Feverish

HOT STUFF: It's summer, so no surprise it's warm out. But here in Seattle, it's way toastier than usual. I can't remember the last time it rained. 

Have I mentioned we live in Seattle?

Right now, we're under an EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING per all the weather updates I checked  out (by the way, the all caps are all theirs). 

And as I look ahead this month  (forecasts for all of August), there's no precipitation to be seen. 

In the meantime, while out and about today, we passed a little spray park in Tukwila. 

It wasn't a place to get big fun wet, but the kids did manage to get damp. :)

STIMULATING THE ECONOMY: If you know me, you know I despise shopping. Well, at least in the traditional sense. I love an estate or garage sale, and shopping salvage and thrift stores. What I despise is the standard American shopping model ... places like Wal-Mart and any mall. That said, sometimes  you gotta do what you gotta do.

Yesterday, we needed to hit up a store at the mall to get special hangers that reduce the space taken up in our closets. Since we were in the mall, Annabelle, who has freshly pierced ears, wanted to visit Claires. 

While she went there, I became *that person* who sat on a couch in the mall for whatever reason. Yup, I was the Mall Couch Waiter Person.

Can you see the kids hustling back my way?

Trekking

DAY OF THE DOVE:  Sunday afternoon we checked out one of our absolute favorite Seattle summertime traditions, Outdoor Trek. It's staged by a theater group who stages wonderfully creative productions of original Star Trek series episodes.

We got to the park where it's staged early, to secure good seats. We were sitting right next to this sign (below).

Sure enough, the spots right next to us got lots of action. Below, Captain Kirk (right), Spock, and crew contemplate during the play.

The space just above it was occupied by a pair of malevolent aliens at one point. Though this pair (played by Helen Thorsen and Mary Cutrera) had no speaking lines whatsoever, I could hardly take my eyes off their antics throughout.

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about the play. ... 

For multiple years in a row, my family has gone to the Outdoor Trek events at Blanche Lavizzo park, which are plays based on episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS). Outdoor Trek is done by Hello Earth Productions.
This Outdoor Trek performance was based off of "Day of the Dove", a TOS episode originally aired on 1 November 1968. The plot of the episode is described as follows by Memory Alpha (a popular Wiki about Star Trek):
 The episode was chosen because Hello Earth believed it to be relevant to current events. In certain ways, the play deviated from the original episode (such as having an interlude with "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield).
At the end of the show, the cast alluded to doing a version of A New Hope (the first Star Wars film) for the next Hello Earth production, I look forward to future Hello Earth productions, as I did with previous ones.

An extremely powerful non-corporeal being brings the Enterprise and a Klingon ship in direct conflict with one another.

The episode was chosen because Hello Earth believed it to be relevant to current events. In certain ways, the play deviated from the original episode (such as having an interlude with "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield).

At the end of the show, the cast alluded to doing a version of A New Hope (the first Star Wars film) for the next Hello Earth production, I look forward to future Hello Earth productions, as I did with previous ones.

And here's what Annabelle had to say about it all.

Hello Earth, a nonprofit in Seattle, is mostly known for their “Outdoor Trek” (also known as Trek in the Park), which are versions of classic Star Trek episodes performed as plays in a local city park. One of the best things about Outdoor Trek is that the cast is very diverse, which represents Seattle as a whole.

The episode that Outdoor Trek performed this time was “The Day of the Dove”. At the beginning of “The Day of the Dove” the Enterprise crew receives a distress signal from a nearby planet. When they go to investigate, they find that the planet is empty. Suddenly, a group of Klingon soldiers arrive and accuse the crew of destroying their ship. Before our heroes can explain, the Klingons demand to be taken to the Enterprise and claim it as consolation.

The Klingons are taken prisoner on the Enterprise while Captain Kirk and the other try to find out what happened. Before long, it seems as though many crew members are getting more and more hostile towards the Klingons and each other, too. The strangest thing is that whenever someone is fatally wounded in a fight, something keeps bringing them back.

After a computer scan, the Enterprise crew finds out that an alien being has been feeding off of the hate generated by the fighting! To make matters worse, the Klingon prisoners are trying to shut down the ship’s life support and make Captain Kirk surrender control. When the crew leaves in a group to confront the Klingons in the engineering block, a huge fight begins. Before anyone gets extremely hurt, through the power of friendship (and an added song) they drive the alien away and celebrate!

