I have been with Cisco for over 12 years and I am still drinking from the cool-aid.  Great company mixed with a great culture...hard to beat.  I started out as a Sales Account Manager before moving to the Collaboration Consultant position I am in now.  Been in this role for about 7 years.

At HQ, we have a wonderful Customer Experience Center (CXC) where we showcase our solutions from L2/L3 Networking, Datacenter, Network Security, Software as a Service (Cloud), Internet of Everything (IOT), Wireless, (etc.) ...and the sexiest technology solutions of them all: Unified Communications, which pertains Voice, Video, Collaboration...from software applications residing on your phones and tablets to large immersive room based systems.  Helping government agencies such as NASA communicate more effectively internally and externally. Truly exciting, rewarding, and impactful solutions.  Nice when you believe in what it is you are selling!

Close to the Cisco campus you can find a plethora of eateries and places to drink.  Only a few miles away is the new home of the San Francisco 49ers (American Football): Levi's Stadium.  Even though my team is the Tennessee Titans, I was thrilled that I was able to go to the opening game here last season.  Amazing stadium with state of the art facilities  and, of course, technology.  Inside this brand-new stadium sits a great restaurant and pub which is open year-round.    

Bourbon Steak & Pub is a great place to take colleagues, clients, friends and family, or just yourself.  Oftentimes when I am dining alone in San Jose I perch myself up on the bar and chow down on their Bison Nachos while sipping on one of their signature drinks. You actually have your choice of 2 different style restaurants...a classier dining style or a swanky sportsy pub.

The drink photographed above was very unique and very refreshing.  A take on a Gin Sour mixed with matcha green tea...sounds odd but trust me on this one.   

Looking for something completely different?  Rabbit's Foot Meadery is the ultimate place.  Mead, Cider, and Beer...oh my!  Please do yourself a favor and go here next time you are in the area!  

Now, let's venture on to the books...

This part of the country boasts some of the best used bookstores.  My favorite in San Francisco is Green Apple Books.  There are a couple of these stores, however I recommend the one in New Chinatown.  In San Jose my favorite is Recycle Bookstore...the one in Campbell is nice as well.    I always walk out of these stores with something great and something unique!

I have been to San Francisco and San Jose a total of 3 times this calendar year so  far...and this is what I brought home from these 2 bookstores...

Green Apple Books:
Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fe:   Canetti is a Bulgarian born writer who won the Noble Prize for Fiction in 1981.
​Richard Ford's Rock Springs (Signed!):  Short Story collection from the Pulitzer Prize winner.  Highly recommend his Frank Bascombe novels!
​Salman Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile (Signed!):   Absolutely love Rushdie, I collect all of his work!

Recycle Bookstore:
Donna Tartt's The Secret History:   Another Pulitzer Prize winning novelist.  This was her first book. 
Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children (Signed!):   Yet another Pulitzer Prize winner, for The Known World.
Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree:  Was very fortunate to find this one!  I collect all of his work.  One of the first novels I fell in love with was Fahrenheit 451.

Below are more photos of the signed books... 

Hotels:
​Hilton Santa Clara (San Jose area)
Parc 55 Hilton (San Francisco area)

Restaurants:
Tadu Ethiopian (San Francisco)
Gary Danko (San Francisco)
Pier 23 (San Francisco)

Cocktail Bars:
Haberdasher (San Jose)
Vesuvio - Jack Kerouac's old hangout! (San Francisco)
Tony Niks (San Francisco)

Bookstores:
​City Lights Bookstore (San Francisco)


What have I missed?  
What do you recommend?

Once again, thank you!

This will be the first part of several posts where we will take a walk through my home library.  One of the fun things about having a home library is being able to arrange it anyhow you want, in any order that make sense to your crazy literary obsessed mind.  

I have decided to arrange my library according to award winning categories by date awarded.  I collect all Pulitzer Prize Fiction, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, and Nobel Prize Fiction winners.  

After these award winners, you can then find my collection of signed novels (those that do not fit into any award categories, as well as authors I do not individually collect).  Next is an entire wall (thus far) dedicated to the authors I do collect: ranging from Paul Auster to John Updike, which I will go into detail in a later post.  On the opposite wall (albeit smaller section) you will find the series (trilogies, etc.) I collect, examples:  William S. Burroughs' The Nova Trilogy and The Red Night Trilogy. And finally, on a separate wall-and-a-half lives random fiction as well as nonfiction, to include philosophy, science, religion, history, and sports.  I do stray every once in awhile and read nonfiction.  

