Eventful

             European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on a Nov. 15 spacewalk - European Space Agency

WHAT A VIEW:  I've been meaning to share this image (above) for about a week now. It's a spectacular shot from last week's spacewalk to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). It's spacewalker Luca Parmitano of the ESA hitching a ride on the International Space Station’s 16-meter robotic arm.  

According to the ESA, the four planned spacewalks to service the AMS are exceptionally difficult, because the bus-sized dark matter detector was not designed to be maintained in space. In order for it to keep operating, its cooling pumps need maintenance, and the first step was assessing if this was even possible. Fortunately, the first exercise went exceedingly well. Luca and NASA astronaut Drew Morgan were able to remove the debris shield covering AMS and install three handrails in the vicinity of AMS ahead of the next steps. In fact, the next spacewalk is scheduled for 22 November. You can view it live on ESA Web TV or NASA TV beginning at 2:30 a.m. Seattle time. 

BOWLED OVER: The last couple of days have been pretty much consumed with preparation for Empty Bowls, an annual community-building and fund-raising event we help host at the kids' former school.

We have been busily folding napkins, making centerpieces, tracking down table runners, putting together a PowerPoint, making posters, oh, and making soup. Lots and lots of soup. We took four different kidns to the event: Lasagna soup, bean with bacon soup, spicy beef and bison chili, and some fruit soup (always a hit with the kids - it's really just a smoothie in a bowl). 

We never really know how these events are going to go - how many people will show up and how many donations of soup, bread and $$ we'll be getting. Fortunately, somehow it always turns out, and yesterday was no exception. 

By the time the event started, there were more than two dozen pots lining the walls of the event room, and there were two mountains of bread of all shapes and types, as well. 

People picked out hand-crafted art bowls and sampled soup in cups while a playlist with songs about helping one another streamed from my phone and over the speakers in the room. 

Everything went well. There were so many tasty soups, and many guests enjoyed multiple samples. When the event was over, we collected the leftovers in Ziploc freezer bags and put them in an ice bath to cool down.

Then, we packaged them up for delivery to a nearby homeless encampment.

Our delivery person reported, "Drop off was great! They were very happy to get the delivery!" So, yay for that. 

Overall, the even was a ton of work.  The kids and I got to the school at 8 a.m. and didn't leave until 2 and worked our tails off during the time there. However, it was time and energy well spent. The final numbers aren't in, but it sounds like we raised about $1000. Those proceeds will be split between Birthday Dreams and Teen Feed.

Projects Aplenty

COVERED IN SUGAR: I remember the old days, when I used to blog five nights a week. Seems like that hasn't happened in forever. We've been so darn busy by the time I head for bed (after 1 a.m. twice last week), blogging just isn't on the to do list. 

I can't recount all of the missing time, but I'll try to hit a few highlights.

First, the sugar storm. ...

We had two big projects this week. One was an artsy cake for a 14-year-old. When we inquired what she liked, the list returned was chevrons, teal, Broadway musicals and her bass guitar. That's a diverse list. How to fit that all on one cake without having it look like the elephant the group of blind men designed per the ancient fable? 

Annabelle asked a few more questions, including which musicals, exactly, the cake recipient favored. When she got that list back, we decided to make some mini playbill posters (edible, of course), to 'hang' on the top tier of the cake. The bottom/bigger tier would feature the teal and chevrons. And then the cake topper would be the girl's name, age, and her bass guitar.

Since CJ was busy with college coursework, I did most of the cake baking (two entire recipes of chocolate cake, which were stacked and filled with vanilla buttercream with mini chocolate chips for some crunch). The top tier was a yummy fresh strawberry cake with a very berry filling, crumb coated and then covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Meanwhile, Annabelle toiled on the art elements. She painted five mini Broadway playbill posters for the cake using food coloring as paint, marshmallow fondant as the 'canvas,' and a tiny brush to create the images. 

She also had to do a fair amount of math to make the chevrons work. No surprise that our homemade cake wasn't perfectly square - each side was a touch different width, so the chevrons strips had to be adjusted for each side of the cake. 

Also, you have to engineer a stacked cake like this. The tall top tier was super heavy, what with the dense cake, the filling, the icing and fondant covering. We had a support column under the top tier to help hold it up (or else it would have sunk into the bottom cake, for sure), and we had a center pole extending up into the top tier, so it wouldn't slide off. 

