Red and Black

INTO THE DARK: Summer is further and further in the rearview mirror. In fact, it feels like it's dark about 6 p.m. round here these days. 

A couple of nights ago, I sent the kids up to the garden to try to find some tomatoes for dinner. I also sent a flashlight and my phone's video camera with them. 
https://youtu.be/N-SrlFV92t0

Miserable Matinee

NO THANKS: This afternoon we had free passes to see a new IMAX move, "Voyage of Time." We were excited to go, and Christian even took off a little time from work to come see it (which meant he had to work late tonight). Unfortunately, attending was a poor choice. None of us liked the movie. Eight thumbs way down.

When Annabelle emailed me her review of the film. The subject line read: "Voyage of Time (AKA Oh dear god, why?)"

Here's what she had to say about the film. ... 

Voyage of Time is a “documentary” about the origin of Earth and life on Earth. It starts by showing us a random black screen with white text, addressing us as “My child” and telling the audience that the movie will “immerse” them in a world that includes them. It then shows a random little girl in a blue dress, staring at a flower while Brad Pitt (the narrator for this movie) calls her “my child” as well. The context is very confusing, but before you can think about it you’re launched into a collection of pictures of nebulas and stars. Somehow, with a few explosions and supernovas, we switch to a shot of early earth, floating in space. The sun is nowhere in sight, nor are the other planets, but Brad Pitt continues to explain that suddenly, in a thunderstorm coming out of thin air (quite literally, as the atmosphere hasn’t formed yet), it rains and earth is doused with water.

We see sweeping shots of rivers, craters, and steam. It’s not explained, but instead we get some flashy CGI showing blobs that are apparently bacteria. Then it somehow continues, in the span of less than 30 minutes, to go from the first land animals, to dinosaurs, to giraffes, humans, and then love accompanied by pictures of whales, with random cuts to our original blue-dress girl in-between. It almost seems like a mishmash of poorly written versions of theories, such as showing baboons and chimpanzees, and then cutting directly to early humans, implying that this evolution happened in a split second while our backs were turned.

It could definitely use improvement, and maybe if they hadn’t restricted themselves to a 45-minute run time and randomly pausing to make the dialogue dramatic, they could have told more of a story. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you really, desperately need a quick way to learn the history of earth and are willing to spend most of your time listening to “dramatic” reading and looking at random pictures of stars and a little girl in a blue dress.

CJ's scathing review. 

"This film has been rated G"-The MPAA rating of Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, displayed at the end of the film.

G ... For Godawful.

A short while back, my mom got tickets for a free preview screening of this promising-looking documentary film. We could see it at the Pacific Science Center's breathtaking Boeing IMAX theater, being extremely large and high-quality. The film we went to see is known as Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, which, according to the film's page at the PacSci website, a one-of-a-kind celebration of life and the grand history of the cosmos, transporting audiences into a vast yet up-close-and personal journey that spans the eons from the Big Bang to the dinosaur age to our present human world … and beyond.

At least, that's what we were promised.

Voyage of Time opens with a bizarre shot of Flash Gordon serial-style text scrolling down the screen, complete with Brad Pitt's disembodied voice addressing "My Child", who is the unfortunate viewer in this case. Brad Pitt then asks "My Child" to watch his movie, which we can already tell will be a beautiful journey.

Cut to Earth being created while unfitting opera singing plays in the background! After the Earth gets created, we get gratuitous shots of islands made of hardened lava, complete with some Ms. Butterworths lava dripping down the rocks. After Brad Pitt provides some forgettable dialogue, we see bacteria. Bacteria that is there to bore the audience. After Brad Pitt tells us about the bacteria, we jump a few eons into the future and get cuttlefish (this is probably the best part of the movie). After we see some creepy-cute cuttlefish staring at us with the magic of CGI, we see proto-mammals. Uninteresting proto-mammals. Here are some dinos! Not like there were any eons with interesting life between the cuttlefish and these guys, right? Right‽

Suddenly, Brad Pitt lectures us about the beauty of being alive and being able to breathe air. Like this isn't something you do every day. But then we see the meteor that kills the dinos. Bummer.

Then, life finds a way and giraffes appear! Can't forget the baboons, chimps, and a bit later, the primitive humans, right?

We get an extended sequence where the humans start hunting and exploring and all that crap that you can get better info about in other places.

The film ends with this irrelevant shot of a girl sitting down in a parking lot. Though she was introduced at the beginning of the movie, she feels very out of place with all the shots of the prehistoric life.

That's the recap of this dumpster of a documentary. As we hear in the movie, Mr. Pitt got hid diploma in narration from the WilliAM ShaTNEr SchOOl oF NarrAtiOn, where you learn how to stutter and speak oddly. The film provides some shoehorned attempts to make you emotional for the animals, like including an out-of-place sequence where Brad Pitt tells us about love among whales (yes, really. To see a better example of love among whales in cinema, see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and other speculation presented as fact. If you ever feel the need to watch this, whether it be on the same screen that much better movies like The Avengers or Star Wars: The Force Awakens played on or on Hulu or Netflix, you're only watching for the cuttlefish.

