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Here's the The Lowdown
from DN Journal,
updated daily
to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson. |
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Silicon
Valley Without the Silicon - Tech Enclave Can Also
Boast of Natural Beauty and Endless Attractions
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Diana
and I are back
after
spending the past week in northern California's
tech Mecca, Silicon Valley. Our son Aaron
just moved there from Boston to join Apple
Computer as a chemical engineer based at
their world headquarters in Cupertino. In
another major life change, Aaron
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and
his wife of one year, Nancy, welcomed
their first child, Nicolas, two months
ago and as you can imagine we couldn't wait to
see the newest member of the family. So, we
headed west last Thursday and just got home this
morning.
My
two previous trips to the area had been spent
almost entirely in the Santa Clara Marriott
Hotel where the 2006
and 2009
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Silicon Valley conferences
were held. This time I decided I wanted to see
more of what the Valley had to offer outside
its hotel room walls and away from the campuses
of the tech giants like Google and Yahoo
that are located there. So, we spent all of our
time exploring the area and visiting
family members and friends who live there. We
were delighted to discover there is much more
to the Silicon Valley than tech with eye
popping natural beauty and a summer climate
that is as good as it gets anywhere on the
globe.
After
spending Thursday evening and most of Friday
with Aaron, Nancy and Nicolas, we spent Saturday
morning (August 6) strolling
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Baby
Nico and proud grandmother Diana |
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around
downtown Los Gatos, a spectacularly
scenic community located near the base of the Santa
Cruz mountains. It has understandably become
a popular place for newly minted tech
multi-millionaires to make their homes. There is
a Bentley dealership (that also carries Ferraris
and Aston Martins) on the main street,
where you will also see plenty of exotic cars
parked along the curbs.
Exotic
cars like this Ferrari add to the
"curb appeal" of downtown Los Gatos.
While
walking along Los Gatos Boulevard we
spotted a newspaper box filled with copies of Dan
Pulcano's popular Silicon Valley
news weekly - Metro - and picked
up a copy to read during a stop at one of the
many inviting sidewalk cafes.
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We then
headed about 25 miles north to visit
Diana's niece, Beth, her husband
and their son who live in Emerald
Hills (adjacent to Redwood City).
Diana's sister was also there, having
come in a few days earlier from Florida
to visit her daughter's family. Aaron,
Nancy and Nicolas also came up and Beth
took all of us on a visit to the
historic (and stunning) Filoli
Mansion and Gardens located
just a couple of miles west of her
house.
Filoli was
completed in 1917 and was built for Mr.
and Mrs. William Bowers Bourn,
prominent San Franciscans whose chief
source of wealth was the Empire Mine,
a hard-rock gold mine in Grass
Valley, California. Mr. Bourn
arrived at the unusual name Filoli by
combining the first two letters from the
key words of his credo: “Fight for a
just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a
good life.”
After Mr.
and Mrs. Bourn both died in 1936 the
estate was purchased by Mr. and Mrs.
William P. Roth, who owned the Matson
Navigation Company. Mrs. Roth made
Filoli her home until 1975 when she
donated the House and formal garden to
the National
Trust for Historic Preservation
for the |
Above:
Visitors strolling through the
fabulous
Filoli Gardens Saturday (August 7,
2011)
Below:
a corner of the enormous ballroom
inside
the Filoli Mansion (the room is
70 feet long
and 32 feet wide with 22-foot
ceilings!).
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enjoyment
and inspiration of future generations.
If you are ever in the area I highly
recommend seeing this national treasure.
After the Filoli visit we headed back to
Beth's for a late afternoon cookout that
completed a perfect California day. |
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Diana
loves to hunt for antiques so Sunday morning we
visited the San Jose Flea Market, which
claims to be the country's first flea market
(established in 1960) as well as the largest. We
didn't make any finds there but did a lot of
walking which helped burn off some excess
calories. It's a good thing we did that because
the next stop was Palo Alto for a great
Sunday Brunch at the Il Fornaio Restaurant
with one of my earliest friends from the domain
business, Howard Hoffman, and his wife Randy.
