Follow Up

DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?: Yesterday afternoon the kids and I spent a couple of hours with a couple of dozen very enthusiast third graders at a local school. We went to the classroom to allow the kids an opportunity to create some edible art, in the form of melted snowman cookies. 

In order to get ready, we made 30 hand-cut cookies, 30 Rice Krispies heads, a bunch of gum paste carrot noses, and 15 pounds of marshmallow fondant. We rounded up sugary ribbons and all sorts of  colorful candies, plus pretzels and parchment paper.

While the kids were at lunch, CJ, Annabelle and I set up the room. We covered each student's desk with parchment paper, and put cookies, fondant, and edible decorations on it.

 At the front of the room, there was a 'buffet' of sorts, with other items for them to choose from.

We spent about 2 hours at the school, in all. It was a little bit of chaos and a lot of fun. The kids' snowpeople were all so different. The one below is holding Earth. 

The snowies at the top of the post were made today by CJ and Annabelle, with the leftovers from yesterday's festivities. Before we left the classroom yesterday, we also put together a cookie kit for the teacher to take home to her own daughter. 

ANOMALY: First thing this morning (which was actually pretty early, because I took Christian to the train at about 5:45), I checked news about the Boeing crew capsule test flight from the Florida Coast.

I was super happy to read that the liftoff seemed to go perfectly, and read that the capsule was inserted into orbit. Yay!

A couple of hours later, the news became less encouraging. It seems there was an anomaly - a rather significant one at that - and that the crew capsule would *not* be making its way to the International Space Station, as was the plan.

Unfortunately, crew capsule Starliner wound up having some technical difficulties shortly after liftoff. As a result, it was inserted into an orbit that's incompatible with an ISS rendezvous. Intial reports point to Starliner's onboard timing system as the point of failure. Apparently the craft's software seemed to think it was conducting an orbit-insertion burn when it actually was not. What happened next was the capsule performed a series of unnecessary orientation-maintaining firings of its small reaction-control thrusters. These maneuvers used up a bunch of propellant, and which means no space station trip for it. 

Darn it.

The kids and I watched part of a rather morose press NASA conference after the news broke. The bottom line is, right now it's too early to tell how big of a setback this is going to be for Boeing, NASA and the United States' return to manned space flight. 

Early reports suggest that if it had been a manned mission, that astronauts on board could likely have corrected the misfirings before they became a mission-breaker.  Also, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during today's news conference that handlers tried to troubleshoot the issue in real time, but in a slightly different patch of sky, .

NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Bettina Inclán, NASA astronauts Michael Fincke and Nicole Mann, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, United Launch Alliance President and CEO Tory Bruno, Boeing Space and Launch Division Senior Vice President Jim Chilton, NASA Commercial Crew Program Deputy Manager Steve Stich, and NASA ISS Program Manager Kirk Shireman, participate in a press conference following the launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

"By the time we were able to get signals up to actually command it to do the orbital insertion burn, it was a bit too late," he said. "And the reason it was too late is because it appears — and remember, all of this is very early and preliminary, and we're learning things moment by moment — but it appears as though we were between TDRS communication satellites, which meant we couldn't get the command signal to tell the spacecraft that it needed to do the orbital insertion burn soon enough."

The new OFT mission profile has been worked out in a broad sense, however. Starliner won't dock with the ISS now after all, and the mission will be significantly shorter than its originally planned eight days. The spacecraft team now aims to bring the capsule down on Sunday morning (Dec. 22) at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico (which was also the primary target site for the originally envisioned OFT).

Later, after the press conference, Bridestein issued a formal statement. You can read it here:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-statement-on-boeing-orbital-flight-test

The news conference can be viewed here: https://go.nasa.gov/2Z6GbeG

SKYWALKER SAGA: Last night was the first opportunity to see the newest episode in the "Star Wars saga, "The Rise of Skywalker."

It was dumping buckets last night, so there wasn't going to be much outdoor posing going on. I got one misty shot of the kids under the marquee, across the street from me. 

