Earthlings

SEEING GREEN: Our weather is still downright delightful, so this morning we struck out for some fresh air and exercise. We pointed the Honda toward Discovery Park, determined to explore a path we'd not taken before. With 534 acres to explore, there is plenty of uncharted territory for us.

We found a twiggy teepee not too far from the park's playground. There, the kids began playing some sword and sorcery type game that carried us all the way through our walk.

We went for another, longer walk this evening, over to the Lawton neighborhood. We've gotta get our walks in while the weather is so wonderful. Rain is back in the forecast for tomorrow.

FREEBIE: This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. Hooray! Use the store locator to see if a comic shop near you is participating: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/storelocator

SAND CASTLES: Several news outlets today (including the Seattle PI) picked up on a story about a paper recently published in Physical Review Letters by physicists claiming to have figured out how ancient Egyptians moved the enormous stones for the pyramids. 

In an experiment, the physicists showed how much easier it was to move a heavy object on a sledge over sand that had been dampened, as the water molecules acted to form tiny capillary bridges between the grains of sand. To further bolster their case, they pointed to a wall painting in the tomb of Djehutihotep, showing a large statue being pulled along by workers, one of whom was wetting the sand in front of the sledge. The PI story has photos of the experiment and the wall painting

Beyond addressing a historical curiosity, the research could be useful for examining how to optimize the transport and processing of granular material, such as sand, asphalt, concrete and coal, the news release said, noting that such transport accounts for about 10 percent of the worldwide energy consumption.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:  Looking for something different to watch? Check out yourself - and everyone else on Earth - compliments of NASA's new HD livestream from the International Space Station. 

As part of the High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment, there are now four HD cameras attached to the ISS, providing we Earthlings an around-the-clock perspective of the Big Blue Marble. You can also hear audio conversations between the crew and Mission Control. When the crew's on-duty, the video feed will include internal views of the ISS. 

Check it out here: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

If you see a blue screen, don't panic. That will happen during "loss of signal" periods, which happen intermittently. Sometimes the station's in darkness or over nothing but ocean at nighttime, and you'll see nothing but black. And sometimes you'll see a gray scene, which means the link is switching to the next camera, or the communications downlink from the ISS in not available at the moment. ut keep watching, and you'll see a sunrise or a sunset about every 45 minutes. And it's oh-so-pretty when they are over land.

For more info about the HDEV experiment,, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/917.html

A PENNY FOR YOUR FUTURE: This short video makes you stop and think about our priorities as a nation.
http://youtu.be/moa-ies4bPw

What can you do to help?
Sign the petition!: http://www.penny4nasa.org/petition
Join the Thunderclap!: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...
Follow Penny4NASA on social media
http://www.facebook.com/PennyForNASA
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SUNDAY FUN: Make sure you say "May the Fourth be With You" to friends, family, and complete strangers on Sunday, a/k/a Star Wars Day. 

Check this awesome video out to help you get in a Rebel Alliance state of mind. ...

Testy

TEACHING TO THE TEST: Our academic endeavors today were all about The Test. Specifically, the Measure of Student Performance (MSP), an annual exam that Washington State students in grades 3-8 must take.

This will be CJ's third year of taking it, so he's a veteran. It will be Bee's first go round.

We printed out practice tests (based on previous years' problems) from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Web site. Annabelle has to take reading and math tests this year. CJ has to take reading, math and science.

We spent some time talking about mechanics - properly filling in those little bubbles, writing inside the lines, that type of stuff. And we spent some time on psychology - thinking like the people who wrote the test. What are *they* asking you? What do *they* want to see? We discussed strategies for properly and completely answering a question (often, in part, by restating it). And then, they actually took the math and reading practice tests. I was really pleased with how well they did and I'm sure it gave them great confidence going in to next week.

Mostly our review and practice today was painless, but I simply *must* share with you that the "quick guide" (yes, they used those exact words) to the math practice test for CJ was 464 PDF pages long. For reals. (And yes, I looked at it all this morning.)

"What's the long guide?" Christian wondered aloud when I told him about it tonight.

Good question.

SPLASHDOWN: Today promised temps upwards of 80 F, and by 7 a.m., I'd promised the kids we'd make our first trek to Seattle Center's International Fountain for some summer-style fun!

