Rovers, Clowns and Dinos

HOW TWEET IT IS:  Not every day a NASA rover on Mars sends a message your way, but for us, today was that day. :)

A Twitter user, HomeGeekonomics, had discovered the Mars cake we made a year plus ago, and posted it to their blog, and on Twitter, including @MarsCuriosity (the official NASA account for the Mars Science Laboratory on Mars) in the note.

Someone replied to the Tweet (below), wishing for a similar cake, and I replied to all that Mars is tasty.

A bit later, Curiosity weighed in, writing ...

Pretty darn cool!  (BTW, Valles Marineris is the extra-grande canyon running along the middle of part of Mars. It's 4,000 km (2,500 mi) long, 200 km (120 mi) wide and up to 7 km (23,000 ft) deep. On our cake, it's where I joined the two halves of the planet with red frosting!)

The link to the original blog post about how we made the cake is here:  http://magnoliaprep.blogspot.com/2012/08/let-them-eat-cake.html

SEND IN THE CLOWNS:  As I was going through the kids' bookshelves, getting them back-to-school ready, I came across a book I'd forgotten we had, called "How to Draw Clowns." Oh, the horror!  Wait, I mean, oh, that sounds like fun for the kids. ...

They laughed when they saw the book because they know how much I detest clowns.

We flipped through it's pages and decided they'd give drawing a crying clown a go.  Here are their efforts. ...

Next, they were free to use any of the tutorials in the book to draw the clown of their choice.

CJ chose to draw a bear.

Annabelle drew a female clown.

Now, the clown book goes back to the library, and hopefully I never have to see it again.

WORK IT OUT: The last couple of weeks we've gotten back to using some workbooks, specifically one with horribly butchered sentences the kids have to fix (capitalization, punctuation, that kind of thing). One of the sentences today had to do with a kid fixing his mother's answering machine.  "What's an answering machine?" they both asked. When I told them it was like voicemail on my cell phone, they got it.  How quickly some technological gadgets become obsolete.

BOXING DAY: Kennedy's birthday was this weekend, and we gave him a hard case for his guitar as a present.  It came in a nice big cardboard box, which Annabelle and CJ have played with for hours.

Annabelle has dubbed it Adventure Box, and each of the kids has their own ID card to swipe to get in.

Speaking of Kennedy's birthday, here are a few photos of the Jurassic Park cake and Jurassic Park cookies we made.

It was fun.  For the cookies I tried to think of the seminal moments in the movie and represent them in sugar and butter. And I didn't want to do a straight-up dino-body cake, I wanted to do something less obvious. My mind went to the scene where the park visitors are shown the incubator where baby velociraptors are being born and Dr. Grant is mortified that they bred raptors and Dr. Malcom utters his famous "Life finds a way" quote.

The kids were helpful, looking up various scenes and finding good photos from which to work.

They helped sculpt the eggs out of crispy rice treats, and then we covered them in fondant. 

It was fun making the raptor hatchling. 

Annabelle helped with some of the painting (with food coloring)

What a cute little 'raptor ... it can't wait to grow up and go after you!

The cookies were inspired by everything from Dennis Nedry's Hawaiian shirt to the shaving cream can he hid the dino DNA in. 

And speaking of dino DNA, we had to do a cookie featuring 'Bingo,' the narrator of the cartoon about how Jurassic Park dinos are created. We also had to do cookies with a dino-DNA sucking mosquito embedded in amber (or, peach Jolly Rancher, as was our case).

Jet City

JUMBO:  This weekend we made it a point to get to the Museum of Flight for the opportunity to tour a truly one-of-a-kind plane, the world's first jumbo jet.

The very first 747 ever made is in the Museum of Flight's collection, and while we've seen it sitting in their airpark many a time, this summer they opened it up for tours during certain hours. We were happy to climb on board!

This plane is serial number 001.

Its maiden voyage was on Feb. 9, 1969, over western Washington. 

