On Display

SPACE ROCKS: Thursday night, CJ's months-in-the-making Museum Apprenticeship Program display finally debuted.

He's involved in a program at The Museum of Flight where he was tasked with coming up with an innovative display for the museum. CJ loves classic rock and space stuff, so a "Space Rocks" display seemed a natural. 

Below is a test run of his display on our dining room table. 

Thursday night, we dropped him and all of his stuff off at the museum. We returned a couple of hours later to see how his fledgling display was going. Below is what it looked like approaching it from the stairs down into the museum's Great Gallery.

I was happy to see he had a crowd when we approached! Turns out other people are interested in rock and roll and space! 

Below is the poster he had behind the juke box.

On the juke box, he had a playlist running of dozens of space-inspired songs. 

In the middle of the booth, he had a laptop playing videos performed by musician astronauts on the ISS. 

Here's a short video of what the booth looked and sounded like. 

All in all, it sounded like his booth was a success. Museum of Flight overseers said it was popular, and he's encouraged to bring it back in the future for others to enjoy.

galaxy cake

CJ's MAP MOMENT

TOMATOES

BLACKBERRIES

Fun and Games

DISC-O: This past weekend, Kennedy took CJ and Annabelle to a new-to-them disc golf course, Gaffney's Grove.

It's in a Maple Valley park, about a half hour southeast of the MPA campus. Kennedy has done a fair amount of disc golfing, and calls the course his favorite.

It sounds like the kids had a good outing - CJ even managed par for the first time on one hole.

According to the course's website, Gaffney's Grove has been named the top played course in the state of Washington by people who use the UDisc app.

BELATED CELEBRATION: Monday marked one week since the kids successfully finished private pilot ground school. They were supposed to walk to a nearby diner after graduation and have a milkshake to mark the occasion, but they forgot to bring money I'd given them with them, so the celebration was postponed.

Instead, we went to the diner, Randy's, on this Monday. Housed in a 1970s-vintage former Denny's, Randy's is a feast for the eyes. Its retro pink and orange decor is delightful, and as its right by a Boeing plant, Boeing Field, and The Museum of Flight, it has taken on an aviation theme over the years.

While the decor is delightful, their plating is, shall we say, a little less than inspired. This is what you get if you order half a turkey sandwich.

The meals were all just kind of meh, but the kids loved their milkshakes and it was a fitting place to celebrate ground school's completion.

Bountiful

PICKIN' AND GRINNIN': Harvest time for a pair of our biggest spaghetti squash today!

Annabelle and CJ each found one they thought was the biggest of the 10 or so that are growing in our side yard.

Annabelle's little bundle of squashy joy weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds and 10.8 ounces. CJ's was 5 pounds 5 ounces - still a pretty darn big one.

We baked it up for dinner and served it with spaghetti sauce that I'd had cooking for 10 hours. Delicious!

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: The kids had mostly fun at a big rock show on Friday night. It was held at the Showare Center, south of us, in Kent. 

Even though I bought them seats in the last row, as you can see from this shot by CJ pre-concert, it's a pretty intimate venue.

I'll have him tell you more about the experience. 

Last year, veteran hard rock act Shinedown released Attention Attention, their sixth album. Attention Attention is a (loose) concept album about an unnamed character who, stuck in a negative mental state, gradually works their way to become a more positive, healthy, person. To support the album, Shinedown embarked on the Attention Attention Tour, with the bands Broken Hands, Dinosaur Pile-Up, and Badflower as opening acts for the current (as of the time of writing) leg of the tour.

The three opening acts all played relatively (and mercifully, in the case of Badflower) sets, so they barely got to display their discographies to the crowd. In my opinion, Broken Hands and Dinosaur Pile-Up were rather forgettable, save for the former's thick British accent (which displayed heavily in his singing).

Badflower, the third opener, notably has a (minor) rock radio hit in "Ghost". Unfortunately, the two adjectives I would use to best describe Badflower's performance at the show are "shrill" and "emo" (both of which are attributes I almost always dislike). Badflower's singer began their set by informing us about his... self-gratification practices (needless to say, very TMI), after which the band lumbered through their setlist, ending with their hit "Ghost".

Shinedown, the headliner, began their set at approximately 9:30 P.M, opening with the song "Devil" from Attention Attention. This was followed by "Diamond Eyes", a song the band recorded for the soundtrack of the 2010 film The Expendables (though did not appear in the film's theatrical version). The rest of the setlist featured songs from across their discography (in particular Amaryllis and Attention Attention). Overall, Shinedown's stage presence was very theatrical, with lead singer Brent Smith often asking concertgoers to participate in various activities he listed (such as shaking hands to the people sitting in the seats next to them).After playing their biggest hit "Second Chance" (surprisingly early in their setlist, might I add), the band performed a cover of "Numb" by Linkin Park, followed by an off-key cover of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden. This, in turn, was followed by a mostly-acoustic cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man". After the covers were over, Shinedown played "Get Up" (the big single from Attention Attention), followed by the title track from The Sound of Madness, and concluded with the song "Brilliant".