Hello Earth always does an amazing job at adapting the script into a live performance and their actors are always spot on. It excites me to know that next year, Hello Earth is going to do a Star Wars themed series of performances!

It really is something not to be missed.  We love everything about it, including their wonderfully cheezy props (see the 'transporters' below).

The cast was bigger this year than we've seen in years past, as a whole crew of Klingons were involved.

And it's totally worth noting the opening act, Vixy & Tony, was wonderful. We bought their CD (it's important to support local art!)

One of the songs they did (masterfully, might I add), was "Lust on the Bridge." to the tune of "Dust in the Wind." So funny!

SMOKE AND FIRE: Not the most pleasant of days, weather wise, in our pretty city. 

It was witheringly hot, and we had a haze that turned into downright smoky. 

Social media (and NASA) let us know the 'haze' was actually smoke from wildfires in British Columbia.

The view A(above) from space (NASA MODIS satellite) shows smoke as it continues to pour into Western Washington from the wildfires burning in British Columbia:

PARTING SHOTS: I was going through some old files on my old Sony camera today and found a few from the day we moved out of the house, including this one - their last time hanging out by the cathedral window upstairs.

And this one, taking one last look off the roofdeck, where we all enjoyed hanging out (not often enough, might I add!)

A little poignant, looking back, but we're also looking forward, and are enjoying the new place.

One of the first things we did was remove a very large stained glass window over the staircase. It was nicely done and I'm sure it means a lot to the original owners (we are giving it to them, of course), but we wanted a brighter staircase, for safety's sake.

Below, Annabelle eats, while Christian ever-so-carefully removed the old stained glass.

What you can't see in this photo (because of clouds at that moment) is there is a lovely view of Mt. Rainier that was covered by the stained glass.
         
We have big plans for replacing the wrought iron railings, as well. 

Stay tuned!

Friday Fun

The Soyuz MS-05 rocket is launched with Expedition 52 flight engineer Sergei Ryazanskiy of
Roscosmos, flight engineer Randy Bresnik of NASA, and flight engineer Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency), Friday, July 28, 2017 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

MORNING LAUNCH: A little after 8:30 Friday morning, we watched three humans rocket off the planet.

Pre-launch coverage included biographies of the astronauts, including NASA's Randy Bresnik. We learned that Bresnik is a photographer who loves "capturing the beauty of the moment."

Photography runs in Bresnik's family. His grandfather was Amelia Earhart's personal photographer. In fact, it had been planned for him to go on her last, fateful flight with Earhart, but the weight of him and his equipment were deemed too much, and he didn't make the trip.

Bresnik is also a former Marine who has flown 82 different types of air and spacecraft.

We're looking forward to seeing Bresnik's photos from his long duration mission, when he'll have lots of opportunities to photograph the Earth from on high. We followed him on Facebook and Twitter today, @AstroKomrade

Bresnik recently posted this photo on Facebook. 

Taken by the current ISS commander, it's of the Soyuz capsule he was in approaching the space station. Neat-o!

MOLASSES IN JULY: A few days ago, Annabelle and I found ourselves contemplating molasses - its origin and history - while driving 'round Seattle.

Wikipedia user Badagnani https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Badagnani

Thanks to a cell phone, we were able to get answers right away. I'll let her share a bit about what we learned.

Last Friday, after buying some Molasses cookies to take to Teen Feed (as part of a dessert we were serving), my mom and I began wondering what molasses is made of and how it’s made.

It turns out that Molasses is actually a byproduct of making granulated sugar. When cane or beet sugar is pressed, it creates a juice. This juice is boiled, separating the crystals and the other liquid. This other liquid is what becomes Molasses! The type of molasses (Light, Dark, or Blackstrap) depends on how many times the juice is boiled before the crystals are separated (1, 2, and 3 times respectively).

Some molasses has sulfur added to it as a preservative, which makes it slightly less sweet. Molasses with sulfur was once believed to have medical benefits and was used as a laxative, a constipation inducer, and was fed to children to curb their appetite when food was not available (somehow being used for all 3 at the same time).

