And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself — Well...how did I get here?
— "Once in a Lifetime" by David Byrne
Well, how did I get here?
When I started this little blog, I showed how we use some of our gadgets. I've been running out of gadgets to show off.
I've used it to tell what fun things happen to us. Lately it's been: Work, Eat, Sleep. Repeat.
I've shown pictures of goings on in the yard. Once is usually enough. If you want to see what this spring brought us (or what next spring will bring) you might as well look at what I showed you last spring.
I make some random observations of things that strike me as bizarre. I hope more bizarre things happen now and then. They're fun to share.
I've shown pictures of our turtles. This will continue forever. We'll never reach the end of them. I just scheduled the Tuesday posts into October. But that's about all I've been posting for a few weeks.
I've been letting the days go by with nothing from me.
The second largest collection of posts is my memories. This might be where I'll take this blog now.
I think that I'll dig into my souvenirs boxes and try to explain more about how I got here. I'm sure I will often be complaining about some of the less-than-happy events in my childhood.
I'm not sure what the point of that really is. Maybe it's to give parents who read this blog advice on what not to do. (But my only regular readers are friends and family who don't need parenting advice from me.) Or maybe it's to tell parents that they don't need to obsess over being perfect parents, that kids can turn out to be fine citizens even with some not-so-great parenting.
But there are some happy memories in these boxes. I'll restart this blog with one of them.
The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory had a few open houses where they let people into the lab to give us a glimpse of what goes on inside those secure walls.
They had one of them on the 15th anniversary of the Trinity Test. I was five. I got to match wits with a computer! I got a printout that shows how I did.
The computer could count 1,700 times faster than I could. I must have been counting very fast since its claim about how many additions it could do during my life had it doing about 42,000 additions every second (they said it did a million additions per day).
I guess this experience played a role in bringing me where I am today.
They had another open house five years later. We got to look inside a reactor from a door in its top. It had a beautiful glow coming from deep in the water. Nuclear power was scary but beautiful! I was looking forward to seeing that again in five years when they would have another open house but they didn't do it again.
Ah! Those were happy times for a future nerd.
7 comments:
All I remember from those open houses was a computer playing a tune and seeing where they handled radioactive stuff indirectly from behind protective glass. I think your memories are interesting.
I remember going into an office. A microscope was set up on the lab bench with a sign next to it reading "Nothing to see." And of course everyone peered in.
I think they say the Los Alamos Lab now has the fastest computer in the world. What number do you suppose it would reach while you're counting to 25 today?
kind of plate of shrimp here. While cleaning up this weekend, I found my print out from the Human Counter. I was a little high. Will post the picture some time when it surfaces again.
I finally thought to Google the 704 computer. I'll bet that it not only counted much faster than I did but was also the computer that sang for Colleen! I don't remember the singing.
Hi, Chuck. I'm just catching up. I remember looking down the little door into the pretty blue water, too. When they retired that reactor, my Mom got to bake it a cake. (It looked like the reactor.)
You think your memory is bad! I don't remember the reactor, but I do remember the rat lab and the human counter. Luckily, it only counted one of me...I get to go to the new updaed version of the counter ever year for work.
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