Scenes from the Home Front

HOMEY: It seems like we're always on the go, because, well, we're almost always on the go.

But sometimes we're home. And when we are, we are constantly visited by a trio of hummingbirds. The three buzz all over our yard and hang out at our feeder multiple times daily.  Their very not creative nicknames are Reddy (he has a blazing red head), Lazy (she sits when she eats. Always) and The Other One. This is actually a Other One photo. She happened to be sitting at the time.

HUNTING: Yesterday we went looking for a Christmas tree. We've had our beloved vintage aluminum one for years, but this first year in a new home made us want to get a real tree, too. One we could then plant, to be specific.

I saw an ad for living Christmas trees - and live reindeer - at Kent East Hill Nursery. So, the kids and I headed up there yesterday. We checked out the reindeer, Twinkle and . *** was enjoying taking on an upside down Christmas tree with his antlers.

We moseyed out to the live tree section. There was not a lot to choose from (maybe 20 or so), and man, were they expensive (to me, at least). Most were around a hundred bucks, some were considerably more. Yikes.

I started eyeing dead trees nearby, but those were half a hundred, with nothing but a carcass to show for it come January. 

I was about to say 'skip it' when I checked out one last tree. I saw the name "Korean" on its label and read it aloud, knowing CJ would be instantly sold. (He has a mild fascination with things Korean, ever since "Gangham Style" was popular, I think.)

And so, Abies Koreana "Hostmann's Silberlocke," a Korean fir, joined our family.

It's not big, but it's pretty, and holds many Star Trek, Star Wars and Elvis ornaments, so what's not to love?

Meanwhile, it has been clear for a few days, and the mountain has been putting on a show. I love it when fog settles in the valley. With the mountain rising in the distance, it looks like a misty dream world!

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE: There is an astounding website that recreates every compelling moment of the Apollo 17 mission. Check it out here: http://apollo17.org/

Looking Back

A FEW YEARS AGO:  The photo above popped up as a Facebook memory today.

If memory serves, we had just gotten off a bus and were walking up toward Key Arena, to go to our first "Deck the Hall Ball," an annual concert sponsored by a local alternative station.

Annabelle was a whirling, and CJ was trying his best to be a nutcracker.

Wow, where do the years go?

HISTORY LESSON: Americans will forever remember Dec. 7 as Pearl Harbor Day. This morning, Paul Allen posted the first photos and video of the of USS Ward since its sinking off the Philippines. The 314-foot vessel is significant as it fired the first American shot in World War II on December 7, 1941, outside Pearl Harbor.

Recently, the Philippine government for allowed Allen's RV Petrel to explore the historic ship.

https://youtu.be/DmpcrFuEmr8

Launched on June 1, 1918 during World War I, come Dec. 7, 1944, the USS Ward's target on that initial WWII strike was a midget Japanese submarine. While it got the first volley off, on Pearl Harbor Day, it became the target of a kamikaze that same day. Fortunately, the crew of the Ward was rescued before the vessel was scuttled.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen’s expedition crew of Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel has documented the USS Ward (Destroyer No. 139) in its final resting place near Ponson Island in the Philippines. For more information, visit http://www.paulaleen.com

Today there was a Facebook Live event  with the crew of RV Petrel, who explored the USS Ward on the ocean floor. (Oddly, the interview doesn't start until the 25 minute mark of the broadcast.)

 
NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik posted this photo, taken from the International Space Station, today, saying, "As we reflect today, the beauty of Pearl Harbor is indicative of the beauty of the relations we have now with Japan and the Japanese people. — with World War II Valor In The Pacific National Monument."

Also on this day, Apollo 17's crew captured this amazing shot of our one and only Earth, back in 1972.

Such a stunning shot. 

And below, is an phenomenal "Earth Rise" composite shot the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter produced in 2015. 


EXPANDING: This morning, we checked out a graphic from Bigelow Aerospace. It showed how the  The size of expandable space stations will have a quantum leap with the increase in the size of rocket fairings.

Pretty cool! Bigelow's first expansion module is already attached to the International Space Station. 

We watched live coverage back in 2016 when the module was being expanded for the first time! The noises it made while expanding were interesting and a bit eerie!

Jingle Ball

MUSIC MARATHON: On Tuesday evening, we attended this year's incarnation of "Deck the Hall Ball," an annual concert hosted by KNRK, Seattle's 'alternative' radio station. (I put 'alternative' in quotes, because when a genre of music has been around 20 plus years and is very much in the mainstream, 'alternative' sounds like a misnomer to me. But I digress.)

