Playing Catch Up

COMICAL:  A shark and a couple of big art-related projects this week that have kept us from posting as often as usual. 

Last night (just before the deadline!) we finished our final project for "The Rise of Super-Heroes and Their Impact on Pop Culture." 

There was a bit of work involved. Like, choosing a mythic inspiration for our superhero ... 

 Of course, you can't have a superhero without a contemporary social influence. ... 

And what's a superhero without superpowers?!

Of course, no one's perfect ... 

 Meet our her, Tabby :)

`Of course, every hero needs a nemesis!

 Here is our/their story ...

Storyboarding a scene ... 

FORTY FRIGHTFUL YEARS:  Wednesday night, we headed to the movie theater to immerse ourselves in the cinematic masterpiece, "Jaws." The movie is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

Neither CJ nor Annabelle had seen the movie before, so it was great that their first experience was on the big screen, to get the full "immersive" experience, no pun intended.

The movie didn't appear to be remastered, and it wasn't in IMAX or 3D, it appeared to be just like Christian and I saw it 40 years ago. And though it certainly looked dated at times (people smoking everywhere, including the hospital, old phones, the now-vintage clothing, cars and such), the movie has definitely aged well, otherwise. 

Here's what Annabelle had to say about it ... 

On June 25, I went to go see Jaws for its 40^th anniversary. The movie is (rather obviously) about a shark, and how the town goes on the hunt for it. The movie is very scary and I can see why some people thought it was one of the best movies of all time. The story is compelling and the visuals are very good for a movie made in 1975. One of the most amazing things is the animatronic shark that was nicknamed “Bruce”- It was very realistic in its movements. A fun fact about the animatronic shark is that they had to make multiple versions of it- the first was never tested in water and sank as soon it went in. The movie told a great story and I thought it flowed very smoothly. It didn’t start with the main characters sitting on a boat, which would have been very boring. The characters are also good, from the aqua-phobic police chief, Martin Brody, to the shark expert, Matt Hooper. Overall I enjoyed the movie and I was scared, which is a good thing for that kind of movie. I think it’s one of the best movies I've seen.

And CJ's take ...

On June 25th, 2015, I went to see a special 40th anniversary screening of Jaws, one of the most famous movies of all time. The movie Jaws was based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. Jaws is about a dangerous, man-eating Great White Shark living near Amity island, a fictional island in New England, geared towards summer tourists. The film is famous for many things, including its plot and the haunting soundtrack, which John Williams composed.  Although many people who have not seen the movie believe it to be filled with "jumpscares," there are only about two in the movie. (SPOILER ALERT) One is when the head of a dead local fisherman is discovered at the partially sunken remains of his boat. The other is when one of the crew members of the Orca, Captain Quint's boat, is throwing chum into the ocean so that the shark will follow them (so they can kill it), but the shark unexpectedly jumps up. The fact that there are only a couple of "jump out of your seat" moments doesn't make Jaws any less tense or scary, however.

Overall, it was a great experience seeing Jaws for its 40th anniversary.

CRAZY COOKIES:  The first three days of this week were partially consumed by a cookie project. The theme was the game "Moonrise," by Undead Labs, a local game developer.  Moonrise is still in its beta form, so there aren't a lot of images of Moonrise's characters out there floating around, and the ones that are out there are thumbnail sized.

And, as you can see, the creatures are pretty far out ... 

Especially this fleshy thing, named Porpoisely ...

So fleshy and awkward ... 

I'm hoping for a good month's worth of no cookies or cakes at this point ... 

A Hunting We Will Go

X MARKS THE SPOT:  This weekend, we finally got around to exploring a hobby we've been curious about for awhile now: Geocaching. 

We like being out and about, and a challenge, and geocaching is a real world 'treasure hunt.' You go to a Web site (https://www.geocaching.com/), or use a smart phone app (Geocaching Android app: http://bit.ly/GeocachingAndroid; or Geocaching iPhone app: http://bit.ly/GeocachingiPhoneApp) to find caches that are hidden in the area where you want to go hunting. We're lucky, in the greater Seattle area, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of targets for us to track down.

