Double Dipping

 

IN TRAINING: I got behind/lazy earlier in the week, so this is a two-fer blog, making up for lost time. It's also mostly photos.

On Tuesday, the kids and I took a two-hour hike as part of our Statue of Liberty climb training program. It's 390-ish steps from base to crown of Lady Liberty, and that's probably not something you want to just get up out of your computer chair and conquer. So, we took to Discovery Park, a lush, lovely 534-acre expanse just a mile or two to our west.

We chose to go there, because when you park at its south lot and hike down to the beach, not only is it about 1.5 miles, it's a steep 1.5 miles down, which means it's also a steep hike up.

I decided to count our steps on the way back, to get a gauge for how it might compare to the Statue of Liberty. I only counted actual stairs up as well as really steep portions of the trail. In all it was 597 steps up. I think we're good for the statue! But, of course, we'll keep training, because the easier the climb is, the more pleasant it will be. Plus, the park trail offered a few stretches of flat walking on the way up. The statue will not.

The walk in the park wasn't easy, but it sure was pretty. The kids love playing in the driftwood forts on the beach.

CJ also grew a pair of antlers.

The dogs would have loved roaming the beach, too, but that's illegal in Seattle.

As usual, I was the only one following that rule during our visit. I kept my dogs off the beach and on their leashes. I was a club of exactly ONE following that rule. As usual. Sigh.

We saw lots of sailboats ...

We also got to watch some fishing - by a young eagle, and then this BIG blue heron. It had the largest wingspan of any heron I'd ever seen.

We checked out the lighthouse, of course.

The trail up and down also provides lots of pretty vantage points. Like this one. ...

And a big tree by the parking lot is fun to climb.

Someone - almost certainly not the parks department - installed a tire swing from one of the tree's branches. Big fun!.

SKYROCKETS IN FLIGHT: Thursday night, we did what so many other Americans do on the Fourth of July - we watched things blow up.

Of course, these explosions were the legal, sanctioned kind - the official city of Seattle fireworks show.

As has been the case in years past, we staked out our spot on the east side of Queen Anne hill, overlooking Lake Union, on the night before. Then, a little after 8 p.m. on the Fourth, we returned to our chairs to wait a couple of hours, for the 10:15 p.m. start.

The time goes quickly, as the view of the lake and city is pretty, we bring games and reading materials, and there are hundreds of people speaking lots of different languages.

Unfortunately, we got a show before the show. Just about 10 p.m., a column of black smoke rose on the north side of the lake. It grew and grew, and soon the sirens sounded. Turned out to be caused by some illegal fireworks, shot by careless idiots on a hill above a boat storage facility. They managed to destroy 14 boats and do upwards of $1.5  million worth of damages.

In happier news, the official fireworks were pretty.

 

This was part of the grand finale. ...

I think we were home by 11, but the blasts and crashes continued long into the night.

Go Fourth

                  Photo: NASA
INDEPENDENCE DAY: Though, I've taken a couple days off from blogging, I've still been taking notes and pictures so expect a mostly full report on the 5th of July.

I hope everyone had a lovely Fourth of July. Now, we're heading out to the east edge of Queen Anne hill overlooking Lake Union, where the city of Seattle's annual fireworks show is launched every year.

Valor in Vietnam

PARDO PUSH: This afternoon we had the great fortune of being able to hear Air Force fighter pilot Captain Bob Pardo recount an amazing aeronautical feat.

The year was 1967, and Pardo was one of a squadron looking to take out a steel mill in Thai Nguyen, North Vietnam. They'd made repeated attempts for 9 days straight, but weather and other factors had hampered them. On the tenth day, Pardo thought they had a pretty good chance at hitting the target. However, the North Vietnamese had significantly beefed up the number of guns in the area during the campaign, from a couple hundred to around a thousand.  As Pardo and his fellow flyers neared the target, they came under fire. The plane of pilot Captain Earl Aman (with back-seater 1st Lt Robert Houghton),was hit multiple times, damaging its engines and causing a fuel leak.

Pardo's plane, a F-4 Phantom II,  was also hit, causing him to lose fuel. Neither Pardo nor Aman

had enough gas to make it back to the fueling station, let alone their base. Pardo said ejecting over North Vietnam didn't seem like a very good option, as "it's not a good idea to bail out where you just dropped bombs." 