We got to the theater about a half hour before show time. That gave us an opportunity to watch the cosplayers do their thing, and check out some Star Wars costumes on display. 

The late Paul Allen owned Cinerama, and Allen owns all sorts of cool sci-fi artifacts, including the original robe Alec Guiness wore in the first Star Wars movie.

Luke's flight suit from the first two episodes was also on display. Neat-o

I'm not going to say anything about the movie itself (no spoilers!!!), other than the fact that there were cheers and tears throughout the theater. I can't wait to see it again.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: So, yesterday I posted about us leaving a little 'comfort station'/treat box on the porch for delivery drivers.

While we were gone to Star Wars, we had two deliveries. At least one of the delivery people helped themselves to some snacks, which is great. What is less great is that BOTH delivery drivers left the boxes out in the pouring rain - they didn't put it in a plastic bag or in the enormous empty plastic tub I'd left out for packages. The boxes were both completely saturated when we got home. Which is a really not good thing if, say, one or both of them contained electronics. 

I really couldn't believe it. 

Sigh. I guess the saying is true: No good deed goes unpunished. 

Big Test on Tap

   Photo: NASA
ONE TO WATCH: Friday morning, in the wee hours West Coast time, there will be an important launch at the Space Coast. 

It's Boeing's test flight of their manned spaceflight capsule, the CST-100 Starliner. 

In the photo above, you can see it atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

It's scheduled to lift off at 6:36 a.m. EST, Friday, Dec. 20. Data from this test fight will be used as part of NASA’s process of certifying the crew transportation system for taking astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

This is a demonstration exercise, so no human life forms on board. However, there will be one mannekin: Rosie the Astronaut.

Photo: Boeing

An Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD) (sounds so much better than a 'flight test dummy'), Rosie features a multitude of sensors that will track critical data points during the flight, including the G-forces that the ATD experiences.

Coverage of the launch can be found on NASA TV beginning at 5:30 a.m. East Coast time on Friday.

You can read more about the Boeing commercial crew program here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/category/boeing/

DEVILED EGGS, WE MADE: Christian's office holiday party is today, so last night Annabelle and I made a little something for him to take.

We have had enough sugar work to last awhile, so we decided to go savory. Deviled eggs are usually a hit, so we made some of those - with a little twist.

Today is the premier of the newest "Star Wars" movie (we'll be there!), so we decided to embrace that theme. As I posted here a couple of days ago, we saw some "Baby Yoda" deviled eggs a clever person posted online, and so we tried our hand at those. 

HELP YOURSELF: Today we finally got around to putting out a little thank you on the front porch. 

I've seen others post about a little thank you station at  their place. Ours isn't very picturesque - it's a beat up old cooler - but it's supposed to rain like hell here today, and we don't have a covered porch. Also, we *do* have squirrels, crows, bunnies, cats and the occasional rat (ewwwwwww). 

You can't tell by this crappy photo, but the cooler has five different kinds of drinks, various trail mixes and power bars, some beef sticks, candy ... that sort of thing. We'll see if it gets any action today.

Memes and More

SHARING IS CARING: Today while driving around, for whatever reason it occurred to me that a lot of info the kids and I share never makes it to these pages. And often that info takes the form of us sending one another memes and messages and videos via text or Facebook messenger. 

Often the tidbits are interesting factoids (see above), and recipes. For instance, I recently saw this online. ... "Need Baby Yoda at your holiday gathering?"

Why yes, yes we do. ...

Well then, "Try my Baby Yoda deviled eggs recipe!" wrote someone named Cressie Teague Lewis, and somehow that someone made it into my Facebook feed like four times in one day. (Turns out many of my friends are also Star Wars fans.)  Following is Cressie's photo, and recipe. 

Ingredients:
* 10 hard boiled eggs
* 1/4 cup of Duke’s Mayo (may need more for smoother consistency)
* 2 tsp of Honey Mustard
* Salt/Pepper/Garlic Powder or your favorite seasoning
* Peppercorns for the eyes
* 2-3 celery stalks for ears
* 6 drops of green gel food coloring or more to reach your deserved shade of green.

