HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?: Our morning out and about included a walk to what we call 'Eagle Beach' since the first time we visited there, we shared the place for about a half hour with enormous bald eagle. The spot is formally called West McGraw Street End Project. I think Eagle Beach sounds better.
It takes work getting there (at least the way we go), as it involved hundreds of precarious stairs, many in a state of terrible disrepair. You really have to watch your step, no pun intended.
We made it down unscathed, and walked along Perkins Lane to the little access point.
I immediately pointed out how low the tide was.
Later today this weekend is optimal for low tide explorations, in conjunction with the upcoming 'super moon' on Saturday. It's the third super moon so far this year!
There was no eagle at the beach today, just a whole bunch of Canada geese. It made me wonder if the low tide attracted them, and we began to wonder what those geese like to eat.
We did some research upon returning home. Turns out the geese are primarily herbivores, green vegetation and grains making up the bulk of their diet. However, they do sometimes eat small insects and fish. So I wonder if they were eating seaweed and maybe a little sea life when we happened upon them.
While on our walk, the kids gleaned their first blackberries of the year. They were tart, but there's something sweet about the first ones. :)
TWO OF A KIND: This afternoon, the four of us were playing Dixit Jr., a fun card game where a player gives a clue about one of the nine graphic cards out on the table, and other players try to be the first to guess which graphic they're talking about.
On one play it was CJ's turn and he gave a clue: "Like a kudzu."
WTH? Annabelle and I are rolling our eyes and sighing, while Christian immediately points to the 'right' card (in this photo, the bottom one, with what looked like arteries and veins to me and Bee).
When we inquired a) WHY CJ gave that description and b) WHY Christian guessed that card, CJ explained: "Kudzus are very invasive, and often crosses over one another. And if it finds someplace it can live, it can and definitely will spread. They're most commonly found in the southeastern United States."
Oh. Well. WHATEVER. Not that I'm a sore loser or anything.
O, THANK HEAVEN: This evening 'round 6, we while we were out playing board games and plotting our weekend at one of our favorite places to strategerize , I heard a fellow patron mention something about 'free Slurpees.'
Oh. My GOD. I had totally forgotten that it was 7/11 - free Slurpee day at the store of the same name. Christian and I fired up the smart phones and started searching for the nearest 7-Eleven. We found one just a mile or so away. The deal ended at 7, so we had not too much time to spare. As we walked in the store's door, we were part of a steady stream. The smart woman working the register recognized our crazy-Slurpee-eyes, and immediately said 'the cups are here,' right up front, by the door. Cool!
We four each filled one up - two Coca Cola ones, two sugar free watermelon. The kids each had one for dessert, and we stashed the other two in the freezer for tomorrow.
Thanks, 7-Eleven!
OUT OF GAS: We've been following the efforts of the Project Reboot team as they have been trying to get command over the 36-year-old ISEE-3 spacecraft, borne in the disco era! For years, it has been spinning around out there as space junk, it mission long over. However, a team of people have been working to bring it back to life and use it as an instrument of science again.
They successfully established communications with ISEE-3 weeks ago, have received data about solar activity from one of its onboard instruments, and a few days ago, even managed to fire its thrusters to try to change its orbit. However, more recent attempts to fire the thrusters again have resulted in no change in its position, and the team is pretty certain the craft is out of gas, so to speak. More accurately, they believe the nitrogen used to pressurize the fuel system is spent. Bummer, dudes. However, they are soldiering forward, with ambitious plans to use ISEE-3 for future science projects.
Here's a link to an NBC news video about the project http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/rebooted-nasa-spacecrafts-tank-runs-dry-mission-continues-n152991
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Stumbled across a very video of two of my favorite things in once place today. It's Brian May of Queen on board NASA's new Orion capsule. Cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCpJuOyjtC4
POSTPONED: The Antares' ISS resupply mission scheduled for Saturday has been postponed to Sunday due to weather concerns. New targeted launch time: . July 13 at 12:52 p.m. EDT. Coverage will be provided on NASA TV, both on cable providers and online.
