About a week into my current trip to Palo Alto and Berkeley, I find myself sitting in a place I know all too well: Peet’s Coffee House on University Avenue in Palo Alto — the heart of Silicon Valley. The first one for me, way back in 2008 when I first came here. And countless visits since moving home, moving back, and then moving home again, in the summer of 2015. Here today, in Berkeley tomorrow — and most likely I will find my way to the original Peet’s Coffee
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Sailing home; Flying Frenchmen on the beach
Coming to California, and then just never leaving…. The story repeats itself all the time: You live here in the Bay Area and you meet nice people, talkative people. As today, when I walked with my family down by the Alameda beaches in the Bay, looking at the occasional swimmer, surfer and bird celebrating the last days of April. This is a wonderful place to do so. But I approach this guy working on his gear to get ready for the mounting winds. He´s from France, it appears. He is
Read MoreGet lost exploring; A conversation in Tilden Park
Trailblazing the meaning of life with an old-timer Good things happen outdoors. On my bike ride this afternoon, I came to my usual spot in Tilden Park, on top of Berkeley looking East and in towards the mountains separating me from the Gold Country wilderness of the 1850´s. And here was this old guy just sitting there on the bench I usually end up on after my bike ride up some fairly steep hills. He was wearing a cap, toting the slogan “Get lost exploring”. This being America, we got
Read MoreNothing but paper; but then again a lot more
….feels like a paper; OMG it´s a newspaper! Its NYT….: A regular Thursday morning (actually it´s not, since it´s Easter) finds me at the breakfast table with my view of the San Francisco Bay. It is a view that I will never quite get used to and also miss tremendously when we leave to go back to Norway. But something else is different this morning. I finally decided to go get the newspaper in the original format, the way a newspaper is supposed to be read — on paper. The
Read MoreThe question of experience
SF Chronicles: The Wisdom of Samuel Langhorne Clemens A quote here, usually attributed to Mark Twain – who got so many points right, and not always with attribution….: “Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.” Says Mr. Twain. It is a good quote, applicable to a myriad of situations. At least I thought when I read it. I read it on a card. It was a card for my son´s birthday, which now – today. And it is a card for him, the 21 year old. “This is
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