As we ascended the stairs, we could make out the names of the test pilots.

We could also see, up close, some of the components' logos, including the Pratt & Whitney engines and Rolls Royce's Trent 890

The 747 was a radical departure from previous commercial airliners. So much so, in fact, that Boeing couldn't find any backers, and had to go it alone financially on the project.  Clearly, their pioneering paid off. They're still making 747s today.  (In fact, the 747-8 that they make now is 80 feet longer than this bad boy!)

What an amazing aircraft the prototype is. The first 'jumbo jet,' it's taller than a six-story building. Without all the innards (seats, bulkheads, lavatories, galley, etc.), you could see stem to stern, and it really gave us an appreciation for just how big the plane is.

It has enough space inside to carry 13 city buses worth of people, and it's heavier than 10 loaded 18-wheel trucks.

Because it was a test vehicle, RA001 never had the 'plush' interior finishes of subsequent 747s.  However, they did install the groovy spiral staircase and a semi-complete VIP lounge, perhaps to entice potential buyers, I'm imagining.

Upstairs in the VIP lounge were a few vintage seats, including this lovely.

I quipped to Christian that CJ and Annabelle would probably open that ashtray on the arm, looking for a USB port. ;)

Also in the VIP lounge, there was this lovely foiled mirror panel mostly blocking off the plane's attic.  It was fun peering in where a panel was missing, seeing the construct.

The VIP lounge also had a couple of fancy potties, sanitized for your protection.

Back downstairs, we poked around the cockpit, of course.  Oh my, the instrumentation!!!

 I wanted so badly to flip switches and turn knobs!

The photo below was just a fraction of the thingees that would have been to the co-pilot's right.

Note the large, read FUEL JETTISON panel.  Hopefully they never had to use that.

Also, I couldn't help but zero in on these, in the right rear of the cockpit.

Though there were ashtrays all over the plane, somehow, I'm thinking these goggles weren't for protection from, say, Winstons.

This little not black box was of interest, as well.

Its wingspan is 195 feet, 8 inches (58.7 meters), it's 231.3 feet long (69.4 m) and weighs 735,000 lbs fully loaded (330,750 kg).  I took this photo of the kids under its tail to give a little perspective of just how big it is.

The plane has four Pratt & Whitney engines ...

with 43,500 pounds of thrust apiece.

   

 They are B-I-G.

The 747-1's cruising speed was 640 MPH (1,024 km/h). On subsequent flights, it served as a testbed for 747 systems.

The Museum of Flight is planning to restore RA001 to its original appearance and configuration in the future. We look forward to watching the progress.

I had a feeling if I went to YouTube, I'd find video of that first flight. Sure, enough, there were several.  There's a one-minute clip from a person who was there that day and filmed the flight himself.  He doesn't allow embedding, so if you want to check it out, you'll have to click on this link: http://youtu.be/TTaGMN6dz8Q

I also found a video that has video from inside the cockpit of the first flight!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhHUYwB7BPg.  I really do think it might be Keith Jackson narrating it.  It's quite a documentary, so interesting. 

Here's a fun short of the infancy of the 747. Groovy, baby!


STEMMY: Inside the Museum of Flight, there was a back to school event with a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) focus.  There, the kids scored free backpacks and swag from a Honeywell sponsored booth (nice!).  We visited with a nice librarian at the Seattle Public Libraries booth. We chatted with a mentor at the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) booth.  TARC is for kids in grades 7-12, and is about launching rockets with payloads in competitions.  The top teams win a trip to the Farnborough Air Show in France!

We also chatted with some super enthusiastic young men at the Washington FIRST Robotics booth (they had a cool Frisbee-launching robot there!), as well as a dude from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics association.

We spent the most time at the Big-Brained Superheroes Club booth. Per their mission statement, the organization is "On a mission to tap into the hidden strengths that all young people have through the interdisciplinary exploration of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics."  Sweet!

