Not Crying on Thursday

Greetings, MPA fans. Today's posting duty has fallen to me, your guest blogger Christian, because your normal correspondent is knee-deep in another endeavor involving lots of sugar, flour and icing. Apparently, sticky fingers aren't conducive to effective keyboard and mouse action. While I can't hope to match the lyrical prose of our founder, I'll try not to muck up the place too much.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, we went to the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis show at Key Arena last night. Macklemore is the stage name of Ben Haggerty, a smart and talented rapper native to Seattle, who has gone on to world-wide fame and fortune. The show was the finale in a whirlwind tour of basically the entire US, where they performed 33 shows in 29 cities in 52 days.

The concert was opened by rappers Talib Kweli and Big K.R.I.T., who musically influenced Macklemore when he was a young man. We weren't really big fans of the warm up acts, so while they got the crowd going, we hung out on the concourse and did some people watching.

We have been listening to Macklemore's multi-platinum album, "The Heist" for many months now, and the kids know most of the lyrics by heart. They danced and rapped/sang along enthusiastically with the rest of the crowd (and so did I) when our favorite songs were up to bat.

There were pyrotechnics, plenty of confetti, and a metric ton of energy in the air.

Today, CJ and Annabelle wrote reviews of the show. First up, Miss B:

Macklemore at Key Arena
On December 12, 2013, we saw Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at Key arena, Seattle. The first word that comes to mind when thinking about that concert is "awesome"! What made this concert especially special is that it was the last night of his tour. During the concert he played many of his most famous songs, such as Thrift Shop, Ceiling Can't Hold Us, and White Walls. There were also effects like lights, confetti and even fire "fountains". Overall it was AMAZING, and I give it a 10/10!

And Mr. Ceej:

The Macklemore Concert

Yesterday, we went to see Macklemore, a rapper from Seattle, Washington. Macklemore's album he was doing a tour for was The Heist, which was released on October 9th, MMXII. The Heist was Macklemore's first album in 3 years, the last one being "The Unplanned Mixtape", which was released on September 7th, MMIX. (No pun intended.)

On topic of the concert, other rappers (really crappy ones) performed before Macklemore on the last night of The Heist tour. The only special thing they did (in my opinion) is perform a remix of Eleanor Rigby, a song by The Beatles featured in Revolver. During the actual Macklemore concert, the first time you could see him is when he jumped on to the main platform from the stage, with fireworks exploding.

I think the concert was a very great Disk-to-Stage adaption of The Heist. There were very great videos playing on some of the screens behind Macklemore. One of the songs focused on Ireland (Haggerty is an irish name, and at first, I thought the flag they were flying was an italian flag.)

All in all, I think that the concert was *AMAZING!*

We all highly enjoyed the show, got home way too late, and I had to drag myself out of bed at five this morning to go to work, but it was worth it. What fun.

Exploring the Great Wall

ASIATIC: In our running around today we made a fun stop a The Great Wall Mall in Kent, in search of some special gift items at the mall's anchor tenant, 99 Ranch Market, , the largest Asian grocer in the United States.

As soon as we walked in we were greeted with the tempting scent of something cooking nearby. The mall has multiple restaurants and a bakery, so it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

One sign that caught our attention right away was this ...

The fun neon made me want to get some bubble tea even though I'm not really a fan. ;)

We walked around for a bit, checking the storefronts. There were also tables in the middle of the mall, as well as a number of coin operated video games and rides.

Annabelle took a shine to thins pink carousel unicorn.

Eventually, we made our way to 99 Ranch Market. We walked every aisle, marveling at all of the foreign-to us foods. While the vast majority of the packaged goods were in a language other than English, nearly everything had an English label and price tag along the shelf, so we were able to mostly figure out what was what.

The kids' favorite part of the store was the live seafood market. Dozen upon dozen crabs were stacked in tanks, and a crowd of live tilapia stared out at us, probably not hoping to be our dinner. The seafood counter was doing a brisk business.

As we were driving away from the store with five bags full of exotic-to-us goodies, I asked the kids, "Did you notice we were the only white family in that whole mall?"

"No," they immediately replied.

That made me happy.  

ON THE MOVE: See this here capsule? It's Orion, NASA's next manned spaceflight 'ride.' IMHO, it can't come too soon (especially in light of the 'trouble on the ISS news yesterday).

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman
This test version of Orion is about to take a long road trip, from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to the Naval Base San Diego in California. There, it will be used in a test to simulate the recovery of Orion during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test – 1 (EFT-1), which is scheduled for September 2014.

SCHOOLY STUFF: The kids' school-ish activities today included some science and math homework, and they read an issue of Time for Kids mostly about Abraham Lincoln (from mid-November), marking the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address. They also answered some comprehension-question type worksheets, and we went on the Time for Kids Web site and watched a video about the speech, where the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln celebrates the 150th birthday of the ship's namesake by reciting the address.

