My Wushu Blog

I haven’t felt the urge to post about movies recently. A lot of that comes from the lack of good movies, ones that might get me excited enough to spend a few minutes and collect my thoughts so this blog doesn’t turn into illegible techie gibberish. Here is one that I sort of liked though.

Here is the thing, when commit an entry on this blog about a movie, there are two things that I think about:

1. I want people to share my excitement and see this movie
2. I don’t want to spoil anything

What I’ve come to realize over the years, talking with people about movies, is that I’m WAAAAAY off the spectrum of what normal people consider “good”. Most of the movies I’ve blogged about here are from a different country, and might be considered “art house”. The combination of these two elements quickly eliminates said movie from someones list. That is OKAY, and I’m not going to act even more pretentious because I watch different movies than you, and keeping that in mind I’m going to write a little more content about the movies I watch because you may not want to see them anyway

I saw an image of this movie over a year ago, and the image was essentially what you see in the poster above,  of the main character “One-Eye” looking poised and ready to kill/mame/fight. My expectations were immediatly set, and they were high.

Fast forward to the other night, when I finally get to see the full featured film behind that one image, and my impression is mixed. It is stunning visually, and is reeks of something you would watch in school. It comes off more allegorical than your typical monomyth story. Its downfall is those very two points, I was really looking forward to a near mindless action flick with a good setting and an interesting main character.

Valhalla Rising starts its first chapter (yes, the movie is broken up into 6 parts, or chapters) in a Scotland, it is cold and brutal. One-Eye is a slave, forced to fight. Though “forced” might be the wrong term here, because while he eventually kills his captors, he seems content with playing by the rules. He sits quietly in his cage, and after a fight, he promptly presents his wrists so he may be cuffed again. He is also incredibly vicious when fighting, and his owners have to tie him by the neck to a post. With his missing eye, and his unnervingly proficient fighting skills he may actually be a representation Odin, and the film makes a few allusions to his mysterious origins.

One-Eye dreams of events that will happen to him. His first dream is of him finding an arrowhead in a river he is allowed to rinse off in. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of epiphany that accompanies these visions, he seems to just accept them and follow them through, much like his gladiator-esque fights. With this Arrowhead, he escapes and kills everyone save the small boy who tended to him.

The boy, now without any support, decides to follow One-Eye. They come across a group of fervent Crusaders, who immediately ask the two if they are tribesmen or good god-fearing Christians… As the boy gazes at the smouldering pile of bodies, he wisely says “Christians”. After some posturing and a bit of a sales pitch by the Crusaders, One-Eye and the child go with the Crusaders to Jerusalem to fight for the Holy Land.

They never reach Jerusalem, but instead, the America’s (Canada perhaps). Shipwrecked, isolated, and starved, the crew starts to degenerate and turn on One-Eye and the Boy. Then there is the indigenous Native Americans, who the Chief Crusader is intent on conquering for God after some of the crew are slain. One-Eye has another vision, and this time it is of their death. Just as before, he acts the vision out even though he knows the final outcome.

Even though I was expecting something between Casino Royal and Gladiator (Hey, One-Eye was the bad guy in CR, I was hoping for a similar pace m0vie), and I got what would have been an English assignment, I’m still thinking about the movie and it’s themes.

Tools required:

• The internet
• A quality *nix OS (FreeBSD in this case)
• youtube-dl, available in FreeBSD under ports/www/youtube_dl/
• ffmpeg, available in FreeBSD under ports/multimedia/ffmpeg/

First thing is first, find a really cool youtube clip. If you dont know of one already, use a Buckethead Song (Volume warning, this clip was mixed “hot”, so turn your speakers down):

Watch the drummer (Bryan Mantia) go crazy in the background, pretty intense.

Now, use ‘youtube-dl’, which is pretty simple, the main argument it accepts is a URL of the youtube clip in question, and it saves it as a Flash Video file.