I learned a lot of cool new things about molasses!

THE OLD BALLGAME: Friday night, we headed to the Safeco Field, the four of us coming from three different places, meeting at one of our absolute favorite Seattle spots.

CJ caught a bus from Seattle Center. It just happened to be the same bus/route we would catch from our former home in Magnolia, so it was nice his first solo trip was on a familiar route.  

Annabelle and I walked about .75 of a mile downhill from our new place to a bus stop, where we caught the 101 which took us right to the shadow of Safeco. Annabelle and I went and met CJ at his bus stop, and we three went in and found Christian, who had ridden his bike to the stadium from his work. 

As always, we enjoyed the time at the park very much. We spent about an hour and a half down in the bullpen, watching pre-game activities. 

We eventually made our way up to our seats, where we watched the Mariners take kind of a long time to lose. After the game there was a fun fireworks show and sing-a-long.

All in all, a nice night, despite the Ms' defeat.

READY FOR LIFT OFF:  Friday morning, three humans will be leaving Earth behind for awhile. The astronauts and cosmonaut will be lifting off rom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 28. Live launch coverage will begin at 7:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website, with the launch set for 8:41 a.m.

Expedition 52/53 crew members are NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. 

Post launch, the trio will make a six hour trip in a Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Docking is expected to happen at 3 p.m. Pacific time. NASA coverage will commence at 2:15 p.m. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station are set to open about 4:40 p.m.

The new crew will be joining Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA on board the ISS. Coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 4 p.m., Pacific time. 

For more about all of the amazing things going on on board the ISS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/station

Tonight, we were thrilled to have a chance to see the ISS fly overhead. We happened to be in a Safeway parking lot when it happened, and a young family parked next to us heard us geeking out and they were super excited about seeing the space station. They'd never seen it fly over before, and didn't even know one could, so it was fun to share that info with them. Yay for NASA outreach!

ON THE HORIZON: For a couple of years now, we have been tracking an enormous solar event - the total eclipse of the sun set for Aug. 21 across a good swath of North America. 

In an email today from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we learned about how high altitude balloons will be used to help broadcast and study the upcoming event. 

Led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University, NASA's Eclipse Balloon Project is sending more than 50 high-altitude balloons launched by student teams across the U.S. to livestream aerial footage of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse from the edge of space to NASA's website. Per the JPL press release, "Total solar eclipses are rare and awe-inspiring events. Nobody has ever live-streamed aerial video footage of a total solar eclipse before," said Angela Des Jardins. "By live-streaming it on the Internet, we are providing people across the world an opportunity to experience the eclipse in a unique way, even if they are not able to see the eclipse directly." Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said, "The August solar eclipse gives us a rare opportunity to study the stratosphere when it's even more Mars-like than usual. With student teams flying balloon payloads from dozens of points along the path of totality, we'll study effects on microorganisms that are coming along for the ride." NASA will provide each team with two small metal cards, each the size of a dog tag. The cards have harmless, yet environmentally resilient bacteria dried onto their surface. One card will fly up with the balloon while the other remains on the ground. A comparison of the two will show the consequences of the exposure to Mars-like conditions, such as bacterial survival and any genetic changes. The results of the experiment will improve NASA's understanding of environmental limits for terrestrial life, in order to inform our search for life on other worlds. Mars' atmosphere at the surface is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, with cooler temperatures and more radiation. Under normal conditions, the upper portion of our stratosphere is similar to these Martian conditions, with its cold, thin atmosphere and exposure to radiation, due to its location above most of Earth's protective ozone layer. Temperatures where the balloons fly can reach minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 37 Celsius) or colder, with pressures about a hundredth of that at sea level. During the eclipse, the similarities to Mars only increase. The Moon will buffer the full blast of radiation and heat from the Sun, blocking certain ultraviolet rays that are less abundant in the Martian atmosphere and bringing the temperature down even further. ... Beyond the opportunity for NASA to conduct science, this joint project provides the opportunity for students as young as 10 years old to be exposed to the scientific method and astrobiology -- research about life beyond Earth. Since ballooning is such an accessible and low-cost technique, the project has attracted student teams from Puerto Rico to Alaska. The data collected by the teams will be analyzed by NASA scientists at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; collaborators at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; scientists funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; faculty members and students at the teams' institutions, as well as the public. "This project will not only provide insight into how bacterial life responds to Mars-like conditions, we are engaging and inspiring the next generation of scientists," said Green. "Through this exciting 'piggyback' mission, NASA is collaborating with scientists of the future to take a small step in the search for life beyond our planet."

