Did Your Favorite Old Computer Make The Cut?

For those of you with a fondness for TRS-80's, Altairs, Commodore 64's and Apple Lisas, The Most Collectible PC's Of All Time are brought together in a neat photo essay by Harry McCracken.

Vacation 2007 - What Have I Learned?

Well, it's 7:08 a.m. Eastern time as I write this on my home computer in my own home. We had a whirlwind 11 days of fun and laughs and I'd do it again if I could.

Here's what I would tell people about the trip in as few words as possible.

Diamond Lake - friendly people
Crater Lake - scenic beauty
Eureka - majestic trees
Oakland - funderful suburbia (okay, I borrowed that phrase from a Paramount cartoon)
San Francisco - bustling town, more like New York than Los Angeles

It was also a time for reaffirming old friendships and also a time for cementing new familial relations.

Now, all that's left to do is to pick up the dog and the cat and everything will be back to normal.

And tomorrow it's back to school for me! So it really is over.

The Last Day

Our time out West is slowly slipping away. Our next little trip will be to the San Francisco-Oakland International Airport, where we'll return our rental car and board the Continental jet that will whisk us away to home. Since we're losing the three hours we gained when we flew West, we'll leave here at about 1 and come home close to 10. By the time our limo drops us off at Tracy's house, it will be after midnight.

This vacation was the best time for all of us. Sure we had the little spats and disagreements, but what family doesn't? I'm proud to have taken the people I now am pleased to call my family on the trip.

Now to go print those boarding passes...

Monterey and SF In Pictures

Our hotel in Monterey had some great architecture and even better landscaping.



Here's Monterey's favorite author, John Steinbeck (photo by Tracy Meyer).





The Monterey Bay Aquarium also has little treasures in amongst the sea otters and great white sharks.



At the Dennis The Menace Playground, new equipment bears contemporary views of Gina, Ruff and Joey. Other panels on this apparatus feature Dennis and Margaret.



An aerial view of San Francisco from way high up in our hotel (photo by Nancy Crane).



Better you see it here than in some tabloid next Thurdsay (photo by Harry McCracken).

Oh Yeah, I'm Still On Vacation

We had a lot of fun on Saturday. Breakfast at Denny's, then a little pool time, then a nice ride into San Francisco. We had to table the Golden Gate Bridge trip, due to possible complications due to this weekend's Bay Bridge closure. Our concierge (who prefers to be called "Dirty Harry") recommended a nice little place called Pazzia for dinner tonight, and as you've doubtless read on other blogs/boards, Tracy and I have now become engaged. NO ONE AT THE TABLE KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. (I've gotten so good at keeping secrets.)

We are very happy to have committed to spending the rest of our lives together.

I went into several record stores. There's a Virgin Megastore right down the street from my hotel, and there's Rasputin Music, said to be one of the last indie record shops in the city. They even had some recent vinyl reissues, including a 30th anniversary repressing of Steely Dan's 1977 album "Aja".

We'll most likely post our final pictures from the trip tomorrow or Monday, as we are headed back to New Jersey tomorrow afternoon. And I'm almost literally stepping off the plane onto a parade route.

Someone's Getting Married

Harry McCracken writes the society page of his blog, announcing.... well you go and read it.

The Ad Makers Need To Retire Another Song

Years ago, in some forum, I called for the retirement of the song "Nobody But Me" by the Human Beinz because it was overused in ads.

I'm thinking that the song "What I Like About You" by the Romantics has now run its course as well. I just saw it in an ad for a hotel chain.

It gets annoying that our ad wizards just have to pick a song, secure the rights, throw visuals against it and that's your ad. No narration, no copy, no nothing. It's totally disenfranchising to blind television users. They just hear a song for 30 seconds and don't even realize it's an ad for Something.

Makes me glad I'm not in that business anymore.

Friday in Monterey, plus Pictures From The Week

First, the pictures.



Barry Bonds watches another one go skyward. Not very far, just skyward. This was one of two pop outs off the bat of the home run king on Wednesday. Looking at Bonds' latest lob shot are Colorado catcher Chris Iannetta and home plate umpire Tony Randazzo.



The Santa Rosa boardwalk was a lot of fun!

Now to today's visits. Monterey is a town just dripping with nice restaurants and little shops and one-way streets and the stench of old canneries and the spirit of John Steinbeck oozing from every pore. The main target of today's visit was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Now I'm a sucker for aquariums, and this one eschews the cliche that all aquariums must play Saint-Saens' "Aquarium" from "Carnival Of The Animals" somewhere in its soundtrack. The most noteworthy new addition is a baby Great White Shark. We did get some videos and pictures. The sea otters are always good for a few laughs, and we did get to see lots more fine examples of the pescatorial arts.

