Miko and Me: Ghosties, Core Spiritual Values and Science

In 1862, Sarah married into the Winchester family – owners of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, home of “The Gun That Won The West”. When Sarah Winchester's husband died, she became immensely rich.

She also became very depressed as in the span of one year she lost not only her husband but her father-in-law and her mother. She became convinced that she was cursed by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle and the only way to protect herself was to continually add on to her California home. She thought that the sounds of construction would keep at bay these spirits. Carpenters were hired and worked day and night for 38 years until Sarah's death. The house has 160 rooms with doors and stairways that go nowhere, windows overlooking other rooms – it is quite the architectural oddity. While the house was mildly interesting, I found Sarah's story intriguing. What was going on in that poor woman's mind. She must have been in a constant state of torment.

The tour through the house was rather rushed - tours go through the house every 20 minutes so you had better keep moving. While the stairs going nowhere and the doors that would drop you down one story were interesting, I found the stain glass in the mansion to be the best part.

This window was designed by Sarah Winchester herself.
Notice the circles - there are thirteen of them. Thirteen was a very special number for Sarah.

The Sikh Gurdwara of San Jose is the largest gurdwara (a Sikh place of worship) in the world outside of India. Sikhism is a fairly new religion, only about 500 years old. The core tenets of Sikhism are justice and equality. The gurdwara has a prayer hall, a school, a kitchen and a hall to provide Langar service. The prayer hall generally sees 10,000 people who attend Sunday services. The Langar is a community kitchen which serves vegetarian meals to all free of charge. You can show up at the Langar, three times a day and you will be fed. We were lucky enough to be fed when we were there. It was an excellent meal made better by the thought that they feed people without any discrimination.

My quite substantial meal

The Exploratorium is a science museum on steroids. It is a “mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one” Wiki The museum is above all, a participatory museum – so many machines and experiments – so many objects that you can play with and actually learn something.

The following pictures are all pictures of me. I no longer remember all I learned about what technology was being used.