Our blog has moved!

I’ve grown disillusioned by WordPress’ frequent problems and difficulties in posting blogs, so I’ve created my own blog on our original hekman.net website. Please change your links to our new blog page http://bc.hekman.net/blog and come by often!

I just posted the first blog entry, with photos from our beach trip. More stories and photos will follow as Claudia and Jordan get back tomorrow from an extra week on the beach.

Signing out,

Ben

Mad Lib Time

Jordan’s learning his adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs these days with Mad Lib stories (also helps develop creativity and family time!).  Here are two he made up with me today.  Enjoy!  And leave us your filled in stories in a comment.

At The Fun Circus, by Jordan Hekman

One day the ________ (adjective) circus came to town.  My Daddy told me we could _____ (verb)!  I was especially looking forward to see the _____ (noun).  When we got to the _____ (noun), the line was really _____ (adjective).  Finally it started.  First we saw _____ (adjective) _____ (noun, plural) doing their tricks.  One of them was extremely _____ (adjective).  Then we saw the _____ (noun) stand on his _____ (noun).  It made every _____ (adjective) person _____ (verb).  We had a great day at the circus!

At The Fun Jungle, by Jordan Hekman

I went to the fun _____ (noun).  I saw a fuzzy _____ (noun).  It scared me! I took my _____ (adjective) _____ (noun), and _____ (verb) it!  It stuck to my _____ (same noun as previous), so I _____ (verb) it off.  Then we got to a _____ (adjective) river.  It was way too _____ (adjective) to cross.  We took lots of _____ (noun, plural) and put them in the water, and in _____ (number) minutes we had made a _____ (noun).  We all crossed _____ (adverb).  On the other side, there was very _____ (adjective) mud!  And I mean VERY _____ (same adjective as previous)!  We got stuck in the mud, but it was lucky that we had a _____ (adjective) rope with us.  We used it to pull all _____ (number) of us to safety.  We came home _____ (adjective) but _____ (adjective).

Satellites and Singers – The AIM satellite is launched with a chorus

Click this link to learn about the AIM satellite which we launched a few weeks ago on a Pegasus and is returning its first images of the noctilucent clouds it was designed to study.  Noctilucent clouds are something you northerners should be able to see a lot of as they appear mostly in northern latitudes, and can be brightly lit even in the night sky because of their high altitudes.  They are not well understood yet and continue to surprise scientists, so we built the AIM satellite to study them from up close.  This satellite will gather data that scientists can use to better understand how they are formed and what their purpose is.  The music that goes along with the movie was written and sung by group of NASA employees.

http://lasp.colorado.edu/~ahotasu/AIMPlots/

Cold and icy

It’s been cold here for several weeks now, in the teens and single digits Farenheit.  Then last week an upper layer of warm air came through which caused rain despite the freezing temperatures down below.  We now have a thick layer of ice everywhere, thick enough that our truck (which weighs in at 2.97 tonnes) can drive over a grassy farm field without making a mark.  As a further test of the strength of the ice, we threw our large sofa-bed couch over the porch railing onto the front lawn, about a six foot drop.  The couch took two burly men to lift (yes, I’m including myself there), but the ice was barely chipped.

The couch did not survive.

Interestingly, the horses break through the ice on every step, although they weigh only about 1000 lbs.  Can anyone explain how a 1000-pound horse will  break through ice when a 6000-pound truck will not?  Post the answer here and you’ll win your choice of a ride on the horse or the truck!

Line Rider

Someone showed us this cute website the other day, loads of fun for kids and even for the grown ups (when you can pull your kids away from the computer, that is).  Draw lines on the computer, then watch an animated kid slide down, do loops, jumps, etc. on your creation.  Doesn’t beat real sledding on real snow, but this winter LineRider.com may be as good as it gets.

The Illusionist

The Illusionist just came out on DVD this week, and gave us a great evening of magic and intrigue.  Eisenheim the Illusionist is an Austrian magician who had a childhood sweetheart well above his social standing.  When they meet again as adults, he tries to use his sleight of hand skills (or magic — we never can tell which) to get past the Viennese social barriers and marry her.   My favorite character is the Chief of Police,  a subtly-played character who starts off liking Eisenheim, is forced to turn against him, then grudglingly grows to admire his skill and audacity.

Add it to your rental list for the next rainy winter evening!

Family walk

Cowboy chat

Birthday party

This posting is a bit late, but here are two photos of my birthday.  Claudia’s spectacular rocket cake, and me fitting in some free time on the Potomac before an afternoon meeting at work.

 

Old barn

There’s a unique, old barn near here that has always caught my attention.  It must have taken a creative architect to fit a horizontal door to a canted barn!