Now let's look at the Pulitzer Price Novels I do own... 

Photo above showcases all of the Pulitzer Prize Novels I own...all First Editions First Printings and several are signed.  

There have been a total of 89 Novels that have earned this prestigious award, from Ernest Poole's His Family (1918) to Viet Than Nguyen's The Sympathizer (2016).  Authors who have won multiple times:  Booth Tarkington (1919, 1922), William Faulkner (1955, 1963), and John Updike (1982, 1991).  Pretty good company!  

10 times the Pulitzer committee and judges decided not to name a winner for one reason or another.  The last time this happened was in 2012 when they did announce the finalists:  Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Karen Russell's Swamplandia, and David Foster Wallace's The Pale King.  To note, in these 'gap years' I collect all of the finalists if they were announced.  

Out of the 89 novels that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, I own a total of 68.  If you then count the finalists from the years no award was given I own a grand total of 77 Pulitzer Novels.  

Here a just a few of the signed ones...

I have read 19 of the Pulitzer Prize Fiction novels thus far.  Not pictured are The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill A Mockingbird, since I have not procured the First Printings yet ...    

His Family by Ernest Poole:   ****

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck:   ***

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee:   *****

The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron:   *****

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara:   *****

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole:   *****

Independence Day by Richard Ford:   ****

The Hours by Michael Cunningham:   ****

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri:   ****

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon:   *****

Empire Falls by Richard Russo:   *****
​
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:   ***
​
March by Geraldine  Brooks:   *****

The Road by Cormac McCarthy:   ****

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz:   *****

Tinkers by Paul Harding:   ***

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson:   *****

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson:   *****

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt:   ****
​​
My three favorites:  1) The Confessions of Nat Turner, 2) The Adventures of Kaviler and Clay, and 3) Empire Falls.

Which Pulitzer Prize novels have you read? 
Which ones do you recommend?

Once again thank you!

Business took me to Albuquerque, New Mexico earlier this month.  Energy IT Conference to be specific.  This conference is held in a different city each year; last year Seattle hosted and this year the rights went to "Duke City".

​If you have never visited Albuquerque, please do not shy away from this surprisingly hip city.  You can find great food (of course green chile!) and great drink (a plethora of microbreweries and hip coffeeshops), along with a lot of history (Native American and Telephones!).

After spending 3 days in Albuquerque business took me 5 hours south to Carlsbad, NM where I had a customer meeting.  After one night and a full productive day there I drove on to Odessa / Midland, Texas to visit some family who live in that area before embarking on the rest of the way home.  

A total of about 15 hours spent in my Hertz rental car...and this was my journey...

A must while in Albuquerque, NM is to eat green chile.  You can get green chile tacos, green chile enchiladas, green chili infused cocktails, green chile candy, green chili rubbed steak or chicken, green chile...I am starting to sound like Forest Gump, but you get the picture. Outside of green chili enchiladas, my recommendation is to try a green chili burger and the best place to have this experience is at Frontier Restaurant.  Frontier is located directly across from the University of New Mexico, so you can check out the campus while you are there.  
​
This is a very trendy area where you will find several microbreweries such as La Cumbre, Marble, and Tractor (delicious ciders).

Speaking of eating and drinking... 

Albuquerque possesses one of the coolest 'speakeasies'.  This speakeasy is a bar and a fabulous steak/seafood restaurant.  You need a password to obtain entry into Vernon's, even if you make a reservation via OpenTable. They go all out here with the ambiance and feel, hiring an actor who greets you upon entry.  

As you see from the first photo above, there are no signs for the restaurant/bar, a mere red light illuminating the dark pathway and door.  You knock (lightly please) on the door, which prompts this person who has time-hopped from the 1920's to slide back the Judas Hole to ask 'Yes what do you want?'.  You say 'Here for dinner (or drinks).'.  Whereupon he asks you for the password.  No fuddling here or you may not get in!.  

