What Day is It?

MAS MASKS: I'm feeling much better and am able to stay away all day, so I can get things done down here in the basement. Today, that meant mass mask production. 

I made Mariners masks and Seahawks masks and even some rainbow unicorn masks.

STOP IT: The kids' work today included Japanese, of course. Instead of the standard art lessons as of late, I encouraged them to each make a stop motion movie for their first time ever. 

I pointed them to the resources on Coyote Central's page. They downloaded the Stop Motion Studio app, and got right to it. 

CJ can tell you a bit more about the process. 

Earlier today, I made a simple stop motion animation, using about seventy separately-shot frames. The software I used was an app named Stop Motion Studio. Stop Motion Studio enables users to make stop motion videos by taking pictures and putting them in a slideshow.

My animation used a Perler bead design that my sister made of the character Link, the player character in most games in the The Legend of Zelda franchise. In my animation, the Perler bead figure attempts to get on top of a tissue box, to get items stuck inside it. After two unsuccessful attempts, Link brings large coasters, and makes a staircase with them. He ascends the stairs, and triumphantly gets the sword and shield from inside the tissue box. Like I said earlier, animating this took about seventy frames.

Annabelle's video featured one of her ponies. Check it out!


I thought their first forays were pretty darn good. I also thought they left a lot of room for improvement, as directors and cinematographers. For instance, what's in the frame? Check your backgrounds!  Also, HELLO! CJ's arm! That doesn't belong in the movie.

Little do they know, tomorrow's assignment will be re-shooting today's video.

MEANWHILE, AT THE MUSEUM: Oh, the things we often took for granted before the pandemic. One such example? Being able to go to world-class Museum of Flight any old time we wanted

CJ would go there every Thursday night, for his Museum Apprenticeship Program. When he was last there, he installed a really cute display, "The Original Paw Patrol."

I don't think I ever shared a photo of what that looked like. Here it is ...

It's about dogs used in the military, especially circa WWII.

It's hard to see in CJ's photo, but the left side of the display case has info from a WWII dog training manual. 

The right side of the display features a tribute to a veteran who is now a Museum of Flight volunteer,  John E. Roten. The Vietnam-era vet had a dog in combat with him. When he heard what CJ's project was, he came and visited CJ twice during the Museum Apprenticeship Program sessions to check in and offer his assistance. I told CJ he *had* to include Roten in some way in the display. Apparently Roten was on site when CJ installed his display and gave it his seal of approval. Very cool.

It's sad this display is sitting, unseen, in a vacant museum at the moment. :(

In other Museum of Flight news, apparently the astronaut is keeping busy.