Pardo's plane was in better shape than Aman's, which was nearly out of fuel and falling fast. Pardo brainstormed different ways he could help his friend reach safety. He first tried pushing the plane using Aman's drag chute compartment  but too much turbulence made that too dangerous. 

He then tried carrying the plane piggyback, but again, turbulence was an issue. Eventually, Pardo struck upon the idea of having Aman lower his plane's tailhook. Pardo then flew under Aman's plane and maneuvered so that the tailhook was on Pardo's windshield. Pardo then used his F-4 to PUSH the fellow fighter pilot 88 miles, out of North Vietnam and into Laos. "You gotta work with what you got," he said of the solution.

Once over Laos, Aman and Houghton ejected, as did Pardo and Wayne. Amazingly, they all survived the harrowing journey. Amazingly (in the bad sense of the word), Pardo was not heralded for his heroics. Rather, he was called on the carpet. Some of the brass was upset that he ditched his plane. Apparently they hadn't heard that both Pardo and Aman had nowhere near enough fuel to make it any farther than they did. 

While the F-4 had a $3 million or so price tag, a new one could be built in 3-4 months, Pardo surmised. "It takes 24 years to build a replacement pilot." The bottom line was, "The general cared more about plans than people," he proclaimed. 

Pardo also told the crowd what high regard he had for the Vietnam POWS. With a catch in his voice, he said, "Their conduct was unbelievable, how they took care of one another." 

There was one gentleman in the crowd who spent 75 months (!) as a POW in Vietnam. Unfathomable. 

Pardo definitely saw Aman home safely that afternoon in 1967, and he never stopped looking out for his friend. When Aman was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease years later, Pardo spearheaded a number of fund raisers to help procure a motorized wheelchair and lift-equipped van for Aman, as well as pay for medical care not covered by the VA.  When talking about the day Aman passed away, and, in fact, the moment of his death, Pardo's words stuck in his throat and there was silence in the theater. At that very moment, a loud plane engine could be heard just outside the theater, revving up and then taking off. I bet I wasn't the only one thinking that might have been Aman's way of saying, 'hello.' 

After the presentation in the theater, Capt. Pardo moved to the lobby for a meet and greet. CJ thanked him for his service and for sharing his stories, and Annabelle shared the 'notes' she'd taken during his presentation.

Capt. Pardo was pretty tickled by them. He spent some time studying them and then started searching the crowd for his wife. He wanted Mrs. Pardo to see them, too.  And the Captain was kind enough to sign the drawing for Annabelle. How cool is that?!

I was glad to see the theater nearly full today for Capt. Pardo's presentation, but I couldn't help but notice that a lot of the audience was Vietnam vets, and I couldn't help but wish that more  people who didn't live that experience were there today to hear about it. 

Here's a recap Annbelle wrote about the afternoon. ... 

Today, at the Museum of Flight, I went and saw Bob Pardo, also known as the man who performed the Pardo Push. It turns out that the reason he had to perform it is because his partner's fuel was enough to get him to the tanker, but the fuel was leaking, so he couldn't make it. They couldn't bail where they had just dropped a bomb in North Vietnman, so they "Pardo Pushed," with Bob Pardo using his plane to push another plane for 88 miles. 

Pardo also ended up running out of fuel, so they had to use parachutes and land by a hill.  The zippers and stuff on their survival kit had corroded in that climate, so they went to the top of the hill and cut open their survival pack (no raft, because when Pardo tried to open it in the air, it got stuck, but the raft inflated anyway and blew up).

Soon, a helicopter came thanks to their radio, which sent a signal to the helicopter, after they had answered questions for security, like "Bob, what's your birthday?" When he said, "March 10th," the radio controller said, "Happy birthday, Bob!"

The first recue helicopter flew right over Pardo. The people in the helicopter said that they were waiting for another one who hadn't done a rescue in a long time, and that chopper needed to make a save, so Pardo had to sit there and hide for another 45 minutes. After that, Pardo and his partner were shipped back to the base.

Once back at the base, they were asked by many fellow air force cadets what happened, and they got told off by the general for wasting a perfectly fine flight (the news of the leak hadn't reached base yet). That is the whole story of the legendary Pardo Push.

