Unmasked

 

ARTFUL: Thursday afternoon, we took a field trip to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) with Annabelle's art class.

While the museum is full of lovely art to look at, for this visit we were focused on the African art galleries, as the class is reading a book called "The African Mask."

SAM has a sizable collection of African masks. The students studied them, did some sketches and presented information about the artifacts.

 Annabelle gave a quick talk about this Nigerian mask. Here's what she had to say. ...

"This is a mask depicting Iyoba Idia. "Iyoba" means "Mother of the Oba"- the Oba being the king at the time. This mask was commissioned along with 3 others just like it by Idia's son, Oba Esigie. Esigie led the kingdom during the 16th century, and it was considered to be a very prosperous time for the kingdom. The masks were used in an annual ceremony to the Oba's mother, and they were passed down from generation to generation. Sadly, this practice ended in 1897 when the British military invaded and stole all 4 masks from the Oba's bedroom."

The masks we saw were all so different. I kind of fancied this one, thinking it looked a bit steampunk. To me, the middle part of it looks kind of like gears.

In a chamber off the African masks exhibit was a special "Lessons from the Institute of Empathy" installation. I loved this colorful mask, found there.

Another thing that caught our eye while at the museum were large posters with a Native American take on a Star Wars Stormtrooper. Very cool!

We couldn't stop at SAM without visiting Elvis. I've always loved this Warhol work.

Why the blank canvas next to the Elvii? This sign explains.

40-plus years on, and I'm still feeling the "absence and loss" of Elvis.

Obligatory photo of Hammering Man outside of SAM.

He wasn't the only one hammering. A big new building is going in across the street, just to SAM's south.

 We noticed some welders way up high, and stopped to watch their sparks fly.

Speaking of watching, below is a bonus shot from the baseball game last Sunday. I was trying to view the crowd through the lens of the glasses of a gentleman in front of me. Kind of an interesting perspective.

GRACE-full

LEFTY LAUNCH:  Tuesday schooling meant some rise/run and other slope stuff via Khan Academy's algebra tutelage, but we took a break at noontime to tune into NASA coverage of the GRACE-FO launch.

Following, CJ will tell you a bit more about it. ... Frankly, his summary is lacking. We will be talking about that tomorrow. Anyway. ... 

At 12:47 P.M. on May 22nd, I watched the launch of a Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) rocket. The rocket carried seven satellites, two Earth-observing, and five commercial communications. The rocket in question was a Falcon 9, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. 

NASA broadcast the launch on its website, as done with several other launches. Views from the outside and inside of the rocket could be seem from the points of view of multiple different cameras.

While CJ's synopsis was lacking, my social media friend Bill Ingalls of NASA's was not.

Here's the perspective one of his cameras caught of the launch.

 And here's the camera afterwards. :0

A little bit toasty!

Onboard the rocket were twin satellites that will monitor Earth's water cycle. The two satellites comprise the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission (GRACE-FO). Also on board the rocket were five Iridium NEXT communications satellites. So you could say the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was multi-tasking.

GRACE-FO is a collaborative mission of NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). Per NASA, GRACE-FO continues the work of the original GRACE mission in observing the movement of water and other mass around our planet by tracking the changing pull of gravity very precisely.

Carol Rasmussen of NASA's Earth Science News Team wrote the following factoids about the mission: 

1 Percent (or Less)GRACE-FO tracks liquid and frozen water by measuring month-to-month changes in Earth's gravitational pull very precisely. More than 99 percent of our planet's gravitational pull doesn't change from one month to the next, because it represents the mass of the solid Earth itself. But a tiny fraction of Earth’s mass is constantly on the move, and it is mostly water: Rain is falling, dew is evaporating, ocean currents are flowing, ice is melting and so on. GRACE-FO's maps of regional variations in gravity will show us where that small fraction of overall planetary mass is moving every month.
2 Satellites, One Instrument
Unlike other Earth-observing satellites, which carry instruments that observe some part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the two GRACE-FO satellites themselves are the instrument. The prime instrument measures the tiny changes in the distance between the pair, which arise from the slightly varying gravitational forces of the changing mass below. Researchers produce monthly maps of water and mass change by combining this information with GPS measurements of exactly where the satellites are and accelerometer measurements of other forces acting upon the spacecraft, such as atmospheric drag.
3 Gravity Missions, Including One on the Moon
The same measurement concept used on GRACE and GRACE-FO was also used to map the Moon’s gravity field. NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) twins orbited the moon for about a year, allowing insights into science questions such as what Earth's gravitational pull contributed to the Moon's lopsided shape. The intentionally short-lived GRAIL satellites were launched in September 2011 and decommissioned in December 2012.
4 Thousand-Plus Customers Served
GRACE observations have been used in more than 4,300 research papers to date -- a very high number for a single Earth science mission. Most papers have multiple coauthors, meaning the real number of scientist-customers could be higher, but we chose a conservative estimate. As GRACE-FO extends the record of water in motion, there are sure to be more exciting scientific discoveries to come.
5 Things We Didn't Know Before GRACE

