PI DAY: Saturday we had fun observing Pi Day, celebrated on 3/14 annually, since pi = 3.14 and a whole lot more. We were up pies, er, cookies, just a little after 8 a.m. I made a sturdy base, we whipped up some apple filling, and Annabelle helped me weave the 'pie dough' atop and pinch the perimeters together. In the oven they went. ...
Fortunately, they looked great when they came out.
And they were done just in time to eat them at 9:26 and 53 seconds (pi to the first 9 decimal points is 3.141592653!).
For dinner, the kids helped make pizza 'pi'. We let the olives do the 'talking,' so to speak.
It was delicious!
SEEING GREEN: Today is/was St. Patrick's Day. We celebrated with some chocolate mint shamrock cookies and corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Very predictable. But the green I am focused on at the moment has nothing to do with the holiday. I've been reading here and there today about a massive solar flare/storm, and that always makes me think "Northern Lights!!!" I thought to Google for a northern lights alert Web site today, and discovered the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration actually has a three-day forecast on their Web site for Northern lights potential viewing. Check it out here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/node/114 It's cloudy right now, but we'll certainly be looking toward the north come nightfall. Fingers crossed we somehow get lucky and see them. It's on my bucket list. In other green news, we got the garden going in a big way today, planting dozens of tomatillo, tomato, zucchini and cilantro seeds.
MADE IN JAPAN: This weekend, G&G delivered a huge pack of fun treats from Japan, courtesy of Renee and Jim, who traveled there recently. There was dried squid (which CJ actually really likes), slippers, origami paper, and multiple edible treats, including this adorable hard candy that looks like sushi!
And there were some tiny toys, too, including a challenging Nanoblocks set that Annabelle managed to make into a trio of meerkat, despite not being able to read the Japanese directions.
Speaking of imports, the kids received a nifty 3D writing pen from brother Rick for Christmas, but the plug on it was definitely not of the use-in-the-U.S. variety. We ordered an adapter via Amazon months ago. It was finally delivered a couple days ago, and this weekend, the kids gave the 3D writer a go. It won't surprise you to know Annabelle's first 'build' was a pony.
It was actually a bit tricky getting the hang of the tool, but once she figured it out, Annabelle had lots of fun with it.
THANKFUL: We knocked a number of things off the to do list today. One important one was sending a thank you to Yale University Professor Craig Wright, who led our recently-finished Introduction to Classical Music class. Annabelle whipped up some artwork for a card, and the kids each enclosed a thank you note. We also sent him a "dashboard genius" Beethoven, which we scored at Archie McPhee a couple of days ago.
The kids wanted to include some local Seattle Chocolates, too. Imagine our delight when we actually found a "Thanksolate" bar by them!
Perfect!
The kids had their movie making class this afternoon. They took lines they'd written for their characters and shared them with their fellow actors/directors. Meanwhile, I walked 12 laps on the track next door to the school and listened to the Mariners' spring training game. Fun for all.
Tomorrow is the Pi Day of the century and we have big plans! Look for photos and words on Monday! Here's a Pi Day flashback to 2014.
UNDER CHUTE: I just had to share this amazing photo from NASA photographer Bill Ingalls of Expedition 42 falling back down to Earth yesterday. Instantly one of my favorite landing photos ever.
And here is another Ingalls' gem from the same event. Imagine being in that capsule!
This evening, we watched a launch. No humans on board, just four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth’s magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence. Called, the MMS, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar Terrestrial Probes mission comprising our solar system. It will take readings in Earth’s magnetosphere, tracking changes in our geospace environment and monitoring space weather. We did lots of stuff today, like doing a couple miles round the Queen Anne Bowl track, playing chess and Oz Fluxx, art and social studies classes, math and more, but I don't have photos to prove any of it. ;)
SILLY STUFF: While out running errands today, we stopped at one of our favorite stores, Archie McPhee. It's chock full o' stuff you don't know you need until you see it. You know, things like bacon flavored dental floss, Jane Austen toothpaste and an Existential coloring book.
We walked out with a unicorn rubber duckie and a bobblehead Beethoven (the latter to send as a thank you token to the professor of our classical music course).
