3 Days in San Jose, hits/pits

After considerable work/travel snafu last Tuesday my son and I drove up to Palo Alto joining my wife who flew up for a class later that same day. While she learned about the synergy of management, the boys roamed the town. 100% of our mornings were snafued, and I left my notes from planning a trip 3 weeks earlier at home, so we visited nobody, and moved around with no efficiency. First stop was Bermans on Tuesday afternoon, but too late they were already closed. Problems at their web site kept me from bidding in the morning before we left Orange, Ca., and we didn't get our laptop on the net until Wednesday (at $300/night the Holiday Inn included a free Nokia wireless PCMCIA card to access the net with). Wednesday we made a big loop. ES Electronic Solutions on Brokaw, not too exciting. Too well organized (shelves of cardboard bins with contents marked) and fully retail priced stuff. I bought a few coax crimp connectors from the clearance bin, and thats it. Some other stuff I was curious about, but time and uncertainty made me skip them. Alltronics, just around the corner on Zanker. I get their catalog, and it reflects the store, old style electronics surplus joint combined with just enough new stuff to keep people coming in. I found a box of Apple II/PC joysticks and bought all the A2 compatible ones, but mostly it was like the first place. Bermans, around the corner on Trimble, no place to park. Missing the bidding Tuesday took the point out of a visit, but it was good to eyeball the place anyway. The lady behind the window wouldn't give me any specific information on final bid amounts, but did tell me no lots sold for less than $25, which was too much IMNSHO. RA, on Walsh east of Layfette. Nice BIG warehouse of junk electronics, but computer stuff was just incidental. I found a box of junk connectix cameras, an old HP 486/25 with a 10/100 card, and a SCSI 3.5" optical drive in a external case, but they wanted to keep it more than I wanted to put it in my too full of luggage trunk. Thursday we headed to the Childrens Discovery Museum, and my son at 9 still had a good time, but its most likely his last trip. Next time the technology museum instead I think. On the way back to Palo Alto I spotted the HSC sign... HSC, off the central expressway, no idea how I got to it. Very much like the first two places, too tidy, too retail. This isn't really that bad, I mean if I lived in the area and needed something between swapmeet times I just might head over to one of these places to get that needed item, but nothing got me excited during the visit. Some prices were comically high, but some were OK if you needed the item. Big collection of data books to read with free coffee over in the corner too. General trip notes, WOW have prices gone up. Gas was $2.19/gal, which is about $0.40 higher than Orange, CA, food prices were also higher, even in supermarkets on some items (bottled water, but not soda). Rooms were outrageous, we paid $300/night staying at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza (very nice, but an older work in progress), and MUCH worse a rathole (beatup old motel/apt on its first leg of fix up) on the east side of San Jose called the Whitehouse Inn was $102 when a page at 7PM forced us to stay Thursday night. Much better rooms at slightly better prices were available earlier in the day, but by 6PM they were gone.