On the way there, we drove on Mercer, a main east-west thoroughfare that's being converted to two-way traffic between I-5 and the waterfront. Part of the project includes re-striping the roads, apparently by department of transportation people who have medicinal marijuana cards ...

This would actually be kind of funny, if I didn't live in Seattle and know just how really, needlessly awful most Seattle Department of Transportation Projects are. But back to the fun. ...

The fountain was glorious as always! Look at celebratory CJ in the photo - he was as excited as I've seen him in MONTHS.

Annabelle was digging it, too, of course.

The kids reveled in the cool shower - and the great soundtrack. The fountain is choreographed to music, and they played everything from Beethoven to The Kingsmen to Jimi Hendrix to Nirvana while we were there.

The only downer was the drone of helicopters overhead. It's May Day, and if you live in Seattle, that means it's time for a few hundred stupid people to take to the streets and try to start a riot.

None of that bothered this seagull, who had great timing. It landed and bathed and drank between fountain outbursts, managing never to get shot off by a powerful water jet.

We were even treated to fountain rainbows before we left. Sweet!

Fun 'n' Games

MONKEY BUSINESS: Most of our day was spent up north. Annabelle had an art class, during which she enjoyed working with watercolors and learning about using negative space in her artwork. The kids both had a Math Detectives class and then they enjoyed science, as always. Today was about building a better electromagnet, which was big fun.

Once Christian got home, we had some family game time. It included a classic Barrel of Monkeys game. I think it's the first time the kids have played it, and it was markedly harder than the monkeys of my youth. These newfangled monkeys' hands are shaped differently, making them hard to hook together. On glorious moment, CJ did manage to string them all together, though.

We also played a fun Scrabble-based card game. We made up our own rules - a hybrid of poker and Scrabble - 5 cards her hand, build the highest scoring hand you can.

I liked it, because the game ended up being as much about math as it was spelling, as the kids had to tote up every word they played, and often triple or double letter or word scores were involved. 

ANOTHER SUCCESS:  Super cool Morpheus had another test flight today. The prototype craft launched and landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center using its recently-installed autonomous landing and hazard avoidance technology (ALHAT) sensors.

http://youtu.be/f_excAMCuuo


I'd love to watch this thing hop around in person!

A VERY BIG DEAL: With great interest, we read a Seattle Times story today about University of Washington researchers who have successfully regenerated heart muscle in damaged monkey hearts. Grafts of programmed human stem cells assembled themselves into muscle fibers, found the heart's beat, and the cells were then nurtured by the monkeys' arteries and veins into functioning heart muscle. AMAZING!  Check out the Times' story here:  http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023493194_heartregenerationxml.html

SPACE RACERS: Thanks to a post on Facebook from The Museum of Flight, today, we learned about a  new animated series coming to Public Television stations i, "Space Racers."  It features anthropomorphicized spacecraft characters having educational adventures. 

Eagle, Hawk and Robin are an "elite space-bound task force known as the Space Racers," per the promo (See a sneak preview here: http://youtu.be/K8e4YxI3p2U). Their adventures take place in Stardust Bay, and are designed to teach exploration, investigation, observation and collaborating as a team. Per promotional materials, experts at NASA evaluate every episode to ensure the accuracy of science and technology lessons. 


"How did you discover this messed up thing?" CJ asked, looking over Annabelle's shoulder as she was playing a game on the Space Racers' Web site. "That is very, very strange," concluded the kid who has always rather detested inanimate objects or non-human creatures being personified. 

Other kids will probably like it better. :) To find out when it's on in your area, go to this Web site: http://www.aptonline.org/catalog.nsf/vLinkTitle/SPACE+RACERS, and click on 'where to watch.'

Or, you can watch a couple of full episodes online already: http://spaceracers.org/en/. The site also has games and printables. 

Springy

RECURRING PATTERNS: I was looking back at the past couple of years' blog posts for this week in search of some archived info, and it was interesting to see how our patterns repeat. 

This is the week each of the past couple of years we've put our vegetable starts in the ground. For 2014, that means dozens of tomato and tomatillo plants. I think we're kind of in trouble if they all live. They looked pretty droopy when we transplanted them today, but we watered them and I'll bet they perk up by tomorrow.

