ForbesOnTech

I-5 "Farm Fresh Produce" Yum Yum!

I made a 900-mile Bay Area round trip excursion over the weekend.  All the way from Escondido here in San Diego County to San Mateo, on the San Francisco Peninsula in one long non-stop, 394-mile, hop in my Prius via I-5 and various connectors up to 101.  I’m not one of those Californians who snivel about driving the I-5 cement ribbon between LA and San Francisco.

            It’s a drive I’ve done so often since the early Seventies that I just put my mind on “auto-pilot”, set my cruise control so that I’m safely part of a pack of cars, pop in a books on tape CD and watch the miles just roll by.  Truth be told, I still find this particular drive very interesting, although it can be butt-numbingly long. Luckily the poppies on the side of the hills through Tejon Pass on the Grapevine were in full bloom, a site that always make me burst into “California Here I Come” no matter how old I’ve become.

            After the poppies the next thing that always amazes me are the mile-after-mile rows of orchards and field crops that line California’s north/south artery. I spent more than three decades as a reporter covering various technologies. First it was aerospace and later it centered on computers and software. But at no time in my career was my mind very far from awareness that California’s most valuable commodity wasn’t capital for risk-based ventures, or a seemingly limitless supply of bright engineers, administrators and entrepreneurs, but rather rich soil that supports a variety of crops.  No matter what story or beat I was assigned to, over the years I always managed to find the time to pull over to the side of a rode, kick off my shoes and socks and curl my naked toes in rich California soil.

Driving I-5 strengthens my roots with California like a balanced dash of pot ash  rich organic fertilizer reinforces a young plant’s root structure.

And then there’s scenery: resting raptors perched on fences around pistachio and fruit groves, low-flying AgCat aerial sprayers wheeling overhead in the early morning and long stretches of the California Aqueduct that bring water down to the “Cadillac Desert” of southern California. But what most often catches my attention on I-5 are signs alerting divers to “fresh produce ahead.”

Parched from a 101 degree heat, I’m easily seduced by the thought of a plump Sequoia strawberry or a cold fresh navel orange, either of which may have been in a field o orchard just hours before. But not this trip, the purpose of which was to attend a memorial service of a good friend named Judy Sobieski.

As I peeled off on the connector leading from I-5 to the Bay Area I realized a couple of things:  How lucky I was to have been befriended by Judy, her husband, Andy, and daughter, Marie and how much I learned from this short-dark-haired native San Francisco lady. I’m so glad I made this trip, because it allowed me to provide emotional support and cover for Judy’s husband and daughter.

It was an altogether beautiful trip for me because I got to spend time with people that literally adopted me into their family at a time when I really needed family support and for some reason the weather in San Mateo was utterly fabulous. As I pulled into the neighborhood where the Sobieski’s live, I heard a faint slightly rural voice reminding me to be sure and bring a cake or pie when I go “calling.” So off I went in search of a pie and a cheese cake.

I was really impressed with the memorial service for my friend, Judy Sobieski, and the incredible job her daughter, Marie, did in putting it together to help her family’s friends and relatives come together to remember one of life’s great treasures.

All too soon, I changed into my short pants, a t-shirt and moccasins and whirred my way back home to Escondido, where the amazing Mr. Perro greeted me with two welcome home “yip-barks” and a series of mighty sniffs to see if I had been around anyone he knew.

I didn’t make it back down I-5 uneventfully. I stopped to buy some good looking Sequoia strawberries and four excellent navel oranges. Hell, there’s no sense in passing signs advertising “farm fresh produce” with a stop to see if fruits and vegetables grown by someone else taste as good as yours.

Is Central Valley “road fruit” as good as anything I grow?  You betcha!

I-5. It’s more than just a four-lane artery through California. It’s also a good chance to taste excellent regional produce. “Farm Fresh Produce” yum yum—Jim Forbes 11/28/2008.

Back in Silicon Valley For a Day-- "My, How I have Changed!"

Back in the saddle again, Back in

Silicon Valley

, My friend.

So there I was sitting in a window seat on SouthPest, climbing out at 12,000 feet northbound from Ontario International in

Southern California

, headed back to the bay Area for a half-day. On final approach to

San Jose

, with my seat back and tray table stored in their upright and locked position, I mentally prepared myself for reentering the world I left unceremoniously four years ago.

            As soon as we landed I noticed members of the Borg Nation had put on their ear gear and were frantically grabbing at buttons on their head sets. Lots of impassoined calls about information on term sheets, deals and new hires. I shrugged into my ruck and fled the terminal. Soon I was headed up 101 north past concrete tilt-ups that had housed four or  five start-ups in their short six year lives.

            The real money in

Silicon Valley

isn’t in the semantic web, social networking or the current buzzword. It’s in much more tangible asset—land or office space that can be traded for wealth and bets that your single-story glass front building in Sunnyvale or Redwood City can be used to house the succession of startups that flow like quick silver through the economy as they burn up venture funds begged from retirement portfolios.

            Some

Silicon Valley

things never change. I had a late lunch with a great friend at Max’s Opera Café.  While we caught up on retirement and life in the middle of a remodel, I spied and said “Hi!” to a couple of entrepreneurs whose companies I covered before I retired. Both were deep into a conversation about how the nature of venture capital would change given the current stock market conditions.

            I was intrigued by their meal and recognized the chunked green vegetable in their salads “hey, you guys like Haas avocados?”

            Both entrepreneurs are I sent a box of mixed Reed and Haas avocados to at the beginning of the last fall season. “Hey, can you send me some more of the big round ‘cados?”, one of them asked. “I can’t get them in the stores up here and they’re very good.”

            I laughed but didn’t tell him that very few Reed avocados ever leave

San Diego

or

Riverside

Counties

. Besides, every time you pick a Reed from a tree, it’s like taking one or two dollars from a branch. Living in

Escondido

, I’m somewhat rooted to the avocado economy. Every day my dog “Perro” and I walk through three groves, a journey that’s like a hands-on sampling tour of a mint. I made a mental note to send them each a box of fruit when it ripens later this year.  As I returned to my table they went snout down back to their salads.

            

California

’s agricultural economy is the best example of an infrastructure play I can imagine. It’s not understood much by Stanford MBA’s or their venture capitalist partners.

            But it’s the one example of a way to make money while other technological trends blaze and die out in cycles. Going back to the Gold Rush, who were the real winners?  Simple answer: The orchardists and farmers who produced fresh goods and arranged for its transport to the mines, along with necessities like Levi’s waist jeans, and iron tools.

            The one image that makes me cringe today is the site of a high wheel Caterpillar D5 ripping out a grove to make room for tilt up offices. It may be the price of progress, but in the end arable land and the ability to grow things for markets and family tables that remainsis business proposition that’s sustainable and a major benefit to

California

’s various economies.

              I’m a native Californian who never outgrew his love for the smell of emerging citrus blossoms, the taste and texture of a perfect Sequoia strawberry picked and consumed early in the season or the sheer pride and enjoyment of providing my family and friends with produce that I grew.  I may use a computer and cloud computing technology to plan my life and communicate. But, at the end of the day, when I go home to my little mountaintop in

Escondido

from a day trip to

Silicon Valley

, my roots quickly burrow into my native soil.—Jim Forbes, flying back home today on 01/23/2008.