Slow train ride to Stockholm. 8/20/18

Our train this morning leaves at 5:56 AM but it is no problem because John and I have been up since 2:30 AM. Oh, jet lag (shaking my fist!) We leave the hotel in plenty of time (5:10 AM) to find our train at the station which is just across a plaza from our hotel. We arrive on the platform at 5:20. Better early than late! Around 5:30 the train rolls in.

John watches as the train rolls in

Finally at about 10 minutes to 6:00 they allow us on the train. It is pretty packed. The train takes a little over 5 hours to get to Stockholm. Oslo and Stockholm are only 250 miles apart so the train averages less than 50 mph. However the train is equipped with WiFi so I finish my blog and do some puzzles. We also get a little boxed breakfast with wooden utensils.

Bread, kefir, muesli, apple juice and ham and cheese in the train breakfast box

Shortly after 11:00 AM we are in Stockholm. Our hotel is very near to the train station and they have a room that we can have right away.

Our very Scandinavian room at the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel
The view out our window

After getting ourselves settled and trying not to fall asleep we head out to Gamla Stan, the oldest section of Stockholm (the island pictured on the left above.) John is super vigilant that I not fall down today.

We have chosen Matgatan for lunch today. It is highly rated on Yelp! Even though there is zero ambiance and the stools we sit on are super-uncomfortable, the food is quite good. We each order the pulled pork “burger” that comes with cole slaw and crispy potatoes. It is quite a bit of food. We should have split one order. Even John cannot eat it all. He must still be full from our train box.

John in traditional beer pose
Pulled pork, cole slaw, and crispy new potatoes

After lunch we walk around for a while but it is Monday and as is typical in Europe almost all museums and attractions are closed. We try to find a church to look at but strike out. Since we are both really tired we head back to the hotel around 3:00 PM.

Narrow street in Gamla Stan
The House of Nobility in Gamla Stan

As we enter the hotel we notice that their restaurant is the RBG Bar and Grill. Any restaurant named after the Notorious RBG will be our landing spot for a drink later today.

The RBG Bar and Grill

As it turns out we are really tired since we got up so early and not hungry so we make coffee and tea in the room and have an early night. Here is hoping that we will sleep better tonight.

Boarding the ship tomorrow!

 

Europe hurts. 8/19/18

When we traveled to Europe with our kids in 1998, Jonathan was victimized by a culture that made things too small, too stick out-y, just too foreign! He was constantly bumping into or tripping over small pieces of Europe. On that trip he coined our family phrase, “Europe hurts!” The tradition continues. But more on that later.

Since John and I are still in backwards land sleeping-wise, we are up with the early bird breakfast eaters today and are on the subway to our first destination before 8 am. Luckily we are going to see a park and it is open 24/7.

The Vigeland section of Frogner Park features 212 bronze and granite sculptures designed by Gustav Vigeland. These sculptures, all naked, are mostly of people expressing various human emotions. An over 300 foot bridge lined with sculptures, a sculptural fountain, and a sculptural monolith are the main features.

Welcome to Vigeland!

It is a beautiful Sunday and even before 9 AM Norwegians and tourists are out in force. We are glad we have come early. Here are some of the sculptures we especially like.

There are many of these tall columns topped by humans struggling with serpents
On the bridge are running children…
a happy mother and baby…
an embracing couple…
and a man struggling within a circle.
I stop for a photo with my favorites, yellow roses!
Next is a fountain held up by burly men and surrounded with bronze trees with children playing within them. In the distance is the monolith.

The Monolith is up a hill with a lot of steps. I look from a distance while John climbs up for a closer look. It is composed of interlocking human figures.

The Monolith
Statuary by the Monolith include a mother playing horsey…
and two old men.

Vigeland Park is getting very crowded and we decide it is time to go. We walk back to the subway stop and head in towards the city to the King’s Palace. The current king is King Harald V and he lives here with Queen Sonja. We can tell that they are home because the flag is flying above the palace.

The royal palace in Oslo

And now for the Europe hurts part…

After leaving the palace park and crossing a small street I go to step up onto the sidewalk and my evil left knee crumples and down I go. This comes as quite a shock to me and I lie on the sidewalk for a moment. People in passing cars stop. They want to help. I do not want help. I just want to wallow in my pain on the sidewalk. I get into a sitting position and try to wave them away. “I am okay!” I shout. The word okay is understood in all languages. Finally they move on. But I cannot get up. John tries to pull me up but my knee is not taking any weight at the moment.