CJ's review:

I will write a couple of paragraphs here about the speech Pardo's Push.
In Pardo's Push, Bob Pardo talked about being a soldier in the Vietnam War. I found out that it wasn't very easy being a soldier in the Vietnam War, and that you had to deal with hard challenges. Some of the aircraft featured in the presentation were the F4C, the F84, the FP 653, and many others. Pardo was in the Air Force.

I found out that Pardo spent 17,000 air hours flying. During one mission, Pardo was flying in the air and his plane was shot. He lost fuel and had to eject. When he ejected, his hip was injured,   and to make things worse, it was his birthday. I also found out that per flight, they only had 7,000 (rounded up) worth of fuel to use.

During the war, Vietnam was actually two places, north and south Vietnam, separated by a DMZ. I've heard that most of the war was fought over north Vietnam.
Overall, what his speech taught me is that being in the Air Force (or US Army) isn't very easy, especially when a huge war is going on with hostile territory involved. It also taught me that you must be brave, strong, courageous, and most importantly, patriotic to be in the Air Force, military, or any other defense force. All in all, Pardo's Push taught be a lot about being a person in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.

Pardo also ventured into a couple of other topics during his speech, including his thoughts on the war in general. He said in his mind the people of South Vietnam wanted the freedoms associated with living in a democracy, such as free elections, and "it felt only natural to try to help them achieve that goal."  He also shared his opinion that for years, the war was not moving toward a resolution. U.S. troops were "turning the jungles into toothpicks" but no real progress was being made. Despite trying to cut off North Vietnamese supply routes, bicyclists were still able to deliver all sorts of goods and there was "no way to defeat" that kind of supply chain. 

Pardo also opined that during the first part of the Vietnam conflict, "The president was not about to let us win the war" because he "didn't want to upset the Russians or the Chinese."  He predicted that had B-52s been brought in in 1965, "two weeks later the war would be over." Unfortunately, "10 years of war" were suffered through until B-52s were sent into North Vietnam "and shortly after, the war was over." 

Pardo was quick to point out his story was "only one of so many unbelievable stories." 

CROWNING GLORY: After weeks and weeks of trying, inquiring, and monitoring, today was The Day. Tickets for access to the crown of the Statue of Liberty went on sale for mid-September, when we'll be in New York. The tickets are very limited, and they were supposed to go on sale in mid June. We kept checking and checking and checking and asking the purveyors (Statue Cruises) when they'd be on sale. Two days ago a 'helpful' agent told me to check in two weeks. Yesterday a 'helpful' agent told Christian to check back in a week. Glad we didn't take the 'helpful' agents' advice, because they went on sale sometime between bedtime last night and uptime this a.m.

So, we've got ours and now we need to start training in earnest. Why, you ask? Because to get up to her crown, we have to climb 397 steps, or the equivalent of 27 stories. Oh. MyGod. That's a lot of climbing. Fortunately, our very hilly neighborhood will provide a good training ground for the climbing. We've got about 70 days to get in Statue shape!

Tonight (thanks to a top from Gpa.), we watched Ken Burn's documentary "State of Liberty." It was very informative, with lots of vintage footage of the statue being built, delivered and installed. And the PBS page about the documentary has a treasure trove of related resources: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/statueofliberty/

We can't wait to Lady Liberty in person! Here's a great photo of it from 1909, with Wilbur Wright  zooming 'round.

ANCIENTS: During our aerobic and strength training calisthenics today, we listened to music from They Might Be Giants, who have recorded a couple of kids' albums in addition to their stuff for adults.

One of the songs we listened to was "The Mesopotamians.

That, of course, made CJ and Annabelle ask who the heck the Mesopotamians were. So, after we exercised, we popped onto BrainPOP where there was a video about the Sumerians which referenced Mesopotamia. 

After we watched the video, they took the quiz, and got a 10/10, so it would seem they actually learned something. Yay!

GREAT GRAPHIC: Today, thanks to ta post by Washington STEM, I came across a great infographic on "27 Ways To Help Your Students Be Innovative" View it here:
http://anethicalisland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/innovation.png

Rainbow Connection

       

PRIDE:  Sunday our main event was heading to Seattle Center to take in Pride Fest. What a colorful sight to behold that was. :) 

When we went back to Seattle Center to play in the fountains again today, Pride Fest remnants were all over - feathers, beads and such. As I pointed out to Annabelle, we could have stocked our craft drawer quite well! 

