More, More, More

EXPERIENCED: Yesterday's blog was all about our trip to the Museum of History and Industry. But that wasn't our only field trip destination on Monday. For, you see, part of our reason for going to MOHAI was we wanted to join there under their "Family Plus" membership level, as that would give us access to reciprocal entry to dozens/hundreds of other museums under the North American Reciprocal Museums program. We did our homework on various museums in our area who participate in NARM, and I found that joining MOHAI was the cheapest way to gain access to that.

So, freshly printed receipt in hand showing our NARM membership, after MOHAI, we headed to Experience Music Project at Seattle Center. We love that place and have been wanting to go there to see their new "The Art of Video Games" exhibit. 

That particular exhibit was in a smallish room. There were a half dozen classic video games you could try your hand at (including PacMan and Super Mario Bros., of course). The kids were both amused by "The Secret of Monkey Island."

Game consoles through the ages were on display, so it was a bit like being in CJ's bedroom. And there were multiple terminals where visitors could pick up a phone receiver and listen to info about classic games and consoles. The huge screen in Sky Theater also features some shorts about video games.

                                       
Upstairs, we found "Worn to Be Wild: The Black Leather Jacket." A fun display, it featured jackets which had been worn by everyone from Michael Jackson to this one of Elvis'.

The kids even got into the act.

EMP has always had a wonderful Jimi Hendrix collection, but right now they have a special exhibit: Hear My Train a Comin': Hendrix hits London.

We saw multiple guitars that Jimi smashed to smithereens.

 He's still watching over them, it appears ...

And here's THE guitar ... one Hendrix played at Woodstock!

Jimi would have been 70 this year. Instead, he's a member of the 27 club forever. Speaking of which, we had to visit the Nirvana exhibit, too. RIP Kurt Cobain, another 27 club inductee.

We always enjoy the Sound Lab, where the kids can play around with instruments. Here they are in a keyboard lab.

And then they went into the 'studio,' surrounded by Marshall stacks and Zildjan cymbals. Rock 'n' roll 4 ever!

WEEKEND REWIND: We had so many photos from MOHAI in yesterday's blog, I didn't post our weekend photos, either.

On Saturday, we visited the kids' old stomping grounds - Whittier Elementary, where they attended preschool. They have fun running round the playground as big kids now.

A home adjacent to the playground had a nice flock of city chickens. They were very social. Guess they're used to having hundreds of people around every day.

On Sunday, we took a jaunt over to Lawton Elementary.

That's always a popular destination, because there are two playgrounds - one down at the schoolyard, and a second one in the next-door park.

Below, CJ sits while Annabelle tries to spin him. The carousel needs some oil. It was hard to turn and squealed. Annabelle said it sounded like a dying elephant.

FINITO: This morning we watched 5 (short) lectures and took two quizzes in week five of our "Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life" class though the University of Edinburgh and Coursera.

As excited as we were to finish the class (all with test scores averaging above 95 percent), we're sorry that it's over, and hopeful for a sequel. The professor, Charles Cockell , is a wonderful lecturer and the material we covered was so interesting. (Prof. Cockell said they plan on offering the course again via Coursera, so if you're interested, keep an eye on the Coursera Web site.

To celebrate the successful completion of the kids' first ever college course, we decided to take a hike to 'the Village' and get some fro-yo at Menchie's. It's not an easy stroll, uphill both ways, as the saying goes (on the way there, we have to climb up our steep hill 5 blocks, descend 7 blocks, then back up 7, and down 5). We did it at a pretty quick pace, though. I was impressed with us. :)

The kids (including Kennedy, who accompanied us) had fun filling up their cups with multiple flavors of frozen yogurt, and then adding all sorts of crazy toppings, from M&Ms to marshmallows, cereal, nuts, cookies, and more. Poor Ken and CJ both got bad brain freezes whilst eating their concoctions!

On the way home,we stopped at Albertson's. There, we ran into the Magnolia Fire Dept. One fireman gave the kids firefighter badge stickers. Nice of him.

Only one checkout lane was open and it was staffed by the checker whom I usually try to avoid as he's typically surly, at least to us. And, of course, as we're checking out he has to say (as he does EVERY time I've ever been in there during the day with the kids), "What, no school today?"

I told him the kids just aced their astrobiology final and so we're done for the day, thankyouverymuch, Mr. Nosy Checker.

