Spirit Animal

NEW MASCOT:  So, the green guy above. He's ours. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to make him ours when I saw an eBay auction from Seattle Goodwill. I put in the minimum bid, and (believe it or not!) no one else bid on him. Shocking, I know (ha ha).

What will we do with a suit like that? I really don't know. We think he might make appearances at friends of MPA's schools. We know many a teacher here at MPA. :) 

We also feel compelled to quickly learn how to do a backflip. And slam dunk off a trampoline. Or at the very least, as least muster a decent cartwheel. ... So we need to add gymnastics to our curriculum. Stay tuned. ;)

GOT HIS FILL: Today it was announced that astronaut Scott Kelly, who just came home from a nearly one year mission on the International Space Station, will be hanging up his spacesuit for good.

   Photo of Scott Kelly on an EVA/space walk: NASA

Kelly announced his retirement effective April 1, after 20 years with NASA. 

As of now he holds the record for the American with the most time in space (consecutive and non consecutive). And who knows, maybe someday he'll go back as a space tourist. 

RAILROAD TYCOONS:  We recently acquired a new-to-us game. Railroad Tycoon is an 'empire building' type game, based around railroad lines of the 1800s. 

We haven't played it yet (it's pretty intense/complicated), but we kicked the tires today. The cool thing is, we already learned a little history by reading some of the railroad baron cards. 

For instance, we learned about Daniel Drew. We'd never heard of him before, but it turns out the businessman had almost a lifetime of success, followed by "utter failure and hopeless bankruptcy" per one biographer.

In fact, apparently Drew is the dude who is responsible for introducing the concept of 'watered stock' to Wall Street, which resulted in a dilution of ownership. Not the best legacy.