Fortunately, our engineering worked, and the cake was in one piece when we made it to the delivery spot. The whole party was Broadway themed, and the table settings and posters and signs and treats they had were all so pretty - it was magical.

It took Annabelle just a minute or two to set up the cake. When she was done, the mom of the birthday girl was speechless. Then, she sat down and started crying. She was so happy with the cake - hooray! Pretty amazing that sugar and butter can bring someone to tears. 

Concurrent with the cake making, we had another 'little project' - three trays of cookies for a friend's memorial. Naturally, we made custom cookies that spoke to the dearly departed one's life and personality.

The cookies ran the gamut from high school letters and mascot to the BMW logo, some Oregon references, clothing choices and more. Annabelle even converted some coasters so that the lettering looked like our friend's name (it originally read 'FLICKER').

It was appropriate that the image on them was friends around the fire, because that's how the party they were shared out wound up - with friends standing around a fire, talking about their friend.

MoPOP WORKSHOP: Last Friday, 4.5 hours of our day was spent at MoPop (the Museum of Pop Culture, formerly EMP [Experience Music Project]), down at Seattle Center.

Annabelle and I were there for the first of a three-part art workshop about writing and drawing comics. 

In the workshop room, Annabelle sat in the front row, and I sat in the back row. I was required to be present during the whole workshop. My idea was to get a little work done quietly in the back, but I made a decision early on to, instead, quietly participate. It's not often I get to just sit and write or draw for fun these days. 

We had a number of exercises. A fun one was we were asked to write instructions about how to build a sandwich in 6 or so comic panels. Then we had to pass our instructions to our table neighbor. I was handed this ...

I had about a half hour to produce this ...

At one point during the session, we ventured out into the Fantasy gallery at the museum and we were supposed to draw something that caught our eye there. I drew a dragon. Not sure what Annabelle drew. Later, we were asked to write about our recollection of when we met our best friend. And then we were told to make a comic out of that, but we had to integrate the object we drew into that story. That was interesting. 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: As if we don't have enough going on right now, also on our 'to do' list is readying for a really big event we're helping host this coming Wednesday. It's an "Empty Bowls" event, which is where guests are invited to a big old soup feed and it's hoped they'll donate to charity while there. (Our charities this year are Teen Feed and Birthday Dreams - names regular readers of this blog will recognize.)

We've been busy folding fancy napkins, tracking down table runners, and making little "souper man" centerpieces. Tomorrow, we'll be making four kinds of soup to take on Wednesday morning, before the sun rises. 

I just loved it today when we pulled up to the site where the event will be and saw this sign quoting "Spock" advertising it!

Travelogue

Mercury, seen in silhouette, makes its way across the face of the Sun, with the Washington Monument in the foreground. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

SUN SHOTS: There are plenty of post-transit photos of Mercury making its way across the face of the sun from yesterday's solar event.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was one of those watching. (The Solar Dynamics Observatory views the sun in a variety of wavelengths of light in the extreme ultraviolet.) It's some pretty cool footage. 


Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein

FASCINATING WINDOW: Today we 'had' to watch an hour-long video about a pair of brothers who traveled to Indonesia and the Spice Islands in the 1970s, videography equipment in tow. It was a course requirement for CJ's World History class.

To be honest, if you'd asked me before today what or where the Spice Islands were, you'd have gotten a blank stare as a response. Now, thanks to the British brothers Blair (Lawrence and Lorne), I know a fair amount about the Indonesian archipelago.  

The Blairs traveled in and around Indonesia for 10 years, documenting their adventures along the way. The recordings turned into "The Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey." In the episode we watched today, the brothers lived with members of the Bugis tribe for months. The Blairs' goal was to follow in the footsteps of the 19th century naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace. 

The Blairs' initial excursion would up turning into a two-decade endeavor of documenting the relationships of Spice Island ecology and telling the stories of their peoples. Some of their work would up as an Emmy-nominated BBC/PBS television series, "Ring of Fire."

Shot with 16mm film in high heat and humidity back in the early 1970s, the photo quality of what we watched today is pretty poor by current standards. However, I found myself quickly 'forgiving' that, in exchange for having a vantage point to places and people most of us will never get to see in person.

We found it interesting when reading the credits that financing for the brothers' efforts was provided, in part, by Ringo Starr.

Apparently a digitally remastered DVD was released in 2003. I'd be curious to see what its video quality is like.

