Author: punchwpadmin

Blenders balk. Vacuums stop sucking. Speakers start hissing. A rarely used KitchenAid Classic mixer turns lethargic, too weak to beat even a single egg.

Don Van Creveld has seen this mixer problem before. He opened the KitchenAid’s housing and detached the electrical connectors to expose the nuts anchoring the motor. A few expert turns with a socket wrench and the mixer came back to life, whirring vigorously.

Van Creveld, manager of a medical instruments repair business, spotted a misaligned pin in the mixer’s tilt mechanism. He pointed it out to Sela Berenblum, a Stanford chemical engineering student assisting him. She coaxed the pin back into place with a hex wrench.

The repair team slid the mixer back across a table to its owner, Tim Showalter of Newark. “I hate throwing anything out,” he said, relieved. The trio arranged themselves behind the KitchenAid, grinned and snapped selfies.

All around them at Palo Alto’s Repair Café, work was in progress on dysfunctional devices. A pod coffee machine was gunky with hot chocolate. A wall clock wouldn’t tick. A bike didn’t brake. All were being tended to at no charge by skilled volunteers.

Repair Café (repaircafe-paloalto.org)is a quarterly pop-up event that aims to take a bite, however small, out of the 254 million tons of stuff that Americans discard each year. When things fade, loosen, weaken, clog, stutter, stagger or quit, they are typically consigned to a landfill. Peter Skinner wants to change that. He launched Palo Alto’s Repair Café in 2012 after reading about the movement, which began in Amsterdam in 2009.

The first Palo Alto event drew 100 people. The second attracted 300. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re on to something here,’” says Skinner, an executive at Monterey Regional Waste Management District. Today, almost 1,500 Repair Café locations operate periodically around the world, including events in Mountain View, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Pasadena and Long Beach.

Fixes can be as quick and simple as correctly installing batteries. Or they can stretch into hours-long slogs that end with a rueful shake of the fixer’s head. Skinner estimates that around 65 percent of items leave in better shape than they arrived.

This spring’s Repair Café attracted about 150 people, most from tony places like Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Replacing a broken curling iron is no financial hardship for these people. Repairing it rather than junking it, however, is “so Palo Alto, so California,” said Susan Barnet, an etymologist from Menlo Park.

Fixers make no value judgments about the worth or value of what they’re fixing. Jim Wall—an engineer and president of Palo Alto’s tiny Museum of American Heritage, which hosts the Repair Café—and software engineer Antariksh Bothale devoted more than an hour to fixing a leak that had sidelined a 60-year-old Waring drink mixer.

The mixer’s owner, who waited in line for nearly an hour for a consult, could have replaced the vintage Waring with an identical model for $16 online, a retro treasure described by the Etsy seller as “mid-century Danish modern.”

Bothale and Wall easily disassembled the mixer to expose a peppy metal motor in fine condition. “A lot of things you can’t even take apart,” Bothale said, pleased. “That’s a little sad. You should at least be able to take it apart.”

Nearby, a pencil sharpener met a different fate. Ann Lemmenes’ husband, a teacher, had purchased the X-Acto sharpener less than a year ago. His fourth-graders complained that it pointlessly devoured pencils. “It was expensive,” Lemmenes said, “and he was really heartbroken when it stopped working.”

Bill Wall, a retired appliance repairman (and no relation to Jim), removed the cover and probed the plastic innards. “These two pieces should’ve been made of metal so they could grind against each other,” he concluded.

Wall broke the bad news to Lemmenes, who winced. “It’s got to be really dead before it goes out the door,” she said. She pondered her options: Consign the functional but ineffective sharpener to the landfill? Return it to the classroom? Buy a more expensive metal model?

Wall boasted that he’d had a 90-percent success rate at a prior Repair Café, making listless vacuums suck and flickering lamps light. “At work, I fixed everything,” he said. “The dispatchers told me, ‘You’re not our fastest guy, but when you do a job, we never get call-backs.’”

Jeff Wachtel probably wouldn’t be at Stanford if he hadn’t gone to Greece first. It was during the year he spent there in high school that he encountered a group of Stanford professors and graduate students at an archeological dig. A kid growing up in New York City wasn’t likely to hear much about a West Coast institution like Stanford, but that chance meeting when Wachtel was far from home drove his desire to attend college 3,000 miles away from everything he knew. Between arriving on campus as a freshman to his current position as the Executive Director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, Wachtel has rarely left the Stanford campus.

Technically, Wachtel did venture off The Farm to complete a master’s degree in city planning from Cal and a J.D. from UC Hastings, after studying psychology and urban studies at Stanford. (His undergraduate advisor was, by the way, famed psychologist Philip Zimbardo.) Wachtel’s interest in city planning was jumpstarted by an early passion for Robert Caro’s book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. During his time as a lawyer, Wachtel mostly focused on housing, which is what led him back to his first job at Stanford, in the Faculty Staff Housing department. Real estate prices being what they are on the Peninsula, Stanford assists new staff members as they move into properties owned by the university. Wachtel retooled the system during his time there, and also became the de-facto city manager of that area of campus. Showing that academics pervades every part of Stanford, he held “office hours” by driving around the staff neighborhoods once a month, stopping his truck to address any residents’ issues. Eventually, Wachtel ended up in the offices of the provost and then the university president, serving as assistant to John Hennessy during his entire 16-year tenure.

 

Hennessy stepped down from his post two years ago, but in some sense he and Wachtel are still working as a team. The two men both are huge proponents of interdisciplinary learning, and Wachtel is determined to expose the scholars in his program to every subject a university can offer. The Knight-Hennessy Scholars are a group of 51 extraordinary young people, all chosen for what Wachtel calls their “proven ability to address lapses in leadership around the world.” The inaugural class arrived on campus last month and will be able to pursue any graduate program at Stanford for the next three years, all sponsored by the Knight-Hennessy program. But Wachtel is determined that the students under his leadership will be learning about more than just their chosen fields. Wachtel, who himself became a musician late in life, is particularly adamant about the presence of the arts. The program will be housed in its own building, still under construction, that will be filled with art pieces particularly chosen to appeal and challenge the scholars who will be working there. In fact, Wachtel is even having the scholars participate in the installation of a sculpture outside the building, so they can feel invested in the entire process of creating the work.

