We Oughta be in Pictures

 
FAMILY PORTRAITS:  The last couple of days Annabelle has started drawing cartoon-ish humans (instead of say ponies and penguins she so loves to draw).

Here are some pictures she came up with today, in addition to a couple of self portraits above. ...

Here's one of CJ and me ...

And one of Christian ...

He was (obviously) sporting his Seahawks jersey for tonight's preseason game. Go Hawks!

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM:  At noon, our attention turned to the Little League World Series play.  The team from Sammamish (where we recreated last weekend) was playing for a shot in the finals.

My oh my, what a game it was.  Back and forth, up and down, Washington vs. a team from Connecticut.  In extra innings, Connecticut ended up coming up with one run more.  CJ was beside himself for about 60 seconds, but he quickly shifted his focus elsewhere.

We learned things watching the game, of course.  One crazy play had a Connecticut runner traveling from second to third base running into the shortstop.  The Sammamish shortstop was focused on the play at the plate, and threw the kid out there, however, it wasn't (unfortunately) an out at home, as when the runner ran into the defensive player, that was interference, resulting in that runner being out and a dead ball (no more action on the field). So, the Connecticut runner got to go back to third base and he wound up being the winning run.

Naturally, I started thinking about scenarios when a team might use interference to their advantage. ...

TOILING:  I spent most of my day covered in powdered sugar, working on Jursassic Park-themed cookies and cake for Kennedy's birthday.  Today seemed like lots of "middle" work, with little finishing.  Annabelle reminded me I need to be done by tomorrow, Ken's birthday.

I'm on it Annabelle, and done I shall be!

JOLLY OLDE ENGLAND:  This afternoon, I pointed the kids in the direction of a Web site with a ton of information about early British kingdoms (http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/arthur/index.html).  I told them they could read about whatever they wanted, and they each spent about a half hour poking around.  They each wound up on articles about Stonehenge, and Annabelle related a fable about Merlin supposedly building it.  The story stopped there.  I directed them to use other resources to find out exactly how Stonehenge was, in fact, built.

Music & More

PICKIN' AND GRINNING: I try to remember to have the kids practice guitar every day. I think I'm successful about 70 percent of the time.

Today's jam session included them dueting on Pink Floyd's "Breathe." They managed to sound somewhat like this.


CERTIFIED:  An email came this morning letting us know we could check Coursera to see if we passed our "Science of Gastronomy" class or not. Fortunately, we all earned certificates of completion.  CeeJ and Bee printed theirs out and stuck them in their portfolios. Here's CJ's slightly altered cert.

 As I was cleaning up today, I found some of Annabelle's notes from the lecture about gluten.

STICKY SITUATION:  We spent a lot of the day working on sugary stuff, specifically a cake and cookies for Kennedy's birthday.  He's opted for a Jurassic Park theme which has proven to be a challenge.  It's not easy sculpting a hatchling velociraptor out of gum paste.

I think the kids' favorite part of the endeavor so far is licking the beaters.

This afternoon we had to go to Bartell drugstore to buy some candy as an ingredient for part of the project. There, the kids got excited when they spied some Razzles.  We saw a video about their history and how they're made on "Unwrapped" a few weeks back, and the kids have been curious to try them ever since.

So, we bought a pack. I remember them from when I was a kid.  They haven't changed. They have a nearly flavorless candy coating which dissolves and the stuff turns into gum, which is completely flavorless, just like when I was a kid. Ah, memories. ;)

Facing Space

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA:  Today, NASA released a mosaic they created to commemorate their "Wave at Saturn" event from July 19.  On that day, the Cassini spacecraft, which is orbiting Saturn, took a photo of Earth.  NASA suggested Earthlings wave at the camera around 3:30 p.m. on that day, so their image could be captured.  Of course, every living thing on Earth was captured in the photo Cassini took that day, as we're all on this pale blue dot (above the white arrow below), to borrow a Sagan phrase.

Image: NASA, naturally

Pretty cool shot of our lil ol' planet, isn't it?

