Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Making robot magic!

Anthony and I went to a cool little shop called the "Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company" today. I won't be shocked if you haven't heard of it. Really.




It's a neat shop where they sell all kinds of things you might need for your spaceship or space station. You know, like maps of the universe, multi tools, seedlings, and robot kits!

What's even cooler about the store is that it's the retail front for a really neat, non-profit organization that promotes literacy for kids, called 826 Seattle.



826 Seattle is one of the arms of 826 National, which is easily summarized by a line from their website:
826 National is a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in eight cities across the country. Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing. Our work is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
I couldn't agree more with the premise, as I fully understand (from personal experience) that love of reading leads to love of writing, which leads to all kinds of good things!

Anthony really wanted to get a robot from the store and put it together. Since the profit goes to the writing programs that the store supports, I said, "Why not?".

We found ourselves with a robot kit, more specifically, a Brush Robot kit. Larry helped Anthony put it together and...voila! Anthony's first robot!










Friday, March 19, 2010

Driving around Puget Sound

Anthony and I drove around the Sound today. That means we started at home, drove south , drove through Tacoma, came up the Kitsap peninsula through to Bremerton, and then took the ferry to Seattle and drove home once on our side of the water.

It was a fun time. We checked out the Tacoma Narrows bridges (the "new" new one, and the "old" new one). If you know anything about the history of engineering in general, you've heard of the Tacoma Narrows bridge (the old one that only lasted about four months).

Here's the video of the original plummeting into the Sound.


As you can see, there was a replacement bridge built shortly thereafter. Another one opened up recently (2007) to handle the enormous amount of traffic between the Kitsap peninsula and the Tacoma metropolitan area.











We hung out at the Narrows Park in Gig Harbor, which is on the other side of the Narrows from Tacoma. It has a gorgeous and very long beach. Only a few people were out on a sunny Thursday afternoon, so we had the place mostly to ourselves!











After the beach fun, we took a ride up to Bremerton so we could do what we came to do: Ride the ferry boat to Seattle!






Sunday, March 7, 2010

Houston

I flew to Houston this week. I had some personal stuff to do, but I also had the chance to visit with Larry's brother, Joe, and Joe's family.

The highlight of the trip was meeting Jennifer, my sister-in-law, and my niece, Mara! I can't believe I hadn't met them before now, but I absolutely adore these people. :)










Isn't she so incredibly, stinking CUTE?!!! Adorable.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Anthony explores the Space Needle

Having been in the Coit Tower (San Francisco) and the Arch (St. Louis) in the course of a month, it seemed about the right time to go back up into the Space Needle.

It's been a gorgeous, clear winter. According to the weathermen, the day we went up to the Space Needle was one of the clearest EVER. Sometimes we really luck out!



























Trip to St. Louis!

Anthony and I went to St. Louis to visit family. We had fun, as always!