The concert was at Key Arena, the facility that used to host the NBA Super Sonics. Now, since the Sonics were stolen - er, left town - 10-plus years ago, it's home to the WNBA Storm, and holds concerts and other special events. 

We got to the venue a little before 3 p.m. and were on site for every single minute of the show, and definitely watched the vast majority of it. I have to hand it to the stage crew/producer(s). The flow of the bands was an amazingly well oiled machine. Every single one of them started on time. Impressive!

Deck the Hall Ball is a concert at KeyArena hosted by 107.7 The End, a prominent local radio station. This year's Deck the Hall Ball (known as DTHB25 due to it being the event's 25th incarnation)'s lineup was composed of J GRGRY, J Roddy Walston and the Business, Joywave, Portugal. The Man, ODESZA, The Lumineers, and The Killers.

The concert began with JGRGRY spending several minutes mumbling about something we couldn't understand. Then again, this may have been affected by KeyArena's terrible acoustics and speakers (the stadium was designed in the 1960s to look cool). 

During most of JGRGRY's performance and a bit of J Roddy Walston's act, we waited in the lobby for dad to come.

Joywave is best known for their collaboration with Big Data for the 2013 song "Dangerous".

Portugal. The Man, the band that came after Joywave, spent several minutes performing inane psychedelic compositions that tried (and failed) to be like Pink Floyd. This went on to a poor cover of Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2.

Odesza prominently featured drummers on the front of the stage for most of their performance.

The Killers, while they put on an otherwise entertaining performance, bizarrely decided to put a giant ♂ on a block at the front of the stage, which was there for their entire show.  Meanwhile, three women who featured in their show for approximately 15 seconds were caged-in by cylinders branded with ♀s. The misogynistic implications that came with that seemed to have succeeded in alienating a large portion of their audience (me included).

My thoughts about the show align pretty closely with CJ's. JGRGRY looked to be trying his hardest to be Bowie/Ziggy Stardustesque. Sorry, only one human can do that act, and it has been done.

J Roddy Watson and the Business worked hard and were entertaining.


Joywave had a distinctive sound.


Before the concert, I 'warned' the kids that Portugal. The Man is a jam band (known for playing long, looping things that aren't like 'normal' songs), and that their act would not sound much like their smash hit "Feel it Still" at all. (Fun fact: We heard "Feel it Still" all over Europe when we were there in September.

Anyway, I was right. PTM played jam after jam, looping in and out of their own stuff and some interesting covers. I think CJ's review might have been a little harsh, however. I think he would have liked their Floyd-inspired music more if he hadn't seen the real Roger Waters TWICE this year.


Odesza was so much fun! Their music is eclectic, often featuring guest vocalists on the more ballad-like numbers. Other times, their music is totally percussion driven, with a live drum line. Probably my favorite act of the night. I loved their 'spacey' intro, as well.


The Lumineers were professional, well polished, and you could tell they were used to being the headliners, ha ha. Very listenable.

The last act of the night was The Killers. It was this band that prompted me to get tickets to this show, truth be told.

Unfortunately, they kind of lost me the second their set lit up, before they even started playing. 

Now, I get that their current hit single is "The Man." I actually like the song (even though it's full of macho puffery, for lack of a better descriptor). That said, why you make the male symbol front and center on your stage for the whole show, I'm not sure what the point of that was. It was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING on an otherwise sparse set. Ironically, band members were obscured by the big male symbol at times. It lit up all sorts of different ways. It was just weird. I wasn't the only one who felt that way, either. All four of us after the concert chimed in with 'What was THAT all about?"

Anyway, all in all, overall I found the experience a bit on the disappointing side. 

And don't get me started about the 45 minute wait in a concession stand line. Unbelievable.

Monday Minutes

SIGN OF THE SEASON: This shot is a leftover from our visit to Pacific Place last week for their snow show the night the kids went to see "Holiday Inn." 

ADD IT TO THE LIST: Here's part of my/our ongoing problem. A couple of days ago we walked into a building materials salvage/reuse store in search of flooring materials, and we saw these wood balustrades and furniture feet. I should have walked right past, but NO! They were only a dollar apiece and surely something could be done with them and then it took me about a third of a second to see that they simply HAD to be made into a chess set.

And so now we have 34 of the pieces (you need an extra queen you know) waiting to be transformed. A ridiculous purchase, really, given our already lengthy to do list, but ... sigh. We just couldn't pass them up.

So, when we're not busy remodeling our house or doing the bajillion other things we're doing, we'll tackle this. Some day.

MEGAVERSARY: For awhile now, CJ had been tracking a special webcast set for today. It was a Capcom event on the 30th anniversary of the iconic Mega Man video game series.