Norwegian Home Health Aides to the rescue! Two young women carrying backpacks arrive on the scene. They ask if we need help. I explain that I have fallen and I cannot get up. (I say this literally.) But I will be okay and sooner or later I will find a way to get up. They say we are strong Norwegian Home Health Aides and we help people get up all the time. With this each grabs a hand and I am on my feet! Or at least one foot. I am a little hesitant to try out my knee. Turns out the knee is fine and they lead me over to a place to sit down. They ask me again if I am okay, not in any severe pain? I answer I am okay and they say adios and go on their backpacking way. (Actually, they just say goodbye in their perfect English.)

I can see the headlines in tomorrow’s paper, “Plucky Yank shakes off tumble with the help of strong Norwegian Home Health Aides! International incident averted!!”

Not ones to let a little falling down stop us, we continue on to the National Gallery to look at some art. This is the museum which houses Munch’s The Scream as well as a bunch of other stuff. There are a lot of stairs here and the kindly staff lets me ride up in the freight elevator. I am not oblivious to the irony.

Here are some works that we liked –

Hey look what we found, a Saint! This is in the Russian icon section. The informational plaque says it is Saint Nicholas of Zaraysk but we can see from the little pictures surrounding the Saint that it is actually our old friend, St. Nicholas of Bari.

St. Nicholas of Zaraysk
La Coiffure by Edgar Degas
Edouard Manet (1832-1883). French painter. View of the 1867 Exposition Universelle, 1867
Still life by Pablo Picasso, 1927

And finally Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, or how I felt after I fell down.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

When we finish up at the National Gallery we decide to take the subway back to the hotel and have a little re-grouping time. However, Europe hurts is not done with me yet. As I go to step onto the subway car the doors close and I am smashed between them. Ow! I actually make an audible noise. The doors, having figured out that perhaps not all the passengers are completely on board release and reopen. (Thank God) So now both of my forearms are totally bruised.

Around 3 PM we walk over to the train station again and have lunch at Bella Bambino in the fancy food hall.

Fancy food hallen
John has a fritatta
I have carpaccio

John wants to go out again and visit the Opera House but I am done. I lie down and go to sleep instead. Here are his pictures from his adventure.

Oslo Opera House is also home to the National Ballet

Several art projects were commissioned for the interior and exterior of the Opera House. The most notable is She Lies, a sculpture constructed of stainless steel and glass panels. It is permanently installed on a concrete platform in the fjord adjacent to Opera House and floats on the water moving in response to tides and wind to create an ever-changing face to viewers. (Wikipedia)

She Lies

John comes back and we both sleep some more. We know that it is not the right thing to do and that we will pay for it later but we cannot help ourselves. Around 9 PM we get up and go downstairs and have a comforting burger and fries with a beer at the hotel bar.

Surprisingly good burger and fries at the Eufemia Bar

It is now Monday morning and we are on the train to Stockholm. Just want to report that I am a little sore but really none the worse from the fall I took yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Munch, lunch, and more – Oslo. 8/18/18

After a really abysmal night’s sleep we are excited to start our first full day in Oslo. We start with the hotel’s very large and free breakfast buffet. While John eats herring of all sorts and drinks copious amounts of coffee, I settle for a more traditional European breakfast known to us as lunch for breakfast.

Little hot dogs, salami, bread with delicious butter and salad with beets

After breakfast we walk about outside to test the weather (upper 50’s and threatening rain) and see some sculptures that are nearby.

John asking a jolly looking man for directions but only gets a stony gaze
I help out a very tall man by holding his hand to cross the street (everyone here is VERY tall, btw)
We don’t know what this is but John needs his picture taken next to it
A sculpture from the hotel lobby is of a naked woman embracing a man who appears to be floating in a coat and hat

We walk over to the train station and buy a 24-hour pass for all transportation modes. Being senior citizens gets us almost half off! We take the T-bane to the Munch Museet where we see an all-Munch exhibition that has been shown recently in San Francisco and NYC.

John outside Munch Museet

One of the first paintings we see is Puberty. It is a touching painting of a young girl entering puberty looking afraid and vulnerable. The bed plays a large part in many of Munch’s paintings. It is a transitional piece between life and death, health and sickness, and in the following painting childhood and adulthood. Other themes are smell and shadows.

