Ray of Hope

FINALLY, SOME SUN: We walked around half blind today. Blinded by the light, that is. As in full on sunlight. As in something we haven't had hardly any of since October 1.

We awoke to blue skies, and there was instantly a little extra spring in our steps. So we took some extra steps. Annabelle enjoyed 1.5 hours of a Girls on the Run club she recently joined, and CJ and I took a stroll around the Seattle Pacific University campus. We've driven by and through that campus hundreds of times over the last 10 years, as it's right by our house. But until today, we'd never walked it, if you can believe that. 

We started at this archway. 

Today, we learned it leads to the Tiffany Loop.

We also learned what year SPU was founded. It's carved into one of the bases of the arch.

As we walked around, we came across a story pole we'd only see as part of the 'nearby' map while playing Pokemon Go.

Naturally, we took the time to read the story about the story pole.

We also took the time to size up this enormous tree in the middle of the Tiffany Loop.

And we came across this nifty bike maintenance station. It had a pump next to it and tools hanging from it. What a good idea.

All in all, a pretty little campus, with nothing but brick buildings. We'll definitely stroll through there again some day.

WILD FOR FLOWERS: Yesterday, something about bees, Cheerios, wildflowers and free seeds kept popping up on my Facebook feed. Naturally, we had to check it out.

Turns out Cheerios, in partnership with Vesey's, had pledged to give away 100 million (!) wildflower seeds in a campaign to help #BringBacktheBees.

Why bother? Well, according to the Cheerios site, 1 in 3 bites of food we eat is made possible by bees and other pollinators, and 42% of bee colonies in the U.S. collapsed in 2015.
When I hopped on their site (http://www.cheerios.com/bringbackthebees) yesterday, the meter said they'd already reached their 100 million goal, but it let me enter my data anyway and said some seeds were headed our way.

This evening when I checked again, things were a bit different. ... 

So the bad news is, no more free seeds. The good news is, they are giving away 1.5 BILLION seeds. That's so cool. We can't wait to receive ours! 

They also posted a map of where the seeds are being shipped.

MUD-DAY: I never did post about our Monday. It involved heavy duty physical labor. For six hours. In the frequently pouring rain. 

Demolition, digging, dump runs, all sorts of fun. We were working on improving a school garden alongside a service group of teens and young adults from Oklahoma, believe it or not. There were probably 22 or so of us in all. While it's true many hands make light work, there was major work to be done, so it didn't feel all that light!

We had the added bonus of having a dead battery during the dump run. Good, good times. 

INSPIRING: As part of the social studies club they belong to, the kids are producing profiles of people they admire. Here's CJ's choice ... 

Faster-Than-Light: Meet Miguel Alcubierre

Have you ever dreamed of travelling faster-than-light to other planets, star systems, or even galaxies? Unfortunately, our current space propulsion systems would take far too long to get to far-off places in space. However, one man has a possible solution: Dr. Miguel Alcubierre Moya (better known as Miguel Alcubierre), Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at UNAM, is a Mexican theoretical physicist.

Miguel Alcubierre is best known for proposing the Alcubierre Drive in 1994, a theoretical propulsion system that would allow spacecraft to travel faster-than-light.

Miguel Alcubierre was born on 28 March 1964, in Mexico City. In 1988 and 1990, Alcubierre received degrees from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, after which he traveled to Cardiff University, in Wales to attend graduate school. In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre received his Ph.D from Cardiff, through study of numerical general relativity.

Later that year, Dr. Alcubierre wrote “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity,” the original article in which he proposed the Alcubierre Drive. The Warp Drive was published in science journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

In The Warp Drive, Dr. Alcubierre describes the Alcubierre Drive as being a system in which the space in front of a spacecraft is compressed, and the space behind the spacecraft is expanded. The Alcubierre Drive would theoretically let a spacecraft travel at faster-than-light speeds.