And we stopped by Christian's work today, and found the seasonal fountain was on for the first time in 2014. That is a certain sign that warmer days are coming. (In fact, it's supposed to be 86 here on Thursday!)

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: It's been awhile since we've checked in on Curiosity, roving 'round the Red Planet. It's not too busy to stop for a 'selfie' every once in awhile, though!

Right now, MSL is getting ready to perform its third rock drilling to collect a sample for analysis. It will be drilling into a slab of sandstone with the informal name "Windjana,"

WEEKEND REWIND: We had company and big fun last weekend. On Saturday, we got to watch the kids' cousin play in two soccer games in a tournament at Seattle University's field in Central District. 

Between games we had lunch at uber-popular Von Trapps, and for dinner, we had a party of 12 at Lunchbox Laboratory in South Lake Union. Good times!

Adventuring

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:  So, for as long as we've lived in Seattle, our view to the southeast has been a greenbelt on the southwest part of Queen Anne Hill. I've know that greenbelt is Kinnear Park. 

All that time, I have also known that heavily wooded Kinnear Park had a reputation as being a haven of homeless people, drug addicts and crime. Our neighborhood is so rich with other gorgeous parks and viewpoints, it wasn't that hard to 'work around.' 

However, for whatever reason I decided Today was The Day we'd go there. 

We parked just up from 15th Ave NW, The lot looked sketchy and we immediately wondered if leaving our car was a big mistake. 

Turns out, our years of trepidation were for naught

Almost immediately upon entering the park, we stumbled into an off leash area for the pups. Imagine their delight. Here's what a Havanese in the wild looks like. :)

We continued on, uphill of the offleash area and discovered what has to be *the* best view in Seattle for a tennis/pickleball court.  This picture doesn't do it justice. I should have Photoshopped the garbage can out of the middle. 

We continued following paths up the west side of Queen Anne Hill and eventually found a swingset. CJ was catching some big air. 

Beyond the swingset, we found some bathrooms, the roof of which afforded us the view at the top of today's blog post. In that same general vicinity, we also looked across to home, the Magnolia peninsula. 

Seriously,  I have been meaning to drag the kids to this park for years and for whatever reason, I decided today *had* to be the day. Imagine my surprise as we were walking around, looking at how clean and fresh and new everything looked ... and then we found a sign that said the park just had a rededication ceremony this past weekend. Nice timing!

COSMOS REWIND: As always, we watched "Cosmos" with great interest Sunday night. The show featured several compelling stories, one of which was about the Pleiades a star cluster with a prominent place in ancient mythology. The Pleiades contains hundreds of stars, only a few of which are visible to the unaided eye. Two of the stories about the star cluster's origins involved seven maidens being pursued and finding refuge in the heavens. I asked the kids to each write a story about the origin of the cluster without any fleeing maidens. 

CJ's story ... 

Have you ever looked up and seen the Pleiades, those really bright stars in that blue cluster? Here's my folktale about them:

The Pleiades are some stars that got formed several years before the earth even existed. Every day, every time you run, or walk, or speak, or ragequit from something, you can thank the Pleiades. The reason you can thank the Pleiades there is because the Pleiades are the source of all energy. The reasoning behind this is due to electricity commonly being associated with energy, and blue is a color commonly associated with electricity, and blue is also the color of the Pleiades.

Annabelle's story ...

Once upon a time there was a tribe of 7 people. The people in this tribe were very good at knitting, and they used this to protect themselves from the cold. They knitted warm coats and cool shirts. One fateful day the cold was too powerful, and they could not sew clothes warm enough. So they knit stars that shined bright and gave them warmth. Once the cold was gone, they kept the stars, and you can still see them shining from dawn to dusk in November, and in the evening up until April.

Playing Catch Up

CASE OF THE MONDAYS: We had so much going on this weekend, come Monday night, I never did get around to posting much about Monday.

We took a walk down to the kayak launch beach along the bay, on the south edge of the neighborhood. I love the mixed messages these signs present at the park's entrance.

CJ used the beach to run off some steam.  

In the background, the Josco Changzhou waits for a port. The bulk carrier is under a Hong Kong flag.