The kids delighted in playing with "squishy circuits."

Annabelle was thrilled to light up this LED.

CJ was more delighted by using the circuit to power a couple of really annoying alarms sounds, as well as a small, rotating engine.

REAL ESTATE MOGULS:  After the Museum of Flight, we headed north to fill up a couple of growlers at one of our favorite spots, Chuck's.  There, we played Seattle-opoly, which was clearly modeled after the classic Monopoly game.  We didn't stay there the requisite 3-4 hours to finish the game, so we called it a draw.

I must say, it was fun buying up places like Pike Place Market, Discovery Park, Safeco Field and the University of Washington.

We Oughta be in Pictures

 
FAMILY PORTRAITS:  The last couple of days Annabelle has started drawing cartoon-ish humans (instead of say ponies and penguins she so loves to draw).

Here are some pictures she came up with today, in addition to a couple of self portraits above. ...

Here's one of CJ and me ...

And one of Christian ...

He was (obviously) sporting his Seahawks jersey for tonight's preseason game. Go Hawks!

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM:  At noon, our attention turned to the Little League World Series play.  The team from Sammamish (where we recreated last weekend) was playing for a shot in the finals.

My oh my, what a game it was.  Back and forth, up and down, Washington vs. a team from Connecticut.  In extra innings, Connecticut ended up coming up with one run more.  CJ was beside himself for about 60 seconds, but he quickly shifted his focus elsewhere.

We learned things watching the game, of course.  One crazy play had a Connecticut runner traveling from second to third base running into the shortstop.  The Sammamish shortstop was focused on the play at the plate, and threw the kid out there, however, it wasn't (unfortunately) an out at home, as when the runner ran into the defensive player, that was interference, resulting in that runner being out and a dead ball (no more action on the field). So, the Connecticut runner got to go back to third base and he wound up being the winning run.

Naturally, I started thinking about scenarios when a team might use interference to their advantage. ...

TOILING:  I spent most of my day covered in powdered sugar, working on Jursassic Park-themed cookies and cake for Kennedy's birthday.  Today seemed like lots of "middle" work, with little finishing.  Annabelle reminded me I need to be done by tomorrow, Ken's birthday.

I'm on it Annabelle, and done I shall be!

JOLLY OLDE ENGLAND:  This afternoon, I pointed the kids in the direction of a Web site with a ton of information about early British kingdoms (http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/arthur/index.html).  I told them they could read about whatever they wanted, and they each spent about a half hour poking around.  They each wound up on articles about Stonehenge, and Annabelle related a fable about Merlin supposedly building it.  The story stopped there.  I directed them to use other resources to find out exactly how Stonehenge was, in fact, built.

Music & More

PICKIN' AND GRINNING: I try to remember to have the kids practice guitar every day. I think I'm successful about 70 percent of the time.

Today's jam session included them dueting on Pink Floyd's "Breathe." They managed to sound somewhat like this.


CERTIFIED:  An email came this morning letting us know we could check Coursera to see if we passed our "Science of Gastronomy" class or not. Fortunately, we all earned certificates of completion.  CeeJ and Bee printed theirs out and stuck them in their portfolios. Here's CJ's slightly altered cert.

 As I was cleaning up today, I found some of Annabelle's notes from the lecture about gluten.

STICKY SITUATION:  We spent a lot of the day working on sugary stuff, specifically a cake and cookies for Kennedy's birthday.  He's opted for a Jurassic Park theme which has proven to be a challenge.  It's not easy sculpting a hatchling velociraptor out of gum paste.

I think the kids' favorite part of the endeavor so far is licking the beaters.

This afternoon we had to go to Bartell drugstore to buy some candy as an ingredient for part of the project. There, the kids got excited when they spied some Razzles.  We saw a video about their history and how they're made on "Unwrapped" a few weeks back, and the kids have been curious to try them ever since.