The site or app contains information on each cache, including its GPS coordinates, the size of the container you're looking for (they can be anything from around a shoe box size to a micro capsule) and maybe a couple of clues from who stashed it. There are also activity reports (who found it when), often some hints from others who have found it, and oftentimes photos from previous geocachers. 

There aren't true treasures like gold doubloons to be had. It's the thrill of the hunt that propels geocachers.  

Our very first target on Saturday was out in the Kirkland area, in a parking lot.  From clues, we knew we had to look high rather than low, and we eventually found a bullet-sized capsule tucked in a hole in a utility pole. That was tricky!

We recorded our initials on it, proud of our first find!

On Sunday, we hit a park in Mukilteo. The title of the cache let us know we'd probably find the stash in some driftwood. We were stumped for awhile (ha ha), but eventually Annabelle dug it out.

This one was bigger, a Tupperware-type container with a few calling cards and trinkets in it. Interesting!

We tried finding one in the park right near our house, but were skunked. There aren't any other very recent reports of it having being found, so we're thinking perhaps it's one that someone stumbled upon and took, not knowing they were screwing up someone's game. 

If you want to learn a little more about geocaching, check out this video:

https://youtu.be/1YTqitVK-Ts

MODEL BROTHER: This photo makes it look like CJ's about ready to attack Annabelle. 

Instead, he's actually helping her out, as an artist's model.  Bee was trying to draw a feline-like superhero about ready to pounce. She has a little wooden person sculpture that moves into different shapes, but it couldn't quite get where she needed it to be.

In fact, when I looked at our heroine in progress, I thought she looked like she was getting ready to sit on the toilet. CJ thought her legs looked like "raw strips of bacon in a wind tunnel," hahahaha.

So, CJ graciously (and literally) offered to stand in as a human form.

Things got much better from there, and in no time, our cartoon hero looked like she envisioned.

MEANWHILE, ON THE ISS:  NASA released a couple of new photos of the Seattle area as seen from Low Earth orbit. 

We can see our neighborhood in the one below!

 And here's the Evergreen State, and much of Oregon.  It's looking a little brown, I must say. We could use some rain.

Sporty Weekend

FORCE FIELD: We started off the weekend with a combination of two of our favorite things, baseball and Star Wars. It was Star Wars night at Safeco Field and the Mariners were fittingly playing the Houston Astros. There were a whole bunch of fans wearing costumes, and many others wearing Star Wars-related t-shirts. The Mariners had a few photo-op stations setup around the stadium with both Imperial and Rebel Alliance hired guns on hand.

Annabelle's Princess Leia costume looked great, but needed a bit of modification to bring it more in line with the theme of the evening. We sacrificed a foam Dollar Store baseball to dress it up a bit, and some blue Dollar Store hair to weave into her Leia earmuff buns.

Annabelle doesn't look too distraught at being in the hands of Imperial Scout and Storm Troopers. Maybe she knows that they can't hit the broadside of a battle cruiser with those blasters, so if she runs away she stands an excellent chance of escaping unscathed.

CJ, with his Darth-Vader-at-the-bat t-shirt might be contemplating joining the dark side here.

The Mariners' official team photographer made sure to get a photo of Annabelle and a too-short Darth Vader on the centerfield concourse.

Little does this ruffian wielding a lightsaber know that CJ could crush him like a bug with the power of his mind.

A Kashyyyk Clone Scout Trooper tries to make a princess into a prisoner.

Even the stuffed mascots got into the swing of things.

This shot was taken at the edge of the forest on Endor, where the trees end and the concrete begins.

Of course we had to visit the Dave Niehaus memorial statue.

Darth Vader striding to the mound for the ceremonial first pitch.

The Star Wars theme was great fun, the Mariners won convincingly 5-2, and then we got to see a really cool fireworks show, set to Star Wars music, of course.

They had fireworks going off from the rim of the stadium, and the roof of the neighboring parking garage.

