Friday Follies

SIMPLE, SILLY:  This evening we played the game Hedbanz. It's very simple - each player wears a headband, and they have a card stuck in that headband which all of their opponents can see, but they can't. You have a timer, and on each turn, you ask questions that can be answered with "yes," "no," or "could be," like, "Am I a person? A place? A thing?" and so on. With each turn/question you try to hone in on exactly who, what or where you are.  More often than not, hilarity ensues. 

You'd think it would be easy figuring out you're a cheesecake. But it's not.

Or how about flustered Christian? He had figured out he could touch what he was, but couldn't figure out it was the dining room, where he was sitting. Go figure.

I WANT MY MTV:  We finished up week 4 lectures for our History of Rock Part 2 class (via Coursera). Today's talk were about MTV's early years, so Michael and Janet Jackson and Madonna figured largely. 

The professor noted that new wave music was featured prominently on , and 'old' progressive rockers from the pre-MTV days found new fans, like Peter Gabriel. The kids both know his "Sledgehammer" song, but had never seen the music video, which was groundbreaking for its time (and it's still highly entertaining!). 
http://youtu.be/g93mz_eZ5N4


We also watched Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" video. The kids were struck by how much the animation looked like the present-day wildly popular video game Minecraft, and I have to agree with them.  We talked about how the video was in heavy rotation on MTV, and how ironic that was, given it's a song maligning MTV. That said, at least back in the 1980s, MTV played music videos instead of the heavy rotation of reality TV crap it is full of now. 

We took our Week 3 & 4 test today, 30 questions, and each scored 100 percent. Just two weeks to go, we'll be sorry when it's over.

BLUE MEANIES: We've hit a couple of thrift stores this week, and Annabelle spied this gem. ... 

We happily picked it up for a quarter!  It's a reprint of the 1968 edition. The kids treasure it, nonetheless.

DUETS: We've kind of (well, totally) neglected guitar this week, but the kids dusted the instruments off this afternoon and played a number of songs. It's nice to hear them improve and work together to figure things out.

Don't Stop Believing

BY A THREAD:  With just four days left in their regular seasonm, the Seattle Mariners haven't (quite) been mathematically eliminated from the post season yet. They'd have to win out and get help from others losing to make it, but hope is alive, at least for another day or so.

That being the case, the Mariners put wild card game tickets on sale today. Knowing full well it will probably just amount to a refund before the end of the month, we just had to buy tickets for a wildcard playoff game that will likely never happen. But again, there's that hope thing. ... 

The Mariners haven't made a post season appearance since 2001, when they won more games than any one in the history of baseball in the regular season, but were wiped out in the first round of the playoffs.

It's hard to imagine there ever being a season that was as magical (and improbable, actually), as their 1995 "Refuse to Lose" run. The photo leading the blog is Rick and Ken on Halloween in 1995, as Mariners stars Jay Buhner and Norm Charlton. Mariners fever was at its peak back then, and they got a TON of candy that year. :)

During Mariners' broadcasts, they ask fans to send in photos, so I Tweeted the throwback photo  Imagine our surprise when they actually showed it on TV after the third inning! Glad I had my camera handy, so I can show Rick & Ken.

MARTIAN REPORTS:  As noted here, Sunday night we watched NASA's orbiter MAVEN arrive at Mars, and Tuesday night, we watched India's MOM orbiter arrive.  Both have already been working away.

In fact, MAVEN beamed home its first images of Mars' upper atmosphere early Monday morning (Sept. 22), eight hours after entering orbit. 

NASA released the false-color images above on Wednesday. They were captured using MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument. At the time, the craft was 22,680 miles (36,500 kilometers) above the surface of Mars.

According to an online description of the image, blue shows "ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface, the green "shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud." The red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface, and the last image is a composite of the others.

Today we watched a short video narrated by physicist Bob Lin explaining MAVEN's mission:

http://www.space.com/24932-mars-atmosphere-today-could-explain-planets-past-tragedy-video.html

NASA's MAVEN website

Meanwhile, MOM's been busy, too. Here's the Martian atmosphere as seen from an altitude of 8449 km. Image taken using the Mars Color Camera on-board ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission  

LIFE LIKE: This morning, we read a a story from Discovery News about an ancient creature that pre-dated dinosaurs (by 370 million years!) and even land plants, making it one of Earth's earliest living life forms. Thing is, though it's a multi-cellular animal, frankly, it looks a bit like a modern day pomegranate cut in half

We talked about how easy it would be to miss discovering something because it doesn't fit with our pre-conceived notions.  For instance, as we're exploring Mars, what if the life on that planet looks like what we call a rock? Naturally, at that point, our conversation turned to Star Trek's "Devil in the Dark" episode, where the alien, a Horta,' looked like a cross between a rock and a burnt cheeseburger patty.

