Reading: NASA Discovers New Ring Around Saturn

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA has discovered a massive ring around Saturn.

Food: Making Kimchi

Here's a kimchi recipe from Granny Choe. On her website, she even gives instructions for kimchi pancakes. Interesting!

Quote: Monday Quote Of The Day

We've always looked suspiciously at children who do not have their share of bumps and bruises, fearing that they are not being as adventurous as they should. Thankfully, when the inevitable bruises come, our family is always there to kiss it and make it fell better.

Thank you to our family this weekend, for healing our worries and bringing a warm smile to our faces. You guys are worth more than all the treasures in the kingdom.

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. Garrison Keillor

Comics: Calvin and Hobbes

Puzzle: Petals Around The Rose

A classic problem solving game. Five dice are thrown. The name of the game, "Petals Around The Rose," is important in the solution. The answer is always zero or a non-negative even number.

Must try this one with the kids. However, once you solve the puzzle, you must be sworn into the club, and promise to never give away the solution.



Answers:
1. 6
2. 6
3. 8
4. 8
5. 2
6. 2
7. 4
8. 12
9. 6
10. 4
11. 6
12. 0

Quote: We Do The Best

Love this image from the Pioneer Woman. It reminds me that we frequently do the very best, I often tell Isaac, "don't be a star today, be a super-star!" However, not matter what, we always "do the best we can."

DIY: A Nation Of Engineers

This morning, Isaac asked Denise, "why do the teachers make us memorize all this stuff, if robots will do it all in the future." She gave the perfect response, "Who's going to build the robots?" (she's good that way).

First a quote from Pablo Picasso, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." I believe every child is also a maker and an engineer.

This article from Make Magazine discusses the concept of a "Nation of Engineers". In case you think all the good stuff has already been developed, here's a list from the National Academy Of Engineers. Let's go make something.

1. Make solar energy economical
2. Provide energy from fusion
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle
5. Provide access to clean water
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure
7. Advance health informatics
8. Engineer better medicines
9. Reverse-engineer the brain
10. Prevent nuclear terror
11. Secure cyberspace
12. Enhance virtual reality
13. Advance personalized learning
14. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

Trees: California Redwood Photograph

Amazing photograph of a California redwood tree in National Geographic. The little red dots are people.

Science Discussion: Earthquakes and Tsunamis

Wanted to have a discussion with Isaac regarding the recent events in Samoa (tsunami) and Indonesia (earthquake). This website from the US Geological Survey should help describe, in great detail, the relationship between the two.



Update: Here's a Wolfram|Alpha Search showing earthquake frequency and magnitude during the past 24 hours.

Anatomy: Japanese Monsters

Comparative anatomy of Japanese monsters. After a quick look, I don't see a mechanism for the fire production in Godzilla. The fire organ should be somewhere next to the lungs.

Reading: Thursday Reading

Several articles for Isaac to consider reading Thursday night for his reading assignment.
African Dynamo - story of a boy in Africa who makes his own wind farm
Four Things Everyone Needs To Know About Sharks

Also here's 15 podcasts which will make you smarter.

Music: In Your Eyes - Jeffrey Gaines

Trying to learn to play this version of the Peter Gabriel song. Here are the chords.

Cooking: Simple Sesame Noodles

Denise found this cool website called Pioneer Woman. This is one of her recipes that sound good, and easy. Maybe we'll find time this weekend to give it a try.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Movies

It looks like they are posting the Clone Wars movies on the Star Wars website. There's also been much discussion about the season's new character Cad Bane.

Quote: Friday Quote From Jack

I think we've posted this one from Jack Kerouac before, but here's a picture from Lance Armstrong's twitter feed. Great quote!

Space: Get To Mars Faster

A gravity trick to make the trip to Mars faster.

Birthday: Look Who Else's Birthday is September 22nd

In the Lord of the Rings, in the first chapter, "A Long-Expected Party", both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins celebrate their birthday on September 22nd, 3001.

Here is a summary and commentary of that chapter on tor.com.

