Friday Blue

MARVY MORNING:  The day dawned with blue skies, happy Friday to us! I decided we should take advantage ASAP, as the weather can change rapidly. So, by 9:15 we were parked on the upper west fringe of Queen Anne Hill, ready for a stroll. That locale gave us a nice view of our neighborhood, and the bridge we strolled on Tuesday morning.

Elliott Bay was so blue today!  Here are hundreds of parked pleasure craft ...

and here's a big working boat, anchor dropped, waiting for a dock, apparently.

We walked the west promenade and made our way to the southern sidewalk. Here, West Seattle is barely visible behind CJ and his furry friends.

No great photos of the Space Needle, it was a bit too hazy to the south. But it was still a wonderful walk. We enjoyed checking out edifices' architecture, including the old West Queen Anne Public School. Per its Wiki article, it was "designed in the popular Richardsonian Romanesque style by Warren P. Skillings and James M. Corner." It's high end condos, now, of course. :/

On our way back to the car, the kids stopped in Top Pot for a "hand-forged" doughnut while I dog sat on the sidewalk outside. Just before we reached our ride, we could spy the Olympics through some towering evergreens. So pretty!

Upon returning home, we watched two and a half lectures for our Beatles class. During the third, we were interrupted by a phone call from Rick's needy contractor requesting our presence in West Seattle, so off we went.

We dealt with the contractor's confusion and  made good use of our time there, organizing Rick's expansive DVD catalog. It provided a good opportunity for the kids to practice alphabetizing.

LIGHT SHOW: When the sun erupted with a solar flare a couple of days ago, the first thing I thought was, "Northern Lights!!!!"  Seeing the Northern Lights is definitely on my 'bucket list.'

If I had been on the ISS yesterday, I could have seen a first rate light show, and even though these were technically Southern Lights, that would have sufficed. :)

These Aurora Australis photos were taken on February 27 by NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio.
In a Facebook post, he described the one above as "Aurora like thunderstorms on the horizon with a bit of sunrise and Venus(?) rising up through it."

MUSIC MINDED:  Last night, we watched a new episode of "Live From Daryl's House," featuring Daryl Hall and his guest, fellow Philly dude Amos Lee. It was great, as always. If you haven't seen any of his show's I'd strongly encourage you to check out the catalog of past concerts. We've seen them all and every single one is golden.

After that, we fell into watching "Saved in San Francisco," a documentary about the band Train, who we had the pleasure of catching on concert last summer.

This evening we were discussing Beethoven and I qued up a couple of songs on YouTube. One of the gems we found was an orchestral flash mob in Spain performing "Ode to Joy." Enjoy - we sure did! http://youtu.be/kbJcQYVtZMo

Batter Up

COSMIC: This morning brought an uncharacteristic Thursday trip up to Shoreline for us, to the place the kids usually take classes on Wednesdays.

Annabelle had a special, one-session jewelry making class. As soon as she walked in and sized up her bead choices, Bee decided she was going to make something with a planet and stars theme. She chose a star as her big focal point, and then beads that looked like planets. The black beads closest to the clasp represent a black hole. "I'm really proud of it," she declared afterward. I can see why! :)

While Bee was in class, CJ and I took the pups for a nice long walk in the forest behind the school.

It's a towering stand of evergreens. There's a rustic little bulletin board near the public street entrance. The big sign exhorts people to pick up dog poo.

I like the smaller sign (a Post-it note, really) ...

Nice sentiment, randomly placed (right above an earnest plea for more donations of dog poo bags).

PLAY BALL: Today was a glorious day, as it marked the beginning of the 2014 Major League Baseball pre-season, which means the real thing isn't far away. The game started shortly after 12 p.m. We were driving toward Rick's house at that time. I timed it so that we pulled up to baseball field right before the first pitch. I had the kids get out of the car and run around the bases.

My timing was great. As soon as they touched home plate, I had them run to the car ...

and as they slid into their seats, the first pitch was delivered! Go Mariners!

Once at Rick's, I refinished a table, and worked on making the house more like a home while I waited for a contractor who showed up a half a day plus late. The kids enjoyed a picnic of spaghetti, because everyone knows that's a great picnic food. ;)

MEANWHILE, IN JAPAN: While Bee was beading and CeeJ and I were strolling, a joint mission and between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency thundered into space from the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan.

Image Credit: 

NASA/Bill Ingalls

On board was the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory.

In a press release NASA administrator Charles Bolden said, "With this launch, we have taken another giant leap in providing the world with an unprecedented picture of our planet's rain and snow. GPM will help us better understand our ever-changing climate, improve forecasts of extreme weather events like floods, and assist decision makers around the world to better manage water resources."

More info on the GPM's Web site: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GPM/

Evergreen

FOLLOW THE SUN: It was sunny and nearly 60 degrees - a glorious winter day, in other words.

It's the kids' one official school day of the week, but we spent as much time as possible outside today. The kids played on the playground outside their school and above is a shot of a great stand of trees behind it. 

It was so lovely to stand at the base of these grand evergreens and seen bright blue sky overhead.

