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

Scenes from the Weekend

ARE YOU READY?: Earlier this week, we caught a matinee of a movie we've all been awaiting, Ready Player One. 

Being the video game-loving family we are, it's no surprise we enjoyed the film, based on a best-selling book. I'll have CJ tell you a bit more about it. ... 

Years ago, I read Ernest Cline's 2011 debut novel Ready Player One, a story set in 2045 about a competition to take control of the "OASIS", a virtual-reality universe that has become a central part of world society. In Ready Player One, The way for a player to take control of OASIS was to collect three keys hidden by the OASIS' late creator, James Halliday, around the OASIS universe.

The film version of Ready Player One contained multiple differences from the book version. Here be spoilers!

In both the book and film versions, Wade Watts (the protagonist) uses a quarter near the end to resurrect his character in the OASIS. In the book, this quarter was obtained earlier in the story by Watts completing a perfect game of Pac-Man. In the film version, a tour guide at a museum chronicling James Halliday's memories gives it to Watts.

In the book version, two of the "High Five" (the five main characters) are killed outside of the OASIS by members of IOI (Innovative Online Industries, a central company in the story) in order to prevent either of them from obtaining the "keys to OASIS."

Here's a trailer if you want a sneak preview. I'd say you don't have to know a thing about video games to enjoy this film.


BACK AT THE BALLPARK: We had the great pleasure of attending the Mariners' home opener on Thursday night. Sunday, we were back at the ballpark for an afternoon game. 

It was sooooo c-c-cold! But we were mostly ready, with coats, hats, gloves and such. We stopped by to say 'hi' to Dave for the first time this season.

Once again, we sat in the top row of the stadium. During the national anthem, I noticed a couple of the kids popped out of formation and took a knee on the field. I noticed that the camera man did not show those kids on the big screen. ...

If you're interested in learning more about the incident, there's an interview with the student and her parents on KING5.com.

FURRY FRIENDS: This weekend, we had a regular menagerie at MPA. We have our two dogs, and our two fish, but we also now have a cat taking up residence for awhile, as well as a gecko, and then our Doberman friends came by for a visit. Busy place!

 In fact, the excitement was a bit much for Pretzel, who caught a cat nap on the couch.

ULTIMATELY: Saturday afternoon, we headed out to Magnusson Park in northeast Seattle. There, Annabelle played in her third Ultimate Frisbee game of the season.

While Annabelle was getting her game on, CJ was thrilled to be able to meet many a dog at Magnusson's popular off-leash area. (Unfortunately, however, no Shar-pei were to be found.)