So as tor recommends

So my dear Bagginses, Boffins, Tooks, Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Burrowses, Hornblowers, Bogers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses, Proudfoots (Proudfeet!), and even Sackville-Bagginses—I encourage you all to celebrate in the finest hobbit tradition: drinking ... (root beer), eating good food, and sharing in the company of your friends.

Development: Media Converter

I was assigned a task at work to convert a video file to an AVI format using only a freeware application. It took a bit of time to finally find one that worked, but I thought I would record the application for use in the future.

MediaCoder seems to convert a myriad of formats and even provide an API.

Happy Tuesday!

Happy Birthday Brian!!

We wish you the best birthday ever, and hope you have a day full of fun today. Did I say today? I'm sorry we don't celebrate birthDAYS around here, we celebrate birth-parades.

This looks like a fun website to help you celebrate until Halloween. This must be one of the best pumpkins I've ever seen.

Weekend: Countdown to a Great Weekend

Two momentous events in a terrific weekend.

1. Pearland Eagles Freshmen Red's first football win - Isaac played center and defensive tackle. He made many tackles (including a sack), and one pancake on offense. Denise quickly shot this with her camera, it was a very brief visit to the bench.



2. We finally got the rockets working. We shot 4 rockets on Sunday, the first made it to 527 feet. During the descent of the third launch, we lost the nose (and altimeter). We shot one final rocket without the nose, and found that it added much needed in-flight stability.



3. We also played a rousing domino game at the coffee shop (which Denise handily won). Unfortunately, it was cut short by a human smoke machine. The smoker decided to fog us out, even after we helped her move the umbrella into place.

Ukulele: Vintage Ukulele Songbooks

Large collection of vintage songbooks in PDF.

Music: Pearl Jam's New Album On MySpace

Somewhat interesting little clip about making Pearl Jam's new album, "Backspacer". Check out Mr. Vedder's guitar at 3 minutes, also a cool dog. After watching this, I think with a bass guitar, we could put together a song using the new online audio mixer mentioned previously.

Pearl Jam - Backspacer Short

Music: Online Audio Mixer

We've been searching for a way to create our own mash-ups, this site looks great. It worked better for me in IE than Firefox.

Pictures: Isaac's First Practice In Pads

This set shows Isaac's first practice in pads. Not long after, he learned how to use them. Also some shots of a cool board Dad got for Father's Day. As Isaac shows in the skateboard picture, "Peace!"


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Pictures: Our Trip To Kyle Field

Thanks to some great last minute research from our internet purchaser, we got seats for the A&M football game sitting on the field in the endzone bleachers. We couldn't have asked for a more incredible experience.

We saw the Cadets march in, got to sit on the cannon, played on the field after the game, marched with the band, and attended a midnight yell practice. It was fantastic!

Here's my favorite picture of Isaac testing out his Kyle Field stance (totally intense).




Here's the rest of the set.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Tomatoes: Look Who's Snacking

Look who I found snacking on our tomatoes this afternoon.

Music: Key's In The Conch Shell

This song is sure to take away your stress. Great tune by Kenny Chesney. Mike says he knows a steel drum player, can't wait to give it a ride (Here are the chords).

Music: Boston vs. Black Eyed Peas Mashup

Great mashup of Boston and Black Eyed Peas.

Biology: The Tree Of Life

Narrated by Sir David Attenborough

Education: President's Speech to School Children

Posting the President's prepared remarks for Tuesday's speech for Isaac's reading assignment this evening.

Music: Beethoven's 5th Symphony Visualized

Here are the instrument colors (using the new PDF tool).

Rockets: Labor Day Launch

We attempted to celebrate Labor Day with a model rocket launch. While our launch was not successful due to a firing mechanism failure, we learned a valuable lesson about testing and problem resolution.

We will post more when we complete a successful launch.

Programming: Inline PDF Embedding With Google Docs

Very useful embed object available from Google Docs lets you create an inline PDF or PowerPoint object in your HTML code.

Here's the code from Google Operating System blog.

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf&embedded=true" style="width:600px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Here's what it looks like in the frame.

