Beatles and Baseball

HOME FIELD: Last night, on a bit of a whim, we made a rather last minute decision to go to the Mariners game. We hadn't been since Father's Day, and the all star break is coming up, so it seemed a good time to squeeze in a Safeco trip.

We got there early (despite rather horrid rush hour traffic between 5-5:45 or so), so we hung out on the rail along the visiting Twins' bullpen.

There, we watched their starting pitcher Kevin Correia warm up with starting catcher Eric Fryer. 

We also listened as Twins' bullpen coach Bobby Cuellar visited with players, other coaches and fans. Cuellar used to be with the Mariners' organization.

Oh, and while we were standing there, a really nice King County Sheriff's officer tossed each Annabelle and CJ a batting practice ball that had landed in the 'pen.  (Annabelle very kindly passed hers along to a boy about her age who didn't get one. It didn't seem right  for our family to take home two while that boy was empty handed. Man, oh man, you should have seen that kid's smile! It lit up the stadium. And I think his dad was even more excited. ;)

As usual, we sat in the top row of the stadium, which affords us a good enough view of the field, and a great view of beautiful Puget Sound and a pretty sunset.

BEATLEMANIA:  This afternoon, we took a field trip to the Seattle International Film Festival's Uptown Cinema  on Queen Anne Avenue to see a "A Hard Day's Night." What a treat it was to get to see that on the big screen! 

The movie is having a short theatrical re-release to celebrate its 50th anniversary.It first premiered on July 6, 1964, at the London Pavilion theater, with royalty in attendance. Four days later, it premiered in Liverpool, where over 200,000 fans turned out. 

The film has been digitally restored by the Criterion Collection. They used the movie's original 35mm camera negatives, which were in good shape, given their age. It looked and sounded fantastic. The theater was pretty darn full for a Thursday afternoon. It was great to see people of all ages (7 to 70 plus in our showing) enjoying the music of The Beatles.

Two things struck me while watching the film. One was, that these guys were still clearly very good friends, enjoying each other's company when the movie was made in 1964. It was clear a lot of the movie was improvisational - the Fab Four clowning around.  The other aspect that resonated with me is how I still get so sad and mad when I think about John Lennon getting murdered. Sigh.

Upon returning home, imagine our delight when we discovered a parcel from Professor John Covach in our mailbox. He was our instructor "The Music of the Beatles," the wonderful Coursera class the kids and I took this spring. After its conclusion, the kids made him some thank you cards, and I sent him some of their notes (I thought he'd get a kick out of Annabelle's cartoon/comic book style of note taking.  (We also sent him a little taste of Seattle in the form of coffee and chocolate.)

The good professor sent us a thank you letter and a CD of his music. Cool! 

The Beatles' music class has *just* reopened to new students on Coursera. Check it out here:  https://www.coursera.org/course/beatles

LOCKS WALK: This morning, we went for a walk early, down to the Hiram Chittenden (Ballard) Locks. This time of year it's usually crawling with tourists, and today was no exception.

I let CJ and Annabelle handle the photography down there today. One of the first things we noticed was how low the tide was. 

We soon spied a hungry (but camera shy) seal hanging out. No wonder - look at how many fish were in the fish ladder when we visited!

The seagulls were also in a feeding frenzy down there today.

One of the (many) boats in the locks today was a houseboat, expertly piloted by a woman.

CERTIFIED: This afternoon, CJ and Annabelle finished their "How to Learn Math" class taught by Dr. Jo Boaler through Standford. "I actually like this course. It's such a shame that it has to end so soon," lamented CJ. 

The class taught them to view and think about math in a different, and very positive, way.

We'll be using Dr. Boaler's YouCubed.Org Web site to continue our math education. There are many great resources for us to draw upon in the future.