Valentiny

HEART ART:  Annabelle is thoroughly enjoying her new twice-weekly art class.  This week, the class worked on heart-inspired art.

She produced a whole little booklet of heart art. Here is the cover. She used oil pastels, watercolors, and a little charcoal in this series.

And here's a red-black contrast.

Rainbow hearts

LOVE BUGS:  We got our sugar on in a big way this morning, leading a class of 24 third graders in the construction of love bug cookies!

Yesterday we baked a couple dozen heart shaped cookies and made lots and lots o' red and black fondant. Today, CJ, Annabelle and I headed down to Rick's class and those kids dove into the project with abandon!

One student went for a scary look ...

 and another made a super sweet faced love bug. I like its spots on dots!

We had some leftovers, so I whipped up a few hearts of my own this afternoon.

I also made a few nerdy cookies for fun for Christian to take into work. :)

And then there were these little cotton candy cookie pops. Sugar on a stick!

Cruddy photo - they were much cuter in person. 

MARS CARD:  Not sure what to send to that special someone for Valentine's Day? NASA has you covered - send them a Mars card?
Simply go to this Web site, http://mars.nasa.gov/free-holiday-ecard/love-valentine/#Send-A-Card, and pick the one that's perfect for you and yours!

I thought this one was super cute ... 

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE:  Once upon a time, CJ and Annabelle used to hang out in an online world called Toontown. A Disney product, in this virtual town you can play games, make friends, take on challenges, solve puzzles and more. 

However, Toontown Online went offline in September of 2013. With its demise, CJ's character, Supersnappy Wondersnout, and Annabelle's persona, Periwinkle Sparklepants, ceased to exist, as well.

But imagine the surprise and delight today, when CJ discovered some fans of the site have resurrected it. The games and characters can live on under the umbrella of Toontown Rewritten!  Hopefully, Disney doesn't mind this non-profit tribute site and allows it to stay up. 

AMADEUS: We are one lecture away from wrapping up week five our of classical music class. This week's lectures have featured lots of information about Mozart. I'll let the kids share some of what they've learned.

CJ goes first ...  

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an iconic Austrian composer and writer who was born in 1756 and died in 1791. Mozart was known for his symphonies (the first of which he wrote at age 8) and even some operas (the first of which he wrote at age 12), and frequently performed in different concertos. Some of the most popular of those concertos are the Piano Concerto in D Minor and the Little Night Music.

Over time, Mozart played for many different European kings, most of which were amazed by Mozart's wonderful piano skills. Mozart's three most famous operas out of the many he composed are Le nozze di Figaro (or The Wedding of Figaro), Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute.

Overall, Mozart went down as one of the most famous (if not THE most famous) of all time with a legacy that lasts to this very day.

And Annabelle weighs in ...

Mozart has many great songs, symphonies, and operas, but the 3 I will talk about are the "Piano Concerto in D Minor," "Don Giovanni" and "The Requiem". First, I'll start with the Piano Concerto. The concerto is in D minor, which was widely regarded as the devil's key back in Mozart's time. In fact, all of the music I will be talking about is in D minor. This D minor piano concerto is one of the 23 that he wrote!

Don Giovanni is the story of a villain who steals women on a 'conquest'. One woman manages to get away and calls her father for help. her father and Don Giovanni then have a duel. The sword fight music has scales going up to build tension and a dominant chord for the final strike. Afterwards they sing a song about death and victory at the same time, overlapping voices, which I thought sounded very good.

The Requiem was written as Mozart was dying. When Mozart died, he passed on the responsibility of finishing it to a man named Süssmayr. The requiem is a more famous song, used for ads on TV and such. The Requiem actually switches between minor and major at some points.

Moving On

BIG CHANGE: The kids started weekly classes at a Seattle Public Schools program a couple of weeks ago. Today, we walked away from that building, the former Wilson Pacific School, for the last time. It's destined to meet a wrecking ball (the learning program will survive, in an old school on north Queen Anne hill).

