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A day trip to California
I had a meeting in Sunnyvale today, south of San Francisco, so after waking at 7 to find the entire family in my bed, I showered quickly and ordered an Uber to the airport. My driver, a taciturn Russian speaker, almost pranged his car within a hundred yards of our apartment block, driving through a […]
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The gloominess of the airport hotel
Because my visit to Palo Alto coincides with moving-in week at Stanford, every hotel is booked out or ridiculously expensive. So I got a couple of nights at the Westin at the airport, which works out to be 20% of the cost of a hotel in Palo Alto. Unfortunately, unlike Singapore or Hong Kong where […]
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Return to comedy
After work today I went with an old friend from Hong Kong (and now a co-worker) to a comedy night in Santa Clara. Even getting there was the stuff of hilarity; there are identical Hilton Garden Inns up and down Palo Alto, and instead of being picked up outside the one I stayed in, we […]
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Back to Palo Alto
The flight to San Francisco only took 14 hours (I guess prevailing winds are a wonderful thing) and I was through Customs and picking up my bag before 9am. It was touch and go for a bit; they have automated machines at SFO to collect your information before you hand your passport to a person […]
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La La Land
After John Wick 2, we watched La La Land. I wouldn’t recommend doing this in reverse order; very loud gunfights aren’t a great way to recover from a nuanced sing song about jazz and beautiful people. I’m also not sure, even with 24 hours’ perspective, whether La La Land is just a tremendous piss-take or […]
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Firsts
Felicity had her first visit to a beach today, outside San Francisco on the way to Palo Alto. It was a glorious day, with not a cloud in the sky, crowds of surfers bobbing up and down in the waves like neoprene-wrapped seals. Felicity wore her best lilac dress and was full of good cheer.