Scenes from the Home Front

HOMEY: It seems like we're always on the go, because, well, we're almost always on the go.

But sometimes we're home. And when we are, we are constantly visited by a trio of hummingbirds. The three buzz all over our yard and hang out at our feeder multiple times daily.  Their very not creative nicknames are Reddy (he has a blazing red head), Lazy (she sits when she eats. Always) and The Other One. This is actually a Other One photo. She happened to be sitting at the time.

HUNTING: Yesterday we went looking for a Christmas tree. We've had our beloved vintage aluminum one for years, but this first year in a new home made us want to get a real tree, too. One we could then plant, to be specific.

I saw an ad for living Christmas trees - and live reindeer - at Kent East Hill Nursery. So, the kids and I headed up there yesterday. We checked out the reindeer, Twinkle and . *** was enjoying taking on an upside down Christmas tree with his antlers.

We moseyed out to the live tree section. There was not a lot to choose from (maybe 20 or so), and man, were they expensive (to me, at least). Most were around a hundred bucks, some were considerably more. Yikes.

I started eyeing dead trees nearby, but those were half a hundred, with nothing but a carcass to show for it come January. 

I was about to say 'skip it' when I checked out one last tree. I saw the name "Korean" on its label and read it aloud, knowing CJ would be instantly sold. (He has a mild fascination with things Korean, ever since "Gangham Style" was popular, I think.)

And so, Abies Koreana "Hostmann's Silberlocke," a Korean fir, joined our family.

It's not big, but it's pretty, and holds many Star Trek, Star Wars and Elvis ornaments, so what's not to love?

Meanwhile, it has been clear for a few days, and the mountain has been putting on a show. I love it when fog settles in the valley. With the mountain rising in the distance, it looks like a misty dream world!

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE: There is an astounding website that recreates every compelling moment of the Apollo 17 mission. Check it out here: http://apollo17.org/

Looking Back

A FEW YEARS AGO:  The photo above popped up as a Facebook memory today.

If memory serves, we had just gotten off a bus and were walking up toward Key Arena, to go to our first "Deck the Hall Ball," an annual concert sponsored by a local alternative station.

Annabelle was a whirling, and CJ was trying his best to be a nutcracker.

Wow, where do the years go?

HISTORY LESSON: Americans will forever remember Dec. 7 as Pearl Harbor Day. This morning, Paul Allen posted the first photos and video of the of USS Ward since its sinking off the Philippines. The 314-foot vessel is significant as it fired the first American shot in World War II on December 7, 1941, outside Pearl Harbor.

Recently, the Philippine government for allowed Allen's RV Petrel to explore the historic ship.

https://youtu.be/DmpcrFuEmr8

Launched on June 1, 1918 during World War I, come Dec. 7, 1944, the USS Ward's target on that initial WWII strike was a midget Japanese submarine. While it got the first volley off, on Pearl Harbor Day, it became the target of a kamikaze that same day. Fortunately, the crew of the Ward was rescued before the vessel was scuttled.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen’s expedition crew of Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel has documented the USS Ward (Destroyer No. 139) in its final resting place near Ponson Island in the Philippines. For more information, visit http://www.paulaleen.com

Today there was a Facebook Live event  with the crew of RV Petrel, who explored the USS Ward on the ocean floor. (Oddly, the interview doesn't start until the 25 minute mark of the broadcast.)

 
NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik posted this photo, taken from the International Space Station, today, saying, "As we reflect today, the beauty of Pearl Harbor is indicative of the beauty of the relations we have now with Japan and the Japanese people. — with World War II Valor In The Pacific National Monument."

Also on this day, Apollo 17's crew captured this amazing shot of our one and only Earth, back in 1972.

Such a stunning shot. 

And below, is an phenomenal "Earth Rise" composite shot the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter produced in 2015. 


EXPANDING: This morning, we checked out a graphic from Bigelow Aerospace. It showed how the  The size of expandable space stations will have a quantum leap with the increase in the size of rocket fairings.

Pretty cool! Bigelow's first expansion module is already attached to the International Space Station. 

We watched live coverage back in 2016 when the module was being expanded for the first time! The noises it made while expanding were interesting and a bit eerie!

Jingle Ball

MUSIC MARATHON: On Tuesday evening, we attended this year's incarnation of "Deck the Hall Ball," an annual concert hosted by KNRK, Seattle's 'alternative' radio station. (I put 'alternative' in quotes, because when a genre of music has been around 20 plus years and is very much in the mainstream, 'alternative' sounds like a misnomer to me. But I digress.)

The concert was at Key Arena, the facility that used to host the NBA Super Sonics. Now, since the Sonics were stolen - er, left town - 10-plus years ago, it's home to the WNBA Storm, and holds concerts and other special events. 

We got to the venue a little before 3 p.m. and were on site for every single minute of the show, and definitely watched the vast majority of it. I have to hand it to the stage crew/producer(s). The flow of the bands was an amazingly well oiled machine. Every single one of them started on time. Impressive!