The kids had fun flipping over rocks and finding tiny crabs, and CJ was excited to share that he found an anemone clinging to a rock. 

UP AND DOWN: Today, we got our first glimpse at new footage of NASA's Morpheus Project's latest free flight (free flight 10, to be exact).

Morpheus is a prototype planetary lander capable of vertical takeoff and landing. The way the craft moves is stuff straight out of a sci fi movie, except now it's finally reality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5tsetrbpA&feature=share&list=UU_zapJXppyMGs3TjeiF_hEw&index=1


The footage in the video below is from Wednesday, April 2, 2014. On that day, Morpheus ascended to about 804 feet (245m), flew forward and downward, covering a total of about 1334 feet (406.5m) horizontally in 50 seconds. Then Morpheus descended to a landing pad. Its total flight time was about 96 seconds, its longest flight to date. In case you're wondering, Morpheus is propelled by a liquid oxygen (LOX)/liquid methane propulsion system.
IT'S ALIVE: CJ has another classic gaming console in his collection. This time, he's brought a Sega Dreamcast back to life. Believe it or not, Christian actually found the unit at the place we call "Binwill" - it's a Goodwill outlet, where stuff is just piled in carts around the store and sold by the pound.

Slowly, CJ has been getting components together (an AC power source, an AV cord to hook it to the TV, a controller, and so on). Finally, last night he fired it all up for the first time - and it worked!

When it powered back to life, it was definitely showing its age.

Last night, CJ has had big fun playing Dreamcast classics "Crazy Taxi 2" and SoulCalibur. 

PRESSER ONLINE: In keeping with what has become our B612 Foundation theme this week, here's a link to the asteroid hunting group's press conference at the Museum of Flight earlier this week. (This is not the event we went to, we were at a public forum later that evening.)
https://b612foundation.org/newsroom/video-gallery/#/b612-press-conference-at-the-seattle-museum-of-flight 


LEFTOVERS: Here are a few shots from yesterday that I didn't get around to posting until now. Early during the Mariners' matinee yesterday, I notices a WHOLE bunch of Seattle P.D. riding bikes on the rooftop of a nearby building. My guess is that they were training for what has become the annual May Day demonstrations.

And here is a shot from Safeco of our neighborhood, with big Port of Seattle cranes between the ballpark and Magnolia. 

On the righthand side of the frame you can easily spot the huge Louis Dreyfus grain terminal we often walk and drive by.

MATH AND READING: An IKEA purchase today led to a real life math problem for the kids. We bought some LED bulbs, and their packaging promised 25,000 hours of light. On the surface that might sound like forever, but I wanted the kids to figure out exactly how many days and years it really is. Unfortunately for them, they made it MUCH harder on themselves than solving it had to be, but they each eventually got the right answer.

Together, they read a beautiful non-fiction picture book Island: A Story of the Galápagos, written and illustrated by Jason Chin. It's a gorgeous book, compelling facts presented alongside fantastic paintings. At the end of the month, Chin has a new book coming out, Gravity. We'll have to hunt that down!

Asteroids and Dingers

BE A HERO: See this man? He's trying to save the world. Seriously. No superhero costume or comic book series needed. 

Meet physicist Ed Lu. He's a former NASA astronaut, and full time asteroid hunter. 

Last night we had the pleasure of meeting Lu at The Museum of Flight. He's co-founder of the B612 Foundation, a group that (for reals!) is trying to save the earth from killer asteroids. How? By placing an asteroid tracking telescope ("The Sentinel") in space to track asteroids headed our way, in hopes of changing their trajectory before they can take us out. 

I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about it. CJ's up first: 

Sentinel is a space observatory currently being developed by Ball Aerospace and the B612 Foundation. Sentinel's mission is to track around 90% of undiscovered asteroids in the solar system so that we can be more prepared for asteroid crashes. Asteroid crashes tend to happen every 100 years, but that does not mean that it always will happen every 100 years, in fact, there might not even be one for several centuries, or it might happen tomorrow.

The B612 Foundation is named after the asteroid that the Little Prince supposedly lived on, otherwise known as B612. Sentinel is claimed to be accurate to the point where if there was a piece of charcoal 10 million miles away from Sentinel, Sentinel would be able to spot it. Sentinel refers to a sentry or guard.

