Goodbye '15

SHORT CIRCUIT:  So, we have this awesome old stove. It's a Hotpoint Hallmark, from 1965. It looks just like the one in this great, vintage ad.

Recently, when I was in the midst of baking a million Christmas cookies, one of the burners turned itself on. High. Really high. And stayed on - even though its control switch was off, and after I turned everything else on the stove off. Not good.

For the past two days, Christian has spent several hours getting to know the ol' Hallmark intimately. It's a gorgeous old thing, inside and out. I love looking at the 50-year old knobs and gears and wires, and this great diagram on a panel of the unit.

As he was checking it out, Christian discovered a tiny cardboard insulator had slipped out of place behind the knob for the rogue burner. He glued it back in place, put the element back in and it seems to be working properly now.

As long as he had it all opened up, he checked out a few other things, like the 'thrift' oven's bottom element, which hasn't worked in the 10 or so years since we got the appliance for free off Craigslist. 

When Christian started muttering about circuits and resistance and knowing what was wrong, I made him stop and start over, this time with the kids on hand to get a lesson in electricity.

I love impromptu lessons!

FINDERS, SEEKERS:  This morning, we took a short stroll up our hill to pick up a lovely little item that was gifted to us by a stranger, via the wonderful "Buy Nothing" group we participate in on Facebook. After we picked up the gift, we decided to walk a different way back home, down the steep street called Dravus. We had nearly reached our street when I looked down and saw something. At first I thought it was just a cellophane wrapper, maybe off a cigarette pack or something, but as I bent down to pick it up I could see it was a tiny wallet  - with credit cards, a driver's license, a bus pass and a couple of wads of cash. 

We immediately checked the address and saw it wasn't from our neighborhood. Bummer. So, we hot footed it home and did what anyone would do these days - go on social media and see if we could find the woman. We did locate a Facebook account, but it also was clear she wasn't on Facebook much. I sent her a message anyway, and Christian sent whom we believed to be her brother a message, as well. I also called the credit union which issued her debit card and let them know I had it, and asked them if they could call her and tell her I had her wallet. And then we waited. And waited. We did a little more cyber stalking and came to suspect the address on the ID wasn't necessarily her place, but it was probably her dad's place. It finally got to be about three hours since when we found it, and I wasn't comfortable just sitting on it, so we decided to drive over to her dad's address, about 10 minutes away, and see if we could find her. Fortunately, a man was home at the house, and it was her dad. We told him we had found something of his daughter's and where we'd found it. He said that was by her boyfriend's house, and readily offered the opinion that the boyfriend was a jerk (the word he used isn't family friendly, ha ha). He volunteered to take the wallet, but Christian and I declined to hand it over. We'd decided on that ahead of time because we didn't know her relationship with him. We asked him if he could call his daughter and tell her we had it, and give her our contact info. She didn't pick up right away, but called him right back as he was texting her. Turns out she worked just a few blocks away, and so we took it to her work.

The really funny thing is, she didn't even realize it was lost. She thought she left it at her boyfriend's house. So here we were fretting for hours over the thing, and she wasn't worried at all. Go figure! Anyway, we was happy to have it back and thanked us a bit sheepishly in front of several co-workers. Her dad was very effusive in his thanks.

I think of it as an almost immediate example of paying it forward. If we hadn't been on a walk to go pick up an item a stranger had gifted us, we wouldn't have found that wallet. So really, credit for the whole happy ending goes to the person who gave us the gift!

PLANETARY MATH:  We are *still* working on a picture book we started forever ago about a character from the dwarf planet Pluto. Today, we found ourselves at a point needing to know how long it would take to drive around the Earth as compared to lil' Pluto.

Annabelle was assigned Earth. Her calculations are as follows ...

24,902 miles (the circumference of the equator) / 60 (mph speed) = 415.0333 (# of hours to travel around the equator)415.0333 / 24 (# of hours in a day) = 17.2930555 days to travel around the earth's equator.

CJ was tasked with Pluto math. Here's what he came up with ...

According to solarsystem.nasa.gov, the circumference of Pluto is 4,493.7 miles.In the story, (the characters) are going at 60 miles per hour.To find the amount of hours the journey would take (on Pluto), I divided 4,493.7 by 60 to get 74.895, which can be rounded up to 74.9.To find the amount of days and hours the journey would take, I divided 74.9 by 24 and got 3.1208333.Conclusion: The trip (driving around Pluto) would take 3.1208333 days.

GAME ON: This afternoon we spent a pleasant hour at Cafe Mox, which is part of the greatgame store Card Kingdom. While you're there, they'll let you borrow games from their library to test drive. Today we gave Battle Sheep a go.