Fun and posterity, NASA also asked people to send in images they captured during their "Wave at Saturn" moment, and boy did people respond.  Earthlings from more than 40 countries and 30 U.S. states shared a total of more than 1,400 images, via  Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email.

Here are the two we emailed in ... 

News that NASA's mosaic was complete hit the Interwebs around noon today, and as soon as I saw it, I wondered if I'd ever be able to spot our photos if, per chance, they were included.

I figured if they were included, it would be in the bright blue area of the mosaic, as we had blue skies that day and the sky figured largely in our compositions.  I decided I'd invest 5 minutes, no more, in trying to find us.

So, I opened the 30 MB version of the mosaic in Photoshop, hit CTRL + a couple of times (to zoom in), and I'll be darned if I didn't see our photos immediately!

What fun to be a part of this piece of art!

It was a hectic day when we took those photos - we were headed to the Seattle Center at the appointed 'wave at Saturn' time because we had to participate in one of our feedback sessions at the Pacific Science Center that afternoon, and later that night it was the Paul McCartney concert. All in all, a very memorable day!

A little background info on Cassini, the spacecraft which took this photo. ... It launched on my birthday in 1997, and reached Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004.  The craft included a Saturn orbiter (that's what took the photo back toward Earth), as well as a lander for Saturn's moon Titan, called Huygens.  Huygens landed on Titan in 2005.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: We certainly enjoyed the bright, full "blue" moon hanging over Seattle (and the rest of the world) last night.

I was happy I actually managed to take a photo of it that looked like the moon (with craters and all) instead of just a bright white orb in the sky. It's grainy, because my 'big' lens isn't that big, but it's a start.

I need to learn how to do long exposure photography with my Nikon. ...

Christian managed to cue up a nice view of the moon in our telescope, too. We took turns looking at it over and over. And then at 9:08, we were back upstairs for an ISS flyover. Good times.

BIG BOAT: As we've driven across the Magnolia/Garfield bridge the last couple of days, we couldn't help but notice this little boat docked at Terminal 90, which is at the foot of our hill.

"That's the biggest yacht I've ever seen!" I marveled the first time I spied it.

Christian snapped this photo of it using his cell phone, on his way to work this morning.  (He even managed to capture the Blue Moon in the photo!)

However, the photo doesn't do the ship justice, because you can't judge the scale of this monster in it.

Turns out the lil' ship is named Serene.  It's the 440-foot personal yacht of a Russian (Stoli) vodka titan Yuri Scheffle.   Sources say it's the ninth largest yacht in the word, with seven decks and nearly 50,000 square feet of interior space. It employs a 52-person crew, and features a large saltwater pool, two helicopter landing platforms (clearly one is not enough) and there's a storage spot for a submarine which can dive to 300 feet (dinghys are so bourgeois).  The ship, built in Italy, was launched in 2011. It has 24 state rooms, numerous lounges, as you'd expect, and a room with a glass floor called the "Nemo Room." There's also reportedly a "snow room" for kids to play in the powdery stuff if the blue skies and sunshine become to boring.

The Seattle Times has some lovely photos of it here: http://seattletimes.com/html/picturethis/2021651774_theserenevisitsseattle.html

Moon Tunes & More

Altered (by me) moon image from MrMac04 via Morguefile

BLUE MOON:  The kids often start their days by reading news headlines on the Internet, and today, they each discovered that tonight's full moon would be a Blue Moon.  

I quickly told them that it didn't mean the moon would be blue.  In this instance, it refers to the third of four full moons in the season.  There are usually only three full moons in a season, so this one is a bonus. :)

After we talked about blue moons, of course I had to play the song for the kids.  Many have recorded it, but I went with The Marcels, vintage 1961 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7giOrKYIwpQ, the version that was featured in the classic movie "American Graffiti." 

And though we're nowhere near the Bluegrass State, I thought I should play Blue Moon of Kentucky for them, too. Oddly enough, there were a couple versions of Paul McCartney performing it.  We went with this one.

