Opening Stay

BASEBALL: About noon today, a reminder popped up on my computer screen. ... 

I feel like I've been pretty stoic about the whole stay home/self-quarantine/pandemic thing, but this one hurts.

Oh, how I wish we were at the ballpark today. Instead, we're on day-I've-lost-count of isolation.

There will be no crack of the bat, no roar of the crowd. No peanuts. No Cracker Jack. No booing the umpires and rooting for the home team. We won't stretch in the middle of the 7th inning, and won't dance to Louie Louie right after. Damn you, coronavirus!

Never again will I take for granted the opportunity to sit in the stadium and watch the Mariners lose. ;)

Today, instead of sitting at the ballpark with the family and the fans, I was isolated in my basement, listening to a re-run of Felix Hernandez's perfect game, making and mailing out pandemic masks I've sewn while quarantined.

Sometimes the world turns on a dime.

To try to make lemonade out of these lemons, we went ahead and had Venezuelan hot dogs for dinner and a side of garlic fries (a stadium favorite). We had peanuts and sodas and pseudo Cracker Jack and upstairs they watched "Field of Dreams" (which the kids had never seen). 

Another way to scratch that baseball itch? Check out Ken Burns' epic documentary "Baseball." Due to the dearth of the sport in the face of pandemic, Burns asked PBS to stream it for free online. You can check it out here: https://www.pbs.org/show/baseball/

Honestly, even if you're not a big baseball fan, it's worth a watch. As the PBS site points out, "The story of Baseball is the story of America. It is an epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs. It is a saga spanning the quest for racial justice, the clash of labor and management, the transformation of popular culture, and the unfolding of the national pastime."

Good stuff. 

VERSION 2.0: The kids took their first crack at stop motion animation yesterday. Today, I challenged them to try to improve on their fledgling effort. For example, pay attention to what's in your background/scene. I reminded the kids how before I take a staged photo, I'm constantly looking in the background and moving things that are a distraction, or changing my shooting angle to crop things out.

I also asked them if they could incorporate any sound or special effects.

And last but not least, I told CJ we shouldn't see his hand in the movie, lol. Here's his improved version. ...

And here's Annabelle's jazzed up version, complete with a second character and a soundtrack. 

DRAWN IN: The kids drew along with another JJK (author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka) tutorial today. The topic was having multiple characters in one frame.

The kids decided to draw our dogs.

I've always loved the way CJ depicts the fur on the dogs.

And here's Annabelle's take on the dogs.

VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP: We're certainly not going to Texas anytime soon, but today the family took a virtual field trip to the Johnson Space Center. 

Here's now NASA describes the video: 

Join Boeing and Discovery Education on a mission to inspire the world through aerospace innovation with an exclusive virtual field trip to historic Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This behind-the-scenes tour will introduce students to just a few of the amazing Boeing employees who are preparing to write the next chapter of space history with the launch of the Starliner/CST-100 spacecraft and the deployment of the Space Launch System (SLS). 

This virtual field trip will explore a variety of unexpected roles and functions that lend to the development of complex projects, like the Starliner/CST-100 and the SLS. Along the way, students will be exposed to the unusual paths that have led to these unique careers.