Fresh Starts

PLAY BALL: Today, the Seattle Mariners' Major League Baseball's 2014 season got underway.  Maybe *this* will be the year we win the pennant. After all, if the Seattle Seahawks can win a Super Bowl, why can't the Ms win the World Series?  Hope springs eternal!

The Mariners opened their season on the road against the Angels, but that didn't keep us from heading to Safeco Field for their opening day open house.

Gates opened at 5:30, and we were in line by 5:15. :) Because you *have* to arrive nearly 2 hours early for a game that's not even being played in person before you, right? ;)  

Waiting in line, I couldn't help but wonder how "King Felix" likes being pushed back behind Robinson Cano, who hadn't yet played a regular season inning for the Mariners yet. Hopefully the field is big enough for the both of 'em.

It was so great to be back at the stadium! We walked the warning track and visited the dugouts. I took lots of great photos of the circuit, but the kids BOTH had a case of major Derpy Face as we call it, so there are no photos to prove we did that. 

The flags posed nicely for me, tho. ;)

I do have a photo of Kennedy and Abby walking the track. They're just to the left of the Trader Joe's sign below. 

As you can see, it was a lovely evening - clear blue skies. Baseball weather!

Here this the very first pitch of the Mariners' season. Inside, ball 1!

And below is Robinson Cano's first at bat (a photo of the big screen). 

Robinson didn't reach base on this at bat, but a funny story about the first time he *did* reach base. 

So, it's the fourth inning and I needed to use the ladies room. I was in a cold, steel and concrete stall on the main concourse, and the game action is being played through speakers in the bathroom so you don't miss a thing. Robinson's up and he raps a single down the third base line and I hear the announcer say, "Robinson Cano has his first hit as a Mariner!" and immediately thereafter I hear in a stall next to me, 'Ye-ah!!"

Problem was, the voice was VERY deep and pretty clearly to me, male. Oh. ...

I try to steal a look under the stall door to check out my neighbor's shoes but he/she was one more stall over, so I couldn't see him/her.

I expedited my visit and was standing at the sink, washing my hands, ready to make a hasty exit when a large, African American male with shoulder length dreadlocks emerged from the stall. I greeted him with a smile and he greeted me with a horrified look and said, "Am I in the women's room?" 

I answered in the affirmative, and told him that it was OK, it was just the two of us and I'd been know to use men's room in an emergency. We walked out together and he looked up at the sign to confirm it was, indeed, the women's room. 
.
Oh, and once I got back to the family, the fun was just starting. 

I guess watching a Mariners game on the big screen wasn't quite exciting enough for some. Including this guy, belly down, spread eagle, below. 

We shall call him Idiot #1. He decided to charge the field (the empty field, might I add). It was a mistake. For, you see, there was this security guard who had been standing just feet from where our family was sitting most of the game. This guy, a 30-ish African American gentleman, was so cool he had to wear shades at night. His expression never changed all night, as he had to quietly and authoritatively modify dozen of people's errant behavior, without ever wrinkling his pressed khakis. 

Well, when Idiot #1 started springing around the roped-off infield, Mr. Pressed Khakis was ON IT. Nearly instantly. It was as fine an open-field tackle as I've ever seen. I noticed the security guard's sunglasses went flying a few feet when he took the idiot out. What I loved was that within 3 seconds of taking Idiot out, Mr. Pressed Khakis, laying atop Idiot's back, calmly reached out, collected his glasses, and put them back on, LOL!

The photo below shows the clean up crew cuffing Idiot #1 after the cool guard moved on to other work. 

 But wait ... what's this? Notice in the photo above that people are looking off to the left!? That's because Idiot #2 decided to storm the field. 

Now, the guy in the gold King Felix shirt at least gets some props for being agile. He out-juked no less than four security guards, hopped the rope, and hopped the stadium wall before being taken out.

Meanwhile, as Idiot #1 was being marched out, he was looking over at Idiot #2, only wishing he could have those moves. 

Idiots aside, it was a great night! Not too frigid, and we all enjoyed the sights and sounds. 

Annabelle created some ballpark-inspired art on her Nintendo DS. 

We left about the 7th inning, and were home to watch the end of the game AND THE MARINERS WIN. 

That's right. We're in FIRST PLACE!

FRESH STARTS: Today, we took to the garden in earnest. We pulled dozens/hundreds of weeds from our big raised bed, and tilled the ground to get it ready.  

Today we planted corn. Hopefully it will be high as an elephant's eye as the summer months stretch on.

We planted our sunflower in big pots down in the alley.

They're not much to look at yet, but we're hoping for a forest of them a few months from now.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: We dropped everything and (rather uncharacteristically) turned all of our attention toward the TV at 9 last night. The occasion: The latest installment of the new "Cosmos" series.

It was wonderful, as always. The show covered a lot of ground, er, space, last night. I asked the kids to each share three things they learned from watching the program.

Here is what CJ wrote: 

I learned several things last night on Cosmos, hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Here are 3 of them:

1:Black holes: Thanks to Super Mario Galaxy, I thought for half of my life that black holes were pitch black discs that sucked you up and killed you as soon as you fell into them. Thanks to Cosmos, I now actually know that black holes look much different then that, and there actually might be something inside.

2: Ghosts in the sky: Although you will not find human ghosts, whenever you look up into the night sky, there are plenty of ghosts. Light takes a *VERY* long time to get from some stars to earth. This means that some starlight you see is actually centuries old, and the star is very likely dead.

3: The speed you are going at: I want to stop you right now, and take a little break. Go take a walk around the block, and come back.  When you come back, look at the bottom paragraph. Don't read any more of this until you are back from your walk.


So you just came back from your stroll. What if I told you that when you were enjoying yourself during your peaceful stroll, you were actually moving faster than a jet plane! The earth is constantly moving, which means that you are moving very fast right now, even if you are sitting on your chair reading this!
Conclusion: Our world is full of science, and so is Cosmos!

Annabelle's factoids were shorter. Here they are ...

You can travel 99.9% the speed of light, but can NEVER get that last decimal point.

The star that connects the head and the body in the constellation Leo is actually a star circling a black hole.

You are always traveling faster than a jet plane!

I love how NASA continues to capitalize on "Cosmos" airing with a steady stream of posts on Facebook and Twitter about topics which are related to the show. One of their posts last night was a cool graphic about black holes. 
              
The graphic comes from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. (http://chandra.harvard.edu/learn_bh.html)