Real Time View

Out of necessity I have been doing quite a bit of travelling these past couple of weeks, and most of these trips have involved spending a lot of time on the road. For those who routinely visit this blog site it shouldn’t come as a surprise to read of how I continue to commute between Boulder and Simi Valley a trip, I believe, I could now do blind-folded. Or to read of the many times I have driven to Cupertino. There’s not a billboard or exit along any of these highways that I haven’t seen a dozen times and there’s little I come across that surprises me anymore. I’ve pretty much seen everything! It was on one of the recent trips to Cupertino that I crisscrossed the Californian coastal ranges and checked out a number of “wine trails” – around Solvang, Paso Robles and Cambria. Anyone who recalls the movie Sideways would recognize many of the vineyards that I visited. However, it’s not just the vineyards that hold my interest – roadside cafés often prove to be an interesting adventure as...

I spent this weekend in the Bay area and visited with my friends in Cupertino. I passed buildings on Pruneridge Avenue, Fremont Avenue, Stevens Creek: all familiar addresses to anyone who has spent time in Cupertino and Sunnyvale and who has had history with Tandem and now, NonStop! Of course, there’s still the Duke of Edinburgh, a pub that’s already been written about in earlier posts and where, if the walls could talk, so many details of much that has been implemented on NonStop could be heard! A lunch in this pub is always hard to pass up! A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a lot more time on the HP campus on Pruneridge Avenue. On that occasion I had the chance to tour a temporary data center where a team of folks under the watchful eye of John Donelan, another Australian mate of mine, had assembled a very a large NonStop server. The server was destined for the new Austin data center, and was a part of the data center convergence program that Randy Mott, HP’s CIO, ha...

I love the California Coastline, particularly the shoreline and nearby hills of Monterey, down by Cannery Row and the Aquarium. I come back to the area time and time again. I can sit along the old piers for hours and watch the Otters feasting on crustaceans pulled from beneath the enormous kelp beds. The weather is always cool, no matter the time of year and more often than not, there’s a marine fog layer masking the surroundings. From out of the mists, yachts and sightseeing vessels make an appearance as they too are drawn to the many tourist attractions lining the blackened piers. It is not just the natural beauty that attracts me to the area, to be honest. Only a few miles away, twisting through the hills, lies the world famous Laguna Seca racetrack that every year hosts a round of the MotoGP motorcycle world championship. With Formula One no longer run in the United States, MotoGP is all that’s left to attract a global television audience, but I can’t think of a better venue anywh...