Fall and The Wall

                       

TURN, TURN, TURN: It wasn't pouring down rain today, which marked quite a change in our weather as of late. We decided to take advantage of the patchy sky and take a nice long walk.  

We headed up and over the hill and took note of the seasonal changes in our neighborhood. We loved the tree pictured up top. It was the colors of sherbet.

Gold is appearing all over the landscape.

The kids got some swinging in. 

We also stopped to appreciate plants which are interesting all year long. This one looks like it was paint-splattered.

And isn't this hydrangea lovely?

REALLY BIG SHOW: In the seemingly never-ending effort to document our field trip to NY and England, I continue to play catch up. Today's chapter, finally, a proper review of Roger Waters (and company) performing "The Wall" at Wembley Stadium.

Interestingly, CJ's desire to see "The Wall" performed live was the impetus for our whole trip. A hardcore Pink Floyd fan, last April he mentioned (and mentioned and mentioned) his desire to see the show, and I told him that I was pretty sure Waters was on tour in Europe at the time or soon. We looked it up, and saw dates across Europe, including one in London on Sept. 14. We looked at tickets and saw they were still available and reasonably priced.

"Well, can we go?" CJ asked.

Instead of the obvious answer, "NO!" I thought about it said, "Well, maybe. Let's see what your dad says." So that afternoon, while CJ and Annabelle were in yoga class, Christian and I mulled it over over a couple of pints of microbrew and decided that it seemed like reasonable request after all.  We'd been planning to have our next Big Trip be to New York, and heck, if you're all the way in NY, London is just a hop across the pond, right?

CJ was one happy boy after yoga class, when we told him Roger Waters was a go. We bought our concert tickets that night and the rest is history. ;)

I'd always wanted to go to Wembley, the site of so many iconic concerts in past years. Walking up to it was a thrill.

And once inside, as I stared down at the stage from our lofty seats, I couldn't help but picture Freddie Mercury roaming the stage, at the height of his Queendom. :)

As you can see, the stage front featured an enormous wall, with just the middle open. 

The show started around 8 p.m., just as the skies were darkening.

The concert was quite the production.

It started with fireworks. Literally!

The wall wasn't a static monolith. Rather, it was the focal point, on which words and images were constantly splashed during the show.

Below, a chorus of school aged children sing "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2" toward a tormenting school master (a huge puppet).

The school master tormented the crowd a bit, too.

As the show progressed, the wall got bigger and bigger.

And more and more of the band disappeared behind it, though their images were projected on it.

Here, the band can barely be seen.

And now, they're all gone. But can you see tiny Roger, below, approaching Really Big Roger?

By intermission, the large white wall was complete, and on it, memorials to war victims were projected.

I had always thought of "The Wall" being very anti-establishment, but not until that concert did I realize what a strong anti-war message it conveys. And, as was the case at the concert, the message was often delivered with gripping visuals.

For instance, there was this startling video - of Roger 'gunning' down the crowd, with a hail of gunfire. A little unnerving ...

And the searchlights during "In the Flesh" were creepy, too.

During ***, a string of words appeared on the screen over images of suffering.

The series of screens read ... 

Every gun that’s made
Every warship launched
Every rocket fired represents
In the final sense
A theft
From those who hunger and are not fed
Those who are cold and are not clothed

And Waters ended it with this phrase ...

Apparently, I wasn't the only one wondering about the quote.  Waters explained in a post on Facebook. ... , 

"It’s part of a speech Eisenhower made on April 16th 1953. ... I came across this quote in an op-ed piece in the NY Times by columnist Bob Herbert.

The truth of Eisenhower’s statement hit me like a battering ram. For anyone who doesn't get it, this old dead republican warrior President is explaining to us that we’re all in this together, white, black, red, yellow, Hindu, Christian, Moslem (sic), Jew, North American, Latin American, European, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, whatever, and that every dollar we allow our governments to pour into the gaping maw of the war machine is one dollar less available to help fellow human beings in need. In need of food, yes, clothing, yes, but also, here at home and abroad, in need of the education to demand that our governments lift our politics above the level of bullies in a schoolyard.

That’s what old Dwight meant.

You can say he was a dreamer, but he’s not the only one.

Roger Waters"

So there you have it.

During the show, they launched the flying pig, of course. There simply *must* be a flying pig. It was pretty damn cool, controlled via remote, and flying all over the stadium.

