Art & Park

WOODSY: After class today, we headed to one of favorite neighborhood destinations, Discovery Park. The kids rode the zipline and the dogs sniffed around for a half hour. 

Later in the afternoon we returned to the other side of the hill, this time our destination was the Magnolia branch of Seattle Public Libraries. What enticed us to visit there today was news that they have a drop in art workshop on Thursday afternoons.  Annabelle was super excited by that idea, and was the first in line waiting to get in.

Their project this afternoon was making a 'galaxy in a jar.' The process involved putting a layer of stretched out cotton balls into the bottom of the jar, adding glitter, adding a tempura paint and water mixture, and repeating the process layer-by-layer until the top of the jar is reached. Annabelle preferred to call it a nebula in a jar, given its cloudy appearance. 

While she had fun, CJ and I toiled with more practice for the state standardized math test. Good times. There was one answer on their test we're both convinced they have wrong.

WE'RE MELTING: We started our morning helping on a community art project. Local students colored plastic cups with Sharpies, and we melted them down to make them look artsy. The project is inspired by some of Dale Chihuly's work.

I just happy that after about six hours of working with a heat gun, melting plastic and kids, there hasn't been a single snafu - not even a close call.

It's a good exercise, really, as it involves learning about the safe handling of tools and requires good communication between the heat gun wielding person and the tooling person.

DRAGON DOWN: Yesterday, SpaceX's Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, carrying over 3.700 pounds of important cargo, including science and technology samples. Dragon had been attached to the International Space Station since April 10. When it arrived it was carrying 7,000 pounds of supplies. Dragon is currently the only station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth.

           Photo: SpaceX
One of the things Dragon had during its return was the spacesuit worn by NASA astronaut Tim Kopra during a January spacewalk. Engineers on the ground want to get a close look at it in hopes of determining what the source of water leaking into it that meant an early end to the spacewalk after Kopra reported a small water bubble inside his helmet.

Afternoon Delight

STADIUM BOUND: This afternoon we made our way to a bus stop atop our hill. There, we were waiting on the #24 - the bus that takes us to our happy place. Safeco Field. (Happy coincidence, Ken Griffey Junior's number was 24.)

The bus was a bit late, but we made our way to 'our' seats just ahead of the first pitch.

Lucky for us, G&G decided to go to the game, too, and they were in the good, nice seats behind home plate. We made a bee line to meet them,and let's just say we seriously self-upgraded our cheap 'weather day' student tickets ($12) and had the best view we've had in a looooong time!

The Rays had their young gun Chris Archer (above) going. Fortunately, Mr. Archer had a terrible first inning and it was 4-0 after one. 

However, the Rays kept plugging away and, to our chagrin, the Rays' Corey Dickerson hit a grand slam in the sixth, tying the game. The horror!

The Ms and Rays exchanged another run, and it was tied 5-5 after the regulation nine innings.

Fortunately, in the bottom of the 11th, Mariners catcher Chris Iannetti was the lead off batter. he walked up and smacked a home run to deep center field. Game over, Mariners win!

Meanwhile, in other ballpark shenanigans, the kids and Christian celebrated Ken Griffey Jr. during the middle of the fifth inning. All season long, the city is celebrating Junior's election to the Hall of Fame.

Here's the big screen version of the kids and Christian celebrating Griffey (they're above the "to Cooperstown."

One thing I learned today I'd never known despite my dozens upon dozens of trips to the stadium is that the baseball player depicted in the cast iron end of every row of seats in the stadium is Fred Hutchinson. 

Annabelle informed us of that fact today. She said while she was out and about, she saw a sign in the stadium sharing the fact.

These days, you hear "Hutchinson" in Seattle and you think hospital. While I'd also remembered hearing he was an athlete, until today, I had no idea just how big a deal "Hutch" was in baseball.

A pitcher - and sometimes pinch hitter! - he played for the Detroit Tigers for years, and then went on to be a manager for three MLB teams, including the pennant-contending Reds. However, he was stricken with cancer in his early 40s, while he was the manager of the then pennant contending Cincinatti Reds, and died at 45. 

Fred Hutchinson's surgeon brother, Dr. William Hutchinson (1909–1997), created the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, as a division of the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation.

Shining Stars

STARING AT THE SUN: I had trouble sleeping Sunday night (well, early Monday, really), because I knew we wanted to be up early for an astrological event - the transit of Mercury (or, in other words, Mercury passing between Earth and the sun).

It is kind of a big deal because Mercury only passes between Earth and the sun about 13 times a century. The last time it happened was in 2006, when CJ and Annabelle were still just toddling around. 

