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I spent a few days in Silicon Valley, USA. The picture to the left is entitled "Sunset over 101". For those who don't know, "Silicon Valley" streatches from San Jose, California to San Francisco and is the starting point for most of the computer companies (from Atari to Google) with the notable exception of Microsoft. I could tell I was in California because, of the two vending machines near my hotel room, one sold cans of soda for $1.00 while the other sold bottles of water for $1.50. And I could tell I was in Silicon Valley because the vending machine in the hotel lobby not only sold the usual toothpaste and snacks but it also sold blank CDs and USB flash memory sticks.

The picture on the right is San Jose from the air. Millions of people using billions of watts and making computers so I can blog.

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Another feature of the weather we're having is that one gets to scrap the ice off one's car each morning. But it's not thick ice -- it's delicate ice patterns built from the moisture in the air. Pretty.

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Since California is getting all of the Pacific Northwest's weather, that leaves us with several weeks of not much happening weather-wise. Our days have been down to 30 at night but up to 60 during the day. This is not a typical February.

What this has meant, though, is the first lawn mowing of the year happened this weekend. The sounds of suburbia are returning early this year. And the weather continues to be strange everywhere.

Adding another minute to my 15 minutes of fame, the local metro section of the Oregonian wrote an article about blogging in this part of town. Check out Blogging is setting free the inner journalist in people

When the reported contacted me last week, she was looking for mothers who blog -- I guess there was an article about same in the Wall Street Journal or something. But, what she found in this area was me and a few other people who just blog their lives. She didn't want political blogs or news blogs. She wanted people blogs. And she found me.

A trip to the pharmacist results in some pills with "Patient Counseling Information". So, what doesn't this medication cause?

Not very informative, but, I'm sure, lawyer approved.