The event went live at 11 a.m. our time today. I'll let him tell you about what went down.

Today, Capcom (a prominent Japanese video game company) broadcast a livestream on their Twitch (the most popular livestreaming service) channel. The livestream was for the 30th anniversary of their Mega Man franchise, which started on the Famicom/NES on 17 December 1987. The franchise had not received a main series game in over 7 years, so the stream was highly anticipated by fans of the franchise.

For an hour before the main event, there was a pre-show. I did not see most of said pre-show. The stream featured interviews with several Mega Man series developers. One of the questions that many of the developers were asked was "what is your favorite Robot Master?" Answers included Ice Man (MM1) and Gravity Man (MM5).

The stream had three big announcements. The first was that all of the Mega Man X games (1-8) would be coming to the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and PC. The second was that both volumes of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, a collection containing games in the main series from 1 to 10, would be released for the Switch. The third was the announcement of development for the long-awaited Mega Man 11, which is set to appear on the aforementioned platforms in late 2018.

Fired Up

Technician load the 'golden record' Earth's official communication with extra-terrestrials, onto Voyager 1 - NASA photograph

THE VOYAGE CONTINUES: Some astounding and impressive news came across our desk here this morning (via social media, truth be told). 

We read news about the Voyager 1 and 2 any time an article comes up and are always impressed that these spacecraft keep sailing along after four decades, no to our solar system's fringes.

Today's news involved the fact that a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft were successfully fired up Wednesday, Nov. 29, after 37 years without use. Wow! Imagine trying to start your car here on Earth if it sat in your driveway for 37 years. Not likely that it would fire up. Now imagine your vehicle 11.7 billion miles down the road ... Remarkable!

The press release from NASA read, in part: 

Voyager 1, NASA's farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or "puffs," lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.

"With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years," said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Since 2014, engineers have noticed that the thrusters Voyager 1 has been using to orient the spacecraft, called "attitude control thrusters," have been degrading. Over time, the thrusters require more puffs to give off the same amount of energy. At 13 billion miles from Earth, there's no mechanic shop nearby to get a tune-up.

The Voyager team assembled a group of propulsion experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to study the problem. Chris Jones, Robert Shotwell, Carl Guernsey and Todd Barber analyzed options and predicted how the spacecraft would respond in different scenarios. They agreed on an unusual solution: Try giving the job of orientation to a set of thrusters that had been asleep for 37 years.

"The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters," said Jones, chief engineer at JPL.

In the early days of the mission, Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter, Saturn, and important moons of each. To accurately fly by and point the spacecraft's instruments at a smorgasbord of targets, engineers used "trajectory correction maneuver," or TCM, thrusters that are identical in size and functionality to the attitude control thrusters, and are located on the back side of the spacecraft. But because Voyager 1's last planetary encounter was Saturn, the Voyager team hadn't needed to use the TCM thrusters since November 8, 1980. Back then, the TCM thrusters were used in a more continuous firing mode; they had never been used in the brief bursts necessary to orient the spacecraft.

Hats off to Aerojet Rocketdyn, who developed all of Voyager's thrusters. On Wednesday, the aged thrusters were tested for their ability to orient the spacecraft via 10-millisecond pulses. 

Due to Voyager 1's distance from Earth, the team working on the project had to wait while test results traveled through space, taking 19 hours and 35 minutes to reach a NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California.

Upon receiving the positive results, "The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all," said Todd Barber, a JPL propulsion engineer.

The plan going forward is to switch to the TCM thrusters in January. To make the change, Voyager has to turn on one heater per thruster, which requires power -- a limited resource for the aging mission. When there is no longer enough power to operate the heaters, the team will switch back to the attitude control thrusters.

Because the thruster test was so successful, the team is likely to do a similar test on the TCM thrusters for Voyager 2 in a few weeks.

Here's a cool lookback to the Voyagers' launches. https://youtu.be/C1UBg4TPqX4

IT TAKES A VILLAGE: For a few hours this week, the kids and I worked on a monthly bulletin board we decorate. Its purpose is to highlight kids' birthdays that month. The hardest part is coming up with a different theme each month. We bandied about several ideas for December (Nutcracker, penguins, snowmen, reindeer), but settled on a gingerbread village for whatever reason. (Actually, probably due to my love of gingerbread.)

We used colored foam sheets, cardboard, pufff paint, decoative tape, beads, buttons and more.

CJ helped cut out any a 'gumdrop' shingle.

 And here's how it came together. (I blurred the students' names and birthdates in the photo below.) It's about 5 by 4 feet.

