My destination was the Weirdstuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale.

It was very ... calming. Walking among rows and rows of discarded parts reminded me of my youth.

I've been missing the smell of solder, and the simple pleasure of programming uncomplicated microcontrollers. To that end, I was in search of an Arduino, and WsW was one of the places listed heavily in Make magazine. I could try there, and then go to Fry's if all else failed.

I didn't find what I was looking for at WsW, but I found many wonderful things, including a 4-pack of Skype-branded USB web cams that I need to figure out how to use, for $20.

I was tempted a number of times, especially by this pile of Commodore 128s:



I was almost very naughty about these walk/don't walk signs:



Some people have strong feelings about office temperature. Their feelings about the English Language aren't so rigorously held, however:



Couple of 8088 IBM PCs, looking roughly no different than the day they rolled off the assembly line. Sure don't make 'em like this anymore:




If you got 16 copies of the same CD, and hooked up 16 of these beauties in parallel, I bet you could rip it real fast:



There was zero female presence here. None whatsoever.



I ended up getting the microcontroller board at Fry's. I'm eager to put my thermostat on the internet.

On the way home, I went past Moffet Field

The zeppelin hangar needs to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.



The flickr set.

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Sent from Jan Kujawa's phone