Show and Tell: Grady's Big Adventure

[GradyPhilpott]

Every Tuesday, I get together with a group of guys for breakfast. Over the years, we've had big crowds and sometimes there's only just a few of us.

Currently, we're down to just three, so a few weeks ago one member suggested that we have breakfast in Old Town and go see the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Technology.

The other guy and me looked at each other, shrugged and said, "Why not?"

So, today we met at the Church Street Cafe in Old Town, had breakfast, then we headed over to the museum for a walk around.

They let us all get in free today because Bob and I are veterans and they let Mark, the non-veteran, in free, too, just because, I guess. I wasn't arguing.

So here's some pictures of three old men's trip to the museum.

Warning: These are smartphone pictures.

It's off the breakfast with the obligatory steering wheel and wrist shot. Honda and Rolex--a match made in heaven.

Inside the Church Street Cafe. The building has been dated to the early 19th century. The windows are artwork. They actually look pretty good in the picture--almost real.

Keepers of the gate at the museum entrance.

I think this was the first hard drive and held something like 2MB. In front of it is a 2GB thumb drive, which is small by today's standards. I have a 128GB micro SD card in my phone.

The Altair 8800--the affordable computer that couldn't do much, but got the nerds excited enough to get started on the PC era, or something like that.

This is a replica of first mouse. Isn't it a beauty? Surely someone out there must be making walnut mice today.

I went back in time to get a picture of the Microsoft gang back in the 1970s. It's a cutout in the middle of one of the rooms. There are videos on both large screens and small screens throughout the exhibit. You can see one in the background.

A business card from one of Bill Gates early companies.

Animated dinosaurs

In this room you can look into a camera and see yourself and your friends in devices on the wall. Look closely, and you can see all three of us in this picture.

There are also three stations where you can take a video of yourself saying something and it will record your video and show on a large screen in front of you and then it plays in a loop, until someone comes along and puts theirs over yours, I think. I recited some lines from the poem, "High Flight."

On the way home, as I was exiting I-40, I wound up behind a real Mini Cooper. It's the first one I've ever seen.

And that my fellow WISes, was Grady and his friend's big adventure for the day. Next week we decided to do something different, but I have to figure out what it will be.