LAST ONE STANDING: We recently spent a little time in Bend, Oregon. During our short visit, we were able to see and do a number of fun things. For CJ, the pinnacle of the sightseeing involved visiting the last Blockbuster video store in America.
I would think nearly anyone who lived during the boom of the VHS era would have a Blockbuster memory - or many memories. I certainly remember heading into the stores, hoping that a copy of the biggest, newest release would be waiting on the shelves for me. Also, in the days of CJ's big brothers' childhoods, Blockbuster (and other stores) provided hours of kid-friendly entertainment. (Keep in mind, this was back before there were dozens and dozens of cable channels with programming to choose from.)
CJ would be happy to tell you more about the Blockbuster story. ...
Blockbuster is/was a chain of film and video game rental stores (and later, an online video rental service) that, throughout the 90s and 00s, was synonymous with movie night for countless people and families throughout the developed world (particularly in the United States and Australia.)
Since reaching its peak in 2004 (and making the decision to end late fees at the end of said year,) Blockbuster has been on a gradual decline, managing to go from Goliath to David within the course of about a half-decade. This was largely due to the rise of online movie and TV streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu (and, to a lesser extent, the presence of video rental kiosks such as Redbox.)
In late 2013 and early 2014, the last of the corporate-owned Blockbusters were closed, and, over the course of the next four years, fifty more franchised Blockbusters across the United States were closed, thus leaving only one, in Bend, Oregon (where I'm writing this report.)
The Bend Blockbuster (or, as it is sometimes known, "Bendbuster") has become a tourist attraction, largely due to its nostalgia and novelty. If or when Bendbuster closes, it will end the era of American Blockbuster stores, and possibly Blockbuster stores period.
A poster in the Bend store let us know a documentary about the last Blockbuster is in the works. We look forward to checking it out (but not from a Blockbuster store!).
The Bend Blockbuster was festive for the holidays. There was even a little Blockbuster tree. In a smart marketing move, the store has merchandise. CJ was most pleased to come away with a t-shirt.
AND THROUGH THE PASS: Christmas Day meant a bit (well a LOT) of traveling for us. We left Seattle at 7 a.m. on the nose. First stop: Lake Oswego, Oregon, for brunch with some family. Mercifully, holiday traffic was light, and we arrived there just a few minutes after 10 a.m. I (lamely) neglected to take any photos, so I can't prove it happened. ;) We left Lake Oswego (which is just south of Portland) about 1 p.m., destination, Bend, Oregon, another three-plus hour stint in the car (did I mention we had two dogs with us?). Our trip took us through Detroit (Oregon-style), and we got to see the sizable Detroit Dam through the windows as we whizzed by.
Fortunately, traffic remained light, the weather was decent, and there was but a dusting of snow at the North Santiam Pass. Mostly, it was dry pavement, and mostly blue skies.
We did encounter a snow plow that was pushing slush.
It was fun to experience at least a bit of a white Christmas!
We arrived in Bend a little after 4, and had a lovely prime rib and potatoes dinner, and then had barrels of laughs by gifting the kids' cousins with crazy candy canes in flavors like macaroni and cheese, clam, dill pickle and (worst of all) rotisserie chicken. They were delightfully disgusting.
FEAST: Saturday night, we headed up the monthly feast we and a group of friends put on at a local shelter for homeless young adults. This month's menu was an "Aloha 2018" theme. We had kalua pork and teriyaki chicken, white rice, macaroni salad, coleslaw, and a plethroa of Hawaii-inspired desserts.
We made a coconut, macadamia nut, pineapple yellow cake for our contributions to dessert. (It's in the upper portion of the photo above.) We also made 30 teriyaki chicken thighs, 10 pounds of pork, and 4 pounds of macaroni salad. And a couple of gallons of coleslaw. We were busy. As usual, Annabelle made a cute poster with the menu (an in-progress part of it appears at the top of this blog entry). As usual, I forgot to take any photos of the finished menu. :( Sigh. I did remember to take a couple of photos of the event in progress, but it gets pretty busy and so there are only a couple, including this one of Annabelle working it in the dish room. She is a dishwashing pro at this point.
