CHEERS: Yesterday evening and this morning, our latest art project involved doing a project for a neighbor. The neighbor had posted to our local Buy Nothing group, asking for help making a custom gift, etching a wine glass, for a wine aficionado. Christian and I had done some glass etching before, and I knew Annabelle's Cricut machine wizardry could make it possible, so I volunteered us. The neighbor came over and we selected a font. It was an all caps font - and if you look at wine bottles, it's amazing how many of them are all caps. Like 80 percent plus, I'm guessing.
Annabelle programmed the Cricut to cut out the words, and then carefully 'weeded' them to get the stencils ready.
After that was the trickiest part - applying the stencils to the wine glass. Just saying, trying to put a linear stencil onto a rounded surface is really not easy.
Fortunately, Annabelle made it work. After that, it was time to apply the etching cream.
Mercifully, the process worked just fine, and she churned out a pair of custom glasses in good time. Hooray! BLUE BIRD: A couple of months ago, we were in Costco and saw some pretty, big bird feeders. I impulse bought one. We have had it out back for about eight weeks now and have really enjoyed the steady stream of feathered friends who frequent it. (We have less enjoyed the squirrels and occasional rat. Shudder.) Anywhoo, we often have black-headed blue birds out back. We learned that those are called stellar's jay. But yesterday morning I saw a bird out back that was not one of our black-headed friends. I took a photo with my cell phone and used the Google lens feature on the image. It almost immediately told me the backyard visitor was a California scrub jay.
Pretty cool! We're enjoying learning more about our feathered friends.
REWIND: As I look back on the last couple of days, I can understand why I'm a tad tired as I type this. It feels like it has been a marathon at a sprinter's pace. I'll try to hit a few highlights. ... Monday, we took a break from working on the house and in the yard to go play a few holes of disc golf at a new-to-us course, Lakewood King County Disc Golf Club. It's in the White Center neighborhood, which is south of Seattle proper and east of West Seattle. Frankly we hadn't gone to that course before because of the word 'club' in its name. We thought it was for members only or we'd have to pay to play. But Kennedy went and scouted it out a couple of weeks ago and said it's a public park open to all. Unfortunately, the course has no map posted on site, the tees are not well marked (and in some instances they're not marked at all), so we wandered around a bit. (Eventually I found a map on the ground at one tee, so that helped us.)
One thing that makes this particular course unique is it features some water hazards.
We were pretty happy we didn't lose any discs that day. We pretty much had the whole park to ourselves. As we were leaving, I noticed a gentleman with a disc golf bag wandering around the park's entrance. It's what we'd been doing an hour or so prior. I told Christian to go give the guy the map we found. Boy, was he grateful! Tuesday was all about cake. Horrible, terrible, troublesome cake. Last week, Annabelle had perused the Birthday Dreams website and signed up to make a cake for a local child. The kid had chosen a galaxy themed party from the list, but there was a note that they really loved narwhals. Annabelle remembered that we had seen a cosmic-themed narwhal plushie at a video game convention awhile back. It was called a starwhal - how clever! So we decided to make a starwhal cake. There were two big problems, however. One was that somehow Annabelle got the due date wrong, and it was due more than 24 hours sooner that I thought it was kind of a big deal, because making these custom things is a process and takes time. The second super big problem was that on the day we *had* to make the figurines and decorate the cake, it was over 90 degrees. Icing and modeling chocolate do NOT like heat. Things literally kept falling apart. And when they fell apart, they'd land somewhere and ruin something else. Bad words were spewed and tears were spilled. It was really unpleasant, unfortunately - and uncharacteristically. Honestly, normally making these donation cakes is a fun experience. Anyway, we eventually got the cake to a 'stable' point and were happy to drop it off and put it behind us. Let's hope the birthday kid enjoyed it at least a little. In the photo below, I've blurred the name on purpose, for confidentiality.