[server] 3:41pm: ~>youtube-dl 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61k041I4aEo'
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] 61k041I4aEo: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] 61k041I4aEo: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: 61k041I4aEo.flv
[download] 100.0% of 8.04M at   57.33k/s ETA 00:00

Next, use ffmpeg to save the audio stream as a mp3 file:

[server] 3:45pm: ~>ffmpeg -i 61k041I4aEo.flv -ab 128000 -ar 44100 interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3
FFmpeg version 0.5.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on May  8 2010 15:43:57, gcc: 4.2.1 20070719  [FreeBSD]

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 1000.00 (1000/1) -> 29.92 (359/12)
Input #0, flv, from '61k041I4aEo.flv':
  Duration: 00:03:38.24, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 306 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 320x218, 242 kb/s, 29.92 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, mono, s16, 64 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3':
    Stream #0.0: Audio: libmp3lame, 44100 Hz, mono, s16, 128 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size=    3411kB time=218.31 bitrate= 128.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:3411kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000916%

Verify the file with file(1), or listen to the newly saved mp3 file over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[server] 3:45pm: ~>file interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3
interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3: Audio file with ID3 version 2.4.0, contains: MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Monaural

Caralyne spent the night at a friends house Saturday, so after we dropped her off the three of us drove to the peak of Mount Diablo and hung out for a bit.

I got a little queasy on the drive up, and I think Owen did too. Hiking up to the peak was easier in that respect at least :

Last month when I helped my Friend Glenn,who now works at An Olde Town Tattoo Parlour in Monterey, move he was cool enough to lighten his load by giving me a very cool cream and black Gibson SG. The original heavy metal guitar made popular by Toni Iommi and Angus Young.

The guitar’s neck was broken at the body, and thankfully someone who knew what they were doing successfully glued it back on. Glenn put some heavy .11 gauge strings on it to keep a good amount of tension to help maintain structural integrity. I normally play with .10′s, so its really fun playing with the heavy strings and then switching back to my strat. I’ve decided to keep the heavy strings, and even down tune to D and C# just for fun. Keeping that in mind, I went ahead and picked up two Dimarzio X2N humbuckers, and since most of the brass parts on the SG went through some heavy usage, I also picked up a new tail-piece, bridge, and a new all black faceplate.

Replacing pickups is pretty easy, it required a little (de)soldering but that is the hardest part. What probably took me the most time was figuring out HOW I was supposed to re-wire the new 4 wire X2N pickups in a setup that only had 1 wire…

It seems modern humbuckers are REALLY fancy, and if you have a 5-way selector you can activate them in different combinations. Whereas the SG pickups had only 1 loop for the humbucker, the DiMarzio’s had a north loop and a south loop, and you could either wire them in series or parallel. There is no right way, its a matter of preference I guess, but since I’ve never hear either one, I chose a guide I found on Semour Duncan’s site.

I should point this out, even though I bought DiMarzio Pickups, I actually found more useful documentation on Seymour Duncan’s site. Not only did they have a really nice support section (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/), they also have color-code diagrams for each pickup vendor. So a big kudo’s for SD, maybe I’ll get those next time.

Okay, onto the work, let’s take a look at what we are working with:

Here are the new parts:

The real work begins:

Let me just say, getting the pickups screwed on to the face plate was HARD. There are two tension springs that keep the pickup stationary, and getting those compressed so the screw could reach the faceplate took a lot of effort. I almost lost two of the four twice since they would shoot off while I was struggling to screw the pickup on.

I had a problem with the two screws that are used to adjust the bridge, the were slightly bigger than the old screws. I actually had to re-drill the holes for them, and this makes me a little uncomfortable. If it ever needs to be replaced, there is now a good chance the holes will have to be filled and re-drilled. Oh well.

This was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, working on a guitar while listening to a Buckethead/Praxis playlist on Pandora. I spent most of the evening playing the guitar, those new pickups are very hot! They are going to require special attention so they don’t overload the amp. The sound is killer though, nice and low, a stark contrast to the Stratocaster’s sound.

Reference Material:
2h_2v_2t_3w
color_codes

I recently configured a NFS/Samba server with FreeBSD’s Link Aggregation protocol. Here is how I set it up.

FreeBSD Configuration

/boot/loader.conf

I recommend adding the if_lagg_load=YES and kern.hz=”2000″ to /boot/loader.conf.