TWO IF BY SEA:   This afternoon, I turned "Animaniacs" on, as much for me as the kids. I love that cartoon, which premiered when Rick and Kennedy were kids, and today I was reminded why.  One of the shorts this afternoon was a mash up of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the "Noah's Ark" fable, called "Noah's Lark." It was so wonderfully strange and silly. Noah was played by a cartoon dude that was clearly modeled (for whatever bizarre reason) after comedian Richard Lewis. 

We all enjoyed the cartoon, but afterward skeptical CJ had some questions. For instance, "I don't believe it's the true story, but I do believe it has some inspiration from the Bible," he weighed in. 

"Do you know what makes me have suspicion about the story of Noah's ark from the Bible?" he continued. "How could there even possibly get two of each animal, one male and one female? There are thousands and thousands and thousands of species on Earth. Howe could he possibly get two of each of them on the ark?"

Noah's Ark'' by Edward Hicks.via Wikipedia

"Well, I suppose that would depend on how big the ark was," I conjectured. 

So then, our cartoon watching turned into a math problem. :)  Per the Bible, Noah's ark had three decks and internal compartments, and it measured 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.

Naturally, our first order of business was finding out what the heck a cubit is. Turns out it's an archaic unit of measurement from the crook of the elbow to the tip of your middle finger. If you're CJ, that's 14 inches. 

So then, CJ calculated an ark based on his cubit.  It would be 350 feet long, by 252 feet.  As a basis for comparison, we looked up the measurements of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.  Those are 1092 feet long (three ark lengths per CJ's cubits), by 252 feet (four times wider than an ark per CJ's cubits).  

After calculating the length, width and height of it, CJ asked, "Can we try and get the volume of it? Length, times width, times height?"  Music to my ears! :)  

"Of course!" I enthused.  

The ark was supposedly 30 cubits high, or 35 feet per CJ cubits. So its overall volume was 714.175 cubic feet.  That's really not that enormous, and it seems implausible that two of every living creature could fit in such an area, I have to agree with CJ.

CJ had another problem with the ark story. "Second of all, some animals are only female," so how would it be possible to put one male and one female of each specimen?  "So, uh oh, in ancient time is there gender changing technology?" he wondered.

"Good point," I had to agree.

So all in all, a five-minute cartoon turned into a pretty interesting math, science, literaturem and more lesson.

Head East

EAST SIDE: Saturday we took a field trip across Lake Washington to Redmond, Bellevue and Sammamish, all suburbs east of Seattle.

The draw was the Sammamish River, which Christian and our friend Glenn kayaked on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, the kids and I drove to Bellevue's relatively new Bellevue Brewing Company, to meet them for lunch.  There, CJ and Annabelle donned the Frisbees that served as their plates under their lunches. (My friend Glenn took this photo.)

After lunch, we drove to Redmond, to walk a waterfront trail along the Sammamish River.  We parked right by Redmond City Hall, which had a neat water feature and sculpture out front.

The kids walked around in the water for a bit.

The park by city hall also had a couple of art installations.  This dancer was one of my favorites.

From a distance, we spotted what we thought to be a playground in the park, adjacent to the senior center. Turns out, it was exercise equipment.  But the kids didn't know that, so they 'played' on a rowing machine, an elliptical, with a bench-press type weight lifting machine and even did some situps.

  Fitness is fun! :)

The Sammamish River isn't particularly wide, and you're not going to see anything much bigger than a kayak floating down it.  It's a tranquil ribbon of water, winding between Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.

Glenn and Christian paddled past this couple in a canoe a couple hours before they saw them again, while walking.

There are a number of bridges over the river, including an old railroad trestle that was torched at some point in the past.

That must have been one heckuva fire.

We found some art work along the waterfront trail, on the east side of the river, including these beavers ...

and a striking native American Indian-influenced wood carving.  . 

The kids jockeyed for position in the cutout of this stone sculpture.

