blansky
09-12-2006, 11:36 AM
So last week while the Mrs was out of town giving old people with bad tickers a second chance, I headed down to San Jose, which is about 120 miles south of paradise. As most of you know I play hockey, and the level that I play at, I need my skates, just so. There’s a Russian guy down there that I have sharpen them and I make the pilgrimage every couple of months. The guy’s name is Kon and they say he used to be KGB. I’m not sure about that, but he seems real good with sharp things.
After you drive through the nightmare that is San Francisco, if you’re lucky, you find yourself on highway 280, also know as the Junipero Serra Highway. It was named after the Spanish Franciscan priest who walked near this route a long time ago and established 21 Catholic missions along the way. He enslaved all the native peoples, drove out their heathen ways and taught them the joys of Christianity, thereby ruining their culture and destroying their lives. But he did build some nice missions.
In case you were sleeping during history class the year they taught California history, Junipero Serra established this mission system throughout California from San Francisco down to San Diego. The words “San” and “Santa” are the masculine and feminine of the word, “Saint”, so being a good Catholic, he named all these places after saints, like San Francisco (Saint Francis) Santa Barbara (Saint Babs), San Gabriel (Saint Gabe), San Jose (Saint Joseph), San Juan Batista (John the Baptist) Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Miquel,(named after me), San Raphael, San Bruno and others. Personally I don’t think San Bruno was any saint, since in reality he was the enforcer, but maybe that’s just Catholic humor.
A few miles down from San Francisco, sits Palo Alto, the home of Stanford University and high tuitions. If you’ve got the cash, they’ve got just the place for your future billionaire. This area, I guess you’d call the birthplace of the computer industry. The whole area down to San Jose eventually became known as Silicon Valley. Some people think the Silicon Valley is that hard mysterious cleavage that resides between some women’s breasts, but that’s a different spelling and an entirely different place from where Hewlett and Packard started out.
It’s a beautiful drive through this area with its miles and miles of orchards, their branches handing low from the bountiful crop of silicon, almost ready to be picked by the thousands of illegal aliens sitting by the roadside. In another week or so the storehouses at Intel will be full and production can begin again. Life is good.
Whenever I come down here, I always like to stop in at Keeble and Shuchat, a camera/photography store in Palo Alto, for a visit and maybe pick up some supplies.
When I first moved to Northern California, I lived in San Jose, and worked for a few months at Keeble and Shuchat, or Keep it and Shove it, as the locals like to call it. Whenever I pass through, I like to stop in and see the old gang and say hi. They always seem pleased to see me and are quick to chorus a cheerful “piss off asshole” and “what’s that jerk doing back here.” Now I’m not sure if this salutation is because they’re all doing life sentences and luckily I was quickly acquitted, or exactly what the cause is. One of the members of APUG works there in the darkroom department but I can’t mention his name in case he comes up for parole.
So after a 30 second visit, in which everyone seemed to disappear, I leave and go down to San Jose to sharpen my skates. On the way back, it’s getting late in the afternoon, so I stop for a bite to eat at one of the hotel restaurants back in Palo Alto. I walk in towards the restaurant but because I hear a piano player and a bunch of people having a good time, instead I mosey over to the piano bar and park myself between a couple of worn out looking divorcees. I guess smelling fresh meat, they strike up a conversation and we start to talking about stuff, as they’re plying me with drinks. It seems their husbands apparently made their millions in software, while these ladies made theirs the new fashioned way. In divorces. For a while in the heydays, the Silicon Valley was turning out something like 10 new millionaires a month and a bunch of billionaires to boot. Apparently these ladies zeroed in on the billionaires, then sure enough, gave them the boot.
So after an hour of witty banter on my part, I tear myself away from the Gabor sisters, and wander over to the front desk and ask this ever so helpful guy, where one might find the men’s room. He points me to a door down the hall, and says, “I find you people so exciting.” I’m thinking, whoa, there Snooky, if you want a real excitement, come on down and watch me spray my name on the side of the urinal, but I decided not to say it because I thought he might.
I opened the door that he’d pointed to and walked in. This definitely wasn’t the men’s room because there were a whole bunch of men and women standing around drinking. Or maybe they do things a little differently in Palo Alto. So as I turned to leave, I noticed the sign on the door and it said MENSA Room 206. I’d almost cleared the door when I felt a tug on my arm and turned around and it was Kevin Bjorke. Now for those of you who don’t finish 8th grade, Mensa is a group of people who have such a high IQ that they’re the only ones that can count that high. Granted some can’t dress themselves, but this group seemed pretty high functioning.
So Kevin drags me in and begins to introduce me around. I smiled politely at the various people as we go from group to group. When dinner is announced he invites me to stay, and I spent a nice couple of hours enjoying the dinner and the discussions. It was around nine o’clock when I finally got out of there.
I climbed into the Hummer, clicked on the satellite navigation system and sat back in the leather seats. The disconcerting thing is though, I had been with Kevin and these people for over 2 hours and I swear to God, I did not understand one word they said. I felt like the proverbial missionary standing in the great big boiling pot in the middle of an African cannibal brunch and the only words that I understood were “lets eat”.
I was beginning to realize that there is a parallel universe going on right under my nose and that I could never be a part of it. There were people occupying the same space as me, but saw the whole world with a perspective, education and intellect that I would never posses, and it was quite troubling.
I fell asleep with that thought going through my head and didn’t wake up until I heard the garage door go up. I piled out of the Hummer, gave the dogs a kick and headed up to bed. I think sometimes it’s better to not be reminded of your shortcomings and to just peacefully enjoy the bliss of ignorance.