This is the program’s first year, and as its inaugural executive director, Wachtel is still in the process of figuring out his own role. He wants to be a concierge, helping students access all of the amazing resources on campus, rather than an annoying parent. It’s hard to see Wachtel coming across as nagging; he talks often about the wonderful mentors he’s encountered in his career and clearly puts their example to use. His tall, lean frame betrays the fact that he bikes to work, like so many Stanford residents, although his home is in Atherton rather than a dorm. He does drive when he has rehearsal with the Stanford Symphony though; his instrument of choice is a double bass. “I’m the only guy who had a midlife crisis and bought a station wagon,” he jokes. Musician, administrator, unofficial mayor—Jeff Wachtel is certainly leading by example in his mission to turn the Knight-Hennessy scholars into leaders who can do anything.

It’s almost time for the World Series, and even though the Giants aren’t playing, I’ll be watching. The Series—like all other major events today—doesn’t command the attention it once did since our lives are so divided and consumed with the technological world we live in. But for me, there is something pure and wonderful about the Series, something that hearkens back to my childhood but also acts as a welcome escape from the vicissitudes of my current life.

When I was a boy growing up in Amarillo, Texas, there were two things I loved: baseball and baseball. I was lucky to have a wonderful big brother—Danny—five years my senior who somehow, since our European-born father knew nothing about baseball, was a terrific ball player, always the star of his team.

Danny was thrilled to have a little brother to play catch with and by the time I was three we spent hour after hour on our large, grassy front lawn, throwing the ball back and forth. Our German shepherd, Tamby, would run back and forth between us, a strong encouragement for us not to drop the ball since he would swoop down in a heartbeat, grab it and run off.

By the time I was five, Danny was teaching me all aspects of the game: going from side to side for a ground ball; keeping my butt down and my glove open; and reaching back to feed the apple before making the throw to nail the batter before he reached first base. I loved those summer Texas evenings out in front, Danny and I, playing like we were starring in the World Series, screaming at each other, our voices drowned out by the stretching, pulsating cicadas that filled the big elm trees of our neighborhood.

When I was eight years old, I discovered nirvana at Chandler Baseball Camp in the steaming hot land of central Oklahoma. From morning to night, we played ball. In the heat, we learned how to slide; how to bunt; how to dive with our outstretched gloves to make the big play. Since I was small and fast, I discovered that the bunt worked to my advantage and it became my specialty. To this day, there is still nothing I appreciate as much as watching a perfectly executed bunt softly glide down the chalk line toward third base.

Amarillo had the Gold Sox, a minor league team in the Double A Texas League. But when I was six, Texas got its first major league team, the Colt .45s, who played in Houston in the National League. In their first year they were far behind the league champion San Francisco Giants, who just nudged out the dreaded Dodgers. After Danny and I came in from playing ball, I would run up to our room, get on my prized transistor radio, and listen to the play-by-play of the games. Though we usually lost, I rooted for them just the same. They were my team after all. Their current name, the
Astros, was adopted three years later to reflect Houston’s role as the control center of the U.S. space program.

Last year, after 55 years of futility, with me rooting them on year after year after year, the Astros won their first World Series. I thrilled at their victory. But after living on the Peninsula my entire adult life, I also had come to love the Giants, cheering for them year after year with my four children, going to games, meeting several of the players and team leaders, even living a few blocks from Willie Mays. At my core I wondered, was it the Giants or the Astros? If they faced each other in the World Series, who would I be pulling for?

Last month, I got my answer when the Astros came to the play the Giants. My older son, Josh, and I went to the first game of the series on a clear Monday night—freezing as ever in that stadium—to watch them compete. It was a pitchers’ duel, with no one able to string hits together to score a run. Then, in the sixth inning, when my favorite player, Brendon Crawford, came up to bat, I said to Josh, “This is it. The run. He’s hitting it over the fence.” And damned if he didn’t. Without thinking about it for a second, I jumped up cheering with the rest of the 40,000 fans there that night. And then in the ninth inning, my heart sank when the Astros blasted a three-run homer to win the game.

But that settled it; I knew. Despite 55 years of root, root, rooting for the home team Astros, I was a confirmed forever-forward Giants fan. They are my team. As much as I grew up with the Astros, just like giving up the hometown girl for the one you fell for in college, I was now in love with the Peninsula’s team, our team. Go Giants!

Some people know Chris Kelly as the owner of the Sacramento Kings. Some people know him as a candidate for California Attorney General. Some people know him as the lead on Security and Privacy as employee #20 at Facebook. However one might know Chris Kelly, all would agree that he is a human who understands how wildly fortunate he is and who is trying to use his resources, and his vast knowledge of technology, for the good of the world.

“I have the good fortune to have done well and with that, there is a huge obligation to leverage that for social good. Even in for-profit ways.”

It seems that the general conversation about technology recently has been its evils: its hindrance of personal, in-real-life contact, the risks that it can spread inaccuracy, the fact that its allowed for illegal exchanges through the dark web; you may have heard of the newfangled phenomenon of “tech addiction specialists.”

Chris Kelly, who lives in Atherton with his wife and two kids, understands this, but also knows that tech is here to stay, and is taking pains not only to secure it for our entertainment and efficiency purposes, but also to flip the script so as to actually use it for helpful changes. As Peninsula residents, our proximity to Silicon Valley makes this a very pressing issue. What follows—ways in which some of our area’s biggest tech titans (speficially Chris Kelly) are utilizing what we know about technology to improve our lives in safe ways—will hopefully inspire readers to ask themselves how to take technology in our area—and beyond—and make a positive difference.

ONLINE SAFETY AND SECURITY, ESPECIALLY FOR CHILDREN

Chris Kelly has always put children first and his use of technology to help win the battle against cybersecurity and trafficking that could harm children is inspirational.