NEW WAVE: We listened to a few lectures for our History of Rock Pt. 2 class today, most having to do with the advent of New Wave music. That meant talk of The Police, Blondie, the Cars, Talking Heards, Devo, the B52s, Joe Jackson, The Knack, and more.  

Professor Kovach talked about Elvis Costello's infamous appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1977.  Costelle was supposed to play "Less Than Zero," and that's what they'd done in rehearsals, but about three bars into it, he abruptly stopped, said, "I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. There’s no reason to do this song here,” and then told his band to play “Radio, Radio,” a song that's a rebuke of the commercialization of live music broadcasts, and the control record companies had over artists.

Costello looks a bit nervous and twitchy during the song. Perhaps that was because unhappy SNL producer Lorne Michaels was reportedly giving him the middle finger for nearly the entire song. 

Shifting gears like that on live TV earned Costello a decade-plus ban from subsequent SNL appearances. 

Naturally, I wanted to show kids the footage of that all going down, but I knew from experience SNL fiercely protects its property, and it is H-A-R-D to find their clips online. However, if one looks hard enough, they can find (at least for the moment), Costello's news making performance.  

UP AND AWAY: A little before 1:30 p.m. our time, we watched the liftoff of Expedition 41, a Soyuz launch. It was nighttime in Kazakhstan, so the rocket fire was spectacular looking. :)

 Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
It was one of those hurry-up hook ups with the International Space Station. The capsule reached the ISS by dinnertime our time, which was a great relief, because we learned around 6 p.m. that only one of two power-producing solar arrays on the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft deployed.   Fortunately, they had contact and capture just as scheduled, around 7:10 p.m. our time!

Results

BRAINIACS:  Good news came in the mail today, in envelopes from the Assessment Office of Shoreline Public Schools. Inside were results from the "Measurement of Student Progress" - a standardized test that all Washington State students have to take each year.  These tests always make me a tad Nervous because of our decidedly non-traditional approach to education. 

CJ was a fifth grader last year and had to take reading, writing, and science tests. Annabelle had reading and math exams. Each of them passed all sections with flying colors! In fact, they each scored "Advanced" on reading and math, and CJ was "proficient in science. And yes, I know that's ironic, considering we do waaaay more science than anything! I guess all of our rocket, rover and orbiter watching and astronaut chasing doesn't necessarily translate into a top science score, LOL. I also remember him after the science test not feeling good about it, but at least his "not good" was above average. :)

Bottom line is, we clearly don't teach to the test or follow a 'normal' curriculum AT ALL.  Much of the kids' education is experiential and organic, and we primarily delve into things they're personally interested in. That said, I'm always mindful about the fact that in the not too distant future, they're going to go to college, and so we don't want to get too far afield from what's 'normal.' And so, tonight, I feel good knowing we're doing alright compared to the "norm." Go MPA! :)

REGURGITATED:  SUCH fun in science class today up north! The kids got to dissect owl pellets!

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of that experience, owl pellets are the indigestible material left in an owl's gizzard (think teeth, bones, claws, feathers, fur) after it consumes their prey (usually whole). The owls regurgitate this stuff, and here's what you get.  Pretty! ...  

And when you carefully pull the owl pellets apart, you start finding cool stuff like this ... 

A big ol' rodent skull!

CJ had a good sized pellet, and he found the skull, the jaw, a number of vertebra, a femur, and other assorted bones. 

I love how a science lesson can take something as otherwise unsavory as handling rodent bones from the "GROSS!" category to "COOL!"

SO BRIGHT:  Once a month, there's a spirit day at the kids' Shoreline school. Since we're only there four times a month, that's 1 in every 4 days is spirit day - fun for them!

The theme for today was neon, and participation was high. CJ and Annabelle were glowing. Here are a couple of self portraits Bee drew today.

  

Spaced Out

Graphic: India Space Research Organisation

MOM'S AT MARS!:  We've been following reports from the India Space Research Organisation about their Mars Orbiter Mission for months now (since its launch 300 days ago).  

