Friday Fun

The Soyuz MS-05 rocket is launched with Expedition 52 flight engineer Sergei Ryazanskiy of
Roscosmos, flight engineer Randy Bresnik of NASA, and flight engineer Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency), Friday, July 28, 2017 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

MORNING LAUNCH: A little after 8:30 Friday morning, we watched three humans rocket off the planet.

Pre-launch coverage included biographies of the astronauts, including NASA's Randy Bresnik. We learned that Bresnik is a photographer who loves "capturing the beauty of the moment."

Photography runs in Bresnik's family. His grandfather was Amelia Earhart's personal photographer. In fact, it had been planned for him to go on her last, fateful flight with Earhart, but the weight of him and his equipment were deemed too much, and he didn't make the trip.

Bresnik is also a former Marine who has flown 82 different types of air and spacecraft.

We're looking forward to seeing Bresnik's photos from his long duration mission, when he'll have lots of opportunities to photograph the Earth from on high. We followed him on Facebook and Twitter today, @AstroKomrade

Bresnik recently posted this photo on Facebook. 

Taken by the current ISS commander, it's of the Soyuz capsule he was in approaching the space station. Neat-o!

MOLASSES IN JULY: A few days ago, Annabelle and I found ourselves contemplating molasses - its origin and history - while driving 'round Seattle.

Wikipedia user Badagnani https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Badagnani

Thanks to a cell phone, we were able to get answers right away. I'll let her share a bit about what we learned.

Last Friday, after buying some Molasses cookies to take to Teen Feed (as part of a dessert we were serving), my mom and I began wondering what molasses is made of and how it’s made.

It turns out that Molasses is actually a byproduct of making granulated sugar. When cane or beet sugar is pressed, it creates a juice. This juice is boiled, separating the crystals and the other liquid. This other liquid is what becomes Molasses! The type of molasses (Light, Dark, or Blackstrap) depends on how many times the juice is boiled before the crystals are separated (1, 2, and 3 times respectively).

Some molasses has sulfur added to it as a preservative, which makes it slightly less sweet. Molasses with sulfur was once believed to have medical benefits and was used as a laxative, a constipation inducer, and was fed to children to curb their appetite when food was not available (somehow being used for all 3 at the same time).

I learned a lot of cool new things about molasses!

THE OLD BALLGAME: Friday night, we headed to the Safeco Field, the four of us coming from three different places, meeting at one of our absolute favorite Seattle spots.

CJ caught a bus from Seattle Center. It just happened to be the same bus/route we would catch from our former home in Magnolia, so it was nice his first solo trip was on a familiar route.  

Annabelle and I walked about .75 of a mile downhill from our new place to a bus stop, where we caught the 101 which took us right to the shadow of Safeco. Annabelle and I went and met CJ at his bus stop, and we three went in and found Christian, who had ridden his bike to the stadium from his work. 

As always, we enjoyed the time at the park very much. We spent about an hour and a half down in the bullpen, watching pre-game activities. 

We eventually made our way up to our seats, where we watched the Mariners take kind of a long time to lose. After the game there was a fun fireworks show and sing-a-long.

All in all, a nice night, despite the Ms' defeat.

READY FOR LIFT OFF:  Friday morning, three humans will be leaving Earth behind for awhile. The astronauts and cosmonaut will be lifting off rom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 28. Live launch coverage will begin at 7:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website, with the launch set for 8:41 a.m.

Expedition 52/53 crew members are NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. 

Post launch, the trio will make a six hour trip in a Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Docking is expected to happen at 3 p.m. Pacific time. NASA coverage will commence at 2:15 p.m. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station are set to open about 4:40 p.m.

The new crew will be joining Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA on board the ISS. Coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 4 p.m., Pacific time. 

For more about all of the amazing things going on on board the ISS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/station

Tonight, we were thrilled to have a chance to see the ISS fly overhead. We happened to be in a Safeway parking lot when it happened, and a young family parked next to us heard us geeking out and they were super excited about seeing the space station. They'd never seen it fly over before, and didn't even know one could, so it was fun to share that info with them. Yay for NASA outreach!

ON THE HORIZON: For a couple of years now, we have been tracking an enormous solar event - the total eclipse of the sun set for Aug. 21 across a good swath of North America. 

In an email today from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we learned about how high altitude balloons will be used to help broadcast and study the upcoming event. 

