01.24.06
Posted in Global at 7:57 pm by Bill
These are pictures taken during our trip east. We roughly followed Interstate 80 from California to Pennsylvania, with a few detours on US and state highways that parallel I-80. These pictures were taken in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa; we didn’t photograph much of note in the other states we passed through.
Wyoming
U. of Wyoming Geologic Museum
At the University of Wyoming we stopped to visit their Geologic Museum. We enjoyed the dinosaur skeletons and other exhibits. Here are some pictures of some of the better exhibits.
Metal statue of Tyrannasaurus Rex standing outside the museum.
Their main exhibit is this large apatosaur (formerly known as brontosaur).
This is a medium sized dinosaur whose name I also failed to get.
I can’t remember the name of this guy, and I forgot to take notes, but he sure is cute!
Tree Rock
This is a tree growing out of a rock in eastern Wyoming in the median of Interstate 80. It was found by railroad crews when the train followed that right-of-way, and the Union Pacific Railroad added cables around the rock (to keep it from being shattered by the tree) and a fence, which remain to this day. The trains used to stop to water the tree as they would pass through. When the Lincoln Highway (later US 40) was built through the area it became a stopping point for travelers, and when I-80 was built, a pull-out on the fast lane of each direction was made so that travelers could stop.
Nebraska
Generic Motel
We came across the most aptly named motel in the USA - Generic Motel - in western Nebraska.
Lightning Storm
In Nebraska, we encountered an impressive electrical storm. I stopped by the side of the highway (US 30) to photograph it. While we were stopped, the only two cars to pass stopped to see if we were having mechanical trouble. I guess there isn’t a lot of traffic on US 30… One farmer who stopped told us there had been a tornado the previous day! Anyway these pictures were taken by using the “Bulb” setting - holding the shutter open manually by means of a remote control pneumatic switch. These two are the best out of an entire roll of film of lightning.
Iowa
Elk Horn - Danish Windmill
In Elk Horn, IA, we found an authentic Danish windmill that the locals had brought over from Denmark as a tourist attraction. The windmill was disassembled and shipped over in pieces to America, where it was brought by truck to Elk Horn and assembled. This was done in 1976, though the windmill is well over a hundred years old. It is fully functional, capable of grinding grain into flour between two huge millstones.
The Little Mermaid
This statue of the Little Mermaid, from Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale (not the Disney version), is found in a town near Elk Horn (whose name I have in my log but can’t remember right now). The plaque reads: “H.C. Andersen’s Fairy Tale, ‘The Little Mermaid,’ is the story of a mermaid longing for the love of a mortal prince and for an immortal human soul.”
Albert the Bull
Why anyone would find it necessary to build a monument like this is beyond me, especially several miles from the nearest major highway… but Albert is purported to be the largest statue of a bull in the world. Moo.
Panora
In Panora, IA, we found this nice little park where the town had moved all of the historic items they could find.
The log cabin shown here is the oldest building in town. It had been expanded and remodeled so much by intervening generations that nobody knew it until it was to be demolished, and they realized that at the core of this large house was an ancient log cabin. It was moved to the park and restored. The caboose was sitting in front of the old train station, also relocated to this park.
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Posted in Global at 7:35 pm by Bill
On September 6, 1997, Holly and Bill were married at the home of Holly’s mother. We drove across the country from our home in California to Williamsport, Pennsylvania for the ceremony. The trip east took 6 days, and roughly followed Interstate 80 all the way.
For pictures of the wedding ceremony, check out the picture index or browse the pictures in sequence, starting with the Preparations for the wedding.
For our honeymoon, we spent two weeks heading west, by way of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and back to I-80 in Utah for the rest of the way.
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Posted in Global at 7:26 pm by Bill
Bill was born and raised in Aptos, California, a few miles southeast of Santa Cruz. He went to the University of California at Santa Cruz. He lived with his parents for the first year (1989-90), and on campus the second year (1990-91). In spring of 1991, he moved into The Armory, a local Santa Cruz geek house at the end of the school year.
In high school, Bill started accessing local Bulletin Board Systems (BBS’s). These BBS’s were online message and file transfer fora hosted by local individuals who would put a computer and a phone line together with some special software, often custom written. Bill was active on several “Tree-structured” discussion boards in town, which included XBBS and Pyrzqxgl, and the Temple of Zuul. In summer of 1991, he was active on XBBS and Pyrzqxgl as Hermit.
In the meantime, Holly came out to California from Washington, D.C., where she had been living, to see the Grateful Dead New Year’s shows in Oakland, CA (1986-87). After the shows, she wandered on down to San Diego to get out of the rain. She ended up staying, finding some consulting work at Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. After that, she got a contract with a company which had been bought out by Optical Specialties, Inc., in the San Francisco bay area (Fremont). It was only supposed to be a two month contract, but she ended up coming along to Fremont and working there on and off for the next two years. She then found herself in Scotts Valley, which is near Santa Cruz. A co-worker sold her an old 286 PC, which had the Procomm terminal program on it, with a dialing directory that listed several local BBS’s.
When Holly tried the BBS’s listed in the directory, she soon came across XBBS, where she created her account, Enigma. Looking around the message base, she came across some of Bill’s messages and decided he was an interesting guy. XBBS was peculiar in that all messages were retained unless explicitly deleted by the author or the administrator (sysop). Since Bill had been using the system for many years, and had over the years posted a number of personal journals (which were a lot like modern blogs - you could say he’s been blogging since the 1980’s) and participated in various discussions, she was able to find out a lot about him.