The OS will automatically load the lagg kernel module when your network configuration loads, I prefer to explicitly set it to load.

ispfw_load="YES"
kern.hz="2000"
aio_load="YES"
hw.igb.rxd=4096
hw.igb.txd=4096
if_lagg_load="YES"

Since I am using the igb ethernet device (Intel 82575 and 82576 chipsets), I also set the max number of send and receive descriptors from the default from 256 to the maximum 4096. Give some thought to this step, increasing this will allocate more memory per interface. Since there are four in use in this setup, that is an order of magnitude higher than the stock configuration.

/etc/rc.conf

ifconfig_igb0="UP polling"
ifconfig_igb1="UP polling"
ifconfig_igb2="UP polling"
ifconfig_igb3="UP polling"
ifconfig_lagg0="create laggproto lacp laggport igb0 laggport igb1 laggport igb2 laggport igb3 128.115.132.165 netmask 255.255.255.0"

Jumbo Frames

Normally, I set a MTU of 9194 for my igb/82575 ethernet controllers.

Setting an arbitrary MTU size above the default 1500 can cause the unexpected, and decrease the stability in your environment. This configuration is using the Intel 82575 Quad Port 1000 VT adapter, which has the maximum MTU of 9194. Not all ethernet controllers support the same MTU sizes, for instance, Broadcom chipsets have a max MTU of 9022. Also, verify your switch can support Jumbo Frames, and have the ports in use set to the appropriate MTU.

Some Notes from Intel’s 8257[5-6] README:

- Only enable Jumbo Frames if your network infrastructure supports them.
- To enable Jumbo Frames, increase the MTU size on the interface beyond
1500.
- The Jumbo Frames setting on the switch must be set to at least 22 bytes
larger than that of the MTU.
- The maximum MTU setting for Jumbo Frames is 9216. This value coincides
with the maximum Jumbo Frames size of 9234 bytes.
- Using Jumbo Frames at 10 or 100 Mbps may result in poor performance or
loss of link.

Since the Cisco hardware used can be set to a max MTU of 9216, our igb interfaces can be set to 9194.

Of course, the lagg interface wont let me set a mtu higher than 1500. If anyone has additional information on this, that would be great to know.

Results

[root@laggy ~]> ifconfig lagg0

lagg0: flags=8843 metric 0 mtu 9194
	options=1bb
	ether 00:26:b9:62:ae:c8
	inet 128.115.132.165 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 128.115.132.255
	media: Ethernet autoselect
	status: active
	laggproto lacp
	laggport: igb3 flags=1c
	laggport: igb2 flags=1c
	laggport: igb1 flags=1c
	laggport: igb0 flags=1c

[root@laggy ~]> netstat -I lagg0 -w 1

            input        (lagg0)           output
   packets  errs      bytes    packets  errs      bytes colls
     87581     0  127400293          0     0          0     0
     85126     0  123891200          0     0          0     0
     84926     0  124237023          0     0          0     0

[root@laggy ~]> netstat -I igb0 -w 1

            input         (igb0)           output
   packets  errs      bytes    packets  errs      bytes colls
     38118     0   54749173          0     0          0     0
     35833     0   51498282          0     0          0     0

[root@laggy ~]> netstat -I igb1 -w 1

            input         (igb1)           output
   packets  errs      bytes    packets  errs      bytes colls
     12889     0   18315538          0     0          0     0
     16303     0   23159114          0     0          0     0
     27672     0   39275792          0     0          0     0

[root@laggy ~]> netstat -I igb2 -w 1

            input         (igb2)           output
   packets  errs      bytes    packets  errs      bytes colls
     23709     0   35778378          0     0          0     0
     24445     0   36901194          0     0          0     0

[root@laggy ~]> netstat -I igb3 -w 1

            input         (igb3)           output
   packets  errs      bytes    packets  errs      bytes colls
        11     0       1535          0     0          0     0
         1     0         60          0     0          0     0

Cisco Configuration

interface GigabitEthernet 8/41
 description (L5D13) laggy
 switchport                           # Required for L2 Etherchannel
 switchport access vlan 132           # VLAN assignment (optional)
 spanning-tree portfast               # Recommended
 channel-group 4 mode active          # Required assign channel # and mode
                                         see table below
 channel-protocol lacp                # Required assign lacp or pagp
 no shutdown