After the kids' science and math classes, we ran a couple of errands and then met Christian and enjoyed the sunshine and a couple of board games. First we played Taboo, where CJ has gone from someone almost completely incapable of giving good clues to the guy who whats to be the full time clue giver, so that's an improvement. The game is a great exercise in adjective and adverb usage, really.

Next up was the somewhat silly 'The Worst Case Scenario Survival Game."   Below, CJ's contemplating something like how to drive across quicksand. ...

WE'VE GOT COMPANY:  News from the NASA folks today. The Milky Way just got a bit more crowded.

Actually, it's not really more crowded, it's just that, thanks to NASA planet-hunting telescope Kepler, we now know of 715 (!) newly-discovered planets circling stars other than our sun. Yowza!
                                       
Image: NASA handout

Further, NASA reports that four of the 'new' planets are in habitable zones (where it's not too hot or too cold to host life as we know it). Time to send the welcome wagon?

Just 20 years ago, astronomers had not found any planets outside our solar system. Today, we're at 1,700 plus, and counting. 

Want to know more about the Kepler mission: Check out this neat-o video ... (http://youtu.be/2zO5BdHMnZU)

EVERYWHERE A SIGN: Here's a fun little tool. Thanks to the Hollywood Sign Generator (http://hollywoodsigngenerator.com/), you can take any name or phrase and turn it into the Hollywood sign! 

The utility is run by a group called The Trust for Public Land, which has been campaigning to save Cahuenga Peak. 

MUSICAL: During dinner, we enjoyed music via "Live from the Artists' Den: Mumford and Sons." Really, really wonderful. We were lucky enough to see Mumford and Sons live shortly after their release "Sigh No More" absolutely exploded on the U.S. music scene. Here's a clip from that evening (via YouTube - http://youtu.be/pKVNr1OX3BM


LIGHTS OUT: Check out this image from the Expedition 38 crew on board the International Space Station. To the bottom right of the frame is South Korea. To the upper left is China. That black void in the middle? That's North Korea. 

While you can see some lights from the country's capital, Pyonyang, for the most part the country is kept literally in the dark. Wow. 

Sun, Here it Comes

MORNING STROLL: This morning brought patchy blue skies and dappled sunshine. Lovely! When I hopped online this morning, my Facebook feed, I could tell from others' photos that Mt. Rainier was more visible than usual today. 

I wasted no time in telling the kids (and dogs) to get their acts together, we were going for a walk. And I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Thousands and thousands of times we have driven across the "Magnolia Bridge"  - the bridge leading to our neighborhood's southernmost part. It's a long, high span, sloping upward to the peak of our hilly 'hood. 

We parked at Ursula Judkins Park, which overlooks the city ... We hadn't been out of the car 1 minute when we were buzzed by a bald eagle. I didn't even have my camera out yet! :/

The park has a great view of the city ... 

and the bay.

The bridge we walked offers a view of Mt. Rainier ranging from 'barely there' to 'which is why I wanted to go there. What with the recent cold and rain, I figured the mount would be covered in a think blanket of snow, and that it was.

Gorgeous!

As we walked down the bridge, we had a good view of the former Port of Seattle net yard that going to be turned into a park in the not-too-distant future. 

It's not much to look at now, but it will be a great waterfront spot once it's developed.

Here's a Port of Seattle photo (by Don Wilson) shooting back toward the park - and the bridge we walked today. As you can see, there's a narrow stretch of park by the seawall, but that flat area behind it is screaming for a makeover. :)

When we got the bottom of the bridge, over the cruise ship terminals, we found a dedication sign for the bridge. Officially named the West Garfield Bridge, it was built in the fall of 1929/1930. 

The bridge was damaged in the Nisqually/quake in 2001, and it's scheduled to be replaced - but there's no funding for it. Made us a little nervous ever time a truck or bus would go by and we could feel the bridge shake beneath our feet!

On our way back up, we got to watch two ferries pass as they crossed the Sound to and fro.

And near the bridge's highest point, we stopped to ponder a couple of memorials. I had to explain to the kids that the bridge is a magnet for suicidal people because it's high and over pavement and jumpers can be pretty confident they will accomplish what they set out to do. Our three-doors-down neighbor did that about three years ago (just a few months after her young adult daughter hung herself at their home). Ugh. 

We noticed that the "Kory" reference on the bridge had a date of 9/11, 2014. It will be 10 years since Kory last enjoyed the view we had today. 

And as we drive the bridge nearly daily, I notice how often the decorations beneath Tony's name are changed. His demise had some question marks associated with it. Though his body was found under the bridge and people initially assumed suicide, the coroner found that physical trauma was not his cause of death. I read one interview with a family member a couple of years ago detailing his disappearance and it sounded very much like he might have been a crime victim. 

We were just a couple minutes from the car when I noticed a small plane flying over downtown, with a banner behind it.

Neither the kids nor I could read it with the naked eye, but I zoomed in as close as I could with my big lens, hoping we'd be able to read it in Photoshop. 

If I'm not mistaken, the banner read "STOP PUTIN SAVE UKRAINE"

So it wasn't all sunshine and fun today on our walk.