And here's Annabelle's report:

The B612 foundation is, well, a foundation. But B612 is working to... (drumroll please!) deflect giant asteroids away from Earth! The foundation is named after the asteroid The Little Prince lives on, B612. One thing that B612 foundation wants you to know is that asteroids are NOT RARE! A large asteroid impact happens around ~100 years, but this does NOT mean it WILL happen once every 100 years, there might not even be a asteroid at all, or there could also be two asteroids this week! The Sentinel mission will be on a Venus-like orbit around the sun, ensuring we catch asteroids both in front of Earth and behind, and it will warn us if it spots an asteroid! In fact, Sentinel is SO accurate, that it can spot a piece of charcoal from tens of thousands of miles away! Sentinel and B612 will be key items in our quest to defend the earth!

The asteroid hunting isn't just pie in the sky talk. B612 plans to launch their telescope in 2018. It's being built by the same people who constructed the amazing Kepler telescope, Ball Aerospace. Lu said there are many elements of the scope that are similar to Kepler's, which saves the mission some money. He also credited Elon Musk for offering a "friends and family discount," launching the telescope on a Falcon 9 rocket. Go SpaceX!

At the end of his talk, Lu told the kids in the audience he had a special message for them. "Together, we can do big things," he declared.  

After the presentation, there were absolutely no formal autograph or photos, but the kids didn't hesitate to (politely) ambush him after his talk anyway. 

Lu loved CJ's shirt (it read 'Save the planet, it's the only one with baseball'). He was kind enough to sign something for the kids, too. 

It's a night - and a mission - we won't soon forget.

TO BE: Today marked Shakespeare's 450th birthday. Before I told the kids that, I gave them clues about whose bday it was. When I said "he wore a funny collar," Annabelle immediately yelled, "Shakespeare!"

The kids watched a BrainPOP video about The Bard, took a test, about the video, and then I told them to write a sonnet (14-line poem). 

Bee's sonnet: 
Shakespeare was a poet
a playwright, no doubt about it
romance and tragedy
history and comedy
he had his very own style of art
his audience laughed
cried and more
once Shakespeare opened his playwrighting door
all his plays were fun and inspiring
exciting, lovely, and for his rivals, hindering
he had a great legacy
inspiring trillions
with crowds of millions
did Shakespeare

CJ's sonnet

William Shakespeare was his name
Writing plays which are still performed to date
He did very well at life's game
Proved by the fact that Romeo & Juliet were mates
He was a very intelligent man
Oh, I just love what he wrote
He could always open the can
No matter what happened, he would stay afloat
His funerary monument is in Stratford-Upon-Avon
Hearing of those things made me cry
For all of that news made me think "this is wrong!"
That the three letters Shakespeare had were die
Goodbye, William Shakespeare
For your story has made me shed a tear

GOING YARD: We went to the Mariners matinee today. The team was on an 8-game skid. No big deal, right? ;)

They were looking every bit that bad for most of the game, down 3-0 going into the 7th. In the bottom of 7, the Ms Kyle Seager came to the plate. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a big Seager fan. He plays an OK short, but I get frustrated with his performance (or lack thereof) at the plate (because clearly I could do better, snort). So, Seager is up and he's down two strikes and calls time out and steps out of the box and I say to Christian, "He's trying to decide whether he wants to go down swinging or be caught looking."

Turns out my statement was MAGIC! Seager immediately steps back into the box and hits a 2-run home run. SWEET! I take back everything I ever said about him. :)

Until the bottom of 9. By that time, we'd made our way from our third-level, last row seats and were standing behind home plate. Robinson Cano (named after Jackie Robinson, BTW) was first up. 

He got on base. Sweet!

Then Corey Hart got on, and lo and behold, after Justin Smoak disappeared back to the dugout, it was Kyle Seager's turn at the plate. In the best interest of the team, I turned to Christian and said, "I just want to take this moment to say Kyle Seager sucks and he's going to strike out."

And of course that statement propelled him to hit his 3-run, walk off home run. Mariners win!!!!

I just started snapping shots. 

"Sarcasm works!" Annabelle observed, gleefully. 

Big fun. Go Mariners!