excitement abounds !

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to roller skate.  I  loved the whole experience - the shag carpeted walls, the Donna Summer tunes, the video games and the rotten concession stand food.  Everyone had their birthday parties there - our class would go at the end of the year to celebrate - weekends spent there with friends.  All good memories.  So when I heard our local, previously defunct roller rink was coming back to life, I was ECSTATIC.  They open tonight, with adult skates on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  Guess what I'll be doing weekly ??

A video from their soft opening last night:

Happy Birthday Mom !

Victoria, BC

it's almost that season . . .

The Mariner's home opener is only two weeks away.  Although I don't think they are as good as previous years, here's a sample of their new 2011 commercials:

balls . . .

Instead of the ever present (and a bit strange, in my opinion) cake balls, I made brownie balls.  For St. Patrick's Day.   I've also seen them referred to as brownie (and cake) pops, but it's just more fun to say balls.  I made Dan take them to work because I couldn't resist eating them.   

What is Daylight Saving Time?

Daylight Saving Time (or summertime as it is called in many countries) is a way of getting more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. During Daylight Saving Time, the sun appears to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are usually asleep anyway, and sets one hour later in the evening, seeming to stretch the day longer.

Why Observe DST?

Many countries observe DST, and many do not. The reason many countries implement DST is in hopes to make better use of the daylight in the evenings, as well as some believe that it could be linked to reducing the amount of road accidents and injuries. The extra hour of daylight in the evening is said to give children more social time with friends and family and can even boost the tourism industry because it increases the amount of outdoor activities.

DST is also considered as a means to save energy due to less artificial light needed during the evening hours—clocks are set one hour ahead during the spring, and one hour back to standard time in the autumn. However, many studies disagree about the energy savings of DST and while some may show a positive outcome of the energy savings, others do not.

It is difficult to predict what will happen with Daylight Saving Time in the future. The daylight saving date in many countries may change from time to time due to special events or conditions.The United States, Canada and some other countries extended DST in 2007. The new start date is the second Sunday in March (previously the first Sunday in April) through to the first Sunday in November (previously the last Sunday in October).

Did You Know?

• Russia reduced their number of time zones from eleven to nine and are considering getting rid of daylight saving time in 2011.
• Egypt changed their clocks four times last year, which means that they observed DST twice in 2010.
• The United Kingdom may switch to Single Double Summer Time, which would move the UK to UTC+1 in the winter time and UTC+2 during the summer time.
• Northern Mexican border cities share the same DST plan as the United States rather than most of Mexico.

Is DST always one hour ahead of normal time?

Today it is almost always one hour ahead, but throughout history there have been several variants on this, such as half adjustment (30 minutes) or double adjustment (two hours), and adjustments of 20 and 40 minutes have also been used. A two-hour adjustment was used in several countries during the 1940s and elsewhere at times.

A half adjustment was sometimes used in New Zealand in the first half of the 20th century. Australia's Lord Howe Island(UTC+10:30) currently follows a DST schedule that moves its clocks forward half an hour to UTC+11, which is Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) when it is on DST.

(from timeanddate.com)

what my Saturday nights have been reduced to . . .

Paging through a cookbook last night, I saw a recipe for play dough.  I loved making play dough when I was younger.  All kinds of colors.  Since I had nothing better to do with my Saturday evening, I made four batches.  

Think I need to add purple and orange next.  


It's very easy to make and takes only a few minutes.  Here's the recipe:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T oil
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup water
food coloring


Mix all ingredients together.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until dough forms a ball.  Remove and let cool.  

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

from All About Dr. Seuss, catinthehat.org

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known. 

At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.

Besides the books, his works have provided the source for eleven children's television specials, a Broadway musical and a feature-length motion picture. Other major motion pictures are on the way.

His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize. 

from vancouversun.com, 5 things you may not have known about Dr. Seuss:

5: Dr. Seuss rhymes with another epic figure in children's literature: Mother Goose. Coincidence? No. That's why he chose it.

4: When presenting the dialogue for the magicians in Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Seuss employed the use of trochees (or chorues) which presents text in an alternating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables ("Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff". The techique was also used by Shakespeare with his cauldron stirring witches in Macbeth (Toil! Toil!), by Poe in his poem The Raven and often in nursery rhymes.

3: After his career as a children's author/illustrator began, Geisel worked as an editorial cartoonist in New York during World War 2, which illustrated his rabid anti-fascism views. They were also collected in a book called Dr.Seuess Goes to War, with an introduction by Art Spiegleman. Suess also wrote several WW2-era propaganda films.