Instructions:
1. Boil eggs for 15 minutes. Drain eggs and immediately place in a bowl of ice water and peel OR place eggs in InstaPot and use the 5-5-5 method: Put 1 cup of water in the bottom of the InstaPot and use the included metal rack to hold the eggs. Cook on Manual Pressure for 5 minutes, then natural Release for 5 minutes followed by 5 minutes in ice water. Peel eggs.
2. Cut eggs in half and take out the yolks. Cut a few of the whites in quarters for the top of the Yoda carriage. Set aside.
3. Add the mayo, mustard, salt & pepper, green food coloring to the yolks.
4. Mix well or use a hand held mixer to achieve a smooth consistency.
5. Place yolk mixture in a piping bag or ziplock bag and cut a hole in the corner.
6. Pipe a little into the pockets of the egg white halves. Pipe closer to the edge verses the middle. Add a small amount of to back edge of egg to hold the top of the carriage.
7. Add two tiny peppercorns as eyes and cut pieces of celery for the ears. Triangle shapes work great.
8. Cover and refrigerate before serving.
9. Protect Baby Yoda from hungry mouths!

Recipe and photo credit: Cressie Teague Lewis 

A lot of what the kids and I share are 'life hack' videos. For instance, a friend recently sent me this video about alternative ways to wrap presents, and I forwarded it on to Annabelle, who tends to love videos like this. 


In fact, just a couple of days before, Annabelle sent me a video from Blossom, which bills itself as "your cheat sheet for creative and unique DIY projects, mixed with daily life fixes that keep you and your family in mind." 

I think Blossom is my new favorite 'life hack' resource. Look at these clever gift ideas! (I really love the tea bag tree - so cute!)


GETTING AHEAD:  This Thursday, the kids and I will head down to Kent Elementary School for what has become a holiday tradition since Rick started teaching there. We'll be making melted snowman cookies with a class of third graders. 

While Rick has moved on from that school (all the way on to Vegas, in fact), the kids and I still visit the school once a year to spread some holiday cheer with kids who might not otherwise get to do something like that. We bring *everything* along that they'll need for the project. Our first step is making the cookies and snowman heads. While I made dough and hand cut cookies, CJ and Annabelle rolled Rice Krispies heads, 30 in all.

That work out of the way, now we have about 12 pounds of fondant to make. That's going to be a workout, and a mess. 

Show Time

The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop), all lit up for a party on Friday night, when I dropped the kids off at Seattle Center.

PLAYING AROUND: Friday night, the kids attended a play that Annabelle had a keen interest in seeing. It started at 7:30, in a theater in the basement of the Seattle Armory building at Seattle Center. (That would be the bottom of the building illuminated in the background of this photo.

I dropped the kids off about 7, and after the show, in what was a first for the family, they made their own way (almost) home. They hopped the Monorail and rode it to Westlake Center, and then they got on the lightrail and rode it to the Rainier Beach station, just a couple miles from our house, where we picked them up.  It was definitely nice not having to drive into town twice to take and retrieve them. But enough about the logistics. I'll have CJ tell you a bit about the performance. ...

Since its original publication in 1986, the British fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle has been read by thousands of people worldwide, and was notably the basis for the 2004 anime film of the same name. The basic plot of Howl's Moving Castle follows Sophie, a young woman who is turned into an ninety-year-old woman during her attempt to escape a dull life working at a hat shop. Sophie reaches an agreement with a fire-demon to return her back to her youthful self, but only if she can break a pact between the fire demon and the titular Howl - a powerful and notorious wizard.

In late November and most of December 2019, the Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle presented a musical adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. Each performance lasted two and a half hours, with a fifteen-minute intermission. My sister and I saw a performance of Howl's Moving Castle on December 13th.