Led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University, NASA's Eclipse Balloon Project is sending more than 50 high-altitude balloons launched by student teams across the U.S. to livestream aerial footage of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse from the edge of space to NASA's website. Per the JPL press release, "Total solar eclipses are rare and awe-inspiring events. Nobody has ever live-streamed aerial video footage of a total solar eclipse before," said Angela Des Jardins. "By live-streaming it on the Internet, we are providing people across the world an opportunity to experience the eclipse in a unique way, even if they are not able to see the eclipse directly." Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said, "The August solar eclipse gives us a rare opportunity to study the stratosphere when it's even more Mars-like than usual. With student teams flying balloon payloads from dozens of points along the path of totality, we'll study effects on microorganisms that are coming along for the ride." NASA will provide each team with two small metal cards, each the size of a dog tag. The cards have harmless, yet environmentally resilient bacteria dried onto their surface. One card will fly up with the balloon while the other remains on the ground. A comparison of the two will show the consequences of the exposure to Mars-like conditions, such as bacterial survival and any genetic changes. The results of the experiment will improve NASA's understanding of environmental limits for terrestrial life, in order to inform our search for life on other worlds. Mars' atmosphere at the surface is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, with cooler temperatures and more radiation. Under normal conditions, the upper portion of our stratosphere is similar to these Martian conditions, with its cold, thin atmosphere and exposure to radiation, due to its location above most of Earth's protective ozone layer. Temperatures where the balloons fly can reach minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 37 Celsius) or colder, with pressures about a hundredth of that at sea level. During the eclipse, the similarities to Mars only increase. The Moon will buffer the full blast of radiation and heat from the Sun, blocking certain ultraviolet rays that are less abundant in the Martian atmosphere and bringing the temperature down even further. ... Beyond the opportunity for NASA to conduct science, this joint project provides the opportunity for students as young as 10 years old to be exposed to the scientific method and astrobiology -- research about life beyond Earth. Since ballooning is such an accessible and low-cost technique, the project has attracted student teams from Puerto Rico to Alaska. The data collected by the teams will be analyzed by NASA scientists at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; collaborators at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; scientists funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; faculty members and students at the teams' institutions, as well as the public. "This project will not only provide insight into how bacterial life responds to Mars-like conditions, we are engaging and inspiring the next generation of scientists," said Green. "Through this exciting 'piggyback' mission, NASA is collaborating with scientists of the future to take a small step in the search for life beyond our planet."

Sky Watchers

LIGHTS OUT: It's less than a month until a total solar eclipse will occur across a swath of the United States.

I'd love to think we can find a spot in the path of totality (all dark during the daytime), but we've been scheming for months (over a year, actually) and weren't able to get reservations anywhere in the path. 

However, I am buoyed by the fact that if we stay local, we will have a pretty darn good eclipse experience - 92.3 percent of the total eclipse. 

It might be fun to have a little solar eclipse party, in fact! Wherever we watch, I've already ordered multiple solar eclipse glasses. Get yours now (many choices on Amazon.com) before they run out!

At this website, you can plug in your zip code and find out what your vantage point will be like:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/25/16019892/solar-eclipse-2017-interactive-map

OUT WITH THE OLD: Hey, here's our second post about toilets in less than two weeks. How did we go from being science-centric to toilet centric? We bought an old home in need of remodeling, that's how.

All of the toilets here are old and enormous, like five-plus gallons of water per flush. That's about 4 more than you need (and our water usage is metered). 

So one of my first orders of business has been sourcing 'new' (to us) toilets. We love to recycle (and be frugal), and so far we've scored two great new (literally in the box in once case) toilets. I can't believe I found a hard-to-find NEW wall mount toilet on Craigslist for $600 of list. It replaced this old commode.

I thought surely it was destined for the dump, but Christian encouraged me to post it to Craigslist. I'll be darned, within 5 minutes of posting, we had a taker. Go figure. Awesome that it's out of the landfill, and I assume the new owner is on a well.

HELP WANTED: We received an intriguing email from the Library of Congress today. They are looking for schools/students to help in archiving Web content.

Here's part of the announcement: 

Your Students Can Help Archive the Internet – Apply Now!
July 25, 2017 by Cheryl Lederle
Beginning with a pilot program in 2008, the K-12 Web Archiving Program has engaged hundreds of middle and high school students from schools around the United States in selecting, describing, and preserving Web content. Through September 17, the program is accepting applications for new and returning partners from middle and high schools.

Participating in saving history and culture offers those students a unique perspective on how history is recorded. Students identify websites to be archived, sort them into collections, and write metadata to describe the sites and provide context to help future scholars understand the importance of the archived sites. 

