Remembering

AD ASTRA: This week, humankind lost one of its best. Apollo astronaut Dick Gordon.

A graduate of the University of Washington, Richard (Dick) Francis Gordon Jr. (October 5, 1929 – November 6, 2017) was one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, as the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 12 mission. Gordon also flew in space in 1966, as the pilot of the Gemini 11 mission.

A U.S. Navy Captain, aviator, chemist and test pilot, Gordon definitely had the "right stuff." He was born in Seattle on Nov. 5, 1929. In his 88 years, Gordon had 2 hours and 41 minutes of space walk time. 

That's 2 hours and 41 more than the VAST majority of humanity.

Gordon graduated from North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo, Washington, in 1947, and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the UW in 1951. He's pictured center, below. 

Unfortunately, we never had the opportunity to meet Gordon. However, I have a number of friends who have met him, and they all rave about what a nice, friendly guy he was.

To the stars, Astronaut Gordon!

SWEET CELEBRATION: This afternoon, the kids and I attended a small Veteran's Day celebration. We brought a few dozen cookies for the occasion. 

It would have gone a lot faster if I had made royal icing and piped the cookies, but I went the slow route and did fondant, which meant rolling out stripes and placing each dot as a star. It was worth it seeing the octogenarians make a beeline for the cookies after the assembly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrIefWtQBZ0

White Weekend

THE WHITE STUFF:  The last few days have brought a bit of a surprise ... in the form of snowflakes!

We had snow Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Friday was not in the forecast. A quick drop in temperature thanks to a change in the wind in the early a.m. along with some precipitation made for some surprises.

And then Sunday morning, ea-Tac Airport measured 0.4 inches of snow, the second-most snow measured this early in Seattle's "winter" season since weather records began being kept in 1892. That's a long darn time!

Only Oct. 27, 1971, had more snow earlier in the season in Seattle, when 2 inches fell at the airport. There was also 0.2" measured on both Nov. 6, 1975 and Nov. 3, 1973.'

Not only was there snow, but it was cold. The three day period of Friday through Sunday each set records for coldest recorded high temperatures of their specific date: 43 degrees on Friday, 41 on Saturday and just 40 on Sunday.

Here's the National Weather Service tweet confirming the unusual state of affairs. 

NWS Seattle 

✔@NWSSeattle

In 73 yrs of records at Sea-Tac there has only been 8 days w/highs 43° or less in the 1st week of Nov, 3 of them in the last 3 days. #wawx

6:35 AM - Nov 6, 2017

DID NOT THROW AWAY MY SHOT: So, in case you haven't heard, there is this musical called "Hamilton" that has become a bit of a deal. 

It has won multiple Tony Awards, and it has worked its way into mainstream, not 'normal' for most Broadway shows. 

The show is finally going on the road and it's the hottest ticket in the country. It's coming to Seattle and we want to see it, of course. A couple of weeks ago, it was announced one possible pathway to a ticket was the new Ticketmaster "Verified Fan" program. Supposedly designed to help battle 'bots snatching up tickets, one had to go online, enter some info and then hope they were selected in a lottery for a chance to buy tickets (it was no guarantee you'd actually be able to buy a ticket).

So, once we got an email saying we had a shot, the next step was waiting for a text message with how to log in for said shot. That made for some interesting dreams/nightmares last night.

I was awake about 6 a.m. waiting. The text came a little after 7. I had my computer on at 8, already on the page and its countdown. I waited until 8:45 to wake Christian, handing him a laptop, his phone (with his code), and blaring "My Shot" from my computer's speakers. :)

There were many tense moments, but in the end, we got our tickets. Hooray!

To help celebrate, afterward, we watched this carpool karaoke with Hamilton's creator, Lin Manuel, and friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshgmStEZh0

BOARD: Every month, the kids and I put up a birthday bulletin board at their learning center. It was Oct. 31 before we realized the next day was Nov. 1. And that meant we needed a birthday board. Oops.

We started brainstorming. I refuse to do the obvious stereo types, like turkeys in November. Just no! 
So what to do, what to do?  I had a couple of thoughts but they were too hard to execute in, oh, and hour or two. My mind turned to birds other than turkeys, and I thought, "Whooo doesn't like owls?" So, we went with an owl board.

A quick check in with Pinterest showed us that owls out of brown paper bags are quick, cute and easy, so that's what we did. Annabelle pointed out that many of the examples had big ol' ears on the owls, and owls in real life don't have big ol' ears, so we opted for a model with little twists representing ears. We didn't have a tutorial, per se, so we had to wing it (pun intended).

Stuffed with recycled paper, they were super fun to create. We used a variety of printed paper for their tummies. I would have *loved* to make owls with stomachs from antiquarian books or sheet music. I think that would look so cool.

While we were installing the board, we visited with a number of families who loved the little owls and told us they would be making some of their own at home. We also had one of the teachers tell us that one of his jobs when he was student teaching many years ago was making bulletin boards, and that his favorite one he ever made had owls.