Poking around YouTube, I found a one-hour documentary, "Beyond the Ring of Fire." I listened to and sometimes watched about half of it while posting this blog. It's super interesting.


SPACE SNOOPY: I couldn't help but notice, but in the last couple of years, Snoopy (of Peanuts fame) has had a higher profile. He's popping up everywhere, and often these 'wheres' are off planet, like the moon or Mars.

As it turns out, Peanuts and the space program have a long relationship. Back in 1969, the lunar module and command module  for Apollo 10 were named after Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Also in '69, NASA started an annual Silver Snoopy Award given out to employees for "outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success."

There's a new graphic novel about to come out, "Snoopy: A Beagle of Mars." I checked out some of its pages online today. It looks like lots of fun. It comes out Dec. 18. Hopefully we can check out a copy from a local library.

Meanwhile, a brand new series, "Snoopy in Space," is launching on the new Apple TV+. I don't think we'll have Apple TV+ any time soon, so who knows if we'll ever get to see any of it beyond YouTube trailers.

Eyes on the Skies

WATCH OUT: I had the stage set. There were two pairs of binoculars, some solar safety glasses, a couple of cameras ... we were hoping to see the transit of Mercury first thing this morning. 

However, the clouds had a different idea.

The event started about 4:35 a.m. Seattle time, but sun didn't rise here until after 7 a.m. today. So, Right after, I scanned the skies for any sign of an orange orb. For about two minutes I could make the disc out, but it was behind a *bunch* of tree branches from my vantage point. I used all of the tools at my disposal, but there was just no way I was able to see that speck in front of the sun given the clouds, the blowing branches and my under-powered binoculars. Bummer. 

Naturally, the sun came out about 15 minutes after the event was over. That's that Annabelle's checking out in the photo above. 

Missing out was kind of a big deal because this is the last time Mercury transits the sun until 2032, and during that occurrence, people in the U.S. won't be able to view it. Americans have to wait until 2049 for the next opportunity. Sigh.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, Christian was also looking skyward. He's in Florida for a work conference which starts this afternoon, leaving his morning open. It just so happened there was a SpaceX launch this morning, so he hopped a shuttle from Orlando to Cocoa Beach. Below is a photo of his viewing spot. The tiny white block on the lefthand side of the photo is actually NASA's enormous Vehicle Assembly Building. The white speck in the middle of the frame, between the palm trees and a pole,is the launch site.

Though he was a bit of a ways away, he was a lot closer than us. ;) And he got to see the lift off! So happy for him - what a bonus to his business trip!

Here's the entire SpaceX broadcast of the launch. Lift off happens just after the 19-minute mark.

On board the launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, were 60 Starlink satellites.

Christian's view of the launch wasn't quite as close as the official SpaceX broadcast.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket nailed its landing on a barge named Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean. You can see that about the 27 minute mark of the video. It's the *fourth* time this piece of equipment has been launched and landed. What an accomplishment for SpaceX.

PLAY THE GAME: We continue to play board games for fun and to boost our logic and strategy 'muscles.'

Chess continues to be a favorite. I call this victory "March of the Black Queen." I checkmated CJ upon turning a lowly pawn into a powerful queen.

We were playing this game during Sunday Night Football. While playing, the announcer talked about how the Minnesota Vikings' Amari Cooper plays chess in the locker room all of the time. Interesting!

A new-to-us game is "How to Rob a Bank." Three players are the robbers, working together, against the fourth player, the bank security guards. 

It's a fun concept and quite different than most games. We'll be playing this regularly, I predict.

Midweek

ART PROJECTS: We owe some people some thank yous, so resident artist Annabelle came up with a couple of cards yesterday. This one is headed to a family member who gifted a ton of fabric and other crafty supplies to us recently. I love Annabelle's details on this one.

Speaking of crafting, today we needed our glue gun and it was absolutely buried in the craft closet. That led to a few bad words before I realized it was actually an 'opportunity' to declutter and reorganize. I hadn't planned on that today, so we didn't have time to finish the whole thing, but three of the six shelves are ever-so-much better, so yay for that.

One of the reasons we were needing craft supplies is we were trying to make a Souper Man. 

