Remainder of my time in California was a bit of a blur. All of last weeks work was integrated into the rest of the system and everything came together nicely. Unfortunately it didn’t leave me much time to get to the airport. I ended up leaving Santa Clara with two and a half hours to go. In that time I had to drive up to SFO (an hour drive), drop off the rental car, and then jump on a plane. When I made it to the check-in counter they complained bitterly and then suggested I run to the gate…

Anyway from San Francisco I made my way to London for the Plasa trade show held at Earl’s Court. Officially giving small technical demonstrations, having a look at the competition, and getting customer feedback. Unofficially I was the one who had to fix things when they go wrong.

Plasa was long as trade shows go and lasted for four days. During that time we got loads of good feedback (all feedback being good), and generated lots of interest. I was even given an opportunity to talk to some of the competition who were impressed with our system, and were kind enough to show us through theirs. It’s always amazing seeing the different ways that people approach the same problem. Thanks again guys!

The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose is a science museum focusing on interactiving with technology. Nearly all of the exhibits are controllable in some fashion; allowing you to create your own roller coaster or experience an earthquake. While more hands on for the kids it was still interesting.

In the medical section they have a picture of a human body populated with buttons. Pressing a button would result in a video clip being played describing the healing and replacement parts available for that region. So while I’m reading the instructions this kid comes along and presses the button over the brain. He then glares at the TV which explains that we can’t replace the brain yet. Not satisfied with that answer he presses brain again… and again… and again… I left him to it.

Originally I was going to drive down to Monterey to check out the aquarium. Unfortunately I had to pick up a work colleague from SFO in the afternoon, which is in the completely opposite direction and wouldn’t have left me much time to look around. So instead I explored the much closer San Jose.

After visiting the Golden Gate, the remainder of the day was to be spent exploring San Francisco. I’m using the term was because I took one wrong turn and ended up amongst four lanes of crawling traffic. Thankfully I managed to force my way across all of the lanes and escape via the second to last off ramp before being dragged across the golden gate. Been on that ride already thank you.

With traffic getting progressivly worse and being confronted with a host of no left turn signs I decided to cut short SF for now and instead take a coastal route. Remainder of the day was spent driving down to Santa Cruz, and then eventually back to the hotel.

Beneath the Golden Gate Bridge is the Fort Point national historic site. Fort Point was completed just before the American Civil War and while fully manned during that period it never saw any actual combat.

Today was drive up to San Francisco and have a look around… day. Starting with the Golden Gate Bridge. Now if you take the last freeway exit before crossing the Golden Gate and drive along the road a bit you’ll find a gravel car park. Which will be completely full. So instead keep going down a winding road for a couple more minutes and you’ll end up at San Francisco Bay / Crissy Field. Not only is it a nice area but it will take you longer to walk to the Golden Gate. Actually there are a quite a few other sites to see around the area so getting a good park is handy.

Just down the road from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum you can find the San Jose Municipal rose garden.

There’s an unwritten rule in digital photography that when you come across a fountain you have to take a minimum of five pictures of it. Again the goal being quantity not quality.

Leaving Mountain View I headed down to San Jose and visited the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.
Driving around is actually really easy once you know where you are going. Typically all trips involve a four step process: get onto freeway, drive, get off freeway, profit! However, I would suggest using GPS navigation instead of my antiquated post-it note system.

This was the best Egyptian museum I’ve ever been too¹. The outside grounds have a really cool Egyptian theme going on with plenty of photo opportunities. Inside there are several floors to explore including a small mock tomb in the basement. While quite a few of the artifacts are replicas, I couldn’t tell the difference (although having replica on the description gives it away).

One of the top floors outlines the story of the Pharoah Akhenaten who single handedly attempted to manipulate Egyptian religion into only worshiping one god (Aten). Akhenaten ended up founding a new capital city and attempting to eliminate worshiping of all other gods. Banning of idols, defacement of temples, etc. Eventually Akhenaten was succeeded by Tutankhaten (later known as Tutankhamun) who ended up abandoning the city as Aten fell out of favour.

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1. also it has been the only Egyptian museum I’ve been too

Having the freedom of a rental car means you can go where you want, when you want. As an added bonus driving by yourself also allows you to acquire a vast amount of driving experience (read: getting lost and driving around for hours on end).
Freeways are not very pull over to the side of the road and check the map friendly. Fortunately I discovered that navigation problems can be solved with pre-planning, post-it notes, and Google Maps.

So after making a list of places to see and grouping them into days; I ended up at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. In my defense I wasn’t the only person looking around, there was another guy.

The Computer History Museum ended up being really interesting and I would recommend it to non-techies. They have an impressive collection ranging from old Cray super computers to an Enigma machine. Even an Altair 8800 is sitting on a shelf amongst its future children.

Not a fridge but an Interface Message Processor – the first packet router for the Arpanet.