In Transition

BLUE MOON: We awoke to stunning photos from friends and pros from all over of last night's big lunar event.

Our 'lunar event' was a non event, as a thick blanket of clouds covered our skies. Sigh.

Here's a cool time lapse video of what it looked like over NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Ironically, my favorite moon photo of the day wasn't about the super blue moon or lunar eclipse. Rather, it was from NASA of the International Space Station transiting the moon. Such a cool shot!

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: It's been awhile since we've shared any news from that hard working Mars rover Curiosity. 

NASA shared a photo today that shows the rover on Vera Rubin Ridge, where it has been investigating for the past several months. 

Right behind the rover, you can see the start of a clay-rich slope scientists are eager to begin exploring. This week, Curiosity will begin to climb this slope. In the photo, north is on the left and west is on the right, and the rim of Gale Crater is on the horizon of both edges.

Poking up right behind Curiosity is Mount Sharp. In a press release, NASA noted "the mountain's base provides access to layers formed over millions of years. These layers formed in the presence of water -- likely due to a lake or lakes that sat at the bottom of the mountain, which sits inside Gale Crater."T

The image above is actually a mosaic, assembled from dozens of images taken by Curiosity's Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). They were all taken on Jan. 23, 2018, during Sol 1943.

HALFWAY:  This afternoon, Annabelle and I went to Queen Anne and picked up a donated bookcase, which we'll be filling with a bunch of great donated books, and then headed to the transitional house we're helping spruce up a bit.

There, we redecorated their big monthly calendar with a February header, and then turned our attention to a pay phone area where residents make their phone calls.  We recovered a bulletin board with some pretty paper and provided some custom thumbtacks we made out of tacks and cute buttons. We recovered the ugly simulated dark 1970s wood grain phone surround with pretty vinyl, sticky-backed paper with a print in weathered wood in pleasant colors. We used a teal washi tape on the edges, and installed a couple of cork boards for pinning up notes. It looked super cute when we were done! Sorry I don't have a good photo of it at the moment. I'll get one when we go back in a couple of days for the bookcase install.

CONFUZZLED: The kids and I 'attended' Khan Academy again today. We're using it for Algebra I, and on most days, really like it and have little trouble with what is presented.

However, today was not 'most days.' We really failed pretty miserably on our practice homework. We felt OK after watching the video, and we've certainly done conversions many a time but YIKES, the practice problems today threw us for a loop.


I told the kids not to panic. We've been a bit befuddled before and muddled through. We'll watch the video again tomorrow, take on some more practice problems, and figure it out (literally).

Such a Lovely Audience

WE HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY THE SHOW:  It was a dark and stormy Monday night. Sideways sheets of rain assaulted the city, while gale force winds turned bumbershoots inside out and took our breath away at times. But still ... The Beatles. We were willing to brave the storm.

We simply HAD to get back to where we once belonged, and on Monday, that place was Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle, to soak up a Sgt. Pepper's sing along. We're not just fair-weather Beatles fans and wouldn't miss it for the world!

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about the event.

On January 29th, 2018, at the Moore Theatre, the Chris Friel Orchestra played the entirety of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Sgt. Pepper) as Sgt. Pepper's Sing-Along. Sgt. Pepper is a legendary multi-platinum album by 1960s British pop-rock band The Beatles.

Sgt. Pepper's Sing-Along revolved around the audience singing along with the band, helped by the lyrics to the songs appearing on a screen behind the orchestra. The band was composed of about ten people by my count, and included players with multiple different instruments. These instruments included, but were not limited to, drums (played by Chris Friel), a guitar, a bass guitar, and a keyboard.

Chris Friel, the leader of the orchestra, is a long-time Seattle musician who has drummed for multiple different bands. In the 1990s, Friel played with Pearl Jam for their demos for the multi-platinum album Ten, as well as the soundtrack for The Basketball Diaries in 1995. Friel also drummed for the bands Goodness and The Rockfords.

The Moore Theatre is a historic theater. The Moore was opened in 1907, and is the oldest currently operating theater in the city of Seattle. The Moore houses approximately 1800 seats, and is well-known among Seattle-area musicians and other artists. For example, the music video for Pearl Jam's 1991 hit Even Flow was filmed in the Moore.