SPICY SPROUTS: Last year, CJ went on a data mining binge eager to learn all about the world's hottest pepper plants. That research led to him being very interested in growing a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper plant. Encouraging his interest, we ordered a plant starter kit online for about $20. Here's an archival photo ...
We managed to get a couple of plants from that kit, which we started on our kitchen counter. The plants eventually made their way up to our garden. Come October, we were all thrilled when we found they'd produced a couple of small peppers.
We used those peppers in some tomatillo salsa, but we also harvested seed from them. A couple of weeks ago, we planted those seeds in some potting soil and crossed our fingers.
Well, guess what?
We have some baby plants! Hooray! No $20 starter kit needed - w00t!
FIRED UP: Lots of NASA news today. First thing this morning, test firing of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The two-minute test was one of two that will qualify the booster for flight before SLS begins carrying NASA’s Orion spacecraft to deep space destinations.
Some pretty dramatic photos of the test started popping up on my Facebook feed, as a couple of my friends are photographers who were on site. NASA had some of their own photos, too, of course. Like this one. ...
Per NASA, what you see above is the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built successfully. The test was conducted at Promontory, Utah. You can watch two minutes of rocket fire via this great YouTube video from NASA's Marshall Center. https://youtu.be/Qn6OvHofcoo
Midday, CJ got excited when I shared with him a story about NASA's Cassini space probe finding evidence of the first active hot-water chemistry going on somewhere other than Earth. Specifically, there are clear signs of interesting hydrothermal activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus.
It's speculated that the activity seen on Enceladus mimics deep oceans here on Earth. According to NASA's press release on the topic, "The implications of such activity on a world other than our planet open up unprecedented scientific possibilities."
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For whatever reason, for the past couple of weeks, CJ has been obsessing about environments on moons in our solar system, so this news was very welcome. Gravity science results published in 2014 points to the presence of a 6-mile- (10-kilometer-) deep ocean beneath an ice shell about 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) thick.
According to John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, "These findings add to the possibility that Enceladus, which contains a subsurface ocean and displays remarkable geologic activity, could contain environments suitable for living organisms. ... The locations in our solar system where extreme environments occur in which life might exist may bring us closer to answering the question: are we alone in the universe."
Here's a great NASA graphic explaining more about what's going on on Enceladus.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
This illustration depicts potential origins of methane found in the plume of gas and ice that spray from Enceladus. Scientists believe the plumes originate from an internal liquid-water ocean beneath the moon's south polar region.
This afternoon, we watched a Soyuz capsule carrying two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut undock from the ISS, and a little after dinnertime, the trio was landing on frozen ground in Kazakhstan.
Barry Wilmore via NASA TV
It was good to see Expedition 42 crew members Barry Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova land, as during descent, communication with the capsule was lost for a long, looooong time.
BOWLING: This morning, CJ had a social studies class and Annabelle had art. His started a half hour before hers, so she and I killed 30 minutes on the track at the Queen Anne Bowl.
Annabelle and I found out that we can walk a quarter mile in four minutes at a leisurely pace. Then she decided to see how quickly a lap would go if she was running.
Can you spot her in the photo below?
Here, I've pointed her out with black arrow (which doesn't show up well, either, sorry!)
Annabelle learned she can run a lap in two minutes, exactly. In pink cowboy boots. :)
COMICAL: Discovered today: "A super-quick, super-painless guide to the theory that conquered the universe." It's an online comic book about the theory of general relativity. Neat-o!
The way to progress through the 'pages' can be a little tricky (scrolling down with your mouse or down key), but overall, super cool site!
STRINGY: We checked out a couple of lectures in our C# programming course this afternoon. Much of the talk was about strings, and how they're used when writing a program. We also got our grades back from our first week's assignment. The kids and I each got perfect marks. Hopefully, we can keep it up. It's only going to get harder and harder as the weeks progress.
PI TIME: The "Pi Day" of the century is almost upon us - 3.1415! Once again, the folks at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come up with some activities to celebrate the math-minded day.
GAMEY: Last night we played a few tabletop games, including the always-engaging Chrononauts.
