Banner Day

Image credit: k2snowboarder07 via Wikipedia Commons

BLUE FRIDAY: Not gonna lie - we spent most of the day getting ready for tomorrow's big game, Seahawks v. Saints in the NFC playoffs.

First thing this morning we baked football-y cookies and made a couple of batches of "team spirit" blue and green popcorn (recipe courtesy of Jello, http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/jell-o-rainbow-popcorn-54804.aspx). That popcorn was a sticky proposition, let me tell you!

We hung some garland, did some cleaning and more shopping.

When we were at the fabric store, an elderly gentleman basically jumped in front of me as I passed the fabric cutting counter. "The 12. What's it for? I've been seeing it everywhere," he said.

He was referring to the Seahawks' jersey I was wearing for "Blue Friday" (you're supposed to wear 'Hawks blue and represent!). Caught off guard, I stopped and considered how best to respond. I came up with this. "A football team has 11 players, right?" He responded in the affirmative. "Well, Seahawks' fans are SO loud at the stadium, that the team has an advantage. It's almost like they have an extra player on the field. So the Seahawks' fans are called the 12th Man."

The gentleman smile broadly, so grateful to finally know the mystery of all those darn 12s. :) 

When we got home, we baked a few dozen cupcakes, decorated the cookies, prepped several pounds of pulled pork, helped Kennedy get his jambalaya going ... on and on. I hope Russel Wilson isn't as tired as I am tonight, LOL. 

In other Seahawks news, check out this ad Duracell released. It features Derrick Coleman, the NFL's first deaf offensive player. You can see the ad here: http://www.seahawks.com/videos-photos/videos/Derrick-Coleman-TrustYourPower/da29b5ce-0d4b-41ae-aa9c-c75f05e604a1, but better yet, watch this short interview with him chronicling the challenges he's faced and how he has excelled. It's very inspirational (and big props to his parents, BTW).
Link here: http://www.seahawks.com/videos-photos/videos/Derrick-Coleman-The-sound-of-silence-in-the-NFL/76ad6b0f-524a-4780-a0e4-a8049a9e32ea 

WHAT'S IN A NAME?: Today, Grandpa R was kind enough to email us an interesting list of factoids about the state of Washington. One of them was "Mount Rainier is the highest point in Washington State. It was named after British Admiral Peter Rainier, who fought against the Americans in the Revolutionary War."

Before today, I did not know that, I'm ashamed to admit. I had no idea whom the mountain was named after. :/ And this is a peak we can see from our windows if we lean and tilt just right.

I shared my new found knowledge with the kids and asked them to do some research about Mt. Rainier and the man it was named after.

They spent the next 30 minutes or so trading facts about the history of the mountain. It was neat to hear them researching and sharing information with each other. I asked them each to write a paragraph about the pros and cons of the name of the mountain itself. CJ, shall we say, came down firmly in the anti-Rainier camp. This is what the incensed young man came up with ... 

As you know, Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. From Wikipedia, "It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of 14,411 ft (4,392 m)."

 Mount Rainier is named after Peter Rainier, junior, who murdered innocent american civilians. Clearly Rainier was not a very good person, yet he has his own *LANDMARK* named after him! This clearly is showing that George Vancouver, the man who named Mount Rainier, was clearly not thinking about how Americans would react to what he did! So, the person who: Murdered colonial men, women and children

·Assisted the king in forcing taxes on the Americans, who had no choice with the taxes
*GETS TO HAVE A LANDMARK NAMED AFTER HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
The Native Americans who originally named Mount Evil called Mount Evil"Tacoma", which means in English "Larger than Mount Baker". I think a *MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH* better name for Mount Evil would be "Mount Tacoma", which would:
A: Make a tribute to the Native Americans who originally named Mount EvilB: Remove the hideous name of Mount Evil.

Yikes. But perhaps not surprising from one so young and idealistic.