The other visits included the Dennis The Menace Playground (which has been around for over fifty years). There is a wood sculpture of Dennis and Margaret near the old Southern Pacific steam engine and newer playground equipment has pictures of Dennis and friends (including Margaret, Joey, Ruff and Gina). We also visited Jack's Park to watch a little softball.

So that's it from Day 9 of our vacation. Day 10 will see us returning to San Francisco tomorrow. And then Sunday we go home.

Thursday Night In Monterey

Much fun ensued on Thursday. We checked out of our Oakland hotel, did some laundry, and then drove down to Santa Cruz to visit their boardwalk and beach. The one arcade I went to had a few pinball machines but nothing to write home about. "Cyclone" had weak flippers but played remarkably well for an almost 20-year-old machine. The "World Poker Tour" I played had two bad flippers out of four, but were fairly priced. (Yesterday, I saw some machines on Pier 39 that I dared not touch due to their $1.00 playing price.) The girls and I enjoyed frappes and Dippin' Dots ice cream. It was also a treat to see some Crown Coaches on the way to Santa Cruz. Man, those old buses still hold up quite nicely!

Then, a very easy ride down Route 1 to Monterey. We'd been warned that the road from Santa Cruz to Monterey was twisty and mountainous but we were pleasantly surprised to find it mostly flat and straight. (Tracy did the driving.) We're staying at Casa Munras and it's a very nice hotel! Each room has a DVD player and you can borrow movies from the front desk to watch.

Tomorrow we're spending the day at the aquarium. We'll have some pix up soon of our adventures of the last few days.

Continuing Our Vacation

Today is pretty much going to be a traveling day. We are headed down to Monterey and we're waiting until the Bay Bridge traffic into San Francisco thins out a little bit so we can get down to the Pacific Coast Highway. We will likely make a few stops along the way. I'll report more when we're in for the night.

More Vacation Pix

First, some shots of Alcatraz...







And who's this guy working on a notebook computer?




More pictures later... I promise!

Time out for a baseball report

Even though I went to a Giants game and had a good time today, I never stop being a Mets fan. And the sad news is that they've lost the last four and hopefully it will not be a fifth game in a row on Thursday when they play the last game of their series against the Phillies. This series so far has been more damaging to the Mets' psyches than their record, and it was painful to hear the bullpen screwed Tom Glavine over again the other night. Hopefully I can listen to a little of the game on the way to Monterey tomorrow.

AT&T Park, At Last

Right now I am sitting at the Giants game. Harry McCracken is here, as is part of our traveling road show. We were excited to see Barry Bonds playing, but not to go 0-2 so far in the game, which is seeing the Giants at a 7-0 deficit to the Colorado Rockies in the top of the fifth inning. We will be staying in SF for the evening as the rest of my peeps will be joining us after the game for dinner. Tomorrow, we will be leaving for a couple of days in Monterey. But on Saturday we will be back in San Francisco for one final goodbye to the city.

EDIT: Giants lose 8-0 and Bonds didn't get up to bat again in the game. Phooey.

Wednesday Morning, 9 AM

Oakland is turning out to be a damn hard city to get wireless access in, at least in the area around our hotel. Even the wired access, at a steep $9.95 a day (I guess you pay for the security), wasn't working as it should.

Today is the day of the Giants game at AT&T Park (and thank you Nancy and Harry for pointing out my mistake in calling it PNC Park, which I believe is in Pittsburgh). Yesterday we went to San Francisco for the first time this trip, taking the boat tour to Alcatraz Island and then hanging around Pier 39, then taking a cable car ride to Powell Street. More pictures later, hopefully!

Monday Afternoon At UC Berkeley

The Lawrence Hall of Science on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley was our destination today. (That, and a trip to the North Face Outlet to get a new rain jacket. And lunch at Jimmy Beans - definitely try the Rocky Jr. Chicken!)

The current LHS exhibit is "Circus! Science Under The Big Top", which was originally developed by the Ottawa Science Museum. Unfortunately, this exhibit is closing on September 2, so you should get there if you can (and I don't guarantee the link will still work). It was very fascinating to see the scientific fact behind many circus tricks - how acrobats' routines affect their bodies, the reasons behind balance, the measurements required to get a human cannonball safely into the net. Children can actually try bungee jumping and tightrope walking in very safe simulations.