The songs played at the Moore ranged from the surreal (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) to the somber (She's Leaving Home). An interesting fact is that when Sgt. Pepper was originally recorded, it would've been very difficult to re-create the studio sound effects in any live performance. Now, over 50 years later, said sound effects are now easy-to-replicate.

Shortly before playing the song When I'm Sixty-Four, Nancy, the emcee, announced that Daniel, a man in the audience, was indeed turning 64 that day. The crowd proceeded to applaud for Daniel.

After playing the last song from the album, the orchestra proceeded to do an encore, culminating in Hey Jude, a song from The Beatles' White Album.

Believe it or not, the concert was free (!). We have Seattle Theatre Group's Education and Community Programs to thank.

MOON SHADOW:  Our hopes are high and our alarms are set, but we're expecting to be disappointed when it comes to viewing the super special, super blue blood moon total lunar eclipse early tomorrow (1/31) morning.

Here in Seattle, we're hoping to see the full moon fade to red between 4:51 a.m. and 6:07 a.m. PT Wednesday.

“Set your alarm early and go out and take a look,” NASA’s Gordon Johnson urged in a press release. 

According to Space.com, the super blue blood moon is something the U.S. hasn't seen since 1866. That's a long spell!

Below is a NASA map of potential viewing areas and their relative vantage points.

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While clouds might, well, cloud our view her beginning at 2:30 a.m. NASA TV will have a live feed of the moon.  The NASA TV broadcast will feature views from the varying vantage points of telescopes at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California; Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles; and the University of Arizona’s Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter Observatory.

This particular full moon is special for three reasons: It’s the third in a series of “supermoons,” when the Moon is closer to Earth in its orbit, about 14 percent brighter than usual. It’s also the second full moon of the month, which makes it a “blue moon.” And then this super blue moon will pass through Earth’s shadow to give viewers in the right location a total lunar eclipse. While the Moon is in the Earth’s shadow it will take on a reddish tint, known as a “blood moon.”  A moon trifecta!

Seaside

IN THE (SEA)WEEDS:  Tomorrow afternoon we have an art installation to do. It involves trying to turn a school hallway into the Salish Sea. No big deal, ha ha.

To that end, for a couple/few weeks now, we've been working on a banner that speaks to how all Pacific Northwest dwellers are "Salmon People." 

Oh, and there's a giant Pacific octopus we have sculpted. For days and days, we built the thing out of expansive spray foam in a can, creating its head, and its body, and then shaping its tentacles out of foam pipe insulation, attaching suction cups and painting it all.

The installation also included some home made kelp. Enter green dollar store tablecloths and shower curtains, cut into strips and carefully hand stretched. 

Oh, and there was the 'stream' overhead, with the baby salmon swimming their way out into the world. Sorry, but I don't have a decent photo of that. :/

Of course, as I look at these pictures, I see all that is wrong and lacking in the execution, but their overall effect was less awful than what's shown here, mercifully.

All in all, a big and worthwhile project.

GAMERS: On Saturday afternoon, CJ and Annabelle had big fun just four blocks or so from home, at the Skyway library, being board game testers.

I'll let CJ tell you more about it. ... 

(Saturday), at our local library, my sister and I play-tested two board games, as part of the library's monthly board-game event. We were at the library for two hours, during which we playtested the following games:

The first, Mephisto, was a Boss Monster or Munchin-esque card game in which the objective wi to acquire the most "souls", obtained by slaying monsters in a dungeon. Weapons (typically) needed to slay the monsters are taken from the table, upon which their former space is replaced with the next card in the deck. After the deck is empty, each player takes a final turn before counting their number of souls.

The second, Conspire, is a more open-ended role-playing game in which each player, after a setting for the role-play being determined, would write a role. The role is then written in erasable marker on a sheet, which is then distributed randomly (most likely to somebody else). With the sheet that you would get, you would write three goals for the role given to you: One that personally satisfies, one that impedes somebody else, and one that helps somebody else. The role sheets are once again mixed, and distributed among the players (if you receive a sheet with roles that you wrote, it needs to be re-shuffled).

Each player gets three tokens, which, when one is played, would suddenly make a certain statement true in the setting (with some exceptions. For example: You usually can't use a token to make a statement that would immediately end the campaign).

SUCKER: At this point, we've probably all seen so many 'flashmob' videos. But I'm still a suck for them. I especially love the classical music/orchestral ones.