Rocked

SMASHING: Our Tuesday evening was a little interesting. We were in a convenience store in West Seattle, and the manager came over to us and asked us if we drove a blue Honda. We said, "Yes," and he said that a couple of guys wanted to talk to us about our car. I thought that was odd, and immediately feared I hadn't set the parking break and that the car had rolled into another car or something.

Turns out the guys in the parking lot wanted to tell us about the man they just saw throw a rock through our driver's side window. Fantastic. Sigh. They said that the guy was out of it, and was actually trying to throw the rock at them, they thought.

I called 9-1-1 to report the incident, and the operator immediately shifted me to the non emergency number. Granted, nothing was on fire and I wasn't being shot at, but it ticked me off that the operator had ZERO interest in what had happened. When the non emergency operator came on, she began telling me how to file an online property damage report. I said, "Really? So that's it, huh? So no one there cares that there's a violent crazy guy running around somewhere nearby here? He was trying to hurt strangers, and my car just happened to get in the way."  At that, I was transferred back to another 9-1-1 operator who asked me if I wanted a cop to come out. I said, "Well, yeah, if you have someone in the area, I think they should at least be on the lookout for the guy."  The operator then asked if I was going to stand by my car and wait for an officer. I said, "Well I can for awhile, but not INDEFINITELY." Again, sigh.

We waited for several minutes, meanwhile cleaning up the mess that was our shattered window. Unfortunately, I didn't have gloves and wound up with several small cuts on my fingertips. Eventually an officer did show up. She was very professional and gave us a case number. And I'm sure that's the last we'll ever hear of it. 

Fast forward to Wednesday, Christian took the day off work and went down to Kent to an auto wrecking yard and got us a 'new' driver's side window and got the car all fixed up already. In the end, the incident cost us about $100 and some time. I suppose it could have been much worse.

PANDA-MONIUM: This afternoon, CJ, Annabelle and Kennedy previewed a new movie, "PANDAS 3D." We had free tickets (hooray!) from Pacific Science Center. 

Per the movie's promo material, it documentary is about "a very curious female cub named Qian Qian on an exciting new adventure in the mountains of Sichuan as she takes her first steps outside her protected habitat, discovering her true animal nature, and even facing challenges of the unknown."

Here's a trailer for the movie: https://youtu.be/cAamrkLjIuM

Per the trailer's description on YouTube, "At Chengdu Panda Base in China, scientists are dedicated to protecting the species by breeding adult Giant Pandas in order to introduce cubs into the wild. This film follows one such researcher, whose passion leads her to initiate a new technique inspired by a black bear program in rural New Hampshire. What starts as a cross-culture collaboration becomes a life-changing journey for an American biologist who crosses an ocean to join her; a scientist from Inner Mongolia; and a very curious female cub named Qian Qian, born in captivity." The film's directors were David Douglas and Drew Fellman, who also worked on “Born to be Wild” and “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar."

Here's what CJ had to say about the movie. ...

Today, I saw Pandas, a short documentary, in our local IMAX theater. Pandas primarily details the story of Qian Qian, a panda that is raised at the Chengdu Panda Base in China, with the assistance of various wildlife workers.

Ben Kilham, a naturalist from New Hampshire who has been raising black bears for decades, assisted in raising Qian Qian. In the film, Kilham said that one of the first black bears he raised had a bossy personality. The bear (who I can't remember the name of) in question is now 22 years old, and is the mother of ~20 bears.

Once she turned 2 years old, Qian Qian was released into the Chengdu Panda Base. A GPS leash was put on her neck. Jake Owens, an assistant of the effort to raise Qian Qian, was visiting his home in America when he got an alarming notice: Qian Qian had not moved for 24 hours.

Owens had to return to the Panda Base, and a search party was sent deep into the forest to rescue Qian Qian. After two days, the search party found Qian Qian, injured and up in a tree. One of the search party's members (who was afraid of heights) had to climb the tree, and give Qian Qian water mixed with honey and medicine.

AFRICAN ARTISANS: Yesterday afternoon, Annabelle and I watched a documentary, "African Pottery Forming and Firing" by art historian Christopher Roy.

In a description of the documentary, Roy writes, "This video demonstrates the five major techniques used by potters in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria. The techniques include concave mold, convex mold, coiling, direct pull, and hammer and anvil. You can see Bwa, Jelly, and Mossi potters in Burkina Faso, the Ashanti potters in Kumasi Ghana, and Igbo and Yoruba potters in Nigeria. In addition there are two detailed videos of pottery firing."

It was a fascinating look at talented artists extracting clay from the landscape, and then turning it into works of art.

You can watch it via YouTube: https://youtu.be/52HKSwkI1hs