Third of July

DAISY DEW: Summer weather seems to be on hiatus the past couple of days. The dozens of daisies all along our driveway were covered with dew this morning.

The good news is, our waterways and forests can use the rain, and it might even help keep some Fourth of July fireworks fires at bay.

GRAND DESIGN: Here and there, I see stories about Detective Cookie's Chess Park, and I'm still blown away seeing so many people wear shirts with Annabelle's design on them. They look great (said the unbiased mother)!
https://southseattleemerald.com/2019/06/24/kids-take-home-the-win-at-chess-competition-against-seattle-police/?fbclid=IwAR1xqCm_5wpgJXlvmFVBF65nNKA6efyOF7jxspiqa0OHcNj9Yns1jku5NCU

NASA NEARBY: News from NASA - our nation's space agency has launched a new website where you can find NASA connections close to home.

Called NASA in the 50 States, the site allows you to click on any state on a map of the U.S. to see how that state is important to the study of space and Earth science.

From it, we learned that at least seven NASA astronauts have been born in the state of Washington. They are: Michael Barratt, Bonnie Dunbar, Richard Gordon, Gregory Johnson, Anne McClain, Stephen Oswald and Dick Scobee.

You can check out the site here: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/nasainthe50states/

HOLEY MOLEY: There's trouble on Mars. Specifically, with the "mole," or digging instrument on  NASA's InSight lander. 

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)n Mars.

The "mole" started digging back in late February of this year. However, it soon appeared to be stuck, which forced the mission team to command the mole to sit idly by while engineers worked toward a solution. 

To that goal, on June 28, InSight's robotic arm was used to remove the mole's surrounding support structure, giving the team a look at the mole, which they hope will help them figure out what the technical difficulties are. 

To date, the "mole" has only been able to dig down about 12 inches (30 centimeters), nowhere near the depth it was designed to dig.

Meanwhile, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has speculated that the Martian soil may be posing problems. Specifically, the material where the lander is may not be giving the necessary kind of friction that would allow it to balance the recoil from the mole's self-hammering motion. Instead, it might be bouncing in place rather than digging, said a NASA expert.  If that's the case, that could be a formidable challenge to overcome.

Winging It

FLIGHTY: Yesterday morning we headed to Raisbeck Aviation High School, a next door neighbor of The Museum of Flight.

It was our first time in the school, so we had big eyes checking everything out. Our purpose for being there was for the orientation for the private pilot ground school program CJ and Annabelle started yesterday. Monday through Friday through June 22, they'll be attending class from 8:30 to 3:30.  

It was a packed house in the small school gym. There are 104 students in the program this year, twice the number that there used to be when it started four years ago. Yesterday, they spent some time in The Museum of Flight's flight simulator. CJ and Annabelle both happily reported that they did not crash their computerized planes. 

One of the cool things about being at The Museum of Flight so often, is that we often see unusual (to us) aircraft during our visits. Case in point: We caught the take off of a Brazilian Air Force jet on Sunday afternoon.

ORION: Early Tuesday morning, NASA successfully conducted a test of the Orion spacecraft’s launch abort system at Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Fortunately, the demonstration showed that the system can outrun a speeding rocket and shuttle astronauts to safety during an emergency during launch. (Unfortunately, the retired space shuttles had no such system, resulting in disaster for the entire crew of the Challenger back in 1986.)

Called Ascent Abort-2,the test lasted about three minutes. The test vehicle was atop a modified Peacekeeper missile procured through the U.S. Air Force and built by Northrop Grumman. The  Orion test spacecraft traveled about six miles high, which meant it was under high-stress aerodynamic conditions expected during ascent. When the abort sequence triggered, within milliseconds, the abort motor fired, which caused the crew module to pull away from the rocket, and a jettison motor fired, which released the crew module and sent in on a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can see video of the test below.


RARE SIGHTING: Have I mentioned we have a gecko living with us for a bit? Stevie is a low maintenance pet. You hardly ever see her. She mostly just hides out in the hollowed out log or UFO in her enclosure, but last night she was totally out and about.

Not sure what got her going, but I'm guessing it was food (she's standing right over it in the photo), or maybe she was thirsty.

Mission to Mars

LIFT OFF: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, CJ has spent all day (from 8:30 to 5:30 p.m.) at The Museum of Flight for his Western Aerospace Scholars summer experience.

Below is a schedule of events for those three days.

In a couple of hours, we'll be headed to the closing presentation and awards ceremony. We're eager to see how his Mars mission stacks up! He wasn't feeling super confident when he left this morning, but hopefully today he and his team got some real progress made. Time will tell. ... 

COMPLETE: CJ has completed his first ever Perler Bead art project.