The event was underway by the time the sun rose in Seattle, a little after 5:30 a.m. However, there was a problem: A thick carpet of clouds covering the entire sky, with no sun to be seen. We were hopeful for a glimpse, though, as the transit continued through 11:40, and the clouds were moving some. 

By about 8:30 or 9 a.m., we could see the glowing orb and we had our eclipse viewers ready. They gave us a nice, safe view of the sun, but we couldn't make out Mercury without magnification. 

We tried some binoculars with the filter, but that didn't work either. We also tried our telescope, but that burned a hole in the filter. Oops. Won't make that mistake again. 

This NASA photo shows you what we didn't see. Mercury is seen in silhouette, in the lower third of the image, as it transits across the face of the sun Monday, May 9, 2016, as viewed from Boyertown, Pennsylvania. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Judging by how tiny that speck is in the heavily magnified photo, it's no wonder we didn't actually see Mercury yesterday. But as I pointed out to the kids, we were staring at the sun while Mercury was transiting, so in a way we did experience the event.

WINNINGEST: The Mariners have finished up a road trip and were back home last night. We thought we'd join them in Safeco Field for the evening. 

We started out in center field pre-game, per usual. There, we watched Mariners' ace Felix Hernandez warm up.

Per not usual, we had tickets in the King's Court - a golden cheering section for beloved Mariners' pitcher Felix Hernandez. We'd never sat in the court on the main level before (we'd sat in "Upper Court," the cheap seats version of King's Court), and were curious about the experience.

We all agreed that the King's Court is a fun idea, but the reality of it is a little less than ideal. First of all, it was mainly populated by 20 somethings who apparently put a lot of effort into "pre-funking" it. (Translation: A number of them were borderline sloppy drunk even before the game started.)

Second, every time Felix gets two strikes on a batter, the King's Court crowd stands up and holds up their "K" cards and chants "K! K! K! K! ..." hoping to help him strike out the batter. (a strike out is recorded as a K in a baseball scorebook). When the cards go up, you can't see a darn thing - not Felix, not the batter, not anything but a sea of posterboards. So that's super frustrating.

I guess one of the 'perks' of sitting in the King's Court is that, if you're loud or outrageous enough, you have a pretty good shot of getting on the big screen and/or the television broadcast. And so, people put a *lot* of effort into being loud and outrageous, which is a distraction to the game, as well.  And I can report that the selfies-per-capita in the King's Court is undoubtedly higher than the rest of the stadium's selfie ratio.

So all in all, we're glad we have experienced the King's Court, but by the seventh inning, we made our way up to the more vacant back rows of it to escape some of the 'fun' outlined above.

Regarding the actual game, the King didn't have his best stuff last night, but it was good enough to keep the Mariners in it. And fortunately Mariners' Ketel Marte had the best game of his career. The switch-hitting shortstop had four hits, including a go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning.

Felix Hernandez picked up the win with seven innings of two-run ball as he moved past Jamie Moyer for the most victories by a pitcher in Mariners history with 146. Hernandez gave up just four hits with two walks and two hit batters as he improved to 3-2 with a 2.27 ERA.

So lucky for us, we saw history being made on Monday. Hernandez achieved the milestone of becoming the Mariners' winningest pitcher ever. That fact sparked conversation on the way home about whether or not winningest is a word. I am firmly in the "yes, it is" camp on that. Look, it's on the scoreboard. That makes it legit, right?

It was nice that there was a pre-recorded message from Jamie Moyer congratulating Felix on breaking his record.

Science-Filled Sunday

PAW-SOME EVENT: We spent about three hours at Pacific Science Center on Sunday, hanging out with Huskies. 

The occasion was "Paws on Science" weekend, and we had a chance to visit with dozens of University of Washington students and professors from a variety of science-related specialties.

CJ and Annabelle visited with environmental science specialists, where they learned the average computer keyboard and cell phone has more germs than the average toilet.

They learned about the brain and the functions of its various areas. 

They took a close look at a pharmacy-themed table.

They test-drove a brand new computer game that teaches about climate change.

They learned more about the fascinating world of fecal transplants.

Apparently it's not as new as we thought it was. ...

They checked out a display about solar power ...

and built their own solar powered vehicles.

They learned about plasma from an enthusiastic gentleman with a nifty machine.

The same display also taught them about micromers.

We ran into more than one Dawg, including Harry the Husky!

And we were treated to a performance by the Husky Marching Band.

I know the cheerleaders have the pom poms, but I thought the piccolo player stole the show!

https://youtu.be/_7I8z1tY-xU

In a side note, as we approached Seattle Center to attend the event, we noticed it looked like the grounds were engulfed  in a strange. dusty cloud.