"What's that?" you ask? Well, it's just a little table top attention-getter for an event we're helping host in a couple of weeks. We need folks to bring soup to share to the gathering. I'm of the opinion that putting an 8.5x11 flyer on a wall at a school where nearly every wall is covered in some sort of display is kind of a lost cause. So, I'm always trying to think of ways to literally  stand out - something 3D to hopefully catch attention. Enter Souper Man. ;)

I think he's pretty cute. Now, I just hope that some random 5-year-old that also thinks he's cute doesn't rip an arm off him or something. ...

Decidedly less artsy but oh-so-satisfying, I did manage to finish painting the hallway ceiling downstairs today, while the kids were studying Japanese. (Sadly, at this point, I'm of little use to them when it comes to that.)

Out with the old nicotine 'colored' ceiling and in with Casper, a crisp white from Miller Paint.

IN TRANSIT: Mark your calendars next Monday (Nov. 11) for a rare chance to see a solar system spectacle. Mercury will be transiting our sun that day. This won't happen again for 13 years, so it's kind of a big deal.

According to timeanddate.com, weather permitting, the transit will be visible for 2 hours and 56 minutes, from 7:08 to 10:04 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Time to dust off the solar eclipse glasses, cross our fingers, and try to check it out then.

Sites to See

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD: Annabelle got to spend a few days in Las Vegas last week. She had a great time, of course. On her last day there, she went to the Shark Reef Aquarium.

As you might have guessed, she saw some sharks there. 

She also saw some not sharks.

Annabelle and her two oldest brothers also hit the Pinball Hall of Fame, a really neat-o arcade that includes a bunch of vintage machines we've never seen before. One example is this Star Trek Voyager game.

There was also a vintage "Toy Factory" machine. This thing took 4 bucks and a half minute to spit out "your own Walt Disney" characters. 

According to a Volo Auto Museum website video I found, the machine was invented for the 1964 World's Fair.

Sound like it's super rare. I hope to get to see it on my next visit to Vegas.

Here are a couple of short videos of Annabelle getting her game on.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: Saturday morning, CJ shared with me that he received an email from his college with some startling news. It read ...

‌Dear  Christian (CJ) ,
We want you to get the classes you need at the times you want next quarter and noticed that there is a block on your student record that prevents you from registering for classes. 
To resolve the issue as quickly as possible, please call, email, or make an appointment with the Registration Office at your campus.

Registration starts next week, so don't wait!
Sincerely,Your Student Success team‌ 

What's this? A block on his record? He can't register for winter classes (registration started today/Monday, Nov. 4)?! And they email this alarming notice on a Saturday morning, when we can't call, email or make an appointment per their advice? The subject line of the email literally read:  "Oh no! You may not be able to register for classes ..."

Fantastic. Sigh. 

We went on his college site and poked around, trying to find anything out outstanding fees or tuition or any other red flag, but we couldn't find anything amiss.

So, we got in our car this morning and were on campus when the registration office opened. Within two minutes we learned that the message was sent because he's a Running Start (early enrolled) student and needs to register in person. Which we already knew. Why in the WORLD didn't that email just say that?! SO lame. 

Anyway, we're glad that it was OK, and CJ is now signed up for winter quarter. He'll be taking World Civilizations II (a continuation of a class he's in now), Japanese II (likewise, a continuation), and English 101, which had to happen sooner or later, and we figured sooner would be better. 

Halloween-y

    Photo: NASA

BOO-TIFUL: Tis the season for pumpkin carving. Nice that NASA has us covered in that department. I mean, who wouldn't want to carve their very own James Webb Space Telescope-themed pumpkin? 

There are three different patterns you can choose from, with varying degrees of difficulty. Created by Leah Hustak, you can find them here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13416

Annabelle's participation in InkTober is coming to a close. Here are a couple of her most recent drawings. This one had a prompt of "ride." 

And this one was "bait."

CHECK YOURSELF: As part of CJ's psychology class this week, we learned about Project Implicit,  "a non-profit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition - thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control," per their website description. "The goal of the organization is to educate the public about hidden biases and to provide a 'virtual laboratory' for collecting data on the Internet," they explain. 

The site has a number of different assessments you can take to help identify your hidden biases. They include everything from religion to skin tone to weight to gender and more.  After taking the assessment, you receive a result, along with info about what that result means. 

I took a test on religion. It involved pressing one of two computer keys when words or symbols appeared on the screen. I was somewhat surprised at the results, and would really like to read more about their methodology and assessment models they before I became a believer in their validity. It is an interesting concept, and definitely worthwhile if there's scientific merit to it.