Long Week

THEY'RE BACK:  The Blue Angels took to the skies over Seattle this afternoon.  They didn't fly as long as they did yesterday, or as close, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. 

These planes fly so closely together.. The amount of training and trust involved is remarkable. Look at how tight these four Angels are over Queen Anne.

LITTLE PATIENT:  We spent three hours at Group Health this morning. A looong three hours (yes, some three hours are longer than others). We came away with more printouts and sympathy, but no answers. Still no results from the parasite test, which was ordered last Sunday. That's a little bit annoying, to say the least. 

I laughed out loud a couple times as I listened to CJ's dialogue with the nurse and doctor. At one point he asked the nurse, "Would you like specific information about what we believe initiated the vomiting?" I texted the exact quote to Christian because I knew he would get a chuckle out of it. It was so very CJ.  

After the doctor visit, we went over to Safeway, across the street.  There, the kids made a blockbuster of a discovery: the Wafflenut. 

It's a doughnut made in a Belgian waffle iron. CJ was smitten, saying, "I'd be willing to appear in an ad campaign for this to say my mouth is positively enchanted."  :)

CJ was full of gems today.  I don't even remember what he was trying to explain to me at the moment, but at one point this afternoon when I was struggling to understand, he encouraged me to "think of it metaphorically." 

Oh, OK, LOL.

Later, CJ was playing Pac-Land on XBox this afternoon and announced that the game was "an excellent example of parallax scrolling. Now is a great opportunity to show it to you." And so, he did. 

I learned that parallax scrolling is a technique used in in computer graphics, where it's programmed so the background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, which creates an illusion of depth.

I read a Wikipedia article about parallax scrolling and it said the technique started with the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. The kids and I have all played that at the retro gaming expos we've attended.

CRAFTY:  Annabelle helped with a craft project this afternoon - etching some glasses as part of a wedding gift for some friends getting married.  We bought the glasses at Bedrock, a local place that recycles glass. They used to be blue bottles. We used a vinyl stencil (which Christian cut out), and applied glass etching cream over it.

Now, the former bottles are something to toast the Seahawks with!

APPLES OF MY EYE:  While watching the Blue Angels jet to and fro, I was also eyeing the abundant crop of apples on our neighbor's tree. I can pick some of them from our deck!  Our neighbor doesn't glean any, and we've been invited to have at it. Yes, please!

Looks like it's a bumper crop this year. They look big and healthy. There will definitely be some applesauce canning in our future.

ROCKETEER: This evening, we watched a launch from Cape Canaveral via the Internet.   It was a United Launch Alliance event, an Atlas V 401 with a GPS satellite on board for the U.S. Air Force. 

Graphic: United Launch Alliance

Getting Better

ANGELS AMONG US:  We've been waiting for this day for a couple of years, no lie. It's the biggest weekend of Seafair, and that means hydroplane races on Lake Washington and the Blue Angels buzzing overhead.  Squee!!!!  

Last year, the Angels didn't come to town due to budget cuts.  And the couple of years before that they did come, it was rainy and gray, not great flying weather, and we hardly saw them. But today - Hooah!

It's great to hear the return of the roar of their engines.  They were absolutely swarming the skies of Seattle this afternoon, darting, diving, climbing and corkscrewing.  

Their contrails wove white ribbons in the sky. 

They fly so closely together, sometimes it's hard to tell how many of them are in formation. Once in awhile I'd think it was two planes, only to find out that it was actually four.

They should have a couple more practice runs tomorrow. You know our eyes will be on the skies again.  What a treat to see!

And I have to note, just this week (why so long US Navy?) the Blue Angels added a woman pilot to their roster, Capt. Katie Higgins. She's not in the Seattle show, but is expected to start flying as a C-130 demonstration pilot in October.  It's long overdue, especially considering the really awful debauchery in the Blue Angels' unit as of late (don't read this if you want to think of the Blue Angels as nothing but a squeaky clean source of national pride and entertainment). 

FIRST SHOT:  The images from Apollo 11 have been getting lots of media attention lately, due to the 45th anniversary of the manned moon landing. However, it was this day in 1964 that the first picture of our moon was taken by a U.S. spacecraft, Ranger 7.
                        
It was taken at 6:09 AM West Coast time, just 17 minutes or so before Ranger 7 smashed in to the surface of the moon. 

The large crater at center right in the fram is Alphonsus, 108 km in diameter Alphonsus. 

The images Ranger took were transmitted back to Earth in real time.  They were used, in part, to help select the landing sites for Apollo moon missions. 

Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger transmitted over 4,300 high quality images of the moon to Earth during its mission, ending just three days later.

THE SOUND OF TROLLING:  This morning, CJ was feeling better. How did I know? Well, he was WIDE awake at 6:09, and peppering me with questions about technical things, for which I had no answers. He wanted to encode an image to a sound that can be viewed with a spectrogram.  Because that's what every 11-year old with severe GI distress wants to do at 6:09 a.m., right? 

The next couple of hours were spent toiling on the computer, troubleshooting and researching. CJ was determined to use some software that converts a graphic into a sound (specifically, a bitmap file into a WAV file). He found some such thing on a Website called OhMPie.com. 

Problem was, the "ancient" software was meant for LINUX or Windows 95. 

But I'll be darned if CJ didn't battle his way through technical roadblock after roadblock. He was absolutely relentless in his quest to convert a troll face into a sound!  And I'll be darned if he didn't figure it out all by himself after about 90 minutes.  

It's not rocket science, but it was a testament to how a determined kid can make things happen. 

BECAUSE, SCIENCE: We somehow wound up watching a few videos on the Sci2.tv channel today. We learned about a wide range of topics, including why dogs like to sniff each others butts (it's chemical communication, and not socially inappropriate to them!) and how to cut a bagel into an infinity sign (I have a feeling we'd butcher a lot of bagels attempting to do so). Interesting and educational videos, for sure.

SWEET STUFF:  This video is a lovely little reminder that it only takes a couple of minutes to make a difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0gA2mxbjSY

Low Down

WISHY-WASHY: We spent a lot of time today wishing CJ was better and washing laundry. Lots and LOTS of laundry.

Last night was not a good night for CJ, unfortunately.  But today we didn't make any hospital runs for an IV, though, so I guess that's an improvement. More test results back today. He's negative for E. coli and salmonella, thank goodness. But it remains a mystery ailment, which means there's no silver bullet.  I wasn't too happy this morning when a consulting nurse's treatment plan was "hope for the best."  My response was "Hope is NOT a plan."  

Frustrating.  

This evening, CJ spent some time outside on the swinging couch, while Christian, Annabelle and I rocked out.  Here's Bee, working the line, pulling the hand truck back up the hill.

She also did some rock climbing.  It was a good workout and I'm happy to say our rock stacking was very stable as she was scrambling.

Out of nowhere, late this afternoon CJ surprised the heck out of me by sitting down and writing a haiku. It reads ...

This is a haiku

It's not a very good one

I should stop right now

I was happy he had the energy and initiative to produce anything, so I was quite pleased with it! 

FIRE SIGN: This afternoon in a bright blue sky with a few wispy cirrus clouds, I noticed a very bumpy, columnar cloud peeking up over Queen Anne hill, in the distance, to the east.  I pointed it out to CJ and told him it reminded me of the type of 'cloud' I'd see over Mt. St. Helens when it erupted.  

This evening, a story in the Seattle P.I. clued us in on what it was.  To quote the story:  "What you're seeing are smoke and the "pyrocumulus" clouds created by the wildfires burning in Eastern Washington. The heat from the fires is its own engine for creating rising air that cools and condenses into clouds."

Wow, I had no idea. Wish I'd taken a photo of it. 

The cloud was from the Carlton Complex, the largest wildfire in Washington state's recorded history, having surpassed the 1902 Yacolt Burn.

Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, has a good explanation of what we saw on his blog: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014/07/pyrocumulus.html

OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD RECORD:  A couple of days ago, NASA's Opportunity set a new record for off-planet rovers.  On Mars, Oppy has traveled a total of 25 miles (40 kilometers), surpassing the former record holder, the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2, a moon rover which did its driving in 1973. 

What makes the feat even more amazing is that Opportunity was really only intended to drive about one kilometer - it wasn't designed with distance in mind. 

Photo: NASA/JPL

Down and Out

ROUGH DAY:  We had all sorts of big plans for today, hoping beyond hope CJ would be better.

However, those plans were dashed this morning, when our little patient took a turn for the worse. The much worse.  I'll spare you the gory details, but today we lost the battle when it came to staying ahead of dehydration.  In the early afternoon when CJ couldn't remember what we'd done that morning, I knew he was in Loopyville and we were in trouble.

We were up at Group Health by about 1:30 p.m.  Mercifully/amazingly, there was no one in the Urgent Care waiting room again, as was the case when we were there on Sunday morning.

