09.25.07
California
I am in California – Palo Alto to be precise.
Sandwiched between the ocean and the bay, the air is astonishingly crisp and clean and the weather is beautiful. The streets are clean, the cars are quiet, no one raises their voice, service is a cheerful profession rather than a sullen source of resentment. It could get sterile pretty easily, but it is remarkably pleasant.
Then you pick up the paper and realise how polarised the country is – politically and socially. It’s tragic and that fool Bush is singlehandedly destroying anything that’s good and making things worse for the poor and the peaceful. WHY did they elect him? The fools, the fools….
Great breakfasts though. It’s my dinner time so I am digging into 3 course meals in the morning. Yummy 
Oh and one worries about the economy when you see the shops so quiet – EXCEPT for Apple – their store was packed! Everyone has Macs, and iPhones. Thank God I got a Mac..I’d die of shame if I was lumping around some yucky Dell thing…Bad enough having a clunky Nokia phone which didn’t seem so clunky back in Ireland
P O'Neill said,
September 25, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Well, the 1st time they didn’t elect him. The 2nd time, it was a classic of distraction politics that would leave FF in the ha’penny place. And of course California didn’t vote for him either time.
donkykemore said,
September 25, 2007 at 10:57 pm
So now you’ve joined the legions of overearners who trip over to the USA just to prove to them how big ang wealthy and sophisticated we’ve got.
Yes we inherited the stretch limo from them and the humvee but I think their profligacy was much less timid than ours.
Would you consider yourself a celebriry now , say in the same way as Twink
Yes I would hazard a guess that she has a few years on you but what about the brassnecked ladette Sile Seoige .
I feel your generation have not quite so much inherited the earth as hijacked it before your time
leon said,
September 26, 2007 at 9:01 am
Sarah, the IT consultants Twink, yak yak yak,
Its the people in the 40s and 50s who are in the firing line, as they have reaped the rewards of the celtic tiger, now the aged are left to rot in nursing homes, from 65 onwards, and the sub 40s are either graduates who can’t afford to buy a house and stay in the family home into their 30s with their 60+ yo parents, or are fighting with immigrants for lowpay jobs or watching the boon that the construction industry has been to the un-degreed natives whither and turn to dust. The meanwhile 40s and 50s buy second homes in the west, third homes in Portugal and californicate to show how much better they are then their parents siblings who emigrated and their children.
The young have been so demoralised, demotivated, disenfranchised and degenerated by their middle aged kin during the boom years that the only hope for the irish economy is immigrants, watch as the IT industry is asianised, construction polised and ‘hospitality’ sinoised. the futures grey, the futures salt’n'peppered.
Paul said,
September 26, 2007 at 9:56 am
Sarah, what brings you to california. work? play? or both?
EJP said,
September 26, 2007 at 10:55 am
Sounds like you’ve found the solution to a flagging tech-lust among consumahs; pack them off to tech valhalla for a short reorientation break.
V said,
September 26, 2007 at 12:57 pm
That place is fantasy land. Go to L.A. and check out the Downtown area then you find all you need to know about ´polarisation´ Sarah. Don´t get me started, been there, got the T-Shirt, and it did´nt fit then either etc..
Sarah said,
September 26, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Work has brought me here Paul but work helping out friends, so its nice. Getting to catch up and with a legitimate excuse to abandon home and hearth
Going to SFO on Friday and really looking forward to that. One of my favourite cities…
sniper said,
October 1, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Must be great being able to work over there without a visa. I wonder how the INS and the IRS think of it.