It's a strategy game where, basically, you're trying to gain as much real estate as possible. You have to do some mental math and try to figure out your opponents' likely moves in order to get the upper hand. Since I won, I think it's a BRILLIANT game. :)

NYE ON MARS:  Curiosity took a moment of of its busy schedule to send holiday greetings from the surface of the Red Planet. Via Facebook, the Mars Science Laboratory declared, "Happy New Year! May your next trip around the sun be a good one."

BLOWING IN THE WIND: The kids have both had bad colds for what seems like forever now. In recent times, I've seen headlines online about the dangers of blowing one's nose. Today, we finally checked out the claims to go along with that advice.

First, we watched a couple of entertaining guys from the Good Mythical Morning series present a not particularly "science-y" case for not blowing one's nose when you have a cold. https://youtu.be/J74OiTd0Meo

Afterward, we checked out a couple of articles online about the perils of nose blowing, 

including one from the Wall Street Journal in which Dr. Neil Schachter of New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital noted a typical nose blow can generate 10 times as much pressure as sneezing or coughing, and that the greater the pressure, "the more likely it is that some mucus will
shoot into the inflamed and narrowed drainage passageways of your sinuses and spread the infection." If you want to read the blow-by-blow (sorry, couldn't help myself), very science-y paper published in Oxford Journals Clinical Infectious Diseases, follow this link to "Nose Blowing Propels Nasal Fluid into the Paranasal Sinuses" 

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/387.full

Winging Away

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

LONG DISTANCE LETTERS: By compiling gorgeous satellite and astronauts' photos, Adam Voiland of NASA's Earth Observatory has come up an out-of-this world A to Z. 

Up above, you can clearly see a colorful Y. Voiland says the Y "is for yardangs, elongated landforms sculpted by erosion and similar to sand dunes, but instead comprised of sandstone or siltstone. On December 25, 2000, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this false-color image of the Ugab River running through what appears to be a field of yardangs in northern Namibia.

Follow this link to see the whole alphabet: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ABC/

GLIDING ALONG: A couple of days back we stopped by The Museum of Flight to check out the Bezos-retrieved Apollo 12 artifact temporarily on display and to give the kids a chance to spend the $25 gift certificates they won from the "Empire Writes Back" competition.

CJ chose a really neat space-travel themed poster, for which we must find a frame. 

Annabelle chose a fun paint-your-own glider kit.

She chose to paint it in a Pacific Northwest theme, brown wings with evergreens on them. She's just getting started here, mixing up a brown paint.

Once she was done decorating and the paint dried, it was time for a test flight!

https://youtu.be/6-HTM56u9Mw

NO WORRIES:  A couple of days ago I shared a photo and quote from NASA astronaut Mark Kelly bringing the health of some plants (Profusion zinnias - Zinnia hybrida) on board the International Space Station into question. In the picture, the lettuce plants looked like they were withering.

Fortunately, NASA public affairs officer Dan Huot has since told Popular Science that their appearance isn't reason for concern, it's just that they're nearing the end of their natural lifespan of 60 day. Truth be told, "They're generally grown for their beauty rather than as food, but they are technically edible," Huot reported.

Historic

APOLLO ARTIFACT:  Today we made a quick run through of the very awesome Museum of Flight to see a special, temporary display of an artifact retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean floor. It's an injector plate from Apollo 12's F-1 rocket engines. It helped boost the 40-story Saturn V rocket from liftoff until the edge of space, then separated with the first stage of the rocket and fell 40 miles through the atmosphere and into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean where it rested for 44 years. 

Bezos Expeditions recovered the engines off the ocean floor, deeper than the wreck of the Titanic, in 2013. You can (and should) watch a great video of the recovery operations here:

https://d287s5u9clc12b.cloudfront.net/Video2-v4.mp4

https://youtu.be/mUqp0ppKxJ8

Apologies, my photo of the injector plate (up top) is a pretty awful one, taken with my old, not-so-awesome cell phone. I'll do better next time, and can't wait until the Museum of Flight has the wh

ole engine on display!!! Here's a darn good photo from The Museum of Flight of the artifact alongside Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, who underwrote the recovery of the Apollo artifacts.

The piece will be packed away next week, to return in early 2017, when it will return with the rest of the F-1 artifacts as part of a new permanent Apollo exhibit at the Museum.

BEFORE ROSA:  A couple of nights ago, we watched a new-to-us show called "What History Forgot."  We landed upon it as I was flipping through channel choices. I know CJ, especially, is a huge history buff and so we checked it out.

The episode featured a segment about civil rights activist Elizabeth Jennings. A full hundred years before Rosa Parks became famous for her protest on public transport, African American New Yorker Jennings became famous for refusing to follow the orders of a bigoted street car driver. She was literally thrown off a streetcar in 1854, but reboarded and refused to be denied service.

Her brave actions led to the eventual desegregation of all New York City transit systems by 1865. Awesome.

http://www.ahctv.com/elizabeth-jennings-fights-segregation-100-years-before-rosa-parks-2/

THE CANDY MAN: During that same hour of  "What History Forgot," we learned about Gail “Hal” Halvorsen, a C-54 pilot who became known worldwide as the “Candy Bomber” during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. 