First, in 2012, Chris Kelly helped rewrite Proposition 35, the “Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act,” which banned human trafficking and sex slavery with a number of measures, including increases in prison terms for traffickers, requirements for sex traffickers to register as such, requirements for criminal fines from convicted human traffickers to pay for services to help victims and more. This proposition was approved by a whopping 81% of voters, making it the most successful ballot initiative since California’s ballot process began in 1914.

About 12 years ago, Chris Kelly stepped up as Chairman of the New Leadership Council (NLC). The NLC instills faith and grants resources to support millenial thought leadership. Millenials, soon to be the largest voting block in American history (to the tune of nearly 83 million voters), will harness significant economic power. Chris Kelly believes that millennials will be the generation to truly change our institutions in American society and through the NLC, so he is looking to them to help remedy various aspects of the online cybersecurity crisis.

What got Chris started in this fight was a deep understanding that something was broken on the internet. In the late ‘80s, Chris was working as an outside attorney and saw way too much of what he calls “the uglier sides of humanity.” He also recognized a real misuse of what would have been helpful tools like Craigslist.

As a Silicon Valley attorney before his current endeavors, Chris Kelly has a long track record of representing companies that are championing substantive cybersecurity initiatives. He even served as a policy advisor to President Clinton on policies that make the internet a safer place for children and adults. As the first Chief Privacy Officer, General Counsel, and Head of Global Public Policy for Facebook, Chris helped the company grow from its college roots. Because of Facebook’s newsmaking security breaches of late, Chris can’t seem to get too far without being asked about it. Happily, he says that he believes Facebook has stepped up in a real way to remedy the issues with their system—by adding another identity layer, for one. “Perfection can’t be the standard,” Chris says. “Because there are bad things in the world, there will be bad things online.”

“The problem of cybersecurity is that it has so many layers,” he adds. “And the political issues process doesn’t make it easy to force change.” A combination of working to rethink the way that trafficking is done in the digital age and a refocusing on criminal enforcement has been at the core of Kelly’s efforts.

Other tech heavy-hitters are also helping out with children’s rights through their vast Silicon Valley networks. Charlotte and Dave Willner, heads at Airbnb and Pinterest, respectively, are joining forces to protect children with The Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES.) They had a goal to raise $1,500 in a weekend to provide free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children. By the end of the week, the mobilization of their networks had brought in nearly 20 million dollars. Makes one proud to live in our area, where successful people are using their resources for altruism and philanthropy.

No matter what political camp we are in, we all want children to be happy, healthy, safe and cared for and Chris Kelly is constantly demonstrating that we should we all put those things before any personal agendas.

Another way Chris Kelly is using technology for good is through politics. To be clear, he is not doing it in a partisan way. Organizer, Chris’ app, has been constructed to help streamline the political process and it’s being started right here on the Peninsula.

Kelly believes that technology can and should be used to improve the integrity of politics at a base level. It seems unreasonable that we can put a man on the moon, yet most political tallies, census and polling are done with old-fashioned pencil and paper, which is not only time-consuming, but is also prone to error. As the first Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook, Chris knows intimately the importance of protecting our information.

The impetus behind Chris’ inception of Organizer was his interest in how we can gather and use accurate data in real time. Camps on both sides of the aisle can use the technology to implement systems wherein they can see what needs to be done in their campaigns, the public feeling on a given subject and, of course, their polls, in real time.

Chris also sits on the Board of Directors at the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Institute, which has attracted the likes of Silicon Valley technology veteran and former CTO at Sun Microsystems, John Gage, as its director. OSET is all about researching, developing, and making innovative elections software publicly available in order to increase verification, accuracy, security and transparency in the policical process. Its goal is also to ensure that ballots are counted as cast. This work is philosophically and actually for the benefit of the greater public, no matter your political affiliations. Above all else, Chris says it’s about integrity in elections while lowering costs and improving usability. It’s been said that Organizer, which is now only available for use by campaigns themselves, will one day soon be used across the board for elections large and small.

Sports is an arena (pun intended) that has a history of separating itself from technology, probably because sports are necessarily played in person. But Chris Kelly saw an opportunity when the Sacramento Kings came up for sale, and he isn’t the only Silicon Valley tech titan to get involved.

Kelly, who is a part-owner, has been instrumental in making the Kings one of the most tech-forward professional sports franchises in the world.

Though he spends much of his time here on the Peninsula in his home in Atherton, Kelly never misses a home game in Sacramento.

So, why the Kings? Kelly was in the right place at the right time when the opportunity presented itself. When news came that the Kings would be relocated to Seattle, leaving Sacramento as the only U.S. capital without a professional sports team, Kelly jumped at the chance.   

Within the ownership group for the Kings, Chris is the designated tech person. He spearheaded building the new Golden 1 Center, an arena which claims to be the most wired and tech-centric area in the NBA. It contains Tier 4 data centers—the caliber of data center you find only at Facebook, Google, Amazon and the like. This infrastructure can support up to 250,000 Instagram photos posted per second when the arena is at capacity.

Golden 1 is also the first arena to be outfitted with blockchain, which is the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ripple. The group is also mining Ethereum (a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts, which prevent the possibility of fraud or third-party interference). The Ethereum is then given back to the Bill Black Comcast Foundation, which funds digital literacy programs, community service and volunteerism initiatives and more. Again, Kelly uses every opportunity to wring the positive social impact from his technological endeavors.

Chris sees sports teams as social networks and thinks that when we utilize technological ability to help people connect with a team and the team to connect with the people, we turn sports teams into platforms to be used for good and to champion beneficial campaigns, ideas and thoughts. “A sports arena should be a civic space,” Kelly says.

Although the complexity of many of these technological endeavors can be mind-blowing, Kelly has a knack for explaining them—and the earnest reasons for doing them—as if he is describing the simplest of things. In this, he uses Silicon Valley technology to provide benefits for the largest group of people possible.

