Discoveries

WOODSY WALK: It was beautiful (these days, that means it wasn't torrential rain or gale force winds) this morning, so we decided to go a bit afield for our walk. We headed just a couple miles west of home, to Discovery Park. 

Knowing there's a not-much-used full court basketball court in the park, we brought a ball along. The kids played one-on-one for awhile, but then they switched to just shooting.

I explained the game of H-O-R-S-E to the kids, and they gave it a go. I think they each got an H and an R before calling it quits. 

I also demonstrated the unique underhand free throw technique, and was proud of myself for remembering it was Rick Berry who shot that way in the NBA.

And before anyone starts making fun of Berry's 'granny' style, you should know that in his 14 years in the NBA he made 90 percent of his free throws. Nothing to snark at, is it? (In case you're wondering, about 75 percent is the average rate of free throw success in the NBA.)  If you want to see the keys to Berry's success, check out this oldish tutorial on video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4eJSjwlD5o

But back to the park. ...

Eventually we wandered over to the nearby playground area and were shocked to find this ...

The beloved zip line the kids have screamed along on for the past 9 or so years is long gone. Oh no! They were sad pandas, for sure. 

A sign filled in a couple of blanks for us. 

However, we still have questions. First of all, obviously construction of the new zipline isn't complete (it's a month past Feb. 15). Second, we're wondering how in the world we never heard about the play part of the park getting a renovation. I'm pretty plugged in to social media sources in these parts and we've not heard a peep about it.

We did spy this little sign, giving us an online opportunity to give us some input, and we each took the survey this afternoon.

I sure hope that somehow we are notified about the public hearing when it happens.

We're happy they're putting another zipline it, but we're also fairly certain the new one is not going to be anywhere near as big, and it surely won't have that same exciting 'is this old thing safe?' feel about it, ha ha.

ABSOLUTELY: Our math homework this afternoon left us wondering, "why does anyone even care about or use absolute values?"

Fortunately, we're able to hop into the Internet and quickly learn that there's more to think about rather than just stripping the negative off a number. 

Really simply put, absolute value is about how far a given number from zero on a number line.  We watched this catchy video, from Shmoop, first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApkvLqzj3eU

After, we watched a more scholarly toned video from BetterThanYourProf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-5R2Cze-Wc

WAY BACK MACHINE: On this day (Mar. 16) in 1966, NASA pulled off an important first. 

   Photo: NASA

Neil Armstrong was command pilot when he and pilot David Scott successfully docked their Gemini VIII spacecraft with the Agena target vehicle, marking the first time two spacecraft were linked together in Earth orbit. 

What a cool photo!