Xmas Tree Park (San Jose, CA) -- December 2016

 While we were in San Jose, we happened to notice that a small park in the middle of the city had been filled with various Xmas trees.  Since there were some creative themes here, we had to check this out.  Keep in mind this park was about half the size of a city block, and the pictures below were only a fraction of what was here.  We just took pictures of the ones we liked the best.

The New Orleans Jazz Bears reminded me of the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney.  I figured my dad would like the Fire Department display.  And being a Star Wars fan, of course I'm going to like the C-3PO tree (with the inflatable R2-D2 next to it).  The one with the green aliens reminded me of the mascot we had at Texas Museum of Science & Technology.  I also enjoyed the "Nightmare Before Christmas Tree," and what holiday would be complete without the Grinch.  Lauren liked the pet-related ones, like the Unleashed tree, and the Silicon Valley Vet display.  And of course, since she's a big Peanuts fan, she really liked the Snoopy display.

Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, CA) -- December 2016

 All the brochures described this as a "hands-on" museum dedicated to technology.  We'd been to places like this before, which were fun.  I recall going to one in Ottawa (Canada) in high school, and more recently the Discovery Cube near Anaheim.  Since we had some free time, we figured it was worth checking out.  We knew we wouldn't have time to do an IMAX movie there, as it was only full-length features currently being shown.  Places like this usually have shorter presentations (15-30 minutes) on various subjects.

Let's say this was not worth any of the money we paid for the rather expensive entry fee.  There were a handful of exhibits scattered about, but primarily this was designed as a day care.  School aged kids were running hog-wild all over the place, knocking other patrons out of the way, and screaming as they did so.  Other than the exasperated staff, there were no visible adults controlling these kids.  That made it difficult to see any of the exhibits (the few there were).  For the size of the exhibit space, it was only using a fraction of the space available.

After about twenty minutes, we'd seen all we could, given the chaotic nature of this place.  It was clear this was not a museum at all, but a place where the local grade-school kids were dumped off while their teachers disappeared somewhere else to have a few hours of peace and quiet.  Really, there was nothing "innovative" about this place.  It was a complete waste of time and money.

Half Moon Bay (California) -- December 2016

During the trip out to California, I needed an opportunity to see the Pacific.  Every other time I was out, I went into the water in some way ... even if it was just dipping my feet in.  That's because I was used to being in southern California, where the water is relatively warm even in December.  But at this latitude, and the cold wind we had that day, I decided to pass even putting my foot in.  It was overcast, windy, and trying to sprinkle.  It was nice to see, because I love the beach, but I want to imagine what this would look like on a nice sunny day.

Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) -- December 2016

While we were in the area for business, part of the plan was to stop here.  An appropriate amount of time was worked into our schedule to take the time to go through this.  We arrived about the time when it would open for the day, and we able to enjoy it without mobs of people around.  From the "old style" computer (when they took up entire rooms) to the latest innovations, this was very thorough.

I took a number of pictures of things which I found interesting.  These included to changing of the storage capacity, as disks got smaller and smaller (and the Zip Disks which I used a lot of).  I remember playing with the "Big Trak" that a neighbor had, and using the old TRS-80 computers in high school.  I had to get a shot of the Odyssey console (with the background film held to the television screen by static), as it was the *only* console system I ever owned.  The Quiz Whiz was something I had fond memories of, as Dean and I played that a lot.

Of course I'm going to like all the Apple-related stuff, as I used the Classic Mac in college, and my first computer was the LC II.  I almost had the early versions of the notebook and Duo Dock, but I lost the lottery on those.  I loved the Pets.com guy, because I fondly remembered those commercials (and can Chewy adopt him as a "retro-mascot"?)