Tonight, MOM arrived at the end of its journey, ready to go into orbit around the Red Planet. We watched coverage via Spaceflight Now's mission status center. Fortunately for us, about half of 's coverage of the event was in English.  The host announced "the entire scientific community ... erupted into claps" when MOM started its (orbit insertion) burn right on schedule.

The coverage of the arrival/orbit insertion was good - lots of informative videos about the mission and technical aspects of the craft and its travel, plus live updates regarding where MOM was and what it was doing.

Even when it wasn't in English, it was fascinating to watch and listen. The body language alone of the mission control people told volumes. There were a couple of guys whose breathing was 

Graphic: ISRO/MOM Mission Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/isromom?ref=br_tf

We listened to the whole live broadcast, and followed MOM's updates on Facebook, too. How exciting it was when the news broke ...

Indian Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi was at mission control for the insertion event, and spoke (in multiple languages) afterward. He pointed out that India is the first nation to successfully reach the Red Planet on its first attempt. Good on them.

You can watch a video simulation of MOM's orbit insertion here: http://www.isro.gov.in/mars/moi-video.aspx

According to ISRO, the main mission of MOM is "to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission."  Sounds like they've already accomplished at least that much!  What a great accomplishment and what a source of pride for India!

CAPTURED: International Space Station crew members successfully berthed the SpaceX CRS-4 Dragon cargo craft (seen left in a screen grab of NASA Television coverage) to the station at 9:21 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. The spacecraft's 2.5 tons of supplies, science experiments and technology demonstrations include critical materials to support 255 research investigations during the station's Expeditions 41 and 42.

Image: Screen shot from NASA-TV

PUNKS:  We played catch up today on our History of Rock Part 2 class, listening to six lectures covering music ranging from mainstream (like Peter Frampton and the Eagles) and progressive rock (Styx and Rush, for example) in the 1970s to the birth of punk (in the U.S., with one of my favorites, The Velvet Underground) and punk in the U.K. (the Sex Pistols, of course). I think I could ace the test on these topics without the lectures, but am enjoying every minute of them nonetheless. Since they're subjected to listen to what I have on the car radio, CJ and Annabelle are familiar with most of what's being mentioned, though I do think we're going to have to listen to a little Johnny Rotten over dinner, ha ha.

Instead of sitting during the lectures, the kids and I took turns standing, balancing and using the elliptical.  We're going to be doing that lots more often - as in, making it our default mode.

ON DECK:  A Soyuz is set to launch to the International Space Station at 1:25 Pacific time on Thursday, Sept. 25. 

Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

One thing that makes this mission noteworthy is it's the first time a female cosmonaut will be on station. 

Honestly, it shocked me when I read that fact. Twenty six women have lived and worked on the ISS (including one each from Canada, Japan, and France), but no Russian women are among that number.  Not only that, I learned tonight that the last female cosmonaut was Yelena Kondakova, on board a U.S. space shuttle in 1997, 17 years ago. Wow. 

When she launches for the ISS on Thursday, flight engineer Elena Serova, 38, will be the fourth Russian woman in space.  Here's a photo of her meeting Valentina Tereshkova, the first female astronaut ever.

Photo credit: NASA/Stephanie Stoll

Falling

graphic: NASA artist's concept illustration
ORBITAL: Last night, we gathered 'round the television to watch the culmination of a 10-month, 442-mile journey as NASA's MAVEN orbiter reached the Red Planet.

The real time orbit insertion coverage on NASA TV had a slightly 'not-ready-for-primetime' production quality to it (for instance, the hosts kept talking to the wrong camera), but it was live and exciting nonetheless. 

Not surprisingly, quite a cheer went up at mission control when MAVEN reached orbit safely.

NASA Credit: NASA/Sandy Joseph and Kevin O'Connell

We cheered, too, up on our deck, where Christian installed cable TV this weekend (just in time for the last weekend of summer, we are!).

Saturday night, we also tuned in to watch a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifts off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, after being delayed from a Friday night launch.  It was carrying about 5,000 pounds of NASA science investigations and cargo (including some live rats!) to th International Space Station.

Dragon is scheduled to be grappled at 7:04 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Sept. 23, by Expedition 41 Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency,

IN THE SWIM:  CJ has been Very Worried that he's never going to get to go swimming again since summer is over and our local outdoor pool has closed. For the past several days he has been asking to go to an indoor pool in the area. 

