Friday Fun

SKELETAL CREW: The kids started the day with a little construction project. Yesterday we scored some 3-D puzzles at Harbor Freight (of all places) for $1.29. Today, they pieced them together, no easy task really, considering the only directions were poorly printed, tiny numbers on a piece of paper. You had to then find the piece with say one number 1, and then search the paper to find find another piece that had a number 1, and then find those pieces on the die-cut balsa (or some woodish material). 

Some of the pieces snapped, even though the kids were careful when removing them from the wood sheet. Fortunately, a hot glue gun was able to remedy the breaks (unfortunately, a hot glue gun always = burns!). 

However, in the end it was all worth it. The kids were quite pleased with their creations. We took them outside, to their "natural habitat" for a photo opp (although a pond would have been more 'natural' for Annabelle's plesiosaur).

LIKE A ROLLING STONE: Today's rock history class for us was a couple of lectures about Bob Dylan. We learned a lot. For starters, CJ and Annabelle learned their brother Kennedy's middle name is Dylan, after Bob Dylan. 

Not surprisingly, the lecture touched upon Dylan's no-turning-back performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, where, during a performance on the main stage, he had the audacity to go electric and play with a band. Branded a 'sell out' by some, he was loudly booed. We found a promo for "The Other Side of the Mirror Bob Dylan : Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965" where the crowd could be heard turning on him. Here's a link to that short trailer: http://youtu.be/S1TKUk9nXjk.  (Immediately after watching the trailer, I hopped to our library's Web site and put the DVD on hold for us - can't wait to see it!)

We also watched a wonderful video of Dylan performing "Mr. Tambourine Man" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. He was introduced by none other than Pete Seeger.

http://youtu.be/OeP4FFr88SQ

And then we had to watch an all folk-star cast of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan sing "Blowin' in the Wind" at Newport in 1963.


PLAYING POMPEII: I feel like most of today's post is about how much I love the Internet, but really, we use it so extensively for so many things, including how to figure out how to play some of the songs the kids want to learn on guitar. Today's project was "Pompeii," by a group called Bastille. We looked at several sites where people post the chords they've supposedly figured out on their own, and found many conflicting versions. Not sure which was best, or easiest, I decided to hop over to YouTube to see if someone had posted a tutorial. Lucky for us, I quickly found a video by a user who calls himself onlineguitarschool.

Not only did he teach the kids which four chords to use in the song, I loved the time he took to talk about technique - how to play it well.  Bravo! If you're interested ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yBnA1MO7nw


SPACE TOURIST TIPS: We returned a stack of books to the library today, including the hilarious 'how to' book, "How Do You Burp in Space?" by Susan E. Goodman.  If you're planning on becoming a space tourist in the future, you'd do well to hit this book up first.

It proved to be a source of much giggling and many an "ah ha!" as it has traveled around in the backseat with us for the past couple of weeks.

WORD OF THE DAY: Annabelle was practicing playing The Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" on guitar this a.m. and after singing the first line she stopped and asked, "What's pataphysical?"

Heck if I knew. Thank heaven for Wikipedia. From it, we learned:

'Pataphysics (French: 'pataphysique) is a philosophy or media theory dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. The concept was coined by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907), who defined 'pataphysics as "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments".[1]A practitioner of 'pataphysics is a pataphysician or a pataphysicist.

Speaking of words, earlier this week I wondered aloud why a leg cramp is called a Charlie (Charley?) horse. Turns out no one is 100 percent certain as to its origin, but there are commonalities in citing its origin, specifically baseball players and a gimpy white horse named Charley. Wordorigins.org has about the best account I could find on the topic: http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/charley_horse/

Play Time

THE NAKED TRUTH:  This evening we had the pleasure of attending a student musical at Kent Elementary, where Rick teaches school. He was an assistant director of the production and played the court herald (crier). He was considerably taller than most of his cast mates. ;)

Yesterday it occurred to me that I'd never shared "The Emperor's New Clothes" tale with CJ and Annabelle. I asked them today if they were familiar with it, thinking perhaps they might have read it on their own at some point, but as it turned out, they knew nothing of it. So, we rectified that by watching one of the many versions on YouTube. The one our browser landed on was narrated by Harry Shearer for a series of stories by an outfit called Speakaboos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvRpN5Y23UE

The kids found the storyboard images a bit creepy, but they enjoyed the story, and definitely got the moral of it. In fact, we talked about how it was kind of in the same vein as something Neil deGrasse Tyson was touching upon in last week's "Cosmos," when he talked about how wrong it is when people (especially scientists) pretend they have answers or know the truth.