In 2012, Dr. Alcubierre was appointed as the Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In 2016, Dr. Alcubierre was reappointed.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Alcubierre

http://www.andersoninstitute.com/alcubierre-warp-drive.html

Pi, Pie, Pi, Pie!

PI-PALOOZA: It's Pi Day, that super special day of the year where you eat nothing but pie for a whole day, at least if you are hanging out with Magnolia Preparatory Academy folks.

Pi day, is, of course, really all about that beloved irrational number, an infinite decimal that starts with 3.14, hence Pi Day being March 14. 

The kids started their day off 'right' with apple pie for breakfast. We did not bake it, we scored it on sale for just $1.50 from a local grocery store. 

Lunch was pizza pie, which they shared during their Dungeons and Dragons club meeting today at noon. 

Dinner was a bit of a project. We made two gluten-free chicken pot pies. 

Making pot pie is a lot of work. We had to cube and cook chicken. We had to make chicken broth. We had to cut up onions and brown them. We had to peel, dice and boil potatoes. 

We had to get carrots, peas and green beans ready. We had to combine it all with some milk and cornstarch to make the filling.

Making the gluten free pie crust was the real challenge. I'm not great at pie crusts to begin with, Turns out that's also true of the offspring helping today. ...

CJ cracked eggs under the watchful eye of birthday boy Albert Einstein.

 We cut in butter and made disks of dough.

 Rolling out the first pair of crusts went well enough. 

Unfortunately, the second pair was pretty much a disaster, as someone blew right by the part of the instructions that say to add water one tablespoon at a time to the flour, salt, butter mix. The dough was waaaay too sticky. More than adding a bunch more flour could really fix. 

We par baked the bottom shells and filled them, adding a few crunchy onions for fun before topping them with our sloppy pie crust. 

The photos at the top of the post were of our pasty looking pre-baked pie. I guess I forgot to take photos of it fresh from the oven.

While it was a lot of work and the pie crust got the best of us, it was worth it, I guess. The pie was delicious. 

Tomorrow, we'll actually do some non-cooking related math. And eat healthier. :)

FLASHBACK: Thought I'd take this opportunity, Einstein's birthday, to share a favorite project from the past. CJ wrote this poem about Einstein as part of an Einsteinian physics class we took back in 2013. 

Long Live the King

HE'S BACK: Yesterday, the kids were happy to have older brother Kennedy take the time to take them to a matinee. 

They chose to see a good ol' monster matinee. Specifically, "Kong: Skull Island," because after 84 years, there still can't be enough King Kong reboots.  

I'll let Annabelle tell you a bit about the movie first. Warning: Spoiler alerts ahead. ... 
Kong: Skull Island is a movie about a scientist (whose name I never found out) who believes in monsters such as Kong. He asks his governor to let him go on a “geographical” research mission to Skull Island, an island mysteriously surrounded by storm clouds all the time for some reason that is never explained. The governor grants him permission and sends military backup, per request. This island turns out to be filled with giant creatures and, you guessed it, Kong is one of them! The army general (who I strongly dislike) decides the best way to land on this island with this presumably peaceful creature is to begin shooting it in the face. Needless to say, 80% of the fleet goes down, with the other 20% containing our main characters- photographer girl, tracker guy, scientist dude, and army general (I have no idea what these character’s names are, which shows you a little about the film).
After Kong swiftly punches away many of our main character’s reinforcements, there are two groups left: Main characters and the army general with about 5 troops. These two groups promptly split up and both find themselves discovering crazy things about this island. The army group finds more scary giant creatures (I.E. a giant bamboo spider who impaled a dude with its leg) and decide to shoot them, again. Meanwhile, our main characters discover a peaceful giant water buffalo thing. They decide not to shoot it, and continue on to find a tribe of people who have been living on the island, led by a man from WW2 who’s been there for about 20 years as of the movie’s events. He tells them about how Kong is King of the island, and the tribal people consider him a god and protector because he fights off the other giant creatures that actually want to hurt people. WW2 survivor joins the main characters’ group on their way to a point where helicopters can rescue them.
Overall, the movie contains a lot of graphic violence and special effects, usually paired together. I wouldn’t go if you’re expecting to see King Kong scaling the Empire State Building, because the movie stays on the island and doesn’t even remotely focus on Kong alone. It’s a good movie if you’re into giant CGI monsters, violence, and giant CGI monster violence.