BTW, as soon as we finished our tests this a.m., we browsed the Coursera site and picked out our next class. It starts next week - can't wait! It's "How Things Work 1" through the University of Virginia.

Museum Monday

FIELD TRIP: This morning we struck out for a destination not too far from home. It's a place we've been wanting to check out for years now. In December, they moved to their new home, even closer to us than their previous near-University of Washington location.

The Museum of History and Industry is now located in South Lake Union in the beautifully restored Naval Reserve Armory.  It's a gorgeous period building. Dontcha just love the architecture?

It was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1941-1942, and served as an Advanced Naval Training School" during World War II. The big, open gallery area inside used to be a drill hall, where thousands of recruits were trained. 

     Photo: Wikipedia 
Inside, an adventure awaits!

In the photo leading this blog post, you'll see two Seattle icons - the big red Rainier beer R that sat atop its headquarters (now Tully's HQ). I remember it from dozens of trips to the Emerald City as a child. It was on the west side of the freeway, just south of town, and I always associated with a bit of a bummer as it meant we were leaving Seattle.

The pink toes are from the Lincoln Toe (tow) Truck.

JAW DROPPER:This attraction at MOHAI deserves its own subheading. A few months ago, I read a story in the Seattle Times about the amazing piece of art was creating. The 60-plus foot sculpture is made from the hull of the sailing ship Wawona, a schooner built in 1896. It weighs 11,000 pounds and is constructed from over 200 wooden panels by artist John Grade. A "sea to sky" installation, it extends beyond the roof of the museum, and down under its floors. You can appreciate it from its perimeter, inside the museum, but when you walk inside of it, you find there's a clear floor, and you can peer all the way down into the inky waters of Lake Union, where the sculpture ends.

Quite simply, it's marvelous. This photo doesn't do it justice.

SEATTLE CENTRAL: MOHAI is all about Seattle, from its early days to present, and there is an eclectic collection.

Here, the Ivar's clam goes for a spin on a unicycle. It was part of a cool display in the main hall of the museum. You could turn a crank and make the unicyclist pedal.

Likewise, this 'wild' Rainier bottle, below, would run when you'd turn a crank. However, the bottle cap remover would always zero in for the kill.

Upstairs, I loved seeing JP Patches' jacket.

 And, of course, the Triple XXX Root Beer photo caught our attention, since CJ is an aficionado.

There was so much to see and do. We checked out the 'gold rush' themed exhibit. There, we pulled a slot machine handle to see how me might have fared. Apparently I shouldn't quit my day job.

CJ and Annabelle tried their hands at working on the railroad.

Would you believe that CJ walked away from it with a fat lip? He got a little overzealous with his tie-driving.

There were a number of displays that had to do with the economy and industry of old. This 1911 poster could have been printed yesterday, if you asked me. ...

There was a lot to look at regarding immigrants' experiences in Seattle history. It reminded me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 Check out this terroristic note former Seattle mayor Henry Yesler received.

My absolute favorite part of our visit was in a tiny theater with less than a dozen seats. There, a full fledged musical about the 'Great' Seattle fire of 1889 fire played out, with inanimate objects doing the singing (notably, the glue pot lamented about being singled out as the source of the fire). The lighting and sound were fantastic, the music was amazing and the lyrics were a hoot.  

What's amazing is that more than 30 city blocks were burned, yet not a single person was killed. Wow.

Above are some dishes that were fused together during the fire. 

There was a nice big exhibit about Seattle in the movies. We watched parts of Elvis, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Maureen O'Hara movies filmed in Seattle, and more.

I so totally want this Mustang couch.

                                  

There was one spot where we could play with a green screen. 

 Annabelle thought it important to have a rubber chicken prop.

There were a few sports-related items in the collection, including this 1979 Supersonics NBA championship trophy.

And there was a small wing dedicated to poetry. The kids thought about penning a poem for a couple minutes, but they bailed, citing being hungry as an excuse

The fourth floor provided a nice view of Lake Union, and was home to a maritime-themed exhibit.

                                          
A floor or two below, we also really liked an interactive display explaining exactly how the Ballard/Hiram Chittenden Locks operate.

SPARKLE PLENTY: This evening we enjoyed a long, lovely flyover of the ISS from our new roofdeck. It appeared exactly as predicted, at 6:26 p.m., per NASA's handy Spot the Station email notification system.