He carefully followed the pattern, placing each little bead just so, and in the end he produced this colorful Boston Terrier.

Once all the pieces were in place, it was time to melt them together with an iron. Once that was complete, the piece was mounted to a canvas using spray adhesive, and it now hangs in CJ's room.

I think he really enjoyed doing this, and hope that he tries another project again soon.

IN BLOOM: Yesterday we spent a couple of hours out in the yard, mowing, and weed 'eating,' and such.

I stopped several times to admire the blooms around this place.

And where there were blooms, there were bees!

Little bumble bees seemed to love this lavender.

And I spied our honeybees out and about, as well! I love the detail of the wings in the photo below.

I caught the bee below in flight.

And check out the eyes on this guy (below)!

Track and Field

MORNING OUTING: It was a lovely, sunny morning, so we decided to take the dogs for a little stroll on a nearby school's field. 

We were greeted with this sign as we approached the fence. 

I always find it extra cringe-worthy when a sign at a school has a grammatical error or errors. Heavy sigh.

The kids tossed a Frisbee around for a bit while the dogs and I did a couple of laps. While walking, I noticed there was a long jump pit. I called the kids over and suggested they give it a go.

Let's just say, I don't expect them to be setting any world records in the long jump any time soon.

That said, it was their first ever attempt, and it's definitely something that takes some practice! We'll be back to perfect their form. ;)

BERRY GOOD: For whatever reason this morning, at about 8:40, I decided I *needed* to make fresh strawberry shortcake for the kids for breakfast.

I still had the recipe memorized from this weekend (when I made dozens of shortcakes for Teen Feed), and so I whipped them up in no time. Two cups of flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 3/4 teaspoons of salt, sift those, then cut in about 1/3 c. of cold butter. Add a up of milk and drop the batter into 9 dollops on a cookie sheet. Bake until they're done. 

Needless to say, the kids were pretty pleased with the surprise.

YOU GOT ANOTHER THING COMING: If you follow the goings on of we here at MPA, you know go to a fair number of concerts. This week was extra special, though, because we had two events in three days. We're getting a little old for the rock-n-roll lifestyle, I gotta say. ;)

CJ can tell you about last Friday night's antics. ... 

After the release of last year's Firepower LP, the band Judas Priest begun a tour to support the album. On June 21 of this year, Judas Priest made a tour stop at ShoWare Center in Kent, Washington. My father and I went to the concert, in what was our first-ever visit to ShoWare.

The opener for the concert was famed British prog rock band Uriah Heep, nearing the fiftieth anniversary of their debut album Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble. Heep was surprisingly energetic, considering the age of most of the members (though only one original member, guitarist Mick Box, was still in the band.) After Heep finished their hour-long set, the crowd waited before Judas Priest took the stage. While gazing around the crowd, it appeared as though every aging classic rock fan in Seattle was there.

Judas Priest, as was the case with Uriah Heep, seemed to have quite a bit of energy considering their ages (this was a noticeable contrast to the rather dull Ra Ra Riot-Jimmy Eat World-Third Eye Blind concert that we had seen two days prior.) The setlist spanned nearly the band's entire discography, with cuts ranging from the band's sophomore release Sad Wings of Destiny up to their newest full-length Firepower. Some of the songs have been staples since early in the band's career (such as the song Victim of Changes), yet others are making their live debut on this tour (the most obvious examples being the songs from Firepower.) Perhaps needless to say, Priest concluded the set with some of their most famous songs, such as Breaking the Law and Living After Midnight.

Kinda Busy

SPREADING THE NEWS: This morning, CJ and Annabelle took a couple of hours to take part in a services fair at their former school. At it, participants could set up displays on tables in the cafeteria and share information about a non-profit for whom they volunteer.

Regular MPA readers know that the kids regularly bake, decorate and donate cakes to Birthday Dreams.

When we learned about the service fair, we thought it made sense to take a cake to it. I mean, what better way to get people's attention? ;) So, we went online and found a cake that was needed right after the service fair. The teenager requested and 'emoji' cake, so that's what the kids did.

Annabelle had fun sculpting all sorts of faces. 

The kids' booth did, indeed, get a good amount of attention. I'm actually quite hopeful that something will come of it - that some of the people we talked to today will become Birthday Dreams volunteers at some point in the future. 

ART PROJECTS: Last Friday and today (Tuesday), Annabelle took part in a mural project outside a Seattle Public Schools building in Seattle

Each of this year's eighth graders got to participate in making the mural, as well as sign a section of the wall for autographs.

Meanwhile, CJ has all but finished his Perler bead project, a colorful Boston terrier. Stay tuned for a snap of the finished project!

