Marching Out

TRANSFERRED:  The zucchini are growing like gangbusters. We absolutely had to re-pot them today, and we hope they like their new, larger, temporary homes.

SPIN TEST:  Midday, we watched a live broadcast from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory having to do with the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project.  Today, the LDSD vehicle underwent a spin table test, which involved rotating the 15-foot wide, 7,000 pound test vehicle was spun at speeds up to 30 RPM to check its balance.  

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Soon, it will be packed up and shipped over to Hawaii, and come June, during an experimental flight test, a balloon will carry it to an altitude of about 120,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. It will be dropped, and then a booster rocket is supposed to kick in, which will carry it an additional 60,000 feet aloft. There, an 'inflatable' doughnut device will deploy, increasing the vehicle's drag, slowing it to Mach 2.5, when a supersonic parachute will deploy. After about a 45 minute descent, the saucer is supposed to make a controlled landing in the Pacific. 

All of this is to simulate landing on Mars, where the atmosphere is thinner than here on Earth, making controlled landings a challenge. 

An archived copy of today's LDSD Ustream telecast is available at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/60585512.

EGGSTATIC:  While driving to a class this morning, we got to talking about how we'd like to make some sort of decorative eggs (tis the season), but we are bored with the dyed, hard-boiled variety.  Enter Pinterest. 

It didn't take me but a few minutes of poking around before I found an 'easy' project: Stuffing balloons with a candy, wrapping the balloon with glue-infused yarn, which should dry and then assume the shape of the balloon, which you then pop and, Presto! a candy in a yarn 'egg.' 

Everything was going fine until the first step - trying to stuff chocolates into tiny, tight balloon necks. 

Let's just say MANY a chocolate bunny was harmed in the making. 

We finally switched to chocolate eggs (after a run to the store), but frankly that wasn't easy, either.  Then came time to immerse yarn in watered down glue and wrap the egg. If you have any tactile sensitive types in the mix, (like, say, me and CJ), they will *not* like doing this, ha ha. 

We managed to get the 'eggs' wrapped, somehow. Stay tuned for what they look like if/when/after they dry... For some reason, I'm skeptical that they'll set up properly. 

FRIENDLY:  The kids keep plugging away at guitar. Today's new-to-them song was "We're Going to be Friends," a sweet little ditty by Jack White of the White Stripes. 
We found a great tutorial on YouTube by MartyZSongs, and the kids can already mostly make their way through it.


GAME ON:  Good news from Google Maps today. Now, you can play Pac Man in your neighborhood. Seriously. 

You can read the Google tutorial about how to make it happen (on your computer or even mobile device), but the short take is, go to Google Maps and click on the PacMan button in the lower lefthand corner. 

I gave it a go in a map of our neighborhood. It was fun chasing the ghosts down our street!

LIGHTS OUT:  We forgot to post this, from Saturday night, during Earth Hour, an annual event to raise awareness about the need for action on the climate change front. After turning off all the electronics in our house, we went to nearby Ursula Judkins Park to get a view of the Space Needle, which was set to go dark at 8:30, when Earth Hour commenced.