Toward the end of the show, they purposely crashed it into the crowd, who proceeded to dismantle it, of course.

And speaking of dismantling, you know the wall had to fall.  Here, Roger hits it with his guitar. (Oh, how my old, tired Sony struggled at the show, but I didn't want to risk taking my big camera and having it confiscated.)

Going ... going ...

 Gone! Well, mostly.

I had the kids write concert reviews today. CJ's is first.

On September 14th, 2013, we went to London, England, to see Roger Waters perform "The Wall Live." During the show, We saw him perform all of the songs from "The Wall", and not only that, but there was a major message of anti-war.
We went to Wembley Stadium, the largest stadium I have ever seen. I noticed that Wembley Stadium was meant to be a football stadium, but it worked anyway for a concert. Also, there was a LARGE arch over the stadium, probably to attract attention. Not only that, but there were many glass images of football games. 

When we were on our way to the stadium, we had trouble parking, (due to the size of Wembley Stadium) and if we had not made smart moves, we would have missed the concert. We had trouble finding empty spaces (no pun intended) for parking, and it would have been a waste of our money if we had missed the concert.

At the concert, I had noticed that there was a EXTREMELY LARGE audience there, and I can guarantee you that the majority of them were Europeans and/or tourists (for obvious reasons.) During the show, I saw a person wearing a coat with the design of the flag of Brazil on it (as proof that some people came from FAR away to see that concert).

When we left the concert, we (no joke) actually went to the best porta potty (porta loo, as they call it there) I had ever seen, as it had flushes, you didn't have to see the pile of human waste at the bottom, and there were air fresheners so that it didn't smell awful. Also, when we got outside the stadium, there was an entire sea of humanity outside, walking to their cars (or whatever transported them.) We got to our cars by jumping over the fence.

(Side note: my favorite song from the concert was "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvO3Jf5bTkE (Preview) )
(Pt. 2 begins at the 5:24 mark in the video)

And here's Annabelle's take:

On the 14th of September, my family and I went to see Roger Waters, a former Pink Floyd band member, perform CJ's favorite album- Pink Floyd The Wall at Wembley stadium. The stadium was HUGE and many people were there, almost the whole stadium (that wasn't behind the stage) was filled. Before we got to the stadium, though, we were stuck trying to find the right parking lot, because Wembley had many of them. After we did it was easy to find parking. Lines for food, drinks and bathrooms were very long but that wasn't too much of a problem. The show had great special effects, such as projections on the wall. Speaking of the wall, they actually built it during the performance! At first I didn't notice, but then I saw that it was always getting bigger. My favorite song was Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2 (here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8utzJfL-QU) and some of the suprises would definitely be the loud points in the music. Afterward we got back to our car and away from the human sea by climbing a fence. Overall it was a GREAT concert and I give it a 11/10!!!!

WONDERFUL WIZARD: Night before last I saw "The Origins of Oz" pop up on our TV listings on The Smithsonian Channel. I thought CJ might enjoy the show. I thought right. We all did, in fact.

It's hard to imagine we don't all know everything there is to know about The Wizard of Oz by now, but 75 years later, some aspects are still new to us, as it turns out. For instance, the one hour documentary showed real-life locations that inspired L Frank Baum's "Land of Oz" and explained how elements in the classic tale came to be. We also learned about Baum's humble roots, his fame, fortune, financial ruins and rebounds. He led a rollercoaster of a life.

Good news, Oz fans, you can watch the whole documentary online! Just follow this yellow brick road. Er, I mean, link!: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/show/137669/the-origins-of-oz

It's hard to imagine a story that is more enduring or pervasive in our culture. Heck, during the Roger Waters' concert we went to, images of Dorothy and friends were projected on the wall during the show.

Of Stars and Monsters

Credit: NASA/ESA

OVERCOME:  The kids and I spent the morning plotting our victory in our "From the Big Bang to Dark Energy" Coursera class.  We're bumping up against the deadline for all of our homework and the final - the final is 40 percent of the grade, by the way.  

Yesterday, I wrote about our frustration with the homework for the class and how it is only remotely related to material actually covered in the class. Never have I had a class where the coursework was so far afield from what was advertised beforehand. But we're not quitters, so we've worked long and hard to try to deal with the situation.