Halvorsen felt compassion for children blockaded in West Berlin, and so he began tying gum and candy tied to handkerchief parachutes which were dropped during bombing runs. Children came to recognize his 'bomber' as he'd wiggle the plane's wings back and forth to wave at the kids. Halvorsen's actions became known as "Operation Little Vittles."

http://wigglywings.weebly.com/
https://youtu.be/OmanS-4nc4Y


WITHERING HEIGHTS?: It's winter here in Seattle, and plants are withering big time, which is to be expected. But up on the International Space Station, it's always winter. Or summer. Or spring. Or fall. Or none of the above - there are no seasons (or there are many seasons?) when you circle Earth 16 times a day. So why are the plants up there struggling right now? 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared this post yesterday on social media: "Our plants aren't looking too good. Would be a problem on Mars. I'm going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney. #YearInSpace"

Scenes of the Season

EVE ACTIVITY: Poor Annabelle is ailing, and so we've tried to keep things pretty low key, but the morning of Christmas Eve we did strike out for a couple of hours of holiday fun.

Our first stop was Seattle Center, to catch a monorail ride!

We were first in line, and so CJ headed right to the front seat, next to the driver. A bit later, a little boy and his dad showed up, and the little boy started crying, even though Annabelle gave up her front row seat so he could sit there. Turns out the little boy can apparently *only* sit next to the driver.

 CJ, being the kind hearted kid he is, readily switched places with him. Part of me thinks that's really nice. The other part of me thinks the little boy needs to learn he doesn't always get everything he wants. ... 

We took the short ride to Westlake, downtown. 

The shopping district definitely had its holiday glow about it.

But we weren't there to shop! We were there to catch a ride on the merry-go-round.

 The carousel is temporarily located in a year-round plaza. The park has a permanent ping pong table! The kids gave it a go for a chilly minute or two.

From there, we walked a couple of blocks to the Sheraton, where the annual Gingerbread Village art competition is on display. 

This year's theme was "May the Holidays Be With You" - better known as Star Wars!!!!

There were six separate displays, each one inspired by the first six Star Wars movies.  The first one we encountered was from Episode IV, which we all know as the original Star Wars movie, from 1977.

 Loved the nearly 'life' sized R2 unit, and the fondant characters on a cruiser were pretty well done, IMHO,

The "Empire Strikes Back" themed display featured a Han in 'carbonite' as its 'wow' piece. It was probably a good four feet high.

 There was also a colorful, nearly ceiling-high rotating feature (that quit rotating while we were waiting in line).

And I suppose it wouldn't be an "Empire" art piece without having the infamous Jabba the Hut and Leia in a bikini scene. This feature rotated the whole time we were there. :)

The jungle planet from "Return of the Jedi" had lovely colors.

 A tiny Han and Chewie scene was super cute.

Though we like to try to forget episodes 1-3 exist, they were acknowledged in gingerbread.

The Phantom Menace display had some pretty columnar buildings ...

 and a big droid army.

Episode 2, "Attack of the Clones" had a marvelous likeness of actor Ewan McGregor

 Up top Count Dooku duked it out, and underneath, there was a cute little scene with Yoda.

Episode 3's display had a space-y looking globe.

Here are a few bonus shots from the scenes. 

Loved these AT-ATs!

 But we thought Luke's legs looked a little wonky on this one.

 The ice planet Hoth looked pretty cool in more ways than one!

 There were Jawas, of course!

There was a little pod racing action.

 We loved the Bith from the Cantina scene!

After the sweet show, we caught the monorail back to Seattle Center and checked out the model railroad display in the Center House (or the Armory, as it's now called).

 Love the attention to detail in their little city.

Later, back home, we gathered 'round the telly to start a terrible holiday tradition ...

We found a copy of it on YouTube (there are many) and Chromecast it to the big screen ... and then sat back and recoiled in horror.

So much, so wrong. Not even interstellar guest stars like Bea Arthur, Art Carney and Diahann Carroll could save this clunker, LOL.  To quote Wikipedia, "The special is notorious for its extremely negative reception." 

That's probably an understatement. Star Wars creator George Lucas had minimal involvement in the production (his name does not appear in the credits). Of it, he reportedly said, "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it."

TWENTY FIFTH:  Santa came to our place overnight, much to the delight of CJ and Annabelle. 

CJ was happy to have a new nutcracker for his burgeoning collection!

 And the kids were pretty surprised to see a Book of Mormon under the tree ... until they realized it contained tickets to see the show at the Paramount in a week or so.

All in all a quiet, pleasant Christmas day with the biggest 'excitement' being a game of Batman Fluxx this afternoon. 

Hopefully Annabelle is feeling much better before long.