Even though CJ was pretty much out of it, it didn't take long for CJ's nurse David to declare that CJ sounded "older and smarter" than him, LOL.

We had a different doctor this time, a young woman. She was very attentive, a good listener, and basically gave us the exact opposite advice as what we got on Sunday from another attentive physician regarding diet and OTC treatments. Swell.

In better news, we got what I wanted for CJ, namely and IV.  That's what he needed most today and it was the one thing I couldn't do for him at home.

They ordered some blood work for CJ pre-IV, and I don't think he has ever had his blood drawn in his 11 years.  He wasn't exactly stoic about that and having an IV lead placed in, at least initially. I managed to distract him enough while the very skilled nurse and an assistant did their thing.

Frankly CJ, who is usually very polite and compliant, for lack of a better term, was not liking any of this afternoon's experience, really. Even when the nurse went to stick a thermometer under CJ's tongue, CeeJ balked. I called him on it and he explained to me his reaction was based on a 'primal fear' and that no one likes having 'private spaces' invaded. Had to give him that.

And you should have heard CJ when, out of nowhere, during the visit developed a fever of nearly 103.  The doctor ordered up some Tylenol and CJ was AGHAST. "Tylenol?! Have you seen what that did to children in the 1960s?" he screeched. "Google images for Tylenol and babies. I dare you!" he challenged.

I had NO idea what feverish CJ was talking about and I asked him if he meant aspirin and Reye's Syndrome? He insisted that it was Tylenol, and then told me we saw photos of the horrors it caused in London at Science Museum. Suddenly, my mind made the leap and I started laughing and said, "That was thalidomide, not Tylenol!"

Feverish, indignant CJ reluctantly took the Tylenol and hoped that his limbs didn't start malforming. :/

Ah yes, good times at the Urgent Care.

BTW, you should have seen CJ walking down the halls of the hospital wearing his leopard print Snuggie, which we brought from home to help him be comfy. It was hysterical. It was flowing out behind him, rather regally, might I say. At one point we all broke out into song (think "If I were King of the Forest!" from "The Wizard of Oz").

He's been tested for giardia - it was negative. The 'C. Difficile Toxin' test was negative, too. He had a blood panel done. He was low on lymphocytes and high on monocytes, and his potassium is low, no shocker there.   We're waiting for tests for salmonella and ova & parasites.

We're hoping tomorrow is a better day.

Air, Land & Seattle

EYES ON THE SKIES: For the past couple of days, I've seen some crazy looking aircraft flying at a distance while we've been laboring outside. Today, they flew over and Christian IDed them for me - turns out they are MV 22 Marine Osprey!

One flew right over our house this afternoon, slowly, giving me a chance to go grab my camera.

This evening, we did a little reading up on the amazing aircraft.
http://www.marines.com/operating-forces/equipment/aircraft/mv-22-osprey

HOW GROWS IT:  It has been awhile since we've shared a gardening update.  Our sunflowers continue to grow - one pot way moreso than the other.

We don't know why the poor plants in the pot behind Annabelle are so spindly, while the ones right next to them - grown from the same type of seeds - are towering.

A couple of nights ago, we enjoyed potatoes from our garden. We started them months ago, just by cutting up a couple of store-bought potatoes and burying them!

Sunday afternoon, we were walking in the South Lake Union neighborhood and I noticed a tomato plant growing out of the crack in between the sidewalk and an old building!

It even had two tomatoes growing on it (they were hidden by the foliage in this photo).

AILING:  As previously reported here, poor CJ contracted some kind of intestinal ailment when camping over a week ago.  Unfortunately, it has stayed with him, and yesterday it was especially terrible. We made a beeline for the urgent care clinic yesterday morning.  Fortunately, the usually-packed place was quiet, and we got in and out of there in about 90 minutes (fast compared to visits past).  The head nurse thought CJ was the Best Patient Ever.  She told him he had a fantastic vocabulary for a kid his age, and said she wished he could stay there all day just so she could talk to him. :)

Group Health now has some material to work with, shall we say, and they are running some lab tests. We hope to have news tomorrow regarding what CJ's afflicted with and a treatment plan in place.

STILL ROCKIN':  Are you sick of hearing about our rock project yet? Of course you are! We're certainly sick of working on it!

This is how it looked when we installed the first row of rocks on our cliff/hillside a week plus ago.

And here's what it was looking like this afternoon.

So we are making progress, slowly, and sometimes painfully.  It will be wonderful to get it done. Some day.