Just minutes after dropping off the cake, we had to head north, to the stadium district. We had signed the kids up for the Bills, Budgets & Baseball event sponsored by our credit union, BECU. It's about a 90-minute event where teens participate in a simulation where they make real-life budgeting decisions people face every day. They are randomly assigned a persona, complete with a career, and, sometimes a spouse and/or kids. The challenge is to choose which housing, transportation, clothing, and other important purchases that make sense for you and your family. It was held in the 'basement' of T-Mobile Park, home to the Seattle Mariners.
And by attending the event, our family 'earned' four free tickets to that night's game, as well as four $10 gift cards to use on stadium concessions. Pretty good deal! After an orientation, the kids used an app called Bite of Reality 2 as they worked their way around stations for different expenses. In the end, CJ wound up in fairly deep debt. He didn't seem too worried about it, though. ...
On the other hand, Annabelle seemed super proud she'd managed to stay on budget, and even save some.
After the exercise was over, we headed into the stadium. Rather than go to our assigned seats, we decided to see if there was seating available in the Hit It Here Cafe, above right field. Turned out there were plenty of open spots, so we parked there for a few innings.
Actually, we were there longer than we'd planned on being there, because there were multiple issues with our meals. Annabelle's wasn't served with the rest of ours, and then didn't come and still didn't come despite our repeated inquiries. (It was just a burger and fries, nothing that complex.) Meanwhile, the nachos Christian and I were served were like STONE COLD. They were gross, and we sent them back. Fortunately, I complained to the right people, and our meals ended up being comped, which was appreciated. So that meant we had free game tickets and free food that night. So that wasn't bad - but the Mariners were terrible. They were shutout big time by the Yankees. Fast forward to Thursday, we were heading out the door at 6:45 to Queen Anne Hill in the heart of Seattle. There, we helped set up for a back-to-school breakfast for staff at the kids' former learning center. The event had a 'rap' theme. Breakfast wraps were on the menu, and rap-inspired decor adorned the tables (think gold chains, boom boxes and such). CJ put together an hour's worth of 'clean' rap music (honestly, that was quite a challenge). I made four pounds of bacon, brought six different hot sauces, a dozen tomatoes from our garden, some cilantro, cotija, sliced mini bell peppers, tortilla strips, and more to contribute to the table (which also included scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, black beans, etc.).
After the breakfast was served, I took the kids to the International Fountain at Seattle Center for a little splash time. We all realized just a couple of days ago that summer is almost over and we hadn't been to the fountain once yet this year. We had to fix that, as it's a tradition. Parking was a little tricky, because there were hundreds of workers everywhere, getting the grounds ready for the big Bumbershoot concert this weekend.
Lots of vendors were already on site. The kids and I were intrigued by this Keen trailer. Apparently they make and sell shoes right on site. Interesting.
It wasn't as warm as we were expecting it to be today, but that didn't stop CJ from getting full on soaked.
SHOW TIME: Sunday afternoon we headed toward what seems to be our home away from home lately, The Museum of Flight. Our reason for being there was it was a Space Art celebration. The museum had put out a call for youth artists to submit works to be considered in the show. Annabelle submitted a design and was happy to learn she'd been chosen to participate. We dropped her canvas off last Wednesday, and it was on display at the museum from Friday through Sunday. We were super busy all day Friday and Saturday, as well as Sunday morning, but we finally headed to the museum on Sunday afternoon to check out the art show. It was pretty cool to find Annabelle's canvas under the nose of the space shuttle trainer in the space art gallery!
We were really impressed by all of the artwork on display. I took a couple of quick videos of them.
It was really fun for Annabelle to be a fly on the wall as people were looking at the art on display. As luck would have it, during the five minutes we stood there, three groups that passed through the exhibit stood in front of her canvas and commented on it and took photos. She was very flattered.
There were a number of arts-and-crafts activities for Space Art Day, but we arrived too late to participate, having been busy before. However, we were just in time to see a really interesting biopic movie in the MoF's theater.
Here's the trailer for the movie. ...
And here are reviews from the resident critics. Annabelle is up first.