HOLIDAZE: I don't usually post on Sunday nights, but I know our schedule is going to be wacky this week, so I thought I'd post while I could. We're busily trying to get our Christmas 'to do' list tackled. Believe it or not, today that involved a pressure cooker on our patio for a couple of hours. We were attempting to make vanilla extract for the first time ever. I've seen dozens of posts about how to do it on the official Instant Pot group on Facebook, however, when researching the process, I also found a couple of articles that scared the begeezus out of me, about how the vapors from the process could be potentially hazardous/combustible/burn your house down. So, we opted to put the cooker outside and keep a close eye on it. Happily, no fires, and it looks like it worked really well - hooray!
We'll be caught up in holiday bustle for the next few days, but will try to post when we can. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, and here's a short scene from our cozy fire tonight.
NASA's InSight lander placed its seismometer on Mars on Dec. 19, 2018. This was the first time a seismometer had ever been placed onto the surface of another planet. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
IN PLACE: Exciting news from NASA - InSight, their latest Mars lander, is doing so well, it's ahead of schedule. Already, the lander has placed a seismometer on the Martian surface. From what we read before the probe's landing, that wasn't expected to happen until well into 2019.
In a press release, InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, explained, "InSight's timetable of activities on Mars has gone better than we hoped. Getting the seismometer safely on the ground is an awesome Christmas present."
It's kind of a big deal. "Seismometer deployment is as important as landing InSight on Mars," according to InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt. "The seismometer is the highest-priority instrument on InSight: We need it in order to complete about three-quarters of our science objectives."
The seismometer will be measuring "marsquakes" (you didn't expect them to be called 'earth'quakes did you? ;) ) Scientists hope to deduce the depth and composition of the layers of Martian soil by studying the waves captured by InSight's seismometer.
Next up for InSight: Getting level. Right now it's sitting at about a 2- to 3-degree tilt. Engineers will level the lander, and once it's in the right position, seismometer measurements should commence.
GALE FORCE: Thursday evening we received a warning from our insurance company. No, we hadn't missed paying a bill. Rather, the warning was about an upcoming weather event where we live. On Thursday, Dec. 20, winds of up to 60 miles per hour were expected. It certainly was blustery this morning, starting at a little after 9 a.m. at our place, just south of Seattle. Lots of places lost power. Fortunately, we were spared.
North of Seattle, up by Mukilteo, check out this ferry making its way across choppy waters. I told the kids I'd kind of like to be on board for a ride like that. It would be exciting, for sure.
IT'S A WRAP: We have spent hours and hours wrapping dozens of gifts over the past couple of days. I can't believe there are only five days to go until Christmas.
Check out the Dollar Store 'treasure' we scored today to help us keep track. Wrapping gifts is kind of mindless work (well, at least the way we do it), so we listened to some music to help make the time pass. Today's excellent choice was a cool set from one of our contemporary favorites, twenty one pilots.
FUN WITH FONDANT: Busy weekend, as usual. While the kids and Christian went for a quick trip down south, I stayed home and worked on a 'little' project, namely making 30 melted snowman cookie kits. We had a date with a class full of third graders on Monday afternoon, and so I had some work to do.
First, I had to hand cut all of the melted snowman bodies. Then I had to make marshmallow fondant. So. Much. Marshmallow fondant. I made about eight pounds of white and two pounds each of green and brown. Oh, and I had to make three dozen gum paste carrot noses (or snowses, as I like to call them). And we had to cut parchment rectangles (for pressing/shaping the fondant, and round up pounds of sprinkles of different colors and shapes, and more). Oh, and then we had to make the heads out of crispy rice.
We reported to Kent Elementary at the appointed time. We've gone there this time of year in years past to help the class of CJ and Annabelle's oldest brother, Rick, make the snowman cookies. Rick has moved on (he's teaching in Vegas now), but we returned to Kent to make the cookies with one of his former teacher friends.
