April Fool

For the past few years, the Museum of Flight has put up an amusing April Fool's day exhibit.  This year was no different.

 

You have to be a "certain age" to remember the flying toasters screen saver!

We're in another movie!

I'm a couch potato with a cold and I'm working through my Netflix queue.  Low and behold, I find out they were filming To Be Takei while we were presenting George with honorary Rebel Legion membership a few years ago at ECCC!  Chrystal even has a speaking part! 


Chystal is dressed as Queen Amidala and is actually recorded making the presentation.  I'm behind her and Amanda is behind me. 

Snow

Yup.  Got snow.  When I awoke at 0600, it was still dry.  But by 0730, there was this: 

 

Snow on the Gnome Noses:

 

Spaceflight Academy!

This week's volunteer shift at the Museum of Flight was quite interesting.  I spent the shift over in the Space Gallery where I watched the final push for installation of the new Spaceflight Academy. 

First, as I arrived, I caught this interesting view of the newly delivered Boeing 787 (# 3).

I had been a bit annoyed when I heard the Christmas tree was already up.  It was still a week before Thanksgiving.  However, the previous evening, at the volunteer meeting, it was explained that the Museum will have several groups hosting their holiday parties, starting right after Thanksgiving so the tree needed to be up early.  They are also dependent upon the schedule of the volunteer group that does the set up.  This tree celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Museum of Flight!

While watching the Spaceflight Academy final build, I met Alfred.  He's a retired Boeing engineer.  And he built the fuel tanks for the model of the Space Shuttle!  He said he began the build nearly 2 years ago, in December 2012.

He was there to watch the installation of the tanks.  The model of the shuttle was built by AeroJet Rockadyne and donated to the Museum.   I waited as long as I could.  Next week, my shift falls on Thanksgiving and the Museum of closed.  So it's likely I won't be there again until early December.  I'll have more photos then.


Dieter is a Museum docent and a real Rocket Scientist.  He is an engineer for Aerojet Rockadyne of Redmond.  He presented at the Museum's Spacefest on the rockets built for NASA Mars missions. In the second photo, he's posed holding a plastic model of one of the engines. 

 

I meet such interesting and accomplished people at the Museum!  There were several astronauts there for Spacefest but, this time, I didn't meet any of them. 


All the photos are here.

Halloween 2014

The porch decor theme this year is Harry Potter.  JK is releasing a new bit of fiction on Pottermore today and AFK, the geek tavern, is celebrating Halloween with a "Death Eaters" theme. 

I dressed as  Professor McGonagall.  The thing on my face is a cat nose mini-mask.  Prof M was an Animagus who could morph into a Tabby Cat.

More photos here.

On the last day of my Michigan trip (29 Oct), I took a drive to a neighboring small town.  I saw three houses that were over the top for Halloween.

All those photos are here.

Star Wars Reads Day

Yesterday was a good troop at the Museum of Flight.  Alpha Base & Garrison Titan helped the Museum celebrate Star Wars Reads Day. 

Amanda is missing from this photo, which was taken by Bob, the R2D2 builder

We had to have our photos made in two specific places.....
The Destiny Module (aka "Tantive IV")

Here are Amanda and me.

and in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer.

The Museum staff had lots of fun things for kids to do, including "Death Star Ground School" and lots of crafts.  Yoda holds min-lightsaber building parts.

Lots of people came dressed in Star Wars costumes.  Here some kids using the Force:

All the photos are here.

Homeland Security and the Lightsaber

As the lone Alpha Base/Rebel Legion member, I joined two from Garrison Titan/501st Legion to do a fund raising photo booth at the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) Kick off event at the Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle.

The building has an airport-like screening process for entry but it's run by Homeland Security officers.  It was amusing taking my lightsaber through.  The officer pulled by bag out, asked whether it was mine and then said he had to search it.  He pulled out the sink-tube lightsaber and asked, "what's this?" I told him it was a lightsaber.  I'd intentionally brought one without any electronics in it for this reason.  Another officer was interested and wanted to see it, too.  All was fine from then on.

The GT members came through the loading dock with their bins.  These were screened in a large device.  Despite the presence of at least 3 prop weapons, Cheryl said the item about which the officers were most concerned was the aerosol can of hair spray!

We three posed for photos for a donation to the CFC charity.

Local TV and comedy personality, Pat Cashman, was there.  He's on a local show called The 206 (Seattle's area code).  While at the event, he filmed a brief segment for the show which was a fake ad for lard.  He asked the TK to pretend to eat it.  This will be on the show 18 or 25 October.
Update 20 November:  That segment finally aired a couple weeks ago and the Stormtrooper wasn't in it.  

All the photos are here.