The month-long production at the Book-It Repertory Theatre serves as a test run for a potential future production of the musical. The program notes that "Howl's Moving Castle" is a new musical in development. Song titles are subject to change," printed on the list of musical numbers. According to my sister, the musical closely followed the plot of the book. Since I haven't read the book, I have to take her word for it. In my opinion, the musical had significant issues with pacing (such as spending nearly five minutes on one gag that has no relevance to the plot), odd dialogue and songwriting, and a general lack of energy from the performers. My sister told me that reading the book probably made it easier to follow the plot beats, which is why she seemed to have an easier time understanding the plot and characters than I did. In my opinion, the musical is definitely not ready for prime-time.

In conclusion, I think that the production of Howl's Moving Castle definitely has some compelling ideas and ambition, but the production at the Book-It Repertory Threatre should probably undergo significant re-writes (and possibly some re-casting, given the lack of energy) before increasing in scale.

And now, Annabelle's perspective. ...

On December 13th, I went with my brother to see the Book-It Theater's musical production of the book Howl's Moving Castle. The theater was quite small, only holding a couple hundred people at maximum, and it was mostly full during the show. The show itself had surprisingly few set changes, but that was somewhat necessary with the small cast & large amount of content they had to fit into the span of 2 1/2 hours. The actors all seemed to be having great fun in their roles, and I was especially a fan of how the actor playing the fire demon Calcifer portrayed his character. There were many costume changes by all but the main cast due to the amount of locations and characters present in the source material. 

As someone who has read the book, I had no trouble at all following the plot, but my brother (who has not read it) seemed to have a bit of trouble. While I do believe there were some scenes and moments that didn't need to be made into songs, the fact remains that the play was a musical and thus had many of them. For a production that's still in the works, I found it very enjoyable in many ways, but my major criticism would be that actors need to work more on enunciating important names and places instead of focusing all their energy on the melody of the song.

Annabelle got her program autographed after the show. Looks like a sizable cast. ...

COLLABORATION: I wanted to make a holiday card to send to a friend down in California. I know the family likes Star Wars, so I immediately struck upon the idea of making a "Baby Yoda" card. In case you haven't heard, a young version of what looks like Yoda appears in the new series "Mandalorian," and he's taking the Internet by storm.

Annabelle and I collaborated on the card. I did the easy part - sketching young Yoda in pencil. Annabelle did the heavy lifting - inking the design and then coloring and shading it. 

I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

We still need to color the background, but you get the picture. 

JUMPY: I haven't mentioned it in awhile, but the kids and I continue to hit the gym two to three times a week. As you can see, it's plenty of fun. 

Science Friday

JUMPING JUPITER: Today we didn't make or bake anything. We did deck some halls, but more on that later. 

I made it a point to try to be more science forward today. To that end, can we share this really gorgeous photo of Jupiter (above)? 

If you look in the lower, right hand corner of the infrared image, you'll see a new, (relatively) small cyclone that has recently formed. 

The photo's from Jupiter's south pole. It was taken on Nov. 4, 2019, when spacecraft Juno was making its 23rd science pass of the largest planet in our solar system. (More information about the Juno mission is here: http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

The first think, or person, I thought of when I saw this image was Vincent Van Gogh. The swirls remind me of his "Starry Night." 

REPORTING IN: I had a meeting away from 'campus' today for a couple of hours, so I left CJ and Annabelle an assignment to complete. I asked them to pick up any one of a number of "Science News" magazines we have (thank you Gpa R), and pick any article that struck their fancy and write a short summary about it. 

Here's what Annabelle shared. ... 

The Science News article “Brain Waves Duel During Slumber” discusses a study performed by researchers at the University of California on how certain brain functions play a part in whether we remember or forget something during sleep. The scientists mostly looked at movement in the motor cortex during non-REM sleep in mice that had undergone training to move a waterspout on the previous day. They noticed that when “slow oscillation” brain waves were stopped before hitting out the area in charge of remembering how to move the spout, the mice had a harder time re-learning how to do it the next day. This seems to show that these slow oscillation waves help promote remembering information. On the other side of the coin, “Delta waves” were three to four times more common than the slow oscillation waves, and when they were prevented the mice retained the information better, meaning these Delta waves most likely promote forgetting. It’s still unknown how the brain chooses which things to remember and which to forget, but more research will me done to understand how we can use the knowledge of these brain waves to potentially help people in rehab and recovery after an event like a stroke.