Preppers

THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE: The Seahawks' first playoff game is this Saturday, and we're expecting a houseful! Today's preparations for the party included a Winco run. There, we scored some Skittles -in Seahawks' colored packages! Skittles are a game day tradition for Marshawn "Beast Mode" Lynch, dating back to when his mom gave them to him before Pop Warner games, calling them "power pellets."

We also started making some decorations today. Rather than spending a small fortune on official flags or banners, we decided to do some crafting. We used white, blue and green butcher paper, and a small projector hooked up to a laptop to get the rather complicated Seahawks' logo right.

Then, the kids carefully cut the parts out.

In the end, we had three nice 3-by-5 foot or so logo posters! They're not perfect, but they'll do for our purposes. :)

JUMPING RIGHT IN: We are starting a new Coursera class next week, and I was going to do a bit of reading up on it when I noticed a listing for a course already underway, "Introduction to Genetics and Evolution."

My immediate reaction was, "Yessssssss!!!!!!!!" because for the past month or so CJ has been asking about 200 questions about genetics a day. I was still laying in bed this morning and he was asking me about canine characteristics and what you get if you mix this and that.

I was a bit worries when I saw the class started a week ago, wondering if we were already too late to jump on board. Lucky for us, the first homework isn't due until this coming Monday, so if we cram hard, I think we can manage to catch up.

The class is through Duke University, and Prof. Mohamed Noor is our instructor. We watched about an hour's worth of educational and engaging videos today, and CJ has already had a BUNCH of his questions answered. Hooray!

One of the things Prof. Noor shared with us today was a 2005 Science magazine survey revealing the USA has one of the highest rates of “disbelief” in evolution, and one of the lowest rates of “belief” that
evolution in a survey of 35 nations. In fact, we ranked 34th out of the 35 when it came to public acceptance of evolution. (About 40 percent of Americans believe in evolution, 40 percent say they don't, and 20 percent aren't sure).

Only Turkey was less accepting of evolution. Iceland, Finland and Sweden were the most accepting of evolution. (More than 80 percent of Icelanders accept evolution as fact.)

As part of the support for evolution, Noor used a quote from Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True." Coyne pointed out that species “seem intricately and almost perfectly designed for living their lives.”

As an example of this, Noor used the story of Lampsilis muscles which live in a Missouri stream grow appendages that look like tiny fish, which attract bass, who want to eat the little 'fish.' The attraction is important because in order to reproduce, the muscles need to spray their young into the bass' mouth, where they live in parasitic fashion. Amazing. You can watch it in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0YTBj0WHkU


Clearly, so far, so good on the class. Wish us luck trying to cram two weeks' worth of lectures into the weekend.

In a tangentially related note, we learned about a new-to-us job today - a paleo-artist. Christian found an interview with John Gurche, of the Smithsonian. SUPER interesting! Three minutes well spent, that's for sure. You can watch on National Geographic's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFrRHbgBitI


FROM A DISTANCE: Super cool shot from NASA this week. We've seen hundreds of photos taken by the Mars Science Laboratory since it landed on Mars. But now NASA shares with us a photo taken on Dec. 11, 2013, that is *of* MSL on Mars!

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resoluation Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

Spot the rover? It's the squarish shape in the lower lefthand corner of the photo. And when you look at Mars' surface, you can see Curiosity's tracks, too! They're about 10 feet (3 meters) apart.

SPEAKING OF SPACE: This morning we watched a launch. Orbital Sciences' Cygnus capsule was sent soaring on an Antares rocket, destination ISS.  

Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls

It was a pretty launch, but we noticed the rocket got off the pad relatively slowly. That's because it doesn't have solid rocket boosters, like many of the other rockets/shuttles we have watched launch.

You can see a replay here: http://youtu.be/_ksLbFhO-jc

Cygnus has around 2,500 pounds of cargo on board, including a number of science experiments, one being a crew of "antronauts." Some students on Earth will be studying the behavior of ants by comparing groups living on Earth to those in space. 