I think that this project might be a good fit for we research-and-Internet loving people here at MPA. Don't know if we're big time enough to be considered, though. But I think it worth applying. The application is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScBvZ7-sOqCkHm5HlmIcvWw0lseu1dKxImS3YD_AG4dwHwg8g/viewform

FIRST FLYOVER: If you follow MPA, you know that we love us a good ISS flyover. 

How many times did we run to our roofdeck on our old campus to watch the International Space Station orbit overhead? Too many to count!

I've been looking forward to our first ISS sighting here, and tonight was the night! At 9:55, we watched a lovely 6-minute flyover. We have such a nice 180-degree view east-to-west here, and can see more of the sky. 

And not only did we see the ISS tonight, we saw a satellite bisect its trajectory. Super cool! And we were buzzed a few times by a bat while watching. Really awesome! (And our talk immediately turned to building a bat house or four - there are so many mosquitoes here and bats help with that.)

But back to the ISS. There's a crew of just three on board right now: NASA's Jack Fischer, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, and NASA's Peggy Whitson. Whitson has accumulated 377 days in space between two missions, the most for any U.S. woman at the time of her return to Earth. Whitson has also performed six spacewalks, totaling 39 hours and 46 minutes. She is awesome. :).

Finding Our Way

DAYS OF DISCOVERY: This weekend was full of not fun and hard work. We moved another garage full of stuff to the new place, and are realizing we have no place to put it. How can a bigger house not have as much room? It's a quandary. 

So, we find ourselves making hard edits and organizing - which is actually a great thing, right? So many bags to Goodwill, so many items to our new Buy Nothing group. 

Meanwhile, we're having to acquire a few new things. For instance, Saturday morning, we drove a truck to Bellevue to pick up a new (well, very used), smaller dining room table to replace the one we gave away that fit our old house. 

All in all, there's lots of give and take going on these days. 

However, we have been making time to make sure we get out and explore our new environs. 

For instance, this weekend we checked out our New Favorite Place, 8-Bit Arcade!

It's just a two or so miles from home, and it feels like home! Dozens of mostly retro video games and pinball machines. They serve beer and pizza and ice cream. What's not to love?

They have a space station pinball game I haven't seen before ...

 and a super fun Simpsons' pinball machine.

 They also have a Soul Caliber console, a favorite of CJ's, and CarnEvil, a cheesy, gruesome game.

They even have giant Jenga and a big ol' Connect Four game out on their back patio.

And right around the corner? A well-appointed, welcoming brew house, Four Generals.

Sunday night, we also checked out a local pizza place, Smoking Monkey. 

It has a sci-fi theme, and how could you not love a place that has "Dune" references on its menu, and a complete Star Trek beer list?!

We also discovered a park across the street, The Piazza.

Per the city of Renton's website, "The Piazza is a major focal point for downtown residents and provides a space for community-wide special events and activities. Situated on less than an acre of property, the park features a combination of paved surfaces, landscaping, benches, boulders, tree grates, and raised seat walls. The park also boasts two water features; a shallow "rushing river" and a fountain."

We saw the "rushing river" and the statue on its north shore.

We thought it might be a fun place to cool off on a summer day, but nooooo ...

So look, but don't touch. 

Below, the kids flirt with disaster.

All in all, moving is hard work, but we're really enjoying the new adventure.

Illuminating

LIT UP:  Tonight marks one week in our new place. The kids were probably too young to remember a lot of the remodeling we did to our last home. This go-round, they'll not only have a front-row seat, but they'll be helping.

Wanting them to feel at home, we've decided a first-order-of-business is getting the kids' rooms put together. 

Both of their bedrooms need light fixtures that were a little more contemporary and 'them.'

We took down this fixture in Annabelle's room, and I promptly set about trying to rehome it. In fact, it's blowing up on our local Buy Nothing group right now. I think 20-plus people want it! (We'll do a drawing for the winner in the morning.)

Up in its place is a fabulous chandelier we scored from our previous Buy Nothing neighborhood group.  It's a bedazzled fixture that was removed from a multi million dollar mansion. 

A couple of nights ago, the kids helped Christian install it. 

Tonight, we finally got the lightbulbs for it.  And now, it's  a show stopper dangling from Annabelle's ceiling! And it was free!!!!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Buy Nothing?

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: This morning's email included an update from Jet Propulsion Laboratories regarding the amazing Mars Rover Opportunity's latest accomplishments.

Landed on Mars in 2004, and working many years beyond its expected/planned mission duration, Opportunity recently recorded a panoramic view on the Red Planet, before entering the upper end of a fluid-carved valley on Mars that descends the inner slope of a large crater's rim.