With Silicon Valley in our backyard, it’s great to know what is being done to make sure technology doesn’t continue taking on a life all its own and has champions like Peninsula native Kelly leading the charge, even though he still refers to himself as “just a San Jose kid.”

Any time you’re on the road on the Peninsula, you’ll be sure to pass at least one group of intense, Lycra-outfitted bikers. Although we all enjoy taking a quick ride down to the farmers market or on city streets, these bikers are in a whole different stratosphere. Since most serious Peninsula bikers belong to a group or club, PUNCH presents our field guide to local bike gangs. It should help you identify the next group you see on Junipero Serra or Skyline Boulevard, and maybe it will even encourage you to take a ride yourself.

The most formal of these bike clubs almost verge on professional athletic associations. Alto Velo Racing Club, for example, has corporate sponsors, matching jerseys and membership dues. All that infrastructure hints at how seriously the members take their rides. The club counts former Olympians among their more than 200 members and competes in races like the Pescadero Coastal Classic, which last year consisted of a 27-mile course and almost 4,000 feet of climbing. The club leads planned rides almost every day of the week, including some for more casual bikers, which you can read about on their website altovelo.org.

Although they’re not made up of full-time athletes, some of the groups do have a professional connection. Murray Engineers in Los Altos is a group of engineers, architects, designers and builders who bike together before, after and sometimes even during the workday. The firm also sponsors youth cycling teams, just to make sure that the next generation of Peninsula residents are getting out on the road as well. You can see more about their cycling events at murrayengineers.com/cycling.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Over the Hill Bike Club, which started 25 years ago when two friends in Woodside met for a weekend ride. The group still meets every Sunday at Roberts Market at 9 AM, and their usual route starts with a climb up Old La Honda, which is something of a benchmark for Peninsula riders; everyone seems to know what their best time is and when they beat their personal record. There were even some organized races up the hill back in the day, but the cheering as people strove to beat their best times became a problem with surrounding homeowners. See pictures of the club and find more information at overthehillbikeclub.webs.com.

These bike groups are definitely aware that drivers aren’t their biggest fans. In fact, some groups even have sections of the California Vehicle Code prominently displayed on their websites, often with the word “vehicle” in bold, as a reminder that the law holds someone in a car responsible for yielding to bikes in an intersection.

Despite the huge range of different groups, they’re all united by a desire to get out on the road, test their physical capabilities and have fun. While bike groups are always comprised of riders with different skill levels, riding the hills of Woodside is no joke. So if you’ve been reading along, waiting to find a group that might fit your fitness level, here it comes. The San José Bike Party organizes rides all over Silicon Valley, and as soon as you see them pass by you’ll notice a key difference from other groups we’ve mentioned—no Lycra. Instead, partygoers are more likely to be wearing Star Wars costumes or Hawaiian leis, and their backpacks contain portable speakers rather than protein gel packets. Their routes, which often start at the Mountain View train station, cover 10 to 15 miles of flat road. Since the rides often take place on weekday evenings, they’re also the perfect place to start if you’re not sure you’d like to dedicate your entire weekend to an intense ride. The best place to see updated information about the Bike Party’s next event is on their Facebook page, or at sjbikeparty.org.

Mandy Bell and Lisa Navarro have been in the dance world for 20+ years each. They originally met while doing a “triple threat” camp in 2006—that’s acting, singing and dancing for the less artistic of us—and they “just clicked.” Shortly thereafter, they started teaching together at Groovitude in Palo Alto and the rest is (very rhythmic) history.

The classes at Groovitude, which are mainly held in the mornings, run the gamut from jazz to hip-hop, contemporary to tap. Lisa recommends the jazz class for anyone who might consider themselves a beginner. Its soundtrack is not so much strictly jazz music as it is pop and musical theater-oriented tunes; it involves more basic dance techniques than some of the other classes. So, if you have two left feet, jazz at Groovitude should be your choice. No matter which class you choose, the format of your one-hour session is pretty consistent: a 20-minute warm-up followed by learning a piece of choreography.

This choreography piece is a sight to behold. Yes, coming up with the actual steps does take artistic skill, but coming up with choreography that is truly fun for people of all ages (from 35-75) and all levels (from beginners to professional dancers)—that takes work. Even then, the act of teaching these steps to this variety of people—considering possible injuries, dispositions, varying learning styles—is harder still. It requires patience and flexibility (pun intended).

“What I love about teaching dance is that dance is a discipline that strengthens the mind, strengthens the body and strengthens the soul,” Mandy says. Lisa’s favorite moments in class always revolve around watching people learn to express themselves. “[In dance you] learn to emote, and it’s fun to see what comes out,” she says. Lisa herself began dancing as a way to express herself because she had difficulty with articulation in other ways earlier in her life. It was a way to say what she wanted and needed without any words at all.

We spoke to many dancers who frequent the studio and everyone agrees that Mandy and Lisa are wildly talented. And it’s clear that dancers are getting a lot more from the classes at Groovitude than just some smooth moves. Tammy, a student there, says; “The Groovy gals, Lisa and Mandy, are two of the most inspiring women I know. When you come [into the studio] and take a class, you will walk away a new person, ready and waiting for their next round of joy! Groovitude is my home away from home, my go-to place when I need to just dance and escape the outside world.” Above all else, positivity is key at this hub for Peninsula peeps who want to get down with their bad selves. It cultivates an atmosphere of supportive vibes, which is welcoming for people who might not feel totally comfortable getting their groove on in front of strangers.

That confidence-building is only one of the many benefits of dancing. Dancing has been proven time and again to be an incredibly healing art form. It allows you to express yourself without words and absorb the high vibrations of music. To learn more about classes, or about Groovitude’s non-profit umbrella, Dance Visions (which allows artists in the Bay Area to have subsidized rent), visit groovitudedance.com.