Credit: NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
ROCKET ROLLOUT: There's a launch this weekend - hopefully!
Upright on a pad at the Wallops flight facility in Virginia, Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares is scheduled to launch this Saturday at 10:14 a.m. Seattle time. :) The Antares rocket will lift an unmanned Cygnus spacecraft loaded with 3,293 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station.
The Antares program completed its first Commercial Resupply Services program launch to the ISS in January of this year. Coverage of Saturday's launch will begin at 9:30 a.m. on NASA TV
In the meantime, here's a neat-o time lapse of Antares being raised at the launch pad: http://youtu.be/lOJXiXGt7ls
THE SOUND OF SPACE: We're taught from a young age (by well meaning but misinformed people) that outerspace is silent. That's wrong. And here's proof ...
Perhaps you read some months ago that experts believed the Voyager 1 space probe, launched by NASA 35 years ago, had entered interstellar space. It is believed to be the first manmade object to leave the heliosphere, the huge bubble of charged particles and magnetic fields surrounding the sun.
Since the news was first reported, there has been mounting evidence to support that supposition. And now, we actually get to listen in on what Voyager is 'hearing' out there in the great unknown.
http://youtu.be/LIAZWb9_si4
Cool!
BLOWIN' IN THE WIND: The soundtrack for breakfast (and beyond) was "The Other Side of the Mirror - Live
at the Newport Folk Festival." Nothing like two hours worth of
anti-war/protest songs to start the day. :) (One of my favorite
lines was "if God is our ally, he'll stop the next war.")
Directed by Murray Lerner, the 2007 documentary is about Dylan's appearances at the storied Newport Folk Festival over the course of three years (1963-1965).
The film shows how Dylan was a rock star among folk stars - charismatic, a poet, a prophet ... the Golden Boy. However, in 1965, when he dared to plug in an played amplified, part of the crowd turned on him - loudly, with a chorus of boos.
There's no narration, or explanation during the film. It doesn't need it. The performances are powerful, and speak form themselves. They also present an intriguing window into America of the mid-1960s.
LET JIMI TAKE OVER: This evening we had to track down a grease pen or China marker. Sounds simple enough in a big city like this, right?
Wrong.
And so, we ended up at the city's biggest artists' supply store, Blick, on Capitol Hill, right on Broadway (of Sir Mix-A-Lot and Macklemore fame).
Fortunately, they had the pen. Plus, the kids got to visit the iconic Jimi Hendrix statue!
ENGINEERING: This afternoon, we headed down to West Seattle so that the kids could take part in a Seattle Public Libraries summer reading program event. The challenge - design and build a crate that could keep an egg safe from a 4-foot (or more!) fall.
The kids (about 30 in the room, I'd guess) worked in small teams. Pity the poor girl who got stuck with the rather opinionated and older siblings. ;)
The kids had a total time of about 30 minutes to discuss their design and build it. The class leader informed them that real engineers have a budget they have to work with, and that the egg contraptions were no exception. They were allowed 10 items for construction. The raw materials included balloons, cotton balls, a foot of string, a foot of masking tape, small paper plates, plastic cutlery, plastic cups, Styrofoam balls, cardboard egg holders (cut from the containers you buy eggs in in the store), pipe cleaners, plastic bags, etc.
CJ, Annabelle and friend discussed what to build and buy. And they discussed it some more. And some more. And then more. (Not all the other children gathering their materials in the photo above.) So when push came to shove, they had about 5 minutes to actually build their egg capsule. Uh oh. :/
They put the egg inside cardboard, put some masking tape around it, put a balloon inside a plastic shopping bag, and then taped the bag to the egg carrier. I think the hope/prayer was that the plastic 'parachute' would create enough drag to slow the egg down some.
All the kids lined up and marched outside the library to put their engineering to the test.
I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was going to be Humpty Dumpty on the first drop for the MPA kids and friend. But lo and behold, after an inspection, their egg remained intact. Hooray!