SUN DANCE: Ol Sol was acting up in a big way yesterday. A sunspot (AR1990, specifically) shot out a big ol' blog o' plasma. Check it out in this video.
Credit: NASA/SDO/Mash Mix: Space.com

http://www.space.com/24802-the-most-intense-solar-flare-of-the-year.html

HARD DAY'S NIGHT: We finished up the Week 2 lectures and took our test today in our Beatles' music class. A lot of the material was on the album "A Hard Day's Night." W elearned John wrote 8 of the album's 11 tracks, with Paul writing 3, and the two of them co-writing one.  

Our professor mentioned that George played a brand new 12-string Rickebacker on the album, and you can really hear it in the very first chord (a flat seventh chord, in case you're wondering!) of the title track. Love this music video (from the movie of the same name) of that song. http://youtu.be/venzPNvge18

John was making an attempt to write more serious lyrics for Hard Day's Night, and some of his songs were "Loser," "No Reply" and "Don't Want to Spoil the Party." 

CJ said he'd "worry about the mental health of" a bandmate writing a bunch of dark songs. I told him John's songs were sunshine, lollipops and rainbows compared to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, who penned tunes like 
"I Hate Myself and I Want to Die." I also reminded CJ that John Lennon didn't commit suicide (Cobain's fate), he was murdered, outside his home at the Dakota Building, which we saw on our trip to NYC last fall.

ROCK REPORT: Exciting news today out of England. In a Scientific American article, we learned scientists claim to have found the exact source of Stonehenge's smaller bluestones. (The SA article was based on findings published in the February issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.)

A team of scientists looked at minerals which are part of the crystallizing structures forming in the original magna, such as chromium, nickel, magnesium oxide and iron oxide. Based on what they found, they determined at least 55 percent of the dolerite bluestones came Carn Goedog, about 140 miles (225 km) away from Stonehenge.

If the stone I.D. is correct, the question remains, how were the stones transported to their current location? Researchers are looking for evidence of humans working in the Carn Goedog area 5,000 years ago. Theories about transportation include dragging the stones downhill and floating them to the site by sea, and them having been carried close to Stonehenge by an Ice Age glacier. 

Naturally, the story made us think back to our visit to Stonehenge last September. 

All of our photos, and CJ and Annabelle's fanciful fiction about how Stonehenge was created are available in an earlier blog post: http://magnoliaprep.blogspot.com/2013_09_29_archive.html

Building

                                        
FUN & GAMES & WORK:  Our weekend was a mixed bag. Saturday found us back in West Seattle, going on round 38 or so with Rick's 80 year old, abused wood floors. We made our final patches, one painstaking square inch at a time.

The stain was a lovely, dark color called "Kona" per the Varathane label. Once the staining was done, it was time for the (stinky) polyurethane. Rick was pretty much on his own for that. That meant we had Sunday off!

We decided to play a few board games to relax and unwind. We headed to Chuck's Central District to do just that.  First we played Dixit Jinx, which is fun, fast paced and requires sharp communication skills.  I won that game. :)

Next up it was Pass the Pigs: Pig Party. On each turn you roll 'dice' that are actually little plastic piggies, and you get X number of points depending on how they land. You can keep rolling as long as you like (at the peril of losing all points accumulated during your turn), or stop when you want.

We were playing to 100, and my strategy was trying to get 20 points a roll. I was plugging along, and Annabelle had a similar strategy. CJ was having not such great pig rolling luck, and then there was Christian, would would run up serious points on each turn, only to have them wiped out when he rolled a 'pig out' (pigs land on opposite sides). However, Christian's Big Gamble paid off, and he ended up being the big boss hog!

The last game was Jenga (photo at the top of the blog). We built our tower pretty darn high, but eventually Christian made it fall down go BOOM!

Today, the floors shiny and new looking, we were back at Rick's. We installed base moulding in the living room and kitchen, hung some artwork, hung drapes, and brought furniture (thanks G&G) into the front room for the first time. 

It's starting to look downright homey! 

BY GEORGE: We continue to enjoy our Beatles' music class. One of the things the professor covers is who wrote and who sang what. Sometimes we get surprised. We often hop to YouTube after lectures to listen the songs just covered. Yesterday, that sent us on a George Harrison kick. We would up listening to Beatles' tunes, as well as some of Harrison's post-Beatles' music. 

I was shocked when I stumbled upon "Crackerbox Palace." I loved that song as a kid, and would have sworn it was a Pal McCartney and Wings song. What's funny, is when I sent my sister a link to it last night saying,  "Wow, it's not Paul, it's George!" she immediately replied with an "I thought it was Ringo!" I played it for CJ and asked him who he thought was singing. "John Lennon," he said, without hesitation. Poor George, we thought it was everyone BUT him. http://youtu.be/IOvnG-WTDXw

We also spent some time watching George Harrison's final known (kinda) public performance, in the VH-1 studio, back when they actually played lots of music. Harrison was there with Ravi Shankar, promoting the sitar player's new album. However, as the interview wore on, someone slipped a guitar into George's hands and he played a few tunes. 

http://youtu.be/fdSb4zddOzo