Though we haven't clicked our final 'submit' buttons, I'm going to go out on a limb and declare us victorious. :) By my calculations today, we have passed the class if not with flying colors, but by a healthy margin. And that is no small victory. Go us. :)

Oh, and more importantly than the un-related homework, we actually learned lots of REALLY cool things by taking the class, so it was totally worthwhile. 

For instance, atop this post, you'll find Abell 2218, a galaxy cluster 2.1 billion light years away. Per Wikipedia, "Acting as a powerful lens, it magnifies and distorts all galaxies lying behind the cluster core into long arcs." See those stretched out star 'lines.'? They're lensed galaxies stretched along the cluster's center. Pretty cool!

And today we learned about the amazing Vera Rubin. An American astronomer, by studying galactic rotation curves, she uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion,which became known as the galaxy rotation problem. And in the 1970s, she obtained the strongest evidence up to date for the existence of dark matter.

                     

I think I might have to have the kids write Rubin a letter. It appears she's still active in the department of Terrestrial Magnetism at Carnegie Institution of Washington.

SETTLERS:  About once a week we drive down to the area between Renton and Kent to go to Winco for cheap groceries. Every time we go, we pass a tiny cemetery wedged between a highway, a mini storage and the Winco parking lot. I've never seen anyone visiting it.

A couple of days before we left for our NY/England trip, imagine my surprise when I saw a write up about it in the Seattle Times. The story told of a temporary art installation there, on the site of the Saar Pioneer Cemetery. Per the Times' story, apparently nearly half of the graves in the cemetery are unmarked. To honor them, local artists Frances Nelson and Bradly Gunn installed their large, walk through work, "Thresholds." 

I was happy to see it would still be up when we got back, and we did just that a couple days post-England. 

One of the first things we noticed at the cemetery was this marker, a permanent catch-all for so many unmarked graves.

We also saw the art installation - stark, white and large, commanding attention in the small space.

But even more arresting were the grave markers that were on site.  Some of the people buried there were very early settlers of the area, indeed, dating back to the early 1800s.

Perhaps the most memorable headstone in the place was that of the Monster family, John and his baby (no mention of whether it was a boy or a girl). Poor John didn't live past 40, and his baby lived only 3.5 months. Baby Monster was joined by John less than a year later. 

There were a single handful of folks buried in the cemetery who live to the ripe old age of 70 or beyond, but for most, life was a whole lot shorter.

Shuttered

CLOSED: "Why are they shutting down the government?"

That was the first question Annabelle asked this morning. She wasn't watching TV last night after 9 pm Pac. Coast time, so it was news to her. 

We watched about an hour of the 'sky is falling' coverage on cable news, and then we watched President Obama's press conference from outside the White House this morning, talking about the shut down.

I could point fingers and cast blame, but I'll skip that part. But I do feel compelled to step up on the soapbox for a moment here. And this has nothing to do with party politics, this just has to do with me and what I've seen in my 47 years. More specifically, things I learned during my 20 years in journalism, and my 5 or so years working as an employment counselor for the state of Washington.

The bottom line is, 'they' are shutting down the government because 'they' do not want the Affordable Care Act funded. And here's where my soapbox comes in.  IMHO, a lack of a national health insurance program is a HUGE detriment to our society.

I will never forget interviewing young Dana, a 5 year old girl with a liver transplant. Without it she would not have lived to start kindergarten. I met Dana in 1992, and her life-saving transplant was made possible by her daddy's employer's insurance, through his lumber-related company. I remember after that, each time there was a recession, wondering if her dad lost his job.  I still worry about Dana!  Because I knew full well that would mean the lifelong medical care she would require as a transplant recipient would disappear with her daddy's job. I worry about her as a 26 year old, 'aging out' of her parents' coverage.

I will never forget my 15+ years of being self employed and having to buy insurance for our family for hundreds and then thousands of dollars a month (and this was back in the 1990s!) as an individual on the open market, and being told I couldn't have insurance because of a 'pre-existing condition' (a heart murmur ONE doctor heard ONCE during ONE visit at a clinic in Battle Ground, WA).

As a WorkSource (unemployment office) counselor, working with people who had just been laid off, I saw over and over again the devastation the loss of medical insurance meant to their families. There was hardly a one of them who could afford the absurdly expensive COBRA insurance. And I met so many really bright men and women who had great ideas to start their own business, but they didn't dare, as it meant having no health insurance. So, they had to look for whatever job they could find where they could find health insurance, and stifle their dreams, not to mention our economy, potentially.