The first time we went to the campus for classes at Wilson Pacific, CJ remarked that it looked "Post Chernobyl." 

An apt description. 

I'm all for recycling, reusing, upcycling, reinventing ... that's what our whole 100 plus year old house is about. But this particular school campus ... yeah, a wrecking ball seems long overdue. Except ... there are these MARVELOUS, massive murals covering many of its exterior walls. (See Annabelle above, for scale.) They're the work of artist Andrew Morrison, who painted them over the course of 12 years.

The kids and I have admired them from afar (specifically, in our car, on roads a block or two away), on numerous occasions, but today, knowing the building's demise is imminent, we finally walked the perimeter and took a close up look at the paintings.

Most of the paintings are black and white and shade of gray, but this one included vibrant color.

This mural of Chiefs Sealth and Joseph were especially striking.

It's worth noting, the murals were mostly (mercifully) untouched by graffiti. Over the years, people have clearly respected what they are and what they stand for. 

When news came down that Wilson Pacific would be demolished, naturally people - including artist Morrison - wondered what would become of the murals.

Initially it looked like they'd be casualties of the demolition and new construction. However, an understanding and accord was reached, per a Seattle Times article here; 
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021226323_wilsonpacificmuralsxml.html

A more recent article is here, from the Indian Country Web site: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/11/seattle-landmarks-board-votes-save-indian-heritage-school-156324

We're looking forward to seeing how Morrison's work is incorporated into the reinvented, new buildings on the Wilson Pacific campus in the future. 

Midweek

                            PHOTO: © SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
FLY, FALCON, FLY:  The third time was a charm for SpaceX. This afternoon, after scrubbed attempts on Sunday and Tuesday, SpaceX launched its first deep space mission, dubbed DSCOVR. 

You can watch video of the pre-launch, launch, and stage separation-plus on LiveStream. (If you want to go right to the rocket fire, just drag the tab to the 15 minute mark.) I will say, it's worth watching for a few minutes post launch to see the faring explode away from the cargo!

Speaking of cargo, unlike other SpaceX missions, where a Dragon capsule ferried cargo to the ISS, this mission requires the rocket to fly further - specifically 930,000 miles from Earth, to the LaGrange point in orbit. LaGrange Point 1 is the "sweet spot," as it's 
gravitationally stable.

The $340 million mission is a joint project of NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The new spacecraft will watch for solar storms that could affect satellite ops and Earth's power grids.

SpaceX had planned on trying to recover the first stage of the rocket by landing it on a barge in the Atlantic, but severe weather and three-story waves precluded that attempt today. Bummer. They planned to shoot for a 'soft water' landing instead, not expecting to recover the rocket, but hopefully at least some data.

PONDERING WATER: A couple of weeks ago, CJ and Annabelle began attending a weekly social issues club with some other area kids. This month's theme is worldwide water scarcity and quality. 

One of the things we learned last week is that about 70 percent of the world's water resources are used in agriculture (according to the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations). On the way out of the meeting the kids and I were talking about that staggering percentage, and how a growing world population will mean more demand for food, which could drive water usage for agriculture up. We discussed the need for farmers to be able to produce more food with less water, and how efficient use is clearly key.

During today's lunchtime meeting, students were asked to choose one aspect regarding water issues and make a poster to share about it. It just so happened that last night, we watched a "Shark Tank" re-run featuring an irrigation supply specialist, Johnny Georges, who came up with a simple-but-brilliant idea to save millions of gallons of water by tenting around the bottom of growing trees. He called his product the Tree T-PEE.  We brought a sheet of info about the Tree T-PEE to the meeting, and the kids integrated it into their poster project.