Hard to believe there were just 271 words in that speech for the ages. 

I recalled seeing a photo of Lincoln delivering the speech on the Library of Congress' web site, so I hunted it down. 

Can you spot Honest Abe?  What a treasure it is to have a photo of that seminal moment in time. The print was made from a glass negative.

Fun fact: Lincoln gave copies of the Gettysburg Address to each of his secretaries,John Nicolay and John Hay.

They also practiced some guitar today ...

RAPPER'S DELIGHT: We're off to a show tonight - the last night on a long tour by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. 

Ben Haggarty (aka Maclemore) is one of Seattle's favorite sons. This is the last of three sold out shows at Key Arena, and his final night on The Heist tour. Should be rockin' and sound a little something like this ...

Seasons Greetings

DECKED OUT: It's official - we FINALLY have all of our Christmas decorations up. It seemed to take longer than ever this year, not sure why. You'd think we'd be getting quicker, having done it a few times before. And yes, we busted out the 50+ year old aluminum Christmas tree again this year.

While we have a variety of ornaments, three clear themes do emerge. One is (big surprise!) space.

We have a bunch of Star Wars and Star Trek ships and scenes, of course.

Love this "City on the Edge of Forever"-inspired one. One of my favorite episodes, for sure.

But let's not forget science fact-inspired ornaments, as well - like this lunar rover!

 And then there are sports ornaments. Many, many sports ornaments.

 Sadly, none of my photos of Ducks or Beavers ornaments turned out. Hmm. ... Maybe next year. :P

And we have a forest of Elvii. Here is a trio.

And there's the army of nutcrackers.

JUST FOR FUN: Some fun holiday cheer to share.  First, this fun Web site where you type in your address and up pops a photo of your home in the snow. Based on the photo they used for our place, and knowing Google Earth like I do, I'm thinking that's where they got their photos.
http://pusher.com.au/clients/pusher-christmas-2012/

If you'd like to hear some more military band takes on songs of the season, check out the playlist on NORAD's Santa Tracker: http://www.noradsanta.org/?village=music

And speaking of military bands, check out this wonderful flash mob by the United States Air Force band at the National Air and Space Museum ( http://youtu.be/gIoSga7tZPg). Don't blame me if it brings a tear to your eye.


HE'S BACK:  Good news, wonderful Professor Lou Bloomfield of the fantastic "How Things Work" physics class we took on Coursera is offering that class again, starting January 13, 2014.

He sent as an email announcing it today. In part, in read:

I will be repeating How Things Work 1 this spring on Coursera.com, starting January 13, 2014. If you were not able to finish the course last time, here is a second chance. If you have friends and relatives who might find the course interesting or useful, I hope that you will encourage them to join us by sending them this link:
https://www.coursera.org/course/howthingswork1

A number of families took the course together last time and found the experience valuable and satisfying. One of my missions in life has been to show young people that science can be fun, interesting, and useful, so having families in the course is especially gratifying for me.

The most significant change this session will be the schedule. Rather than release episodes weekly, I will make the entire course available on January 13 and let you proceed at your own pace through the end of April. In this era of online learning, that freedom seems appropriate and I hope it will make the course fit your life better.

Lou Bloomfield
Professor of Physics
University of Virginia

I have to think he was at least in part thinking of MPA when he noted that a number of families took the class together last time, and he mentioned how gratifying it was to have young people learn that "science can be fun, interesting, and useful."

If you've been reading awhile, you might recall that when we completed the class during its first offering, we (each kid and I) sent Professor Lou a letter letting him know how much we enjoyed it and how much we learned. I also enclosed notes that each of the kids had taken. I also enclosed some notes the kids had taken, which were an interesting contrast in styles, CJ with his tryingtowriteverywordverbatim and Annabelle having comical, cartoony doodlings.

ALARMING: This afternoon, the Twittersverse and my Facebook feed asploded with news that there was an ammonia leak on the ISS.  While this captured any space fan's attention, I sat up extra straight, because when we saw Chris Hadfield, one of the audience's questions was (paraphrasing), 'What was your scariest experience as an astronaut?'

Without hesitation, Hadfield said an ammonia leak aboard the ISS when he was commander, and he was set to return home in just a couple of days. He recounted the experience for us and at the time I thought, "Hmm, sounds like a Much Bigger Deal than it was made out to be at the time." Ammonia is circulated outside the ISS to keep internal and external equipment cool.

As time wore on this afternoon, NASA reported it wasn't an ammonia leak after all, it is thought that a valve control in a pump module that is part of one of the station’s two external cooling loops. The flight control teams worked to get the cooling loop back up and running, and they suspect a flow control valve actually inside the pump module itself might not be functioning correctly. Apparently, when it reached its maximum temperature limit today, it automatically closed.