Hmm. Interesting. I'd like to read the whole article. 

CJ chose to write about a long-range NASA mission.

In 2012, Voyager 1, a man-made space probe launched back in the 1970s, crossed the outer border of the solar system, thus becoming the first man-made object to do so. Six years later, Voyager 2 did the same, this time equipped with a sensor that measures the qualities of surrounding plasma in space. Voyager 2 nearing the border outside of the solar system allowed NASA scientists to closely study the composition of the outer solar system. An article from Science News described the first reports of the outer solar system from Voyager 2: "Somehow, contrary to expectations, the sun’s magnetic field lines up nearly perfectly with the local galactic field." NASA scientists will likely make more detailed findings from the Voyager 2 reports in the near future.

Well, well, well, isn't that interesting. I'm also intrigued - I didn't know that Voyager 2 had a sensor that Voyager 1 did not. I'd definitely like to learn more.

SILVER BOUGHS: I feel we're a little late to the holiday decorating game this year. We did manage to get our vintage aluminum Christmas tree up yesterday. I kind of like its juxtaposition against the forest in the background.

Making and Baking

KITTY CAKE:  We were due to make another donation cake for Birthday Dreams, so a few days ago, we checked out their website to see what requests were out there. The kids spied one for a 16 year old girl who loves art and cats. 

We bandied about a few ideas, and almost immediately struck upon the idea of having an artist cat atop the cake. He would be wearing a beret, of course, and painting a self portrait. 

Annabelle sculpted the cat out of modeling chocolate. I made the easel out of gingerbread first (a fail - too clunky), and then decided on black modeling chocolate. MUCH better. Annabelle painted the cat's canvas, and placed a paintbrush in his hand. Cake topper done (at a little after midnight on the day the cake was due).

The cake itself had two tiers. The bottom tier, which CJ baked and filled, was chocolate brownie with mini chocolate chip filling. It was iced in vanilla buttercream and Annabelle air brushed it with blue, the birthday girl's favorite color. 

The top tier, shaped to look like a paint can, was actually a giant Rice Krispies treat, covered in buttercream and then wrapped in marshmallow fondant. 

The bottom tier featured some 'fine art' cat portraits. Meowna Lisa, The Cat with the Pearl Earring and American Gothic, feline style. Annabelle hand painted each of those, food coloring on fondant.

 Here's a photo of the finished project. We hope the birthday girl liked it. 

DOOR DECORATION: On Tuesday afternoon, we stopped by the kids' former learning center on Queen Anne to do a little decorating. 

The school was having a door decorating contest with a wintry theme. We ran a few ideas by the office staff, and settled on some cutesy birds and an education theme.

The focal point was a bluebird atop a signpost.

The signs are foam board covered in woodgrain Contact paper. Annabelle cut the letters and the snowflakes with her Cricut machine.  

The other side of the door featured a birdie conducting a science experiment.

We added a couple extra touches to a window adjacent to the door. (Apologies - I'm not sure why the photo is blurry.)

JUST SO YOU KNOW: We haven't complete forgone things like, oh, math and science. In fact, a couple of days this week, our soundtrack while making and baking was NASA TV. It's really great background 'music.' We heard updates about the International Space Station, ongoing interplanetary missions, fighting forest fires on Earth with NASA technology and more. So thanks for that, NASA.

Friday Flashback

CATCHING UP: How busy have we been this past week? I'm still trying to catch up with last Friday. That's the day we left home at 9 a.m. and the kids got home at midnight. Lots to recap!

Our first order of business that day was an art session at Seattle Center.

Annabelle can tell you more about the art workshop. ...  