Speaking of beads, as we were leaving the celebration on Sunday, we were walking on the north side of Key Arena. I noticed an elderly gentleman off entirely by himself, standing in a shady spot. I noticed he was wearing a beaded necklace in the colors of the rainbow, and I thought about all the changes he's seen in his lifetime in the area of civil rights. As we walked passed him, he called out to us. He asked Christian if it was OK if he gave his necklace to our daughter. He said he was 80 years old and at his age, he didn't much need another rainbow beaded necklace.

It was really very touching.and Annabelle was very happy to accept it from him. 

LIKE A HEATWAVE: It's been hot Hot HOT here in Seattle. Most of the year our house is very comfortable, but when it's 90 plus degrees, it's a little less comfortable. We were sweaty by 8 this morning. 

Fortunately, we had a date to meet friends at the International Fountain at Seattle Center. The kids splashed around for a couple of hours.  Below is the International Fountain shooting nearly as high as the Space Needle.

 And here's a lovely sculpture from the wading pool, between Key Arena and the Vera Project.

Saturday, to beat the heat, we went down to a small beach in Magnolia. We watched a parade of cruise ships take off. The kids splashed around in an inflatable boat of ours. I had to laugh, as they looked like castaways trying to catch up to the cruise ships!

Here's a Holland America floating city they couldn't catch ...

 And they weren't fast enough for the Norwegian Cruise Lines one, either. 

 And the "Star Princess" of Princess Cruises was way too fast, too. 

Just so you know, the kids aren't really out in the middle of the shipping channel. They were about 3 feet from where the water met the beach, floating in about a foot of water, and anchored by two ropes. 

ROCKET GONE WRONG: You know we watch lots of rocket launches, and the VAST majority of them of off without a hitch. Tonight, there was a BIG exception.  Check out this launch from the Balkinor Cosmodrome of a Proton-M with a global positioning system satellite on board.  There's no sound, but the pictures tell the story. Yowza.

Friday Fun & Games

O CAP'N!  MY CAP'N!: If you're an 8-10 year old Internet meme hunter like CJ and Annabelle, the last couple of days you have been all agog about the 'fact' that Cap'N Crunch was exposed for not being a captain at all. That's right. As (I think) first reported on Foodbeast.com, a real Navy captain has four stripes, but if you look at ol' Horation Magellan Crunch (yes, that's his 'real' name), he only has (gasp!) THREE stripes.  Controversy of epic proportions ensued. 

As you might imagine, the nasty little detail asploded across the Twitterverse. 

The crazy accusations forced none other than the Cap'N himself to address the topic in his weekly YouTube message. You can hear his explanations for yourself here ... 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqMFV-QbxSE&list=PLnYFbIC2Jog7kiQUuG8KHJq4qd3GkKzI6
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100848870?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity

So there you have it, the Cap'N's explanation. Are you buying it?

GONE MISSING: At 9 a.m. sharp, we tried to find the NASA Digital Learning Network special broadcast regarding the unveiling of Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Complex.

It was a go no. First, I was told my software was out of date, which I knew wasn't correct - I have the latest WIndows Media Player and QuickTime. We double checked all that, and I poked around the Intertubes and saw there were two different start times for the broadcast publicized - 9 a.m. or 10 a.m.  So, got the live DLN feed, but it was hardly live - stock footage, no Atlantis in sigh. Boo! :(

No idea if/where/when it ever aired. But let's not let that get us down! :)   Hail Atlantis!!!

By logging into the media portal of Kennedy  Space Center last night, I suddenly regained access to all sorts of fabulous photos. Yay for us! :) I was emailed high resolution beauty shots of all of Atlantis' good sides (not that she has a bad side) overnight.  

Like this ...

                                                   Photo courtesy: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex - Space Shuttle Atlantis^SM
I love it!!!

And this, the entrance to the Atlantis exhibit ...

                                      Photo courtesy: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex - Space Shuttle Atlantis^SM
And this ...

                        Photo courtesy: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex - Space Shuttle Atlantis^SM
Makes me want to buy a ticket down to KSC, pronto!

The last (and only previous) time we saw Atlantis, it looked like this ...

the liftoff of STS-132!

BEFORE & AFTER: It came to my attention yesterday that CJ had forgotten what the words prefix and suffix mean.

So, to freshen the memories, we spent about an hour yesterday doing some online drills on the topics.

I found these three teaching games for them to play: First up was a FunEnglishGames.com challenge designed to help players learn how to add letters to the beginning or end of a word to modify its meaning. http://www.funenglishgames.com/grammargames/prefixsuffix.html

They also played a dynamic, loud-ish Scholastic.com game called Short Circuit, where they had to match prefixes and suffixes and their meanings:  

http://www.missmaggie.org/scholastic/shortcircuit_eng_launcher.html

The Sadlier-Oxford game Crystal Castle made them play attention to spelling while they were adding prefixes and suffixes. http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/crstcast/crstcastle.htm

GAME ON: This afternoon we headed out to Lowe's to pick up some very not exciting or compelling items. Afterward, we stopped by a nearby St. Vincent De Paul thrift store. One of the fabulous finds we scored there was a never-been-opened board game, Robot Explorers. 

It was less than $2, so we took a chance on it. I figured it couldn't be too old, as it said our solar system has 8 planets (sorry, Pluto).

In the game, you have to collect specimens from each planet. The sun ins in the center of the board, and the planets are in orbit around it. You have to land on a space with a shuttle so you can switch orbits to go collect the various specimens.

CJ and Annabelle found it HYSTERICAL that they had to collect a gas specimen from Uranus, by the way.

Annabelle's was the day's big winner.

After we played, I looked the game up on Amazon. Wow, the reviews were mostly scathing! I was surprised. We thought it was fun..

EXTRA INNINGS: Last night, the Mariners had a fireworks show after the game. They also had some fireworks during the game, actually winning (for a change) in extra innings.

We didn't go to the game, but we did go to the top of the hill to see if we could see the fireworks. They were nowhere near as big as we hoped/expected them to be.   Most of them (at least from our angle!) looked like they barely cleared the top of the stadium height-wise.

It was a beautiful night, though, and the kids had fun playing in the park until nearly 11 p.m.!
I wish I'd had a tripod for my camera.

To the left of the frame you can see the Great Wheel, and you can also see the roof of CenturyLink field lit up like a rainbow for Pride Week.  The fireworks are to the right of the rainbow. It looked like they were igniting them from two different launch pads.

NASA Mania

                                                               Artist's image courtesy NASA

ON THE CUSP. OR NOT.: Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 keeps on chugging along. Now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from our sun, the data it's sending back strongly suggests the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space. 

Three recently published papers in the journal Science detail Voyager 1's entry into the magnetic highway, where it has made observations of the highest rate so far of charged particles from outside the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble containing our solar system, solar wind, and entire solar magnetic field. Voyager 1 has also detected the waning of charged particles from inside the heliosphere.

Per a NASA press release today, to date scientists have seen two of the three signs of interstellar arrival they expected to see (charged particles disappearing as they zoom out along the solar magnetic field, and cosmic rays from far outside zooming in). However, scientists have yet to see the third sign, which is an abrupt change in the direction of the magnetic field. That change would indicate the presence of the interstellar magnetic field.

It is unknown exactly how much further Voyager 1 has to go to reach interstellar space. Scientists estimate it could take several more months - or even years - to get there. It's uncharted territory, after all. What is (supposedly) known is that the heliosphere extends at least 8 billion miles (13 billion kilometers) beyond all the planets in our solar system. That's a loooong way. The press release today explained that the 'environment' within this heliosphere is dominated by our sun's magnetic field and an ionized wind expanding outward from the sun, while outside the heliosphere, interstellar space is filled with matter from other stars and the magnetic field present in the nearby region of the Milky Way.

There's lots more to be learned about Voyagers 1 and 2 here: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager andhttp://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov .

ATLANTIS UNVEILING: Just a quick 'heads up,' on Friday, June 28, the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit at Kennedy Space Center will be officially unveiled. There will be a special webcast on NASA's Digital Learning Network Event for the celebration. It begins at 10 a.m. Pacific time - http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/dln/webcast/webcast.html. (UPDATE - some spots on the Internet it says/said the broadcast began at 9 a.m. Pacific time - that turned out not to be the case, based on the definitely NOT Atlantis-centric broadcast on DLN at the time).  UPDATE TO UPDATE: We're having ZERO luck watching the broadcast - we can't get it on any of our computers on any of the DLN Channels. Very disappointing. 

You know we'll be watching, especially since Atlantis was the one and only shuttle was saw launch in person. 

I've seen some photos from media friends who have been given advance looks at Atlantis' new display. They are spectacular!  Guests visiting the new Space Shuttle AtlantisSM attraction will see something only astronauts in space have witnessed - the orbiter, tilted at a 43.21-degree angle with its payload bay doors open.  It's a very dynamic display and one that took careful planning, because the 60-foot long, 2,500 pound, graphite epoxy composite doors were designed to be operated in zero gravity.  

             Photo credit: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex - http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/

For more information and to view the webcast, visit http://dln.nasa.gov.

All this said, I sure wish the shuttles weren't all museum pieces now. Sigh. 

MARS, REVISITED: We here at MPA have our name on Mars already, thanks to NASA's opportunity to send them along with Mars Science Laboratory a couple years ago.  BTW, 1.2 million names were on board that mission! And look - ours are right here, on these (red circled) microchips, on the Red Planet right now!

            Photo credit: NASA/JPL

This go 'round we have the chance to, well, go 'round Mars on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft, which is set to launch in November of this year. MAVEN will orbit Mars, exploring the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.

MAVEN will carry names on a DVD. Also on board will be a trio of haukis, because a haiku contest is part of the promo. The public will vote on which haikus (in the 5-7-5 style) to send.  We submitted ours today, and will publish them here once the contest deadline closes. 

After our submissions, we each got a nifty certificate of participation. Sweet!

To get your name on board and your haiku submitted, visit http://lasp.colorado.edu/maven/goingtomars/send-your-name/ BY JULY 1, 2013. 

UP AND AWAY: At dinnertime we watched a rocket-bearing airplane lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Underneath the body of the plane was an Oribal Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, and on board that rocket was NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft.  At 7:27, the rocket separated from the plane, and at the appointed time, IRIS separated from the rocket, and the command center at NASA Ames had communicated with the craft.  Cool stuff!

Check out this 1-minute video of the launch yourself, especially if you've never seen a mid-air rocket launch: http://www.floridatoday.com/videonetwork/2514419157001/NASA-IRIS-mission-launches-from-Orbital-aircraft

Over the Rainbow

                                                 Source: George Takei via who knows where
MORE EQUAL RIGHTS: The big news this morning on Twitter, Facebook and even (gasp) mainstream news feeds was the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, and California's Proposition 8 being rejected.
In our household, and no doubt tens of thousands of others, this led to extended conversations about marriage, civil rights, state vs. federal laws and more.

I told the kids that they're watching a civil rights tide turning, as has happened throughout history. For instance, slavery was abolished, women won the right to vote, Jim Crow laws were struck down and civil rights for minorities were supported. And now sexual orientation and identity rights are being recognized.

As has been the case with seemingly every other civil rights campaign, it's a long and winding road, often painful, sometimes even violent. But as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

Today was one of those days.  This short video does a nice job of capturing some of the highlights - and lowlights - of the LGBT civil rights march. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZAhLbC9CVoM


And if you haven't seen or heard it, this song, "One Love," by one of the kids' favorite singers, Macklemore,  of Seattle, does a beautiful job of summing it all up. ...


KING'S COURT: When will we learn that the Mariners this year = heartbreak, disgust and/or some combination thereof? Apparently not any time soon, as we were back at Safeco Field this afternoon for a Wednesday matinee.

But how could we stay away? King Felix was pitching. That had to turn out well, right?

Um, no ... Apparently he can't win a game if the Mariners don't score runs. Sigh.

But we had fun nonetheless. We always do.  We were dressed like kings, and ate like kings ...

The ballpark is beautiful, and the action, good or bad, is compelling.

The views are awesome. I loved how this building was framed by the roof's steel trusses.

Heck, even these people had fun, though they seemed to have ZERO interest in the ball game. Seriously, what's with sitting at the tables on the concourse eating while the game's going on?