So, we bought a pack. I remember them from when I was a kid.  They haven't changed. They have a nearly flavorless candy coating which dissolves and the stuff turns into gum, which is completely flavorless, just like when I was a kid. Ah, memories. ;)

Facing Space

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA:  Today, NASA released a mosaic they created to commemorate their "Wave at Saturn" event from July 19.  On that day, the Cassini spacecraft, which is orbiting Saturn, took a photo of Earth.  NASA suggested Earthlings wave at the camera around 3:30 p.m. on that day, so their image could be captured.  Of course, every living thing on Earth was captured in the photo Cassini took that day, as we're all on this pale blue dot (above the white arrow below), to borrow a Sagan phrase.

Image: NASA, naturally

Pretty cool shot of our lil ol' planet, isn't it?

Fun and posterity, NASA also asked people to send in images they captured during their "Wave at Saturn" moment, and boy did people respond.  Earthlings from more than 40 countries and 30 U.S. states shared a total of more than 1,400 images, via  Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and email.

Here are the two we emailed in ... 

News that NASA's mosaic was complete hit the Interwebs around noon today, and as soon as I saw it, I wondered if I'd ever be able to spot our photos if, per chance, they were included.

I figured if they were included, it would be in the bright blue area of the mosaic, as we had blue skies that day and the sky figured largely in our compositions.  I decided I'd invest 5 minutes, no more, in trying to find us.

So, I opened the 30 MB version of the mosaic in Photoshop, hit CTRL + a couple of times (to zoom in), and I'll be darned if I didn't see our photos immediately!

What fun to be a part of this piece of art!

It was a hectic day when we took those photos - we were headed to the Seattle Center at the appointed 'wave at Saturn' time because we had to participate in one of our feedback sessions at the Pacific Science Center that afternoon, and later that night it was the Paul McCartney concert. All in all, a very memorable day!

A little background info on Cassini, the spacecraft which took this photo. ... It launched on my birthday in 1997, and reached Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004.  The craft included a Saturn orbiter (that's what took the photo back toward Earth), as well as a lander for Saturn's moon Titan, called Huygens.  Huygens landed on Titan in 2005.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: We certainly enjoyed the bright, full "blue" moon hanging over Seattle (and the rest of the world) last night.

I was happy I actually managed to take a photo of it that looked like the moon (with craters and all) instead of just a bright white orb in the sky. It's grainy, because my 'big' lens isn't that big, but it's a start.

I need to learn how to do long exposure photography with my Nikon. ...

Christian managed to cue up a nice view of the moon in our telescope, too. We took turns looking at it over and over. And then at 9:08, we were back upstairs for an ISS flyover. Good times.

BIG BOAT: As we've driven across the Magnolia/Garfield bridge the last couple of days, we couldn't help but notice this little boat docked at Terminal 90, which is at the foot of our hill.

"That's the biggest yacht I've ever seen!" I marveled the first time I spied it.

Christian snapped this photo of it using his cell phone, on his way to work this morning.  (He even managed to capture the Blue Moon in the photo!)

However, the photo doesn't do the ship justice, because you can't judge the scale of this monster in it.

Turns out the lil' ship is named Serene.  It's the 440-foot personal yacht of a Russian (Stoli) vodka titan Yuri Scheffle.   Sources say it's the ninth largest yacht in the word, with seven decks and nearly 50,000 square feet of interior space. It employs a 52-person crew, and features a large saltwater pool, two helicopter landing platforms (clearly one is not enough) and there's a storage spot for a submarine which can dive to 300 feet (dinghys are so bourgeois).  The ship, built in Italy, was launched in 2011. It has 24 state rooms, numerous lounges, as you'd expect, and a room with a glass floor called the "Nemo Room." There's also reportedly a "snow room" for kids to play in the powdery stuff if the blue skies and sunshine become to boring.

The Seattle Times has some lovely photos of it here: http://seattletimes.com/html/picturethis/2021651774_theserenevisitsseattle.html