Living Computer Museum in Seattle

Our boys by a mainframe computer.

My hubby wrote this account of our visit.

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This past Saturday we visited the Living Computer Museum which is located in Sodo Seattle - that's the area south of downtown. The boys freaked out at first – something to do with the word “museum”. Our thirteen year old actually asked if he could stay in the car. But almost 2 hours later we had to force them to leave because our hunger was starting to overwhelm our curiosity. It was really well done and engaging for all of us. The ground floor is highly interactive, spacious, and filled with a lot of the very latest in robots and AI demos. That included Baxter (an industrial robot),

two i-Beam telepresence robots (they look like this but this isn't my photo)

that the boys controlled with Xbox controllers and played with for a while, traversing almost the entire floor, a 180-degree immersive ‘autonomous car’ experience, 

and an HTC Vive Virtual Reality headset that the boys got to experience without waiting in line.

Another fun robot to control was the Dash robot. Sheila, to her surprise, was good at controlling this one.

The ground floor also had original Apple IIe’s that you can try your hand at writing a “Hello World” program in BASIC and other machines that tracked the history of gaming and personal computers.

On the second floor were a few other interactive exhibits, including computers they could actually play Minecraft on (sigh!), and a big table where you could work with LittleBits, and some other interactive setups representing current technology.

The third floor is enormous and contains the actual “museum” section. This stuff is perhaps of less interest to younger kids but from a historical point of view, it’s the largest collection of (often working) computers in the world, all courtesy of Paul Allen. A lot of computers are on and you can type on them. 

It was my first time actually seeing in person the actual computers that represented the major touchpoints in the development of the personal computer.

There’s various displays focusing on the early days of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. In this photo J and C reenact a famous photo of Paul Allen typing on a teletype machine (that connects to a PDP computer) with Bill Gates (age 13) looking on.

All in all we’d highly recommend this museum for kids (older elementary school aged and up) and for adults. The cost was $10 each for the boys and $12 for adults. There’s a nice little shopping area full of Raspberry Pis and other hobby electronics.

We asked our boys what their favourite part was and C said the virtual reality experience. A said driving the iBeam robot around.


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Books Read in 2016

It is time for my annual post that summarizes my reading for the year. I'm participating in Sheri's (Semicolon) Saturday Review of Books - a link up.

According to Goodreads (where I keep track of my reading) I read 52 books this past year. A pretty good number. One for every week. I read 21 non fiction and 31 fiction.

My favourite classics reads were:
- A Tale of Two Cities

I tried to read this book a few years ago but became confused quickly by all the characters. I listened to the audio version with some help from the paper version. It was very compelling, especially the ending. Charles Darney's heroic act is pretty amazing.

- David Copperfield. I loved all the characters. I listened to the audiobook again.

I really fell in love with Dickens' writing this past year. I really admire the way he paints a picture of characters.

My favourite fiction reads were:
- Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler.

Vinegar Girl is a modern retelling of the classic Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare. I really enjoyed this story.

-  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I listened to this story of a Swedish curmudgeon Ove who complains about EVERYTHING! What happens when a plucky and chatty Iranian woman (and her family) moves in next door to him? Read it and find out! There is a bit of bad language in this book, so be warned. I turns out that Ove has a soft and gooey heart underneath all the bluster.

- One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood. The main character of this book is a 104- year old woman who is helped on Saturday mornings by an 11 year old Boy Scout. She tells him her story over time. Their friendship affects the other members of the boy's family.

- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. Harold is recently retired and lives in south England.  He lives a pretty boring life. His wife nags and is constantly irritated. One day Harold receives a letter from a former colleague. She is dying. She resides in a hospice in north England. Harold decides to walk to visit her. He leaves without his phone, no toothbrush, and wearing the wrong shoes. I enjoyed this book in audio version read by Jim Broadbent.

- The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce. This is a sequel to Harold Fry. The story told from Queenie's point of view. I think I enjoyed this book more than the first one.

My favourite non fiction reads were:
- Subverted - How I Helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women's Movement by Sue Ellen Browder. This book was quite amazing. A look behind the scenes of 1960s feminism. The section of the book about Larry Lader's pressure on Betty Friedan to insert abortion into NOW's political platform was so eye opening. A man is responsible for feminism and abortion's integration! Sue Ellen trained as an investigative reporter and ended up working for Cosmopolitan pushing unmarried sex, contraception and abortion. She tells the story of her life and her conversion to Catholicism.

- Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History. This 1976 story of terrorism was an amazing story and something I didn't know much about. This book was pretty hard to put down. Very well researched and written.

I read two books set in WW II, in France:
- All the Light We Cannot See. I was very excited to read this book but it wasn't nearly as great as I expected. This book is about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide.

- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Two sisters in 1939 in France and their divergent lives.

I preferred the Nightingale. I think I enjoyed this book more because I could relate to the character of Vianne. She was a wife and mother in rural France who had to make difficult choices. Her sister was the bold one who worked with the Resistance. The story tied into a real life story of Andree de Jongh a 19 year old Belgian woman who helped downed British RAF pilots (in France) escape over the Pyrenees mountains to freedom in Spain. More info about this is found here.

I have a few favourite series and I read new ones or ones that were new to me:
- Flavia de Luce by Alan Bradley. Flavia is 12 years old. She is an expert on poisons. She solves mysteries. These books are set in the 1950s in England.

- The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.  Precious Ramotswe is a middle aged woman who live in Botswana and solves mysteries with her assistant Grace. These stories aren't really mysteries with a dead body, more like situations that need more information. Lots of humour and commentary on life.

- Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman. I only recently discovered her. She is an American grandmother who is bored with her life and volunteers to works as a CIA agent. By some accident she ends up employed and goes to various countries and has lots of adventures. There are 14 books in the series so I'll be reading her books for a while.

- Agatha Christie, usually Poirot. I discovered Tommy and Tuppence series, as well.

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Christmas 2016

Well, I guess it is over. Here's my summary of all things Christmasy this year. We got our tree from Snow Valley Tree farm near Duvall.

Our tree is very fat and takes up too much space in the living room.

I really hope to have a fake one next year! Here's my mantle.

One special event this year was our trip to the Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach which is about an hour north of us. I would describe it as a Christmas fair. A million lights and lots of things to see and do. The night we went was very cold.

C got his Santa hat to stand up by stuffing it with another Santa hat.

The outdoor lights were amazing.

There were lots of building to go into to escape the cold and listen to music, eat, drink hot cocoa, or do other activities. There was a bluegrass style band that we enjoyed. This young girl was singing and playing her guitar.

Another memory is seeing the play The Gift of the Magi performed by Taproot Theatre at our church. I have no photos of that since photography wasn't allowed.

Evergreen Church in Bothell always has an amazing light show. Here's me in the light tunnel.

We encouraged the boys to decorate their rooms for Christmas. A made a star out of coloured lights to hang in his window. He also put out a small tree in his room. C wrapped his door in wrapping paper and made snowflakes to hang from the ceiling.

I bought gingerbread men from Whole Foods and A and I decorated them. C wasn't feeling up to it that day. This was much easier than constructing a gingerbread house. The cookies were yummy.

can you tell that I'm on the right?

We had dinner out on Christmas Eve at Stanfords. We attended Christmas Eve service at our church. I enjoyed singing lots of carols. We dressed up.

We watched The Nativity Story as a family, which is one of our traditions. I highly recommend this movie. On Christmas morning we had overnight breakfast casserole (with sausage) and opened our stockings. We also opened one gift each before going to church. I sang with the worship team.

We opened gifts on Sunday afternoon. I got a Willow Tree nativity set which is the photo at the top.

My hubby got a variety of tools. C got a Soda Stream. I think he likes it. He's wearing his elf hat.

A is getting a Seahawks Tyler Lockette jersey but it hasn't arrived yet.

We had prime rib for our Christmas meal - a first for us. I didn't think I could manage cooking a turkey (our usual main dish) and getting ready for church. The sides we had included Yorkshire pudding - another first for me. Here's our table.

The centrepiece is from Costco.

We always do Christmas crackers after dinner. Here are my princes.

We have lots of outdoor lights this year including laser lights. I love that there is a remote for the laser show so we can shut it off easily. They are on a 2 hour cycle. Here is a photo that looks a bit like our lights:

For regular lights we have coloured lights along the gutters and icicle lights on the porch railing.


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Halloween 2016

I still have a trick or treater. Yeah!

C was a paper boy. It was his idea. I found the hat at Value Village. I bought the messenger bag from Amazon. Hopefully it will be used again. C pulled the vest out of his closet. I picked up a big stack of free newspapers at the library. He left some at the doors of houses where no one was home, as a prank, of sorts.

C joined some friends from school and they trick or treated in a nice neighbourhood. It rained off and on. They were out for almost 2 hours! J and I walked with them. I enjoy seeing tasteful decorations like this collection I spotted.

I also enjoy seeing little kids in costumes but not many were braving the rain last night.

I painted this pumpkin. It is a minion from the movie Despicable Me, in case you didn't know.

J did some pumpkin carving. This is an emoji pumpkin - design picked by C.

And then our team:

This is C's candy haul.

He's started work on a graph of the various kinds of candy and how many he received.


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My Boy Scout

Scouts received merit badges

My son C crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts back in May. We found a terrific Boy Scout troop for him to join. I thought I had blogged about it but I guess life got busy.  Here is C on that occasion.

In the back of the photo is a Boy Scout who is sixteen and getting close to becoming an Eagle Scout.

C went to Camp Baldwin this summer for a whole week (man, did I miss him!). Here he is playing chess at camp.

He also went to Wash Jam in August. Wash Jam is a mini jamboree and it was held at Joint Base Lewis McCord which is south of Seattle. This is C, washing dishes.

Last night at the Court of Honor ceremony he achieved the rank of Scout and he received his first merit badges.   Rifle Shooting and Pioneering. He worked on the requirements for these badges at Camp Baldwin.

C's troop has a neat tradition. Whenever a boy achieves a rank, they come up with their parents. The boy, after getting his badge and pin, pins his pin on his mom and gives her a kiss and hugs his dad.
I just have this blurry photo of my first pin.

I'm very proud of C for sticking with scouting. He became a Cub Scout back in 2012.


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There he GOLDs again

My dad (age 82) runs in the B.C. Senior Games almost every year. His event is 800 metres.

On Friday September 23rd,  I went to cheer him on. The games (now called 55+ Games) are held in a different city every year. This year the events were held in Port Coquitlam, a city that is northeast of Vancouver.

I picked up my parents from the ferry (they live in Victoria) and then we drove to Coquitlam. The weather was miserable. There was sideways rain and it was very cold. It was 49 degrees!

He won a gold medal. He ran in a race with men 70 and over but he was only competing with those in the 80 to 85 year old bracket.

His time was 4.02 minutes. The man on the right in the top photo (who received bronze) has run in many races with my dad and has beat him in the past.

A lady from Baptist Housing (where my parents live) came to be my dad's photographer. He'll be featured in the newsletter and blog.

Here is the winner with his medal, standing next to the results.

After the medal presentation, my parents and I had dinner at Swiss Chalet to celebrate their September birthdays. I took them to the ferry and then I returned home.

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