John Walker's Electronic House

A fine long weekend was spent in DC, with some work at the start, followed by a weekend spent in the excellent company of a Charity Larrison & Son (Ltd).

It was all a beautiful coincidence, as staying the weekend lowered the cost of the flights for the dev team flying me over, and Charity happened to be in town at the same time. So adventures were had.

This involved visiting DC’s central bit, replete with the Capitol Building (which looked odd, not blowing up) and Washington Monument (which must some day be used for stabbing a giant monster through the heart) dividing a strip of free museums. The buildings were remarkable, all columns and domes, no less impressive the further out you walked. The booby-prize of Most Boring Building goes to the FBI, who live in a horrid concrete block.

Brilliantly, I managed to forget my camera both days, so you’ll have to use your imaginations for what this looked like. I was incredibly handsome, so make sure to factor that in.

We visited the Spy Museum and the Museum of Natural History. The former has an blue and pink elevator, and the latter has lots of dinosaur bones, and both were well worth a look. I had an excellent ten year old guide for the Natural History, who knew where all the coolest bits were.

Of course it was necessary to have a look at the White House, which is a remarkably modest building in comparison with its surroundings. It’s still a huge mansion, but proportionally it’s a weeny outhouse to the city’s architecture. Thankfully Charity remembered her camera, as she’s not quite as spectacularly stupid as me, but was far more interested in the tree next to it.

Then the second day we went to the zoo in the pouring rain. A free zoo is a remarkable thing. You just walk in off the pavement, and then, well, you’re in the zoo. It feels like your cheating somehow. Clearly February is not a peak time for their expectation of tourism, and much was under construction, including the famed Asia Trail and its panda inhabitants. But despite this, a fair amount of animals were around for staring at, and again Charity remembered her camera.

The elephant waved at Charity, and now they are best friends.

Losing the bet, it turned out the giraffe was taller than Justin.

My mum’s favourite animal in the whole world, the Capabara, or Gigantus Guineapigus.

And finally, in a moment that can only be rivalled by those times you see Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera characters in the same cartoon, here is a page of Charity and John’s ART colliding. Which a special guest appearance by Brian.

Huge thank yous to Charity and Justin for a really lovely weekend. Few better people to find that “WE’RE LOST!” with.

Brian is back properly tomorrow.