Groovitude

4000 Middlefield Road, Room L3

Palo Alto

Zoe: We were born in Modesto on April 7, 2014 at the home of Joe and Carol Ovalle. Our whole family are Golden Retrievers—our grandpa even won Best of Breed at the National Dog Show! We came to the Peninsula because our owners, Pam and Elisha, were looking for a new furry friend after losing their dog suddenly. They only intended to bring home one puppy, but luckily they fell in love with both me and my brother Riley.  

Riley: My turn to tell the story, Zoe. Yes, when we first came home, we lived in San Carlos. Obviously having two puppies around was pretty adorable, and so Elisha thought that she could use the photos she was taking of us to help her experiment with social media, since she works in marketing. Everyone loved watching me grow from a little fluffball into the handsome pup I am now, so the Instagram page now has thousands of followers.  

Zoe: Sorry, our social media fame has gone to Riley’s head a bit. Today we live with Pam in Atherton, and our social media page has transformed from an experiment into a full-blown job. We get sent toys and treats to try, and then we tell our fans on Instagram about them. That means that we can help out with our humans’ finances, instead of just lazing around like your average family pet. Most of our time is spent at home with Pam, who just retired from doing important human stuff at IBM. We do our best to make sure that we get into enough trouble so that she doesn’t get too bored with all this new free time. 

Riley: We also love to hang out with Brittany and all the other dogs at BB’s Dog Walking. Brittany takes us everywhere from down the street to Holbrook-Palmer park to big hikes at the Pulgas Open Space Preserve. Sometimes people recognize us from Instagram or just from seeing us around the neighborhood, and we love it when they say hello. If you ever want to tell my sister and me apart, here’s the key—she’s the one in the front of the pack, while I’m just following and trying to keep my nose clean.  

TO KEEP UP WITH US: follow us on Instagram at Zoe_and_Riley 

In a suburban community like Menlo Park, you’d expect the local police department to spend most of their time giving out parking tickets and responding when residents accidentally set off their alarm systems. But Menlo Park’s most important resident, at least in the eyes of the city’s police dispatchers, isn’t a person at all, it’s a company—Facebook. To be fair, the tech giant has tried to be a model resident in its new hometown, hosting community events and working with the city to reduce the impact their large campus near 101 has on traffic. It’s actually the billions of people who use Facebook who are the ones making trouble for the Menlo Park Police Department. Facebook doesn’t make it particularly easy to find a corporate phone number online, but frustrated users can easily find the name of the city where the company has been based since 2011. That means that someone who has lost their password, thinks their account has been hacked or wants to complain about an advertisement sometimes finds the phone number for the next best thing—a Menlo Park police dispatcher.

Of course, those officers can almost never solve the problem, and most seem bemused at the idea that their department is the right place to deal with an inquiry about the workings of a private company. Instead, they direct the frustrated callers to Facebook’s online help center. This phenomenon is a stark reminder of how the huge reach of companies on the Peninsula can lead to a warped idea of what our area is really like. Most people calling the Menlo Park Police Department assume that since Facebook is so big, their local law enforcement staff must be huge too.

These strange calls don’t appear to affect all Peninsula police departments equally. Janine De la Vega, the Police Public Affairs Manager in Facebook’s old hometown of Palo Alto, says that the tech companies in their neighborhood generally keep a low profile. The city’s more famous CEOs often have their own security teams, so the police department doesn’t spend any more time patrolling their streets than they would in the rest of the city. Police officers who have  worked in Palo Alto since the early days of the tech boom say that they used to get more unusual calls. For example, if a small tech company was located in Palo Alto and ran into legal trouble, Palo Alto PD would get a request to present the business with a warrant or subpoena. Now that firms have multiple campuses and well-run legal departments, police officers are generally spared the uncomfortable tasks of serving papers.

These days, it’s actually members of the public sector who cause the most trouble for the Palo Alto police officers. If you’re in federal or state government (or if you’re hoping to be there after the next election), you’ll likely make a stop on the Peninsula to discuss policy with an entrepreneur, give a speech to a think tank at Stanford or hold a private event to raise campaign funds. The local police department is responsible for keeping the peace during those visits, which seem to happen more and more often during each election year. Since the Secret Service tries to keep the exact travel plans of the high-profile people they protect as “secret” as possible, that can leave a police department like Palo Alto’s with little time to arrange things like stopping traffic for a motorcade.

On the whole, the law enforcement officers seem to treat these tech troubles as just part of the job. Most of the departments even use platforms like Facebook, Nextdoor and Twitter themselves, since it’s the best way to connect with their residents and promote local events. And after all, patiently explaining that no, they can’t send an officer to Mark Zuckerberg’s house to relay a message from someone over the phone is at least a change of pace from writing parking tickets.

Though I knew they were coming, once they started I was surprised at their intensity, like the rounds of thunder and lightning during the raucous Texas storms of my home state.  They were good things and so there was a lot of joy, and each brought its own level of excitement, thrill and love. So there was no complaining on my part. Only smiles and open checkbooks. 

The first ones to get engaged were my youngest daughter Tali and her guy Sam, who had both just turned 24 years old. This one was no surprise, as Tali and Sam had been a steady item ever since they were 15-years-olds at Menlo-Atherton High School. I’d halfway watched Sam grow up, as the two of them were inseparable.  

When Tali went to UC Berkeley and Sam to Stanford, I wondered if it would affect their relationship. But I soon realized that since she spent the majority of the week at the dorms at Stanford—most everyone thought she was going to school there—the distance was not going to have any impact on their romance. And so it didn’t take long before Sam, in a romantic and grand way, asked for Tali’s hand in marriage.  

My oldest son, Josh, had done the right thing when he left his job here and joined his wonderful girlfriend Adara in Washington, D.C., where she was getting her master’s degree. Follow love—that’s my motto, I told him. Finally, despite a significant amount of nerves and trepidation, he took the plunge and proposed during a romantic trip to Italy.   

While Tali and Sam thought they were going to be the first to get married, Josh and Adara opted for a short engagement and chose an earlier date. No one seemed to care. And soon our home was filled with never-ending discussions about caterers, flowers, rings, engagement parties and invitations. Sometimes when the women stood in our kitchen talking nonstop about all this stuff, I had to go to my study and shut the door.  