Alas, their egg did not survive the drop from about 9 feet.
All in all, lessons were learned. Perhaps the paramount one being you also have a TIME budget. Often you need less talk, more monkey, as we like to say around here.
BTW, today marked our first-ever visit to the West Seattle Library. It's up on the north end of the peninsula, not too far from Admiral. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
photo: City of Seattle
Turns out it's a Carnegie library. In 1908, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie donated $35,000 toward its construction. Local families donated the land, at 42nd Avenue SW and SW College Street. The library opened on July 23, 1910, and it was the first permanent library branch building to open in Seattle.
CURSED: This morning, our math education consisted of watching a wonderful Reading Rainbow episode from 1998. The program featured an animated version of "Math Curse" by author Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith.
Host LeVar Burton helped explain how math is important in organizing, art, and many other aspects of everyday life. There was also a segment about how FedEx relies on math to track every single package from collection to delivery.
You can watch the whole episode online, thanks to Virginia's Public Television, which has posted it to Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/6367933.
BIG BUMMER: We started today with a walk, just up to the closest neighborhood park, about a block away. While the kids played on the playground, the dogs and I walked in circles.
Whilst playing, a couple of times Annabelle climbed to the top of the tallest 'rock' on the playground and contemplated jumping off. She debated the pros and cons for about a half hour. At one point she called out to me, "I am using myself as a unit of measurement to show myself that this rock isn't as tall as it looks from up there."
Excellent strategy, Annabelle. In fact, that gave her the steely reserve to go ahead and slide/jump off it. I stood by, and told her to grab my hand, at least for the first jump, so she could gauge it all.
Well, she jumped alright. And she didn't grab my hand. And while for a microsecond she was on her feet, her weight was too far back, they immediately shot out from underneath her and WHAMMO, the dreaded bruised tailbone. Poor Bee rolled around groaning and moaning for quite some time. Laika was alarmed, and was trying to think of something to do to help, but it turns out licking Annabelle in the face didn't make it better.
Annabelle eventually composed herself enough to limp home. Naturally, she stepped off the sidewalk on the way downhill, and turned her ankle over. When it rains, it pours.
A couple of hours later she was extolling the virtues of ibuprofen.
HOME FIELD: Last night, on a bit of a whim, we made a rather last minute decision to go to the Mariners game. We hadn't been since Father's Day, and the all star break is coming up, so it seemed a good time to squeeze in a Safeco trip.
We got there early (despite rather horrid rush hour traffic between 5-5:45 or so), so we hung out on the rail along the visiting Twins' bullpen.
There, we watched their starting pitcher Kevin Correia warm up with starting catcher Eric Fryer.
We also listened as Twins' bullpen coach Bobby Cuellar visited with players, other coaches and fans. Cuellar used to be with the Mariners' organization.
Oh, and while we were standing there, a really nice King County Sheriff's officer tossed each Annabelle and CJ a batting practice ball that had landed in the 'pen. (Annabelle very kindly passed hers along to a boy about her age who didn't get one. It didn't seem right for our family to take home two while that boy was empty handed. Man, oh man, you should have seen that kid's smile! It lit up the stadium. And I think his dad was even more excited. ;)
As usual, we sat in the top row of the stadium, which affords us a good enough view of the field, and a great view of beautiful Puget Sound and a pretty sunset.
BEATLEMANIA: This afternoon, we took a field trip to the Seattle International Film Festival's Uptown Cinema on Queen Anne Avenue to see a "A Hard Day's Night." What a treat it was to get to see that on the big screen!
The movie is having a short theatrical re-release to celebrate its 50th anniversary.It first premiered on July 6, 1964, at the London Pavilion theater, with royalty in attendance. Four days later, it premiered in Liverpool, where over 200,000 fans turned out.
The film has been digitally restored by the Criterion Collection. They used the movie's original 35mm camera negatives, which were in good shape, given their age. It looked and sounded fantastic. The theater was pretty darn full for a Thursday afternoon. It was great to see people of all ages (7 to 70 plus in our showing) enjoying the music of The Beatles.