Palo
Alto is another gorgeous community with giant magnolia
trees lining both sides of the main
thoroughfare. It is also home to Stanford
University where Howard got his Master's
Degree after graduating from M.I.T.
After brunch he and Randy took us on a walking
tour of the Stanford campus under the kind of
sunny, deep blues skies you usually only see on
postcards. Stanford is one of the world's best
and most beautiful universities. The most jaw
dropping building on campus is the
interdenominational Stanford
Memorial Church, a chapel dedicated
in 1903 by Jane Stanford in memory of her
husband, Senator Leland Stanford.
The couple had founded
the university itself in 1891 as a memorial
to their son Leland Stanford Jr.
Stanford
Memorial Church is the crown jewel of the
Stanford University campus.
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We started
our last full day of the trip, Monday
(August 8), with a visit to scenic Saratoga,
another town favored by the captains of
Silicon Valley industry. The first stop
was another masterpiece of
natural beauty, Hakone
Gardens, the oldest Asian
estate and garden in the Western
Hemisphere (and another place
now cared for by the National Trust for
Historic Preservation).
It
was designed and built by San Francisco
cultural leaders Isabel and Oliver
Stine in 1915. Inspired by the
displays at the 1915 Pan-Pacific
Exhibition, Mrs. Stine traveled to
Japan where she was enchanted by the Fuji-Hakone
National Park and wanted to have her
own Hakone Gardens in the hillsides of
Saratoga. Wandering through the
18-acre estate is like being suddenly
transported to an idyllic retreat in
Japan. |
Hakone
Gardens in Saratoga, California
(Mon., August 8, 2011) - my favorite
photo from our visit. |
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We
then made the short trip to another
great Saratoga landmark - Villa
Montalvo - a stunning estate
with a fabulous gated garden that was
built in the same era as Hakone Gardens
and the Filoli Mansion. Senator James
Phelan, California's first elected
senator, constructed Montalvo on 175
gorgeous hillside acres, complete with
2.5 miles of hiking trails, in
1912. Phelan, who died in 1930,
bequeathed Montalvo to the state of
California to serve as a site for
the advancement of art, music,
literature and architecture. The grounds
and galleries are now open to the public
at no charge. Montalvo was awarded
inclusion in the National
Register of Historic Places
in 1978.
Villa
Montalvo - Saratoga, California |
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After
lunch at one of Saratoga's open air
sidewalk cafes Diana and I went in
different directions for the evening.
She went to Aaron's to spend Monday
evening with the new grandbaby while I
hooked back up with Howard Hoffman to go
to the San Francisco Giants -
Pittsburgh Pirates game.
Howard is a
diehard Giants fans who has two
sets of season tickets at the team's
AT&T Park, one of the best
stadiums in all of baseball.
Unfortunately, it was a tough night for
the home team as the defending World
Champions lost 5-0 (however they
were still in 1st place at the
end of the evening). |
Howard
Hoffman (left) and Ron Jackson
at the Giants
game Monday night (August 8) in San
Francisco. |
The
view from Howard's seats along the first
base line at San Francisco's AT&T Park.
For a
visiting Floridian, used to 95 degree
temperatures in August, one thing I will
remember about Monday night in San Francisco was
how cold it was. There's a quote
attributed by most to Mark Twain that
said, "The coldest winter I ever saw
was the summer I spent in San
Francisco." I totally get that now
:-) Fortunately Howard warned me in
advance and thanks to the long sleeved T-shirt,
hooded sweat shirt and outer jacket he
recommended, I survived the mid 50's
temperatures (with a wind chill that made it
feel like the mid 40's) and had a great
time.
Tuesday
morning, we paid one more visit to our new
grandson before heading back to the San Jose
airport for the long trip home. I came back with
a new view of the Silicon Valley. Unlike
most of the world, I will no longer think tech
when I think of the Valley. I'll think about the
valley's natural beauty and the family and
friends who have the good fortune to live there.
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(Posted August
10, 2011)
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