Remembering

REFLECTING: Another 9/11. Fourteen, in fact, since the day September 11th became 9/11, a day America will never forget. 

It's a 'where were you' type of day, where everyone alive and of a certain age can tell you what they were doing as news out of New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania streamed through televisions and the Internet and via radio.

We were in New York City on 9/11 a couple of years ago, and although more than a decade had passed, you could still feel the hurt. It was palpable. 

We attended a Mets' game that evening, and the crowd was subdued, to say the least. I'll bet you this same logo is painted outside Citi Field today.

This morning, we watched an interview with Frank Culbertson, the only American off planet when the attacks were underway. An astronaut, Culbertson was on the International Space Station at the time. How lonely and helpless he must have felt as he watched it unfold from low Earth orbit.

GARDEN NEWS: Our tomatoes are all but a memory, but other things are going on in the garden. The tomatillos are coming on strong, and peppers are peeking out from behind leaves all over.

We even have our first (and maybe only?) dahlia. We planted bulbs back in early May and have waited and waited and waited. Finally, we saw our first one around the first of September. I'm wondering if the drought is responsible for our lack of luck with the rest of the bulbs. That said, we're thrilled with what we've got.

Isn't it lovely? A big thanks to Nonnie and Bops for the bulbs! 

LECTURE CIRCUIT:  This morning we took a long stroll down to Fishermen's Terminal, through the fishing-related business district, and back home. 

While at the marina, we had to go wave at the ice cream tour boat we *still* haven't managed to take a trip on. Soon, very soon. But I digress. ...

While we walked, we listened to a couple of lectures for our "Dog Emotion and Cognition" class. Today's lectures were about how dogs are better than other animals (including apes) at following human's directional cues (like pointing to a box, and then the dog will go to that box). 

Interestingly, wolves, close relatives of the dog, are not good at following the same type of directions. But our professor, Brian Hare, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke, found that a group of domesticated red foxes (part of a 50 year program of them being raised with/by humans) were almost as good as dogs at following human's directional prompts.

MEN WHO FELL TO EARTH: Late this afternoon, we watched three guys go through a well controlled fall from the International Space Station back down to Earth (Kazakhstan, specifically).

One of the men on board was European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Denmark's first astronaut.

During his 10 day stay on station, one of the experiments Mogensen conducted was filtering station waste water through a ‘biomimetic’ membrane from Denmark. Per the ESA, the membrane mimics nature to create clean drinking water using a nano-technology that requires no energy. The output from the experiment will be analyzed to see if it can be used in space in the future.

Before he left the ISS, Mogensen snapped this photo ... imagine how proud his fellow countrymen must be of their first astronaut!

He posted the photo with the caption, "Dannebrog, verdens ældste nationalflag (1219)...
(translated: Dannebrog, the oldest national flag in the world!).

REIMAGINING: This evening, we watched a one hour special, "Think It Up." It was mostly a telethon-type fund raiser with many, many celebrities. But it also shared some booths on the ground stories of teachers and students doing some remarkable things in United States Schools.

One segment featured info about XQ: The Super School Project. Per its Web site, "The Super School Project is an open call to reimagine and design the next American high school. In towns and cities far and wide, teams will unite and take on this important work of our time: rethinking and building schools that deeply prepare our students for the rigorous challenges of college, jobs, and life. This is a challenge to empower all of America to change high school. Together, we can transform communities and build schools that inspire new possibilities. Over the next few months, we will accept your proposals. We will partner with winning teams and provide them expert support and a fund of $50 million to support at least five schools over the next five years to turn their ideas into real Super Schools."

Very intriguing. We'll have to see if MPA can come up with some ideas!

FLY GIRL: FYI- a cool freebie from the Museum of Flight. On Sept. 26-27, the museum will offer free first flights in small planes to girls and young women ages 7 to 18. More information and a reigstration form here: https://secure.jotform.us/pjclearwater/FlyingItForward

We took Annabelle down there to fly one year, and it was a blast (as well as educational)!