2018-07 : First Chia Pet

I was given a Chia Pet at a going-away party.  First one I've ever had.  I followed the instructions, but thought I'd lost it.  I.e., the seeds dried up and for a few days did nothing.  But here's the secret...green house!  Just put a plastic container (bucket, trashcan, etc.) over your Chia Pet when you can't water it (night, weekends, trips), and it will explode!  I failed to take daily pictures, but you can see how my Chia came to life and literally exploded with growth.

On the left was the 'big save' after days of dryness (one weekend under the greenhouse).  On the left is like one more day and night under a greenhouse.  Amazing.  You starve it from the greenhouse... limp the next day.  Yes, it's a Bob Ross Chia Pet. 

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NASA 100 | 2017-10

My neighbor (very nice of him) reminded me NASA (the center at Langley) was celebrating their 100 anniversary.  So I took a look.  What I did not expect was the length of lines.  Yes, there were lines to get into certain buildings.  Well done, NASA.

A sculpture near the entrance and a very well-kept OV-10 Bronco (right).  

This was cool...looks fast.  It is a wind tunnel model for their quieter supersonic project.  The whole process of setting up the wind tunnel is quite impressive.  They call this one the 14x22 (it's dimensions in feet) and here is more info about it.

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The vacuum spheres retro style and a zoom out below left.  Below right is the globe seen at the gate.

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NASA has a robot - the ElectroImpact and it fabricates in carbon fiber.  They had it on a looped program to show off its moves.  Talk about precision...watch how the head simply does not move even if the arm needs to.  It was so awesome.  All those spikes are spindles to hold rolls of carbon fiber.  It essentially 'sews' the carbon fiber into any shape you need.

Here are two gifs I made of the robot, but you can see a longer video at youtube.

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Finally, there was some great artwork for this event and/or NASA projects.  Here are three examples.

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Virginia Living Museum | 2017-07

I visited the Virginia Living Museum. It was okay...maybe a 7 out of 10. The inside exhibits saved it. The outside was a nice boardwalk around some water and trees, but the collection of animals is limited...

Raccoon, otter, beaver, birds, red wolf, bald eagle, vulture, bobcat, deer, turkey, coyote, gray and red fox

The outside does have perks. I did get to see and watch a Downy Woodpecker which was amazing. And I saw a tiny bird (a brand of finch, I think) try to take a bath in a little waterfall and he actually slipped and fell and had to fly out in a panic. That was pretty cool to see.

Again, the inside was pretty good. They had some great fish tanks with both salt and fresh water animals. One of my favorites was a simple tank with flounders separated into three parts. The walls between the three parts was only about 1.5 inches tall so the fish could swim over. The segments had very light sand, some darker, grayish sand, and some very dark, blueish sand. So, as you can imagine, the point was to watch the flounder can color. It was pretty awesome.

It's about $20 to get in (for adults) which is why I wouldn't give it more than a 7/10 and why the inside saved it. If the inside matched the outside, it would have been a rip off. But I think almost any child would like it...they could watch the flounders change color.

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art instruction : face

Rules of thumb for face dimensions and proportions by Dan Gheno.

fin

Fantastic Gift : 2013-12

I received this book from my first academic group (Sep - Dec) and I think it is a fantastic gift! They all signed it and even included a group picture we had taken a few days earlier. Very clever and very nice. I could say thank you enough! This is just an example of how certain groups really come together as one and even people on the outside of the group can see the difference. Thank you R3!

SILF End of Course Party : 201307

C-Flight Complete! This was a fantastic group of people

and made the 5 months completely enjoyable for me.

Since I'm on the topic of SILF, here's a picture of everyone in SILF (6 groups)...

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Cité des sciences and de l'industrie : 2013-04

We took a Friday outing to the Cité des sciences & de l'industrie in northern Paris. It has plenty to see, an outdoor park and even un sous-marin, l'Argonaute. We visited during a exposition on da Vinci and there were some cool models recreating his drawings.

Above left, an ancient diving suit with a breathing apparatus that floats on the water. It even had bendable tubes. However, if you've every tried to breath trough a tube much longer than a snorkel, it's actually impossible. It seems like it works, but if you ever have a chance to try it in a pool...try it. On the right, I think it was a tank that was powered by humans. Great model.

 

One of the attractions is the la Géode. There was a great sky that day - rainy skies which broke and made a great background for la géode. The pic on the left is what you see when you leave the main building. On the right is a shot from the Argonaute after the sky has broken.

I don't remember for sure, but I think the fortress on the left was also a recreation of a da Vinci drawing. Nonetheless, it was a great model. By the way, there was a model of a bird that can actually fly, we only saw the model, but there was a video. It's pretty amazing. On the right, my ticket, of course.