Once you enter it will feel you have time-hopped yourself back several decades.  This gentlemen will roughly (but kiddingly) go over the rules of the house and what happens to you if you don't follow said rules.  One of the rules: Don't speak to any famous people you may see while in the establishment.  May seem like a joke, but this one is real.  Vernon's offers a membership which gets you into the many hidden rooms and bars.  If there is not an event going on, you will get a grand tour (they love doing this).  On this tour they will show you the wall of members, where you will see Johnny Depp and Jerry Bruckheimer, along with several other famous names.  
​  
Don't miss out on this 'hidden' gem while you are in town! 

There are lots of really cool things to do in New Mexico, such as Hot Air Balloon Rides and Snow Skiing.  But if you are a nerd like me, you will really love the Telephone Museum of New Mexico. The exterior of this place doesn't do it justice (frankly neither does their website) but this museum is really cool and very nostalgic.  This multi-story museum houses phones from every generation including the first ever public phone dating back to the 1880's. Several switchboards on display...which was especially interesting to me given that my grandmother was a switchboard operator in the 1930s and 40s.  The museum is ran by a handful of sweet older ladies, all of whom worked for Big Bell in some capacity before it was broken up into smaller companies.  You will get the full history of the telephone along with some personal insights.  Not the typical museum you search out, but enriching all the same. 

And of course I was able to find a couple great bookstores in the area.  Downtown Books (pictured) and Page 1 Bookstore.  I will go over my bookstore journey at the end of this blog.

Next stop: Carlsbad, NM...       

Not going to lie, not a heck of a lot to do in Carlsbad, New Mexico.  But if you do find yourself in this here parts check out the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Some of the best caverns you will witness and they are celebrating their Centennial this year.  Great place for the family or a sole business traveller.   

The one night I was there I did find a very nice restaurant, Yellow Brix, where I enjoyed a Tractor Apple Cider to accompany my Chicken Cordon Bleu.

After my meeting, I drove across the state-line into my home state of Texas... 

Good ol' Odessa and Midland, Texas.  Home of Friday Night Lights (football) and Oil.  Not much else around here...but of course some family who I visited while in town.

It was a pristine day and I was able to get a wonderful photo of a great mural that sits in downtown Odessa.  Odessa and Midland are only about 20 minutes apart, yet subtly different.  Midland does have bigger buildings - a minute skyline - whereas Odessa is mostly flat and country-like.  We did enjoy a great salt-of-the-earth dinner at the historic The Barn Door, where they offer you a 5 pound block of cheese as an appetizer!  

After a short visit with some family and to get some shut-eye I embarked on the last leg of my trip back home... 

Now onto the books, of course:

I stopped at 4 independent used bookstores on this trip.  2 in the Albuquerque area, 1 in Odessa and 1 in Kerrville.   

Albuquerque, New Mexico 
Page 1 Bookstore:   Signed first printing paperback of Tobias Wolff's In the Garden of The North American Martyrs.  Very apropos given that May is Short Story Month.  
​Downtown Books:   First printing of The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy.  A wonderful play by the impeccable author of All The Pretty Horses.

Odessa, Texas
Ye Old Bookworm:   First printing of Tinsel by William Goldman, author of Marathon Man.  And a first printing of The Stallion by the incredible Harold Robbins...this is the sequel to The Betsy.  

Kerrville, Texas
Wolfmueller's books:   Wow what a bookstore!  I could have spent some real money here but I held back somehow.  Signed books by Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, David Foster Wallace, you name it they have it.  A beautiful store with amazing service.  This trip I managed to walk out of there with just one book:  First printing of More Gilt-Edged Bonds, an anthology of 3 James Bond books from the original Ian Fleming...Live and Let Die, Moonraker, and Diamond Are Forever.   

Hope you enjoyed re-living this trip of mine.  

Please let me know some of your recommendations for New Mexico or West Texas!

​Thank you!

April wound up being the month of the female author...for me anyway.  And I am so glad it turned out that way.  Jhumpa Lahiri and Geraldine Brooks are two of our greatest living novelists (female or male).  Thoroughly enjoyed my selections for April.  

April was a busy month.  Every week I was in a different location for business (Chicago, Houston, San Jose, and Denver).  I was also able to mix in a weekend getaway to Chicago with my wife and a short drivable vacation to Houston with the wife and kids to visit NASA. Even with all this busyness, I managed to partake in my favorite pastime...reading.  

What did you read in April?
What are you currently reading?

Don't forget to check out my Goodreads Page.