My Town Monday: San Jose, CA

Greetings from San Jose, CA! I'm up here with four fellow class of 2k8ers (in alpha order): PJ Hoover (author of THE EMERALD TABLET), Stacy Nyikos (DRAGON WISHES), Courtney Scheinmel (MY SO-CALLED FAMILY) and Zu Vincent (THE HAPPY PLACE).

So far, we've chatted. Drunk wine. Chatted. Eaten Chinese for dinner. Chatted some more.

Don't worry, fellow 2k8ers, your SCANDALOUS secrets are safe with me!

We're on a panel at the California Library Association's Annual Conference. Which means that, tomorrow morning, I will be standing up and speaking for FIFTEEN whole minutes. Thank goodness I have a very cute power point presentation.

Totally ignoring the evening-before public-speaking jitters, I'm posting about a fun house to visit here in California's 3rd largest city.

Winchester Mystery House

Some interesting facts about the Winchester Mystery House:

Wealthy widow Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune, began building on this house in 1884.

Construction continued for THIRTY-EIGHT years.

There are 160 rooms in this Victorian mansion.

This house is bizarre, with features like staircases that lead to the ceiling.

The house was built without any master plan, so it's quite the hodge podge.

Building costs were about $5.5 million.

The Winchester House is HAUNTED by people who were killed by Winchester rifles.

You can have your birthday party here.

If you're interested in visiting:

525 S Winchester Blvd
San Jose, CA 95120
(408) 247-2101

Sorry if this isn't my best MTM post. But think of the pressure I'm under. Speaking engagement tomorrow. Holder of SCANDALOUS secrets. Please please cut me some slack. So... I'm off to get my beauty sleep. Think of me (and the rest of the 2k8 gang who are in San Jose) at about 10:30 am Pacific time. Cross your fingers that I don't fall over in a dead faint.

Now, go directly to Travis Erwin's blog. He's our big kahuna boss for My Town Mondays. He'll have a MTM post up himself plus a list of links to other Mondayers.

Sources; http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Wikipedia