We enjoyed watching it trace across the sky until it finally disappeared about 5 minutes later, way, way beyond Queen Anne hill. (More likely, the ISS, was probably over Texas by the time it slipped from our vision.)

If you're not signed up for Spot the Station, I'd encourage you to do so today. It's just so damn cool watching the ISS streak over your home.

Windy City

MENU ART:  Some (most?) of our best art comes from the back of menus. Case in point: here's Annabelle's art tonight. A pretzel dances with a mustard bottle, a corn dog dances with a roma tomato, and meanwhile, poor little liver has no friends. :(

RAIN PAIN: What a difference a day makes. I think just yesterday I posted in the blog how this winter has been The Most Boring weather-wise in Seattle history. Well, Mother Nature must have caught wind of that declaration, and she decided to do something about. As in, kick our ass.

We live in the PacNW and we're totally used to rain. What we're totally NOT used to is rain that slaps so hard against your scalp that it HURTS. That would be today. It was so freaking rainy and windy that the freaking puddles had white caps, I'll kid you not. 

HOWDY, NEIGHBOR: Our planetary neighbor Mars seems to get most of the press, but just two doors down the other direction, Mercury is worthy of some attention, too. 

Check out this amazing video of the planet closest our sun.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

It's a compilation of nearly 90,000 images of the surface of Mercury obtained by the MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (WAC).  The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit fiery Mercury. 

We're all taught in school that Mercury is a little fireball, and honestly I've never thought of it as more than a molten planet. How amazing to see its surface, craters and all. Per NASA, "The colors shown int he video are related to real variations in the spectral reflectance across the planet. ... Young crater rays, arrayed radially around fresh impact craters, appear light blue or white. Medium- and dark-blue areas are a geologic unit of Mercury's crust known as the "low-reflectance material", thought to be rich in a dark, opaque mineral. Tan areas are plains formed by eruption of highly fluid lavas. The color base map shown here consists of MDIS images taken through eight different color filters."

What we see is a super duper accurate version of Mercury's surface; the photos used in the composite cover more than 99% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of about 1 kilometer per pixel. 

From Dragons to Finland

DRAGON ATTACK: We took some time today to tackle a fun art project, cartooning a dragon along with a Bruce Blitz tutorial via ActivityTV and our Comcast OnDemand.

It was a little more complicated than some of his tutorials we've followed before, but the kids are veterans now, and found their way.

Here's an in-progress shot from Bee. She'd already done her outlining, and was using her oil pastels to add color.

And here's an in-progress shot from CJ, as well as his final dragon! 

Super cute! Wait, no, I mean ferocious! 

SAY CHEESE: We finally got around to using a super neat-o Christmas gift - a mozzarella cheese making kit (thanks, Nonnie!)

There was math and science (measuring, temperature monitoring, etc.) involved in the process, which we loved, naturally.

They added an enzyme tablet to distilled water ....

 And farm fresh whole milk straight from a glass jar.

They heated it on the stove, carefully monitoring the temperature. Pretty soon something resembling a cross between a coral reef and brains began to form.

That cooked away for a few minutes, then it was time to strain it. 

That was followed by smooshing ...

  and stretching. It was a little ooey-gooey, but they got used to it.:)

In the end, they made a half dozen mozzarella cheese sticks (like you might buy in the grocery store). 

So how did it taste? Well, let's just say we're not putting Beecher's out of business anytime soon. We think we might have cooked or stretched it just a tad too long. And next time, we'd use more salt. But for a first attempt, it was fun and edible. 

ONE FOR THE BOOKS: CJ and Annabelle are big into the Guinness Book of World Records, so I let them know about an article I read today announcing that NASA's Landsat 5 recently landed a listing in the book as the longest-operating Earth observation satellite.

NASA: Artist's rendition of Landsat 5, credit USGS

Launched on Mar. 1, 1984, Landsat 5 was originally slated for a 3 year mission. Now, nearly 29 years later, it's still orbiting the globe, sending back images of the Earth from on high. It's circled our planet more than 150,000 times, capturing more than 2.5 million images of our Big Blue Marble. Things have not always been easy for the workhorse. Over the years, it has had battery and star tracking failures  lost onboard data recording capabilities. However, the crack technical team has always been able to find workarounds. 