We did a little research online last night, and decided to check out the pool at the Federal Way Community Center this morning for their open swim, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

What a *lovely* community center they have in Federal Way. Gorgeous grounds and a brand-new looking building. We checked out the game room, with a couple of pool tables, and they have a towering indoor climbing wall on site. The facility almost made me wish we lived in Federal Way. ;)

The leisure pool had a fun 'stream' with a pretty powerful current, to hear the kids tell it.

There was also a two-story slide, which they made many a trip down.

GEOGRAPHIC:  This afternoon we had loads of fun and brushed up on our geography playing "The Scrambled States of America" card game. 

photo: Gamewright.com

It really is fun for all ages. Eight thumbs up from the MPA crowd, especially me, since I won. :)

FREE TICKETS:  Get 'em while they're hot! This Saturday Sept. 27, 2014) is the annual Museum Day Live!, a chance to get into a museum near you for free courtesy of the Smithsonian!

Per the event Web site: "In the spirit of Smithsonian Museums, who offer free admission everyday, Museum Day Live! is an annual event hosted by Smithsonian magazine in which participating museums across the country open their doors to anyone presenting a Museum Day Live! ticket… for free."

It's as easy as going to this Web site:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/
From there, click on 'register' and then pick your state and museum and before you know it, you'll be downloading your tix!  We chose the Experience Music Project, because we always like to rock 'n' roll. :)

SEASON ENDER: Last night, like so many other nights this summer, the kids slept out on the roofdeck.

Last night, unlike so many other nights this summer, the kids got rained on. Twice.

Fall is here and the cots and sleeping bags are coming in for the season. 

We're already looking forward to next summer. :)

Good Stuff

SWEET FUN: So, a couple of days ago, I got an email about cupcakes. Everyone gets emails about cupcakes, right? 

Anyway, this particular email mentioned a breed of cupcake called the Hi Hat.  The showy dessert is a chocolate cupcake topped with a whipped, marshmallow-y icing dipped in chocolate that hardens into a shell. 

It reminded me of some soft-serve ice cream cones I've seen the kids get (Krispy Kreme and Dairy Queen come to mind). 

So, we decided we had to try it!

We baked a go-to chocolate cake recipe, whipped up a meringue-powder based icing (I wasn't comfortable using raw egg whites), and then dipped it in the prescribed melted semi-sweet chocolate chips with a little canola oil added. 

It was a messy process, but the kids had fun dipping them. Then came the hard part ... waiting for them to harden.

We put them in the fridge to help them along, but in about an hour, they were set up and ready for the kids to test drive. They were a BIG HIT!

HISTORY DETECTIVES: We wanted to take the dogs for a walk this afternoon, and I thought to take them to some property we happened upon while hitting garage sales last weekend. It was on the outskirts of the Discovery Park boundaries we know, and clearly former Fort Lawton property.

When we passed through last week, it looked like a modern day ghost town. Intrigued, we wanted to do a little detective work.

This abandoned building, in particular, intrigued me, due to its mid-century modern architectural style.  We parked in its lot and circled around it on foot.  If you look closely, you'll spy the kids peering in a window.

You can see the main entryway in the photo above - it's the void in the bottom floor, where there are no windows. We walked into the area and found this ...

While there was (clearly!) no closed-circuit phone for us to use, we did, at least, get a really good clue about the building ... its name! We looked forward to getting home to Google search "Leisy building Fort Lawton."

As we stood in the outside entry area of the building I told the kids to take a big whiff.  "This is what the '60s smelled like," I told them. Even though it was outdoors, it reeked of stale cigarette smoke.

We continued our walk, heading for another article of architectural intrigue, a brick column.

As we approached it, we found there were some concrete pads in a field above it.

We'd love to know what they were used for. The kids guessed it a helicopter pad. I thought it was a bit small for that. 

As we neared the chimney, we took a closer look at the small sign near its top.

We puzzled over what, exactly, it was, and what it meant/stood for. To me, that top part looks like an axe head, but it's so out of scale compared to what seems to be clearly a mountain and an evergreen.

Once down next to the chimney (after braving some blackberry brambles), we found ourselves standing atop a concrete bunker roughly 20-by-20 feet in size.

It clearly had electrical service. ... So intriguing. It also had a lovely view of Shilshole Bay.

Annabelle spied something of great interest atop the bunker ...

A fuzzy caterpillar!!! Cute, but of little historical significance, I'd say.

When we got home, we started hitting up "the Google" and found out all sorts of interesting things!

