For the Record

BIRTHDAY BOY: On Friday, CJ turned 15. That meant a fun-filled day driven by his desires was mostly in store.

Our first stop was a 9 a.m. trip to iconic Easy Street Records in West Seattle.

A rather recent collector of vinyl record albums, CJ had been wanting to go to Easy Street for some time. However, his desire was dually-driven by the search for records AND the knowledge that Easy Street has a quirky onsite restaurant that's a bustling breakfast spot.  (The photo at the top of the post features a few of their breakfast specialties.)

I loved the store, because they love Bowie. :)

And now, here's Annabelle to tell you a little bit more about our visit on Friday. ...  

The Easy Street Café is inside Easy Street Records, a record store in West Seattle. The Café is open from 7 AM to 3 PM most days. We visisted the café for breakfast on my brother’s birthday, April 20.

Most of the menu options are puns on famous songs or artists, such as the “Eddie Feta” and “Notorious B&G”. When we ordered, our waitress made sure to get down any special requests we had for the chef. Speaking of the chef, our food took much longer than it should have to be done. Peeking into the window, we also noticed that he didn’t seem to be wearing a beard cap to prevent the hair from going in the food. Despite these complaints the food was delicious for everyone, although the steak was well-done and the eggs were over medium rather than over easy.

The waitress came around the café to fill coffees, which although helpful and courteous, was a bit annoying if you didn’t want more or had already added as much sugar and cream as you wanted. Overall, the main draw for the café is the food and the record store it’s attached to. If you’re in the area, I’d only recommend visiting if you have the time or are very interested in Easy Street Record’s selection.

Annabelle's right, it was a looong wait for breakfast. Fortunately, there was lots to look at as we waited.

We were a party of six, thanks to Rick and Rachel being able to join us, and the meals we ordered were all different. Christian said his Horton Heat Hash (named after the band Rev. Horton Heat) had some good heat. CJ's "Bluberry Hill Hotcakes" looked amazing. My Greek-flavored Eddie Feta scramble was tasty (and supposedly Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder's own recipe).

All in all, it was a fun way to start CJ's birthday.

Later that day, we went to his favorite lunch/dinner spot, Wing Dome. And afterward, he got some complimentary birthday cake ice cream at Chuck's, another favorite spot of his.

That evening, big brother Kennedy took CJ and Annabelle to the 8-bit Arcade, where they beat a couple of vintage arcade games. So all in all, it was a standout fifteenth birthday!

ON THE HUNT: Saturday, we were up at 6 a.m. to make sure we were in Sodo, outside yet another record store, Silver Platters, by 7 a.m.

Why on Earth start our Saturday that way? Because it was national Record Store Day, a big darn deal if you're a record collector.

The day is full of very limited release issues of special recordings on different media (often colored vinyl, picture discs, special posters, etc.).

CJ is a huge Pink Floyd fan, and there was a special Record Store Day issue set for release: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It was Pink Floyd's debut album, and their one and only completed with the band's original vocalist and guitarist, Syd Barrett. Definitely psychedelic, the original recording is in mono and we suspected it was sure to be in BIG demand on Record Store Day 2018. Only 6,000 copies were pressed for U.S. distribution.  

While waiting in line, we studied what the cover looked like, so that we'd know it when we saw it if we were lucky enough to find it once inside the store.

We weighed our options and decided our best bet would be to try to find the title at Silver Platters, in Sodo.

And that's just what we did. We about 12th in line, I believe, when we took up our spot on the pavement in the morning cold. We were happy it wasn't raining, however. 

Below, CJ tells you more about the experience. 

Record Store Day is an event at bricks-and-mortar record stores across the country on 21 April each year. For each year's Record Store Day, there are several releases distributed to the bricks-and-mortar stores, often produced in limited quantities.

For this year's Record Store Day, I woke up earlier than I usually do to be in line at 7 A.M, waiting for our store of choice to open at 9 A.M. While my mother and I were waiting in line, the manager of Silver Platters (the record store we went to) gave instructions to the various people in line on where various sought-after Record Store Day releases were.

The release I was looking forward to the most was Pink Floyd's 1967 debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band's only album with Syd Barrett as the frontman (and without guitarist David Gilmour). This year's reissue of Piper was in mono (Syd Barrett reportedly dismissed stereo sound as a gimmick), and included an extra exterior sleeve and a poster.