On Feb. 11, we watched (via NASA TV), the live launch of the newest generation of Landsat satellites, the Landsat 7, from Vanderberg Air Force Base. 

FINLAND: In an effort to try to read down our stack of stockpiled "Time for Kids" mini magazines, today I had the kids read the issue all about Finland, from cover to cover.

Afterward, I asked them to write a report about Finland for me. Before they started, we reviewed what kind of information might be in a report (who, what, when, where stuff), the one a report is written in (rather than a review), and touched upon a couple of grammatical points.
Here's what CJ came up with.

The Republic of Finland is a place where more then 70% of its land is covered by forests. Also, it is mostly flat, where there are more then 50,000 lakes. It is also small.

During the 12^th century, Finland was a part of Sweden. King Erik of Sweden also introduced Christianity to Finnish settlers. During 1809, Czar Alexander I conquered The Republic of Finland, turning it into a self governing part of The Russian Empire. In 1919, Kaarlo Stahlberg became the first president of the Republic of Finland.

The Republic of Finland is west of the Russian Empire, where there is a border between them. To the north of Finland, there is Norway, where there is also a border. And to the west of Finland, there is Sweden.  

I thought his was a little short, but it's an OK report.

Here's Annabelle's report.

Finland is a snowy country with lush green forests that cover more 70% of it's land, and more than 50,000 lakes. The schools in Finland all serve free meals at lunchtime, and their language is called Finnish. Some of the words are olkka hyva (ol-kah hee-vah), which means please, kiitos (kee-tohs),which means thank you, hei (hay), which means hello, and nakemiin (nah-keh-meen), which means goodbye, and Finland in Finnish: Suomi. They make a snow castle each winter in Kemi, northern Finland. Their flag is white with a blue “plus” shape. The blue representing the lakes scattered across the land, and the white representing the snow. Their Coat of arms is a (king) lion with a sword like this. There are lots of  reindeer in Finland.
 Finland is in Europe, which is very close to the Arctic, which explains why it is so cold. Finland is in the Northern Hemisphere,
 Linus Torvalds is the Finnish software engineer famous for making the operating system Linux, And the stuents do very well on tests, though they have less homework. How do they do this? They arrange sticks and stones on the ground and tell their friends what geometrical shapes are where an how many there are.
 In the 12^th and 13^th centuries “Finland” referred to the area around Åbo, which later became Finland Proper, and other parts of Finland were called Tavastia and Karelia, but were also called Österland. In the 15^th century the whole land was commonly called Finland. This was only the beginning.

I loved her explanation of why Finnish students do so well. I think we should send American students out to the playgrounds with stick and stones!

Imagine my surprise this evening when we were leaving yoga and out of nowhere CJ pipes up with, "Hey, there's the flag of Finland!"

Sure enough, on a pole in the back parking lot of the Norse Hall, it waved along with other Scandinavian and the U.S. flag. So how 'bout that? They actually learned and retained something today!

FIRE AND RAIN: Our skies were gray and boring here in Seattle today. So what else is new? (In fact, the preeminent weather authority in the city has deemed this winter the most boring in Seattle's history!)

While there's nothing remarkable going on here, our sun is a source of endless eye candy, with its dynamic solar "weather."

Case in point: Right now there's a "monster" sunspot growing fast. NASA's keeping an eye on it, as solar storms and flares are possible. 

And check out this amazing footage from last July of fiery rain on Ol' Sol. In it, you'll see an eruption on the sun that has solar flres, a coronal mass ejection (CMEs) and then a dazzling display caused by changes in magnetic field lines, resulting in coronal rain.  

The video is a compilation of single frames, one taken every 12 seconds. The video shows 30 real time frames per second. The actual events shown above took place over nearly 10 hours on July 19, 2012. 

As pretty as CMEs are, they can be dangerous for we humans and our equipment. CMEs are the biggest explosions in the universe, and the X-rays and charged particles they produce reach Earth (or pilots or astronauts), bad things can happen, like power and radio outages, and radiation illness.

After watching the pretty video, the kids and I learned more about solar weather on a "SciJinks" page. (The site looks to be a cooperative effort of NASA and NOAA.)  And we took a "How Well Do you Know our Sun?" quiz on Space.com. We didn't score quite well enough to earn the  title 'solar scholars,' but we were told we're 'plenty bright.'