As we got closer, we were blasted by an idiot with an industrial strength, gas-powered leaf blower. The guy was 'cleaning' up a colored chalky substance by sending it airborne? The mess was the left overs from some 'color run' race.

I don't see how having neon colored fine particulate matter shot at you while you're running is a) healthy or b) fun, but people pay to participate. Go figure.

Close to Home

TERMINAL TOUR: Friday morning, we headed to a familiar destination - Fishermen's Terminal. It's at the foot of the hill where we live, at the north end. A Port of Seattle property, it's primarily a moorage for working boats. 

The tour was part of Seattle Maritime 101, the city's largest maritime industry celebration 

Here's CJ to tell you a bit about the experience.

Recently, we took a short walking tour at the Fishermen's Terminal in Magnolia, where we learned about the terminal and its history. One of the focuses of the tour was what made the Fishermen's Terminal different from other, more recreational fishing places, while the Fishermen's Terminal was more commercial. For most of the terminal's history (88 years), only commercial boats were allowed in. To this day, commercial boats are still given priority during the fishing season*. We spent some time (read: about a third of the trip) inside a hallway, where we got to see some pictures relating to the terminal's history.

Our tour guide made quite a bit of the tour about himself, and emphasized the fact that he ran the terminal's boat parking lot, or its slips.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the tour, and maybe someday we can take a more informative tour.

*During the non-fishing season, smaller boats which take up less real estate are desired.

So, yeah, not exactly a 5-star review of our tour. Personally, I was hoping for a behind-the-scenes type tour. Maybe let us peek into one of the fishing net buildings, or climb on board a fishing vessel or do *something* other than walk the wall (and the hallway to the bathrooms) where the public can go 365 days of the year? If one had never visited the terminal before, it would have been a good introductory tour. For those of us who are there a couple of times a month, it wasn't an eye opener. Oh well, it was a lovely morning and a good chance to get a little stroll in.

SITTING PRETTY: Saturday night we dashed over to the Fred Meyer in Ballard, and as we were exiting the parking lot (something we've done hundreds upon hundreds of time before), as I glanced to the left to make sure it was clear something caught my eye. 

"Is that a park down there?" I asked of the dead end on the north shore of the ship canal. The shoreline in the area is industrial, but I saw brilliantly colored flowers and the sun was glinting off the water. We took a left instead of our usual right, and sure enough, it *was* a lovely little waterfront pocket park.

I was super surprised that the park wasn't full of "city campers," as that particular neighborhood is absolutely overrun with them. However, the park was clean and all ours for that moment. The kids enjoyed dessert while we sat and listened to the end of the Mariners' game, which the Ms won in extra innings.

ART EXPERIMENT: An art class Annabelle takes recently took a tour of the Chihuly Garden and Glass at Seattle Center. Now, the class is going to take on a Chihuly-inspired art project of their own. It was inspired by a tutorial showing how to turn a certain type of plastic cups (recyclables with a #6 stamp) into what looks a lot like melted glass.

It's a pretty simple process: Decorate the cup with Sharpies/permanent markers, and then melt it with a heat gun.

It only takes about 15 seconds for the cup to turn into a blobby bowl.

It might not look like much on its own, but if you had a bunch of them artfully arranged together, I think it would look cool. Stay tuned for photos of the larger project.

PRE-TEST:  The annual standardized testing state of Washington students have to take is coming up quickly for the kids.

Since our educational 'model' is a little, shall we say, unorthodox, I always fret a bit about how the kids will do on the test. And then they always do really well. But that doesn't stop me from worrying a bit, and so we're in the pre-test fretting stage.

To help get ready, we are going through the practice tests on the Superintendent of Public Instruction's Web site. Unfortunately, to actually *find* the right practice tests and then the answer keys (what's the point in taking the practice test if you can't get results/feedback), it takes a PhD in figuring out horribly, terribly 'organized' Web sites. I mean, how hard would it be to have a page on the SPI's Web site where each test was listed by grade, and right next to each test link, was the link to the answers? 

But I digress.

So far, the kids have taken a couple of the language arts tests. No real surprises, including the fact that a number of the questions are poorly written and could definitely contribute to test takers getting the wrong answer as a result. 

If you're curious, you can see the actual practice test by going here: https://login2.cloud2.tds.airast.org/student/V151/Pages/LoginShell.aspx?a=Student&c=Washington_PT&logout=true and logging in (leaving all the fields as GUEST), and then selecting the grade (5, in Annabelle's case). The first pretest she took was the ELA Practice Test. The answers to that test are here: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/G5_Practice_Test_Scoring_Guide_ELA.pdf

I think CJ's recreational reading might be good prep for the test. (The book is "How to Survive Anything.")