Another release we got was David Bowie's posthumous live album Welcome to the Blackout, recorded in London, England on 30 June and 1 July of 1978. Blackout is a sequel to last Record Store Day's Cracked Actor, and, like its predecessor, is on a whopping three discs.

While it wasn't technically a Record Store Day release (it came out the day prior for its forty-fifth anniversary), one record we got was a reissue of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane on silver-colored vinyl. My mother spotted Aladdin Sane after we got the above two records, and immediately decided to bring it with us.

Lastly, we quickly decided to get an abnormally-shaped 10" 33 1/3 rotations per minute (RPM) record shaped like a Porg from the film Star Wars - The Last Jedi. The Porg featured two songs from The Last Jedi's soundtrack.

In addition to the albums, CJ got a cool swag bag with some Record Store Day giveaways.

If you want a taste of what Record Store Day looks like, check out this video posted by Easy Street of their event. (Easy Street is where we went on Friday, for CJ's birthday.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=94&v=saLo0REbJhE

All in all, our Record Store Day was a complete success, and we went home very happy with our treasures!

ON EARTH DAY: Google shared this message from Dr. Jane Goodall on Earth Day. I thought I'd share it with MPA readers.
https://youtu.be/q8v9MvManKE

At the Old Ball Game

SHINE ON: Thursday afternoon was a delight. There's nothing quite like sneaking away for baseball matinee on a weekday. You feel like you're cheating the work a day world. It's a mini vacation, especially when it's warm and sunny in April! 

After just a couple of hours in the spring sunshine, CJ's freckles had bloomed. It was warm enough that vendors were selling ice cream and strawberry kebabs.

The only bummer was that the Astros are terrific and the Mariner are significantly less loaded, shall we saw.

Above, Kyle Seager fails to reach base. He also had an uncharacteristically shaky day in the field.

Seen fouling off a ball below, Robinson Cano reached base yesterday, but he couldn't overcome an 8-run deficit on his own.

The Ms' starter, Gonzales, did OK against the 2017 World Champions. His 'reliever' Altavilla was really awful, however. 

Since CJ got his braces off the day before, he was able to have Cracker Jack for the first time in a couple of seasons. 

 The disappointing prize was as crappy sticker. #Lame

The kids and I decided this guy has one of the best jobs in the world. He's paid to watch baseball!

Did I mention the sun was out yesterday? I about went blind trying to catch this plane flying in front of our star. My camera froze up, unfortunately.

Check out this cool post-game photo of a solar halo.

It's caused by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in Earth's atmosphere. Per Wikipedia, "Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky."

On & Off

BRACE YOURSELF: Interesting day for the MPA student body. This morning, Annabelle got her 'braces,' and this afternoon, CJ was freed from his after nearly two years.

CJ has been a real trouper regarding his braces. Let's hope he's as great about wearing and keeping track of his retainer.

Lucky for her, Annabelle's braces are not the traditional metal wires and brackets set up. She was a candidate for Invisalign treatment, which uses a series of slip-over-your-teeth molds that get your teeth going in the right direction. The cool thing is you can remove them to brush, floss, and eat things like corn on the cob and caramel corn. ;) Oh, and caramel apples.

I don't think either of the kids has ever had a caramel apple, so to celebrate the day, we made some.

We bought some gummies, some peanuts, some Starburst, some Corn Nuts, and some M&Ms. We also bought some Caramel wraps, and once home, melted them around apples and the kids made their treats.

A day to remember, for sure!

REBOOT: This afternoon, at 3:51 Pacific time, NASA's TESS spacecraft launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, after a two-day delay. The original launch time was called off April 16 to allow scientists to conduct more guidance navigation and control analysis of the rocket, NASA officials wrote on Twitter.

Below is a replay of the whole broadcast about the launch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY-0uBIYYKk


If you skip ahead to the 19 minute mark, you'll see the actual launch. And if you skip ahead to about the 28 minute mark, you'll see the first stage of the rocket landing. SO COOL!!!! It landed on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.

It's also worth checking out TESS deploying at the 1:09 mark. History in the making!