No surprise, CJ had to weigh in, as well.

I wish I just saw Shin Godzilla.

This afternoon, my older brother Ken took my sister and I to see Kong: Skull Island, the second installment in Legendary Pictures' Monsterverse series (starting with Godzilla 2014). A few months earlier, I had seen Shin Godzilla, a superior, Japanese-made kaiju film, from its limited theater release in October.
Here's my review of Skull Island:

Kong: Skull Island is a reboot of the King Kong film series, which started with the original King Kong in 1933. Skull Island is primarily set around a group of people visiting the titular island to see King Kong in 1973, near the end of the Vietnam War.
Hoo boy. This is where things start declining:

For starters, there are far too many monsters. While Shin Godzilla had just one monster, and made it a very interesting and well-designed kaiju, Kong: Skull Island uses several poorly-developed and explored kaiju throughout its 2-hour runtime, weakening the audience's interest in the beasts. Second off, while the special effects were evidently well-funded and well done, there's a certain sense of charmlessness that comes with using high-budget special effects and CGI in kaiju films. Contrast Shin Godzilla, which, while it made use of CGI, also opted to use some practical effects (if I remember correctly).

Personally, my biggest issue with Skull Island has to be the film's omnipresent gore (no, not the man who should've became President in 2000). Throughout most of Skull Island, seeing large amounts of graphic violence (such as King Kong ripping the tongue and internal organs out of one monster) does not help one's appetite. A character is impaled vertically through their body, and there are several other bloody character deaths throughout the film.

While Skull Island might be an entertaining way to spend two hours munching popcorn (if you're okay with nauseating graphic violence), it probably won't win any Oscars, and is inferior to Shin Godzilla.

Tacky

MAYFLOWER MENU: The kids were reading up about life in the 13 American colonies and the journey here, and one of the things they read about was food that the settlers ate back in the day (see Annabelle's short report below).

One of the staples of those early travelers' diets was hardtack. Per Wikipedia, hardtack is "a simple type of biscuit or cracker, made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Inexpensive and long-lasting, it was and is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly during long sea voyages, land migrations, and military campaigns.^[1] The name derives from the British sailor slang for food, 'tack'." 

I found a recipe online, and we decided to give it a go.

The kids carefully measured the salt, flour and water.

They mixed them in the bowl ... 

and then kneaded the dough.

Rolling it out was rather difficult. It's tough stuff!

The pilgrims probably didn't have cool Star Trek cutters. 

The last step before baking was perforating the squares.

An hour in the oven, and this is what we had. 

The kids took the warm from the oven 'treat' to share with their social studies club friends, and it was a hit! People really liked it, especially smothered in jam we also brought along.

Below is Annabelle's report. .. 

Mayflower Food
by Annabelle

You might think of the Pilgrims as having huge feasts with turkey and mashed potatoes, but the truth is, the Pilgrims on the Mayflower ate some things that we might not consider “Delicious”. One of their more common foods was Hardtack, crackers with a shelf life of years and years.

The only ingredients are flour, salt, and water. They’re very boring and tasteless, but they were enough to keep the Pilgrims going in a pinch. Once arriving in the Americas, the natives taught them how to grow corn. This led to many of their meals being comprised of corn and other grains.

