Eyes on the Skies

WATCH OUT: I had the stage set. There were two pairs of binoculars, some solar safety glasses, a couple of cameras ... we were hoping to see the transit of Mercury first thing this morning. 

However, the clouds had a different idea.

The event started about 4:35 a.m. Seattle time, but sun didn't rise here until after 7 a.m. today. So, Right after, I scanned the skies for any sign of an orange orb. For about two minutes I could make the disc out, but it was behind a *bunch* of tree branches from my vantage point. I used all of the tools at my disposal, but there was just no way I was able to see that speck in front of the sun given the clouds, the blowing branches and my under-powered binoculars. Bummer. 

Naturally, the sun came out about 15 minutes after the event was over. That's that Annabelle's checking out in the photo above. 

Missing out was kind of a big deal because this is the last time Mercury transits the sun until 2032, and during that occurrence, people in the U.S. won't be able to view it. Americans have to wait until 2049 for the next opportunity. Sigh.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, Christian was also looking skyward. He's in Florida for a work conference which starts this afternoon, leaving his morning open. It just so happened there was a SpaceX launch this morning, so he hopped a shuttle from Orlando to Cocoa Beach. Below is a photo of his viewing spot. The tiny white block on the lefthand side of the photo is actually NASA's enormous Vehicle Assembly Building. The white speck in the middle of the frame, between the palm trees and a pole,is the launch site.

Though he was a bit of a ways away, he was a lot closer than us. ;) And he got to see the lift off! So happy for him - what a bonus to his business trip!

Here's the entire SpaceX broadcast of the launch. Lift off happens just after the 19-minute mark.

On board the launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, were 60 Starlink satellites.

Christian's view of the launch wasn't quite as close as the official SpaceX broadcast.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket nailed its landing on a barge named Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean. You can see that about the 27 minute mark of the video. It's the *fourth* time this piece of equipment has been launched and landed. What an accomplishment for SpaceX.

PLAY THE GAME: We continue to play board games for fun and to boost our logic and strategy 'muscles.'

Chess continues to be a favorite. I call this victory "March of the Black Queen." I checkmated CJ upon turning a lowly pawn into a powerful queen.

We were playing this game during Sunday Night Football. While playing, the announcer talked about how the Minnesota Vikings' Amari Cooper plays chess in the locker room all of the time. Interesting!

A new-to-us game is "How to Rob a Bank." Three players are the robbers, working together, against the fourth player, the bank security guards. 

It's a fun concept and quite different than most games. We'll be playing this regularly, I predict.