Over the next couple of weeks, TESS will maneuver into an oblong-shaped orbit around Earth, circling twice for each orbit of the moon.

From there, the observatory will scan the skies, looking for the darkening of stars as planets pass in front of, or transit, them. TESS will build on the body of work of the Kepler space telescope and it team, which found exoplanets in a similar way (watching for transits). However, Kepler circled the sun, rather than Earth, and was focused on one small patch of the sky for its first mission, whereas TESS is set to scan 85 percent of our skies. (FYI, Kepler identified 2,650 exoplanets to date, which is more than 70 percent of all known, alien worlds.)

Ups and Downs

Photo: Ben Cooper

GOS AND NOS: We've had our eyes on the skies this past weekend. 

Saturday afternoon, we watched a launch, an Atlas 5 that roared off the pad with a satellite,  AFSPC-11m for the US Air Force (ULA). 

The launch on Saturday had five solid rocket boosters, and was super pretty lifting off. (That's important for a rocket launch, right?)

Monday, we were all about TESS, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is expected to discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. 

TESS is planned for a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, monitoring more than 200,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. The spaceborne transit survey is expected to cover about 85 percent of our skies, and will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances. 

We watched multiple press conferences about the launch and its mission on Monday morning. 
https://youtu.be/ZsPStvGgNuk


In the end, today's TESS launch was a no go. SpaceX, the vehicle sending the observatory skyward, tweeted that they'd be performing more analysis of the launch guidance, navigation and control and that they were targeting Wednesday for another attempt.

So eyes on the skies on Wednesday, as well!

PARKING LOTS: Mark your calendard - National Park Week kicks off on April 21, and to celebration all national parks will offer free admission on Saturday, 4/21.  (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Of Time and TESS

SKUNKY: Pretty recently, we here at MPA discovered the Skunk Bear series. I sure wish we'd found it sooner!

A project of National Public Radio, Skunk uses film, animation, music and science to answer questions about the world. (People can submit questions on Skunk Bear's webpage: https://www.npr.org/series/462045954/skunk-bear .)

We were introduced to Skunk Bear during a class where the history of Earth was being discussed. A parent had written out a timeline that stretched 3/4 of the way around the classroom, and students were using Post-It Notes to denote events in our planet's history. It gave a good visual representation of how far apart certain events actually were.

The students were also shown a Skunk Bear video about the history of Earth, filmed on a football field. In it, yard lines were used to map out our planet's past (and humanity's tiny moment in it). In all, four and a half billion years were played out on the football field, every inch representing 1.3 million years.

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/M8V_glRW1hA


Oh, and in case you're wondering (I know we were), Skunk Bear's name was chosen because it's one nickname for the fearsome, ravenous wolverine, "And NPR's little tumblr has an insatiable appetite for all kinds of science stories — big and small," per their explanation.

You might want to check out their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/skunkbear .
I know we'll be hanging out there more in the future!

TESS-ting: On Monday, April 16, 2018, NASA is set to launch its next exoplanet hunter. Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS) has been sealed into the payload faring inside a Kennedy Space Center facility, and will be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 40 at 3:32 p.m. West Coast time. SpaceX plans to re-land the rocket's first stage on a drone ship after launch.

If everything goes as planned, about 60 days after launch, TESS will navigate to its final Earth orbit, and then start canning the skies for signs of planets passing in front of around 200,000 stars. For the first year of operation, TESS will survey the Southern Hemisphere's skies, before switching focus to the Northern Hemisphere in the second year. 

Today, we watched this video about TESS, in order to learn more about the mission. https://youtu.be/Q4KjvPIbgMI


If you want to watch the launch live, check out the NASA TV or SpaceX websites Monday around 3 p.m. for pre-launch coverage.

Making Connections

PHONES' HOME:  Thursday morning, three of us headed just a little north and west of MPA's campus to a one-of-a kind museum in Seattle's Georgetown district.

Open only four days a month and hidden away in a non-descript building in a hardscrabble part of town, Connections Museum, a collection of working artifacts from the telephone industry history, is easy to miss from the outside. In fact, I think we've probably driven by it 200+ times without knowing it's there. 

Who knew all this was so close yet so far?!

Upon stepping into the site, my first thought was that it felt like an extension of the awesome Living Computers: Museum + Labs.  Like LCM, at Connections, not only were the archival machines on site, they are functioning! 