2. Theodore Geisel wrote children's books under a trio of pen names: Dr. Seuss, which was reserved for the books he both wrote and illustrated; as Theo LeSeig, for books that he wrote without illustrating; and as Rosetta Stone, for one book he penned called Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo!

1: Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat was born as a response to an article which was published in Life Magazine in 1954. The piece criticized American school primers as intensely boring, unchallenging to readers and responsible for causing harm to children's literacy. The article called for more primers to up the excitement by energizing the language and including drawings like those of "imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, Theodor S. Geisel." Using the piece as a call to action, Geisel and his publisher came up with a list of 400 "exciting" words, which Seuss than narrowed down for the book, and included 13 more of his own. The final product is 1626 words in length and uses a total vocabulary of 236 words.

shake, rattle and roll

"Where were you 10 years ago today ?" 


I've been hearing this question non-stop on the local news since this morning. Where was I 10 years ago, around 11:00 a.m. ?  I was sitting through a booooooooring staff meeting in a conference room at the UW, on a skybridge about 3 stories up.  I wasn't the only one thinking "what do we have to do to get this god-awful thing to end ?' - believe me.  Suddenly, the light fixtures above us started to rain down on our tables and the room began to sway.  Then all those things we learned during the umpteen practice disaster drills we'd been subjected to went out the proverbial window and all hell broke loose.   Some people ran, some got under tables (hey - we did learn one thing), some yelled, some froze in silence.  All kidding aside, it was pretty surreal.  

Dan was in the bathtub at home when the quake struck.  With shampoo still in his hair and a towel around him, he scooped up the cat and ran outside.  That must have been a sight.  

10 years later, the city is still recovering.  Some positive developments since the 2001 quake include: 

• Refinement of hazard maps and models to give better estimates of the shaking expected in future earthquakes.
• Documentation of new faults. The Seattle and Price Lake (Olympic Peninsula) faults were known in 2001. Several others have been documented since, including Tacoma, Frigid Creek, Canyon River, South Whidbey Island (which probably has had the largest previous quakes), Utsalady and, in eastern Washington, Ellensburg and Umtanum Ridge.
• Shake maps and “Did You Feel It” reporting available to the public automatically within 10 minutes of larger earthquakes.
• Building code changes based on improvements in seismic engineering and adoption of the International Building Code, with standards linked to the best seismic science.
• Increased public awareness and preparedness.
• Discovery of episodic tremor and slip, or slow-slip. These unfelt events happen about every 15 months, last for several weeks and release as much energy as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. They are adding to an already complex regional seismic picture.
• Improved and more numerous broadband seismometers to see earthquakes clearly over the entire region.

(seattlepi.com file)

(Alan Berner/The Seattle Times)

(Tom Reese/The Seattle Times)

Happy 17th Birthday to our nephew, Aaron !

from foodzie.com

Hooray for Susan Guy !

I've been a bit remiss and haven't posted anything here in a week.  Sometimes there just isn't anything happening that seems to be post-worthy.   But I heard a story on the news last night (and this morning) that made me smile, about a Memphis Domino's Pizza delivery driver who saved the life of a customer.  A woman who ordered a pizza a day for the past three years hadn't placed an order in a few days. The woman's normal delivery driver told her boss to "clock her out if necessary" and went to check on her regular.  Sure enough, the women was in need of help.  

So way to go, Susan Guy.  Your perseverance paid off.  What do I take away from this ?  We should all be a bit more aware of what is happening around us and act on our instincts.  We may just save a life someday.  

I do wonder, however, how someone could eat a Domino's pizza every day for three years straight.  Every day.  Whew.




  

Happy Birthday Luke !

Our "second-born" hairy son turned 15 today.  He has slowed down a bit in the past couple years and his hearing seems to be a bit [selectively] compromised, but who can't say the same thing in this household !  We feel super lucky to have had him all these years and he continues to amaze us with his youthful attitude.   

I did not know that . . .

I realized this morning that I did not know much about the history of Valentine's Day - beyond its roots in the Hallmark card industry.  Here's what I learned from history.com:

The history of Valentine's Day — and its patron saint — is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first "valentine" greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor's daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial — which probably occurred around 270 A.D — others claim that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "christianize" celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancient Rome, February was the official beginning of spring and was considered a time for purification. Houses were ritually cleansed by sweeping them out and then sprinkling salt and a type of wheat called spelt throughout their interiors. Lupercalia, which began at the ides of February, February 15, was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be popularly celebrated around the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was common for friends and lovers in all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. By the end of the century, printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began to sell the first mass-produced valentines in America.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)

Approximately 85 percent of all valentines are purchased by women. In addition to the United States, Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages (written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400), and the oldest known Valentine card is on display at the British Museum. The first commercial Valentine's Day greeting cards produced in the U.S. were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland. Howland, known as the Mother of the Valentine, made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as "scrap."