On each student's desk, we placed parchment, the fondant, a body, a head, and a nose.
Once they got the basics out of the way, they could get to customizing!
It's always so much fun to see how different all the little snow people are! Check out the headdress and legs on the one below.
And I think it was just so sweet how the snow person (below) had a gummy teddy bear tucked into its scarf. I also love the pink Unicorn Os cereal buttons on it.
This snowperson was a Seahawks' fan, right down to its eyes!
And how adorable is this snowman? That little hat? And the arms placed just 'so'!
Each of the kids was given a 'to go' box to tuck their creations (and the leftovers) into.
Later, at home, I told the kids that they should make their own snowpeople, too. Clearly, we had a few leftovers.
CJ came up with this cute creation. I like its surprised expression, and the pattern on its trunk.
In news that will surprise no one, Annabelle used the carrot 'nose' as a horn ...
and created a melted snow unicorn. I love its ears!
How cute is that?!
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: On Friday morning, CJ, Annabelle and Christian headed south to check out the Christmas ships display on the Willamette River. A cousin of Christian's kindly invited them to view the show from her houseboat. On the way south, they stopped in Vancouver to visit family friend Glenn and have lunch with him. (Glenn wound up joining them for the light show, too!)
Before the show, the kids and Christian stopped by Oaks Park. I'll have CJ tell you about a nature walk they took in the neighborhood.
On 15 December 2018, during a trip down to Portland, Oregon, my family (excluding my mother,) while waiting for a party (in anticipation of that night's Christmas Ships celebration), went on a short walk on the Oaks Bottom Loop Hike, present on a nature reserve. We had gotten to the trail from an outdoor area near Oaks Park, which itself is best known as an amusement park.
Near the start of the hike (or at least where we started,) a large mural of wildlife painted on the side of the Portland Memorial Mausoleum was visible. According to OregonHikers.org, this is the largest hand-painted mural in America.
Arguably the most interesting part of the (otherwise-unremarkable) walk was the sight of a coyote climbing the dirt wall near us. The coyote briefly gazed at us before going on its way up the wall.
According to Wikipedia, the 2009 mural was painted by by Dan Cohen of ArtFX Murals and Shane Bennett. The muralcovers approximately 43,485 square feet across eight surfaces. You can see some thumbnails of it here: https://racc.org/public-art/search/?recid=2924.89
Annabelle can tell you a bit about the Christmas ships. ...
The Annual Christmas Ship parade is an organized event that takes place in Oregon, crossing the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. When we saw them, it was as part of a party with many of our relatives on the Willamette River on a houseboat. The Christmas ships were less than 10 feet away from the houseboat, providing us a great view of each one. While it was cold and windy outside, the boats persisted with animated light shows and displays strewn across them. A few of my favorites included one with floating, glowing jellyfish hanging from the back of the boat. Another one I enjoyed was stylized to look like a large Rudolph head, complete with flashing red nose and large antlers. This is an annual event and they're still making their rounds, so see when and where you can catch them on their site at https://www.christmasships.org/ !
My friend Glenn took some video, and was kind enough to let me share it with you.
ENGINEERING LESSON: Today's STEM education came from YouTube. It's a terrific video by former NASA engineer Mark Rober. He was tired of porch pirates making off with his deliveries and so he engineered the hell out of a booby prize for would be thieves.
This video is definitely worth 11 minutes of your time.
FLICKER OF HOPE: It did my dark heart well to read this tidbit today, from US National Weather Service Seattle Washington: "Less than 30 seconds of daylight left to lose in Seattle until winter solstice. After that, we gain 50 seconds by the New Year."
Hooray! This December has seemed so over-the-top (or should that be under-the-blanket?) dark. Let there be light!
Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain of NASA greets her mother, Charlotte Lamp, on Dec. 2 at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. (Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via AP) LOFTY AMBITION: From an article in the Seattle Times, we learned that one of the astronauts on the International Space Station right now is an Evergreen State native. Anne McClain is from Spokane. Apparently McClain declared her intent to be an astronaut at age 3, and worked since that day to make it become a reality. (No doubt McClain's mother, Charlotte Lamp, a former math and science teacher, gave her many an encouraging word along the way.)
