Experiment #2013-11-26-A: Dry ice

This morning, our Amazon Fresh order was delivered pre-dawn. In the styrofoam cooler, keeping our Cool Whip and sausage cold, were two packs of dry ice. Since we changed up our routine lately, I've taken time in the mornings to be with my boys, so I decided to play with them and the dry ice.

We started by chucking one of the two blocks into the sink. Not terribly exciting by itself:

It was hard enough to see the goings-on that I grabbed a plastic container, filled it with water, put it on the table, and let the boys put the second block in (for this and the other two videos, see my Dry Ice Experiment playlist):

We discussed sublimation, density, temperature, et al.

Jacob was excited by the frozen water that formed on the dry ice:

They both wanted a jar of their own for pieces of the dry ice, but I told them we couldn't put a lid on it. Jacob immediately asked, "Or the lids will fly off?" He had the right idea (whether he knew it or not) in that there would be a build-up of pressure. I told him the lids would stay put, but the class would break. Maybe some day we'll try that experiment.

November 17-23 in pictures

Driving past the Port of Seattle on our way to a Vikings @ Seahawks game.

Jacob's Avengers 'book'

An arbitrarily chosen building on my walk from bus to bus.

Mount Rainier from my office building on Wednesday.

Dammit, Jerry!

Date night for Radiolab: Apocalyptical

At Lola for Andrea's birthday breakfast

Experiment #2013-11-22-A: Permeability of nitrile gloves

Earlier this year, I bought a pair of armored motorcycle gloves for riding my motorcycle. Unfortunately, I bought them in May when it was plenty warm out. Now that it's in the low-30s in the morning, these gloves do precisely squat to keep my hands from nearly freezing on my 18 mile, mostly freeway commute from Seattle to Bellevue. I've tried adding a pair of cheapy stretch gloves underneath to no avail.

This morning, I ran a bad science experiment to determine whether the cheap nitrile gloves I bought for oil changes would provide any discernible wind-breaking between the armored and nitrile layers. I setup each hand with the cheap stretch glove, then for a control/treatment, I put the nitrile glove on only one hand:

On top of these went the armored gloves:

From there came the ride through beautiful Seattle, across I-90 (seen here), and into Bellevue.

By the time I got to downtown Seattle, it was already evident that there was no windbreaking from the roughly $0.045 glove, and by Bellevue, I could barely feel either finger.

Conclusion: buy some sort of bike mitts.

November 10-16 in pictures

Taking the boys to Golden Gardens while Andrea met with a client.

On our Monday walk to the Ballard Locks, one of the locks was drained completely.

I met up with an old friend at the Kickin' Boot Whiskey Kitchen in Ballard Tuesday and had my first ever old fashioned.

On simplicity/minimalism, I don't know why I still had my TI-86 from high school, but on Wednesday, I sold it for $5.

Jacob and/or Reed decided Buddha must have needed a nap.

Microsoft's soccer field in Redmond. I don't know if it was the rain or time of day (~1:30) causing it to be empty.

Sailing on Puget Sound with the Wyatt Family. 

November 3-9 in pictures

Jacob's guitar.

Monday's walk from one bus stop to another with a nice view of the Space Needle

Jacob and Reed call this The Mystery Machine, as in the van from Scooby Doo.

Dog-sitting for a neighbor, Buddy and Lexie like our couch.

Outside the bathrooms at Pike Place Market.

My homemade nutcracker, the use of which many coworkers failed to understand.

Saturday scootering down to the village. The boys dropped the scooters to play on a big turtle statue.

Concluding the minimalist game

The end of October saw the end of the minimalist game I did with some friends, slightly modified to get rid of one item each day for week one, two per day for week two, three for week three, four for week four, and five for the remaining days in the month, which consisted of:

Days 1 & 2: Ten random CDs and DVDs

Day 3: Another extra multi-tool, double-edge safety razor, camp-quality soup spoon, hard drive, wireless card driver CD

Day 4: ENO DoubleNest hammock, two sake glass sets and an REI coffee mug.

In the last month, I've done away with 90 items from our house and from my life, and I'm quite confident that I will miss none of them -- which is not to say that I didn't enjoy those items that were gifts or get any utility of them. But the house is cleaner and my life is simpler without them.

October 27-November 2 in pictures

A Sunday ride through Magnolia with a brief stop at Smith Cove Park.

This is a combination of two pictures I took from my building. The left half is from Monday noon, and the right half is from Tuesday morning

Bellevue night and day

Andrea was up late Monday cleaning the kitchen, making lunches and doing some work for Jacob's classroom. I found this in my lunch on Tuesday. ♥

Becca knitted a hat for each of Jacob, Reed and me and sent them to us.

When we ran out of Halloween candy in our dish, Reed dumped his candy out and offered it up.

Jacob and Reed's new business venture: toy rental. Two toys for ten minutes for only $1.