Puberty, 1894

Here in Death Struggle the bed plays a significant role again. The colors behind the mourners’ heads turn from wallpaper into their own emanations. The blanket covering the dying person is red or is it blood?

Death Struggle, 1915

This next painting shows a weeping mother with a deformed and sickly baby. The baby has inherited syphilis. This painting crossed the line with critics of the day. Mostly, though, we take this photo because the baby looks like an alien.

Inheritance, 1897-99

In Red Virginia Creeper we see a house mostly in red. Is it fire, blood, the vine or just a nightmarish vision seen through the eyes of the man in the foreground?

Red Virgina Creeper, 1898-1900

Munch’s painting, Despair, is reminiscent of his most famous work, The Scream, which is not part of this exhibition but we will see it tomorrow at the National Gallery.

Despair, 1894

Finally, the exhibition’s eponymous work, Self Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed, is from the end of Munch’s life. It is filled with the symbols of his work-the bed which is a transition to his death, a clock symbolizing the passage of time, the nude depicting sensuality and vulnerability, the bold colors, and Munch himself. (As an aside we now understand why our room at the hotel is decorated in turquoise and chartreuse.)

Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed, 1940-1943

It is getting late for lunch and it has started raining when we emerge from the T-bane.  John gets turned around and we head off in the wrong direction which leads to a little unhappiness. But we finally make it to Bacchus Spiseri & Vinhus for lunch. It is in old quarters, built in a bazaar which surrounds the Oslo Cathedral.

Quaint interior of Bacchus (from internet)
John has a favorite of his, mussels in cream and white wine with fennel
I opt for a Scandinavian style open-faced sandwich of shrimp, too much mayonnaise, and dill

Next we take a gander at the Oslo Cathedral, home to the Church of Norway which is an evangelical Lutheran sect.

Oslo cathedral

After the intensely decorated Italian churches we have seen, the Oslo Cathedral seems bare in comparison. Although there has been a church on this site since the 12th century the current one hails from the 17th century. There are some 19th century paintings on the ceiling and a Last Supper carving on the altar featuring a very large cooked lamb.

Ceiling paintings of the Nativity and the Flagellation
Close up of altar carving

After the cathedral we stand outside in the spitting rain which is getting stronger and try to decide what to do. Should we head back to the hotel and collapse or soldier on. I am achy and sleepy (not to mention the other dwarfs) and say I would like to go back to the hotel. John says in a relieved voice, I do too. It is late in the afternoon and we are very tired. No one is going to present us with a gold medal for sightseeing excellence so we head back to the hotel and promptly fall asleep.

Dinner tonight is in the bar again. It seems easiest. Tonight we have halibut ceviche and two scallops wrapped in bacon off the small plates menu. It is very tasty and bettter than last night’s selections.

Scallops wrapped in bacon and halibut ceviche

We will have plenty of time tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be very nice to see more of Oslo.

P.S. Munch and lunch do not rhyme.

 

 

 

 

Happy times traveling to Oslo. 8/16 and 17/2018

Leaving late in the day on Thursday means we do not arrive in Oslo until late Friday afternoon. We are flying SAS for the first time and it turns out to be pretty nice. We start out by being sent to the wrong security area so we have to backtrack and go through security twice! It is the first error of the journey to Oslo but I am resolved to allow ourselves some being stupid time. We just smile as both of us are selected for additional random scanning on our second pass through.

The next error is that the check-in person has written the wrong gate on our boarding pass. We arrive at a deserted waiting area. But no problem. We find the right gate before the doors close. Still smiling! The flight takes about ten hours during which we watch movies and eat mediocre airline food. The airline staff is unfailingly pleasant so that is a real plus!

John enjoying his welcome aboard champagne

We fly to Copenhagen first. On our second flight we are held up briefly on the tarmac due to thunderstorms in Oslo. We are crammed like sardines into the plane. I am trying not to touch my seating partner (who is not John!) We just grin and bear it.

Yay, touch-down in Oslo. We go to reclaim our luggage and manage to lose each other. John thinks I am in a restroom on the opposite side of the cavernous hall and stands patiently waiting for me to come out. I, in the meantime, come out cannot find him, pick up our luggage from the carousel, and finally find him still waiting patiently outside of the wrong restroom. He says he thought there was a really, really long line in the ladies room. Still smiling!

