so that apple should be pretty darn fresh!
Often as we navigate the produce section, we ogle the apples and remark about how lucky we are to live in an apple capital!
REDDY: We're able to stand on Earth and pick Mars out in the night sky from time to time. Naturally, that goes both ways.
Good ol' Curiosity has a nice image of Earth from Mars. Look hard. You'll find the dot of light in the twilight Martian sky ... it's just left of center ...
Here's an enhanced version, complete with our Luna. 
The image was captured using the left eye camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day of the rover's work on Mars (Jan. 31, 2014). Per NASA, a human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright "evening stars." Fun to think about.
OLYMPICS PHYSICS: We watched some of the first Winter Olympics 2014 events last night but tonight the official opening ceremonies got underway. A highlight was watching Valentina Terishkova, usher the Russian flag into the stadium.
I have no doubt that one of the things I've loved about sports since forever is the science involved. Earlier today, we read an interesting article speaking to that point: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/science-of-winter-olympic-videos_n_4696561.html?ir=Sports
HOME WORK: We're still plugging away on our intro to genetics and evolution course. Today's lecture was all about the fascinating Hardy-Weinberg principle, which states allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other evolutionary influences. If that doesn't have you nodding your head in agreement, I don't know what will. :)
Mercifully, the math behind the principle is beautifully straightforward and intriguing. What's great is through really interesting topics, the kids are learning the math they would be learning in a stand alone/traditional education. They're learning percentages (adding, subtracting and multiplying), math order, how to square a number, solving for X, and so on.
BOARD: Since it's Friday and all, we had to celebrate the week end by going to our favorite relax spot, Chuck's on 85th. There, we played a mostly fun board game called Taboo. It's a hybrid of Password and 25,000 Pyramid, for people of my era keeping score at home. ;)
The gist of it is you have your partner guess the word on a card, without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card, plus no gestures. It's harder than it sounds.
The gist of it is you have your partner guess the word on a card, without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card, plus no gestures. It's harder than it sounds.
Team Annabelle and Christian mopped up the floor with CJ and me. CJ's approach to the game was saying ONE word and then giving me a steely eyed stare, expecting me to guess the word. I mostly failed.
Afterward, we moved onto a physical game - Jenga - with a new-to-us friend, Lou, with whom we shared a table at the always busy spot. Over the course of a beer he described himself as an autistic drummer. He fit right in with our family. :) Lou had a BLAST playing Jenga with the kids. The first two games went down in a 'normal' time, but the third one was an epic match, with others in the place looking on. 
It went down shortly after this ...
SAY WHAT?: Late this evening, Christian stumbled across a site where you have to have a keen ear to identify which language it is you're listening to. Check it out and have fun with it!
http://greatlanguagegame.com/
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