We all LOVED the production tonight. Everyone played their part well - you could tell that hours and hours and hours of preparation had gone into it. The costumes and props were cute, and the stage lighting was good and the mics mostly worked well. :) It was great fun!

HOP ON BOARD: Anyone want to go to an asteroid? It's free and easy. Just follow this link to have your name take a round-trip ride to Bennu, aboard NASA's NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. Just go here: http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/messages/bennu/

Opt in and your name will launch in 2016, travel to Bennu, where you'll spend 500 lovely days before returning to Earth in the Sample Return Capsule in 2023.

And when you sign up, you get a really nifty certificate, like this!

You can follow the mission on Facebook or Twitter, too, or you can go to NASA's mission page for it: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/osiris-rex/#.U5qF__ldV_8 

MORE MUSIC: We listened to a couple of "History of Rock" lectures today, all about British bands. Of course The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks were covered, but there was also talk of many more, including Herman and the Hermits, the Yard Birds, Dave Clark Five and even Freddie and the Dreamers. Based on our professor's description of their song "Do the Freddie," we just had to hunt down some video. Fortunately, YouTube didn't disappoint. Yowza, that Freddie was one wild dude!

http://youtu.be/GbuRNbujkjA

Score!

THRIFT SHOPPIN': So, I've been known to troll shopgoodwill.com in the late hours of the evening, especially focusing on the Seattle Goodwill store, and I'll often put in a lowball bid on something with no action. It's for charity and all!

So, a couple weeks back, I bid on a big ol' Casio keyboard. The minimum bid was $9.99 and I was in, despite it was untested (by them) and unseen (by me). I did zero research on its make/value/quality. Surely it would sell for more, so no big deal anyway.

Well, a few nights ago I got an auto email telling me "Congratulations! You were awarded the winning bid!"

Frankly, I'd forgotten I bid on it at all. Hmm. OK. Well, it was only $9.99 and I've guess we've got a keyboard, I thought.

Christian went and picked it up today. It didn't come with a power supply, but it did come in a sweet, expensive-ish gig bag, and it didn't smell like smoke - two HUGE pluses!  It dual powers by battery, so as soon as we rounded up 6 D-cells we fired it up and ...

AWESOME!!! Seriously, it rocks the house!

Rick and Ken had an electronic keyboard growing up (thanks G&G) and it really helped them with their guitar immensely. (It was good for laying down backbeats and picking out chords, especially.) CJ and Annabelle have been tickling the (imitation) ivory all night and digging it. What a SCORE! Yay for us and Goodwill!

LAST DAY: Today marked the kids' last day of weekly classes in Shoreline until September. Annabelle brought home several art projects (pictured below are a few).

The kids enjoyed their last day of being "Math Detectives" and had fun in science, as always.

I told CJ that next year he starts middle school and that middle school is kind of like the WORST THING EVER because of all the whacked out hormonal peers at that age. He looked panicked for about 10 seconds and asked if he was being sent to traditional school in September. I told him 'no' and he happily resumed eating his Bad Albert's bacon cheeseburger. All was right in the world.

SURF'S UP: Late this afternoon we got back to the "History of Rock" class. Today's 'special' was surf music.

After listening and learning about the groups via Coursera lectures, I played some of the songs for the kids via YouTube. Imagine their surprise when they heard Dick Dale's "Miserlou." Before today, they knew that song only as a Black Eyed Peas' hit, "Pump It." Next up was The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run." Our professor reminded us the group was from Seattle. And one more instrumental that was a must was The Surfaris' "Wipe Out." (That last one makes me want to buy a drum kit!)

Naturally, we had to listen to some surf music with vocals, which meant Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Surfer Girl" were obvious choices. (The video for "Surfer Girl" live on the Steve Allen show is a gem, BTW. They look so uncomfortable, screw up the lyrics, and wait for the crowd shot at the end. Priceless!)

COLORFUL: Saw a post by Scientific American today telling us of the winner for the 2014 Flame Challenge put on by The Alan Alda and the Center for Communicating Science. The challenge was for someone to explain "What is color?" to people so that a 5th grader could understand it. This year's winner is Dianna Cowern, who studied physics at MIT. She has a channel on YouTube called Physics Girl.

MAMA KNOWS BEST: Stumbled across this story today about a mother (named Kristine!) who (thank god) didn't listen to 'experts' in the special ed department when they predicted her her young, autistic son would never be able to so much as tie his shoes. Her solution? Ignore the experts, let her son study things he was passionate about, and watch him blossom. Bravo to her!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/autistic-boy-genius-iq-higher-einstein-article-1.1340923

Sit and Spin

Photo: http://morguefile.com/creative/photomaryke
ANOTHER ONE GONE:  Another day, another school shooting in the Pacific Northwest. Today's carnage was in Troutdale, Ore., just east of Portland. A soccer-loving 14-year-old freshman got up this morning, went to his high school, Reynolds, and within minutes was gunned down on campus.  Just another school day in the U.S., it seems. ...