Quotes: Quote Of The Day

Some quotes which seem to apply to current situations. You certainly can't let the turkeys let you down.

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change. Andre Gide

I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. Dr. Seuss

DIY: 5 Minute Ice Cream

Maybe these count as sorbets? But they still look very good and fast.

Myth: Diagram of Mythical Creatures

Excellent diagram of mythical creatures.

Science Fair: Pencil Lead Potentiometer

Good experiment with simple tools (pencil and paper). Demonstrates electrical resistance using the pencil lead's graphite as a conductor.

Robots: Kissing Robots

Cute or Scary? These robots were designed in Taiwan and performed a robotic version of the Phantom of the Opera.

Quote of the Day: Seeds of Happiness

Good quote of the day regarding happiness. My wife constantly reminds me of this same lesson. Sometimes I slip back into an old habit of sarcasm, but luckily she and Isaac are there to save me.

Everything is material for the seed of happiness, if you look into it with inquisitiveness and curiosity. The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. There always is the potential to create an environment of blame or one that is conducive to loving-kindness. Pema Chodron

Star Wars: Jedi Song

Take a look at the Jedi song, and other videos of the Clone Wars series. Nice light saber guitar.

Pictures: Ancient and Modern Armor

Isaac poses with his modern armor on picture day in football pads, and earlier with an ancient set of Asian armor celebrating Denise's birthday at the Hibachi restaurant.

Games: Keyboard Piano

Checkout this keyboard piano game. Typing and music, it would be great if you could turn the piano on during typing class. That way the student would associate a sound along with the muscle memory of the keys.

Whittling: Use a Safety Glove

Good article on whittling, plus links to instructions on carving chains. Good advice to use a Kevlar glove.

Running: Usain Bolt 200m Run

Check out this video of Usain Bolt's world record run at the World Championships. This article in the Atlantic Wire notes that he has defied conventional wisdom that a tall sprinter could go so fast. He also has people reconsidering how fast a human can run. Amazing stuff!

DIY: Paper Airplane Guy

Check out the Paper Airplane Guy. Many great planes, and more detailed explanations to their functioning. Here's his YouTube channel.

Music: How Pink Floyd's Money Was Produced

This is a remarkable video showing the members and producer of Pink Floyd describing how the song "Money" was put together. It is incredible to see the various layerings and effects which are created within the song.

I understand that most of these effects can now be duplicated with Garage Band, or similar application, on a laptop computer.

For children, cover the kids ears at about 3:13 to miss the singer's descriptive comment on Capitalism.

Science Fair: Inducing Giantism

Fantastic experiment from the incredible Evil Genius. He demonstrates how to conduct a study using readily available plant hormones, specifically Gibberellic Acid, to alter the plant growth mechanism of been sprouts.

The results are relatively fast, 5 days, and plainly noticeable to the naked eye.

Soulmates

I ran across this beautiful photo and it's representation of "soul mates" has me moved to such joy. It kindly tugs at my heart strings and reminds me of the embrace I share with my lover. I am so thankful for the love that is given to me daily. I cherish it, I nurture it, I admire it, I protect it, and I glorify and celebrate our similarities AND our differences. I continue to plan for it's growth....similar to a beautiful, growing tree. Our Love remains strong and rooted. I will cling to it's Earthly beauty and learn from it's ability to withstand.

Thank you "mi Amor" for kissing me every beautiful morning and sharing your love so effortlessly with me and Isaac. You are my soul mate.

Happy Thursday All!

Love- Denise

Quote Of The Day: Time Flies

Quote from the science fiction book I'm currently reading online, Cory Doctorow's Makers. They describe it as a joke or riddle, playing with the listeners expectations.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

Science Fair: Water Rocket With 3 Boosters

Amazing water propelled rocket complete with three NASA inspired booster engines and even an on-board camera. Not sure how possible this would be to replicate, but it certainly is cool.

Water Rocket with 3 boosters from AirCommand on Vimeo.

DIY: Compost Bin and Palletts

I understand some readers where looking for something to do with extra wood pallets, while at the same time, looking to build a compost bin. This seems like the perfect project.