McClain, 39, graduated from Gonzaga Preparatory School in 1997, and went on to West Point Military Academy. After West Point, she her work has involved, among other things, flying Army helicopters in Iraq. Below is a screen shot of McClain's first Tweet from space.
McClain has two master’s degrees, one in aerospace engineering and another in international relations. She's also a former member of the U.S. women’s rugby team. I sure hope we get to meet her some day! INSIGHT ON InSIGHT: NASA just released photos of the InSight lander on Mars - taken by another NASA craft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Below is a composite of three images. The first is InSight's parachute, which was used during its descent and landing. The second is the lander itself, and the third is its heat shield, which protected it during descent.
In a press release, NASA explained that though the objects look teal, "That's not their actual color: Light reflected off their surfaces cause the color to be saturated." They also noted that the ground around the lander is dark, due to it being blasted by InSight's retrorockets during descent.
FUTURE FLIGHT:An email from the European Space Agency let us know their website for kids has been revamped. We looked around a bit, and in the process learned about the ESA's module that will use three types of engines to propel NASA's Orion crew capsule in the future. The module has large fuel tanks, as well as oxygen and a heat exchange unit.
It was recently delivered to the Space Coast in Florida via a Antonov An-124 transporter. The photo below shows the nosecone of the transporter opened and the module in a special cargo container inside.
Copyright ESA–A. Conigli
Below is ESA artis D. Ducros' rendition of what the module and Orion will look like in the not-too-distant future.
WAY OUT: Earlier this week, the kids and I learned about an opportunity to (virtually) hop on board NASA's New Horizons space probe for a ride and shout out to Ultima Thule, a distant Kuiper Belt object. It's out past Pluto! You just go to this webpage and enter your name and message: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Send-Greetings/
Names need to be entered by December 21, 2018.
While looking at the mission website, we were reminded that New Horizons launched over 4700 days ago. Also, we learned that there is currently an Ultima Art Campaign (contest), open to students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
At the present, no one is quite sure what Ultima looks like. In July 2017, it passed in front of a star, and a few telescopes deployed by the New Horizons team in a remote part of Argentina caught its shadow, which provided some data to help the mission team plan the flyby and understand the size, shape, orbit, and environment around Ultima Thule. Using this data, scientists think Ultima could be a long single object, or perhaps two bodies orbiting very closely together. The object is believed to be no more than 20 miles (30 kilometers) long, or, if it is a binary object(s), each component is about 9–12 miles (15–20 kilometers) in diameter.
JPL is asking for "your best space artist rendition of what you think New Horizons will encounter" at Ultima Thule. They are open to submissions in any medium, it sounds like. The deadline for entry is December 27 via this website: https://contest.sciartexchange.org/NASA-ultima-art-campaign/entry_form/
ROUND BALL: This week, one of our projects was making a cake for Birthday Dreams, a non profit that provides birthday parties to homeless children. The child receiving our cake asked for a basketball themed party. It was our first go at a cake of this sort, so there were a couple of new challenges, including how to texture the fondant for the basketball (we wound up using a meat tenderizing mallet), and how to make the wood grained basketball court (we mixed white and light brown fondant, then painted over it with a gold wash).
We cut the kid's name and age out of a sugar sheet, using an ESPN-like font.
(His name is partially obscured in the photo for privacy reasons.)
BY GEORGE: Saturday afternoon, we took advantage of our close proximity to the world-class Museum of Flight, and zipped over there for a super special presentation.
I'll have CJ go ahead and tell you a bit more about it.
On December 8th, 2018, the Museum of Flight held an event with George W. S. Abbey, best known as the former Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as a Senior Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. The event was in promotion of a biography of Abbey, The Astronaut Maker, written by Michael Cassutt, who himself is best known as a former writer for The Twilight Zone and Max Head. The event began at 2 P.M, and was moderated by aerospace consultant Roger Myers. Most of the demonstration consisted of Myers asking Abbey questions about his time in NASA, and involvement with historic programs (especially Apollo and the Space Shuttles).