Holiday in the City

HOLIDAY INN: Yesterday, the kids went with my parents to go see The 5th Avenue Theatre's production of an adaption of the classic Christmas film Holiday Inn. Here's CJ's review of the musical:

For this year's holiday season, the 5th Avenue Theatre is doing a production of Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn, a play based off the film of the same name. The plot of Holiday Inn revolves around Jim Hardy (played by Eric Ankrim), a Broadway actor's, purchase of Mason Farm, a farm in Connecticut, and his repurposing of the farm to be an inn open during various holidays.

The play began with David Armstrong, the Executive Director and the Artistic Director of the 5th Avenue Theatre, introducing himself and the play to the audience. The 5th Avenue Theatre is apparently the first American theatre to do an independent production of Holiday Inn this season. Noticeably, as seen in the program, a large number of the actors were either in Elf, Grease, or Rent, or any combination of the three.

The performances at Holiday Inn were a noticeable improvement over that of The Secret Garden (the last 5th Avenue Theatre production I went to), even with actors that are easy to mix up. The soundtrack is also significantly better than that of The Secret Garden, likely due to having been composed by famed Russian-American composer Irving Berlin.

Irving Berlin was a Russian-American musician and composer who is best known for composing the song "White Christmas". Irving Berlin lived for over a century and composed over a thousand songs during his lifetime. After moving from Russia to America, Berlin began a job as a singing waiter, and soon expanded his repertoire into lyrics, composition, and publishing his and other persons' music. Berlin wrote the scores to 13 different Broadway muscials and wrote songs for 12 Hollywood films.

Berlin was the subject of Jerome Kern's iconic maxim "Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music."

BEFORE THE SHOW: Last year, before visiting a screening of Allegiance (a play starring George Takei), we learned about the Pacific Place Snow Show tradition. In the holiday season of every year, the Pacific Place mall does "Snow Shows", short events where "snowflakes" that appear to be made out of soap bits are dropped from the upper level of the mall, down onto the shoppers at the bottom. Santa Claus is prominently present at the events.

CJ and Annabelle meeting Santa:

Annabelle and Santa waving at me:

CJ got to take a 1-second video (intended to be a selfie) with Santa:

Home Work

SCHOOL UNIFORMS: This morning, we hit the 'books' first thing, and first up was some Algebra. 

As we listened to a Khan Academy lecture about graphic inequalities with variables, I had to smile as I looked at the kids sitting on the bed, soaking it in. So comfortable and casual and peaceful and pleasant. What a great way to learn.

FAR OUT: We also made time this morning to check out stunning footage of a recent spacewalk a pair of astronauts took.

A NASA blog had this to say about the event: 

Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA completed a 6 hour, 49 minute spacewalk at 2:36 p.m. EDT. The two astronauts installed a new camera system on the Canadarm2 robotic arm’s latching end effector, an HD camera on the starboard truss of the station and replaced a fuse on the Dextre robotic arm extension.

The duo worked quickly and were able to complete several “get ahead” tasks. Acaba greased the new end effector on the robotic arm. Bresnik installed a new radiator grapple bar. Bresnik completed prep work for one of two spare pump modules on separate stowage platforms to enable easier access for potential robotic replacement tasks in the future. He nearly finished prep work on the second, but that work will be completed by future spacewalkers.

This was the fifth spacewalk of Bresnik’s career (32 hours total spacewalking) and the third for Acaba (19 hours and 46 minutes total spacewalking). Space station crew members have conducted 205 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 53 days, 6 hours and 25 minutes working outside the station.

You really should take a couple of minutes and check the footage out. Keep in mind, during the clip, they're flying at about 17.500 miles per hour! 




はじめまして: We continue to plug away at learning a little Japanese via Mango Language. We started a new lesson today, all about names and introductions.

I have to say, the kids are doing so much better than me in this endeavor. CJ, especially, seems to pick it up (and have it stick) so quickly. Me, notsomuch. I am going to need a LOT more practice time to keep up with them.

BTW, the characters at the start of this section spell out how to say 'nice to meet you' in Japanese.

SOUNDS OF THE SEASON: So, we were trying to find some Christmas music to listen to while making some holiday decorations, but couldn't find a suitable option. It was one horrible cover after another. I grew frustrated with our cable provider's search options for "music," and basically gave up on the holiday music after about 10 fruitless minutes. 

Eventually, non holiday music offerings populated the screen. I quickly opted for a musical documentary instead. Specifically, AC/DC - Dirty Deeds.

It was really quite informative and entertaining, and more culturally enriching than hearing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" for the 4,923rd time.