Nearly home

Back in Vancouver now. Flying out to Sydney tomorrow evening. Just wanted to put in a couple of quick updates...

Spent a day at the San Francisco Zoo earlier in the week. Pretty good setup, next to the ocean. Most interesting for me was the big pussy cat enclosures. They use a moat instead of bars to keep the punters safe. So I was able to get some photos of a Lion lounging around waiting for his dinner... will post them when I get my website back up and running.

Also had a look at the Golden Gate bridge and took some snaps.

Next day was the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is very impressive. It's like walking around an enormous lounge room with two story high fish tanks! No pics to speak of though.

Yesterday, Rob and I had a day out with the cameras so we went to SF again and spent the day shooting the touristy sites. Golden Gate from the other side, SF trolley cars, Alcatraz and we also stopped at a little place called Pacifica just south of SF. Had a bit of fun runnign around the middle of the road trying to get just the right angle, looking down the hill with trolley car in the foreground and Alcatraz in the background.

I also got a bit of a thing going where I would try to fit in the ubiquitous American Flag with all my photo subjects. Wasn't too hard, the yanks are a patriotic lot!

Hmm, that's it for now. Next stop is Sydney and I'm going to sleep for a few days I think!

Computer History Museum

Today we checked out the Computer History Museum. Pretty interesting stuff. Had a tour around the "archive" where they had all sorts of stuff from the dawn of computing, starting with the abacus, all the way up to the machine that beat Kasparov at a chess tournament. Some highlights included a US automated missile defence computer console (complete with built-in ashtray and lighter!) and the flight control computer from an Apollo lunar module.

During the tour, the guide kept mentioning that a group of volunteers were refurbishing an original IBM 4201 computer. (We're talking 50's or 60's vintage here...) After the tour Rob and I went to find these guys. When we walked into their lab they couldn't wait to tell us about what they were up to! It was actually great fun. These guys were in the 70's at least. One of them had been working on this stuff since WWII. The older guy was working on a card reader (he'd pulled it to bits to find all the broken parts and was in the process of putting it back together). They all joked that they hoped he got it back together before he died! He actually showed us the faulty components - a couple of steel shafts where the bearings had worn out so they wouldn't turn properly!!! (They don't make 'em like that anymore!) They actually had the 4201 CPU mostly running (i.e. it could add and subtract) so that it was doing 20 or so of it's 35 instructions properly. Multiplication and division was an optional extra (no joke!).

Some other highlights were the original Apple 1 computer (You had to provide your own keyboard, screen and power supply) and a prototype for the Palm Pilot.

Welcome to the Hotel California...

Hello from downtown Sunnyvale, CA

Hanging out with Rob and his tribe in Silicon Valley (or pretty close to it).

I'm having a tourist experience here. Yesterday we went to the NASA Ames research museum. They had all sorts of good stuff there. The best being a real live Mercury spacecraft on display. This one was an early unmanned version, but they used them for manned missions later on the program. These things are nothing but tin cans! Seriously! There are no hatches, the astronauts were bolted into the thing! Next to the tin can (err, sorry, "spacecraft") were a couple of space suits. The ones use for the Mercury missions came complete with silver spray-painted Doc Martens as well. Another suit was supposedly used for the Gemini missions where the astronauts did a spacewalk! They must be making this stuff up! There's no way anyone would wear this get-up in the vacuum of space, surely? They orbited the Earth in this stuff??!!?!?!??

Leaving Whistler

Last day in Whistler today. Dropped into the physio this morning with a little present and a card for them. Had to thank them for putting me back together in time for the level 2.

Bags all packed and now killing time before heading back to Vancouver.

Made some good friends here. Did a deal with one of the instructors (the guy who set me up with the custom fitted boots) that I'd come back next year and he can teach me to ski bumps properly! We also have an appointment with a double black run called "The Cirque" that I will need properly functioning knees for!

Which reminds me, not long now and I'll be back home looking for a "real job" so I can earn some "real money"!

CSIA Level 2: in the bag!

Woo-hoo! I'm a very happy boy tonight - ace'd the skiing technical demos and got some good marks on the teaching assessment too.

Not bad for an old guy with dodgy knees!

The pic shows some of my fellow skiing gurus going through their teaching assessment. I had already finished so was able to relax and smell the roses so to speak. The big dude in the red and white is our course conductor. He's a level 4 uber-skier, and never misses a photo-op! My skis in the foreground - just in case you think I'm making all this up ;-)

CSIA Level 2: Last day tomorrow!

Well, I've made it this far. One more day of ski technique demos and teaching a lesson and it's all over.

I'm working on the theory that if the coaches haven't pointed out anything really bad then I'm still in with a chance. We will see...

I am looking forward to a beer or six tomorrow night!

More Snow!

This ones for you Staggy!

30cm overnight yesterday, 4cm this morning. It's snowing outside right now and the forecast is for around 30cm again tonight.

By the way, does everyone know that the 2010 Winter Olympics are being held in Canada? Whistler is hosting the Men's Downhill events and they are building a bobsled track as well. If you want to come I suggest you book now...

CSIA Level 2: two days in...

The knee is holding up OK so far. This is good.

My skiing was total rubbish on Monday. Very disappointing. Today was a fair bit better in the morning and by the afternoon I was getting back in the swing of it. Hopefully I've done enough to make the course coaches happy.

Two days of teaching and then a final assessment on Friday. We get homework to do in the evenings too...

The fortune cookie that I got with lunch today read: "The best teacher is also a good student." Very profound!

CSIA Level 2

Well, tomorrow is the big test... either my knee is going to hold out for 5 days or this blog is going to get stale fast...

Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Happy New Year 2006!

New Year's Eve, Whistler style was pretty big. Managed to get into a pub with some of the people in the ski group. The place turned out to be a great pick. Most of the people there we my age, the band played tunes I knew the words to, and the beer was reasonably priced!

Spent the night bopping (yes, I even danced!) and they played Men At Work's "Down Under" and Waltzing Matilda for the Aussies - very sporting! We rang in the New Year to a pretty fair rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Rock 'n Roll". One of the guys brought his Aussie flag with him (is that normal?)... and we got pretty pissed!

Weather was something different too - it snowed like crazy most of the night. They tell me Sydney had 40 degrees this week!

Ice Hockey

Went to an ice hockey game a few days ago. The match was a friendly between the Blackcomb and Whistler ski instructors. Blackcomb won 7-3. One of the Blackcomb players went home in an ambulance.

Ice hockey is a very fast game. You have to see it live to be able to follow it really. On TV you can't see the puk most of the time!