Sky Watchers

LIGHTS OUT: It's less than a month until a total solar eclipse will occur across a swath of the United States.

I'd love to think we can find a spot in the path of totality (all dark during the daytime), but we've been scheming for months (over a year, actually) and weren't able to get reservations anywhere in the path. 

However, I am buoyed by the fact that if we stay local, we will have a pretty darn good eclipse experience - 92.3 percent of the total eclipse. 

It might be fun to have a little solar eclipse party, in fact! Wherever we watch, I've already ordered multiple solar eclipse glasses. Get yours now (many choices on Amazon.com) before they run out!

At this website, you can plug in your zip code and find out what your vantage point will be like:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/25/16019892/solar-eclipse-2017-interactive-map

OUT WITH THE OLD: Hey, here's our second post about toilets in less than two weeks. How did we go from being science-centric to toilet centric? We bought an old home in need of remodeling, that's how.

All of the toilets here are old and enormous, like five-plus gallons of water per flush. That's about 4 more than you need (and our water usage is metered). 

So one of my first orders of business has been sourcing 'new' (to us) toilets. We love to recycle (and be frugal), and so far we've scored two great new (literally in the box in once case) toilets. I can't believe I found a hard-to-find NEW wall mount toilet on Craigslist for $600 of list. It replaced this old commode.

I thought surely it was destined for the dump, but Christian encouraged me to post it to Craigslist. I'll be darned, within 5 minutes of posting, we had a taker. Go figure. Awesome that it's out of the landfill, and I assume the new owner is on a well.

HELP WANTED: We received an intriguing email from the Library of Congress today. They are looking for schools/students to help in archiving Web content.

Here's part of the announcement: 

Your Students Can Help Archive the Internet – Apply Now!
July 25, 2017 by Cheryl Lederle
Beginning with a pilot program in 2008, the K-12 Web Archiving Program has engaged hundreds of middle and high school students from schools around the United States in selecting, describing, and preserving Web content. Through September 17, the program is accepting applications for new and returning partners from middle and high schools.

Participating in saving history and culture offers those students a unique perspective on how history is recorded. Students identify websites to be archived, sort them into collections, and write metadata to describe the sites and provide context to help future scholars understand the importance of the archived sites. 

I think that this project might be a good fit for we research-and-Internet loving people here at MPA. Don't know if we're big time enough to be considered, though. But I think it worth applying. The application is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScBvZ7-sOqCkHm5HlmIcvWw0lseu1dKxImS3YD_AG4dwHwg8g/viewform

FIRST FLYOVER: If you follow MPA, you know that we love us a good ISS flyover. 

How many times did we run to our roofdeck on our old campus to watch the International Space Station orbit overhead? Too many to count!

I've been looking forward to our first ISS sighting here, and tonight was the night! At 9:55, we watched a lovely 6-minute flyover. We have such a nice 180-degree view east-to-west here, and can see more of the sky. 

And not only did we see the ISS tonight, we saw a satellite bisect its trajectory. Super cool! And we were buzzed a few times by a bat while watching. Really awesome! (And our talk immediately turned to building a bat house or four - there are so many mosquitoes here and bats help with that.)

But back to the ISS. There's a crew of just three on board right now: NASA's Jack Fischer, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, and NASA's Peggy Whitson. Whitson has accumulated 377 days in space between two missions, the most for any U.S. woman at the time of her return to Earth. Whitson has also performed six spacewalks, totaling 39 hours and 46 minutes. She is awesome. :).

Finding Our Way

DAYS OF DISCOVERY: This weekend was full of not fun and hard work. We moved another garage full of stuff to the new place, and are realizing we have no place to put it. How can a bigger house not have as much room? It's a quandary. 