Toward the end of the presentation, the people on stage started taking questions from the audience. I got to ask Abbey what the most difficult or frustrating mission to work on was for him. Abbey replied that the "political missions" were by far the most frustrating for him to work on. If I recall correctly, he said that they were the most frustrating to work on because he felt like he had less control over their outcomes, and the politicians forcing the missions often lacked important knowledge about space exploration.
CJ's write up is short on details, IMHO. The ninety minute panel was absolutely fascinating. A living repository of aerospace history, Abbey pretty much talked his way from the Air Force's Dyna-Soar space program of the 1950s, through Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the space shuttle era. The jacket of The Astronaut Maker notes Abbey had a 37 year career in aerospace, and that he was personally responsible for the selection of every astronaut class between 1978 and 1987. (During those years, he helped diversify NASA's astronauts, including recruiting and hiring numerous women and minorities.)
We learned Abbey is a local guy. He was born in Seattle. His mother worked at Boeing during World War II, when his dad was off fighting in World War II. (Abbey's dad, an immigrant, also fought in World War I, for the Canadian army.) Abbey's recollection of details was remarkable. I felt like it was a privilege to be able to sit there in that theater and listen to him relate stories that are such an important part of spaceflight - and world - history, from the launch of Sputnik to Kennedy's assassination and how that affected the space program. After the presentation, we picked up the book. It should make for fascinating reading.
TREES: On our way out of The Museum of Flight, we had to stop and admire their spaced-out Christmas tree.
We also got our vintage aluminum tree up on Saturday.
GAMERS: We've been playing a different board game pretty much every day for quite awhile. One that's pretty new to us is Nefarious The Mad Scientist Game. A strategy game by Donald X. Vaccarino, the game involves building inventions which is a process requiring research, work, and espionage.
We got it at Value Village a couple of weeks back. I wasn't a fan at first, but after we got the hang of it, we have declared it pretty engaging, with a nice mix of skill and luck involved, plus enough twists to keep it interesting through multiple plays.
LIT!: Thursday evening we ventured down to the south shore of Lake Washington to check out the spectacle that is "Clam Lights." Sponsored by Ivar's, a Puget Sound restaurant chain famous for its clam chowder, the light show at Gene Coulon Park in Renton was downright dazzling.
We walked a waterfront trail decked out in colorful bulbs. I can say without hesitation, none of us had ever seen Christmas Clams before. :)
We walked the waterfront sidewalk, about a half mile, and then took the long loop out on the piers over the water. It was brisk, but a beautiful night. In addition to the lights on land, we saw lots of stars and even an International Space Station pass overhead.
CRUDE COVERS: Recently we 'had' to get new cell phones. We didn't really want to, but we did want to change plans, and the new place basically forced us to lease phones for 'free.' I suppose free is fine, but if you drop it, it's not your phone you're breaking, it's someone else's. And that's no good. I ordered the kids new protective phone cases, pronto, but until those could arrive, I asked them to make some temporary ones.
Enter a padded Amazon envelope and some duct tape, and this fit the bill, at least for a day.
WILD WIND: Have you ever wondered what Martian wind sounds like? Well, wonder no more, as we Earthlings can now hear it for the first time ever, thanks to NASA's InSight! This is *so* cool! APPLIED: For the past couple of days, CJ has been writing an essay as part of his application to participate in the Washington Aerospace Scholars program. Offered by The Museum of Flight in partnership with the University of Washington, it's a two-part program for high school sophomores and juniors focused on the history and future exploration of space and topics in Earth and Space Science. The first phase of the program is an online distance learning course about aerospace. It provides scholars the opportunity to earn five UW college credits.
Phase two is a multi-day residency at The Museum of Flight and other locations, where students work with STEM professionals, NASA scientists, university students, and STEM educators to plan a realistic space mission.
He should know in March whether or not he was accepted.