And different varieties of circus animals' feces. (I think they were really painted wood replicas and not the real things. So happens I read "Everybody Poops" this morning. Apparently it's a very popular book.)

The new exhibit taking over from "Circus" will be "Wild Music: The Sounds & Songs Of Life", beginning on October 6.

Pictures of Crater Lake and Diamond Lake

As promised there are some pictures of my trip so far. There's two of the Diamond Lake resort, and two of Crater Lake. You gotta see this in person someday.

Sunday, 7:00 p.m. - Oakland!

We took a nice trip down U.S. 101 from Eureka down to Oakland today. The redwood trees were very impressive and the ride to Oakland very smooth. Except for the last 40 or so miles of very dense traffic.

Our only planned activities so far for the next three days are a visit to Alcatraz Island on Tuesday and the Giants game at AT&T Park on Wednesday. There will be some pictorial proof.

Sunday Morning, 8:00 a.m.

Now it's Sunday morning, and I was rudely awakened by the alarm that was set by the person who used the room before me. The girls got up just after me. They just got to talk to their dad on the phone, so I think they'll be okay today.

We're all ravenously hungry so I think we're going to find us some breakfast. Later, a report about the giant trees.

A Day at Crater Lake, and Will We Ever Get To Eureka?

It's 1:15 a.m. in beautiful (well, we've only seen it in the dark) Eureka, CA. Our journey here from Crater Lake was not without mishap.

Anyway, to get to Crater Lake first. WOW! Tracy told me afterwards that she wasn't going to be sure of my reaction, but I can honestly say it was a wow.

Yes, I survived the boat ride and especially the hike down and up from the trail head to the boat dock. The tourguide (a most helpful gentleman) said that it's best described as one mile down and ten miles back up. He also compared it to climbing 65 flights of stairs, with its almost 800-foot rise. Once in the boat we had a most entertaining two-hour tour of Crater Lake.

Through an error in judgment perhaps fueled by some bad online mapping (no GPS to speak of in our rental), we went the longish way from Crater Lake to Eureka, CA. Basically we went via Klamath Falls, then caught the 5 in Weed, CA, and then hung a right onto 299. Warning. Route 299 is not intended for those with weak constitutions or are prone to motion sickness. We did have one passenger lose her Burger King dinner en route. The nice thing about the reroute was the girls did get to see Mount Shasta.

But it's now off to bed for me (no idea when I'm going to publish this - no Internet access in this motel). Tomorrow, the giant redwoods and maybe some pix from Oakland. Bye now!

Saturday, 4:10 a.m. - Diamond Lake, OR

It's 4:10 A.M. in Oregon. Tracy, the girls and I had a most exciting day at Diamond Lake Resort, which is not too far from Crater Lake. We were originally going to drop our stuff off here and then drive to Crater Lake, but Tracy and I were so taken with the place that we decided to stay the day here, then do Crater Lake on Saturday.

We got a very nice cabin, about the size of a small house. There are two bedrooms, one bathroom and a living/dining/kitchen area. The only bow to modernness is cable TV. There's only an Internet connection near the lodge, and our cellphones are on the roaming network now. This is about as disconnected as anyone should get in this day and age. Additionally, most of the outlets in the cabins are of the old two-prong variety. (Note to self: bring a grounding adapter next time.)

While not as large as Crater Lake, Diamond Lake is just as scenic. A distant mountain still has a touch of snow cover in late August, just a few months away from new snowfall that will turn this entire place into a winter wonderland. FOr now, there are boat and bicycle rentals and lots of opportunities for hiking. There is a small creek running just outside my bedroom window (it's called Two Bear Creek) and hearing it makes me think it's raining. But today was sunny and 80, and Saturday should be just as nice.

The paddleboats were very tricky to get in and out of with both me and Tracy almost taking an unexpected trip into the water. But once we got out there we had fun pedaling around the lake.

There are lots of very friendly people staying here. I would imagine that due to the decorations around some of the cabins, that there are some year-round residents here. They do have a general store that caters to them, selling delicacies unknown and obscure (did you know that Jeff Foxworthy has lent his name and face to a brand of beef jerky?). Lots of families with kids and you can bring your dog here too. There are some restaurants here and on the south shore there's even a pizzeria.

I turned in early; we were all huddled up on the couch watching "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" (when in Rome...) and I hit the hay around 9:00 p.m., and I reckon the girls weren't too far behind. As soon as the rest of the crew awakens and gets ready to go, we'll be going to Crater Lake, spending some time there, and then going to Eureka, CA to spend the night with the big trees.