Overall, Shinedown played a decent, entertaining show.

You can see a low quality cell phone video CJ shot at this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IJsm5N2gPAf1LMkVT4du5Lxe4QgGL6aZ/view?usp=sharing
The video even includes some fairly cringe-worthy singing by the audience. :)

SUMMER SUPPER: This past Saturday night was another Teen Feed for us. We chose what seemed like a nice summertime menu, with barbecue pork and chicken sliders, corn on the cob, homemade coleslaw, and watermelon pizza for dessert.

As usual, Annabelle made a menu poster for the diners to peruse upon entering. 

We probably only had about 30 or so people come for dinner, but BOY were they HUNGRY. My gosh, we served So. Many. Sliders. We started off by giving them two apiece. Most had one each of the pork and chicken. (I need to note that our friends Emily and Kyle smoked 15 pounds of pork for the occasion!) Two other friends brought a bunch of chicken, and I made about 10 pounds of chicken just in case (we don't ever want to be caught short at Teen Feed). Another friend even brought bbq/pulled jackfruit for the vegans. 

It is impossible to overstate how grateful many of the diners were for that dinner. They'd walk in and talk about how good it smelled, and would gratefully take their first plate and then come back for more and more and more. 

One guy was so hungry for protein, he skipped all of the rest of the offerings stuff and just asked for pairs of sliders ... Five times. Another guy took that one step further, and didn't even have buns. He just wanted platefuls of meat.

It was the first time we'd attempted corn on the cob at Teen Feed, and it was a big hit! I heard more than one diner say, "I can't remember the last time I had corn on the cob!"
We boiled it stove top, and then took ears out and dipped them in huge pans full of butter (or margarine, for the vegans). In addition to freshly ground salt and pepper, diners could also have cotija sprinkled on their corn. 

They also had fun ordering their slice of watermelon 'pizza' (a wedge of watermelon, with choices of toppings including coconut (that looked like the cheese), raisins, chocolate chips, whipped cream and more. 

All in all, it was another great Teen Feed, and we're already thinking about next month's menu.

DRAGON CAPTURE: A couple nights ago, we finally got to see the ISS fly over. It seems like it had been *so* long since we'd spied it.

It's been busy up there. A Russian cargo ship just left, and a SpaceX one, the Dragon, recently arrived. 

• Taken on July 27 by European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, the photo above shows Dragon approaching the ISS. NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch used the Canadarm2 to capture and dock the Dragon to the Harmony node of the Space Station.

Around the Grounds

CHECK UP: It had been well over two weeks since we checked on the health of our hives, so yesterday afternoon we finally took a peak.

We were happy to see that the bees are business as usual. Both hives have tons of bees of various types, larvae, an abundance of honeycomb and lots and lots of honey. 

We have purchased an extractor, so in the not-too-distant future, we'll be taking a rack out, putting it in the extractor and giving it a spin, literally. Here's an example of what a honey centrifuge extractor looks like.


I SPY: Our garden continues to go gangbusters. Below, can you spy spaghetti squash?

We have some big boys nestled among our new clover lawn. I wonder when we should harvest them. I've not grown spaghetti squash before. ... 

It blows my mind that this enormous plant sprawling all over our yard came from a single seed, sown just a couple months ago.

VOLUNTEERS: This morning, I took the kids to Liberty Park in downtown Renton. It's the city's annual Renton River Days, a festival with music, food, commercial booths, an art show and more. 

CJ and Annabelle had volunteered to man the "Go Fish" booth for Birthday Dreams, an organization to which they often donate cakes for homeless kids' birthday parties. 

ROUTINE: Yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched its 18th resupply mission to the International Space Station. While doing so, they reused a Dragon capsule that had already been to the ISS twice (April 2015 and December 2017). It was the first time a Dragon had been used three times. Also, booster that had been flown once.  Inside the capsule was 2,628 pounds of science investigation-related materials, 514 pounds of crew supplies, 346 pounds of vehicle hardware, 346 pounds of stuff needed for future spacewalks, 37 pounds of computer resources, and an external payload of 3,918 pounds. 

If you'd like to see the launch, here's video from the broadcast. (The actual launch is just after the 14 minute mark of the video, if you want to jump ahead.)

It's pretty astounding when you think about it, how this is the new normal for American spaceflight - a privately-owned company carrying out what not-too-terribly long ago had been government business. 