We happened upon a wedding in a grassy expanse, just moments before the bride walked down the aisle.  May they live happily ever after.

We were all impressed by the number of public art pieces we encountered in our short walk.  Turns out the city of Redmond has a public art collection over over 100 works of various mediums. Good for them - and for art lovers visiting Redmond!

And speaking of Sammamish, we've been watching Little League World Series games for the past several days, and the Sammamish team is representing the Northwest in the series. They won their first game handily, but suffered a defeat in their second game, when their starting pitcher got knocked out of action by a line drive.  They played their third game tonight (Monday), and won, which means they're still in contention. They play again tomorrow (8?20) at 5 p.m. Pacific.

While on the topic of Sammamish, I should mention that Forbes named Sammamish number one on its list of "Friendliest Towns" for 2012.  I'd love to know their 'scientific' criteria when it comes to determining that award.

And speaking of Sammamish again, I was curious where the city's name came from.  According to a couple of sources I found, it's from a couple of native inhabitants words, "samma," which means 'the sound of the blue crane (or heron)' and 'mish,' which means 'river.'  Christian said he and Glenn startled a blue heron during their Saturday paddle.

OVERHEAD:  We've had the pleasure of watching International Space Station fly overs several times over the past few days.  I don't think it will ever get old.  If you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor and go to Spot the Station's Web site: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/home.cfm, and with a few quick clicks you can find out when the ISS is flying over your place in the future.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: On Sunday, we completed our two last assignments for our "Science of Gastronomy" course.  One assignment involved us having to make six (!) different sauces using various combinations of water, cornstarch, salt and curry powder.  The point of the assignment was to demonstrate how different the intensity of the curry flavor was by adjusting the cornstarch, salt and curry.  It was surprising and dramatic in some instances.  And the experiment made our house smell delicious.  I was hungry for curried something for the rest of the day.

Another lecture we watched was all about how gluten is formed in dough.  Its corresponding assignment required us to make four different dough balls, varying the recipes slightly (adding oil to one, vinegar to another, etc.).

The kids' hands were tired after kneading the tough dough for five full minutes.

Alien Invasion

ALIEN AUTOPSY: A couple of weeks ago Christian and the kids scored a brand new Roswell Alien model kit at a garage sale for just $5. (HUGE score - we've seen the same kit at Archie McPhee's for upwards of $30, I do believe.)

This afternoon, we opened it up and took on the project. We had quite a pile of 'bones' and 'organs' on our workstation.

First, we pieced together the skeleton per directions. It was a bit tedious, tricky, and we wound up with super glue-covered fingertips. 

Then, it was time to place the bones, brain and more in the exoskeleton.

Getting all his (or her) parts to stay in their proper place and get that puppy sealed up was not easy. We may have said a few bad words.  However, we were triumphant in the end!

Alien done, I asked the kids to each write a short story about how the alien came to wind up in our house in Magnolia. The alien kept a watchful eye on them as they did so.

Here are the stories, CJ's first, and then Annabelle's. ...

My Story About Tesla 
   Tesla is an Alien that wound up here in Seattle, Washington. Tesla came from Mars, and is oddly small.
   Tesla's story starts back on Mars. At Mars, Tesla had a UFO, and with a telescope, he spotted the gas giant called Jupiter. He then proceeded to head there, not knowing what dangers were there. As he headed there, he noticed the spot on the Southeast of the planet, which he DID NOT know was a hurricane.
   At Jupiter, Tesla's UFO accidentally flew in the hurricane, making Tesla lose control. The hurricane at that moment was stronger than ever, and it threw Tesla's now unfueled and out-of-control UFO towards Puget Sound, on Earth.
   Back at Puget Sound, none of the electronics in Tesla's UFO were working, and it was drifting in the water. about 72 hours later after a lot of rationing, the UFO washed up on shore, and a local fisherman found the UFO, occupied with Tesla. Then, he wandered in to Magnolia, Seattle, King County, Washington, to our house.
   That is the story of Tesla.