Two things struck me while watching the film. One was, that these guys were still clearly very good friends, enjoying each other's company when the movie was made in 1964. It was clear a lot of the movie was improvisational - the Fab Four clowning around. The other aspect that resonated with me is how I still get so sad and mad when I think about John Lennon getting murdered. Sigh.
Upon returning home, imagine our delight when we discovered a parcel from Professor John Covach in our mailbox. He was our instructor "The Music of the Beatles," the wonderful Coursera class the kids and I took this spring. After its conclusion, the kids made him some thank you cards, and I sent him some of their notes (I thought he'd get a kick out of Annabelle's cartoon/comic book style of note taking. (We also sent him a little taste of Seattle in the form of coffee and chocolate.)
The good professor sent us a thank you letter and a CD of his music. Cool!
The Beatles' music class has *just* reopened to new students on Coursera. Check it out here: https://www.coursera.org/course/beatles
LOCKS WALK: This morning, we went for a walk early, down to the Hiram Chittenden (Ballard) Locks. This time of year it's usually crawling with tourists, and today was no exception.
I let CJ and Annabelle handle the photography down there today. One of the first things we noticed was how low the tide was.
We soon spied a hungry (but camera shy) seal hanging out. No wonder - look at how many fish were in the fish ladder when we visited!
The seagulls were also in a feeding frenzy down there today.
One of the (many) boats in the locks today was a houseboat, expertly piloted by a woman.
CERTIFIED: This afternoon, CJ and Annabelle finished their "How to Learn Math" class taught by Dr. Jo Boaler through Standford. "I actually like this course. It's such a shame that it has to end so soon," lamented CJ.
The class taught them to view and think about math in a different, and very positive, way.
We'll be using Dr. Boaler's YouCubed.Org Web site to continue our math education. There are many great resources for us to draw upon in the future.
LIGHT UP THE NIGHT: We spent the evening of the Fourth of July on Lake Union, home to Seattle's official fireworks display.
We happened to have a family member who was captaining a yacht parked on the lake, and he invited us down for the show. We happily accepted the generous offer.
The show didn't start until about 10:15, but to beat traffic, we headed down to the lake at about 7 p.m. Already, Gas Works Park (in the distance) was filled with Fourth of July revelers.
Pre fireworks, the kids and Christian took a little spin around the lake on the 'skiff.' Little did they know, the lake shuts down to any traffic at 9 p.m. They were stopped by three patrol boats on their way back to the 'mothership.' :0
The fireworks were dazzling, as always.
As the grand finale was fading to smoke, we were hot-footing it for the parking lot to try to beat the crowd out. Happily, our plan worked. We were home in no time (and then got to listen to stupid neighbors shoot off illegal fireworks until about 2:30 a.m.).
PONYCON: Nothing like being awake all night and then starting the Fifth of July by standing in line in a hotel lobby in Seatac starting at 8 a.m. and then being barked at by a 'pony' named Star Song, telling you to stand in said line for an HOUR, waiting to gain access to "Everfree Northwest," a convention for fans of My Little Pony. Good times. ...
It was our first 'con,' and it was, um, let's see how to describe it in a "Friendship is Magic" kind of way ... it was an experience. I think that part of the problem with anything like this is it's largely (perhaps wholly) run by volunteers who don't have a lot (or perhaps ANY) event planning experience.
It was supposed to open at 8, with a full day of all sorts of scheduled activities in various rooms throughout the Seatac Hilton convention center. Well, we spent an HOUR on line and then in the registration antechamber, just trying to gain access. Once we did, our first stop was a big room where Saturday morning (pony, of course) cartoons were being shown and there was supposed to be a free breakfast. OMG, I wish I'd taken a picture of the scene. First, we had to wait in another line to gain access to the room, and then once we got in, there were no seats and what apparently used to be the breakfast table looked like it had been ravaged by starving people post some kind of natural disaster. A few random Froot Loops on the table, but that was it. Have I mentioned it cost us $75 to go to this event?
