Here We Grow!

SPROUTS: Good news! The garden is on the grow! We've got sunflowers, tomatoes, tomatillos and more springing to life on our countertop!  Before you know it, it will be time to get them out into the garden.

HAIR RAISING: This morning, the kids were doing their science homework, and one activity involved a balloon and generating static electricity. The worksheet suggested rubbing the balloon on their hair or a sweater. As an alternative, I suggested they grab a dog. Our Havanese have very fine 'fur' that really more like hair. Sure 'nuff, Laika's hair stood on end, clinging to a balloon rubbed cross her back a few times.

Enough cling was generated that the balloon could stick to the wall!

Nice of Laika to donate her body in the name of science. :)

COLORING: This afternoon, we stopped by Rick's place in West Seattle to do a little work and contemplate colors.

He's thinking about painting the outside of his house Seahawks blue with white trim and a Seahawks green front door. We took a couple of Shermin Williams color decks and compared them to Seahawks colors and Annabelle wasn't happy with any of them (and neither was I).

There wasn't a blue even close to the right color.

Rick's also thinking about painting his office Huskies colors. We've already found the perfect purple, but finding the right beige-y gold has been a challenge. I gave CJ the deck and asked him to find a color to match. He spent about two seconds, declared "whole wheat" the winner and walked away.

I think I have to agree with him.

MYSTERY SOLVED: When we were out of town this weekend, I saw in my Facebook feed that NASA's "Super Guppy" had landed at the Museum of Flight.

I couldn't imagine what the odd looking cargo plane's trip was for. Last time it visited Seattle, it was bringing the space shuttle trainer to the MoF. (The plane's entire 'face' opens up via a hinge on the side, letting big cargo slide on out.)

Here's a photo I took of it coming in for a landing at Boeing Field.

In fact, we've watched it land at Boeing Field twice now. So exciting!

An email from NASA explained last weekend's visit. Apparently the Super Guppy was in town to pick up a rocket fuel tank made by the Boeing Developmental Center in Tukwila, WA.

The photo below (Image credit: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given) shows the Super Guppy at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The composite tank it had on board is part of the Game Changing Development Program and NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. Cool!


HATCHED:  This evening, we watched the three men on board a Soyuz capsule dock with the International Space Station, open the hatch and pose for photo opps. Very glad to see them there, given, the malfunction after lift off a couple of days ago.

AND IN THE END ... : Sad to say, we're done. We've completed "The Music of The Beatles,"  a 6-week course through the University of Rochester with professor John Covach.

Happy to report we each passed the final with a grade of 100 percent. If I'm not mistaken, we've each aced every single quiz this course. We loved the last question on our final exam. It read: "True or True? In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

We answered "true." :)

The class was an absolute joy to take, and we learned so much, not just about The Beatles, but about pop music of their era, and even world history during their dominance.


TRIBAL: When Christian pointed out to me that I'd mistakenly called the Yaquina River the Toledo River, I got to thinking about "Yaquina." I didn't know if it was a person, place, or thing. Turns out it's all, but it goes back to the Yaquina tribe, Native Americans in what is now Oregon. If the brief Wikipedia post about them is correct, the Yaquina as a people are "nearly extinct," their language (also known as Yakwina or Yakona) is extinct. The article declares 'the remaining Yaquina people live on the Siletz Reservation in Oregon, and are mostly of mixed blood.' While this may be partially true, to declare it as wholly true seems folly to me. How would the author know that ALL Yaquina descendents live in the Siletz Reservation? Seems super unlikely.