The World Is Speeding Up and I Want to Get Off

 I live in Silicon Valley where everyone is free to invent and innovate and yet I feel like a Luddite at times.  I still prefer to talk to people face to face rather than on the phone.  I like to get letters and cards in the mail.  I use e-mail for work but lately I've been texting more.  And with the new smart phones being used by all and sundry  it feels like the world is moving at warp speed and I am pelting along behind it the way I hang on to my dog, Lance, when he is determined to catch  the neighbor dog up the block. 

Don't get me wrong, I use all these wonderful ways of communicating.

And then I play my guitar and time seems to stop. 

So what is that about?

iPhone mania strikes again

Today the new iPhone was released.  My friend Mary is responsible for the servers that handle all the downloads for everything at Apple.  She hasn't been to bed in about 2 weeks.  She was hoping for  a quiet night last night so came to my daughter's gig.  For just a little bit she forgot about work and laughed at "The Homework Song" which mentions her son.  Then she went back to work at Apple and probably hasn't seen her family since.

I am hoping this phone is going to do some great thing since Mary isn't getting to be with her family for all this time.  I'm hoping that the time she doesn't get back will be well spent.

Creating world peace would be nice.

 Probably not.

Save the World not the Phone

That's the mantra of Silicon Valley.  It's the mantra of California.  We all follow our dreams to become the person we want to be.  That's the reason we are all here.  For some it's about getting rich, for others it's about reinventing ourselves, for starry-eyed dreamers it's about changing the world.

It would be so great if all of us would focus on the dream of making the world a safe place to grow up in.  A world where no one dies of preventable diseases, or giving birth, or from bombs falling or soldiers bullets. A world where you are not hungry or thirsty because everyone has enough.  A world where no one tries to kill you because of your skin, your age, your religion or your politics.

Instead we have incredible intellect creating the next great phone app.

Spring isn't quite here

Like the economic news the weather is changeable and sending out mixed signals.  When I called my husband for a lunch date the sun was shining.  When we met an hour later it was raining.  Every time I think Spring is here for certain there's a cold blast that indicates, "maybe not".

It's hard to make plans with uncertainty at every turn.  The mornings are bright and shiny and the afternoons cloud scudded and windy.

When will the jobs come back?  When will it be Spring?

Am I slowing down or are you speeding up?

I have a 6 year old Mac Power Book. Very sexy at the time I bought it.
 My phone is a Motorola RaZor about the same age as my Mac. Very, very sexy at the time I bought it.

But now my Mac looks old and clunky.  My RaZor still says "Cingular" when I turn it on.

Now I'm out of step.  A Luddite hanging on to "old" technology.

It's not that I resist new technology.  It's that I'm cheap.  My stuff works so why replace it? Am I the only one who thinks this way?

The Wonder of Touching The Future

 Edna Mode, my favorite character in "The Incredibles" said "I never look back, dahling.  It detracts from The Now."  Here in Silicon Valley The Now is The Future.  For us the future is the next phone, a GPS, a software app or a robot that vacuums.

But there is another way of touching the future.  Two weeks ago my children lost a valued mentor when Tim Shannon, their drama teacher at Fremont High School, died of a heart attack.  He was only 49.

My children, especially my reserved daughter, blossomed under his care.  They found themselves doing things they never thought they could and they found their passion.  I see Tim's presence every time they take the musical stage.

At the candlelight vigil former students from 4, 10, 15 years ago spoke of the influence Tim had over their lives.  There were hundreds of students present.  Hundreds more have posted to a Facebook page. Tim not only affected students but fellow teachers and the community theaters he worked with. His students have gone on to work in drama and in the highest compliment to a teacher, become teachers themselves.  

Think of it.  One man, 25 years of teaching; thousands of students who went out into the world after being in his presence.

A guru.

We should all have such an experience.  Imagine what the world would be like if we did.

Thanks, Tim

Mom, Can You Let Everyone Know...

My daughter had surgery on her jaw this morning.  Instead of an orgy of phoning aunts, uncles, boyfriend, concerned friends, etc.  I blogged, facebooked, texted, and e-mailed status reports.  In fact, one friend texted my daughter's phone and I replied "ck FB".  That took care of that.

I did leave a voicemail, which is so last century.  It was to my daughter's boyfriend - telling him to check Facebook.  He called back and had an actual conversation with my husband.  He wanted to know if he could IM my daughter since she couldn't speak.

Easter Bunny Moves with the Times

Even with all the orchards gone the valley is still a beautiful place in Spring.  Most houses still have one or two fruit trees left over from the old days in bloom.  It seems to be axiomatic that if you have a fruit tree you add another.  We are all fruit farmers at heart even if we spend our days in gray cloth-covered cubicles.

My childhood Easters were marked by egg hunts in the orchard after church wearing new Mary Janes and a new dress my mother made, usually in a pastel color with a big bow in the back.  I'd get dirt on my socks and in my shoes.  Our baskets were stuffed with malted eggs but the prize was a chocolate egg from See's. Rocky Road was my favorite. We never had See's candy any other time.