They even had them firing off from the infield!

BACK FOR MORE: You know we are baseball fans, so it probably won't surprise you much to hear that we returned to Safeco Field on Father's Day for an afternoon game, the final of the series with the Astros. Prior to the game we usually hang out down by the bullpens in left field to watch the pitchers warm up, and maybe catch a batting practice home run. This time we brought a tablet and thanks to the stadium wifi, we watched some more of the U.S. Open Golf Tournament while waiting for the game to start.

 After the game we went down to South Lake Union Park to watch some more on the jumbo-tron. There wasn't any more shade there than there was at Chambers Bay, so we didn't stick around too long. We watched the finale of the tournament from the relative comfort (it was still pretty warm even in the shade) of one of our favorite restaurants for a Father's Day dinner.

All in all, lots of fun. Now time to get our noses back to the grindstone!

Golf-o-Rama

GREEN SCENE:  Today, the U.S. Open competition rounds began down at Chambers Bay, about an hour south of Seattle. We were lucky to be on the course on Monday, during practice rounds, and have been looking forward to watching the competition on television.

However, there is another option for those in or near Seattle - you can head on down to South Lake Union Park for the U.S. Open Championship "Open for All™" Fan Experience.  It's less than 10 minutes from our house, so we decided to check it out. 

We said 'hello' to our old friend, the US Open championship trophy, which we also saw at Chambers Bay on Monday.

I think they've shined it up since Monday!

Famous names grace its base.

The 'experience' was mostly a handful of vendors' tents and an overpriced beer garden, but there was one neat attraction all about the science of golf. We flocked to it like moths to a porch light.

Fortunately, the crowd was sparse and we were able to work our way through each of the science-y stations at our leisure. 

At the entrance, we had to guess how many golf balls were in this tank.  

What do you think?

Spoiler alert below the photo ... 

The kids started guessing around the 350 mark, but the answer is 505. Fooled me!

From there it was on to agronomy!

We learned about the turf (and what's below) at Chambers Bay. 

That same station had this informative infographic (you know you can click on it to make it bigger, right?)

Next up was a station about aerodynamics.

The kids tried the funnel experiment and played with the hanging ping-pong balls. 

I was especially interested in the volume and displacement display. 

So interesting to learn about the USGA's test for limiting club head size.

Angles are a big part of golf. This display really demonstrated that. ... 

There was an angle measurement device right where the golf club was, and so the kids could retract the club to X degree and see how far the ball went.

Fifteen degrees' retraction seemed like about the sweet spot.

Following this, there was a display with some of the greatest putts in US Open history.

There was one station that involved a video game about golfing in space (yes!!) Here's a link to a PDF about it: 

http://www.usga.org/resources/stemfiles/DRVG68/driving_activity_space_golf_MS.pdf

Of course, Alan Shepard was the first human to play golf in space. 

The final station was attempting to sink a putt from various markers along a fake green (the white USGA blocks along the right side in the photo). 

We need to work on our putting. :)

MAJOR DISTRACTION: While we went down to South Lake Union to see the USGA attractions, on our way into the site, we noticed sailboats racing across the pool in front of the Museum of History and Industray (MOHAI). 

We also noticed a cart renting said sailboats for a suggested donation of $5. Count us in!

 First came a quick lesson about how to trim one's sails and  sail perpendicular to the wind to get the most speed going (on our rudderless, unpiloted boats). 

The kids had lots of fun trying to figure out how to make their boat go. 

There was a lot of trial and error - and learning - involved. 

Sometimes the boat took on water and had to be emptied. 

The scenery wasn't so bad whilst they were learning. 

Other kids had boats, too. A race was inevitable. :)

 MPA's boat (#2), unfortunately, didn't fare too well today.

ON THIS DAY:  It was June 18 of 1983 that Sally Ride rocketed into space, America's first female astronaut. Can't you just picture her, in the nose of this craft, zooming toward the stars? Ride, Sally Ride!

Amazing!