At this same time, my older daughter Ari fell in love with the charismatic and funny Danny, a Minnesota transplant. And before the first wedding got underway, Danny very sweetly asked for Ari’s hand one day after making three trips to Tahoe in 24 hours to create a perfect recreation of their first romantic get-a-way. I suddenly had three children engaged at the same time.  

The endless wedding talk became that much more endless until our home seemed like an outlet of Weddings-R-Us. The food tastings and reviews of locations and interminable squabbling over invitation lists became what I woke up to and what I went to sleep with. At one time budgets had been established for these events but they had long been forgotten and spending mayhem ensued. It was a veritable wedding train blistering down the track with no feasible way to stop it. 

First, Josh and Adara were married at Lucy Stern Community Center in Palo Alto in a beautiful traditional Jewish wedding led by our dear family friend, Rabbi David Teitlebaum, who at 90 years old, thought he was performing his last ceremony. The dancing was fierce and the joy was palpable. 

When Tali was eight years old, she asked close friends of ours—who have an exquisite backyard in Woodside—if she could get married there some day. Little did we all know that Tali meant it seriously, and on a beautiful summer day she and Sam were married there in another wedding—reminiscent of Fiddler on the Roof—again led by Rabbi Teitlebaum, who despite his age, persevered like a champion.  

My Ari always knows exactly what she wants and how to get it done with grace and beauty. She is a talented interior designer and had her wedding planned as if for a feature in Brides magazine. For a bit of variety, she and Danny were married at Campovida Winery in Hopland, just north of Healdsburg. It was a fantasy-like affair and Rabbi Teitlebaum gallantly made it at age 91 to once again led the charge under the chuppa, with a hora that lasted late into the night. 

And so now there is just one to go, my youngest son Coby, but he’s not ready yet, and we are all grateful. I realize how lucky I am that my three kids have married people I really love. The only thing that is hard about these special occasions is that you look forward to them for a whole lifetime and then they are over in a flash. The groom smashes the glass, the crowd yells “L’Chaim” and then, after the dancing, it’s over.  

When I start thinking of those moments, I get teary-eyed, sad that I cannot live them all over again. The only thing to do, I think, is to embrace these occasions as best we can, to take the sights and emotions that we are seeing and feeling into our hearts, hold them tightly and forever, and then make plans for the following day, as life pushes forward with no respite. 

Tucked away in the Redwood City hills is a monument to the Peninsula’s most critical and most overlooked feature—the water system. The Pulgas Water Temple is the symbolic end of the Hetch Hetchy Project, the turn-of-the-century engineering marvel that provides San Francisco and surrounding cities with fresh water from the Sierra. After the earthquake and fire of 1906, city planners knew that a reliable source of water was critical as the Bay Area rebuilt and continued to grow. Over the next 20 years, aqueducts were built to connect the Hetch Hetchy Valley to the Peninsula, more than 150 miles distant. Just as it did 100 years ago, the water today travels solely via the power of gravity, without any other human intervention.

Current-day Peninsula residents might have trouble understanding the significance of the Hetch Hetchy Project’s completion. However, any visitor who views the monument today can clearly see that it was built to mark something tremendous. The Beaux Arts-style building calls to mind Greco-Roman sites, which not only gives the temple a timeless look but also honors the ancient engineers whose techniques were used in the water system’s construction. If you notice a resemblance to the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco’s Marina, it’s because the temple’s designer William Merchant trained under Palace architect Bernard Maybeck. Adding to the grandiosity is the inscription made by master stone carver Albert Bernasconi, quoting the Book of Isaiah, “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people.”

When it first opened in 1934, the temple housed a waterfall, but today the flow bypasses the falls and heads straight into taps or the Crystal Springs Reservoir. Though owned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the Pulgas Water Temple is open to the public and accessible via Edgewood Road off of 280. During the week, there is public lot open on Cañada Road. Since it’s a popular spot for weddings, the parking lot is closed on weekends, but you can still visit the temple on foot or by bike.

For more information, visit sfwater.org

In 1920s Paris, Gertrude Stein famously inaugurated her “salon years.” Her home at 27 rue de Fleurus was a well-known outpost for intellectual conversation for some of the most influential thought leaders of the time. Stein, along with contemporaries like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, just to name a few, brought together their varied talents to understand and inspire art, literature and critical thinking. A century later, Peninsula native Vanessa Hood heeded a calling to unearth that time-honored tradition of The Salon in order to remedy what she saw as a “scarcity of culture” in the hub of technology that is Silicon Valley. The get-togethers Hood organizes as your Salonniere are her effort to bring that back.

After Hood finished with prestigious degrees from Yale University (Political Science) and King’s College London (War Studies), serving in a number of government roles, including at the NYPD and the International Criminal Court and the U.S. State Department, launching the tech giant Palantir into the government market and driving its meteoric growth, the Peninsula came calling. And she answered.

The fact that Hood saw the Peninsula (and Silicon Valley in particular) as the least obvious place to begin a new salon actually made it the perfect place. The progress that’s made in Silicon Valley is mind-blowing, but the pace is also overwhelming, and Vanessa felt that the sea of tech was desperate for a hub of culture to provide a space for prioritizing thoughtfulness and bringing back in-real-life (IRL/not digital) conversation. In a place where the “no new friends” meme went viral, Vanessa knew that encouraging just the opposite—new friends and acquaintances, bringing people together who were unlikely ever meet to otherwise—would benefit everyone involved. “Being around people who are so good at what they do makes you better. It’s the idea of playing up. And not only playing up, but playing across,” Hood says. Since The Salon’s inception in 2017, Vanessa (photographed here in the beautiful Los Altos Hills home she shares with husband Gavin, daughter Milly; and their terrier, Bosley) has curated conversations and community (for both women and men) around extraordinary talent in art, global affairs, spirituality and fashion. 