King for the Day

FIT FOR A KING: Our house smelled like Graceland all day. Or, at least what I imagine Graceland's kitchen smelled like, back in the day The King was ordering up eats from the kitchen help.

On January 8, the birthday of Elvis Aron Presley, MPA most always does something to celebrate. Often, it involves food, because Elvis' love of food was legendary. 

Above is an Elvis cake I made awhile back for my mom. It was banana, with peanut butter filling, inspired by Elvis' penchant for fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Today, we used that as an inspiration for breakfast. I made the kids peanut butter and banana pancakes.

After inhaling them, Annabelle declared, "Those. Were. Delicious! You just need to get a bit of everything. Especially the banana. If you don't, the peanut sort of overpowers it."

Spoken like a 9 year old who watches more than her fair share of "Chopped," don't you think?

The kids got their hands dirty in the kitchen, too. They had fun shaking chicken legs in brown bags to coat them in flour and seasoning. They also measured ingredients for the biscuits ...

 and kneaded the dough, of course.

We whipped up some 'red-eye- gravy, and you put it all together and you get this!

Dinner was a hit, except for the red-eye gravy. Its two primary ingredients are coffee and bacon drippings. That'll give you a jolt. Even though I watered it down and doctored it up, it was still a bit much for the kids. And me.

SOLAR SCRUB: We were gearing up to watch the Antares rocket launch this morning as part of an ISS re-supply mission, but it was scrubbed AGAIN. Yesterday, the cold weather caused the postponement. Today? The sun was to blame.

More specifically, the launch was scrubbed due to "excessive space radiation." First time I'd ever heard that reason used!

Turns out, yesterday, the sun unleashed a heckuva flare.

The launch postponement is a bummer, but one upside from the flare is that many people have a way higher than normal chance of seeing the Northern Lights (that's on my bucket list) - IF they have clear skies.  The light show is expected to be visible on the morning of Jan. 9, between midnight and dawn (that's just after midnight tonight/Wednesday).

Naturally, it is raining like CrAzY here today, with zero estimated chance of any clearing before dawn's early light. Grrrr.  But I hope someone(s) in the lower 48 gets to see them for the first time! More info on how and where to look here: http://earthsky.org/space/sun-unleashes-x-flare.

The launch has been re-rescheduled. They're going to try tomorrow at 10:07 a.m. US West Coast time. We'll be watching.

HOT AND COLD: The kids had fun in science class today. A super simple experiment clearly and quickly demonstrated how molecules expand and are less dense when they're heated, and how they're more dense when they're cold.

Two color-full cups were submerged in room-temperature water. Can you guess which colored cup had the hot water in it, and which had the ice water?

READING LIST: Last night Annabelle finished "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl. A classic, which I have yet to read. :/ The kids both recently finished a neat, short picture book, "Miracle Mud: Lena Blackburne and the Secret Mud that Changed Baseball."

I'd always known that major league baseballs were rubbed in some special mud before being put into play, but I never stopped to ponder the story behind the mud. This book changed that. We learned the backstory about the mud, as well as the man who brought it to the majors.
                                        
Blackburne was nowhere near a good enough baseball player to make it to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but a bucket of his mud is there!

In small print at the end of the book, there was a note that 'complimentary educational resources' regarding the book were available online at lerneresource.com

I had to create an account on their site (it took about 15 seconds) and then sign in, but then I repeatedly got a message about some Boolean error, and I couldn't get to the PDFs. BUMMER. I was about to give up entirely, but I closed everything, re-opened it and it worked, finally.  The 'eSource' was a two-page article by Miracle Mud author David A. Kelly about how he researched the book. Cool! The kids will read it tomorrow.

The mud marketer's Web site included a link to a CNN story about baseball's 'dirty little secret.'
You can check it out here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/28/baseball.mud/index.html

In my digging around, I also found a PDF published by the state of New Jersey (home of the miracle mud): http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/edweb/mud.pdf

And BTW, David Kelly is author of a series of children's books called "Ballpark Mysteries." Intriguing!

