Tomorrow, We March

April 22 is March for Science Day.

Per the event's website: "The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest."

Seems logical!

It's a worldwide event. The Seattle march stars at noon at Cal Anderson Park on Capital Hill and makes its way down to the International Fountain at Seattle Center.

We're working on posters. 

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently shared this video. It's an inspiration for our march..

Sad Turn of Events

WE SEE YOU!: Here's our human home, about 1.4 billion km (or ~880 million miles) away. It's the brighter dot, on the right, center of frame. Our moon is just to its left. The photo was taken by NASA;s Cassini spacecraft at Saturn (surely you see the rings!)

           Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI @ NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NUMBER 14: Today was so, SO busy! The kids each had classes, and I had an hour long meeting to lead, a 1.5 hour meeting to attend, and a two hour diversity training session to attend. That, coupled with running kids to and fro their classes, it was one of those days choreographed in 5-minute increments. 

After we got all of our work out of the way, it was supposed to be time for play, specifically at GameWorks and then dinner at Lunchbox Laboratory. 

Yeah, well, a few wildcards thrown in. First up, three Seattle Police Department officers were shot downtown today during a stupid robbery of a 7-Eleven store. :( Horrible, terrible, awful. Ugh. One of the three suspects is a 17-year old girl. Her suspected accomplices are 19-year-old males. :( They reportedly stole beer ("an effing case of Heineken, of all things to shoot cops over" as one bystander reported) from the store before they were chased out by a clerk, and when they were confronted shortly thereafter by SPD officers, the shootings ensued.

Naturally, that incident led to multiple streets being shut down and so getting around town was challenging, to say the least.

That said, it was still CJ's birthday, and so we tried to carry on. 

We were going to meet Kennedy at Game Works. He beat us there by a bunch and reported the place closed, for a private party. The whole, enormous, cavernous place closed. Wow. Couldn't have predicted that. So we're all stuck in crime scene traffic, Game Works is closed, and now what?

We eventually just rebooted and went to Lunchbox Laboratory for an early dinner.  

 The Happy Hour shake was delicious, and the burger was bigger than CJ's head. 

So all in all, not a bad outcome for Mr. CeeJ, and he understands that Taco Bell and Game Works can come on another day.

More than anything, we sure hope the police officers are OK. 

Generally speaking, what a sad day for Seattle.

FIRST AT FIFTH: Saturday night, we were fortunate enough to have free tickets to see "The Secret Garden" at a historic theater in downtown.

Somehow, we'd never been to the 5th Avenue Theatre before. It has been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places since 1978.

Per the theater's Wikipedia article it was opened in 1926, and currently the building and land are owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus. How interesting!

Interestingly, the motif inside is Chinese inspired. And even more interestingly, the Norwegian artist Gustav Liljestrom executed the theater's design based on his visit to China, and on Chinesische Architecktur, published in 1925, an illustrated account of Ernst Boerschmann's travels in China.

While we enjoyed the theater, the show itself met mixed reviews. CJ's blistering review follows. 

On April 15, we went to the 5th Avenue Theatre to see a production of "The Secret Garden", a famous novel by author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett.
(To paraphrase the program), since 1910, when sections of the book were serialized in "The American Magazine", Burnett's book has captivated adults and children alike. Over the last 107 years, countless adaptations of The Secret Garden have been made, from film to stage play to television to even Japanese anime!

The play's official page on the 5th Avenue Theatre website describes it as "A story of great love and great loss, great sadness and great joy."
...In order when watching the play, I felt great love for the idea of the play, great loss of hopes for a compelling performance, great sadness that I was spending my Saturday night by watching a forgettable play, and great joy when I got to leave the theater.

Here's a recap of the play's actual story:
Around the turn on the century, Mary Lennox is a a lonely, spoiled girl living in India. After a cholera outbreak at a dinner party kills her family and everybody else who lives with her, she is sent off to England, in order to live with her uncle-in-law, who is a complete stranger to her.

Mary Lennox hears of a "secret garden" near her new house, and is immediately fascinated with it. Mary meets a boy named Dickon, who is familiar with the dirt around the house. Dickon teaches Mary about the concept of "Wick", something that never comes up again. If I remember correctly, Dickon had also heard of the Secret Garden.

At some point in the play, Mary's uncle-in-law, as well as his brother (if I remember correctly, the whole thing was pretty forgettable), suddenly come to the realization that Mary has her late aunt Lily's "Hazel eyes". Like a lot of things in the play, this point never comes up again as well.

After a while, a robin brings the key to the secret garden to Mary. Eventually, after searching long enough, Mary finds the garden. She brings a handicapped boy from the house, Colin, into the secret garden, where he magically heals.
Overall, The Secret Garden was forgettable. While the play had 25 songs, I found myself unable to hum any of them after the show ended.
In general, the 5th Avenue Theatre's production of The Secret Garden was rather disappointing, and I would not recommend it.

KING ME: The kids and I played several chess games this weekend One ended like this -unusual and wholly unfulfilling.  But every chess match is a learning experience, so to that end, it was a good experience.

FLOWER POWER: Recently we received our fee seeds from the Cheerios folks. 
We were lucky enough to get in on the program before their seed meter hit one billion donated seeds!

Play the Game

A LITTLE MAGIC: Playing catch up here, and the rewind machine goes back to Friday night. It was our second Mariners game of the 2017 season. We make a point to go to the home opener. We also make it a point to be at the park any time Ken Griffey Jr. is involved. 

Friday was the dedication of the big bronze statue of the Best Mariner Ever. Since the game was going down just after rush hour on Friday, we hopped the bus to get there. We thought it appropriate that we were riding bus #24 - Griffey's number!

 We hopped off at the King Street Station stop, and appreciated how lovely the building looked that afternoon.

We also ogled the condo building just north of Century Link. CJ has been trying to talk us into buying a unit there since it was just drawing board pictures. 

We made a merciful;y fast ingress into the stadium, each getting our 'bronze' Griffey statuette. 

 He's pictured above with spicy seasoned grasshoppers, a kind of a big deal as far as stadium concessions go this year.

 Before too long, King Felix appeared in the bullpen.

 We watched him warm up. Meanwhile, catcher Mike Zunino (below) contemplated how to hit a major league pitch. ... 

 Interestingly, Griffey ended up not throwing the first pitch. He served as catcher. 

 Below: The bullpen just pre-game.

The game was a nail biter. Below, Mariners' Dyson stands on third in late innings, ready to score.

 Kyle Seager was ready at the plate.

 The shot below shows were our seats were most of the game. Right above the 100 MPH marquee.

In the end, the Mariners won and we went home happy. :)