Deck the Hall Ball is a concert at KeyArena hosted by 107.7 The End, a prominent local radio station. This year's Deck the Hall Ball (known as DTHB25 due to it being the event's 25th incarnation)'s lineup was composed of J GRGRY, J Roddy Walston and the Business, Joywave, Portugal. The Man, ODESZA, The Lumineers, and The Killers.

The concert began with JGRGRY spending several minutes mumbling about something we couldn't understand. Then again, this may have been affected by KeyArena's terrible acoustics and speakers (the stadium was designed in the 1960s to look cool). 

During most of JGRGRY's performance and a bit of J Roddy Walston's act, we waited in the lobby for dad to come.

Joywave is best known for their collaboration with Big Data for the 2013 song "Dangerous".

Portugal. The Man, the band that came after Joywave, spent several minutes performing inane psychedelic compositions that tried (and failed) to be like Pink Floyd. This went on to a poor cover of Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2.

Odesza prominently featured drummers on the front of the stage for most of their performance.

The Killers, while they put on an otherwise entertaining performance, bizarrely decided to put a giant ♂ on a block at the front of the stage, which was there for their entire show.  Meanwhile, three women who featured in their show for approximately 15 seconds were caged-in by cylinders branded with ♀s. The misogynistic implications that came with that seemed to have succeeded in alienating a large portion of their audience (me included).

My thoughts about the show align pretty closely with CJ's. JGRGRY looked to be trying his hardest to be Bowie/Ziggy Stardustesque. Sorry, only one human can do that act, and it has been done.

J Roddy Watson and the Business worked hard and were entertaining.


Joywave had a distinctive sound.


Before the concert, I 'warned' the kids that Portugal. The Man is a jam band (known for playing long, looping things that aren't like 'normal' songs), and that their act would not sound much like their smash hit "Feel it Still" at all. (Fun fact: We heard "Feel it Still" all over Europe when we were there in September.

Anyway, I was right. PTM played jam after jam, looping in and out of their own stuff and some interesting covers. I think CJ's review might have been a little harsh, however. I think he would have liked their Floyd-inspired music more if he hadn't seen the real Roger Waters TWICE this year.


Odesza was so much fun! Their music is eclectic, often featuring guest vocalists on the more ballad-like numbers. Other times, their music is totally percussion driven, with a live drum line. Probably my favorite act of the night. I loved their 'spacey' intro, as well.


The Lumineers were professional, well polished, and you could tell they were used to being the headliners, ha ha. Very listenable.

The last act of the night was The Killers. It was this band that prompted me to get tickets to this show, truth be told.

Unfortunately, they kind of lost me the second their set lit up, before they even started playing. 

Now, I get that their current hit single is "The Man." I actually like the song (even though it's full of macho puffery, for lack of a better descriptor). That said, why you make the male symbol front and center on your stage for the whole show, I'm not sure what the point of that was. It was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING on an otherwise sparse set. Ironically, band members were obscured by the big male symbol at times. It lit up all sorts of different ways. It was just weird. I wasn't the only one who felt that way, either. All four of us after the concert chimed in with 'What was THAT all about?"

Anyway, all in all, overall I found the experience a bit on the disappointing side. 

And don't get me started about the 45 minute wait in a concession stand line. Unbelievable.

Monday Minutes

SIGN OF THE SEASON: This shot is a leftover from our visit to Pacific Place last week for their snow show the night the kids went to see "Holiday Inn." 

ADD IT TO THE LIST: Here's part of my/our ongoing problem. A couple of days ago we walked into a building materials salvage/reuse store in search of flooring materials, and we saw these wood balustrades and furniture feet. I should have walked right past, but NO! They were only a dollar apiece and surely something could be done with them and then it took me about a third of a second to see that they simply HAD to be made into a chess set.

And so now we have 34 of the pieces (you need an extra queen you know) waiting to be transformed. A ridiculous purchase, really, given our already lengthy to do list, but ... sigh. We just couldn't pass them up.

So, when we're not busy remodeling our house or doing the bajillion other things we're doing, we'll tackle this. Some day.

MEGAVERSARY: For awhile now, CJ had been tracking a special webcast set for today. It was a Capcom event on the 30th anniversary of the iconic Mega Man video game series.

The event went live at 11 a.m. our time today. I'll let him tell you about what went down.

Today, Capcom (a prominent Japanese video game company) broadcast a livestream on their Twitch (the most popular livestreaming service) channel. The livestream was for the 30th anniversary of their Mega Man franchise, which started on the Famicom/NES on 17 December 1987. The franchise had not received a main series game in over 7 years, so the stream was highly anticipated by fans of the franchise.

For an hour before the main event, there was a pre-show. I did not see most of said pre-show. The stream featured interviews with several Mega Man series developers. One of the questions that many of the developers were asked was "what is your favorite Robot Master?" Answers included Ice Man (MM1) and Gravity Man (MM5).

The stream had three big announcements. The first was that all of the Mega Man X games (1-8) would be coming to the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and PC. The second was that both volumes of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, a collection containing games in the main series from 1 to 10, would be released for the Switch. The third was the announcement of development for the long-awaited Mega Man 11, which is set to appear on the aforementioned platforms in late 2018.