There was David M. Kelly, who invented the Apple Mouse and also founded the design firm IDEO. And Tamara Mellon, the female business powerhouse who just happens to have started Jimmy Choo. There’s the incredible Avril Haines, former Deputy National Security Advisor, former Deputy Director of the CIA and the first woman to ever hold the position; former Vogue Editor Emily Holt, and many, many more. Yet what’s important to note is that these guests and moderators who participate in The Salon are not a who’s-who of fame or fortune.

These are people of substance who share in Vanessa’s goal to elevate the culture of our area on the Peninsula. They are people as concerned with teaching based on their experience as they are in perpetually learning more.

The recent increased visibility and brand recognition of The Salon begs the question: How will Vanessa harness and retain the intimacy that is part of what defines it? “I want to keep these very special occasions. Ideally, we will have an event only every six weeks or so at the most frequent. I believe there is value in that scarcity. And I also don’t always invite the same people. We are clearly not a volume business.”

 

Vanessa is still bringing people around to the idea, giving life to her vision and focusing on the quality of the offering itself. “We are working to create the intrinsic value of The Salon as well as a really valuable digital offering, before any sort of scaling,” Hood says. For now, Vanessa feels that The Salon is still in “startup mode.” Though you wouldn’t know it by the quality, legacy and caliber of the brands queuing up to work with her.

What would Vanessa say to people who claim that they don’t have time for the kind of connections and conversations that The Salon aims to cultivate? Especially since, ostensibly, the more interesting a person is, and therefore the more they would bring to a Salon event, the busier that person might be. Vanessa says that thoughtfulness and critical thinking need to be priorities.

“If you already go out to dinner, attending a Salon is a more elevated way to spend that same amount of time in your evening. I know that people don’t have a lot of time, so I would tell them the more limited your time, the more you should use it wisely,” says Hood.   

It’s a great point. It doesn’t make much sense for a couple to use their “date night” just to go out and eat. The best way to really get a respite from children’s playdates and chicken nuggets might be to attend a more cerebral, adult event to discuss creative endeavors and global affairs.

Speaking of more adult themes, there is a small subset of The Salon that Vanessa calls Spicy Torah. It welcomes the same 14 ladies who would come for dinner and conversation but Spicy Torah in particular is more intimate and off-the-record.

The reason for the name is that, contrary to popular belief, there are many spicy moments in the Torah. Hood adds as a reminder that there is no religious affiliation with The Salon. She just happens to be Jewish herself, so that comes through in her activities and discussions. 

 

The idea behind the Spicy Torah meetings is to discuss sex and relationships, then and now. Using pieces of literature (from the Torah, for example) to introduce content from a historical perspective, and then to lead a conversation bringing these issues into modern context, can be a really effective way to get answers. At a recent Spicy Torah, the group studied a passage wherein it is described that unwillingness to partake in sex with your spouse can be grounds for divorce. Vanessa goes on to explain that the Torah actually lists the frequency expected by occupation. If your husband is a merchant, perhaps the frequency is higher than that of a sailor. “The women were in hysterics…but then we got into this really important discussion of power struggles in relationships. The literature or quote just serves as a prompt.” Despite the size of these groups—both Spicy Torah and The Salon in general—it’s important to note that although Vanessa curates the crowd at The Salon events, it is not to be exclusive, but to optimize the experience.

A lot of people who have been to Spicy Torah have come back to tell Vanessa how it changed their perspective. Sex and sensuality is not only part of life—it is life and creates life, not just relationships. It’s essential to family and leads to spirituality. It’s not just a salacious thing, and when you see that sex is in one of the oldest texts in the world, it flips the script and the paradigm. Vanessa loves that Salon discussions can reframe these ancient topics in ways that are helpful—and often entertaining—to her guests.

One of the biggest benefits of The Salon might not even happen at the event itself. While she knows it is a lovely and stimulating event in the moment, Hood really wants the impact of the things you consume at The Salon to impact what you consume afterward and continue to inspire you long after the evening has ended. Like mental party favors: you can put those lessons in your mind and your proverbial toolbox to use them later. 

When hearing Tamara Mellon discuss surviving sexual assault at a recent Salon event, the room was captivated. It’s quite clear that any woman who heard her story, should she encounter difficulty thereafter, might think of Mellon’s strength and be empowered by it. This perfectly demonstrates Vanessa’s vision for The Salon: bringing in exceptional people who are willing to talk at a open and sometimes raw level.

Recently, Vanessa was dealing with a challenge of her own—there was something she just couldn’t figure out. To hearten herself, she sought some text by Rabbi Naomi Levy (a well-received Salon speaker) and voila, she figured out her problem.

Hood would not have known about Levy if it weren’t for discussions at The Salon and how they have influenced what Vanessa consumes intellectually and spiritually. The growth of The Salon is keeping Hood very busy these days, but she intends to foster the intimacy that allows it to be so special. That’s because Vanessa is a connector in the truest sense. She enjoys helping people and identifying cross-cultural associations that may be beneficial to everyone involved. And these “small world” moments seem to come back to her. When The Salon hosted Avril Haines, former Deputy Director at the CIA, for example, she was traveling with John Brennan (former CIA Director). He joined as a surprise guest that evening and spoke from the audience!

Gertrude Stein would be proud.

For more information, visit AttheSalon.com

personal accounts

EMILY HOLT

“Thanks to Vanessa’s generosity, accomplishments, and enterprise, I’ve been in the same room as John Brennan, former director of the CIA. Like, sitting feet away from him on the other sofa. There is no universe in which I’d ever imagined that would happen. And there is no one other than Vanessa who could bring such disparate worlds together.”

DAVID M. KELLEY

“Vanessa and her Salon were totally enjoyable for me as a host and speaker. Given our lives today I find that we have very few experiences like The Salon where one has the chance to make real, in-person, human connections. I could tell that the participants really enjoyed the intimacy and the resulting conversation.”

