Life Back West

Sometimes you don’t value something until you know you’re about to lose it, or it’s lost.

When Pauline’s Pizza, home of legendarily, serious pesto pizza closed after 33 years, I thought I’d never find another place like it. Good pesto pizza is hard to find, and most places that do pesto pizza, don’t do it well.

Lucky me stumbled on Pi Bar, at the opposite end of Valencia Street from Pauline’s in my Mission neighborhood.… Read the rest

It’s 6 months from now in mid-September 2021, and my son Traylor has his first weeks of college freshmen year in Rhode Island under his belt.

Star Trek’s Mr. Spock once said “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” While it’s my belief that sometimes the opposite is true – the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many – the Covid pandemic of 2020-2022 was not one of them.… Read the rest

The 2020 US Presidential election is over. The insurrectionists inspired by Donald Trump that tried to stop the counting of electoral votes and take over the US Capitol were defeated. Wounds are fresh, trash talk still active, Trump has been impeached again, and Joe Biden is the 46th American President.

As the Biden transition has played out, sustaining support Trump appears to has been infused by a narrative of the election was stolen with a heady dose of QAnon / Proud Boys beliefs

Against this charged background is the question  “can most companies afford to hire  an ever-Trumper for the executive suite?”… Read the rest

My son Traylor is just one of the 3.7 million high seniors figuring out what next year holds.

When you’re 18 years old, life experiences are limited and ideas of what’s possible fewer. Looking at post-high school choices like college? Those options are likely defined in part by what’s discussed around the kitchen table or highlighted by college counselors and friends at school.… Read the rest

 

Common for sales and many service people, working remote has been hit and miss for so-called knowledge workers  –  people whose main capital is knowledge and information such as programmers, accountants, engineers, architects, visual designers, many administrative types  – depending on how remote-friendly the employer has been.

Fast forward to today and  70% of knowledge workers are estimated to be working remote during the Covid 19 pandemic.… Read the rest

The opening line from Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities comes to mind: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” 

These are really, really tough times.… Read the rest