GASSY: So, Saturday night we headed up to the University District to stage our monthly volunteer Teen Feed dinner. We're dialed in, everything ready to go. ... We arrived at about 5:20, loaded everything in, started prepping and then about 5:45 and Kennedy and I are standing at a counter near the windows on the alley side of the kitchen and he starts coughing really hard and I say, "Did you drop a pepper bomb or something?" I'm guessing part of me realized there was an aggressive peppery smell. Within a second or two, I started coughing uncontrollably. And then a second or two later, another volunteer a few feet away starts coughing ... I immediately realized it wasn't just some kitchen thing and that we'd been gassed.  

Super fortunately, I happened to spy a folding chair right next to me (no idea why it was there, I've never seen it in the kitchen before), and I grabbed it and Ken and I set about quickly shutting all of the windows. Meanwhile, I yelled at everyone to get out of the kitchen. I was especially so worried for the little kids in our group! We cleared out of the kitchen, coughed it off and watched the clock tick away. We were losing all of our dinner prep time. 

After a few minutes and checking the air in the alley outside, Ken, I and a couple of others went back into the kitchen, opened the windows, set up fans, and got on with the food prep. We actually had to  throw away any/all food that wasn't covered when the gas came in. I wasn't about to serve people food that had been potentially contaminated with who knows wat.

The incident really set us back time wise for meal prep. The Teen Feed people asked if we wanted/needed to delay dinner service, but we managed to rally and said we we're ready, and bring it on. 

Just another boring Saturday night!

THINGS BREWING: We have been wanting to get back to brewing home made kombucha for months/years now. Sunday afternoon, I suggested Christian post to our local "Buy Nothing" Facebook group asking for a SCOBY so we could get started. Within just minutes, we had an offer to pick one up. We scored it and within two hours were back in business, brewing up a double batch!

It's really so easy to make and it's so tasty and good for you. We're so glad to be back to brewing it!

The Run Around

ROCK ON: It has been a week. A busy, Busy, BUSY week.

I'm not going to recap it all. None of us have that kind of time. But I will hit some highlights. 

Wednesday, the four of us went to WaMu theater in Seattle's stadium district. The draw was a concert by Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World, a couple of bands who were perennial favorites on the airwaves at the end of the 1990s. 

We'd never been to a concert at WaMu before, and that wasn't an accident. I've read really not-so-great reviews about the place. And now I know why. ;)

It's really just this enormous concrete cavern. They host Home Shows and Boat Shows there - that kind of thing. But they also have concerts. When it's a concert night, they hang big black drapes around the cave, and put up all sorts of cattle fences (for lack of a better term. There's a huge standing-only area in front of a not-so-big-or-high stage. There are also two full service bars within the concert area, where people are fenced off from the rest of the crowd. The floor and the bars were really packed on Wednesday night. 

I'd read repeatedly that the venue has no seating, so we were pleasantly surprised to find some seating. They were clearly portable, "accordion" style seating that rolls into itself (think retractable high school bleachers). But rather than bleachers, they were actual seats, so that was good. What was not so good is that the height differential between each row was only about 3-4 inches, so it was hard to see over people in front of you. 

We chose to sit in the back row of the seats, because that way you can stand or sit as you like, no one's kicking the back of your chair, and you don't have to listen to people behind you blathering during the show.

The concert started at 7, with Ra Ra Riot up first. They were definitely not riotous, and had only a tad bit of ra ra. 

Next up was Jimmy Ear World. They had a number of solid hits back in the day, including  "Sweetness," and "The Middle."

I've seen Jimmy Eat World before (about 17 years ago, to be exact), and I have to say, it was strange to me on Wednesday night. For most songs, they sounded more like Death Cab for Cutie or Loverboy than they did themselves. I don't really know how else to explain it. 

Third Eye Blind was up next. Their self titled albums produced multiple huge hits back at the end of the '90s. We were so looking forward to seeing them live!

I have never checked the time so many times during a concert. I even Googled their setlist from their Portland show the night before to try to figure out how long it would be until it was over. ... :(

 It's hard to put into words what when wrong, but I found a review from their Portland show that summed it up pretty well.  One line from the review notes the band "had little intensity and felt altogether disjointed." Sadly, that was the case for the Seattle show, too. The energy of their music on CD simply did not translate to the stage. 

3EB lead singer  Stephan Jenkin was way too chatty for my tastes. For instance, I really don't need to go to a rock show to have the vocalist start talking woo about the shared experience and ordering audience members to turn to a stranger next to them and share pleasantries. It was awkard.

I also for SURE don't want to go to a show to hear songs I love sung live by the singer who recorded them, only to have said singer NOT sing the songs and, instead, hold the mic out to the audience and exhort them to sing. Um, I can stay at home and listen to people sing along with the song. Don't need to pay big $ to go to a concert for that. 