The fact sheet tells about Georges, the irrigation-guy-turned-inventor.  When talking to the "Sharks" on "Shark Tank," Georges said he and his dad used to protect small trees by piling mulch over them to keep them warm when cold weather was coming, and then they'd have to unbury them when the cold crisis passed. Georges was tired of the repetitive, manual labor of burying and unburying the trees and suggested an alternative way to protect them, using a tepee shaped cone. The Tree T-PEE was born!

A plastic cone made of 100 percent recycled materials, when placed around the base of a young tree, the Tree T-PEE protects it from weather, but it also conserves a tremendous amount of water. According to what Georges told the sharks, trees with a tepee need just 800 gallons of water per year per tree instead of 25,000!  And when you need less water, you need less power for the pumps that provide that water. The tepeed trees also need significantly less fertilizer, which is better for the environment.

On the official Tree T-PEE Web site, they tell the story of one 1750-acre citrus grove in southwest Florida where over 250,000 tree T-PEEs in in use.  At 145 trees per acre, using a blue micro jet at 10.5 gallons per hour, per tree,  T-PEE reports an average watering time of 6 hours would use 15.8 million gallons of water. However, using their product, T-PEE says the average watering time was cut down to only one hour, using only 2.6 million gallons of water - reaping a savings of 13.2 million gallons of water per watering. 

The kids and I talked about how cool it is that an 'everyday' type of person identified a problem, had a 'light bulb' moment, and invented something capable of making a huge change in water conservation. It just goes to show, one doesn't have to be a scientist in a lab coat to make a big difference in this regard. 

OVERFLOWING: A couple of days back we reported sending a card and a few dozen stickers to Bubby, a 9-year old boy living in Graham, Washington. Bubby has a whole host of severe medical challenges, and his parents started a stickers-for-Bubby campaign to bring a little sunshine into his life. Their story went viral, and Bubby is now swimming in stickers, so to speak. 

You can read an update (and see photos) here: 
http://q13fox.com/2015/02/07/bubby-overwhelmed-by-b-day-cards-letters-and-stickers/

PARK IT:  In honor of Presidents Day, all 405 National Parks are offering free admission this weekend (Feb. 14-16). If this weekend doesn't work for you, mark your calendars for other, upcoming free days: 
April 18-19 — Opening weekend of National Park Week
Aug. 25 — National Park Service Birthday
Sept. 26 — National Public Lands Day
Nov. 11 — Veterans Day

Washington State parks aren't free this weekend, but there are a number of free park day opportunities coming up: 

March 19 — In honor of Washington State Parks’ 101st birthday
April 19 — Spring Saturday free day
April 22 — Earth Day
May 10 — Spring Saturday free day
June 7 & 8 — National Trails Day and WDFW Free Fishing Weekend
June 14 — National Get Outdoors Day
Aug. 25 — National Park Service’s birthday
Sept. 27 — National Public Lands Day
Nov. 11 — Veteran’s Day weekend

Hearts and Blossoms

IN BLOOM:  Daffodils and crocus blossoms abound, and cherry trees are blushing. Is it really possible that spring is still six weeks away?   

Even inside our house, plants are putting on a show. Look at this Christmas cactus turning out in a big way for Valentine's Day.

And our lime tree has a fruit the size of a walnut on it right now. Can you spot it?

MEGA MAGNA:  Over the past two days we have powered through all of week 5's lectures for our History of the Magna Carta class through the University of London. This week's lectures were about memorials dedicated to the historic document: the Broughton memorial (named after the property owner who donated the historic grounds at Runnymede for a memorial), the American Bar Association monument, the Air Force memorial, and the JFK memorial. 

Here's part of the Broughton memorial.

                           photo:  WyrdLight-McCallum www.wyrdlight.com via Wikimedia
We also watched a promotional film of sorts from 1946. Produced by Gaumont-British Animation, Gaumont-British Instructional and called "Magna Carta: The Story of Man's Fight for Liberty," it was ... odd.


HEART ART:  I saw an artist's blog today that showed how to make some fun confetti hearts with nothing more than a hot glue gun and a a bit of tissue paper. Easy!

