Well, it was inevitable- unless one or all of us were ready to embark on a truely ravenous journey of self- that we would be getting on a 747-400 back to Heathrow. Before we did however, we inhaled one last platter of BUCK’S finest and parted ways with our deluded landlady- doh! she made it into our reference…

As Jerry G once said, What a long strange trip it has been. To all the folks in Woodside: especially Big J and Little T, the waitresses with dreams, the kitchen staff with visas and the authors with j’s- muchas gracias amigos! To all the participants in our film- especially those that did not make it on camera, you know we could not have done it without you, especially E with a K.

Without delay, great hugs go out to our many hosts who made our journey that much easier: A Tom, T Byars and soon to be Mrs T Byars- OOPS! Ms K, Tocco, Chubb and of course Apollo’s Nest. Special shouts to Adolf Gasser, Rental Express and all the Dana St Caps that fueled Robbay until next week. Until next time, peace.

We’d made contact with Erik through our second meeting with Irish Dave. Erik works for Adobe and offered to help us try to secure a tour of Adobe’s headquarters in San Jose. That would have been cool as it was but several emails and a few phone calls later, and the stakes were raised. It might now be possible to get us an interview with John Warnock, Chairman and co-founder of Adobe!

We only had a day to go and so if the interview was take place, we’d have to move fast. After several more emails and a phone-call from John Warnock himself, we were in. Just over two hours later we’d arrived in Los Altos and we’re sat in John’s garden by his pool, camera rolling and our questions being answered. John was very generous with his time and told us some great stories too. A real pleasure.

Next it was back on the road to San Jose, to take that Adobe tour…

There we were, outside Apple HQ. I was sitting in my wheelchair, on the step in front of the placard that reads ’1 Infinite Loop’, being filmed for an ident for our movie. After a short while we’d attracted the attention of some visiting Apple fans, all armed with Digital cameras. ‘Who is that?’ a lady asked. It’s ‘Steve’, my producer replied. ‘The Steve?’ the lady inquired. My producer nodded in agreement. By this point she had got quite excited: ‘Can you take a picture of me and Steve???? Sure, no problem.

As I was having my picture taken with this lady, she started telling me that she’d read all of my books. Books? I thought, I’ve written a couple of chapters but never a book. She then went on to say that while she had enjoyed my recent book she still didn’t fully understand ‘my’ explanation of time. A light went on in my head; I was supposed to be Stephen Hawking. My producer and cameraman looked on with smiles, as I considered how long I could keep this up? Surely it was too late to tell the truth?

Then she dropped the bomb. ‘In just one sentence, what is time?’

I had to think fast… I???d never even read any Hawking, let alone understood it.

‘We are on a tight schedule and I don’t have the time to explain time’ I replied.

She looked at me disappointingly and I mumbled something about publishing my response on the net someday. Only at that point, after another round of photographs, did my cameraman and producer rescue me.

We finally got a day off today (happy now Rob?). We slept in big time and then drove to a shopping mall. This was a bit boring, so we decided to move on to our nearest ‘Fry’s‘. For those that don’t know, Fry’s used to be the major computer / electronic parts / PC retailer in the area. Many a young Silicon Valley resident would have relied on Fry’s as their source for parts and a chance to lust after technology they couldn’t afford.

These days Fry’s still sells PC stuff but also things like washing machines, and televisions etc. We bought iPods and other cool stuff, and we looked at technology we couldn’t afford. Some things never change.

After an ill advised travel decision, we literally circled Boulder Creek getting to Brenda Laurel’s mountain retreat. Upon arrival, there was such a warm welcome that we felt as if we had been there before. Well, in a way we had, as yesterday we had dinner with Al and Sun. The ranch featured a May Pole and an aboriginal design painted on the driveway- this was a sign for the interview to come, as the topics ranged from pagean worship, Star Trek, miniature robotic recording devices, vitual reality and her early days as an utopian entrepreneur.

Then her husband Rob joined us for some iced green tea on their sun drenched porch.