The “Write Out of This World” Comics workshop at MoPOP Was a 3-week experience where home-schooled students could learn from experienced illustrator and D&D player Jen Vaughn. She taught us about panel layouts, character design, dialogue, and much more within the span of just 13 and a half total class hours.

Most of our class was spent drawing in a small hidden room on the first floor of the museum, with a visit to one of the many permanent exhibits after our 30-minute lunch break. We spent a lot of time during class studying how other comics and graphic novels structure their stories and art, and took inspiration from those to develop our own stories and characters. Overall, the workshop is somewhat hard to write about because most of what we learned must be put in context or with images for it to make any sort of sense.

That being said, I think I learned quite a bit about the comic-making process and how to apply those ideas to my own art and writing.

One of the things we learned about on the last day of class was "hatching" or "cross-hatching." It's a technique often used in comic books to fill in areas.   

CJ wasn't in the class, but he came to Seattle Center with us. Between 10 a.m. and noon, he visited exhibits in MoPop, and then we three met in the Seattle Center Armory for a Subway lunch. While there, we checked out the model railroad exhibit that is a holiday fixture.   

In the afternoon, CJ went to a movie at Pacific Science Center (more on that later). Annabelle and I continued our art class, which involved visiting the Indie Game Revolution in MoPop. 

We were there to check out games' art styles and story lines.

Our class let out at 2:30, at which point Annabelle, CJ and I emplored MoPop for a bit. 

I had to visit Jimi.  

I popped into the Hendrix exhibit and, for whatever reason, it immediately made me feel melancholy. I snapped this photo of the guitar he played at Woodstock and headed out quickly. 

We three checked out the Pearl Jam Home Show exhibit. We were fortunate to see the band last summer when they played at T-Mobile (formerly Safeco) Field.  

There's also a Prince display at the museum right now. Below is the blouse he wore in "Purple Rain." 

 CJ wouldn't fit into Prince's tiny shirt, but the replica Purple Rain motorcycle fit pretty well. 

About 3:30, I walked the kids to the monorail platform. They rode the train to Westlake Center, and then walked to the Fifth Avenue Theatre.  

CJ can tell you more about what they were doing there. ...  

The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle occasionally hosts "Fridays at the 5th," a youth program where students between the ages of 14 and 18 are given "the opportunity to create the characters, sing the songs, learn the choreography, and meet with the cast and crew for the productions on our stage," according to the 5th Avenue Theatre's website. On December 6th, 2019, the 5th Avenue Theatre hosted a Fridays at the 5th event for that night's production of Mrs. Doubtfire, a musical based on the 1993 Robin Williams film of the same name.

The main focus of the Fridays at the 5th event was the students learning how to quickly switch between character roles and voices - an important function in the play. The auditorium in which the event was held was packed, apparently to capacity. One of the activities we did was singing classic Christmas carols such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman," except that we had to change position and voice with each line. This activity grew tiring very quickly. We then repeated this activity, except with wearing gag props such as fake glasses or clown noses with each line. Right before we had dinner in the auditorium, there was a brief Q&A with the scriptwriters.

After the provided dinner, we got tickets to see that night's production of Mrs. Doubtfire. The basic premise of the musical is identical to the of the film: A divorced man poses as an elderly Scottish nanny in order to spend more time with his children. Rob McClure, the actor who played main character Daniel Hillard/"Mrs. Doubtfire," obviously had to meet a tall order in living up to Robin Williams' performance in the 1993 film. While I can't make a fair judgment on whether or not McClure lived up to Williams' performance, he certainly did a good job quickly shifting between voices.

One of the central elements of the musical was actor Rob McClure frequently shifting between the characters of Daniel Hillard and "Mrs. Doubtfire." Two other actors had to help him dress and undress during these sequences. In a brief Q&A session after the play, Rob told us that he eventually was able to shift in just 18 seconds.

Overall, going to Fridays at the 5th and seeing the play was a fun experience, and I look forward to the next Fridays at the 5th.

All in all a very busy, fun-packed Friday!