AVRIL HAINES

“The atmosphere that Vanessa creates at these events—or Salons—is nothing short of extraordinary. Vanessa brings together interesting people from very different walks of life, including writers, artists, politicians, teachers, business people and public servants, and challenges them to have a conversation that they would not ordinarily have—one that is meaningful but different. I was lucky enough to be part of igniting the conversation at one Salon, but the genius of Vanessa’s approach is that the people who attend have as much to add as those who are asked to speak, and they all bring a different, and sometimes provocative, perspective. Remarkable women like Vanessa have a long history, not just in the United States but around the world, of driving the intellectual life of communities through such gatherings, but I cannot think of a time when such discussions are needed more than they are today. I am extremely proud to have been a part of The Salon!”

TAMARA MELLON

“My business is based in the digital space, but there’s nothing quite like being able to sit down and talk with like-minded women face to face. I’m so grateful to my friend Vanessa for creating The Salon and bringing together a community of women who want to share, learn and support each other.”

GREG KUZIA-CARMEL

“It has truly been a pleasure getting to participate in, and support, Vanessa and The Salon through its evolution over the past two years. The Salon brings together a truly world-class and fascinating community to ruminate and reflect on a variety of different interests, as well as provide a much-needed medium for the social discourse of the new garde of Silicon Valley. While the spectrum of personalities is quite vast and diversified, the common denominator of this group is that they have impeccable taste!”

First thing’s first—Stanford is not a city. Actually, it’s a census-designated place, a federal term for a population center that doesn’t belong to a nearby town or city. The 8,180 acres residents think of as Stanford are mostly part of unincorporated Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, along with some property in Palo Alto, Woodside, Menlo Park and Portola Valley. So, if you’re at the Stanford Shopping Center or Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, you’re still in the city of Palo Alto. Although the university and the area around it have changed a lot in the 120 years since its founding, any place with “Stanford” at the end of its address is united by a common history.

Former California governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford first bought land on the Peninsula in 1876, in the form of a mansion on what’s now Sand Hill Road and a 650-acre ranch surrounding it. The ranch would come to be known as the Palo Alto Stock Farm, and it was the family’s summer home as well a place for Stanford to practice his hobby of raising horses, hence the name. The property would likely have remained a private residence if not for the death of Leland and Jane Stanford’s only child, Leland, Jr., in 1884. Determined to honor their son’s memory, the Stanfords established a trust and gave over control of their land on the Peninsula (which had grown to more than ten times the size of the original ranch) to a newly established school. Stanford’s trustees purchased the land for a town to support the school, and University Park, now Palo Alto, was established in 1887.

So while Stanford doesn’t have its own mayor or ZIP code, it’s certainly a community with its own unique feel. Just make sure you know exactly where you’re going if someone asks you to “meet me at Stanford”—those 8,000-plus acres give you a lot of room to get lost.

Every day we get up from our beds, dress ourselves and go out into the world looking for success. We are optimistic that way. But success is an illusory thing that is difficult to maintain. What even defines success? And are those who achieve their version of it happy? And if they are happy, how long does that happiness last before new success is needed to keep the happiness going?

By success, I mean the good things happening to us, around us and for us. And by failure I mean the opposite of that. It’s really not the literal term of failure, I suppose, but when you lose something that is truly important to you, it certainly feels like failure. Much failure is simply disappointment though we certainly talk about failure when it comes to marriages not working out or to once-promising startups going out of business.

As we go about our days seeking successes, the one thing that is certain is that we will generally not succeed as planned. Most of what we strive for in life is rather meaningless (think: hoping the Giants beat the Dodgers this weekend) and the failures are not traumatic. We deal with them. We move on. But then there are the big things in life: marriages, jobs, children, family, homes and health. And when we find failure in those endeavors—and we all do or will—it’s traumatic and can change the course of our lives and our personalities.

My mother left our family home and moved thousands of miles away to pursue her career when I was a 12-year-old kid, and that certainly felt like a failure to me. It took a while to overcome that loss but I’m sure that part of my personality will always carry a mark from that experience. I’m insecure and overly nostalgic for my childhood. I place too much emphasis on the memories of inanimate objects. But we all have failures in our past that have helped to determine who we are today.

But let me get to the point already. Last summer—having previously left Gentry magazine, which I had founded—I got a call from a top media broker in New York who had helped to broker a deal back in 2004 when we sold California Home & Design. He told me that Time Inc. was selling Sunset magazine and asked if I would be interested. He said some kind words about how they thought I would be an ideal owner-operator of the franchise. Time Inc., after being spun off from Time Warner and given a pile of debt, had badly neglected Sunset. They had no idea about what to do with the faltering publication and so they decided to sell.

That phone call started an extremely intense six-month period during which I came up with an extensive business plan of how to transform Sunset into a brand that could once again thrive and prosper. I totally reimagined Sunset into a fresh, meaningful and modern magazine; developed comprehensive financials to execute that plan; put together an executive team to take charge; and raised the money needed to buy the company.

I understood there to be approximately 20 suitors at the start. As the months went by and we had to supply Time Inc. with certain milestone accomplishments, the parties were eliminated there were only four of us left who met all their criteria. Raising the money was extremely difficult (try selling a traditional media company to Sand Hill Road), but I found what I needed, and the final presentation was submitted. Then I got the phone call from the broker who told me that Time Inc. was selling Sunset to a private equity group in L.A. because they could close the deal in a week, and I needed three. All came to light when Time Inc. itself was sold a month later to Meredith Corporation.

I was deeply disappointed; I had failed. And I walked in a stoop for a good month. But then I decided that I would turn that failure into success: I would take my carefully crafted plan for Sunset and create a fresh, exciting magazine for the Peninsula, the place I have lovingly called home for more than 30 years since coming here to go to Stanford Business School.

And so PUNCH magazine is born from the ashes of that doomed Sunset deal. Richard Branson once wrote that we should not be embarrassed by our failures but learn from them and start again. So that’s what I am doing with PUNCH, a magazine about how to live a life that is more engaging and authentic; about appreciating and finding the richness of where we live and how that understanding can enhance our lives and make them more fulfilling and happier. I hope that, in some small way, it adds to the success in your life.