We catch the super convenient and reasonably priced train to Oslo center and head for our hotel which we can see from the train station. Luckily it is merely sprinkling rain for the short walk. Here is our comfortable although color-challenged home for the next three nights. It has a view of the harbor.

Turquoise and chartreuse room at the Thon Opera Hotel

We take showers and do what you are not supposed to do to beat jet lag, fall into a dead sleep. Neither of us have slept for about 25 hours.  We are awakened after two hours by John getting a phone call. Caller unknown. Ha, ha!

It is going on 9pm so we head downstairs, take a quick look around outside (it is quite chilly,) then we settle for a couple of small plates in the hotel bar with a beer.

John in traditional beer pose
Some calamari and a small minced lamb stuffed cabbage leaf

So now you would think we would be so tired that we would sleep well. Hah! First time up 11:30 pm then again at 3:30am. I have been up since then. It is now 5:30 am. But I am happy to have this time to write my blog. Still smiling!

 

John and Jonathan visit the Computer History Museum. 8/1/18

Post written by John

Jonathan and I finally were able to visit the Computer History Museum located in the old Silicon Graphics campus in Mountain View.  We had an outstanding few hours, bringing back many great memories.   Jon decided he would try to take pictures of me with some of the stuff I had actually used.

EAI Analog Computer

This is me with the first computer I actually programmed (Summer 1966 at a high school engineering institute at Northwestern University), an Electronic Associates (EAI) analog system.   It was programmed using patch cords and solved differential equations.  The mess of wires by my shoulder is actually a “program”.

 

Fortran
Here is me not with a computer I used, but with books about my first high-level programming language, FORTRAN.  The rightmost book is Daniel McCracken’s A Guide to FORTRAN Programming, which was our text at MIT for the introductory programming course (Fall 1966).  At the top of the stack of books is a FORTRAN text in Russian!
Apollo Guidance Computer
During Fall of 1967 I had a short stint at the Instrumentation Lab at MIT.  This is where I learned industrial-strength IBM System/360 assembly language.  I helped develop tools to enable writing programs for the Apollo Guidance Computer.  That’s it at the top.  Less than two years later, it would be on the Moon.
Diablo Disk Drive
By 1972 I had started work at Data General Corporation writing code for the Nova (to be seen later in this post).  The disk drives that were attached to our machines were Diablo 31 units.  Each platter (shown sitting above the drive unit) was 14 inches in diameter and could hold a whopping 2.5 million bytes.
Family tree of programming languages
I used a lot of high-level languages (FORTRAN, Algol, LISP, Pascal, COBOL, PL/I, C, C++, BASIC…) and wrote compilers for some of them, most notably FORTRAN.  The exhibit on the family tree of programming languages was fascinating.
IBM 7094
Here I am standing with the operator’s console for the IBM 7094.  The first FORTRAN and assembly language (FAP) program I ever actually ran were for this machine at MIT in starting in 1966.  Within two years the System/360 had replaced the 7094 as the teaching vehicle.  Gotta love the earth tones, though.
DEC PDP-8
The first minicomputer I actually programmed for real was the DEC PDP-8.  During the summer of 1971 I wrote some lab control software for the Materials Science department at Northwestern.  In the picture I am re-living the experience of entering the bootstrap loader program from the front panel switches.  Pain then, pain now.
Data General Nova
Next we come to the Data General Nova, the first minicomputer to sell for under $10K.  I wrote and managed a lot of software for the Nova and its successors, the Eclipse, the Eclipse MV (aka Eagle), FHP (aka Fountainhead) and AViiON from 1972 through 2002.
IBM 1130
Taking a step back in time, the is me in front of an IBM 1130.  The Civil Engineering department at MIT circa 1969 had one of these that was available for drop-in use.  Back then this was as close to personal computing as I could get.
Apple Lisa
Finally we jump to the late 1980s and the Apple Lisa.  We got one of these at Data General to try to understand what the next wave of desktop computing might be like.  Sad reflection:  Data General is no longer.  It was acquired by EMC, which was later acquired by Dell.  Apple is now a trillion-dollar behemoth.
Other highlights of the day:
Restored and working PDP-1 from MIT running Spacewar.
Restored and working IBM 1401 complex
Reconstruction of a section of Babbage’s Difference Engine
Displays on large early computers from ENIAC to SAGE.
Development of the IBM S/360 (esp. the Fred Brooks video)
A (non-working) Cray-1.
… and many more
Thanks so much, Jon!