To start of my week of Seuss, I would like to tell you my two favorite books about Dr. Seuss. The first one, Dr. Seuss American Icon discuss his life, his writing and his art :
The next book is The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss. This book is more like a coffee table book. It’s colorful pages present the non illustration art he made.
Dr. Seuss is meant to be read out-loud. When I was younger I tried many times to read Green Eggs and Ham to myself but I didn’t get it. I was just reading it, not hearing it. I decided that Dr. Seuss was not all it was chalked up to be. It wasn’t until I became a mother and started reading his books out-loud to Rachel that I discovered just what a genius Dr. Seuss really was.
In honor of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s 108th birthday on March 2, I am going to blog about my various Dr. Seuss favorites. It is hard to pick favorites because so much of his work is amazing, but there are some that stick out to me. I hope you find some time this week to grab your favorite Dr. Seuss book and a child, any child, it doesn’t have to be your own, and let them hear the awesomeness that is Dr. Seuss.
Pyramids, Pharaohs and laser shooting sphynxs, yea, this is my kind of game. Joey got it for Christmas, and we have finally had a chance to play it a few times. Think chess with lasers, I loved it. Not only is it easy to learn, Rachel could play along with us, but it exercised some rarely used portions of my brain. My brain literally felt stretched after we were done playing. You have think about how pieces move and you have think about the different paths the lasers are going to take. Be careful, you could kill your own pharaoh. Beyond all that, this game it just plain fun and cool. Come on, haven’t you wanted to play with lasers and mirrors?
In 1993 I was 14 years old and happily attending jr. high school. There were rumblings of this new thing called the “internet”, but it was by no means main stream. That same year ATT&T ran its series of “You Will” ads (watch and be amazed):
It is now almost 20 years later and most if not all of these things happen in some form everyday. I have done a lot of them myself. If we are living 1993’s future, what will the future of 2012 look like:
To be honest, I don’t think it will take us 20 years to get there.
As a huge fan of most things Apple, it was difficult not be curious and fascinated with Apple’ enigmatic leader. I was therefore very interested in reading Walter Issacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.
Just like the man himself, Steve Jobs was an extreemly fascinating read. Walter Isaacson does a fantastic job weaving together some of the history of the personal computer with detailed insight into this complicated leader (the good and the bad). It is easy to see how the peronalaties of the men leading the computer industry (Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) shaped the landscape of personal computing.
Two bits about reading the book. 1st – there is some language so consider yourself warned. 2nd – Read it with the internet nearby so you can google things. I found it very fun to check out the different computer models or iPod ads as the book talked about them.
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life…I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel…Once the emotions have been aroused-a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love- then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for a child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.” – Rachel Carson
With two little girls in the house, it should come as no surprise that we tie a lot of bows in our house. Most Sunday mornings the task of tying the back of the dress bows usually falls to me. A few Sunday’s ago Joey surprised me with the declaration that he was going to tie the girls dresses as he was now a bow tying expert. I had to do a double take as he deftly tied two perfect bows. They were fantastic. The surprised look on my face prompted him to add “You probably tie your shoes wrong too, I watched a TED talk.” He was right!!
There are two forms of the knot we commonly use to tie our shoes. There is a weak form which tends to place the bow in a perpendicular line to the ties and comes untied easily. This is the form most of us know because it is easier to learn. There is also a strong form of the knot, which places the bow parallel to the ties and, as the name suggests, is also stronger and therefore less likely to come undone. I had no idea that my whole life I have been tying my shoes wrong. Here is the short TED talk that transformed the way we tie our shoes and our bows:
Here is another science experiment to excite the right brain, as well as the left. The next time you are at the store, pick up a few bars of Ivory soap. Take the wrapper off the soap and place the bar on a large microwave safe plate or bowl. Place it in the microwave, set the timer for 1 minute and press start. Watch as the bar of soap puffs up to fill your microwave with a lovely soap sculpture. You may want to cut your bars of soap in half because they get really huge!! This happens because Ivory soap whips a lot of air into their soap during manufacturing. Thus creating a soap that floats. When heated in the microwave, the air molecules absorb the energy and begin moving at a higher velocity causing them to expand away from the other air molecules. The result is a puffed soufflé of Ivory soap.
We went on a quick trip to the magic kingdom in Anaheim!! I was really excited go. The girls are at the perfect ages for it be truly magical, and it was. Both girls were just darling (and very well behaved). My favorite memories were Rachel riding on some of the bigger roller coasters. The ride operators at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad recognized her so they let her ride twice in a row (no waiting in line for this princess). Laura’s face on Pirates of the Caribbean was so priceless that I defied the no flash photography rule to capture it. Joey displayed his creative prowess by devising card games to play with our fast passes while waiting for World of Color to start. Even though it was beyond crowded on New Years Eve, it was worth it to be a part of the party.
Laura on Pirates
Have you seen it? That bright star shinning in the east as the sun goes down is actually the giant planet Jupiter. When viewed from earth it is the 3rd brightest object in the night sky (after the moon and venus). Jupiter completes its orbit around the sun in 11.86 years, but makes a single rotation on its axis in just under 10 hours. This rapid rotation creates an equatorial bulge, which you can see from through a telescope.
Jupiter has 64 named natural satellites i.e. moons. The four largest moons, known as galilean moons, because Galileo discovered them in 1610 are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. To give you a sense of size, Ganymede, the largest moon has the same diameter as the planet mercury. These four moons can also be seen from earth with binoculars or a telescope.
In the spirit of the Christmas season, this week, I will be hauling out the telescope to check out this bright “star” in the east and it’s moons.
Mind Migrations 