Charles the Alien
   Once upon a time, there was an alien named Charles, who lived on Mars. One day, he decided to fly around the solar system and explore. When he strayed too close to Earth, he started being pulled in by the gravity field. He was rocketing at the speed of a meteor, but luckily was able to eject the parachute before he crashed.
   Once on Earth, he discovered he had landed in Seattle, Washington. He walked around and saw many things, including dogs, cats, cars, and birds! He came to a house labeled 2846 and decided to go inside. There he met us, and we decided to keep him as a "pet".
   Now Charles is as happy as ever, and always likes to play with our dogs, Kirby and Laika. He also likes to draw with me and play games with CJ. He's always nice and will help you anytime you need it.

BIG BABY: My Facebook feed this morning let me know that there's a) a new baby giraffe at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, and b) it has a webcam - sweet!  You can see it here:  http://zoo.org/giraffecam#.Ug47npLqmvN

The best times to watch are early morning and late afternoon.  The cam has night vision, so you can check on the baby and its mom Olivia in the evening and overnight, too. 

The giraffe was born on August 6, and it's already over 6 feet tall. If you're interested in seeing what a giraffe being born looks like, check out this video the zoo posted to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MLv2KPA_jg#action=share

I gotta say, the little guy looks pretty clumsy trying to stand for the first time, but hey, he was only 90 minutes old!

BOUNTY: We made a point to get up to the top of the lot to check out our garden this morning, and it was a good thing we did. We had a bunch of tomatoes that needed a pickin'.

They are so delicious! I love watching CJ and Annabelle pop 'em in like candy. Up until this year, neither of them would eat tomatoes, but they have discovered that garden-fresh tomatoes are like nature's candy.

We were glad to see many bees buzzing around our garden, doing their work. We appreciate their efforts! There was a party in this pumpkin blossom!

You can only see two bees in the photo, but there are actually three of them.

DOCUMENTARY:  Rick stopped by this afternoon and CJ started peppering him with questions about North Korea. Rick didn't have all the answers CJ was seeking, but he did point him in the direction of a National Geographic documentary, "Inside North Korea." 

CJ watched the entire thing (about 50 minutes). He was a little disappointed it wasn't up-to-the-minute current (the now deceased Kim Johg Il was still the dictator in the documentary). 

I respect the North Korean people, but I don't like their politics," he informed. 

If you are so inclined, National Geographic has posted the documentary on its YouTube channel: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4

Long, Rocking Night

O WHAT A NIGHT:  Wednesday afternoon and evening brought a musical adventure for us - heading down to Auburn, Wa., to the White River Amphitheatre to see Train, with Gavin DeGraw and The Script.

We (all four kids and I) picked Christian up at work at 4:30 and then it was I-5 southbound to Auburn. We did well south Seattle past Federal Way, but Auburn is notorious for horrific rush hours, and last night it lived up to its reputation. Too many cars, not enough roads.  We snaked our way through town and found an OK (marginally) place to have dinner, Oddfellas. Afterward, we took off and encountered even worse traffic.

We arrived partway through Gavin DeGraw's set, which didn't break any of our hearts, fortunately. We did get to hear his uptempo hits, "I Don't Wanna Be" and "Best I Ever Had."

Up next was The Script. I'd never heard much of their music until yesterday, when the kids and I had a cram session, in prep for the concert. Good, solid pop music, and having watched a couple of videos of them live in concert, I thought we'd be in for a treat. We were. A bunch of hard-working Irishmen on their last night on this tour, they put on a show.  The band was tight, professional, personable and fun-loving. Of course, they had me even before "Hello," because they opened their set by playing Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" playing on the video screens. :)  Then they launched into a rollicking 10-song set which concluded with their biggest hit, "Hall of Fame," definitely a stadium anthem type song. Great fun, and glad we got to see them. We're fans now. :)

Annabelle doodled on her Magnadoodle during the show. I loved this DJ she drew.

She told me she wanted to do a version of it on her computer the next day, and that she did. ...

So cute!!!