May need to do a little modification to dress it up if others can see into your back yard.

Happy Birthday To My Lover

What a great day of celebration we have in store for my Lover's birthday. We getting ready this morning to go on our annual "Denise's Birthday Trot".

I am the luckiest man alive! Happy Birthday Amor!

Pictures: Summer Phone Pictures

A quick break in the action this morning to post some pictures from the Summer. These are all taken on cell phones. Love this one the best of Isaac rocking the electric uke on Tio Fuego's awesome amp.
Take a look at the picture set.

Fathers and Sons

This article recounts the author's day with his sons watching Tiger Woods play golf. I really could care less about golf, but it reminds me of the precious time a father has with his son.

I was reminded just last night how precious and potentially fleeting this gift is. I love waking up in the morning with my son, putting on our old shoes and going hiking with him up to the coffee shop to play dominoes. I love going fishing with him at the local park and watching the sun set behind the trees just when the catfish start to bite. I love riding in the car with him, watching him play videos on the computer. I love teaching him about true love and honesty and respect.

While loving him in all of these ways, perhaps I am being selfish. After all, he also makes me a better person. However, I believe that he is a better person for it as well.

Pictures: Baseball Game

Isaac and Christian at the baseball game.

No Smoking: Science Fiction Edition

Extreme no smoking advertisement. In the final screen, "smoking contributes to to and empowers the imminent robot death squad apocalypse!"

Music: Workout Mashup

We're always looking for rockn' workout songs. Here's a mash-up of the Beastie Boys and Joan Jett that seems to qualify. Warning, as in most Beastie Boys songs I've heard, this may contain some content not appropriate for young children.

Spanish: Word of the Day - Bowl

Bowl (noun) -

1. tazón
   
2. bol
   
3. cuenco

... and here's sign language

Surfing: Make Your Own Surf Board

A Maker article and the website to purchase your own surfboard kit. Looks like great fun!

Movies: Official Trailer For Alice in Wonderland

There's no way to embed this video so take a look at Disney's website for the interesting looking movie trailer. Isaac and I read these books several years ago, but we're very interested in seeing Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

Exercise: More Push-Up Variations

We continue to attempt the 100 push-up routine. Here are some interesting variations on the standard theme. Can't wait to try the Hindu push-up.

Puzzles: Crossword With Wolfram Alpha

I must remember to show this application to Grandma. Its a crossword solving function inside the Wolfram Alpha search engine.

Space: Lunar Touchdown Circuit

The internet has had many specials in honor of the 40th anniversary of the first man on the moon, but this one is different. This site from NASA shows much of the documentation for the Apollo Lunar Module.

A post from 5Volt.EU has great detail on the Apollo 11's touchdown indicator schematic. This design was the one that told them when the Eagle had landed at Tranquility Base (it also told them when to turn the engines off).

Imagine the huge number of teams necessary to make that mission to the moon possible. Thousands of tiny processes just like this one. They did this all on a computer system that could not even compete with today's cell phones.

Conspiracy: Lunar Orbiter Spots Apollo Landing Sites

Oh dear, what are the conspiracy theorists going to do now. The Lunar Orbiter has sent back photographs of the first Apollo mission to the Moon. The pictures show the Eagle lunar lander at Tranquility base (there not very clear though).

Hiking: San Antonio

Found some interesting San Antonio hikes to take a look at.

Hill Country Creek and Canyon Trek
Twin Peaks Trail
Friedrich Park Trail - Here's the driving map to Friedrich Park Trail - 21395 Milsa St San Antonio, TX 78256

Space: We Choose The Moon

This is a remarkable web site demonstrating the Apollo 11 voyage to the moon. They are celebrating the 40th anniversary of this event.

This might only work in Firefox 3.5, not sure, there are several more advanced features.

This picture is from the Eagle after it had lifted off from the moon. Notice the Earth in the background. More great pictures from The Boston Globe.