For instance, the Queen Anne Grizzlies' Alumni Association's Web site let us know that Leisy Center at Fort Lawton was named after 1963 Queen Anne High School grad Robert R. Leisy, a Magnolia native who died in Vietnam and subsequently was awarded the Medal of Honor. Per the QAHS site, Leisy died in 1969, "taking a grenade intended for his squad but enabling them to withdraw." 

Leisy was (posthumously) awarded The Congressional Medal of Honor on December 16, 1971, by then-Vice President of the United States of America, Spiro T. Agnew.

So there you have it, 'mystery' (to us) solved about the building's name. 

But what about that brick chimney? From an archived story on The Seattle Times' site from 2005, we found reference to the brick pillar. The story was in conjunction with the announcement was made by the Pentagon that Fort Lawton would be surplussed. It said, in part, "The most historic structure may be a brick smokestack. Col. Mike Pierce, who is stationed at Fort Lawton, said it's all that's left of an incinerator where the Army once burned mule carcasses."

So there you have it. The chimney was for smoke from burning mules. And probably other stuff. ... 

From the city of Seattle's site, we learned Fort Lawton was established in 1900. At its peak, the fort covered 700 acres on the western tip of Magnolia bluff.  It was named in honor of Maj. General Henry Lawton, a veteran of the Civil and Spanish American wars. Fort Lawton was the second largest deployment site on the West Coast during WWII. Beginning in 1964, Fort Lawton started to be decommissioned, with 85 percent of it declared surplus. In 1972, land given back to the Seattle community was turned into Discovery Park. 

In 2005, what was left of Fort Lawton (38 acres) was declared surplus, hence the abandoned buildings and grounds we were exploring today. 

In 2008, the city published a Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center Redevelopment Plan (http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/fortlawton/brac/pubs/ft_lawton_redev_plan_091808.pdf). From it, we learned that Leisy Hall was built in 1970, with an addition in 1976. (If you're wondering, its construction is two-story precast concrete column and steel joist structure with precast concrete panels.)  From Friends of Discovery Park's Web site, we learned field we walked around the brick smokestack is called Trailblazer Field.  Oh Internet, how we love thee!

NASA NEWS: So much news from our national space agency this week, I can't begin to disseminate it all. But two points of immediate concern: a SpaceX launch to the International Space Station tonight (11:14 p.m. Pacific Coast time!) It's SpaceX's fourth cargo mission to the ISS. This go 'round, there are 2.5 tons of supplies on board, including critical materials to support 255 science and research investigations that will occur during the station's Expeditions 41 and 42.

And on Sept. 20, MAVEN will insert itself into orbit around Mars. The orbiter was launched on Nov. 18 of 2013, and after 442 million miles (711 million kilometers), it's in great shape to get ready to do a science. :)

Graphic: NASA http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/MAVENOrbitInsertionFactSheet.pdf

Here's a quick video about MAVEN's mission.

Another Thursday

BONEYARD:  This morning, the kids got right on their science homework, constructing a boxy, cardstock skeleton.

There were lots of pieces to cut out and holes to punch.

Happily, their specimens came together as prescribed. Now, they're having fun posing them around the house. 

We listened to the  Delta Rhythm Boys perform "Dem Bones" while doing some of the constructing.

BREATHE DEEP:  We're back to weekly yoga for the kids with the amazing Nicole of Next Generation Yoga. This series of classes is conveniently (for us) located in Ballard. 

While the kids were in class, Christian and I wandered Ballard Avenue and would up going in a place called Macleod's, a Scottish pub. We thought that a fitting stop given the voting that went on today in Scotland. 

They had a really cool map of Scotland painted on their ceiling, and lots of other Scotland-related decor. 

They had Scottish election coverage on the television, which was interesting. When we picked the kids up, we talked a bit about what the election means for England and Scotland.

GAMEY: I should have included this photo yesterday. It's of Annabelle's super cute, original game she created in art class on Wednesday morning. 

I love the unicorn game pieces. ::

ANOTHER WAY:  I watched a video this morning explaining the "box multiplication" method. 

We've always done it the 'normal' way here at MPA.

I thought it would be good to introduce the kids to another way to skin the cat, so to speak. 

To me, the approach makes lots of sense. In fact, I think it does a better job of helping kids visualize what they're doing and see the big picture, instead of just computing as fast as they can.

Not gonna lie, though, the kids struggled with this 'easier' approach, because it was new and different. We're going to hit it up again tomorrow and see if it maybe sunk in a bit overnight.