Train came on a little after 9:30 p.m. and played a non-stop 90-minute set. 

During the second or so song, Train's lead singer Pat Monahan took cell phones handed to him by audience members and took a photo of himself with the phone owner behind him - while singing. He probably took a dozen shots, all without missing a beat! He obviously knows his way around various makes and models of cell phones.

During the very pretty "Marry Me," Monahan came out into the crowd. Far out - like right to the front row of the 200 section, where we were.  In between me  and the woman in the checkered shirt was Annabelle. She reached out far enough to get a handshake from him, as did CJ, who was just to my left. They were both pretty tickled. "I'm never washing this hand again!" CJ declared.

Here's a somewhat shaky (but otherwise pretty decent) video (someone else took) of Train performing "Drops of Jupiter" at the White River Amphitheatre last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpx762XuEk


Overall, the show was wonderful - even magical, in parts. It was so good, in fact, that for most of it I was able to forget what a sh*thole the White River Amphitheatre is. Where to begin? ...

When you ask someone who has been there for advice regarding attending a concert at White River, their response is fast and emphatic: "Don't go!"

One Yelp reviewer summed it up like this: "I might go back. If the reunited Beatles played with the reunited Led Zeppelin." Having lived it for myself now, I'd have to agree.

On the way to the show, horrific bottlenecks of traffic getting there that made 3 miles feel like 70. As previously stated, we missed most of the first band. It also stunk that the venue's sound system was thin and weak for the upper registers (a shame, since that's where Train's Pat Monahan really shines). And how 'bout those video screens with the resolution of an early 1990s home projection TV? And while I can't blame the venue for it, the passel of drunk, non-stop babbling women in the row behind us didn't help the ambiance. Neither did the lovely smell of cow pasture wafting in during Train's set. Afterward, there was the 45 minutes to move 2 car lengths in the parking lot, despite paying $28 for a "VIP" parking upgrade to avoid just that, because some clueless temp workers are issued reflective vests but are given zero training about how to assist rather than impede traffic flow.

All that said, I'm glad we went. But we're never going back.

The kids were slightly less critical. ... 

The Concert Last Night: A Review by CJ Kisky:
   The concert last night was a pretty good one. I thought it was pretty cool, (three artists performed: Gavin McGraw, The Script, and Train) especially because they were all artists that I liked (excluding Gavin).
   At the concert, I noticed that it was slightly larger than Safeco Field (editor's note - this is wrong, it has a capacity of 20,000), which, I guess, may be a good choice if you want to host a concert. Anyway, The music the bands played was great, and I think it's unfortunate that it was The Script's last night on tour. :"-(
Also, what I want to say is I pulled off a lot of dance moves there, and I noticed that a lot of people looking at me. I bet that I am already viral on Facebook, I just can't find myself on there because there could be a whole bunch of names for me (like "random dancing spazzy kid," and "Mr. Hornet in his pants.").
   Anyway, I want to say that the concert, overall, was great.

Annabelle's take ...
   The concert was very good last night, and it featured Gavin DeGraw, The Script, and Train. We heard a little of Gavin, but we were a bit late because of traffic, so we only heard 1 or 2 Gavin DeGraw songs. The Script was wonderful, and by the time Train came on, I was already 3/4ths deaf.
   Train was absolutely FABULOUS, and they played some songs you may be familiar with, such as: Save Me San Francisco, Hey Soul Sister, and many more. They also played Ceiling Can't Hold us, Macklemore's newest golden record! Even though it went on after midnight (I was staying awake on Diet Coke), I think it was very worthwhile.
   Overall, I would give the concert 10/10!

As CJ referenced in his review, he was a dancing machine for the second night/concert in a row. People in the stands around us were giving him high fives, and taking video of him on their cell phones. He had the security guards cracking up, and Rick and Kennedy pretending they weren't his brother (ha ha, just kidding). 

We've seen lots of live music this summer, but we're on a hiatus for about a month - until Wembley Stadium and Roger Waters performing The Wall! Can't wait!