Here's a list-within-a-list of five findings from those 4,300-plus papers. Watch the GRACE-FO website to learn what the new mission is adding to this list.
•  Melting ice sheets and dwindling aquifers are contributing to Earth's rotational wobbles.
•  A few years of heavy precipitation can cause so much water to be stored on land that global sea level rise slows or even stops briefly.
•  A third of the world's underground aquifers are being drained faster than they can be replenished.
•  In the Amazon, small fires below the tree canopy may destroy more of the forest than deforestation does -- implying that climatic conditions such as drought may be a greater threat to the rainforest than deforestation is.
•  Australia seesaws up and down by two or three millimeters each year because of changes to Earth’s center of mass that are caused by the movement of water.

More on the mission can be found here: https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov and here: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/grace-fo

Home Field Advantage

THE OLD BALL GAME: We were lucky enough to get to see a couple of gems at Safeco Field this weekend. 

Friday night, we arrived early, scored some blanket hoodies, and a batting practice ball in short order! (The ball came from a Guillermo Heredia home run during batting practice hit to centerfield, out by the Safeco Field garden. We were standing on Griffey's Landing, adjacent to it, and the field worker tossed Annabelle the ball [she got an assist from brother Kennedy]).

The game was a squeaker.  "King" Felix Hernandez started. He had a horrible first inning, but recovered nicely. The Ms were down for most of the game, but that changed with a five-run explosion in the seventh inning, and the Mariners managed a 5-4 win in the end.

Sunday's game was against the Detroit Tigers again. I thought it interesting that before the first pitch was even thrown, the umpire messed up the lines around the batters' boxes. So much for rules!

 Below, Dee Gordon (now on the DL with a broken toe :( ) watches one go by.

 He worked the walk, though!

Below shows an appearance by (na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na) Bat Boy!

And here, the field crew freshens things up.

See this guy (Francisco Liriano, below)? Yeah, well he had a NO HITTER going into the seventh inning against the Ms. No bueno!

Anyone who follows baseball knows that you're not supposed to talk about a no hitter, or that jinxes it. Of course, knowing that, I decided to talk about the no hitter on social media, posting: "I would love to see a MLB no hitter some day, but I did not want Sunday to be that day."

Fortunately, shortly thereafter, Mitch Haniger got a hit in the bottom of 7, and it was the beginning of the Ms turning things around. In the end, it took 11 innings, but they eked out the win! Go Mariners! Oh, and I'm pretty sure my posting about the no hitter is what changed things. Go Me. :)

Girls (and Guys) on the Run

ON THE RUN: See anybody you know above? Mid right frame, it's Annabelle and Kennedy getting their run on as part of the 5K Girls on the Run event held on Sunday (5/21) around the Renton Airport. 

Last year when Annabelle ran the event, we had to drive from our place in Magnolia to the event. This year, we just ambled down the hill, about 5 minutes away from home.

The tails of airplanes being worked on made for a cool backdrop for the runners.

We didn't go into the stadium to watch the runners. Rather, this time, knowing the route, we went to a parking lot a little bit away from the turn around point.  We told Kennedy and Annabelle where to look for us, and they spotted us before we spotted them.

 Can you spot our two in the rainbow tutus?

 Fortunately, their run was before the Jet Engine Testing time frame! 

 Here's what Annabelle has to say about the experience. ... 

The Girls on the Run 5K Is a yearly event. It’s hosted at the Renton Memorial Stadium, just blocks from our house in Skyway. This year, 4000 women and girls attended the 5K, creating a crowd of people much more dense than last year’s. My group, Cascade Parent Partnership, was in the last “wave” meaning we started after everyone else. The route went out from the stadium and towards the Renton Airfield, allowing us to see a few of the planes parked up close.

It was incredibly interesting to see how diverse the crowd of runners was, with some having full sets of high-quality sports gear and others not even wearing running shoes. The race took a little over 45 minutes for us not including sign-in and lines, but while the wait was long before and after, the volunteers worked hard filling water cups and distributing medals. Although I ended up exhausted, sweaty, and ready for a nap, It was a great way to get some exercise and have fun!

 

While we watched and waited for Annbelle and Kennedy, we also tracked goings on at the Renton Airport. We noticed on plane taking off with a trailing 'tail.'

Christian immediately surmised it was going to be flying a banner behind it. He also said that the banner would create too much drag upon take off, and predicted that the plane would go pick up a banner elsewhere.

He was right! Turns out the plan was the GEICO banner ad plane we see all the time! Fun to see the process in action.

During our adventure, we also got a chance, for the first time, to check out this sculpture on grounds southwest of the airfield.

Imagine our horror when we spotted a carved-in-granite mistake.

 It's a horror!