Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Drawing Lesson

Hippo likes to draw and color. He especially likes animal coloring books. They help him imagine what a panda would look like with blue fur or how much easier it would be to find the wallabies if they were bright pink with orange polka dots.

But most of the coloring books from the zoo have only page of hippopotamuses. That's not nearly enough for Hippo to test out all the wardrobes he has in mind. So Hippo searched for a way to make his own hippos to color.


These instructions at DragoArt.com explain how to draw a hippo in seven easy steps.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

National Parks

Hippo recently got his paws on a lifetime pass to all United States National Parks. So now we're on a mission to go wherever it takes us. Our inaugural visit was to Great Falls Park in Virginia.


We've seen the falls from the C&O Canal Park in Maryland many times, but this is our first view from the west. Spectacular!

Friday, June 12, 2009

TV

Hippo is a little too young to remember the parties on New Year's Eve 1999 as Y2K approached. That was a wild night of food, drinks, games, funny hats, and sitting glued to the television waiting to see if predictions of blackouts, crashing jetliners, and jackpotting ATM's would come true.

But Hippo was ready to party today, the last day in decades of analog TV. We switched over from the cable box to watch our local NBC station on the rabbit ears one last time. They even had a countdown to switchover time, just like Dick Clark on Rockin' New Years' Eves.


What would happen when they turned off all those transmitters. Would the sky turn black? Would the urban buzz fade to an eerie silence? Would the aliens come for a visit, wondering what happened to all their favorite shows?


In fact, what happened is: it SNOWED. We learned recently that the snow is actually radio noise echoing from the Big Bang. We wonder what will happen when those old TV frequencies get reused for new kinds of transmissions. Maybe they'll make abstract art or Rorschach tests appear on those old-fashioned TV's. I think we'll keep one around to find out.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Art Contest


We have received our first entry in the Color-a-Hippo Art Contest. It is a work of crayon on paper by a Mr. H.A.P. from Washington, DC. Thanks Mr. P!