Long Week

THEY'RE BACK:  The Blue Angels took to the skies over Seattle this afternoon.  They didn't fly as long as they did yesterday, or as close, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. 

These planes fly so closely together.. The amount of training and trust involved is remarkable. Look at how tight these four Angels are over Queen Anne.

LITTLE PATIENT:  We spent three hours at Group Health this morning. A looong three hours (yes, some three hours are longer than others). We came away with more printouts and sympathy, but no answers. Still no results from the parasite test, which was ordered last Sunday. That's a little bit annoying, to say the least. 

I laughed out loud a couple times as I listened to CJ's dialogue with the nurse and doctor. At one point he asked the nurse, "Would you like specific information about what we believe initiated the vomiting?" I texted the exact quote to Christian because I knew he would get a chuckle out of it. It was so very CJ.  

After the doctor visit, we went over to Safeway, across the street.  There, the kids made a blockbuster of a discovery: the Wafflenut. 

It's a doughnut made in a Belgian waffle iron. CJ was smitten, saying, "I'd be willing to appear in an ad campaign for this to say my mouth is positively enchanted."  :)

CJ was full of gems today.  I don't even remember what he was trying to explain to me at the moment, but at one point this afternoon when I was struggling to understand, he encouraged me to "think of it metaphorically." 

Oh, OK, LOL.

Later, CJ was playing Pac-Land on XBox this afternoon and announced that the game was "an excellent example of parallax scrolling. Now is a great opportunity to show it to you." And so, he did. 

I learned that parallax scrolling is a technique used in in computer graphics, where it's programmed so the background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, which creates an illusion of depth.

I read a Wikipedia article about parallax scrolling and it said the technique started with the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. The kids and I have all played that at the retro gaming expos we've attended.

CRAFTY:  Annabelle helped with a craft project this afternoon - etching some glasses as part of a wedding gift for some friends getting married.  We bought the glasses at Bedrock, a local place that recycles glass. They used to be blue bottles. We used a vinyl stencil (which Christian cut out), and applied glass etching cream over it.

Now, the former bottles are something to toast the Seahawks with!

APPLES OF MY EYE:  While watching the Blue Angels jet to and fro, I was also eyeing the abundant crop of apples on our neighbor's tree. I can pick some of them from our deck!  Our neighbor doesn't glean any, and we've been invited to have at it. Yes, please!

Looks like it's a bumper crop this year. They look big and healthy. There will definitely be some applesauce canning in our future.

ROCKETEER: This evening, we watched a launch from Cape Canaveral via the Internet.   It was a United Launch Alliance event, an Atlas V 401 with a GPS satellite on board for the U.S. Air Force. 

Graphic: United Launch Alliance