Real Time View

I spent the weekend in Cupertino. So much has changed over the past twenty years that the town doesn’t look familiar – not the buildings, as the structures are the same, but the names on the tombstones lining the streets. Some familiar names remain, but most I just didn’t recognize. Who would have guessed Apple would have taken over so much of the city, and who would have guessed that so little from the glory days of Tandem would remain. Kind of depressing, after a fashion. It was a cold weekend and snow had fallen on the ridgeline of the mountains to the east of Silicon Valley. The blustery conditions only seemed to amplify the gloominess of the place and as I slowly drove down Vallco Parkway I noticed no security fence blocking the eastern entrance to Building 3, so I pulled into the rear parking lot. With no guards visible, I walked through the rear gates and onto the basketball court adjacent to the swimming pool, behind the canteen of Building 2. The picture at the top of the page...

This past weekend I was in Boulder, and the weather in Colorado was getting warmer. Not by Southern California standards, of course, but I did pull the dust cover off the car and took it for a quick run across the front ranges, and the picture above is of me framed against the Colorado Rockies – with views of the front ranges as well as of the snow-capped great “continental” divide that rises behind them. When I moved to Boulder, my initial preference was for a home high in the front ranges and looking down on the plains as they stretched to the horizon. But battling winter conditions and driving up treacherous back-roads quickly highlighted the value of living on the plains and looking up at the mountains instead. And truthfully, the views I now enjoy of the mountains are a lot better than anything I had before. I came to the US in the late ‘80s, and joined Tandem Computers. It was 1988 and the company had just celebrated its Billion Dollar Year. The marquee tents had been taken a...

This past weekend saw me back at the race track where my driver education continues. Before I left for the track, I took the car back to our tuning shop for a quick check of the engine programming. I had detected when in top gear, and under load, some “engine knock” – something I didn’t think occurred with today’s modern engines. “There’s been some poor fuel over the winter,” remarked Andy of A&A Corvette Performance, “and my advice is to boost the octane level of the fuel” The picture at the top of this page is of the Corvette outside of Andy’s shop. After adding a few gallons of 100 octane gas, the problem didn’t reoccur! This is the second year of my participation in the High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) program conducted by the National Auto Sports Association (NASA) and the one constant throughout the experience has been the steady stream of advice I have received. Perhaps the most technical part of driving any track is working out the “racing line”, and there’s no form...

Last week I had to drive from Simi Valley, Ventura County, across Los Angeles to Irvine, Orange County. Kicked-back, and enjoying a coffee at my neighborhood Starbux very early that morning, a mate of mine, Brian stopped by and then looked at me with some concern and asked what I was thinking. “If you have to be there by 10:30 you should be leaving in about 15 minutes,” he told me. Three hours to drive the 80 miles? Surely not! But I finished my coffee and headed for the car. It was close to 7:00 when I joined the morning traffic heading east along State Route 118 – the Ronald Reagan Freeway. The picture above is of me, many hours later, inching slowly back to LA. And it had taken me three hours to get there with just the one quick stop at MacDonalds! The drive took me past some pretty bad areas, and some of the backstreets visible from the freeway could have even been a part of a movie studio’s back lot. These were the kind of tough neighborhoods, frequently described in popular crime...

Not everyone thinks of transportation the same way – for many of us, there’s no such thing as simply travelling between point A and point B. When the choice comes down to cars, it has to be a roadster or a grand tourer – either a pure stripped-down sports car or, at a pinch, something with a few more creature comforts. But they have to be able to really pull strongly, and to handle, and the surrounding vista is of secondary importance. On the other hand, when it comes to motorcycles, I prefer something a lot more relaxed – not for me are the replica-racers that dominate the California coastal canyon roads. But it wasn’t always the case and it was only a few years back that I reluctantly traded in my liter sports bike, the mighty Yamaha R1. The ergonomics of the café racers of today finally defeating my slender youthful figure! This year is the 40th anniversary of the motorcycle that changed the industry, and that made a lasting impression on me. It was 1969, and I was only one year out...

This past weekend was spent in Las Vegas. Only a short drive away from where I spend most of my time these days, here in Simi Valley, it affords the opportunity to put the routines of daily life to one side. And the picture I have included here is from the terrace outside of the Fountain Bar at the Bellagio Hotel just as the hotel’s famous fountains erupted into life against a backdrop that included the Eiffel Tower. In Las Vegas, no limits have been put on the imaginations of the developers with as many innovative ways to draw an audience as there are establishments. And after only a brief time walking along Las Vegas Boulevard – the famous Vegas Strip – you pretty quickly stop being impressed with the way in which businesses pursue patronage. It’s so over the top, yet uniquely Las Vegas! But the real town of Bellagio, alongside Lake Como in Northern Italy, could never have provided me with a view of the Eiffel Tower, just across the lake, or given me a glimpse of the Statue of Li...

It’s difficult to break the old habits! For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed an early morning coffee. When at Tandem, I used to routinely walk to the Roasted Coffee Bean when it was still in Cupertino Village. These days, I enjoy a much shorter walk to the local Starbucks - but the pattern remains firmly entrenched. But lately, here in Southern California, it's turned cold and I have taken to throwing on an extra layer; the picture I have included here was taken of me earlier today wearing a “hoodie” that, should you be able to make it out, simply says “you say Grumpy like it’s a bad thing!” If I don’t get that first cup of coffee, it can be an accurate reflection of my mood! When I was on the board of the IBM SHARE user group, we held a 2008 event in Orlando, Florida, around this time of year. It was at the Disney complex and when I packed for the event, it never occurred to me that Florida could be cold. But the temperatures hovered in the low 50s Fahrenheit, and the hoo...