Busy Thursday

OUT OF THIS WORLD:  This morning, the kids made a couple of teacher appreciation. cards.  Annabelle used oil pastels and watercolors for the cover of her card.

CJ chose a Hubble photo for his card's cover ...

           Photo credit: NASA
On the inside both put an Amazon gift card, along with a Milky Way bar (get it? 'out of this world?).

SPECIAL SCREENING:  During our field trip to the Living Computer Museum a couple of weeks back, we learned about a free Movie Night they were hosting on May 7, complete with complimentary popcorn and soda pop! We RSVPed right away, and this evening we watched a BBC documentary, "Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes."

We recognized the name Bletchley Park from watching "The Imitation Game" a couple of weeks ago, about the work of Alan Turing and his team to break the wartime code of the Third Reich's Enigma machine. 

However, there was another team working on yet another code-producing machine. As the BBC Web site about the program explains, "In 1943, a 24-year-old maths student and a GPO engineer combined to hack into Hitler's personal super-code machine - not Enigma but an even tougher system, which he called his 'secrets writer'. Their break turned the Battle of Kursk, powered the D-day landings and orchestrated the end of the conflict in Europe. But it was also to be used during the Cold War - which meant both men's achievements were hushed up and never officially recognised."

You can watch a trailer about it here:


I'll have the kids share their impressions tomorrow. 

FRUITY GOODNESS:  In our ongoing campaign to try new-to-us produce every day this month, yesterday we sampled an organic champagne mango we picked up at Whole Foods.

Smaller and flatter than a 'garden variety' mango, it was soft and we think it was ripe enough to eat.

As usual, the kids were a tad pensive at first.

But they each ate several pieces.

Its taste was definitely more tart than a 'typical' mango, and its meat more dense. It had kind of peachy and apricot notes to it, but it definitely produced some pucker, too.

All in all, a lovely little fruit that would be wonderful in some granola or yogurt

THUNDER OVERHEAD:  It was a lovely day, so we spent part of the afternoon up on the roofdeck. 

While there, we heard and saw a military plane roar overhead.

Thanks to this video posted on the KIRO news site, we now know it was a Lockheed F-22 Raptor, the U.S. Air Force's premier current fighters.

They are going to be on display at The Museum of Flight May 9-10. Hope we can get down there to see them!

COMICAL:  So we've started yet another online class. In addition to C# programming, and geology, we're now taking "The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture," a class from the Smithsonian via edX. Among other things, the purpose of the class, in part, is "to celebrate the history of comics, and explore the intersection of our superhero stories with the influences of society." Sounds interesting!

It's team taught, and our professors include Stan Lee (!!!) and Michael Uslan, a professor at Indiana University Media School with an eye popping resume. 

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT (PROBABLY): There's a very good chance that the Russian Progress spacecraft will re-enter Earth's atmosphere overnight (completely uncontrolled, might I add).

In a statement released today, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, confirmed Progress 59 "will cease to exist" by Friday.  This graphic from the Aerospace Company shows Progress' current trajectory.  Looks like North America isn't in the potential line of fire.  Here's hoping the craft breaks up entirely during re-entry, and if it doesn't, it splashes down in the middle of a large body of water, with no harm to any living creatures.