Verify the interface port-channel is not shutdown and add a description

interface Port-channel 4
 description Test Channel 2/22/10 laggy
 switchport
 switchport access vlan 101
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 no shutdown

This command will cause load balancing to occur for the source and destination IP addresses and applied to all Etherchannels on the switch. Other load balancing options exists.

port-channel load-balance src-dst-ip

Use the following show commands for verifying the condition of the Etherchannel

show interfaces port-channel ‘channel number’
show etherchannel port-channel
show etherchannel summary
show Etherchannel load-balance

Switch# show interfaces port-channel 4
Port-channel4 is up, line protocol is up (connected)
  Hardware is EtherChannel, address is 0017.9499.94ac (bia 0017.9499.94ae)
  Description: TEST CHANNEL 2/22/10 laggy
  MTU 9214 bytes, BW 4000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,
     reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
  Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
  Keepalive set (10 sec)
  Full-duplex, 1000Mb/s
  input flow-control is off, output flow-control is on
  Members in this channel: Gi8/41 Gi8/43 Gi8/45 Gi8/47

Switch#show etherchannel port-channel
                Channel-group listing:
                -----------------------
Group: 4
----------
                Port-channels in the group:
                ----------------------
Port-channel: Po4    (Primary Aggregator)

------------
Age of the Port-channel   = 0d:05h:25m:33s
Logical slot/port   = 14/1          Number of ports = 4
Port state          = Port-channel Ag-Inuse
Protocol            =   LACP

Ports in the Port-channel: 

Index   Load   Port     EC state        No of bits
------+------+------+------------------+-----------
  1     11     Gi8/41   Active    2
  2     22     Gi8/43   Active    2
  3     44     Gi8/45   Active    2
  0     88     Gi8/47   Active    2

Time since last port bundled:    0d:04h:47m:26s    Gi8/41
Time since last port Un-bundled: 0d:05h:22m:14s    Gi8/47

Switch#show etherchannel summary
Flags:  D - down        P - bundled in port-channel
        I - stand-alone s - suspended
        H - Hot-standby (LACP only)
        R - Layer3      S - Layer2
        U - in use      f - failed to allocate aggregator

        M - not in use, minimum links not met
        u - unsuitable for bundling
        w - waiting to be aggregated
Number of channel-groups in use: 1
Number of aggregators:           1

Group  Port-channel  Protocol    Ports
------+-------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------
4      Po4(SU)         LACP      Gi8/41(P)  Gi8/43(P)  Gi8/45(P)  Gi8/47(P)
Switch#show Etherchannel load-balance
EtherChannel Load-Balancing Configuration:
        src-dst-ip
        mpls label-ip

EtherChannel Load-Balancing Addresses Used Per-Protocol:
Non-IP: Source XOR Destination MAC address
  IPv4: Source XOR Destination IP address
  IPv6: Source XOR Destination IP address
  MPLS: Label or IP

One of the unspoken rewards of being a parent is forcing your children to work for you. It is a delicious treat to my eyes, especially when it is a chore that I’ve handled since I was in the 3rd grade:

The best part is, Owen still thinks the lawn mower is cool, and exciting. Even the edging tool is fun:

Enough fun mister, back to work!

He had enough of us taking pictures, so he stole the camera:

After all that hard work, he was tired, so it was time for a nap. I heard something odd under his crib:

Mini-B has taken a liking to Owens room, she like to sleep on the warm GigE switch that lives under there.

Now, time to make Dinner!

Lasagna is pretty easy to make, we even made the tomato sauce. My mom picked up a cooking book for us, so while I assembled most of the lasagna, Michele made Lemon Squares:

I don’t remember the recipe off the top of my head, so I won’t be doing the full good-eats style run down. It was pretty simple though, you need the following:

• Tomato Sauce, we made ours with:
  • 3 minced cloves of garlic
  • a couple diced tomatoes
  • Tomato paste
  • Basil, finely chopped/minced
  • Then blend in a food processor
• Lasagna shells
• Ricotta cheese
• Parmigiana and mozzarella cheese
• a little milk and a little nutmeg

One problem I had was the recipe called for a 10x12x2 pan, but I only had a 9x13x2. Since always have a xterm at hand, made sure my substitute was okay:

# echo 'scale=3\n s=(10*12*2)-(9*13*2)\n s/(10*12*2)' | bc
.025

Good enough, a loss of .025% is acceptable.