When my kids were small they'd hunt eggs in the church apricot orchard.  Now at 16, they hide the eggs for the little ones and wait to see what the "Easter Bunny" brought them.  The most prized gift is an iTunes gift card... and a chocolate egg from See's.

It's about the food

If you want to understand a culture you all you need to do is  look at the cuisine.  There's a small market around the corner from my house.  It's located in a strip mall with a dance studio, a pizza place and a Japanese tapas restaurant.  The Japanese appropriated the Spanish word, tapas (small plates) for the way they present their cuisine.   You wait six weeks to get in.

The pizza place is run by a Sikh family.  Not only can you get pepperoni but also tandoori chicken on your pizza.

The produce market is in the space that used to hold a liquor store.  It's run by a family from Mexico.  At first, it had the usual fruits and vegetables; tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli.  Then the proprietor added tomatillos, a delicacy in his Mexican state.  Then because a lot of Israeli families attend the dance studio and the parents shop while their kids take dance lessons,  kosher items soon appeared.  A karate studio opened up and asian produce followed.  Now I can buy Russian yogurt, Greek olives, and German bread at my little produce market.  The Indian moms like the mangoes and the 3 difference kinds of lentils our Mexican grocer carries.

The produce market now has video display terminals mounted on the walls that carry commercials in Hebrew, Mandarin, Japanese and Russian.  The owner says it's an experiment one of his customers, CEO of a start up, wanted to beta.

Bottom line:  even in the produce market the Silicon Valley spirit of innovation is alive.

Coffee, Tea and Me

The sun has returned to Silicon Valley.  The fruit trees, remnants of when this was The Valley of Hearts Delight, are beginning to send their blossoms out.  We still have cool nights and last evening there was a light misting of rain, reminiscent of Camelot where it only rained at night.

It is a glorious Friday morning and I am in the grips of a coffee craving.  I don't want to leave the house to go to the nearest coffee bar (a Starbucks) but I discovered my coffee maker has decided to keep the coffee to itself.  I am the only one in the house who drinks coffee and ordinarily I wouldn't mind being without it  but the last three mornings I've had breakfast meetings where coffee was served and my body wants it NOW.

I don't want to give in.  I want to write not walk over to Starbucks.  The little devil in my head whispers seductively,  "Don't walk, just drive."  That will increase my carbon footprint and I don't want to spend the gas.  "But I want a coffee.  I can't write without it." whines the devil.  I am firm.   "You can have it after you finish your five pages." "I want it NOW." "No. Now get busy."

After checking my e-mail (a stalling tactic)  my devil and I are still arguing.

I move on Facebook. Still stalling.

This is ridiculous.  Now I'm checking my Spam filter and I NEVER check my Spam filter.  I need to disconnect myself from the Internet.

I could go to the library.  They have a cafe at the Santa Clara library and I could get a coffee AND write.

Then I remember the green tea one of my Chinese neighbors gifted to me.  One cup and sanity returns.

Since when did it become possible to waste so much energy, money and time on a cup of coffee?

There Used To Be Apricot Orchards Here

I'm a second generation "prune picker" - that's a person who is born and raised in the Santa Clara Valley.  Not so long ago my parents had apricot trees in the backyard.  In fact, every house in our childhood neighborhood had at least 6 Blenheim apricot trees and  some had whole orchards surrounding them.

Our house was the old farmhouse in the development.  It was a funky house - huge because the farmer had had 6 kids with 4 bedrooms downstairs and 2 bedrooms upstairs, with only two bathrooms for the whole house.  We had a  septic system the first 2 years we lived there.  My dad hated that septic system with a passion.  The apricot trees would get into the line at least once a year.

My house in Sunnyvale stands in what used to be an apricot orchard but we don't have an apricot tree in the backyard.  Our neighbors have one but it is old and tired.  Apricots don't last forever.  This year we bought fruit trees for our little orchard - a peach, a plum, a Meyer lemon (more on those later) and yes, an apricot.  It's not a Blenheim, the fruit of my childhood.  The nursery didn't stock those.  But I will get one next year even if I have to special order it off the Internet.

I seem to have gotten lost in space ...

Blogger space that is.  I had another blog using my yahoo e-mail account and I kept trying to migrate it over to my google account but alas ... no luck.  I'm not the only one with this problem there are many cries for help in the blogger community but our cries go unanswered. Until I can retrieve my old blog I have decided it will be more efficient to start anew.

The thesis is that there is no where in the world I'd rather be than here but here is rather vexing at times.  Like now, when I can't get my old blog (http:siliconedge@blogspot.com) to do what the instructions say it will.  But then I love this place, especially when I come home from a Toastmasters meeting having learned about zoos in Mongolia and Asia and listening to two speeches by Chinese speakers.

I am living in the United Nations.  Two of my neighbors are from Israel, one is from Taiwan, three are from India and  there's one from Guatamala, too.