And so, as I write this, our government has been "CLOSED" for 24 hours. While the Affordable Care Act is almost certainly not perfect - it's probably far from it! - at least it's a start. I want my friends, neighbors, and fellow countrymen and women to have access to healthcare, independent of their income, their employment, and their pre-existing conditions.

Stepping off soapbox.

The closure definitely impacted our learning today.  We were working through the Week 3 of the videos for our "From the Big Bang to Dark Energy" Coursera class, we were introduced to a couple of images which we wanted to further research via NASA, including this cool image of a "Cheshire Cat" space face.

(based on observations made with NASA's Hubble, obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Space Teleschope European Coordinating Facility and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre)

But instead of getting more info on that cool image, we encountered this ....

BIG BUST: And speaking of our "Big Bang ..." class, I'm not too happy with it.

Check that - we are enjoying the lectures associated with our class immensely. What we are NOT enjoying so much is the homework. In Week 1, I was shocked by the questions, as many of them were only remotely related to the lectures. And by remotely, I mean, they kind of had to do with the universe. ;)

We went on vacation at this point and I was hoping things would magically improve in our absence. As if. ;)  When we came back, I started to dig deeper on the class's Discussion Forum and, no surprise, I wasn't the only one wondering WTH was going on with the homework. And, magically, a new series of videos popped up along with the lectures, from a TA for the class, who wrote the homework.

After reviewing all 4 weeks' of homework, and watching the videos by "our" TA (and the 'assistant' part of that is a misnomer in his case), it's clear to me the problem. TA Dude with the Bieber bangs got a little power and went NuTso. He is the author of the homework and seriously, it's like he's trying to prove something or teach his own class alongside/remotely parallel to the one we signed up for. His lame 'justification' and 'defense' videos only served to confirm what I suspected was going on.

Bottom line is, it's wrong, and it's not fair, and it's not enriching as far as this class is concerned (IMHO), but it is what it is. I've had TAs and profs like him before, and today we turned it into a 'teachable moment.' I told Annabelle and CJ that some profs and TAs they will have when they go to a bricks and mortar college someday will be of the ilk that they have this HUGE NEED to prove their worth, prowess, superior intelligence, insert-adjective-here by purposely trying to design a class where most students fail. I've been in classes like that before. So, you can either choose to cut bait and drop the class, or you can try to vex them. To me, it's more fun to try to vex them. :)

And so, we're going enjoy the heck out of the really wonderful videos by Professor Hitoshi Murayama and then do our DAMNEDEST to outwit, outsmart, outplay the Bieber Bangs TA and pass this course DESPITE him. I really hope we're successful, so that I can tell him he didn't 'beat' the 8-year-old girl who signed up for it.

IN HAPPIER NEWS: Here's a great video of Nobel Prize winning George Smoot directing the Cal Band to literally play out the Big Bang (from 12/06)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdsWhHWdc1g

Night Lights

Image credit: NASA
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER:  Sunday morning, Orbital Science's Cygnus cargo craft was snared by the ISS' Canadaarm2. Its capture was about a week after its original approach date. The craft had launched from Wallops, Virginia, back on Sept. 18 (we watched the launch live, while in London). However, some data anomalies prevented its original berthing date.

Fortunately, the Sunday morning docking went without a hitch and its cargo was safely delivered (though the 'fresh' fruit was probably significantly worse for the wear!). Here's video of the capture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3z0MBEUd4&list=PLiuUQ9asub3Qq1AQRirDI-naOwo1H5gaB&index=1

Orbital Sciences is the second company to send a commercial cargo craft to the space station. SpaceX has completed two successful missions.  

A FEW MORE:  I have mostly finished recounting our NY leg of our recent trip, but have a few odds and ends to add, including a few random photos from our last night there. The streets always seem to be alive in the Big Apple.

We walked past these sights dozens of times during our stay, but it was usually in the daylight.

 

As has become the tradition on 9/11, a long, strong beam of white light shines up from the WTC memorial site. 

It was so humid and hazy, it was muted compared to usual, but impossible to miss, nonetheless.

And our final night's view from our unit's window was simply stunning.

And speaking of stunning and lights, here are a few scenes from the free fireworks show we had the night of Sept. 9 ... Sorry there are so many photos, the night a barge was kind enough to park out on the river in front o f our place and put on a show.  But the photos were all so pretty, I just couldn't leave any of them on the cutting room floor.