Back at It

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
ON THE MORROW: In the image below, an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen on launch Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The photo was taken on Monday, Jan. 6. The rocket's set to launch tomorrow morning, at 10:32 a.m. Seattle time.

It was supposed to launch today (the 7th), but the frigid weather resulted in it being put off until tomorrow.

 

The Antares will launch a Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Among the cargo aboard Cygnus set to launch to the space station are science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware.

Today we watched a fair amount of NASA TV, including coverage of Cygnus rolling out to the launch pad.

BOW WOW: The kids spent some time with "Time for Kids" this afternoon, reading a couple of short issues, each a 2013-in review theme. One was about the year's 'coolest inventions.' I asked the kids which one interested them most, and they both pointed to a product that lets people chat with their pets from remote locations. It's funny, because our family has talked about that before - how it would be nice to be able to phone home and yell at the dogs to stop barking or remind them not to pee on the floor. Of course, the maker of iCPOOCH ("interactive care for dogs") has a friendlier chat in mind, with owners calling because they miss their dogs so much, and the bonus of being able to 'give' them a biscuit. We found an informational video about it on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/skD7zSAnGBQ

It's a neat idea, but I have to admit, I picture dogs pawing at the device featuring their owner's face and voice, and quickly breaking their human's expensive electronics. ... I was curious how much an iCPOOCH retails for, but in poking around their Web site, it looks like the units aren't on the market yet. It looks like they plan on having a Kickstarter campaign. Heck, maybe the teen inventor will show up on "Shark Tank" soon. :)

POLITICALLY-MINDED:  I wanted to make spaghetti for dinner tonight, but Christian avoids gluten, so that's a no go, unless we could find some gluten free pasta for him at the local grocer. I spied a box of Barilla gluten free spaghetti and grabbed it, but CJ basically shamed me into putting it back, loudly reminding me (and everyone else in the aisle) that the chairman of Barilla is "not LGBT friendly," as evidenced by his widely reported remarks last September.   Fortunately, there was also a box of Ronzoni gluten-free spaghetti on the shelf. It came home with us (and tasted pretty good, might I add).

In other political news, CJ spent about 90 minutes today watching one BrainPOP video after another, all of them having something to do with politics. Of course, that meant I spent 90 plus minutes talking about everything from ancient Rome's governance to the socialist just sworn in on the Seattle City Council. 

FUNNY FACE: Yesterday Annabelle discovered that my phone had both a) a way to take a "selfie" and b) a fun photo editing/graphics software program. This was the result. ...

SEND IN THE CLOWNS: If you read regularly, you have already read plenty about our adventures over at Rick's new house, trying to get it habitable. To that end, yesterday we went to a local salvage store, Second Use, to peruse their appliances. All of their fridges were thrashed, but look at this gem we found hanging from their high ceiling!

A glass, clown-faced, ceiling light cover. How wonderfully awful! It had to be ours. Well, Rick's. ;)  We took it right over to his place and installed it in the dining area, lucky guy! (That's what he gets for giving me his keys.) 

                                   

THOUGHT BUBBLES: If you live in North America, chances are you've been hearing about the cold snap hitting the middle and eastern parts of Canada and the northern U.S. Most of the stories are definitely about the unpleasant aspects of the weather (frigid cold, impossible commutes, loss of utilities and such). However, I read a story today about a mother and her son who decided to go out and play in the cold, with a bottle of bubbles. The photos from their fun are remarkable. Check them out here:
http://distractify.com/culture/arts/frozen-bubbles-in-wintertime/

Busy Weekend

 
CONTEMPLATING RACE: For weeks we have been meaning to get to Pacific Science Center's special exhibit, "Race." But our schedule kept pushing it aside - holidays, projects, and such. However, when CJ noted the exhibit was ending this weekend, we made sure we got there Sunday morning. (I'm not gonna lie - it helped that the Seahawks had a bye.)