After the pork sausage was finished, Michele was getting ready to leave. Since it is always dangerous to leave me alone, unsupervised, she verbally told me how I should layer the lasagna. I was lost about 10 seconds into it, so I asked if she could make a diagram. Sort of like when I go to the grocery store and ask for a diagram, which I finally no longer require.

My only complaint was the overall product was a little skinny. I would have liked to have more sauce, to go around as well. maybe next time I’ll add another layer.

Now, but this time, I’m sure at least two of you are saying:
Who cares about the food, where is Coal!!!

Pretend you are a dog, specifically my dog (oh if only you could be so lucky!) Coal. You’ve got that cute little muzzle with a cute button nose; but since you are such a smart little aussie, your brain-pan is bigger than your mouth. This gives your head a particular triangular shape, the kind of shape that will let you easily shove you head into a tight spot. Well, you better hope you can squeeze your whole body through, because if not, there is no way your head is backing out at this point.

Oh, you can’t? Well, better call the fire department…

This is unrelated, I just wanted to post how funny he looks when that hair is flattened

One of my Christmas gifts was a magazine subscription to Guitar Player. The biggest enjoyment I get out of a magazine like this, is I get to read about bands and musicians I normally wouldn’t hear about. I live in a musical vacuum, which is odd since I seem to like it so much. I don’t listen to the radio, watch MTV, and for some reason I don’t like computer software telling me what I might like (like iTunes, Pandora, Google, etc…). Over the past decade I’ve probably ‘discovered’ 3 or 4 groups or albums that I actually like. However, in the past two months I’ve found that many artists or groups I’m really digging because now I get to read about them more.

One artist I came across is Buckethead. The first image that comes to your mind when you read that name is exactly what you should think of. He is a man who wears a bucket on his head, and he, Brian Patrick Carrol, has been doing this for 20 years. That sort of fascinates me, because the only picture of buckethead with out the mask on was taken before he created the character. When he is interviewed, he will either talk through a hand puppet ( a gruesome head ), or he will write down what he wants to say.

But you know, considering how your typical rock start tends to look (especially 20 years ago):

Or, what other soloist guitar “Virtuoso’s” look and act like:

I’m just sayin’, I don’t mind this as much as the above examples:

Besides the look to make him stand out, he is WICKEDLY talented! I’ve seen a LOT of footage by now on youtube, and I’ve purchased a few of his solo albums, and this guys plays on another level. Some of it is pure shred, and its almost obnoxious, but it just doesn’t feel like he’s jerking his guitar off in your ear like Yngwie or Steve Vai. I offer the follow clips to explain what I mean, and why I’m really getting into this guys music. Yeah, I’ve found something else to fixate on His guitar is a serious piece of wood too, it’s a chambered over-sized Les Paul with 24 frets (awesome, most guitars have 21 or 22) and two kill switches which he uses a lot.

He can bust out a pretty traditional rock song, and it makes sense why he was Slash’s replacement for Guns and Roses (I think he’s much better than Slash, but I was never a big fan of GNR, and Axl is another rock star dick).

Then, he can have something thats really mellow and full of soul

Those arn’t technical breakthroughs, so here is a “Lesson” by Buckethead. It is not so much a lesson, because you can’t learn this. I would say he’s a robot, but I think even a robot would screw this up. Check out the 4 note tapping, then the really cool riff afterwards.

It’s not all rock n roll though, he also plays some amazing chicken pickin’…

…and break out the Nunchaku’s followed up by a Robot Dance… Because he just couldn’t come off any more scarier.

I read in an old interview that he wears the mask because he wants his performance to be about the music, and not him. That, and it lets him feel like to can do more and take more risks on stage (like dance). I can understand that, and appreciate the emphasis on it being about the music. He is also a horror movie fan, and that shows. Most of his music would make a killer soundtrack, he should do one of the Silent Hill games. I’m adding him to my short list of concerts I want to make an effort to see.

I signed up for Muay Thai at Crosley Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Brentwood. I’ve been eyeing the place for a while now, it seemed to be one of the few well established school in the Antioch/Brentwood area. I was looking specifically for some type of boxing program, and they have both western boxing and kick-boxing.