They also ate a lot of game meat like venison (reindeer) and wildfowl (wild birds). The Pilgrims brought a few animals from their homeland, such as cows and sheep, but most of what they brought was shelf stable, meaning it could last on the long voyage. They didn’t have too much to drink with these meals- they drank exclusively beer and (possibly) wine, as alcohol was cleaner than water and the brewing process killed most of the germs and bacteria. In fact, the Pilgrims only landed at Plymouth because they ran out of beer. Even the children drank beer! I thought it was interesting just how little the pilgrims had on their voyage, and I wouldn’t want to eat hardtack that much!

And CJ wrote about the colonies and their names. 

Naming the Thirteen Colonies

by CJ

According to Wikipedia, the Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of the present-day US founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States. The Thirteen Colonies, were, in order from North to South:
Massachusetts (the Northern section now becoming Maine in 1820), New Hampshire, New York (part of the Northeastern section becoming Vermont in 1791), Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (the Western section becoming West Virginia in 1863), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The etymology of the names of the Thirteen Colonies is very interesting. The colony of Massachusetts derived its name from the Massachusett, a Native American nation native to the colony’s area. The word “Massachusett” apparently translates to “near the great hill”, most likely referring to Massachusetts’ Blue Hills. New Hampshire was named by Captain John Mason after the Hampshire county in southern England. The Hampshire county’s name comes from the Old English “Hamtun”, which roughly translates to “village-town”.

A map of the Thirteen Colonies. The Colonies are pictured in red.

The colony of New York’s name was given to it in 1664, by England. The New York Colony was named after the Duke of York, which was a title of nobility in England (and, by extension, the United Kingdom). According to Wikipedia, the way Aquidneck Island (which would later become a part of Rhode Island) got the name “Rhode Island” is unclear. The most well-known version of the story is that Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano came across what would later be called “Rhode Island”, and gave it that name because he found it similar to the island of Rhodes in Greece. Later explorers, such as Pilgrims, would assume that anything they landed on in that area was Rhode Island, so eventually, a much larger region surrounding Aquidneck Island was christened as “Rhode Island”. The name “Rhodes” itself is either derived from the Greek words for “snake”, “pomegranate”, or “rose”.

The name “Connecticut” is apparently taken from Romanized version of an Algonquian word that translates to “long tidal river”. Pennsylvania got its name after King Charles II of England granted William Penn a land tract for the area that now includes Pennsylvania. Penn named the land he was granted “Pennsylvania”, derived from a Latin term meaning “woods”.

New Jersey is named for Jersey, a crown dependency of the United Kingdom. The origin of the name “Jersey” itself is actually very confusing, and could warrant a whole report of its own. Delaware was named for the Delaware River, which itself was named for Baron De La Warr, an English politician. Maryland was named after Henrietta Maria of France, then-Queen Consort of England. Virginia was named for Queen Elizabeth I, who was known as the “Virgin Queen” (the reasons for which are not appropriate class discussion).

Both North and South Carolina were named for King Charles II of England. Georgia, the Southernmost of the Thirteen Colonies, was named after George II of Great Britain.

I learned a lot while researching the etymology of the names of the Thirteen Colonies.

If a Tree Falls

UNSCHEDULED: So, we've been doing and learning stuff the last couple of days, but we've also been dealing with unscheduled activities. Like massive tree limbs raining down in our alley.

There's a lovely old willow next door to us. Emphasis on the word old. And, in this case, rotten. You don't have to be an arborist to eyeball it and recognize from a distance this this tree has issues.

Yesterday, one of those issues came crashing down into our alley. Fortunately, no one was under it when it happened.

You can't see from the shot above, as the limb is shrouded by many willowy branches, but it was a good 12-plus inches in diameter and could have taken someone(s) or something(s) out permanently.

We spent a good hour out in the alley, cutting the fallen limb down to manageable size and clearing the way.

This morning, when I took the dogs out, I was eyeing the tree and noticed another 'widow maker' hanging down over the alley.

I had to get kids to school, etc., but I couldn't just let that hang there hoping it would be OK, because it wasn't. So, I went up to the neighbor's house who owns the tree. They didn't answer my knocks, so I left a hastily scrawled note, and called Christian. He called the city and they were going to send a street safety squad out.