The Graduates

FLYING COLORS: Monday was a momentous one, as it marked the end of the kids' experience in private pilot ground school.

Unfortunately, Christian and I weren't there for it (we were winging back from Vegas, where we had been dog sitting). However, Kennedy was on hand, and took lots of photos for us, fortunately.

The kids had their final tests in the morning. At noon, they gathered in The Museum of Flight's Aviation Pavilion for a celebratory barbecue lunch.

After lunch, everyone made their way to the theater in the museum for the graduation ceremony.

There were 104 learners at the beginning of class. Not sure how many made it all the way through to the end, but this graphic shows they certainly did come from all over the state of Washington.

There was a short slideshow of ground school highlights. A familiar face showed up at one point.

CJ and Annabelle's 'home room' instructor was pilot Sara Baer. Their class was awarded their certificates first.

The kids worked super hard and learned so much in the three weeks of school. It felt weird not going there the past couple of days, as it had become such a big part of our weekday routine.

Following are a few photos CJ snapped during his ground school adventure. The one below is from The Museum of Flight's "control tower," overlooking the museum's front and Boeing Field to its east.

Below are empty flight simulators. The kids spent a fair amount of time in these machines, practicing principles of flight.

Below is not a simulator. It's the real thing, that "thing" being the controls of one of the jets n the museum's aviation pavilion. 

Some of the tools of the flight planning trade.

Pictured below is "Fat Albert," a short, kind of stocky jet Boeing made for NASA's Langley operation.

All in all, ground school was a ton of work for all involved, but it definitely was a worthwhile endeavor. The kids learned so much about aviation and the airline industry, they met lots of kids from all over, they learned valuable study habits, and they earned college credit, which is terrific.

It's a Wrap

FINA11Y:  Truth be told, Edgar Martinez is there reason Christian and I are in Las Vegas this weekend.

You see, months ago, when the 2019 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame inductees were announced, and Seattle Mariners' slugger Edgar Martinez was (finally!) on that list, eldest son Rick and his wife Rachel decided to go to Cooperstown, New York, for the induction ceremony.  That meant their Dobermans would need dog sitting, and I volunteered. 

Originally, it was going to be a whole family trip, with CJ and Annabelle along, but when those two got the opportunity to attend private pilot ground school, that plan changed. So Christian and I flew down here solo, leaving Kennedy to play Mr. Mom to the kids for a few days. 

Come Sunday morning, Rick and Rachel were in the crowd at Cooperstown, we were on their couch in Vegas, and Kennedy and the kids were at the Mariners' stadium, at a viewing party.

Sad but true fact: The Mariners are so terrible this year, the kids didn't really stick around for the actual game. They watched an inning or so before heading home to get more studying done.

STUDY HALL: Edgar excitement aside, most of the kids' weekend was spent studying for their final ground school exam, to be taken Monday morning. 

They studied upstairs, they studied downstairs. 

They studied at a school while Kennedy ran the track. 

They studied at a stadium and they studied lakeside.

They studied under the watchful eyes of Bexley.

They even studied via speaker phone, as I had ordered their same textbook to be shipped to Vegas so Christian and I could quiz the kids remotely. 

They're taking their test as I type this, and however it turns out, I do believe they studied as much and as well as they could. 

VIVA, LAS VEGAS: I know, I know, when you go to Vegas, you're "supposed" to play the slots, throw some dice, see some shows, all of that. Yeah, well, that's not how Christian and I experienced "Sin City." 

Instead, we did what we enjoy doing any ol' where - hit some thrift shops, hardware stories, and some local brew pubs.

One destination was an indoor "swap meet." We were actually pretty excited to go - neither one of us has been to a real live swap meet in years.

Yeah, well, that record still stands, unfortunately. The place bills itself 'Fantastk," - perhaps too tall an order to live up to. 

My goodness, it was just aisle after aisle of imported crap, much of it bedazzled with rhinestones and the like because we *are* in Vegas, after all. Not an antique treasure to be seen, that's for sure.

At least the building itself was a bit funky and worth checking out for our $1 admission fee.

Actual bargain-hunting wise, we much preferred the Savers (Value Village if you're from the Northwest) we hit a bit later.

Later that afternoon, we wound up at a Wisconsin bar north of town. 

It had decent Packers and Badgers collections, but the food and beer were nothing special, at least to this Seattleite's palate. 

We also hit a total of five hardware or home improvement stores on our trip, I do believe. This Home Depot is in the westward shadow of the famous Vegas Strip.

We're packing up this afternoon. I will miss this view - the one I've had every morning upon waking up.  His (heavy!) head is on my stomach, by the way. Pretzel prefers a human pillow.

It will be weird not having to share my bed with a pair of 100 pound Dobermans tonight!