#bayarea

Tucked neatly between Yahoo! headquarters and Lockheed Martin is a row of unmarked warehouses. To the common passerby, it's nothing more than an office park surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns. But to those who are in on the secret, there's a place full of technology treasures waiting to be unearthed. It's called the Weird Stuff Warehouse, and for more than 27 years it's been providing the Bay Area with a surplus of old and new technology. It's not just a Goodwill for antiquated hardware, though—it's also a step back through time. Inside this warehouse, it's an era when RAID controllers were the size of a modern-day sound card and Windows 95 reigned supreme.

Tucked neatly between Yahoo! headquarters and Lockheed Martin is a row of unmarked warehouses. To the common passerby, it's nothing more than an office park surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns. But to those who are in on the secret, there's a place full of technology treasures waiting to be unearthed. It's called the Weird Stuff Warehouse, and for more than 27 years it's been providing the Bay Area with a surplus of old and new technology. It's not just a Goodwill for antiquated hardware, though—it's also a step back through time. Inside this warehouse, it's an era when RAID controllers were the size of a modern-day sound card and Windows 95 reigned supreme.

But "loss prevention" officers at the Target on Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino had never seen anyone take an interest in bar codes quite like Thomas Langenbach, a top Silicon Valley executive with the global software giant SAP. Prosecutors charged Monday that Langenbach used the tools of his trade -- computer codes and the Internet -- to steal a Santa's workshop worth of Lego toys. They say Langenbach brought his own bar code stickers to the store, used them to cover up the real ones, and then purchased his plastic prey at enormous discounts.

Mission Statement: The Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America's great pastimes.

Mission Statement: The Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America's great pastimes.

Huh. I wondered why I'd never heard of it before we lived out there, or seen it since. That's some tasty stuff. "It is sold as "Dutch crunch" in delis throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, but is little known in the United States outside that region."

"1. Live in San Francisco. 2. Jump in the water. 3. Eat the food .4. Get a bike 5. Make real friends 6. Be real yourself"

Managed to do quite a few of these things while I was out in California. "Summer is the time for family and friends to come and visit, so I took a little while and tried to think about things to do and places to eat."

"Microroasters of organic and shade grown coffee"

"More than a thousand wildfires — including a massive, stubborn blaze in the Big Sur region — were burning early Monday in Northern California and there was no relief in sight for weary firefighters. "

"Every sixth Saturday or so, dozens of young software developers flock to a small mansion somewhere in Silicon Valley to share technical tips, collaborate on the coding of pet projects, and knock back a few beers while debating the data-models underlying

"TechShop is a fully-equipped open-access workshop and creative environment that lets you drop in any time and work on your own projects at your own pace."