On August 25th at the Museum of Flight, my family and I had the privilege of getting to see the film “Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future”. The documentary follows the life of Chesley Knight Bonestell Jr., whom is considered the “Father of Modern Space Art.” He was born in San Francisco in 1888 and showed his prowess at painting as early as high school. This upset his grandfather, who wanted him to take over the printing mill when he came of age. Chesley instead began to study architecture in New York, where he could put his talents to work in bringing other students’ designs to life (such as the now-famous Chrysler Building). He soon began applying his newfound knowledge of camera angles and modelling to his own personal artwork, coinciding with the beginning of the Space Race. You can see influence from his extraterrestrial landscapes in almost every example of space art, and it even inspired some NASA employees to pursue their careers.
While the film did do a wonderful job at documenting his life, I do wish it spent a bit more time focusing in on his art techniques and paintings. It seemed rather heavy on the biography side of things at times. Despite this, the film is gorgeous in terms of visual presentation, truly bringing to life his artwork and influence. I would recommend the film to people who are interested in space travel history or biographies, but it may not be as interesting to you if you were expecting an art film. I personally enjoyed it, and found it fascinating that someone who has had so much influence on the art world has been virtually unknown for so long.
And here's what CJ had to say ...
Throughout the 20th century, Chesley Knight Bonestell Jr. was a highly influential and important artist, often referred to as "the father of modern space art". Chances are, if you're even remotely familiar with space art, you've seen some of Bonestell's work, but probably didn't know his name. Chesley Bonestell was born in 1888 in San Francisco. While he had been making astronomical paintings since 1905 (after seeing Saturn through a telescope), though space would not become the central focus of his art until the mid-20th century.
On August 26, 2019, the Museum of Flight held a "space art" event. Among the activities occurring that day was a screening of Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future, a documentary about Bonestell's life and career. The Museum of Flight's website described the documentary as follows:
The amazing story of Chesley Bonestell, a forgotten artist who worked on the Chrysler Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, movies like “Destination Moon,” and then helped inspire America’s space program with his futuristic paintings. His mesmerizing depiction of "Saturn As Seen From Titan" became known as "the painting that launched a thousand careers."
Told by the people who were influenced by or knew Chesley personally, and punctuated with rare interview with Chesley himself, this documentary chronicles the extraordinary, nine-decade life of a quiet, artistic visionary, whose beautiful paintings continue to inspire us to reach for the stars.
Among the first publications that Bonestell illustrated for was a "railway magazine", a(n antiquated) type of magazine designed to encourage people to move to the western states, usually via train. Due to pressure from Bonestell's grandfather, Bonestell moved to the field of architecture, where he would design the iconic Chrysler Building in New York City. Bonestell also made elaborate illustrations of what would become the Golden Gate Bridge, to promote the concept to potential funders. Later, Bonestell began designing complex "matte paintings" for notable films such as Citizen Kane (1940). Matte paintings would sometimes be used in place off backdrops that would be highly expensive and time-consuming to build.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Bonestell began making illustrations of scenes in space for various magazines, among them Life Magazine. Bonestell's illustrations often depicted astronauts (when present) as tiny explorers in the vast expanse of space (or even just a single planet). Bonestell's illustrations of space inspired many people to pursue careers as astronauts, or otherwise work in the field of space travel. While Bonestell died several years ago, many of his paintings depict astronauts exploring areas and planets (such as Mars) that humans have still yet to set foot on. Until then, Bonestell's paintings represent the future.
On our way out of the museum, we got to see a mural that was so new, we could still smell the paint drying! Done by Henry, whose murals are famous throughout the Seattle area, the larger than life work depict animals who have played a role in the space race.
And here's another shot, with the kids this time, for scale.