 Look at the glowing control panels. Aren't they lovely?

Typewritten instructions everywhere!

CJ can tell you a bit more about the place. ...

Today, I went on a field trip to the Connections Museum in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. The museum's website describes itself as follows:
Our museum features working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical (sic) central-office switches. We also have working Step-by-Step and Crossbar PBX equipment as well as antique telephones, switchboards, outside plant displays (poles, cables, splicing equipment, and tools) and a reference library.

Our tour began on the third floor, where Sarah Autumn (a tour guide) led us to the sights of the very old telephone equipment. For much of our time on the third floor, Autumn showed us telephonic communication equipment circa 1923, which relied on a large series of "panels" raising and lowering various components to carry phone calls from the caller to the called. Autumn let me (try to) use a phone from the 1920s to call another phone a few feet away.

Afterwards, Autumn showed us more telephone equipment, circa the 1950s. Autumn remarked that since she mostly works with the 1920s equipment, the 1950s equipment seems "futuristic" or something along those lines. The new(er) equipment is much cleaner-looking and more space-efficient than the older equipment. According to Autumn, many phone stations' most busy day annually was Mothers' Day, when countless people would call their mothers with telephones. The equipment would make noise when calls were made, so on busy days, the equipment could be making noise all day. Some people who used to work with telephonic communication equipment reportedly still have hearing aids.

Check out the rainbow spaghetti on site.
 Astounding and impressive!

One thing our tour guide pointed out to us is we were being bathed in multiple banks of florescent tube lighting fixtures. Back in the day, they didn't have those. They had these (below), and worked had to scramble about the facility, with all its knobs, switches and wires with flashlights in hand!

We also learned about how communications worked out in the field. The 'swing' seat below was how technicians worked the wires for a good number of years. 

The diagram below showed a progression of wires.

 Technicians in the field often had to repair the wires, including melting down lead to make patches. 

Check out this cluster - a cut end of a big cable!

I couldn't help but notice all of the documentation on site. One of our tour guides, Sarah, told us that she has been working for over a year to help get just a fraction of them in order. 

There were so many working alleyways of floor to ceiling circuits. Astounding! Gosh, I'd love to see video of people 60+ years ago working in this space.

Hundreds of different phones were on display. 

CJ got to place a real live call on a hundred year old phone. 

Later, I coveted this see-through 1970s model!

The kids stand next to a futuristic model for the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.

Likewise, this "Space Age" phone was created for the Space Needle. When its rotating restaurant was constructed, they had to come up with a cord-free way of installing communications there.

 The museum is an homage to Herbert H. Warrick Jr.

Annabelle has this to say about her visit: 

Connections Museum is a small facility near the Museum of Flight dedicated to keeping a working history of the telephone. There are two levels of the museum- the first our field trip group went to was the upper level which held large, functional Panel & Crossbar office Switches, the large machines that were used to dial phone numbers. Almost randomly, the machines clack repeatedly whenever a number is input. They take up a huge portion of the floor, meaning workers would frequently have to use ladders to fix the upper levels of the Switch. The panel Switch uses brushes up and down on metal rods to create the contact that registers the number. The Crossbar Switch presses down on certain combinations of bars on the grid to register the number, also creating a lot of noise. Both, while the panel switch is finicky, do work to call phones within the building.

The second level contains a small display of cabling (from phone lines to underground ducts), while the majority is dedicated to vintage phones. There’s a room featuring multiple wall-mounted phones without a way to dial- you would have to be connected via Operator. Our guide showed us that in some rural towns, someone had to volunteer to be operator and keep an eye on the panel 24/7. As phones advanced, soon they didn’t need a wire to connect to the operator. The first “wireless” phone was actually used in the top of the Space Needle during the world’s fair after workers realized that, in case of an emergency, there would be no way to get help as there was no wiring up the needle. From there, phones became a standard household item.You can learn more about the Connections Museum at their website, http://www.museumofcommunications.org/

Here's a vintage news story about the museum
https://youtu.be/PDyWCDYuD_0


Connections Museum has their own YouTube channel with more videos. Check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm87i_qG_B-rRvG7NWqyVLw

All in all, our visit there was too short. We can't wait to go back!