Welcome to the Valley
Things I’ve done since arriving in Silicon Valley:
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Played a round of miniature golf with Jonas Luster and his posse, followed by a long, European-style sojourn at the Duke of Edinburgh in Cupertino. I’m very glad Jonas introduced me to The Duke—a British pub literally transported brick by brick to California—since it fills a gap in my restaurant routine normally occupied by Denver’s excellent Bull & Bush.
Interestingly, while we were eating at The Duke, a European guy sitting behind us must have been amused by our group’s loud and animated conversation (which ranged from Mormonism to the likelihood of the UN leaving New York), because he had a $350 bottle of champagne sent over to our table! Everyone looked stunned, but I had to ask anyway: is this the kind of thing I can expect regularly here in the Valley of Heart’s Delight?
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Looked for apartments with my Mom (who flew in from Denver to help me out) and my aunt (who lives in Pleasanton). I don’t really have anything interesting to say about the experience, other than that we saw some truly horrifying places. There was one, a house which was billed in the Mercury News classifieds as Los Gatos but was actually in Campbell, that really took the cake: rusted out old appliances, shabby carpet, dirt in the yards (which watering was rapidly turning into mud). When the proprietor, a nice old Asian gentleman, informed me that I could have the place for $1600 a month with only a $1000 deposit, my jaw just about dropped.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before we settled on an apartment in Cupertino. The rent is a bit more than I was hoping to pay, but it’s a nicer place than my apartment in Denver and I think the fact that it is a leisurely 15 minute walk from Apple more than compensates for the extra cost!
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Drove over the hills and out to Santa Cruz to see the coast (as a native Coloradan, I’m always fascinated by the ocean). I can’t say I share Jonas’s love of the town, but maybe I just didn’t see the right parts of it (admittedly, the ultra-cheesy boardwalk was probably not the best place to start).
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Had lunch at the Apple cafeteria with Eric Albert, and listened with great interest as he told me about his days working on Rotor for Microsoft. Moral of story (my words, not his, of course): don’t trust Microsoft!
Eric is a hell of a nice guy, and he’s been an invaluable sounding board so far as I start my career at Apple. I really owe him a large debt of gratitude!
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Went to the South Bay Bloggers Meetup at Coffee Society in Cupertino, where I met lots of interesting people but became rather lost during the frequent and lengthy Monty Python recitations (don’t get me wrong—I know my Spanish Inquisition from my “Knights Who Say Ni,” but these people were way out of my league). I do have to say, though, it’s nice to meet other people who have actually seen Manos: Hands of Fate (a fascinatingly bad move that makes Plan 9 look brilliant)!
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Spent inordinate amounts of time driving around trying to find things—local record stores (if anyone has any recommendations, I’d love to hear them), In-N-Out Burger, etc. This was mostly true during the first week, though—now that I live in Cupertino, I rarely leave the place!