Given all of the above, people were leaving in droves during the show. So, toward the end, we ventured down to the floor and worked our way pretty close to the stage during their biggest hit, "Semi Charmed Kind of Life." 

It's also worth noting the sound during the concert was very meh. No bass, no treble, all middle. And super quiet. 

All in all, a mega disappointing event. I wish we'd stayed home. 

In keeping with our rock-n-roll lifestyle (ha ha), CJ and Christian are at a concert tonight, too, Uriah Heep and Judas Priest at the Showare Center in Kent, WA.

Early reviews are already in from then and it sounds like it was a great show, so yay for that!

SWEET SEND OFF: Thursday, our day was consumed with finishing some sizable projects for an event that evening, an eight grade "graduation."

For the event, we made and decorated vanilla and vegan chocolate sugar cookies, including some alphabet cookies to spell out the following message. ...  

 We also made about three dozen school logo cookies. 

 Each one was hand-painted. Fortunately, the school has a very simple logo!

And we whipped up two dozen vegan and gluten free chocolate cupcakes, plus three dozen organic strawberry lemonade cupcakes. I forgot to take a photo of the cupcakes, darn it (they replicated the school logo, as well), but I do have a pic of the sign that went with them. 

We also produced a couple of movies for the ceremony. One was a three-minute video about the eighth graders' trip to camp, the other was a super sentimental photo album set to music about each of the 15 graduates. Annabelle spent hours and hours and hours on those presentations, and they turned out beautifully, to the point that tears were shed by multiple people in the room. 

Friday was no less busy - we were up early hitting stores and then driving to Seattle to take 7 gallons of ice cream for root beer floats to be served at field day for the school.  And then I came home and made three batches of potato salad ('regular,' vegan, and onion-free), as well as vegan, gluten free and 'regular' shortcake for strawberry shortcake we're serving at Teen Feed tomorrow night. It was nice having Kennedy here, he was a big help in the kitchen!

I bet we all sleep well tonight. 

Half Baked

CAUGHT STEALING: This day has been circled on our calendar for awhile now. Ever since the Golden Warriors beat the Toronto Raptors in Canada during the NBA finals. That put the wheels for a Taco Bell promotion "Steal a game, steal a taco" into motion.

Every man, woman and child in the U.S. had a chance to have a free Taco Bell taco today between 2 and 6 p.m.

As you might have expected, we were at our nearest Taco Bell shortly after 2 p.m., and scored three free tacos for nada.

As you might also expect, we were at another nearby Taco Bell at about 3:30 p.m. There, we also got three free tacos. This time, I actually let the kids buy a drink, though, but only because it was 'happy hour' and the drinks were only $1 apiece.

So for $2, it was six tacos and two drinks for us today. Not bad on the budget.

BAKE AT 350:  I think I turned the oven on at 8:30 this morning. It's now 9 p.m., and the last batch of baked goods is finishing up.

Today we made vanilla sugar cookies in custom shapes, vegan chocolate sugar cookies, also custom cut, two batches of vegan cocoa cupcakes, and two batches of organic strawberry cupcakes. 

That's a lot of baking!

We're doing all this for a Thursday night eighth-grade 'graduation' event. There are probably going to be about 70 or so people there. There should be enough treats for everyone based on what we churned out today!

Tomorrow will be a lot of decorating - that's the fun part. :)

And because we didn't spend enough time in the kitchen today, we also decided to whip up a yummy Indian-inspired dinner of vindaloo chicken with bread and some lovely, spicy sauce over rice. Mmmm!

While they each helped in the kitchen some today, CJ and Annabelle each had their own projects.

CJ, for the first time, tried his hand at a Perler bead project. Annabelle and I spotted a cute Boston Terrier kit when we stopped in Jo-Ann for cupcake liners this afternoon. He liked it even more than we thought he would and got right down to business when we got home.

Annabelle has been working on a rather involved PowerPoint project, making montages of all the graduates and setting them to music. It's been a good exercise for her. She has learned a *lot* more about PowerPoint. 

TUNE IN, MOON IN: We learned in an email today that on June 18, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and President Kennedy’s vision that launched the effort, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum will host a day-long symposium highlighting the history that led to the first Moon landing, current scientific and technological space initiatives, and the future of space exploration. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy will be on hand for the special event.

The museum will be livestreaming the event all day, starting at 6 a.m. West Coast USA time. There is a full day of panels, and each sounds super interesting. Featured speakers include Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Apollo 11 Pilot Michael Collins, a host of scientists, and former leaders from NASA will all discuss how President Kennedy’s vision to send a man to the Moon still inspires our role in the universe today. 

You can follow this link to the broadcast schedule and live streams: 

https://www.jfklibrary.org/watch-the-jfk-space-summit