You really should go to the NASA website to see the larger image: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21723

In its press release, NASA notes, "The scene (in the photo) includes a broad notch in the crest of the crater's rim, which may have been a spillway where water or ice or wind flowed over the rim and into the crater. Wheel tracks visible in the area of the notch were left by Opportunity as the rover studied the ground there and took images into the valley below for use in planning its route."

The photo was taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) during a two-week driving moratorium in June 2017, while rover engineers were diagnosing a temporary stall in the left-front wheel's steering actuator. According to NASA, "The wheel was pointed outward more than 30 degrees, prompting the team to call the resulting vista Pancam's "Sprained Ankle" panorama. Both ends of the scene show portions of Endeavour Crater's western rim, extending north and south, and the center of the scene shows terrain just outside the crater."

Fortunately, NASA's team was able to straighten the wheel to point straight ahead, and now they're using the steering capability of only the two rear wheels. The right-front wheel's steering actuator has been disabled since 2006. 

Overall, Opportunity has driven 27.95 miles (44.97 kilometers) since landing on Mars in 2004.

Creature Feature

BUGGY:  Yesterday morning, we had a visitor. Check out this beauty of a beetle!

Christian discovered him on the screen door, right by the head of our bed.

I posted the photo to Facebook, and before too long, the visitor was IDed as a June beetle, one of several types of Scarab beetles.

It's scientific name is Cotinis mutabilis. The critter is also known as the figeater beetle, the green fruit beetle or fig beetle. Per Wikipedia, it belongs to the subfamily Cetoniinae, comprising a group of beetles commonly called flower chafers since many of them feed on pollen, nectar, or petals, and its habitat is primarily the southwestern United States.

We're definitely western U.S., but not south, that's for sure. We do have a fig tree in our 'new' yard, so I wonder if that's why the beetle paid a visit.
It's interesting to me that even though we really didn't move that far (15 miles), there is a big difference in the bird and insect population from old to new. Gone are the seagulls we saw so often, living near the sound and Locks at our last place. And here there are hardly any crows, while we had many a murder of them in Magnolia. Also, no robins yet, whereas our last place was teeming with them. 

Our new "campus" has some small birds of prey I need a closer look at to try to ID. And we have a few hummingbirds and I'm working to attract more! We have an abundance of bumblebees and so many dragon flies. 

It's fun getting to know these unfamiliar environs. 

SCHOOLED: CJ is in the midst of his first summer school experience. He is about halfway through a three-week programming class through Seattle Public Schools at Seattle Center. I'll let him tell you more about it. ... 

Recently, I have been taking a programming class at the Seattle branch of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE). According to their website, the AIE is a specialist games and film educator established by industry with alumni in studios around the world. The Seattle branch is one of two branches in the United States (not counting the online course), and is located in Seattle Center's Armory.
I have been going to class since the 5th, and I will continue to go until the 28th.
In class, I have worked on various different projects. Here are some of them:
One of the first projects we got to was making a version of the classic video game Pong using Javascript (technically HTML, but HTML was only used to contain the Javascript). We were first guided step-by-step by a Udemy course, and I have put a version of it on my website (linked below). At class, I was able to make a space-themed version of the Pong game (with Earth as the ball). Unfortunately, this version is not yet on my website.
Another project we worked on was animation using Toon Boom Studio. Toon Boom Studio is a popular program for animators (usually amateur ones), and it is a stripped down version of Toon Boom Harmony. With Toon Boom Studio, I have made animations of a ball bouncing, as well as a concept animation of my Pong program.
My favorite project would probably be the Neocities project. Neocities is a free web host, based of the classic defunct Yahoo! free hosting service GeoCities. On Neocities, I run a website about the Shar-Pei Hive Mind (an elaborate conspiracy theory that I came up with), along with some of my other things. My Neocities website is at sharpei.neocities.org.

Though CJ isn't thrilled with spending 5+ hours of his summer days indoors for three weeks, he is learning some good skills, and it's also a good opportunity for him to be more independent, so win-win.

VETTED: One thing we've discovered is that life doesn't stand still even though you're all-consumed with moving. There are still other things you must tend to, including a dog with a bald bottom.

Poor Laika. I'm glad she can't see her rear. It's pretty much devoid of any coat whatsoever. It's just her pale, kind of blue-tinged skin. I suppose I could have posted a photo to illustrate, but I'll spare her that indignity.

