Back to School

I went back to the San Francisco Bay Area this week for press event and took some time out to visit my old school.

First I visited my old dorm, Branner Hall which looks pretty much like it did when I lived there 27 years ago. We used to put a kiddie pool on the 2nd floor balcony and have "hot tub" parties.


Then I went to see Lake Lagunita. Back in the fall of 1979 it was a picture of the lake in the Stanford admissions brochure (and my high school classmate friend Don Nagle) that convinced me to apply to a school 3,000 miles away from home in a part of the country I had never visited.


But today the lake is gone, a victim of too many years of drought.


But the old quad where I took so many classes


and Green library still remain as always.




It seems the further in time I travel from those years, the more I cherish them.

Summer Streets - Car Free Park Avenue

For the past three Saturdays New York City has been experimenting with limiting a 7 mile stretch of Park Avenue to only bike and pedestrian traffic. It's called Summer Streets.



Normally the city streets are a jungle of traffic, noise, and pollution.



But it's amazing how calm and wonderful the city feels when you take away motor traffic.



Without the motor traffic New York feels like a quiet small town, just with a bunch of tall buildings.

Taste of Tennis

It's my favorite time of year in New York city. Late August brings another U.S. Open tennis season. It started for me last night at the annual Taste of Tennis charity food event at the W hotel on Lexington Ave at 49th street.

The proceeds went to the New York Food Bank to fights hunger in the city. The event featured Food Network's Ingrid Hoffman cooking with 2003 US Open champ Andy Roddick.

I won the silent auction for an autographed Roger Federer tennis shoe. I'm not a big sports collectibles kinda guy, but I really love Federer.

and I met Nik Pace, runner up in cycle 5 of America's Next Top Model, my wife's favorite TV show.

Changing Times

Intriguing story in the New York Times today about the decline of Soul Food in Harlem.

Says:

Soul food is dying in Harlem and elsewhere in the city. The reasons can be chalked up to the vagaries of contemporary city life: Changing tastes; health consciousness; the fast-food culture; and an influx of wealthier young adults — including African-Americans, long a customer base for soul food restaurants — who are more comfortable eating Indian or Thai dishes.

At Georgetown University, a white student has been elected to lead the school's chapter of the NAACP.

From the article:

This fall, the sophomore has gained quite the reputation, and anyone who knows a little about her story—and many people on campus do—understands why.
A few highlights from the bio: Gunderson’s from a predominantly black working-class suburb of Detroit; she aspires to be a civil rights lawyer, either at the Southern Poverty Law Center or the NAACP; she never planned to be the group’s president this year, but someone nominated her, and she cared about the issues. She figured, Why not?
One last thing: Gunderson is white. Listen to her speak, and you might never know. Her vocal inflection is unmistakably “urban.”





Finally, a photo of me with the youngest members of our marketing team. Never has assembled a more talented, diverse, and inspiring group.





At least not since I was their age back in 1991 - see photo below.