SO glad we went. It was through provoking and impactful. For instance, above, CJ contemplates these students at a college who posed wearing t-shirts depicting how they'd be labeled in various years' U.S. censuses.

Many of the stations had videos that took some time to sit down and watch. One was of teens in a lunchroom, discussing race. Bee had a sit at 'their' table and listened in.

 At another station, Annabelle tried to match people's nationalities based on their appearance. It wasn't as easy as stereotypes might lead you to believe.

Near the end, there was a large map on the floor. 

CJ took the opportunity to hold court and explain how humankind spread across the globe from our African ancestors.

The exhibit showcased how people can overcome stereotypes. 

But we also learned about the toll racism takes on human beings, from healthcare to housing and more. 

I'm glad so glad we made it to the exhibit.

It was a gloriously beautiful Sunday in Seattle, and the grounds of Seattle Center never fail to impress.

 Pacific Science Center's arches looked whiter than ever against a brilliant blue sky.

And we had to have the gratuitous Space Needle pose, of course.

The International Fountain was putting on a heckuva show while we were there!

 

 It shot to great heights and came crashing down!

We even spied a rainbow - how 'bout that?!

The kids were wishing it was swimsuit weather, so they could go frolic in it, but that's a loooooooong ways away!

Every time we go to Seattle Center, I notice something new (to us). This visit, it was a sundial at Pacific Science Center. Its time-telling-ability was spot-on.

PLAYFUL: Saturday night, we continued what has become a holiday season tradition for us, attending the Fremont Players' British Panto at Hale's Palladium. Panto is short for pantomime, and it's a form of musical theatre that's traditionally performed in the Christmas holiday season in Great Britain. The stories are typically riffs on familiar fairy tales, interjected with contemporary references, with audience participation encouraged. This year's production was "Dick Whittington (and his Cat)."  Based on a true story,

Following is a collection of seriously craptacular photos taken via my struggling cell phone camera with cast members after the show. The place was dark and my camera phone was crappy, but I feel compelled to post them, because if I don't it didn't happen, LOL (damn you, social media!!!).

Here are the kids with "Sarah" ...

 and the fabulous fairy Bubbly Bowbells!

 During the show, the character of Alderman Fitzwarren was entirely greedy ...

but afterwards he/she gave the kids some fabulous baubles! They were thrilled!

 The villain, Rat King, was wonderfully despicable!!!!

Here are the kids' reviews of the event ... CJ's first.

"The story of Dick Whittington is a fairy tale that was recently performing by the Fremont Players at the British Panto. Dick Whittington is a fictionalization of the real-life Richard Whittington, who was (and still is, especially in the United Kingdom) most famous for rounding the charity of Sir Richard Whittington, which still operates 600 years later. Dick Whittington and his cat is the story of how a man named Dick Whittington seeks to defeat King Rat. If you are new to the story, then I will not spoil the story. One especially fun part was the pop-culture references, which would be shown every once in awhile (HEY! TEACHER! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE, for example.)

Over all, I would give Dick Whittington and his Cat a 10/10.

And Annabelle's take ...

"Dick Whittington was a British Pantomime (a type of play) performed by the Fremont Players at Hale's Palladium. It was a very fun experience, and there were some funny jokes, too. (Another fact about 'panto' is that it adds extra jokes!) Overall, it was great, and I give it a 9/10!

The story goes somewhat like this: A fairy named Fairy Bowbells says there is a rat infestation and they need a hero to stop the rats and save London, and lo and behold; Dick Whittington appears! I'm not going to spoil anymore, so you can go see it!

MEANWHILE, IN FLORIDA: Though we were on the road this afternoon, we made a pitstop around 2 p.m. to make sure we could watch the launch a SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. It was carrying a Thai communications satellite to orbit. It went off like clockwork, a picture perfect launch.
                          
Photo credit: SPACEX