Before any spectacle begins on stage, the audience inside the Metropolitan Opera House are treated to the sight of the chandeliers rising dramatically up to the ceiling. It’s an experience cited by some as reason enough alone to attend a performance at the Met. A gift from the Austrian government, the “sputnik” space-age crystal chandeliers are going through their annual summer cleaning, and the 11 that light the lobby are headed back to their Viennese birthplace for refurbishing. Swarovski is sponsoring the effort and donating new crystal. They will be back in time for the start of the Met’s 125th-anniversary season in the fall. More of the lights will be re-worked next summer.

The silence from the annual SR-520 bridge closure this weekend reminded me that it’s been one year since different types of quiet pavement were installed as a test on the stretch near where we live. A graph on the WSDOT site shows the results of decibel measurements each month since last summer’s paving. The rubberized asphalt and polymer-modified asphalt have met up at the 100 decibel mark, still beating out the new control pavement. But it’s a five year test so these numbers don’t mean much yet.

Seventeen years after the devastating Oakland hills fire destroyed 3,000 homes and killed 25 people the San Francisco Chronicle has returned to take stock of the resulting architecture from the rebuilding effort. Metal and stucco were common materials, though there is some wood siding in the mix with gypsum board underneath to meet code. Architects found that different officials interpreted the building rules differently; whether eaves are allowed or certain types of eaves are allowed is one point of conflict. Ceramic and metal roofs provide a striking look to different styles and most homeowners built large houses right to the setback limits.

Stay to the end of the WALL-E credits for a journey through art history. Oh, and Peter Gabriel singing.

Hockey Night in Canada may never sound the same to those who are lamenting the CBC’s loss of the theme song that has heralded the puck for forty years. Negotiations with the composer did not pan out for the CBC and rival network CTV has snapped up the rights to the tune for an unpublicized, but rumored million dollars or more. CBC says it stayed frugal for the good of the taxpayers who provide its funding and many of those same taxpayers are fine with the lost deal. The representative for the composer says the CBC could’ve signed up for the same $500 per broadcast deal they’ve always had. I suppose with hockey there’s always a good fight. CBC is running a contest for a replacement anthem with a prize of $100,000.

I need to catch up on sleep and work so I’m giving myself a break from daily postings. In the meantime, you can ponder a world that continues to supply us with fancy bottled water just for dogs (hey, this one comes in a bowl-shaped bottle).

The French Foreign Legion is keeping its veterans occupied and housed by selling wine from the Legion’s vineyards.

Ever see a Tudor-style house float by on a barge? Ever see any kind of house go by on a barge? On Tuesday in tony Hunts Point, WA a 3,360-square-foot house was taken off its foundation and rolled onto a barge headed for British Columbia. The owners who bought the house and its lakefront lot for $9.4 million decided not to demolish the house even though it wasn’t to their liking. They signed a contract with Nickel Brothers House Moving who sold the house to a family on Vancouver Island. The house should arrive there on Thursday and it will then be measured for a new foundation.

At the Moses Lake Sand Dunes in Grant County, Washington, the wind thrashed dust around and the rain came and went as NASA scientists field tested equipment designed for the 2020 moon landing. A lunar rover with 12 wheels, purchased locally on the advice of a local farmer, climbed the dunes. A lunar RV that can house astronauts for longer explorations also tried out the challenging terrain. Space suits were also tested, although their test subjects had to contend with the stronger Earth gravity.

In the early 1960s, private financing enabled a project that put 13 women through the same rigorous testing as the men who became America’s first astronauts. Janet Christine Dietrich, who died on June 5th, and her twin sister Marion Dietrich were part of that program. Now known as the Mercury 13, the women were all experienced pilots and most had logged more flight time than their male counterparts. All 13 passed the first set of physical tests and 3 underwent isolation tank and psychological evaluations before the project was abruptly canceled. A hearing before a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics had no effect. Despite repeated pleas from female pilots to test women for the program, and even though the Soviets sent a woman into space in 1963, it took NASA until 1978 to accept women into their astronaut candidate program.