First, we had to make some confetti. ...

We had a pile in no time.

Meanwhile, we built up two layers of glue hearts on parchment paper.

Then, on the third layer of glue, the confetti gets sprinkled on.

We had to wait a few minutes for them to dry - well, cool off, really.  Here's what the finished product looked like. 

Paramount

GRANDEUR: Saturday morning dawned a dreary gray, and I had a cold and was feeling the same way, but didn't want to stay home and be mired in the ick. So off we went to Seattle's Paramount Theater, a landmark on Pine and Ninth since 1928.

Personally, I've seen shows there ranging from DEVO to Neil deGrasse Tyson to the Broadway tour of "Smokey Joe's Cafe" in this magical space. Once a month, they give free tours of the theater, and Saturday, we were among a crowd of about four dozen, eager to learn more about the beautiful landmark. 

Originally designed as a silent movie "palace," the theater is part of an eight-story commercial building. 

As we were standing in the first lobby, waiting for the tour to start, we marveled at the marble on the wall in front of us.

Imagine our surprise when one of the first things we heard was the marble wasn't marble!

See the white veined stuff above? Well, it's actually scagliola, a form of plaster made to imitate decorative stone.  The composite substance is made from selenite, glue and natural pigments, imitating marble and other hard stones. 

The tour guide told us that these days, it would actually be cheaper to use real marble than pay artisans to mimic it. 

Worth nothing: While the off white stuff isn't marble, the gray stuff at the side of each stair and the dark stuff around the archway *is* marble.

I'll let CJ and Annabelle tell you a bit more about the tour, Annabelle first. 

On 2/7/15 I went through a tour of Paramount Theater in Seattle, where they feature plays, silent movies, and even bands! At the start of the tour we learned how the founder, Adolph Zukor, made the theater we know today, such as hiring two brothers Cornelius W. and George Rapp to build the theater. A fun fact we learned was that most of the marble was not actually marble, but instead scagliola hand-painted to seem as though it was marble.

Next we moved on to the main theater, where the stage was. An interesting note was that the chairs could be moved under the floor to accommodate an orchestra of 50+!

We even got to take a look at the flyrails, which can hold many, many scenes and settings for a play or a screen for a movie! Under the stage was a room with trapdoors and refreshments, where the actors would relax before the play. There was also an organ that was being worked on by the volunteers.

Upstairs there were also dressing rooms and the Ernest E Anderson room. You could walk through a door and see the stage and flyrails from above! The dressing room was not as fancy as you might think it would be though. Overall the tour was fun and I learned a lot. The theater certainly has an interesting history! I would definitely recommend the tour to anyone who has not been to the theater before.

And here's CJ's take ...

On January 7th, I went to the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, where I took a tour of the theater and learned more about its history since its construction in 1928.

At the start of the tour, we were greeted by a volunteer who introduced us by paraphrasing a newspaper headline from 1928. The volunteer told us that the architects wanted the theatre to look like a French Baroque building (specifically, the Palace of Versailles), and that the "marble" that was on the walls and pillars was actually made using the Scagliola technique of creation of structures that made the material that the structure was made out of appear to be marble but actually *not* being marble.

Afterward, we were taken to the actual theater room, where apparently the seats in the bottom of the theater had been removed for the performance of a band that was playing that night named "The Devil Makes Three". Afterwards, we were taken on the stage (the first time I had been there in at least five years, the last time having been a costume contest prior to a Video Games Live show), where we got to see the sides of the stage, which had several ropes.

And we were actually taken to the area underneath the stage, where we saw the bottom of some trapdoors and the console on a theater organ, which was apparently part of one of the last of the handful of theater organs still in existence, and we were also told that they were restoring the organ (part of which would be replacing some of the almost-90-year old leather in in that was rotting away).

