California - Part 3

7/12/21

Our last full day on the west coast! I guess we were running out of things to do, a little bit. In the morning, Valerie stayed back at Ted's apartment while he and I walked the nature trail around the outside of the Facebook campus, which is very close to Ted's place. Facebook occupies what used to be Sun Microsystems' headquarters, and we discovered (while searching for a geocache, of course) that the back side of the Facebook sign at the entrance to the complex still says Sun Microsystems. That's no accident. Sun was at one time a premiere computer brand, but they tanked in the dot-com crash of the early 2000's as dot-com companies went bankrupt and dumped their used Sun computers on the market at low prices. The company never recovered and in 2009 was swallowed up by Oracle. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg intentionally left the Sun sign there as a reminder to his employees never to be complacent, even when it seems you're on top. On our walk we also noticed that while the campus is fenced in, there are gaps in the fence and gates which are unlocked - I hope that Facebook does a better job of data security than they do of physical security (kidding - I'm pretty sure they don't!).

At Facebook

A relic of the Sun era around back of the Facebook sign

After our walk we picked Valerie up and returned to the Stanford Mall, as Valerie wanted to buy more bars of a honeysuckle soap she had found there. Stanford Mall is where the high end shops are - the Hermes, the Cartier, etc. But still, nothing which couldn't be found at the Tysons Galleria or thereabouts. I figured that in an area with so many super-rich tech people the local mall would hold yet another level of even more expensive stores, selling things like the $300 t-shirts favored by the aforementioned Mark Zuckerburg. I guess those stores are hidden away elsewhere, and if you have the money to wear $300 t-shirts, it doesn't matter if the stores are conveniently located at the mall as you probably have staff to go out and buy them for you.

Stanford Mall

The three of us walked around separately - the mall is outdoors and makes for a nice stroll - then met for lunch. We were browsing the menu at a salad place when one of the employees fairly rudely shooed us away. Apparently, in looking at the menu the restaurant had placed at the entrance we were blocking other customers. The employee said there were other menus we could look at inside, but in fact the next place to see a menu was at the counter where you ordered, and by trying to take time to look at the menu once we were at the front of the line we were once again deemed guilty of holding up the line (BTW, the place was half empty and there was no line - just one other party behind us waiting to order). I started to vent a little at the staff member who was making us feel pretty unwelcome there. All she had would have had to have done at that point to calm things down would have been to say something like, "I'm sorry - please take your time." But she didn't, but fortunately for her my family, which is more used to my playing the conciliatory role when other family members are upset about poor service, shushed me, thereby sparing her from my very mild wrath. We ordered and had our salads (which were just OK). After lunch Ted and Valerie went out to pick fruit on the Stanford campus (there are orange, lemon and citron trees there!) while I stayed home and read my book and by the time we got back together everyone was once again in good spirits.

We were by then tired of restaurant meals and so whipped up dinner from Ted's fridge - pasta with asparagus, and veggie "chicken". Then we packed our bags.

7/13/21

All I can say about this day is that we got up early, Ted drove us to the airport, and we flew home (my first flight on a 787 Dreamliner!). The flight was initially expected to get in early, but due to the need to circumvent a wall of storms (we flew all the way down over Alabama to get around the storms) the flight wound up arriving about a half hour late - but the routing was good - nary a bump along the way! I'll also mention one other thing about flying these days: right now, COVID protocols require that all passengers wear masks at all times, except when they're eating. People complied quite well on our flights - but then came beverage service, that part of the flight where everyone takes their masks off at once to have their drinks and eat their little snacks. So FAA rules make sure you're safe throughout the flight except for the twenty minutes when everyone is breathing on each other while eating. Hmmm. Time for on-board beverages to be served in mask-friendly Fauci-pouchies? And pretzels to be replaced by similarly packaged smoothies?

I'll make one other parting observation. Where we live is not quite walkable, but most of our daily trips are 5-10 minutes away on local streets (or are doable by bicycle) - the supermarket, Target, Home Depot, doctor visits, and so on. Silicon Valley is definitely much more spread out. Ted's location is pretty centrally located, but just about everything requires hopping on the highway for an exit or two. In place of our 5-10 minute trips, his are 15-25, which makes a difference. Particularly when gas costs a dollar more than it does in Virginia. Whenever Valerie and I travel these days we evaluate the place as a possible retirement destination. Silicon Valley passes many tests - good healthcare (go Stanford Healthcare!), lots of restaurants, great weather, diversity - but carries serious negatives of total car dependence and insane cost of living, with houses costing roughly double what they would in already expensive Arlington. Hmmm.