POPPIN': This weekend is another Teen Feed session for us, and we have been playing around with dessert ideas. One thing that's always a hit with that crowd is a Crispy Cereal treat station. There are basic squares of the bar cereal mixed with marshmallow, but then they can choose toppings, like icing, different sprinkles, mini chocolate chips and such. I thought it would be fun to put the "pop!" in the cereal that doesn't pop unless you put it in milk, and thought Pop Rocks would make a fun topping. Then I remembered they cost like $1 for a tiny package of them. It would be super expensive to have enough to sprinkle atop 50 or so desserts. Naturally, my next thought was, "I wonder if you can make Pop Rocks ... " I figured there's be sugar and baking soda involved, and after Annabelle Googled a couple of recipes, that turned out to be true. Citric acid is also involved, as is corn syrup. We used a DIY Pop Rocks recipe from a site called Bluprint. It's been awhile since we've boiled sugar, so we were a little nervous watching it approach the 'hard candy' mark (about 295 degrees Farenheit).
Once it reached that temp, we quickly added in the other ingredients, which included food coloring and some orange extract, for flavor. Then we poured it out onto a prepped surface (a cookie sheet covered in parchment and dusted in powdered sugar), and waited, impatiently, for it to harden.
Once it did, we each eagerly popped a tiny portion into our mouth. And ... no popping. Granted, it did fizz, but who wants a Fizz Rock? Nah. I turned to YouTube and found this guy's more science-y video. One thing he does right is add the food coloring and flavor first, before it boils, instead of after, unlike the recipe we found. I think it would work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSwvmNEr0Q That said, no way we're doing all that to make some popping candy. :)
I turned to another video - a professional chef who works for Bon Appetit. She was tasked with making a popping rocks candy. First thing she did was watch the video above, ha ha.
Second thing she did is make a batch that was exactly like what we made. Her conclusion: It fizzes, but doesn't pop. Which is exactly what we found to be true. Turns out, making popping candy is not very DIY-friendly.
ROCKIN': We were fortunate to see The Rolling Stones when they were in Seattle last week. Last night, they played the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and before the show actor Robert Downey Jr. made an announcement that the team behind NASA's InSight Mars lander has named a Red Planet rock after the legendary band. (Video here: https://videos.space.com/m/yO6Z7juy/robert-downey-jr-reveals-name-of-rolling-stones-mars-rock-at-rose-bowl?list=6DUiA9a3) The rock in the center of the image below is the newly-named rock. It was tossed about 3 feet by NASA's InSight spacecraft as it landed on Mars on November 26, 2018. According to a JPL press release, "several divots in the orange-red soil can be seen trailing Rolling Stones Rock. It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet."
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In response to the honor, the band said, "What a wonderful way to celebrate the 'Stones No Filter' tour arriving in Pasadena," home of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This is definitely a milestone in our long and eventful history. A huge thank you to everyone at NASA for making it happen." Here's a short animation JPL created to commemorate the event.
And, of course, there's a video, complete with a Stones' soundtrack.
KNOCKIN': Our never-ending spruce-up-the-downstairs project that has spanned a couple of months now. Most recently, I painted doors downstairs, and the kids learned how to replace a doorknob. It can be a little tricky, but it's totally doable if you follow instructions and have the right mix of patience and brute force.
FLIGHTY: I'm still trying to catch up (and catch my breath!) from last week, which was oh-so-busy. Friday afternoon, we had a chance to pay tourist, hanging out at The Museum of Flight with some family, including an East Coast-dwelling guest. We spent the bulk of our visit in the always-entertaining air park portion of the museum. It's outdoors, but entirely covered, making it comfortable to visit year-round. The photo above in the belly of a 787. We couldn't help but notice it has "hips" (see the bulges on the body near the landing gear?). Visiting the first Air Force One jet is always a highlight. Here, CJ and Annabelle mug for the camera along with former President Richard Nixon and China's Zhou Enlai.
The jet is a specially-built Boeing 707-120, also known as SAM (Special Air Missions) 970. It was delivered by Boeing in 1959 to replace then-President Eisenhower's Super-Constellation.
The flying Oval Office featured what was then a well-appointed galley and sophisticated communication equipment.
An "oval office" within the flying Oval Office. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon almost certainly sat here once upon a time. Those were the good old days, before presidents sat on a toilet and posted nasty Tweets.