Holly saw Bill online one day, and decided to talk to him. She sent him a “hail” (a message sent directly between two users online at the same time, not saved in the message base), which he dismissed as some young teenage kid goofing around with the system, and sent back an insulting reply. Undaunted, she stayed on the system, and over the next few months posted various messages participating in the online discussions. Seeing these, and completely forgetting the earlier hail interchange, Bill sent her a hail some time later, and asked to meet her. She said yes, and agreed to pick him up at the Armory.
The first date started off badly. Holly arrived in her VW bus, which wouldn’t start when they got in. She had to roll it down the hill to get it running. Bill was uncomfortable, since his mental image of what Enigma would look like was very much unlike what he found. And he didn’t look much the way she had pictured Hermit. But after a lot of chatting, it was obvious that there was mutual interest. When she dropped him off and gave him a hug, it became obvious that there was something real there.
Over the course of the next week, they dated more, and Bill started moving his stuff into her apartment. After just a week, they were living together, deeply in love, and engaged to be married (eventually). Just over six years later - on September 6, 1997, they were married at Holly’s mother’s house in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
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01.21.06
Posted in Global at 6:30 pm by Holly
For a long time now, our favorite restaurant has been a place that is currently called Lucy’s Cafe. They used to be called Chef Wang’s, and they were right around the corner from us, but the city decided to redevelop that block and all the businesses had to move. Lucy found a new location in Cupertino, and, since they were moving anyway, took that opportunity to change the name. We go there all the time, plus Lucy’s little boy shares Bill’s Lego hobby.
So when I started doing the Wordpress blog thing, one of the first ones I did was a blog for Lucy’s restaurant called www.lucysmandarincuisine.com. When we were there last night, we learned that Lucy is hosting next month’s Chefs Who Care charity buffet. This is an event held at a different restaurant every month, and half the proceeds go to the charity’s Food and Nutrition Center. So Bill and I put together a blog post promoting the event, and I’ve been publishing it on places like Craigslist. Here’s what I’ve been posting:
This February, the popular monthly dine-out event and fundraiser for Chefs Who Care is being held at Lucy’s Cafe in Cupertino. On Sunday, February 5th, 2006, from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, and Monday and Tuesday, February 6th and 7th, from 5:00 to 7:00pm, Lucy’s will be hosting a charity buffet dinner to support the Food and Nutrition Center.
Buffet Dinner Menu
Appetizers:
Egg Rolls, Pot Stickers, Chicken Salad, Tuna Skewers
Soups:
Hot & Sour Soup, Sweet Corn w/Chicken Soup
Entrees:
Prawns w/Honey Walnuts, Sweet & Sour Chicken, Dried Sauteed String Beans w/Beef, Broccoli Cashew Nut, House Fried Rice, Steamed Rice, Vegetable Chow Mein
Save $2 by pre-paying before February 1, 2006.
Half the dinner cost is donated to the Food and Nutrition Center and is tax deductible.
Lucy’s Cafe is handicapped accessible.
For more information go to:
http://www.lucysmandarincuisine.com/
Lucy’s Cafe
21670 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino, California 95014
Phone: 408 446-1469
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12.07.05
Posted in Global at 7:57 pm by Bill
We’re at the SVLUG meeting right now. We just saw a great presentation by Bill Kendrick about a very interesting drawing program for little kids (3 & up, but fun for all ages) called TuxPaint. It’s completely free and Open Source, and there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as a lot of other platforms. And it’s been translated into a huge number of languages. Give it a try!
He’ll be giving a more in-depth presentation about the project and the Open Source development project tomorrow evening at PenLUG (Belmont, CA) and on the 19th at LUGOD (Davis, CA).
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11.21.05
Posted in Global at 11:44 pm by Bill
For the past eight years this site has not changed one bit. After our wedding we posted the pictures and haven’t done a thing since. You can still find that at http://www.wards.net/wedding. The content of the old pages are now loaded into Wordpress as pages - see the links at the top of the sidebar to the right - but it’s time to breathe some life into the site. So from now on we’ll be using this blog as a way of communicating what’s new for both of us.
We also maintain individual blogs as well - see the “Blogroll” section for links.
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This is a tree growing out of a rock in eastern Wyoming in the median of Interstate 80. It was found by railroad crews when the train followed that right-of-way, and the Union Pacific Railroad added cables around the rock (to keep it from being shattered by the tree) and a fence, which remain to this day. The trains used to stop to water the tree as they would pass through. When the Lincoln Highway (later US 40) was built through the area it became a stopping point for travelers, and when I-80 was built, a pull-out on the fast lane of each direction was made so that travelers could stop.
In Nebraska, we encountered an impressive electrical storm. I stopped by the side of the highway (US 30) to photograph it. While we were stopped, the only two cars to pass stopped to see if we were having mechanical trouble. I guess there isn’t a lot of traffic on US 30… One farmer who stopped told us there had been a tornado the previous day! Anyway these pictures were taken by using the “Bulb” setting - holding the shutter open manually by means of a remote control pneumatic switch. These two are the best out of an entire roll of film of lightning.
