Los Altos, California
Tennis, war driving through Los Altos, and dinner with Shan and Heather. I could stand more busy days like these.
Bernard and I headed to a local park to play tennis, the first such outing either of us had had since the last time we played tennis together. Should we play tennis more often? Yes. Anyone in the Salem-area up for a game with a fairly rusty player like me? If so, LMK.
Afterward, we went war driving through Los Altos, and as one might expect there are a lot of wireless networks in this part of Sillicon Valley. Some are open and available for use as an Internet portal (I surfed at broadband speeds while we filled up at the gas station, for example). Many are closed and encrypted (including two which I can receive from the Lillys’ driveway). Some are of the wide-open hello-how-are-you-here’s-my-hard-drive variety. If I were a PC guy (since most of the networks are on PCs and are much more difficult to configure than Apple’s Airport), I would use this as part of a business model. There is serious money to be made here.
In the evening we dined with Shan and Heather. Jonah was a surprisingly fussy little boy, but nine times out of 10 it’s because we’re not feeding him as much as he’d like. That’s frequently hard to believe since we feed him a lot, but at least he’s letting us know. Shan and Heather were great about having to delay their quite delicious dinner on Jonah’s account. In fact, they were terrific in every respect, holding Jonah, playing with him, paying him attention, etc. Although I’d apparently promised that Jonah would burp up on one or both of them, this vow went unfulfilled. Maybe next time.
Shan and I snuck away from the action at one point in the evening so I could admire their 17″ LCD iMac. It is indeed a thing of beauty. For those of you not needing PCI slots (which I do because of music production), the 17″ LCD iMac is a terrific machine and one I’d recommend without reservation. Shan and Heather run separate desktops, and I was heartened to see Shan had tricked his out. I love it when people customize their Macs.
As always, we didn’t leave Shan and Heather until well after midnight, and we’re already looking forward to seeing them next time we’re in town.