It also helps that the price is right, I pay about 90 a month for two classes. They have  a nice full schedule too, classes are at 6am, 12pm, and 6pm on most days of the week. I like Mondays and Wednesdays after work, and its really nice that it is on my way home. Commuting to Wushu West had always put a good dent in my wallet, then factor in that I was paying the same price (100 a month) for just ONE night a week. It was hard to choose going somewhere else, but I was priced out of Wushu. Variety is also good.

They have a great curriculum, and this was the first week I was able to make it two nights (I had a terrible flu last week). The first two classes I had were simple, and I worked on my own, where the coach (Juan) would come over every ’round’ and either have me continue what I was working on, or show me something else. He has a great personality, and I’m usually laughing really hard on the inside when he’s showing me something because the way he describes the moves and why you do it is hilarious.

The classes are 1 hour, and there is a buzzer that goes off every three minutes. We normally switch to something else every three minutes, so the classes are very fast and there is little room to catch your breath.

So the other night, Friday, was the first time I partnered up with someone. His name was Mike, and he was very nice, and he punched very VERY hard. It was a great experience for me to hold pads for someone else, as it takes a lot of effort and concentration. whenever James would work with me, he was always the one holding the pads, which now I feel like he really spoiled me. It is something I’m going to have to practice, I’ll have to figure something out.

Right before class was over I felt like I fractured a bone in my foot. I still tend to kick the pads with my feet, which I know is a bad habit. I should be kicking more with my shins, so after an hour my left foot had finally had it. Juan was cool, he said “You okay? Good, lay off your foot and use your knee’s on the pad”. Ha, I like him, resting is for after class.

So, my foot is a little bruised now, and I iced it for a while when I got home. I should be good to go by Monday.

We decided to get out of the house Saturday, and be a little spontaneous, to go out and just do something. After weighing some options and realizing out time constraint (it was already 11am) we chose The Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Well, *I* chose it, and Caralyne quickly called me out and said “Why do you ALWAYS get to pick?”

It’s simple: cause I’m the adult! Ha, top that little 6 year old!

Ahem, anyway…

I’ve been looking forward to taking the kids here for a while. I always liked coming here as a kid, being able to interact with everything made a huge impression on what I wanted to do. Giving kids the ability to explore and experiment is great,from playing in a mud pit in the backyard to changing the frequency and intensity of a sound wave.

So, we were on the road and thanks to 3 different maps (all telling us a different method to get there), and a Garmin GPS, we made it there stress-free and unscathed. We even accidentally got back on the freeway towards the Golden Gate Bridge, but no worries, the soothing mechanical voice of our GPS devices, devoid of all emotion, safely led us back to The Exploratorium. Of course, the reason why we accidentally got on the freeway was because there is very VERY little parking there, and we tried to find parking on the side streets.

As soon as we got in, we were already having fun, thats how cool the Exploratorium is. I was really happy that Owen was going out of his comfort zone and playing with new things. For a while, he would not touch anything that was new, and it was to the point of some concern. He seems to be doing much better and that makes me very happy.

The place is pretty large, with two levels. After spending almost two hours on the first level, we had lunch there, and then went upstairs for the other half.

We played with a bunch of auditory based exhibits, my favorites were the ‘see a sound wave’, the Theremin, and some rig that let you visually see a guitar strings frequency and amplitude. Oh, and they had a cloud chamber, and that was REALLY cool to see. It’s too bad I couldn’t get a good picture of it, the flash reflecting off of the glass and then focusing on the wrong object made it difficult.

After all that, we left around 4:30 and headed to Fishermans Warf in hopes of getting dinner. I pumped $3 worth of change for 55 minutes at the parking meter, so we walked up and down the street a bit, and then ducked in the Rainforest Cafe. The wait itself was about 30 minutes, and we didn’t have that kind of time. Also, Owen was getting a little sleepy since he didn’t have a break at all the entire day. So, we sort of hung around there, bought a couple of snakes, and then headed back to the car. We timed it just right, three or so minutes remained on the meter!

I can’t wait to pick the next place, so I can continue to impose my interests upon my children. Maybe the Chabot Space Center, or the Lawrence Hall of Science…