Week in Review

RUFFING IT: You don't see many dog photos on this blog. I figured this snap was worthy of parking here. It's Kirby, who was living her best life on Friday morning, lounging in bed. 

And yes, she *does* need a date with the clippers, but she absolutely turns into Sharknado when approached with grooming shears and such, so her spa days are few and far between.

ON A ROLL: Big news from Mars - NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover has taken its first drive. 

The mobility test, taken a few days ago, is a big milestone, of course. 

I love being able to see tread tracks on the Martian soil! 

The mobility test was important to get out of the way, in order for the rolling lab's science operations to get underway.

UNLADYLIKE: March is women's history month. Recently a friend shared a Public Broadcasting System webpage with me that has a bunch of short profiles of notable women from the suffrage moment. 

"These digital resources present the rich history of 26 little-known Progressive Era women, diverse in profession, race, ethnicity, geographical and class backgrounds, sexual orientation and gender expression, who broke barriers in then-male-dominated fields such as science, business, journalism, exploration, and the arts," PBS explains. You can find them here: https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/unladylike2020/?fbclid=IwAR2M7k7KG3r0FBMx_ys_2eQp9GkI9E_ytFjPnsAdDU_LWMGPRfJRkLj0yiA

BORING: For a few years now, as part of his work, Christian has been involved in the Ship Canal Water Quality Project (SCWQP), Seattle Public Utilities' largest project to date. It boring a 2.7-mile long, 18-ft 10-in diameter tunnel under the ship canal in Ballard, using a 22-foot diameter Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). 

When it's complete, the drainage system will keep an estimated 75 million gallons of sewage and polluted stormwater from entering local waters each year. Project managers are looking for a name for their big boring machine. This video shows a few Seattle-inspired suggestions: https://youtu.be/jTIWPP7roPM

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jTIWPP7roPM" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> 

However, they are also asking e still need your help! Tweet your name suggestion to #NameThatTBM or use our online form.  Ask your friends and family for suggestions! Group/organization submissions welcome! Contest rules are below. 

Ideas can be submitted on Twitter with #NameThatTBM hashtag,​ or at https://survey.participate.online/s3/SPU-Ship-Canal-name-that-tbm through March 14.

You can learn more about the Ship Canal Water Quality Project on the project website.

A TASTE OF JAPAN: This afternoon we 'attended' the 2021 Japanese Language Festival, entirely online, of course. The event, hosted by the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington, was nearly two hours long and featured a number of different segments.

We learned about the Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Program Report and we saw winners from sketch and speech contests for students. (Too bad we didn't know about that before, CJ and Annabelle could have entered!)

There was a fun trivia contest (all in Japanese!) The kids did pretty well.

There was a break out room session, where small groups could ask their room's host about the JET program or all things Japanese. The program ended with a comedic sketch about how to eat ramen by master Rakugo performer Yanagiya Tozaburo. (Per Wikipedia, rakugo is "a form of Japanese verbal entertainment of yose" where a lone storyteller uses only a paper fan and a small cloth as props to tell a story, never leaving a seated position on a raised platform. 

For fun, after the festival we masked up and went to a local Japanese-inspired take out place we've been meaning to try for years, Katsu burger.

The kids each got a teriyaki chicken katsu 'burger' with a side of fries (Annabelle had nori fries, CJ had 12-spice). There were rave reviews regarding the food. They're looking forward to trying other menu items in the future.

Contemplating College

DOTTED LINE: Saturday morning CJ made it official. He accepted his offer for admission to the University of Washington! He'll be attending classes on the Tacoma campus (if the pandemic allows), majoring in history with a museum studies minor.

It's exciting to have that decision made, and now he can start planning for fall and beyond. It was great he had more than one good choice for college, and it's really great the was accepted by the school/program he was most interested in attending.

In the meantime, he still has to finish strong at South Seattle, and will be signing up for his final quarter there in the next couple of days. 

Saturday morning Annabelle sat in on an online Running Start presentation by Bellevue College, where she'll be starting this fall. 

TEEN FEED TIME: February 27 was the fourth Saturday of the month, which means Teen Feed time for our family. On the menu this month was a fried chicken dinner, with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and some pie for dessert.

Looks pretty tasty, doesn't it? The dinner on the left was our vegan option, while the right is the standard fare. 

We made 15 pounds of mashed potatoes for the meal. CJ and Annabelle each did a fair amount of peeling for that. 

We also made 20 pounds of green beans with bacon and butter. Lots of butter. :)

Dinner service is at 6:30. It's still a to go service because of COVID, so everything goes into a to go container. In total, thanks to everyone's donations, we had enough food for 90 meals, and some happy diners were able to have seconds.

ARTS AND CRAFTS: Sunday afternoon the kids participated in a draw along hosted by The Museum of Flight via Microsoft Teams online. 

An artist gave tips as they sketched a Mars rover from a still photo. Annabelle's work-in-progress is below.

And here is CJ's rover.

Funland

VENTURING OUT: I'm still playing catch up on our little last-minute trip last week to the Oregon Coast. While there, we mostly worked at the place we were staying, but we did venture out a time or two, including (gasp) going to a public place for fun. That is such a sad rarity during the pandemic.

We decided to check out Funland, a longtime arcade in Seaside, to see if it looked safe enough to visit. Fortunately, on a Wednesday afternoon during a stormy February, the place was a ghost town - less crowded than the average early morning grocery runs we make these days. So the kids each got a $20 game card and had some fun.

It was great to be doing something recreational for a change. 

CJ took a few goes at Mario Kart. Do you recognize the eyes behind the funny nose and moustache?

He managed to battle his way into first place!

On our second-to-last day, we finally got some blue skies instead of sideways sheets of rain. Here's a shot of the backside of the house. You can see CJ in silhouette in the window third from the left on the middle floor.

A shot through the porthole window on our last night there. You can see an American flag waving in the distance. 

It was nice to get away, but now it's back home to all our projects here.