Happy Birthday Uncle Chris

We love you Chris and can't wait to see you on the rugby pitch again. After all the cannons do still thunder, here's a version from Jack Johnson and Dave Mathews.

Space: International Space Station Movie

Check out this amazing graphic detailing the steps to build the International Space Station. It even includes future components, and demonstrates how the various space vehicles fit into the station.

History: Bastille Day

July 14th is celebrated as Bastille Day in France. The day symbolizes the birth of the French Republic and abolition of feudalism.

The painting from Claude Monet depicts the celebration in Paris in 1878.

We find it also makes for a more interesting bike race in the Tour de France, as the French riders give more effort. However, they've been quite successful this year already.

Tech: Integrated Circuit Introduction

Can't resist post this one, if for nothing else than the totally groovy side-burns.

Music: Michael Jackson A Cappella

One more Michael Jackson tribute, from Acapodcast Podcast. Check out his other podcasts, great stuff.

Space: Interplanetary Internet

The International Space Station (ISS) is testing software which would provide internet access to space vehicles. The ISS will be the initial node in the "Interplanetary Internet"; however, NASA is in discussions with European and Japanese counterparts to add to the network. The nodes will also be placed on future NASA projects.

The new technology is similar to TCP/IP, which our internet uses, but is designed to handle the long delays in packet transfer which would occur in deep space travel. It would also enable a new space communication model. The current model is more similar to radio.

While following Tour de France bike riders with Twitter has been interesting, we can't wait for twittering astronauts.

Comparitive Anatomy: How the Turtle Got Its Shell

You might need a short anatomy review before reading this one. The turtle's shell is basically made from a fusion of its ribs to the vertebrae. The trick is that the shoulder blade (scapula) grows deeper than the rib cage, rather than on top of it (like ours).

This adjustment of the shoulder blade causes a "muscular origami" when the torso musculature is forced to develop differently.

In the end, it is not possible for a turtle to come out of his shell, as the cartoons suggest.

Programming: GoTo Statements

As background, GOTO statements are expressly frowned upon in modern software development. They lead to a hard to read and error prone spaghetti code.

TDF: Lance and Jimmy Buffet?

We closely follow the Tour de France, and Lance's team this year, Astana, looks very impressive.

However, what could be better than Lance and Jimmy Buffet together! Take a look at Lance's Twitter feed, maybe he'll do a video with Jimmy as well.

Farming: Find Local Farmer's Markets

This site has farmer's markets and local produce. Here's the search for our zip code's farmer's markets.

Bible: Oldest Known Bible Online

An article from CNN discusses the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known Christian Bible, which is now available online. A quick look at the website shows it is not the best for such an important historical document. There are few English translations, and the pages load very slowly.

The Codex Sinaiticus was written in the 4th Century and was found in 1844 at the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert. One of the more interesting aspects are the additional books not found in the Hebrew Bible such as Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.

Tools: Free OCR Conversion Tool

This tool converts images of documents to proper documents which can be edited, and it's free.

Games: Online Drum Kit

Cool little online drum kit. Actually the best part is its made entirely from HTML and JavaScript; however, it still makes for cool drum experimenting.

Taekwondo: Gae Baek Pattern

Isaac's Gae Baek pattern from many angles.

Front


Side


Back

Stories: Creepy Stories

Creepy Stories by Christian and Isaac. Young authors at work.

Comics: X-Men Relationship Map

We recently found a t-shirt with many of the Marvel comic book heroes. However, this page describes, in fantastic detail, the various relationships of the X-Men characters throughout the series. It even discusses characters from an alternate dimension.

Holy smokes, Wolverine has a lot of lines pointed in his direction.

Quotes: Intelligence Quotient

Great quote for the day. Be curious and find your quest. Love it!

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. Eugene S. Wilson

Ukulele: Harmony

Good article about musical theory of harmony. Especially meant for ukulele's. Looking forward to some great jam sessions.

Main melody: G D G A B C A
3rd harmony: B F# B C D E C

Main melody: G D G A B C A
5th harmony: D A D E F# G E

Main melody: G D G A B C A
6th harmony: E B E F# G A F#