Oh well, at least I had my old friends at Keeble and Shuchat. And my skates are sharp.
Michael
After you drive through the nightmare that is San Francisco, if you’re lucky, you find yourself on highway 280, also know as the Junipero Serra Highway. It was named after the Spanish Franciscan priest who walked near this route a long time ago and established 21 Catholic missions along the way. He enslaved all the native peoples, drove out their heathen ways and taught them the joys of Christianity, thereby ruining their culture and destroying their lives. But he did build some nice missions.
In case you were sleeping during history class the year they taught California history, Junipero Serra established this mission system throughout California from San Francisco down to San Diego. The words “San” and “Santa” are the masculine and feminine of the word, “Saint”, so being a good Catholic, he named all these places after saints, like San Francisco (Saint Francis) Santa Barbara (Saint Babs), San Gabriel (Saint Gabe), San Jose (Saint Joseph), San Juan Batista (John the Baptist) Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Miquel,(named after me), San Raphael, San Bruno and others. Personally I don’t think San Bruno was any saint, since in reality he was the enforcer, but maybe that’s just Catholic humor.
A few miles down from San Francisco, sits Palo Alto, the home of Stanford University and high tuitions. If you’ve got the cash, they’ve got just the place for your future billionaire. This area, I guess you’d call the birthplace of the computer industry. The whole area down to San Jose eventually became known as Silicon Valley. Some people think the Silicon Valley is that hard mysterious cleavage that resides between some women’s breasts, but that’s a different spelling and an entirely different place from where Hewlett and Packard started out.
It’s a beautiful drive through this area with its miles and miles of orchards, their branches handing low from the bountiful crop of silicon, almost ready to be picked by the thousands of illegal aliens sitting by the roadside. In another week or so the storehouses at Intel will be full and production can begin again. Life is good.
Whenever I come down here, I always like to stop in at Keeble and Shuchat, a camera/photography store in Palo Alto, for a visit and maybe pick up some supplies.
When I first moved to Northern California, I lived in San Jose, and worked for a few months at Keeble and Shuchat, or Keep it and Shove it, as the locals like to call it. Whenever I pass through, I like to stop in and see the old gang and say hi. They always seem pleased to see me and are quick to chorus a cheerful “piss off asshole” and “what’s that jerk doing back here.” Now I’m not sure if this salutation is because they’re all doing life sentences and luckily I was quickly acquitted, or exactly what the cause is. One of the members of APUG works there in the darkroom department but I can’t mention his name in case he comes up for parole.
So after a 30 second visit, in which everyone seemed to disappear, I leave and go down to San Jose to sharpen my skates. On the way back, it’s getting late in the afternoon, so I stop for a bite to eat at one of the hotel restaurants back in Palo Alto. I walk in towards the restaurant but because I hear a piano player and a bunch of people having a good time, instead I mosey over to the piano bar and park myself between a couple of worn out looking divorcees. I guess smelling fresh meat, they strike up a conversation and we start to talking about stuff, as they’re plying me with drinks. It seems their husbands apparently made their millions in software, while these ladies made theirs the new fashioned way. In divorces. For a while in the heydays, the Silicon Valley was turning out something like 10 new millionaires a month and a bunch of billionaires to boot. Apparently these ladies zeroed in on the billionaires, then sure enough, gave them the boot.
So after an hour of witty banter on my part, I tear myself away from the Gabor sisters, and wander over to the front desk and ask this ever so helpful guy, where one might find the men’s room. He points me to a door down the hall, and says, “I find you people so exciting.” I’m thinking, whoa, there Snooky, if you want a real excitement, come on down and watch me spray my name on the side of the urinal, but I decided not to say it because I thought he might.
I opened the door that he’d pointed to and walked in. This definitely wasn’t the men’s room because there were a whole bunch of men and women standing around drinking. Or maybe they do things a little differently in Palo Alto. So as I turned to leave, I noticed the sign on the door and it said MENSA Room 206. I’d almost cleared the door when I felt a tug on my arm and turned around and it was Kevin Bjorke. Now for those of you who don’t finish 8th grade, Mensa is a group of people who have such a high IQ that they’re the only ones that can count that high. Granted some can’t dress themselves, but this group seemed pretty high functioning.
So Kevin drags me in and begins to introduce me around. I smiled politely at the various people as we go from group to group. When dinner is announced he invites me to stay, and I spent a nice couple of hours enjoying the dinner and the discussions. It was around nine o’clock when I finally got out of there.
I climbed into the Hummer, clicked on the satellite navigation system and sat back in the leather seats. The disconcerting thing is though, I had been with Kevin and these people for over 2 hours and I swear to God, I did not understand one word they said. I felt like the proverbial missionary standing in the great big boiling pot in the middle of an African cannibal brunch and the only words that I understood were “lets eat”.
I was beginning to realize that there is a parallel universe going on right under my nose and that I could never be a part of it. There were people occupying the same space as me, but saw the whole world with a perspective, education and intellect that I would never posses, and it was quite troubling.
I fell asleep with that thought going through my head and didn’t wake up until I heard the garage door go up. I piled out of the Hummer, gave the dogs a kick and headed up to bed. I think sometimes it’s better to not be reminded of your shortcomings and to just peacefully enjoy the bliss of ignorance.
Oh well, at least I had my old friends at Keeble and Shuchat. And my skates are sharp.
Michael