In the meantime, the neighbors with the scary tree came out and said they were going to try to take the branch down. I introduced them to another neighbor, whose property the scary tree has limbs hanging over and then I had to skedaddle.

Anyway, the saga continues. I love the lovely old willow ... up to a point where people's safety is involved. Here's hoping the neighbors do the right thing and not wait for significant damage to life or limb to force them to do something.

A Favorite Day

EVER CLOSER: Today is a day I look forward to every year - the day single game tickets for the Seattle Mariners' upcoming season went on sale.

Going to the opening day game is a tradition. It's usually cold as heck, weather wise, but it always warms the heart being back at the ballpark.

Fortunately, we had no trouble hopping on Ticketmaster and getting (rather ridiculously expensive) tickets. 

Sure, they're row 1 - but row 1 of the third level, but they seem to cost twice as much as last year's tickets. Hope that's not true of every game this year.

We also bought tickets for the August game when Edgar Martinez' jersey will be retired. That will be fun

I'm sure we'll catch other games - when we can get super cheap tickets.

Speaking of baseball, I've been receiving daily email with baseball haiku from my dad for a few days running. The poems he shares are from a book Baseball Haiku, published in 2007 by W. B. Norton . 

Today, I asked CJ and Annabelle to write a baseball haiku. They made short work of it.

Go run to all the bases,race against the ball.Congratulations! Home run!- CJ

Spring is almost hereBaseball season will be soonReady for the game- Annabelle

STELLAR: I haven't said any or enough nice things about Seattle Public Libraries lately, so let me correct that.

First off, thanks to SPL, I was able to score a free pass for our family to go to MoPOP (formerly EMP or Experience Music Project) in April by being on the library's website tonight right at 9 p.m., when new tickets are populated in their system for a number of area attractions. The program allows one pass per week, per library card (we have four in the family!) and one pass every 30 days for the same museum. Awesome!

Just today, Annabelle was noticing a MoPOP billboard about a new to MoPOP exhibit featuring the art of cartoonist Rube Goldberg.

Goldberg's distinctive drawings were full of fantastical inventive technology and political commentary. The Pulitzer Prizing-winning artist is best known for his invention drawings, many of which show complex chain-reaction machines designed to perform simple tasks. We're looking forward to seeing them in early April!

Here's a short video bio about Goldberg.


Rube Goldberg from Eric Haines on Vimeo.
https://vimeo.com/21590227

Another thing that I've been meaning to share about the library is a neat new service called "Your Next Skill." Basically, it involved users filling out an online form sharing what they want to learn and how they want to learn it (for instance, the 'how' might be by reading, watching, downloading or attending something).

Per the SPL site, "For Seattleites, we can also recommend in-person classes or workshops (and let you know if there are any associated costs to participate.) A librarian will contact you via email within four days with your personalized lesson plan. There is no limit to what we can help you learn so use this service as often as you like!"

How 'bout that?!
The service is offered thanks to a Knight Foundation Prototype Grant and with the support of The Seattle Public Library Foundation.

It starts with hopping to the Your Next Skill site: http://yournextskill.spl.org/

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 We can't wait to try it out ... as soon as we figure out what we want our next skill to be!

Heads and Tails

MY KIND OF MATH: So, we do math here at MPA. We like math. Math is good and important!

However, our math studies are not, shall we say, traditional. We have textbooks, and use them from time to time, and we do everyday math (figure out the tip on the tab, measurement conversions for recipes, etc.), but our default/more common approach to math is contemplating logic problems. Things that make you go, "Hmm ..."

One such problem was posed to all of us today via a favorite book, The Amazing Mathematical Amusement Arcade, circa 1984, by Brian Bolt.
Check out the problem above and let us know how you do. The solution is so simple when you know the solution, lol. When you don't, it's completely vexing!!!