BY A THREAD: With just four days left in their regular seasonm, the Seattle Mariners haven't (quite) been mathematically eliminated from the post season yet. They'd have to win out and get help from others losing to make it, but hope is alive, at least for another day or so.
That being the case, the Mariners put wild card game tickets on sale today. Knowing full well it will probably just amount to a refund before the end of the month, we just had to buy tickets for a wildcard playoff game that will likely never happen. But again, there's that hope thing. ...
The Mariners haven't made a post season appearance since 2001, when they won more games than any one in the history of baseball in the regular season, but were wiped out in the first round of the playoffs.
It's hard to imagine there ever being a season that was as magical (and improbable, actually), as their 1995 "Refuse to Lose" run. The photo leading the blog is Rick and Ken on Halloween in 1995, as Mariners stars Jay Buhner and Norm Charlton. Mariners fever was at its peak back then, and they got a TON of candy that year. :)
During Mariners' broadcasts, they ask fans to send in photos, so I Tweeted the throwback photo Imagine our surprise when they actually showed it on TV after the third inning! Glad I had my camera handy, so I can show Rick & Ken.
MARTIAN REPORTS: As noted here, Sunday night we watched NASA's orbiter MAVEN arrive at Mars, and Tuesday night, we watched India's MOM orbiter arrive. Both have already been working away.
According to an online description of the image, blue shows "ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud
that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface, the green "shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud." The red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface, and the last image is a composite of the others.
Today we watched a short video narrated by physicist Bob Lin explaining MAVEN's mission:
http://www.space.com/24932-mars-atmosphere-today-could-explain-planets-past-tragedy-video.html
NASA's MAVEN website
Meanwhile, MOM's been busy, too. Here's the Martian atmosphere as seen from an altitude of 8449 km. Image taken using the Mars Color Camera on-board ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission
NASA's MAVEN website
Meanwhile, MOM's been busy, too. Here's the Martian atmosphere as seen from an altitude of 8449 km. Image taken using the Mars Color Camera on-board ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission
LIFE LIKE: This morning, we read a a story from Discovery News about an ancient creature that pre-dated dinosaurs (by 370 million years!) and even land plants, making it one of Earth's earliest living life forms. Thing is, though it's a multi-cellular animal, frankly, it looks a bit like a modern day pomegranate cut in half
We talked about how easy it would be to miss discovering something because it doesn't fit with our pre-conceived notions. For instance, as we're exploring Mars, what if the life on that planet looks like what we call a rock? Naturally, at that point, our conversation turned to Star Trek's "Devil in the Dark" episode, where the alien, a Horta,' looked like a cross between a rock and a burnt cheeseburger patty.
NEW WAVE: We listened to a few lectures for our History of Rock Pt. 2 class today, most having to do with the advent of New Wave music. That meant talk of The Police, Blondie, the Cars, Talking Heards, Devo, the B52s, Joe Jackson, The Knack, and more.
Professor Kovach talked about Elvis Costello's infamous appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1977. Costelle was supposed to play "Less Than Zero," and that's what they'd done in rehearsals, but about three bars into it, he abruptly stopped, said, "I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. There’s no reason to do this song here,” and then told his band to play “Radio, Radio,” a song that's a rebuke of the commercialization of live music broadcasts, and the control record companies had over artists.
Costello looks a bit nervous and twitchy during the song. Perhaps that was because unhappy SNL producer Lorne Michaels was reportedly giving him the middle finger for nearly the entire song.
Shifting gears like that on live TV earned Costello a decade-plus ban from subsequent SNL appearances.
Naturally, I wanted to show kids the footage of that all going down, but I knew from experience SNL fiercely protects its property, and it is H-A-R-D to find their clips online. However, if one looks hard enough, they can find (at least for the moment), Costello's news making performance.
UP AND AWAY: A little before 1:30 p.m. our time, we watched the liftoff of Expedition 41, a Soyuz launch. It was nighttime in Kazakhstan, so the rocket fire was spectacular looking. :)
Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
It was one of those hurry-up hook ups with the International Space Station. The capsule reached the ISS by dinnertime our time, which was a great relief, because we learned around 6 p.m. that only one of two power-producing solar arrays on the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft deployed. Fortunately, they had contact and capture just as scheduled, around 7:10 p.m. our time!
NEW WAVE: We listened to a few lectures for our History of Rock Pt. 2 class today, most having to do with the advent of New Wave music. That meant talk of The Police, Blondie, the Cars, Talking Heards, Devo, the B52s, Joe Jackson, The Knack, and more.
Professor Kovach talked about Elvis Costello's infamous appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1977. Costelle was supposed to play "Less Than Zero," and that's what they'd done in rehearsals, but about three bars into it, he abruptly stopped, said, "I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. There’s no reason to do this song here,” and then told his band to play “Radio, Radio,” a song that's a rebuke of the commercialization of live music broadcasts, and the control record companies had over artists.
Costello looks a bit nervous and twitchy during the song. Perhaps that was because unhappy SNL producer Lorne Michaels was reportedly giving him the middle finger for nearly the entire song.
Shifting gears like that on live TV earned Costello a decade-plus ban from subsequent SNL appearances.
Naturally, I wanted to show kids the footage of that all going down, but I knew from experience SNL fiercely protects its property, and it is H-A-R-D to find their clips online. However, if one looks hard enough, they can find (at least for the moment), Costello's news making performance.
UP AND AWAY: A little before 1:30 p.m. our time, we watched the liftoff of Expedition 41, a Soyuz launch. It was nighttime in Kazakhstan, so the rocket fire was spectacular looking. :)
It was one of those hurry-up hook ups with the International Space Station. The capsule reached the ISS by dinnertime our time, which was a great relief, because we learned around 6 p.m. that only one of two power-producing solar arrays on the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft deployed. Fortunately, they had contact and capture just as scheduled, around 7:10 p.m. our time!
Interesting: History of Rock/history of rocklike creatures/Hortas. That makes a good day I'd say.
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