Actually, I think they may have been too kind. I walked out of the theater muttering that was 45 minutes of my life I'd never get back and wondering why I struggled to stay awake during the movie. I should have at least gotten a nap out of the deal. 

Pretentious, and abound with theories presented as fact, I detested the movie. Sure, it was visually appealing in parts, but that didn't make up for the annoyances, by my measure. I sure am glad we didn't pay for the tickets. 

On the way out, we noticed this poster. Now *there's* a movie that we'll most certainly enjoy more.

CALLING CARDS: Annabelle continues to leave little art objects out and about during our travels. Here's a tiny narwhal she left on a window ledge. Hopefully it brought a smile to someone.

Far Afield

WATERSHED MOMENTS: This morning was non-typical for the 'campus.' Christian and the kids struck out on a field trip while I stayed behind to tend to some business. It confused the dogs. ;)

The trio's destination was the Cedar River Watershed Educational Center. Located in North Bend, about a hour southeast of Seattle, it's nestled above the shores of Rattlesnake Lake in the Cascade foothills. The watershed is where Seattle and Bellevue get the bulk of their drinking water. 

The field trip group was met by a docent who explained the overall ins and outs of the facility and the water cycle to the group.

 After the intro, it was a self-directed tour with a number of interactive displays. 

 Each visitor was given a ball with a number on it, and they tracked that ball through the whole water cycle system.

One station was a scale that showed how many gallons of water the visitor had in their body. CJ apparently has around 11.7 gallons of water within.

 Annabelle has a couple gallons less. 

CJ enjoyed reading the signs on the displays and was frustrated that he didn't get to read each and every one. He's itching to go back.  

 Binoculars let visitors take in a view of Rattlesnake Ridge. 

I couldn't help but wonder why the name 'rattlesnake' since there really aren't any rattlers around here. The field trip trio said that it was explained at the interpretive center that the origin is unknown. The accepted theory is that camas plant (Camassia) was prevalent in the area. The plant has flowers on stalks which form into seed pods. When wind hits the seed pods, it makes a rattling sound, hence the name of geographical features in the area. Interesting!

CJ offers this review of the field trip: 

For thousands of years, animals and humans in Washington have inhabited the Cedar River, as well as the area surrounding the river. The Cedar River is near-east of my hometown, Seattle, and a watershed facility installed nearby filters and cleans the water to provide to Seattle's citizens. On October 5, we visited the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, which, as its name implies, is a place where you can learn more about the watershed and the history of the watershed. When we visited the watershed, our tour lasted about two hours, and I feel like I learned some very interesting things over there.

First off, I learned about the water cycle. As Wikipedia describes it, the water cycle describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Chances are, if you happen to live on planet Earth (and even several places that aren't Earth), you have drank quite a bit of water, and seen some of the places water will go in the water cycle. According to the museum (and a pamphlet given to me at the museum), water, among other places, can go to the clouds, snow, ocean, plants, animals, rivers, and the water in question can and will often become groundwater at one point or another. An interesting factoid I learned at the Education Center was the fact that a 4-gallon jug of water would last just a single minute in the shower. As I learned later in the museum, showers can actually use up quite a bit of water, and it is easy to waste several gallons in the shower. According to the museum, ways you can save water in the shower include installing a low-flow shower head, which can save about half the water you would use in a shower of the same length, as well as just taking shorter, more efficient showers.

Outside the museum, I have sometimes hear people complaining about how their tap water tastes dirty, even when the water is supposedly clean. As I learned from the museum, in most cases like these, the dirty taste can be attributed to blue-green algae. If I remember correctly, in the summertime, blue-green algae starts dying, and releases a chemical in the process into its body of water. Even when this water is thoroughly cleaned and purified, like the water I drink here in Seattle, it can still taste dirty due to the chemicals from the blue-green algae.

People often assume that bottled water that you can buy from the store is better in some capacity than the tap water that they can walk to their faucet and get. While it is apparently true that water bottling companies will sometimes alter the water they put in their bottles and sell to consumers, according to the museum, often times, they just bottle tap water and then sell it! Personally, I think it would be interesting to do a taste test between identically sized and sourced 2 servings of tap water, with the only difference being the vessel (glass vs. plastic bottle), and then seeing if the consumers in the test thought that the servings were different.

One fact that I knew before, but still surprised me to an extent, is the fact that about 70% of your body is composed of water. In the museum, there was a scale where I could stand and learn how many gallons of water are in my body. According to the scale, there were about 11.6 gallons of water in my body, which genuinely surprised me. At an earlier point in the trip, I got to ask Christopher, one of the people working at the Education Center, what would happen to your body. Chris said that you would almost instantaneously die, and that your body would be comparable to a dried raisin.