So, we find ourselves making hard edits and organizing - which is actually a great thing, right? So many bags to Goodwill, so many items to our new Buy Nothing group. 

Meanwhile, we're having to acquire a few new things. For instance, Saturday morning, we drove a truck to Bellevue to pick up a new (well, very used), smaller dining room table to replace the one we gave away that fit our old house. 

All in all, there's lots of give and take going on these days. 

However, we have been making time to make sure we get out and explore our new environs. 

For instance, this weekend we checked out our New Favorite Place, 8-Bit Arcade!

It's just a two or so miles from home, and it feels like home! Dozens of mostly retro video games and pinball machines. They serve beer and pizza and ice cream. What's not to love?

They have a space station pinball game I haven't seen before ...

 and a super fun Simpsons' pinball machine.

 They also have a Soul Caliber console, a favorite of CJ's, and CarnEvil, a cheesy, gruesome game.

They even have giant Jenga and a big ol' Connect Four game out on their back patio.

And right around the corner? A well-appointed, welcoming brew house, Four Generals.

Sunday night, we also checked out a local pizza place, Smoking Monkey. 

It has a sci-fi theme, and how could you not love a place that has "Dune" references on its menu, and a complete Star Trek beer list?!

We also discovered a park across the street, The Piazza.

Per the city of Renton's website, "The Piazza is a major focal point for downtown residents and provides a space for community-wide special events and activities. Situated on less than an acre of property, the park features a combination of paved surfaces, landscaping, benches, boulders, tree grates, and raised seat walls. The park also boasts two water features; a shallow "rushing river" and a fountain."

We saw the "rushing river" and the statue on its north shore.

We thought it might be a fun place to cool off on a summer day, but nooooo ...

So look, but don't touch. 

Below, the kids flirt with disaster.

All in all, moving is hard work, but we're really enjoying the new adventure.

Illuminating

LIT UP:  Tonight marks one week in our new place. The kids were probably too young to remember a lot of the remodeling we did to our last home. This go-round, they'll not only have a front-row seat, but they'll be helping.

Wanting them to feel at home, we've decided a first-order-of-business is getting the kids' rooms put together. 

Both of their bedrooms need light fixtures that were a little more contemporary and 'them.'

We took down this fixture in Annabelle's room, and I promptly set about trying to rehome it. In fact, it's blowing up on our local Buy Nothing group right now. I think 20-plus people want it! (We'll do a drawing for the winner in the morning.)

Up in its place is a fabulous chandelier we scored from our previous Buy Nothing neighborhood group.  It's a bedazzled fixture that was removed from a multi million dollar mansion. 

A couple of nights ago, the kids helped Christian install it. 

Tonight, we finally got the lightbulbs for it.  And now, it's  a show stopper dangling from Annabelle's ceiling! And it was free!!!!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Buy Nothing?

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: This morning's email included an update from Jet Propulsion Laboratories regarding the amazing Mars Rover Opportunity's latest accomplishments.

Landed on Mars in 2004, and working many years beyond its expected/planned mission duration, Opportunity recently recorded a panoramic view on the Red Planet, before entering the upper end of a fluid-carved valley on Mars that descends the inner slope of a large crater's rim.

You really should go to the NASA website to see the larger image: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21723

In its press release, NASA notes, "The scene (in the photo) includes a broad notch in the crest of the crater's rim, which may have been a spillway where water or ice or wind flowed over the rim and into the crater. Wheel tracks visible in the area of the notch were left by Opportunity as the rover studied the ground there and took images into the valley below for use in planning its route."

The photo was taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) during a two-week driving moratorium in June 2017, while rover engineers were diagnosing a temporary stall in the left-front wheel's steering actuator. According to NASA, "The wheel was pointed outward more than 30 degrees, prompting the team to call the resulting vista Pancam's "Sprained Ankle" panorama. Both ends of the scene show portions of Endeavour Crater's western rim, extending north and south, and the center of the scene shows terrain just outside the crater."

Fortunately, NASA's team was able to straighten the wheel to point straight ahead, and now they're using the steering capability of only the two rear wheels. The right-front wheel's steering actuator has been disabled since 2006. 

Overall, Opportunity has driven 27.95 miles (44.97 kilometers) since landing on Mars in 2004.