Sunday, July 24, 2011

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 4

For whatever reason, these pictures wouldn't fit in my last post. Maybe there's a limit I wasn't aware of?



A goal of mine is to get a better camera. It would've been nice to get a decent picture of this spider I almost walked into.







Posted by Picasa

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 3

Come on, everybody! Let's go to the museum!



These rams make me think very much of astrology, though I think the ancient egyptian period that we're familiar with was during the age of Taurus.
We're in the Age of Aquarius right now. Just like the song from "Hair" says.

The Ages go backwards in the zodiac. We were just in the Age of Pisces, which lasted from about A.D. 1 to the year 2000. (I'm totally getting this information from The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need, by Joanna Martin Woolfolk.)
So the next Age will be the Age of Capricorn, which will occur around the year 4000.
 
I wonder if man will survive to the year 4000? I wonder if the ancient Egyptians thought mankind would still be roaming the earth four thousand years after they did?


It's amazing that as many of their relics survived. I bet we're missing tons of important stuff though.

We're discovering new things about ancient societies all the time. They had filtration systems for aquariums. They had medicine tablets, similar to our own pills today, that sailors could take to avoid sea-sickness. They mechanical boxes that could show them the position of the stars on any given day of any year. Yet the general concensus seems to be that the ancients were so dumb and we're vastly more intelligent and capable.

I wonder how many of our items will be around two thousand years from now. Do you think our computer and internet records will be salvagable by archeaologists then? Maybe people then will look back on us and wonder how we managed to survive our incredibly barbaric times? They'll say, "Those people from the Ding Dong Era were so basic. They stopped reading by the decade Ding 8. We can't find anymore printed records after that." They'll totally rename our era to something like that. They'll have a completely new calendar system. I'm sure the ancient Egyptians didn't celebrate the year 3345 B.C. and looked forward to 3344 B.C.  

As you may have guessed, I wasn't too thrilled to remember much of the information inside the museum. I've read much of it before... Hey, are those pomegranates? 



















Posted by Picasa

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 2

I didn't really discuss the Winchester Mystery House in the last post, but Sarah Winchester had it built until the time of her death. After the premature death of her daughter (six weeks old) and the death of her husband, a psychic convinced her to continue building the house to appease and confuse the spirits of those who had been killed by her husband's guns through the years.
After that, we drove over to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. I'll be completely honest, I thought I'd read that the Rosicrucians had been a "secret" order, like the Free Masons, that had sort of just disappeared into obscurity. This museum made me think otherwise, as it's openly funded by members of the Rosicrucian order. Also, the museum had a combination art gallery/theater/recruitment room, which had a gift shop with Rosicrucian books beside it. Neither Hottie nor myself were interested in joining the order that day, so unless I cheat and do some research online, I can't tell you anything about the Rosicrucians.
But here are some of the pictures. These were taken both by Hottie and me.





















 

The next post will show some of the inside of the museum, as well as more pics of the gardens.
Posted by Picasa

Saturday, July 23, 2011

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Hottie (pretty sure that's the alias I gave her) and I went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA.

We did the Grand Estate Tour, which combined the House Tour and the Backstage Tour.

I went about ten years before, and I'm pretty sure I took pictures of the inside of the house, but you can't do that anymore. Flashes ruining the paint and all that fun stuff.



This is the Foreman's House, which we walked by during the Backstage Tour. It was closed for rennovation.

This is the well for the house. It now has a super-pump on it.

This is the tank house. Incidentally, should San Jose ever have a water crisis, the Winchester well is considered an official back-up water supply for the city.



I like flowers.

I can't remember if I took this pic or not. Hottie took quite a few with my camera. Either way, I like the contrast of the green on the red tiles.

The house is constantly under rennovation.

This statue's name is Murray, or so said our guide. He said he "looks like a Murray".

We all got hard hats.





I don't think he had a name.



A chimney used to be here, but the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 brought it down.



Our guide for the Backstage Tour. Sarah Winchester was quite fond of the number thirteen. This wasn't here while she lived, but the gardeners liked it.


Posted by Picasa