I look forward to visiting the Cedar River Watershed Education Center again, and I wonder what new things I will learn that time.

MEANWHILE, IN WEST TEXAS: This morning, there was an important test conducted by Kent, Washington's own Blue Origin. As part of the current 'space race' to get USA-based manned spaceflight back on track, the New Shepard test was a safety check to make sure the crew capsule can safely escape a rocket launch.

We've watched the video three times now and it's still oh-so-exciting. 
https://youtu.be/bqUIX3Z4r3k

Blue Origin peeps are probably having a big party tonight. It appeared the capsule drifted back down to Earth perfectly under parachutes.

But the crew capsule landing wasn't the end of the story. Keep watching the video to watch the Blue Origin rocket come on back down to Earth. This particular rocket has successfully landed on Earth FIVE times now. Reusable components is the future of spaceflight, and Blue Origin is part of that.

The video narrators mentioned the capsule and rocket would be returning to Kent post flight. We're going to write to Blue Origin and ask where and when we might be able to see them!

Tracking Matthew

               Hurricane Matthew, all over social media. Original source unknown.

IN HARM'S WAY: For a few days, we (and a WHOLE lot of other people) have been tracking the path of a storm named Matthew, spinning in the Atlantic Ocean.

Right now, it's wreaking havoc in Haiti. By Thursday, it's supposed to hit the Space Coast.

The storm is a monster. Enormous. It seems to cover more than a quarter of the globe in this video from the International Space Station. 

https://youtu.be/Z8huapsaouU

The video was taken from 250 miles above the storm at 1:15 p.m. Pacific time on Oct. 3. It was a Category 4 hurricane at that point. 

It has done its damage in Haiti a. "It's the worst hurricane that I've seen during my life," Fidele Nicolas, a civil protection official in Nippes, Haiti, told the Associated Press. "It destroyed schools, roads, other structures," he said. Matthew also hit Cuba, and now it's on a crash course for the Bahamas.

And here's an animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite imagery from Oct. 2 to Oct. 4, 2016, showing Matthew moving through the Caribbean Sea and making landfall on western Haiti today.

https://youtu.be/xjYnU0TOoQc

Credits: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

This event serves as a reminder that NASA is about a whole lot more than 'just' spaceflight. The agency performs so much Earth-science related work. Like check out this map generated on Oct. 2 at 2:46 Pacific time by GPM’s Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instruments. They collected data used to make this map of rainfall occurring within Hurricane Matthew.  Some areas show in excess of 6.4 inches (163 mm) per hour. 

Credits: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

As of right this moment (8 p.m. on Oct. 4), Matthew has maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. Mix that big wind with the huge rain. It's a recipe for disaster. 

So Long, Season

MYTHICAL CAKE: We had a busy weekend. Almost all of Saturday was absorbed in a cake project. Specifically, a sculpted unicorn cake for a young friend of the family.

I baked the cakes on Friday - six colors in a tie-dyed style. It doesn't look like much when it's in its solid form, but when you cut into it it's pretty, promise. ;)

We decided on a laying down unicorn, because I didn't have the time or the hardware to make that happen. We studied several photos of horses laying down to decide upon an OK pose.

The legs were done out of crispy rice treat cereal, as was the unicorn head.

Below is what it looked like after it was crumb coated. Then, it was time to cover it in homemade marshmallow fondant.

We also had to make a horn and some ears. We made extra of each, because sometimes/often things go awry.

In the end, he/she/it looked like this.  (The '5' necklace is because it was for a 5-year-old's birthday.)

Always, the scariest part is transporting these cakes. 

Fortunately, the unicorn was plenty sturdy and made it to its final resting place in one piece.

SEASON'S END: We wound up going to Safeco Field last Thursday and this Sunday, trying to squeeze in as much baseball as we could while the Mariners' season wound down to another sad end.

But as we like to say in our family, the worst day at the ballpark is better than most days, anywhere. 

In fact, on Sunday, Oct. 1, it was so sunny and warm at the park, I was worried we were all going to get sunburned!

We typically start our ballpark visits out in the bullpen. On Thursday night, Annabelle took art supplies with her. That brought some smiles from onlookers. Guess there aren't usually a whole lot of people 'doing an art' out in the bullpen.

 Thursday night, the Mariners staged quite a comeback. During one between-innings rally, Annabelle stood up and danced with her Moose hat pulled over her face. Guess that's a ticket to getting featured on the big screen. 

On Sunday, it was Kids Appreciation Day. That meant many mascots were in the ballpark. CeeJ and Bee had a chance to meet and great the Ivar's clam. 

We're very sad the season is over, and can't wait until opening day 2017.