Happy Valentine's Day !

it's a brand new day for Egypt

I always say that I am grateful to have witnessed all the major local and world events that have occurred in the past 42 years.  I add another to that list today ...

Ed Ou for The New York Times

Moises Saman for The New York Times

Ed Ou for The New York Times

Felipe Trueba/European Pressphoto Agency

too good not to share

Someone posted this video to my facebook wall - I love it. 

Gōng xǐ fā cái !

Happy Chinese New Year !

(from huffingtonpost.com)   Today, February 3, 2011, marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, also known to many Chinese as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival. The festival begins on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, so the exact date on the Gregorian calendar varies each year, usually between January 21 and February 19. It is widely celebrated across China and in Chinese communities around the world over a period between one day and three weeks.

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, following 2010's Year of the Tiger. Each year corresponds to one of twelve animals that cycle every twelve years. The previous Year of the Rabbit was in 1999, while the next Rabbit Year occurs in 2023. One legend tells how Buddha invited all animals to a gathering and the first twelve animals to arrive were honored with a zodiac year.

The Chinese New Year Festival is a time for family and friends to pay respects to gods, spirits, and ancestors, as well as wish each other good fortune in the upcoming year. A common greeting is "Gong Xi Fa Cai" in Mandarin Chinese or "Kung Hei Fat Choy" in Cantonese, which can be literally translated to "congratulations, get rich!" In China, where the festival is observed as a weeklong national holiday, hundreds of millions of Chinese head home in what has been called the world's largest annual human migration.

Symbolic traditions are an important part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Many Chinese fully clean their homes ahead of the New Year, with the belief of sweeping away bad luck and starting anew. However, cleaning during the first few days of the New Year is avoided, since it might result in sweeping away good luck.

Red is considered a lucky color, so homes and businesses are often decorated in red. Similarly, red clothing is worn. Red envelopes filled with money, called hong bao in Mandarin and lai see in Cantonese, are traditionally given as gifts from married to unmarried people, particularly to children. For Chinese families who might not celebrate holidays such as Christmas or Hanukkah, the Chinese New Year represents the principal time of gift-giving to children and grandchildren.

According to Chinese tradition, debts should be paid before the New Year begins. Otherwise, it is believed that if one begins the New Year in debt, such will continue for the rest of the year.

not today

There are many days when I really miss living in Chicago.  Today is definitely not one of them.

(E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune /February 2, 2011) 

(Antonio Perez, Chicago Tribune / February 2, 2011)

(William DeShazer, Chicago Tribune / February 2, 2011)

already anxious for baseball season

I've always been a baseball fan.  I attribute this mostly to my maternal grandparents who lived in a split household.  Both hailed from Chicago  - but my grandmother was White Sox fan and my grandfather was a Cubs fan.  An old school rivalry.  Which made for some really fun summers.   The photo above was taken outside of their garage when I was four.  The bat is almost as tall as me.  

I'm looking forward to the upcoming MLB season and am hopeful for a better year for the Mariner's.  Something better than 101 losses, at least.  As dismal as 2010's season was, here are some highlights from mariners.com:

5. Wakamatsu out; Wedge in
With the Mariners struggling to meet expectations on the field, Wakamatsu was dismissed on Aug. 9 and replaced by interim manager Daren Brown. General manager Jack Zduriencik then led a postseason search process that resulted in the hiring of Wedge on Oct. 18. The former Indians skipper promises to bring a renewed intensity to the club, as well as a history of working well with young players in Cleveland. The Indians came within one game of the World Series in '07 when Wedge was named American League Manager of the Year.

4. Ichiro makes history
For 10 years, nobody has done it better than Ichiro when it comes to knocking out hits and getting on base. On Sept. 23 at Toronto, Ichiro recorded his 200th hit of the season, extending his Major League record for consecutive 200-hit seasons to 10 and tying Pete Rose for the most 200-hit seasons in a career. For a little perspective, the Mariners have had just three other 200-hit seasons in their history (two by Alex Rodriguez and one by Bret Boone). And since Ichiro began his streak in '01, nine Major League teams -- the White Sox, Indians, Royals, Twins, Astros, Rays, D-backs, Braves and Reds -- have yielded no 200-hit players.