Afterwards, we climbed up some flights of stairs to see the dressing rooms, which were pretty nice and complete with couches and bathrooms, but afterwards, we got to see the Ernestine Anderson room, a luxury box that was kind of like a premium hotel room, complete with things like cupboards, a sink, a bathroom, and I even think an oven.

Afterwards, we went back to the theater and were told about the fake illumination used on some of the glass (by putting trace amounts of fake gold in the center), and the earthquake that was responsible for some damage to the theater a while back. At the very end of the tour, we were presented with a "reproducing piano", a piano where you could insert a sheet of paper with holes inside that would play music using the paper and where the holes were. Overall, I found the tour of Seattle's Paramount Theatre very interesting.

The tour was fabulous. The building is so historic, and standing on the stage, I couldn't help but think of all the footsteps we were standing in - everyone from Tony Bennett to Kurt Cobain. 

For me, the chandeliers were the shining stars of the tour.

Photos don't to do them justice. It's impossible to show their size with no frame of reference item alongside.

We were told these ones up front are valued at $3 million plus, and weight 1500 pounds or so apiece. They were built so that they could be cranked down to the floor for cleaning, by the way. Super interesting.

The various volunteers described the architecture and decor in at least three different ways/periods, but I have to think baroque is in the name of the correct one. I mean, yowza, look at this. :)

Symmetry was clearly important in the aesthetic. The balconies here are false, mirrored by true ones on the theater side of the building.

Did I mention the lights were pretty? A couple years ago, they were retrofitted with LEDs, saving the theater thousands of dollars a year.

 Check out this cool zodiac-themed fixture.

The top of the theater has an ornate dome, done up with fancy plaster and painting techniques. Again, this photo completely fails to give context/size.

 This photo of the kids, taken from the stage, helps a little,

Major domo!

We also got to peek at the 'chickenwire' and cementious mixture that formed the dome and the other curved interiors of the theater. It's certainly prettier from the finished side!

While making our way down the stairs backstage, we got to see dozens upon dozens of playbills signed by touring casts.

Once down in the 'basement,' we had the pleasure of meeting a super cool guy named Phil who is a volunteer who works on the theater's amazing old Wurlitzer organ.

Phis is a member of the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society - a volunteer organization of self taught people who work on maintaining these gems of days gone by. He made an earnest appeal for volunteers. I have more than half a mind to give him a call. 

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES:  Christian and I figure we have a backlog of about 15 or so years of good movies to watch. We're probably not ever going to catch up, but Saturday night we checked one off the list, screening "Galaxy Quest" for the kids. 

I remember seeing ads for this movie in 1999 and thinking it looked TERRIBLE. What's funny is it was a box office bomb, but found a decent afterlife. In retrospect, I think it probably was torpedoed by its terrible PR out of the gate.

It's the story of actors from a Star Trek like show who are called upon to save the lives of aliens who think the actors are the Real Deal. 

If you want a real blast from the past, check out this archived fan page for the movie from the 1990s!
http://web.archive.org/web/20000819162953/http://www.galaxyquest.com/galaxyquest/

WAYBACK MACHINE: On this day in 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless was further away from the safety of human confines than any anyone, ever.

Wearing a Manned Maneuvering Unit (a nitrogen propelled backpack), McCandless floated some 320 feet away from space shuttle Challenger.

Stunning.

LAUNCH WATCH:  Tomorrow, at a few minutes after 3 p.m. Pacific Coast time, SpaceX will be looking to launch a rocket on its deepest space mission to date. 

On board is "Gore Sat," a climate watching satellite named after former US VP Al Gore. Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is an observational mission which will offer a constant view of the Earth with the hemisphere facing the satellite fully illuminated by the sun as Earth rotates (think a continuous "Big Blue Marble" view!). 


Check out the Scientific American article, authored by Al Gore, about the mission here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/al-gore-weighs-in-on-sunday-s-long-delayed-earth-observatory-launch/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook