Fun 'n' Games

GAME TIME: This afternoon we enjoyed an hour or so playing games at Chuck's Central District, where you can get a pint of delicious Crater Lake root beer on tap for just $2. 

Someone had left the game "Bottle Imp" on the stack of communal games. Christian read the directions for the 'trick taking' game, and tutored us through it. 

The game is named after a short story by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. The tale was originally published, in Samoan, in 1891. That explains the artwork on the cards, which definitely had an island/Polynesian flair. In 1917, the story was made into a silent movie!

I read on Wikipedia tonight that in the story, the bottle is cursed; and if the holder dies bearing it, their soul is forfeit to hell. Hmm. Bummer for me. I had the bottle when the game ended. 

Then again, as I think about it, "Sweetie Belle" was holding the bottle almost the whole game.  She's doomed for sure. 

HOBBIT HOLE: When I saw this photo of a round door this morning, my mind immediately turned toward the Hobbits. Anyone who has read the books will recall, "It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle."

This porthole is blue, not green, and since it's open, we can't tell if there's a shiny brass knob in its center. 

Credit: NASA

However, based on its size, I'm pretty sure it's not for Hobbits! In fact, what is pictured is the largest thermal vacuum chamber in the world, "Chamber A." It's where the Apollo mission space capsules were tested, and it's where the James Webb Space Telescope will be tested, at Johnson Space Center. It was recently upgraded for that duty. 

Chamber A is 90 feet tall and 55 feet in diameter. Its hydraulic door weighs 40 tons. There's a neat video all about it here ... http://youtu.be/q2wvFSE8OqM

INDEPENDENT STUDY: This morning, the kids spent a couple of hours doing 'research' on their own. The topic? "The Most Powerful Characters in Gaming Ever." It's a YouTube series of videos about, well, the title is self-explanatory. The creator of the series (whoisthisgit) has 934 or so videos on YouTube (mercifully, not all on the same topic). 

The kids are enjoying the series. You can see episode 1 here, if you are so inclined ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45sbFbx_I3Y

Here We Grow!

SPROUTS: Good news! The garden is on the grow! We've got sunflowers, tomatoes, tomatillos and more springing to life on our countertop!  Before you know it, it will be time to get them out into the garden.

HAIR RAISING: This morning, the kids were doing their science homework, and one activity involved a balloon and generating static electricity. The worksheet suggested rubbing the balloon on their hair or a sweater. As an alternative, I suggested they grab a dog. Our Havanese have very fine 'fur' that really more like hair. Sure 'nuff, Laika's hair stood on end, clinging to a balloon rubbed cross her back a few times.

Enough cling was generated that the balloon could stick to the wall!

Nice of Laika to donate her body in the name of science. :)

COLORING: This afternoon, we stopped by Rick's place in West Seattle to do a little work and contemplate colors.

He's thinking about painting the outside of his house Seahawks blue with white trim and a Seahawks green front door. We took a couple of Shermin Williams color decks and compared them to Seahawks colors and Annabelle wasn't happy with any of them (and neither was I).

There wasn't a blue even close to the right color.

Rick's also thinking about painting his office Huskies colors. We've already found the perfect purple, but finding the right beige-y gold has been a challenge. I gave CJ the deck and asked him to find a color to match. He spent about two seconds, declared "whole wheat" the winner and walked away.

I think I have to agree with him.

MYSTERY SOLVED: When we were out of town this weekend, I saw in my Facebook feed that NASA's "Super Guppy" had landed at the Museum of Flight.

I couldn't imagine what the odd looking cargo plane's trip was for. Last time it visited Seattle, it was bringing the space shuttle trainer to the MoF. (The plane's entire 'face' opens up via a hinge on the side, letting big cargo slide on out.)

Here's a photo I took of it coming in for a landing at Boeing Field.

In fact, we've watched it land at Boeing Field twice now. So exciting!

An email from NASA explained last weekend's visit. Apparently the Super Guppy was in town to pick up a rocket fuel tank made by the Boeing Developmental Center in Tukwila, WA.

The photo below (Image credit: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given) shows the Super Guppy at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The composite tank it had on board is part of the Game Changing Development Program and NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. Cool!


HATCHED:  This evening, we watched the three men on board a Soyuz capsule dock with the International Space Station, open the hatch and pose for photo opps. Very glad to see them there, given, the malfunction after lift off a couple of days ago.

AND IN THE END ... : Sad to say, we're done. We've completed "The Music of The Beatles,"  a 6-week course through the University of Rochester with professor John Covach.

Happy to report we each passed the final with a grade of 100 percent. If I'm not mistaken, we've each aced every single quiz this course. We loved the last question on our final exam. It read: "True or True? In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

We answered "true." :)

The class was an absolute joy to take, and we learned so much, not just about The Beatles, but about pop music of their era, and even world history during their dominance.


TRIBAL: When Christian pointed out to me that I'd mistakenly called the Yaquina River the Toledo River, I got to thinking about "Yaquina." I didn't know if it was a person, place, or thing. Turns out it's all, but it goes back to the Yaquina tribe, Native Americans in what is now Oregon. If the brief Wikipedia post about them is correct, the Yaquina as a people are "nearly extinct," their language (also known as Yakwina or Yakona) is extinct. The article declares 'the remaining Yaquina people live on the Siletz Reservation in Oregon, and are mostly of mixed blood.' While this may be partially true, to declare it as wholly true seems folly to me. How would the author know that ALL Yaquina descendents live in the Siletz Reservation? Seems super unlikely.

Wednesday

                        

                                    Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

BACK ON TRACK: Good news - the three humans circling our planet in low Earth orbit right now are on track to rendezvous with the International Space Station at 4:58 p.m. tomorrow, Seattle time. 

They were supposed to be on board the ISS by now, but a thruster malfunction yesterday shortly after launch prevented that. 

DISASTER: News of the horrific mud slide near Highway 530 north of Seattle continues to dominate the local and national news. In fact, it's even on the front page of NASA's Web site.

Here's a 'before' picture of the area (from Jan. 18 of this year) (via NASA).  What's interesting is here, you can see that even the 'before' is denuded/lacking vegetation compared to the areas to the north and south of it, along the river. There was a major landslide in the area in 2006. 

And here's the 'after' - a landslide so big it's visible from SPACE. The hillside has fallen into the river, creating quicksand, in effect, making rescue efforts darn near impossible. 

The latest landslide happened on March 22, across the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River.

The image above is from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite. (Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.)

Per a Seattle TImes report, retired US. Geological Survey geologist Daniel Miller warned the hillside had the “potential for a large catastrophic failure” in a report filed with U.S. Corp of Engineers in 1999. A shame the powers that be didn't listen to him. 

LANGUAGE ARTS: I had a rather gnarly dentist appointment this afternoon. I decided ahead of time to forgo the numbing and narcotics in place of a delicious microbrew at one of our favorite places, Chuck's afterward. It was a good call.

I met Christian and the kids there and we immediately launched into a heated game of Taboo!

CJ, especially, has come such a long way in the handful of times we've played it. He used to give ONE adjective for the key word and then just give you the stink eye, expecting you to guess it. Now, he comes at it from a number of angles with all sorts of words. Awesome!

To play, you have to give clues regarding the word at the top of the card, but you can't use any of the words on the lower part of the card. Sometimes easier said than done!

YANKEE DOODLE:  On Monday afternoon, we spied this bumpersticker on a car in front of us. It read, "Stand up for America!! Be an American!!"

I asked the kids what they thought it meant. CJ was quick to respond, "They're racist!"

I'm trying to think of something less, well harsh. But I can't. ... Anyone care to suggest a more sun-shiny suggestion as to this bumper sticker's intent?

Far and Wide

WEEKEND REWIND:  We left the big city behind this weekend for the central Oregon Coast. Happy to report, the Pacific Ocean is still there. :) We were so lucky - the weather was fantastic!

Spring is in full bloom, and we spent several hours outside, getting some much needed vitamin D. But more on that later. ... 

LAST SUPPER: Due to our schedule, I neglected to blog last Friday, the final day of Hunger Action Week, where we strived to live on the budget of a family of four on basic food assistance, $21 a day.

Before we left home, the kids had apple and cheese for breakfast, and we had coffee, totaling $1.57. A snack for all of us was a bag of Bugles (98 cents) and a stick of pepperoni (4/$1).  We actually stopped for 'lunch' at a McMenamins in Tigard, John Barleycorn's. 

It wasn't happy hour, and their lunch prices were too big for our whole family's budget. You should have seen the look on the kids' faces when I asked them to SPLIT a $4.75 kid's meal. Shock ... horror ... and then resignation. Surely half a hot dog and a dozen fries was better than nothing. (Meanwhile, we lucked out - it was their beer Ruby's birthday, and it was half off!). We got out of there very cheaply - with enough to spare to enjoy dinner. Hooray!

We'd let our our lovely hosts (hi Nonnie and Bops!) know ahead of time we'd be showing up with a shoestring budget for Friday night's dinner. They were kind enough to have labeled several staples in the fridge with prices for us and a meal planned that was budget friendly. 

Our last Hunger Action Week dinner, pozole (or posole), was not only affordable, it was DELICIOUS (thanks, Trina!) . Sorry the photo below is so crappy. I think I was shivering in anticipation. :)

(If you've never had posole before, you should. It's AMAZING. I've used this recipe as a base to make it before. Mmmmm, so good! - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooker-posole/ .)

In the end, we came in under budget for the day, and for the week. Mission accomplished. And in this, our fifth year of Hunger Action Week, we are once again reminded about the struggles so many go through year round, as part of their inescapable daily lives, not just as an awareness exercise. 

I'm not gonna lie, the day Hunger Action Week was over, we had a completely indulgent dinner, pastrami from New York City's Katz's Delicatessen. 

BUILDING BRIDGES: On Sunday, we took a little party barge ride. Launching at the South Beach boat ramp of Newport, we headed up the Yaquina River for a spell. The excursion gave us a lovely look at the Yaquina Bay Bridge.

The span was designed by Conde McCullough, a U.S. bridge engineer who worked for the Oregon Department of Transportation for 26 years, starting in 1919, The Yaquina Bay Bridge is just one of eleven bridges on the Oregon Coast Highway designed by McCullough. His world-class structures, they married function and form, often incorporated art deco-inspired design elements.
                                                   
Calling them "clasps" on a "pearl necklace," McCullough hoped his bridges along the Coast would become tourist attractions. I think his hopes were realized.  The photo of McCullough above is from Oregon State University, where he was a professor.

The Yaquina Bay Bridge was built between 1934-1936. This photo, from the state of Oregon archives, shows the span coming together. 

The bridge has a main span of 600-feet. It cost $1.3 million to build, with funding from the Public Works Administration. It opened to traffic on Sept. 6, 1936. 

I found a great video about Conde McCullough's Oregon bridges on YouTube (courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation)
 

In addition to McCullough's bridge, we saw the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration boats which make their home in Newport now. 

They used to be in our neck of the woods, before being relocated (logically) MUCH nearer the ocean.

While putting about Yaquina Bay, the kids' cousins dropped a couple of crab pots.  We picked them up a half hour later and found a few had crawled inside.

We saw both red rock crabs and Dungeness.  While all were too small to keep, it was interesting looking at them. And Uncle Skip taught us how to tell a male from a female crab. The one below is male, per the narrow, kind of rocket shaped piece on his abdomen. 

The kids also did a little jigging for herring, however the only thing caught was Annabelle. Thankfully, Uncle Skip was able to free her from the hook embedded in her sleeve.

Fun was had by all!

NOT SO FAST: This evening we tuned in to watch a Soyuz dock with the International Space Station.

It didn't happen.

The launch of Expedition 39 went off without a hitch, about 2:17 this afternoon, Seattle time. The mission was supposed to be on a fast-track docking - the new norm - and arrive at the station just a few hours later.

However, after achieving orbit, the spacecraft was not able to complete its third thruster burn to get the spacecraft going the right way. Bummer, dudes.

                                                

                                                                   Image Credit: 

NASA/Joel Kowsky

The voices on NASA TV assured us that those on board, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and Steve Swanson of NASA, are in no danger. Now, the mission is reverting back to the old school docking procedure, which takes a couple of days (specifically sometime Thursday evening). Here's hoping things go better then!

Speaking of things being better, here's hoping CJ is better tomorrow. Annabelle seems to have overcome the cold, but CeeJ is now in the throes of it and reminding us OFTEN that he "feel(s) like crap."

Checking In

BUZZING ABOUT:  It's been a buzzy, er, I mean busy, last few days. 

As I write this, we just got home from a 600-plus mile junket, two frisky dogs and two kids in tow. 

As y'all know, sitting in a car doing nothing for seven hours is exhausting, plus, the kids both have colds (Annabelle's on day four, CJ's started hitting him yesterday), so we're heading to bed early tonight.

Laika (our smallest/youngest dog) has already put herself to bed for the night. I can't recall her ever doing that before.

Tomorrow, we'll be back to 'normal,' whatever that means!, with a full report of our recent goings on, including our final day of Hunger Action Week last Friday.

Spring in Our Step

Throwback Thursday, CJ circa spring 2004

SPRINGING INTO SPRING: Helloooooooo, spring! 

Today marked the vernal equinox, that special moment the sun crosses Earth's equator from south to north. That's right, we're in spring and inching toward summer now. Yahoo!

Today's equinox came at 10:57 a.m. our time. I told the kids they would literally be springing into spring and dragged the mini trampoline out into the front  yard. They thought I was a little crazy, but the good kind of crazy, I think.Te

The ground was so wet from recent rains, by the time they both got their spring on, the trampoline was darn near flush with the ground. I had to dig it out with a shovel and hose it off. Oh well. Worth it. :)

We each read a really great article "Everything you need to know: Vernal or spring equinox 2014,' by EarthSky, wonderful Web site I get daily email updates from. 

After the jumping and reading, I asked the kids to each write a cinquain poem about spring. (Scholastic's Poetry Idea Engine helped remind me that the form is:

Line 1 = 2 syllables telling the subject of the poem.
Line 2 = 4 syllables describing the subject.
Line 3 = 6 syllables telling about the subject.
Line 4 = 8 syllables about the subject.

Here's what they came up with:

This afternoon, we went for a nice long walk along the waterfront, from our 'secret' parking lot south into Belltown.

 We started in about the grain terminal. Annabelle noted a different ship was there today than during our last visit. The Aspasia Luck was flying under a Liberian flag. We looked it up on Marine Traffic, a really cool Web site where you can find the specs and whereabouts for ships all over the world.

Meanwhile, out on the bay, this ship awaited a port, we presumed.

We stopped to do a bit of ferry spotting.

And we saw a lone sailboat drift by.

We visited The Best Health Club in all of Seattle. What a view - and membership is free!

We checked out the salmon net pens in the bay. It's a transitional home for hatchery salmon. They just arrived and will hang out here, getting bigger and stronger, before being released for their journey home. 

Our turnaround point was an art installation made up of a trio of superbig boulders.

 The kids had no trouble scaling the largest one. They've grown since our visit last summer. :)

A BETTER BREAKFAST: I decided the kids wouldn't start the day off with breakfast, er, a bowl of sugary cereal, this morning, our fourth day of Hunger Action Week, where we're living off the 'basic food' allotment, $21 a day for our family of four.

Breakfast today was an apple apiece and one ounce of cheese. Cost: . Christian had yogurt and a Cutie for a total of 87 cents. The kids each had an apple (.42 times two) and one ounce of cheese (.16 each, for .32). Plus, our standard pot of coffee (.41). Breakfast total: $4.88

Lunch, Christian had already expensed home-made chicken nuggets and green beans. Sweet! The kids had what has become the standard mac-and-cheese - .56 cents. I had pepperoni, .25. Lunch total = 81 cents.

Dinner was kale (1.68 ) cooked with a bit of bacon (1.60) and non-bacon pork (2.35). Regarding the pork, I had a cheap Winco pork loin-ish roast which I cut into thin cutlets, dredged them in brown sugar and mustard (.20) and fried them up. They were a hit!

I took CJ, coupon in hand, to the store tonight after dinner to buy dessert. We got a great deal on ice cream, so they each enjoyed 5 ounces of Umpqua for a total of 52 cents.

Daily damage: $12.04 for food. Pretty frugal! Good thing, because when we were at the store this afternoon, the kids asked if they could have a soda. I asked them if they were willing to skip lunch for it.  The looks on their faces were priceless. Good news is, they didn't have to skip lunch. Bad news is, that was a $2.80 hit. So for the day, we're down to a $9.24 surplus. Still, not too shabby.

Don't Lose Your Head

Planarian Schmidtea mediterranea - photo by Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado 
TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE: In science class this afternoon, the kids learned lots about planaria, masters of regeneration. Their teacher had found some planaria in the creek near her home and brought them in for the kids to see.

Cut the head off a planaria, and it grows a new one! Cut its tail off, and it grows a new tail, and the tail sectio you cut off grows a new head. Cut its head AND its tail off, and it regrows both, and those cut off sections grow a new head or tail. Crazy! Planaria can also grow two heads, and can regenerate an entire half of their body if you cut them head to tail down the middle. Fascinating!

This evening, we watched a video about planaria via the Exploratorium's Web site. Planaria expert Alajandro Sanchez Alvarado narrated it. Scientists are very interested in animals who can regenerate body parts, because that regeneration is fueled by stem cells, and if it works in other animals, perhaps it can be true of human parts, too. 

The science teacher also talked about  planaria eyes, which are really just primitive photo receptors or pigment cups. It tied in nicely with what last Sunday night's Cosmos was all about!

FEAR NOT: This afternoon we watched a captivating TED talk by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. 

Some of the content was similar to what we heard when we were fortunate enough to see him in Seattle at a Town Hall presentation. He talked about the process of launching, and how beautiful Earth is from space, likening it to "a self propelled art gallery." 

Photo: NASA

Hadfield also spoke of how coming back to Earth in a Soyuz is like "riding a meteorite."  

The astronaut had a very specific message in this talk, much of which was about "changing caveman reactions" to fear.  The title of the talk is  "Chris Hadfield: What I learned from going blind in space."
It's definitely worth 15 minutes of your time. http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from_going_blind_in_space

SPOILER ALERT: I would encourage you to watch Hadfield's talk (link above) *before* you read CJ and Annabelle's reflections on his talk. Here's what CJ had to say ...

Chris Hadfield talked about how it was being blind in space, which, of course, is not good. Chris said that while he was spacewalking, some anti-fog (which was composed of oil and soap) got into one of Chris' eyes, blinding him in his left eye. This gave the eye pain, and tears from the left eye came into the right eye, completely blinding him. This made it so that Chris could not see anything, which is pretty bad when you're in space.

However, Hadfield didn't panic, and he eventually got back in the ISS. A fellow astronaut of Chris' wiped out some crust from Chris' eye with a rag, and that situation was over. Something from that that I am able to apply to my life is that Hadfield decided *not* to panic, and that made sure that he made it back in alive. That basically says: "Don't panic and you'll be fine."

P.S: Chris Hadfield said that now they use Johnson's No More Tears instead of anti-fog.

And Annabelle's perspective ...  

Commander Hadfield was out for a spacewalk, when suddenly his left eye snapped closed and hurt. He went blind in his left eye. What did he do? He jokingly wondered if that's why we have two eyes and continued working like it was nothing. No panic, no "OMG GUYS I NEED HELP!!!" He just kept working. Now, you see, in space your tears don't fall. So Chris' crying blinded eye had a huge ball of tears and whatever irritated the eye. Soon, the ball got big enough to go break surface tension, letting the tear-irritant mix to go over the bridge of his nose and into the other eye.  Chris Hadfield was blind.

He had to get help from his fellow astronauts and they found out it was just anti-fog (a mix of soap and oil) in his eye. Now they use Johnson's No More Tears instead of anti-fog.

What I learned from Chris Hadfield is that it can take awhile for childhood dreams to come true, and that you should never panic when you walk into a spiderweb. Also, use Johnson's No More Tears.

GOING FOR BROKE: Huger Action Week continues, and today's the halfway point. The kids had their usual cereal breakfast (.91), while Christian and I had our usual, coffee (.41 for the pot), totaling $1.32. Today was the monthly "Pizza Wednesday" at the kids' Shoreline school. We skipped that, because it would have been $2.50 apiece for a single slice of pizza (plus a pop and salad if they wanted). Instead, we bought a whole Little Caseser's pizza for $5.41, including tax. A splurge really, but a way for the kids to have a 'pizza Wednesday' and conform to our budget. The good news was, that $5 was pizza enough for their lunch AND dinner, bonus! I had a stick of pepperoni for lunch (.25), and Christian had leftover chicken nuggets from last night, which had already been expensed in yesterday's budget. That brought today's total to $6.99 with no dinner for me or Christian leaving $14.01 to go. We were $5.22 under Tuesday, and $6.68 under on Monday - that meant we were $25.92 ahead so far. My thoughts turned to happy hour ... The cheapest place in town we know of is Norm's in Fremont. Dare we do it?

We did. During happy hour their 'bottomless' sodas are $2, and any microbrew on the menu is $3. We ordered a (enormous) bowl of their house made potato chips for $4.99. When all was said and done (two sodas, four beers and plenty of chips for all), the damage was $21 and change. Yee haw. So going close to the bone Monday and Tuesday meant we could actually go out on Wednesday, and we're still a tad under. 

Back to prison rations tomorrow, LOL.

But seriously, as usual, we've had a number of really great conversations this week about why we're doing what we're doing. For instance, today at work, Christian told some co-workers about how educational it was figuring out the cost of each meal, and eye opening it is about how to stick to a strict budget. When one co-worker started grousing about people on food assistance driving Escalades, Christian had a constructive conversation with the person about the reality for the vast majority of people on basic assistance, many of whom are children with absolutely no say in how the adults in their lives spend their money. 

The fact of the matter is, rates of food insecurity are higher in households with children. According to the AntiHunger & Nutrition Coalition, nationally, nearly 16 million children live in households that experience food insecurity. That's 21.6 percent of all children. The Children’s Alliance estimates that up to 400,000 children in Washington live in food insecure households. 

Unfortunately, Washington ranks 15th among the states in hunger, one spot higher than  it did in 2011.