The "Nine Guy" visits Silicon Valley

Well, today, my son and I had the day free (translation: my wife said "go do something with your son instead of staying on the computer reading blogs all day long").

So, off we went. First we dropped in on the Apple store that opened today at Oakridge Mall. Hung out with about 60 people in line. Got a free T-shirt. Nice store, looks like the inside of a G5.

We handed a nine guy to the new store manager. She seemed bemused by the thing. Then we thought, hmm, why not take the Nine Guy on a tour of Silicon Valley?

So, off we went. Taking pictures of the Nine Guy in front of Adobe. Nvidia. The Santa Clara train station (one of Silicon Valley's first computers is located there). Santa Clara University. The Hewlett Packard Garage (birthplace of Silicon Valley). Stanford University. University Coffee (my favorite Palo Alto hangout). And the Computer History Museum.

I posted the pictures on my moblog so you could see them.

But here's the rest of the story.

Our friend Chris Pirillo took the pictures and turned them into another funny video. Thanks Chris!

Hope your weekend is going as well.

Why did we post this? Well, on Friday we sent the Nine Guys out to those of you who sent us postcards. So, please take the Nine Guys to your favorite place and take pictures and post them or email them to us.

One last story, we were at Keeble and Shuchat today (famous Silicon Valley camera store) and in line there was Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. Of course we gave him a Nine Guy as well.

PS: I wrote a blog entry about the Interlocking Machine that ran Santa Clara's railyard for decades. It's one of Silicon Valley's first computers. Its algorithms are mechanical, rather than electrical. Quite a piece of machinery.