While they work to troubleshoot the situation, some non-critical systems have been powered down, and some systems were moved to the working loop.

Hopefully they find a quick and easy fix.

Nutcracker Sweet

PAINTING PROJECT: Yesterday when I was out making rounds of craft stores, looking for yarn for our never-ending pom pom project, I came across a D-I-Y nutcracker kit for half off - 'just' $10 apiece. I went ahead and made the impulse purchase, since the kids love nutcrackers and we hadn't done a big Christmas craft project yet.

And what a project it was. Before they even opened the boxes I told them it was going to take a long time, so don't even think about being done with it in 10 minutes. Or 15. Or 30. In order to do it right, it was going to take many steps, and we'd have to allow dry time in between. They said they understood, and so off we went.

They carefully considered colors and combinations.

It was slow going, but eventually they could see the big picture.

When they finally added the hair, eyes and embellishments, they were Most Pleased with the final products.

Annabelle's is on the left, CJ's is on the right.

PONY PALOOZA:  Ponies continue to be a part of our lives in these parts. Annabelle is forever doodling My Little Pony creations. She recently came up with this Chris Hadfield one. ...

I love its "cutie mark" - the ISS and a guitar. :)

She made it red and white, with the colors of the Canadian flag in mind. And I think it's her first pony with a mustache. ;)

We have quite a stable of ponies, and their manes and tails have come to look a big bedraggled. The kids and I have tried combing out the plastic hair, but it's all matted and knotted (it's like it spontaneously does that!). Annabelle went online searching for a solution. We found a couple of sites that suggested using warm water and fabric softener to try to detangle them. I figured it couldn't hurt. ...

In the end, the 'hair' wasn't silky smooth and totally tangle free, but they were much improved.

I'd call our spa a marginal success.

Top o' Seattle

SANTA BABY:   Saturday we made our annual trek to the most far out Santa in all of Seattle. Maybe the World! Space Needle Santa is the best of the best!

It was a c-c-c-old day - temps in the low 20s, but it was blue skies and sunny, so we couldn't complain (much). 

Though auto traffic around the Center was a bear, mercifully the Space Needle itself wasn't too terrible. We made our way up in short order and got in line to see Santa immediately.

CJ and Annabelle didn't waste any time sharing their wish lists.  

 Afterward, they decorated some complimentary rocket-shaped cookies. They are cookie decorating pros. :)

The family's (ugly) Christmas sweaters were a huge hit. One of the elves wanted to steal CJ's, and Christian's stopped traffic in the line for the elevator.

We had some fantastic vistas. I can't remember Lake Union ever looking any lovelier.

And Mt. Rainier made an appearance, as well.

Elliott Bay was glistening. Here it is toward West Seattle, where Rick will soon be living.

And here it is toward Magnolia (right of frame).

The kids took advantage of the binoculars on the Observation Deck.

And when we descended the Needle, as always, we took the time to gaze back up at it - always an impressive view.

MEANWHILE ON MARS: The news from the Red Planet continues to pile up. Seriously, I can't keep up with all of MSL's amazing discoveries. 

Today, there was much buzz about ancient lakes on Mars.
Curiosity has been rolling around in and drilling an area in Gale Crater that is believed to be an ancient lake bed, Yellowknife Bay.

The photo below is a composite from multiple images from Curiosity's Mastcam. There, Curiosity drilled into the lowest-lying member, called Sheepbed, at targets dubbed "John Klein" and "Cumberland." 

Here's the John Klein drill.


Per NASA's press release today, the rocks we see here were exposed about 70 million years ago by removal of overlying layers due to erosion by the wind.

Images above all courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS 

Friday Fun

ROUGHAGE:  A 'leftover' shot from Wednesday, when we were at Sky Nursery. You can certainly tell what season it is, because you can see a Christmas tree in the distance in the head of cabbage/lettuce(ish)!

It reminds me, I do love me some broccoli, but I have yet to meet a beet I'm thrilled with (nothing personal, Bee). Any great beet recipes out there!? 

STILL ON SATURN: We've been big on Saturn this week, and today was no exception. We fired up the amazing "Eyes on the Solar System" to check in on Cassini. 

I was first introduced to "Eyes on the Solar System" when I was at the Space Coast for the Mars Science Laboratory launch. It's an amazing, powerful tool. It features an interactive simulation of our solar systems, complete with planets and moons and all the NASA spacecraft within.

Here's a view we took of Cassini today. Breathtaking, indeed. 

MANDIBA: We were in the Southcenter Mall, standing next to their Santa display, when we learned Nelson Mandela had died.

I stood in silence, reading the news feeds across a screen, The name didn't mean anything to CJ and Annabelle, unfortunately. Today, we rectified that situation.