I did some Googling regarding the symptoms, and the most likely explanation was an allergy to flea bites. Even though we brush and bathe her lot and haven't seen fleas, that doesn't mean they're not there. 

We decided we needed to take Laika to the vet to get checked. But we're in a new neighborhood now, and weren't sure where to go, so we turned to the helpful Internet.

Annabelle quickly found a well-reviewed and seemingly super affordable place, the aptly-named Afford-A-Vet Animal Clinic. It is in Kent, not far from where we love to grocery shop at Winco.

We didn't even need an appointment. We just walked in with Laika a little after 1. 

She was a nervous wreck. That's kind of her perpetual state, really. Let's just say she was on high alert. It didn't help much that an enormous Pit Bull named Santana was all up in her business in the waiting room. Santana was super cute and his owner was really nice, but Laika just wasn't in the friend-making mode. 

We got into an exam room after about 20 minutes of Laika cowering. She didn't really relax in the exam room, because she knew something was up. 

Apologies for the blurry photo. She was trembling. ;)

While waiting for the vet, Annabelle and I learned lots about plants that are toxic to pets thanks to this engaging poster.

Some of the plants I'd heard were trouble, but I didn't know that the very common-round-here azaleas and rhododendrons could be trouble.

The vet did find one flea on Laika, and deemed that enough probably cause to confirm my allergic-to-flea-bites suspicion. So, she got some hardcore meds and we'll double down on our efforts to keep fleas out of the house. 

Turn the Page

DOORS OPEN AND CLOSE: Apologies for the dearth of posts as of late. We've been a little busy. 

Last Thursday, we shut the front door (and every other door!) for the last time on the original home of Magnolia Preparatory Academy.

We sold the place, and it was the deadline for vacating. We walked out about 6:20 p.m. on July 13. Moving on was a bit bittersweet, of course. We said good-bye to each room, and spent a little extra time lingering in the kids' rooms, admiring their 360-degree murals for the last time.

(Christian videoed the process. I'll have to see how those turned out and post, if possible).

The final few days in our former place, we marked many lasts. For instance, there was the last bike ride down our alley.

And I had to chronicle the last breakfast on the last morning in our home, prepared on the beloved vintage stove we had to leave behind. We had to go borrow a pan from a neighbor, because we'd already packed all of ours!

I loved that amazing appliance so much!

Of course, the sweet part of bittersweet is the excitement of moving on to a new adventure, in a new location. From Magnolia, we moved straight into a new place in Skyway, a neighborhood atop a hill at the south end of Seattle. 

From night one, the new place felt like home, so yay for that!

Kirby was happy to find a place to perch to survey her new kingdom (or queendom).

If you know us, you know we're makers and doers, and there is a lot to do at this new place. It was built in 1962, and hasn't changed a whole lot since then. In the midst of moving in, we've already started on some projects.

For instance, we've already been haunting our favorite remodelers' resale store, Second Use, in hopes of scoring some needed items for this home's update. I was tickled pink to find a pitch black toilet for the bathroom off our work-in-progress new game room downstairs. I'm definitely a fan of toilets that dare to be anything but white, so this black one looked like a beauty to me. 

Isn't it lovely?! :)  (Rest assured, I will try to keep my posts about toilets to a minimum going forward.)

We also scored some new seating ... Safeco Field seating!!! Imagine how happy we were when we saw these surplus seats from our beloved ballpark on sale at Second Use!

Amidst all the moving activity, CJ has been attending a Monday-Friday computer programming class at The Academy of Interactive Entertainment from 11 to 4 at Seattle Center. He's learning Java Script, among other things.

I found a photo on my phone of the "class." It looks suspiciously like the food court at the Center. Hmm, I'll have to ask him about that. ...

MEANWHILE, NEAR JUPITER: We haven't been as plugged in to NASA or any news the last few days due to our transition, but I have seen spectacular shots of Jupiter popping up
in my social media feeds here and there.

Spacecraft Juno has been returning stunning images of our solar system's largest planet. Specifically, on July 10, Juno passed right over the giant's Great Red Spot.

Per a NASA press release, "Images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot reveal a tangle of dark, veinous clouds weaving their way through a massive crimson oval."

Below, the enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was created by citizen scientist Jason Major using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
And this enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was created by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt.

As of April 3, 2017, Jupiter's Great Red Spot measured 10,159 miles (16,350 kilometers) in width, making it 1.3 times as wide as Earth. 

The spot is actually a storm, and it has been monitored since 1830. It is believed to have existed for more than 350 years. Presently, scientists say the Great Red Spot has appeared to be shrinking. 

Fascinating!