A peek out of the window of the Concorde gives you an idea of just how packed the air park is with aviation attractions.
Inside a vintage 747, we learned that the "black" box is actually orange.
Below, CJ and DB (Cooper, that is) strike a pose.
Below is a shot of the building where CJ and Annabelle spent most of their private pilot ground school hours.
We did spend a little time in the museum's Space Gallery. I had to laugh at the IKEA-instructions like stickers on the Soyuz capsule, instructing people how to open it. I suppose it's there because the Soyuz could inadvertently land in a remote location, and some local with no aerospace training would have to let the cosmonauts out.
PROJECTING: Busy week last week. We were up to our elbows in fondant, buttercream, Perler beads and spray paint. After checking out the Birthday Dreams' list of request for cakes for homeless kids, CJ found a child who wanted a Super Mario Bros.-themed cake. We *had* to take that on. (As you may recall, in our last place, CJ's entire bedroom was painted in a Super Mario Bros. mural.) Annabelle was busy on another project (more on that later), so CJ and I had to do most of the heavy lifting on this cake. We made mushrooms and Goombas (pictured at the top of the post). We had to call Annabelle in for Mario's head and body, however.
The cake was three layers of chocolate brownie cake with vanilla and mini chocolate chip filling, covered in marshmallow fondant.
We put the birthday child's name on top of the cake in a Mario Bros. font. The name is rather clumsily obscured in these photos, for privacy purposes, but it looked really cool! :)
Meanwhile, Annabelle was busy with another 'little' project. About three weeks back I'd sent her notice about The Museum of Flight's Space Art juried art show/contest. She ignored that info, but last Wednesday morning, I asked her, "Are you really not going to do anything to try to get into the art show?" Well, she had a change of heart and then spent hours and hours and hours the next two days creating. It had to be a 2D/on the flat entry, so she decided to do a melted Perler bead creation on canvas. She settled on an astronaut's helmet, with a starry scene in the visor. The toughest part was getting it to scale and getting it outlined properly.
Filling in the middle was more fun.
After the beads were on the boards, it was all carefully taped off and pulled off the boards and then melted together via an iron.
She spray painted a canvas (using techniques she'd learned by air brushing cakes!), and then glued the astronaut on it.
It turned out great, and she found out that the work was one of 18 that will be featured in the museum's art show this coming weekend. How about that!?
SATIRE-DAY: Friday night, we made our way to the Paramount Theater for a show (our second of the week). This time it was Weird Al as the main attraction. Billed as his "Strings Attached" tour, Al was playing with a 40+ piece orchestra. In fact, the opening act was the orchestra, which played a stirring selection of John Williams' movie themes. I would have gone to the theater just to hear that!
Afterward, there was a short intermission, and then it was on with the show. Annabelle will tell you more about it. ...
On August 17th, my family and I attended a concert at the Paramount Theater featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic and a full symphony orchestra; many would think this is quite the odd combination, but it definitely works in its own ridiculous way. During this show, Weird Al played many of his more popular parody songs, including “White & Nerdy,” “Amish Paradise,” and my personal favorite, “Word Crimes.”
He also sang a few original songs, such as “Jackson Park Express” and the 26-second long “Harvey the Wonder Hamster”.
The showmanship of the concert was astounding, and every single part of it was punctual and well executed. The opening act with the orchestra’s warm up sounded very good, and the acoustics of the Paramount worked well with the nature of the instruments. The only improvement I could think of was that the singers’ microphones sometimes felt a bit too quiet in comparison to the orchestra and instruments, making it difficult to hear certain lyrics. Aside from that, the show was amazing! More information on the tour and future stops can be found at weirdal.com/tour/.
Al ended with a couple of Star Wars songs: "The Saga Begins" and "Yoda" (sang to the tune of The Kinks' "Lola."
We enjoyed our 'cheap' seats in the first row of the third (and last) mezzanine. Whoever filmed this had a *much* better view. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c7abXNaPCoo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