3. Junior calls it a career
On June 2, exactly 23 years to the day after being selected as the first overall pick of the '87 Draft by the Mariners, the best player in franchise history called it quits. Much like the rest of the team, Griffey didn't have the season he expected, but he, too, had his moments, including a dramatic walk-off single on May 20 against the Blue Jays to cap a three-run comeback in the ninth inning at Safeco Field. He ended his career ranked fifth on MLB's all-time list in home runs (630), sixth in extra-base hits (1,192), 14th in RBIs (1,836) and 31st in runs scored (1,662).

2. Cy Young for King Felix
Great players rise above the circumstances surrounding them, and that certainly was the case with Felix Hernandez, who posted one of the best pitching performances in franchise history for a team that scored the fewest runs per game of any Major League team since 1973. Hernandez was so impressive that Baseball Writers' Association of America voters elected him as the AL Cy Young Award winner, despite his modest 13-12 win-loss record. Hernandez set a club record for ERA (2.27) and the most strikeouts by a right-hander (232), leading the AL in both categories as well as innings pitched (249 2/3), quality starts (30) and opponent's batting average (.212). And, yeah, all that at age 24.

1. The Voice falls silent
For 34 years, Dave Niehaus served as the Mariners' play-by-play announcer, calling nearly every game since the team's inception in 1977. Players, managers and ownership groups came and went, but Niehaus was the constant for Mariners fans. When Griffey scored on Edgar Martinez's double to beat the Yankees in the '95 playoffs, it was Niehaus who recorded the electric moment. When Safeco Field opened in '99, he threw out the first pitch. When baseball inducted him into the Hall of Fame in '08, Niehaus said no one would ever be more appreciative. And when he passed away of a heart attack on Nov. 10, the entire Mariners Nation mourned. The team held two public memorials at Safeco Field, both poignant reminders of his impact on the entire region. As Griffey noted, "It will never be the same, because there's nobody better."

remember that day ?

NASA officials gathered at Kennedy Space Center today to mark the 25th anniversary of one of the worst disasters in the history of space travel. The space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after take-off on January 28, 1986, killing all seven astronauts aboard.  

I remember that day well.   I was a junior in high school and Chemistry class had just started.  One of the last students to enter the room had heard the news in the hallway and yelled "THE SHUTTLE EXPLODED !"  No one actually believed her at first.  There was a radio in the room and we proceeded to listen to the news through the entire period.  Silence from everyone.  

Had the mission succeeded, the planned orbital activities were as follows: (from nasa.gov)

On Flight Day 1, after arriving into orbit, the crew was to have two periods of scheduled high activity. First they were to check the readiness of the TDRS-B satellite prior to planned deployment. After lunch they were to deploy the satellite and its Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster and to perform a series of separation maneuvers. The first sleep period was scheduled to be eight hours long starting about 18 hours after crew wakeup the morning of launch.

On Flight Day 2, the Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program (CHAMP) experiment was scheduled to begin. Also scheduled were the initial "teacher in space" (TISP) video taping and a firing of the orbital maneuvering engines (OMS) to place Challenger at the 152-mile orbital altitude from which the Spartan would be deployed.

On Flight Day 3, the crew was to begin pre-deployment preparations on the Spartan and then the satellite was to be deployed using the remote manipulator system (RMS) robot arm. Then the flight crew was to slowly separate from Spartan by 90 miles.

On Flight Day 4, the Challenger was to begin closing on Spartan while Gregory B. Jarvis continued fluid dynamics experiments started on day two and day 3. Live telecasts were also planned to be conducted by Christa McAuliffe.

On Flight Day 5, the crew was to rendezvous with Spartan and use the robot arm to capture the satellite and re-stow it in the payload bay.

On Flight Day 6, re-entry preparations were scheduled. This included flight control checks, test firing of maneuvering jets needed for re-entry, and cabin stowage. A crew news conferences was also scheduled following the lunch period.

On Flight Day 7, the day would have been spent preparing the Space Shuttle for deorbit and entry into the atmosphere. The Challenger was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center 144 hours and 34 minutes after launch. 

EEK !

We have lived in our house for almost seven years now and I have never seen a mouse inside until this winter.  Ick.  I hate mice.  But we have one.  I have only seen the little bugger a couple times, but knowing it was nearby was enough to give me the heebie-geebies.  So why with three cats in the house are we experiencing such a problem ??   That's it - "earn your keep" I told them. 

Yesterday, as I came out of my bathroom, Brenda dropped a half-dead mouse at the door.  "GET IT !!!!!!!!!" I screamed.  She picked it up, shook it and dropped it about six feet away.  Now it definitely appeared all-dead.  I quickly disposed of it outside.  

I assumed it would be one of our two used-to-be-outside-now-inside cats that would catch the critter.  But no, it was our Princess.  Way to go, Brenda !  


Here is her re-enactment of the kill ...