We spent about 10 minutes in that room, and did see a couple of cute videos we could have stayed home and watched for free on YouTube, including one about Pinkie Pie, to the tune "Giggles & Gumdrops" http://youtu.be/LfJIggIySiM
After the videos, we wandered to a couple of other rooms. One was the craft room, where a 'foal' (for kids) face painter was supposed to be on duty starting at 8:30. Well, it was 9:45, and no sign of the face painter. Annabelle did draw a pony (something she does at home for free, daily). People were invited to hang their completed artwork on this fancy display ....
Meanwhile, CJ was in the gaming room, where the played Super Smash Brothers Brawl with some fellow bronies.
About quarter after 10, we explored some more and saw hordes of people milling about, looking and lined up for the autograph room, which was supposed to open at 9. We heard one of the PIC (ponies in charge) informing people the 'talent' wasn't actually expected to be there until 11:30 or so - a mere 2.5 hours late. We didn't stick around. Meanwhile, by 10, ponies were already lining up for the 11:30 Meet the Voice Actors panel. Not feeling like being in yet another line for 90 minutes, we wandered around and eventually wound up in the tabletop gaming room. There, ponies were running stations teaching others how to play the new-ish My Little Pony card game.
CJ, Christian and Annabelle all sat in on a tutorial and I listened in. Let me tell you, this is no game for little kids. It's complicated - like Magic or Dungeons and Dragons complicated.
Annabelle picked it up lickety split. I could tell the tutor was impressed - especially she she started suggesting plays that were better than the scripted/suggested ones for the tutorial.
We learned there would be a 'foals' card tournament at 11:30 and the kids decided to sign up. We had about 45 minutes to kill, so we decided to go look at the vendors' hall. Approaching it, we saw there was a line out the hotel's door full of ponies waiting to get in. We walked outside to see where the line ended and ... we couldn't see the end. It stretched all along the front of the Hilton and wrapped around the building. We decided we were not waiting an hour plus in line (again) to see MLP merchandise, so we walked back in the lobby. Soon, someone informed us that 'foals' (children) had a special line. That one was only 6 people deep. So we got in it and got into the room almost immediately. I was happy for us, of course, but felt super guilty cutting in front of all of those dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of people waiting.
We looked at an impressive array of MLP merch, but bought nothing. Out in the lobby, we stood in line for about 20 minutes to give the kids a chance to check out some amazing virtual reality gaming gear - Oculus Rift.
Players donned huge goggles that let them explore a 3-D My Little Pony world.
The kids thought it was REALLY cool!
Soon, we ventured back to the card room, and we spent the next 1.75 hours there, because the tournament was three rounds, each of 30 or so minutes.
Annabelle won her first game and found herself at the head board against a seasoned player who had her own, specially assembled deck of cards (as opposed to Annabelle, who was using a starter deck, and had learned to play an hour before). Annabelle was pretty proud to play the girl to a draw.
In the end, Annabelle won one, tied one and lost one. CJ was 1 and 2. I was proud of him for hanging in there. He really didn't even want to be in the tournament to begin with!
It's also worth noting that the people running that room and helping the kids during the tournament were great. By far, the best part of our "Everfree" experience.
After the card tourney, we were ponied out and headed back for our stable in Seattle.
FIRED UP: The hits just keep on coming from the team who is trying to commandeer an ancient (in relative terms) NASA space probe.
On July 2, for the first time in a generation (!), a private team manged to fire thrusters on ISEE 3, which was, once upon a time, NASA's International Sun-Earth Explorer 3.
Launched in August of 1987, and retired in 1997, it took several attempts for the team to get ISEE-3's thrusters to go. When it finally worked, reboot project co-Keith Cowling called it "a very good day" on the project blog: http://spacecollege.org/isee3/. The team hopes to move ISEE-3 into an advantageous position to communicate with Earth.