As much as I enjoy the detail and strategy involved in the game, I don't think I'll ever quite get over having to sometimes root, in effect, for someone to be assassinated in order to get the win. though.
EARLY BLOOMERS: Behold, a Edgeworthia chysantha or Chinese paper bark, a native of China and Nepal was putting on a show for us in the garden on the north side of the locks in Ballard. Gorgeous. We went for a good long walk Sunday, parking on the south side of the estuary between Lake Union and Puget Sound. From there, we walked the path past the stand of trees famous for harboring blue heron nests. Because we're locals, we knew to look up. ...
Lots of action going on overhead. We could see several single herons and pairs sharing a nest. Tourists followed our lead and trained their cameras overhead, too. ;)
We fought out way through the crowds and checked out the gardens on the north side of the locks. Meanwhile, back at the MPA ranch, we're still waiting on the kids' daffodils. They planted the bulbs last November, and we've been excitedly watching their progress these last few weeks. Most of the other daffodils in the 'hood have bloomed already. We're wondering if these two are taking longer because they're newbies.
IN REVIEW: Annabelle just finished reading a book called "Cold Cereal." Here's a short synopsis from her...
Cold Cereal is a book series written by Adam Rex about a young boy named Scottish Play Doe (his real name is Macbeth, but it's bad luck to say that). Scott thinks he sees things, but realizes he doesn't when one of his 'hallucinations' tries to steal his backpack! It turns out that the elf-man stealing his backpack was a leprechaun, one of the mythical creatures known as the Fay, which can only be seen by certain people. The Fay are being captured by the local GoodCo™ brand cereal to drain their magic, and now it's up to Scott to save them! The book is not only centered around Scott, though. It also features Erno and his sister Emily, who isn't exactly normal either. The book has good humor and great story line. The characters are realistic and everything just seems to click together. I would definitely recommend the Cold Cereal book(s).
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES: The European Space Agency has released a second cartoon about their Rosetta spacecraft and its amazing little comet landing probe, Philae. The first cartoon was absolutely charming and the second one continued in that tradition. It's definitely worth a look!
GET WITH THE PROGRAM: We are in week 2 of the newest Coursera class we started, "Beginning Game Programming with C#." We're slowly but surely. I feel like I'm in over my head already, but the kids seem less daunted. Our assignment this week was to create and load three 'sprites' in a program and write code so that the sprite images would be randomly generated to the middle of the screen and then move about the screen. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And frankly, it looks simple when you see a screen capture video of what I created. ...
But it's actually rather complicated. And we're nowhere near creating anything like a real game yet. ... :0
CERES-LY: Big news from NASA today. Launched seven and a half years ago and traveling 3.1 billion miles using an ion propulsion system, Dawn is now orbiting a dwarf planet - a spaceflight first!
The photo above was taken on March 1, when Dawn was closing in on Ceres. (It's about 30,000 miles/48,000 kilometers away in the photo.) Dawn was captured by Ceres' gravity at about 4:39 a.m. PST today.
We're looking forward to learning more about the dwarf, including what the heck those bright spots are that Dawn spotted on it back in February. You think it's E.T.s signaling us with mirrors?! ;)
The bright spots are "truly unexpected and still a mystery to us," Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, said in a NASA press release.
QUICK TRIP: I didn't post last night because we were in the midst of a whirlwind road trip. Thursday, when the kids got out of class at noon, we hit I-5 southbound to Vancouver. There, we met up with some family (hi Nonnie and Bops!) for a nice evening of food, fun and games. This morning, we were back on the freeway at 9 a.m. in order to be back to Seattle by noon, to get Christian to work and the kids to their film making class.
I (rather stupidly) didn't take a single photo (!) during our trip, gosh darn it. We did, however, manage to use the time in the car to finish week 8 of our "Introduction to Classical Music" class. The lectures covered minimalism, modernism, and post modern classical music (think Philip Glass). We took all of our quizzes and have now officially finished that class. What a wonderful, worthwhile endeavor that was. I know we'll all miss it, and predict we listen to lots more classical music than we did before we took the course.