Tomorrow will be one week to the day that the shootings at Seattle Pacific University took place, so close to our home.

Tragic, terrible, and all too common. 

SPINNING WHEELS: I can't remember the last time I felt like I had less to show for a day. 

This morning, shortly after rush hour, we headed a fur-piece up I-5 to Everett for an oil change. Long way to go to get an oil change, isn't it? But it's 'free' at the dealer where we bought our car, so there we went. 

Unfortunately the academic materials I thought we had in the car with us were not, so the kids were stuck playing a knock off of the game Connect Four on a cheap handheld unit in the lobby. CJ was protesting how impossible it was to beat the computer, so I asked him to let me have a go. I handed him the game back within 60-seconds, computer defeated. I suggested he try a bit harder and longer.

It took 50 minutes to get to the oil change, 55 minutes to get home and 55 minutes there. All in all, darn near three hours for an oil change. Ugh.

We were home long enough to get dinner started in the crockpot, do some chores (cleaning, watering), walk the dogs and then it was time to head south, to West Seattle for the kids' yoga class. The class isn't until 4:30, but we leave two hours early because if you wait longer, traffic is awful. So, our strategy is get south, get some stuff done there, and then go to class.

Well, the drive southbound was awful. I could tell that trouble was brewing on the Viaduct before we got on because of the backup, so we took Alaskan Way, along the waterfront. That was mostly OK (except for some CRAZY taxi drivers), but when we got to the stadiums and were trying to head down First, gridlock again. That let me know that something really bad was going on on either the Viaduct or I-5, pushing traffic to the surface streets. Turns out it was a gnarly wreck on 99 just south of the West Seattle Bridge, closing 99 to southbound traffic for hours and hours, and dumping thousands of cars onto surface streets.

We killed what little time we had to waste at Rick's house, checking on a few things and making a few quick fixes, and then it was off to yoga. We got there about 5 minutes before class was to start and found the door locked and the space dark. Uh oh. 

I started doing some mental math, wondering if I'd somehow messed up and last week was the last of our 6-week session, but I didn't think so. I told the kids we'd wait until at least 4:35 and if no one showed, we'd take off. We were just about to leave when one of the teachers came hustling down the hallway to tell us the other teacher (whose space we meet at) was stuck on 99 and that there'd be no class today. Argh!

And so, by 4:45, we were headed back north toward home, with 2-plus hours of having accomplished almost nothing again (although this time I did remember to bring the Time for Kids magazines and worksheets with us, so at least the kids did those).

Certainly, tomorrow will be more productive. It almost *has* to be.

SPIN OFFS:  NASA released a new public outreach video today showing some of the many ways the space agency's work affects people in their everyday lives. Check it out on YouTube (http://youtu.be/U1Hrq3L0DxY), or right here!

 You can find hundreds of examples of NASA 'spinoff' technologies on a really great Web site dedicated to the topic: http://spinoff.nasa.gov

Game On!

SURE PLAYS A MEAN PINBALL:  This weekend brought many, many chores, but it also brought some big fun, most notably in a field trip to the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show.  

The show used to be held at Seattle Center, a stone's throw from our house, but for the past couple of years it has been in Tacoma. After a couple of years' hiatus, we decided to give it a go this year, and the drive was well worth it. Such fun!

Immediately upon entering, we were in the Kids Only zone. 

There was a fun Shrek machine, which the kids both loved.

CJ enjoyed this table top console.

Little did CJ know he was missing a rather wonderful view ...

That aside, we made our way into the main hall and enjoyed around three hours of nothing but game lights and sounds. 

So. Many. Games. ...

There was a Star Wars section close to the entrance. That was big fun, of course.  Annabelle and Christian did some pod racing.

Star Trek was also well represented. In fact, about the newest pin on the floor was this machine. ...

We played some familiar classics. ...

and discovered some new old favorites, including 'Tapper.'  

The game seems so simple - you pull the tap to fill a beer for patrons at the bar, and serve them, but you also have to pick up empties and tips. Fun and challenging!

They played all the classics like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Q-Bert

So many of the vintage pins are space-themed. We've seen lots of them before, but the Skylab machine was new to me!

 

I also love the 70s-era pinball machines like Evel Knevil, and one we saw for the first time, Muhammad Ali!

The kids battled aliens ...

The aliens always won, LOL.

We even saw R2-D2 there! :)