For starters, I had them watch the BrainPOP video about apartheid:  http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/worldhistory/apartheid/

After that, I had them watch a few videos on the Biography channel's Web site. We started with this:
http://www.biography.com/people/nelson-mandela-9397017

NIGHTCAP: Last night, the kid were up way past their bedtime (watching 'The Sound of Music: Live'). Once I realized the 11 o'clock was coming and going, I had them stay up a bit longer to see United Launch Alliance Atlas V Rocket Launch of #NROL39 Payload for the National Reconnaissance Office        

Post by 30th Space Wing (Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.).

Today, a post by former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly reminded me that rocket launches don't always go off like clockwork. In fact, they sometimes go spectacularly wrong. Like on this day in 1957, when NASA's Vanguard tried to answer the Soviet's Sputnik by sending an American satellite into orbit.

There was no code to embed the video, but it's 57 seconds and it's worth following this link to see:
http://youtu.be/zVeFkakURXM

These are a Few of our Favorite Things

SATURN SEMINAR: At 10 a.m. we tuned in to a Ustream webcast to see a panel of Cassini scientists answered questions about Saturn and its rings and moons.

The program featured Dr. Ota Lutz, JPL Education Specialist, moderator, with Dr. Marcia Burton, fields and particles scientist, Dr. Amanda Hendrix, icy moon scientist, and Dr. Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist.
The NASA-JPL photo above is formally known as Image 12. It's more commonly known as Pac-Man! :) It's of the "Death Star" moon of Saturn, Mimas. (Tell me George Lucas hadn't seen that image on the left of Mimas before dreaming up the Death Star!)

The image on the right is a thermal map. Scientists were expecting the moon to be warmest in the middle of the map, as that's the region where the Sun was shining down when the image was made. They also expected the surface to get progressively cooler out away from that spot. But as it turned out, the part that "should" be warm was cool, and the expected cold spots were warm. And the boundaries between the parts were sharp, rather than smooth transitions. And that is why we explore! Computer models and assumptions are often wrong! (If you're interested, there's a very in-depth discussion about the temperatures on Mimas' surfaces on a blog post here: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2413.html)

Here's CJ's review of the hour long webcast: 

Cassini is an unmanned spacecraft sent to Saturn. Cassini has studied the planet and its many natural satellites since arriving there in 2004, also observing Jupiter, the heliosphere, and testing the theory of relativity. One woman who worked on Cassini's team was Linda Spilker, who worked on NASA projects as early as Voyager.

Titan's lakes are said to possibly have life in them, but we don't know for sure. If Saturn's moons were to disappear, so would Saturn's rings. Saturn casts a shadow on its rings. On one of Saturn's moons, Iapodos, there appears to be a walnut shape. Cassini is not just worked on by NASA, but many other space programs around the world.

That is my pack of some facts about Cassini-Huygens.

As usual, Annabelle took notes mostly in the form of drawings.

While one of the scientists (Dr. Spilker) spoke about her work decades ago on the Voyager program, Annabelle drew this. ...

I love that she included the asteroid belt. :)

And here's her take on the scientists talking about how they share what types of instruments they'd love to have on a spacecraft to the engineers, but then reality, including budget cuts, hit.

And some of the discussion involved the fact that both Cassini and Galileo use Saturn's moon Titan to build up velocity, in a slingshot effect.

POM-POM-POM: Project pom pom continues. Annabelle got in on the action today.

It takes 300 spins around the form. And then you gather it up into a wreath shape, tie it off, and cut the loops. 

Keep doing it, and after awhile, you have a passel of pom poms. Too bad they don't multiply as fast as Tribbles. 

We just might have a finished product to show you tomorrow.

FOR CROWN OR COLONY?:  This afternoon, out of seemingly nowhere, CJ remembered a game he'd played online long ago, "For Crown or Colony?" It's on the Mission US Web site,  "a multimedia project that immerses players in U.S. history content through free interactive games. It's funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"For Crown or Colony?" puts players in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a fictional printer’s apprentice in 1770 Boston. Nat encounters Patriots and Loyalists, and tensions escalate and culminate in the Boston Massacre, when "Nat" is forced to choose sides. It's a pretty long 'game,' which is really more of an interactive story. It's a great way to learn more about early American history. 
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: This evening we gathered around the (electric) fire and watched "The Sound of Music" 'live' on NBC (delayed for we left coasters). 

My hook getting CJ interested was telling him it was a war story, set at the beginning of WWII. It worked. :)

The kids had never seen "These are a Few of My Favorite Things" or "Do-Re-Mi" in context before. 

Gosh, it was fun watching it. Now, of course, I have to show them the classic version starring Julie Andrews. 

Not everyone was a fan of the remake, though. ... 
                                             
Of course, Grumpy Cat doesn't like ANYthing.