Sunnyvale, California

This week, I'm spending a few days in Sunnyvale, California.  I'm here to make a presentation to my company's Board of Directors.  The briefing took place at our corporate facility in Sunnyvale.

Upon arrival, I made sure all the equipment for my presentation had arrived.  With that set, I connected with an old friend that I worked with at Apple.  He actually still works for Apple, and he invited me to lunch at the Apple Campus in Cupertino:

I found something very special there.  In the last few weeks, Apple celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Mac.  Part of the celebration included a few giant posters put up across the Apple campus:

If you move close enough to the displays, you find that they listed every employee that had something to do with the early success of the Mac computer products.  Lo, and behold, I found a special name in the middle of the poster:

As an Apple geek, this was really kind of special.  I loved being able to show my wife that all those stories about my time at Apple were actually true ; )

After lunch, I returned to our company building, to finish preparing for the big presentation.  I was shown the actual Board Room, which I've never seen before:

Part of my presentation included "live" demos of some special software.  We decided to set-up all of the demo machines in another room, so that we didn't disturb the rest of the meetings.  We actually used the old CEO's office.  Now that they've moved the headquarters to Austin, this old office isn't used by anyone.  To be honest, it's one of those relics from the earlier days of Silicon Valley.  It was a stunning office, to be sure.  Here is a shot from the old desk...the view was amazing....

As a curious individual, I wanted to see what an old-fashioned executive washroom looked like.  I wasn't disappointed ; )  It had a complete shower facility, with brass fixtures and gorgeous tile on the floor:

Not bad for a bathroom ; )

We assembled the machines on the other side of the office - with separate machines for each demo, so that we didn't waste time moving from demo to demo:

That night, I was lucky enough to see my oldest daughter.  She lives in the SF Bay Area and I actually stayed at her house.  I love spending time with my kids, and the location of her place really works out well.  She and I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant - a cuisine that we both really enjoy.  The crazy thing was that we were the only people in the entire restaurant...just an older Japanese couple that ran the place.  We loved the food, but felt sorry for the lack of business on a Monday night.

The Board meeting was the next day.  I'm happy to report that the presentation went really, really well.  The Board was engaged and asked a lot of questions.  They loved what they saw.  I guess I get to keep my job for another week ; )

To celebrate, several of us went out to dinner that night.  Everyone wanted to go for sushi - and I was happy to have Japanese food for a second night ; )  They took me back to the same area as my first night.  This time, we went to a place called Sushi Sam's Edomata:  

It doesn't look like much on the outside...and the name doesn't convey just how amazing this place was.  I'm going to claim that this is some of the BEST sushi I've ever had.  Ever.  I've traveled to Japan for 25 years, and this was some incredible food.

The "specials" menu was interesting.  See if you can find the item that caught me eye, as we were getting ready to order:

Salted Squid Guts???

At a typical sushi restaurant, they have decent-quality fish.  Usually a good place has about 15 different types of fish - yellowtail tuna, shrimp, etc.  This place had what looked like 30 different types of fish.  The quality was incredible:

The trick here was that we left the menu choices completely up to the chef.  We told him what we didn't want to eat (Sea Urchin), but gave him complete freedom to create whatever he wanted.  Amazing!  I enjoyed Icelandic Char, Alaskan Salmon, butterfish, tuna belly, needlefish, long-neck oyster...and lots more.

In addition to the amazing variety, there were subtle flavors added to the sushi.  This created some unique twists on the traditional sushi - things like citrus, mint and sea salt.  Because the chef was so good, none of it required soy sauce, which is the traditional method for flavoring the fish.

Roasted shrimp head - yup, it was awesome

Round after round was a real culinary treat.  We finished with a Kobe beef sushi...but the beef was perfectly cooked.  The meat was so tender - it literally melted in your mouth.  I highly recommend this place, if you are ever in San Mateo.

That's it, for now.  I'm happy to return to Austin and see my family, after this quick trip to California.  Thanks for reading...