A Phoenix

San Francisco is one of the greatest cities of the last hundred years. It sparked the Summer of Love, helped launch a global music movement, and became the definitive epicenter of modern technology.

I grew up 69 miles south in Morgan Hill, back when it was mostly farmers and ranchers, but I spent plenty of time as a teenager hanging out in the Haight. As a kid, outside of Santa Cruz and the redwoods, my favorite places were the Exploratorium and Alcatraz.

San Francisco still leads the world in innovation, and today it sits at the center of the AI supercycle. I live in San Diego now, but I’m in San Francisco a few times a month since OPAQUE’s largest office is on New Montgomery (just down from House of Shields — and old haunt of mine in past tech super cycles) in the city and many customer and partner conversations happen in the Bay Area.

Like the phoenix, San Francisco has a habit of burning down and rebuilding itself. After the 1906 earthquake—and again after the pandemic—the city was declared finished, only to reemerge around the next technological inflection point. Today that rebirth is happening through AI, with talent, capital, and experimentation reconverging as platforms reset. The metaphor works not because it’s poetic, but because SF’s history shows renewal follows real innovation. Often I’ll hear people bemoan the destruction of SF during the pandemic. Don’t count on it. This Phoenix always rises again, renewed, different, but always beautiful.

My rituals: Run along the Embarcadero and back through China town. Zevi for lunch, Working Girls across the street from OPAQUE for coffee and a bagel (hi Max), and Fang for working dinners.

Some cities shape who you become (as is the case for me with SF); San Francisco keeps shaping what comes next, globally.

Trip Reflections from the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates creates quite an impression. The country is anchored in a rich and long history that stretches from pre-history to ancient desert trade routes to coastal pearl-diving villages, yet it’s moving at a pace that makes western ambition seem tired. It feels decades ahead of the United States. Dubai’s kinetic and surreal skyline is a striking contrast with the historic old town. Abu Dhabi has a kind of cultural gravity and an incredible mosque. The quiet vastness of the Sharjah desert…I love the desert. The visuals were literally awesome and the people were warm, welcoming, and high-integrity.

I was there last July and I’ve been meaning to write about it. It was in the 90s F and humid. I still managed a 3-4 mile jog every morning. It was the equivalent of a Florida Summer, but it was unusually cool for that time of year.

As always, some brief history—because I love it. Human settlement on the Arabian Peninsula dates back over 100,000 years, with archaeological sites in the UAE showing early stone-tool industries, Bronze Age metallurgy, and extensive pre-Islamic trade networks linking Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Indus Valley. Coastal communities relied on fishing and pearl diving for centuries, while inland tribes moved with the seasons across desert oases. By the 16th century, European and regional powers competed for influence along the Gulf’s strategic maritime corridor, but the interior remained defined by tribal alliances, trade, and pilgrimage routes that shaped the region’s cultural continuity well into the modern era.

Some more interesting facts :

The UAE hosts one of the world’s oldest known pearling cultures; divers once descended 20-30 meters on a single breath, and many coastal towns still map to historic pearling fleets.
The traditional wind tower (barjeel) is an indigenous form of natural air-conditioning; entire neighborhoods in old Dubai were engineered around passive cooling centuries before electricity.
The Arabian oryx—once extinct in the wild—was reintroduced through UAE-led conservation and is now one of the world’s most successful large-mammal recovery efforts.
Sharjah’s Mleiha archaeological zone contains a 130,000-year human migration trail, one of the oldest documented routes of Homo sapiens out of Africa.
The date palm, a cultural and agricultural backbone of the Emirates, has supported food security for over 7,000 years; today the UAE maintains global gene banks to preserve lineage diversity.
Dubai Creek is a natural inlet that enabled centuries of Indian Ocean trade; its shape and depth dictated the city’s earliest merchant settlements long before oil or skyscrapers.
The Empty Quarter (Rub’ al Khali), which covers part of the UAE, contains dune systems that migrate up to 30 meters a year—an environment that shaped Bedouin navigation, camel-breeding, and oral poetry traditions.
The falconry heritage is so integral that UAE falcons carry their own passports for international travel; it reflects a conservation tradition that brought the once-endangered saker falcon population back from collapse.

I was thrilled to experience this place firsthand. Awesome is the best word to describe it. I look forward to returning to explore more.

Avignon: A Brief, Photogenic History

Avignon sits on a limestone outcrop above the Rhône, a strategic perch that’s drawn humans since prehistoric settlements ringed the riverbanks. The Romans formalized it in the 1st century BCE as Avenio, a fortified trading post tied into the Via Agrippa road network. The bones of that layout still shape the old city’s narrow lanes—perfect for close-up architectural shots of stone textures and surviving Roman foundations.

Everything changed in the 14th century, when the papacy relocated from Rome to Avignon—first under Pope Clement V, then firmly established by John XXII. For nearly 70 years, Avignon was the administrative and spiritual capital of Western Christianity. This is the era that produced the massive Palais des Papes, Europe’s largest Gothic fortress-palace.

Across the river, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon emerged as the papacy’s defensive counterweight. When the popes settled in Avignon, they needed control of both banks of the Rhône to secure trade, movement, and military access. The French crown—keen to assert influence without directly challenging papal authority—established Villeneuve as a royal town. To anchor that power and guard the river crossing, the French built the formidable Fort Saint-André atop Mount Andaon.

The fort’s purpose was twofold. Militarily, it dominated the Rhône valley and kept a watchful eye on Avignon itself. Politically, it was a reminder that even while the papacy ruled the city, France controlled the high ground. Its massive walls and twin towers still photograph beautifully: clean sight lines, panoramic overlooks of the Palais des Papes, and vantage points that show how the Rhône once defined borders, loyalties, and strategies.

Taken together, Avignon and Villeneuve tell a single story—one city holding spiritual power, the other holding the heights—shaping a medieval landscape that still reads clearly through a modern lens.

How do the pilots look?

I boarded JetBlue flight 186 from San Diego to New York last night. As I boarded the line of passengers stopped me next to a female flight attendant. She started the usual nonsense small talk with me. In an effort to be polite I asked her: “How do the pilots look? Do they look sober and well rested?” The line of passengers lurched forward at that moment and I moved down the aisle without hearing her response. A couple of minutes later I was approached at my seat by a large athletic male flight attendant named Paul.

Paul informed me I was likely to be removed from the plane and someone would be coming to speak with me. I was, of course, confused. He clarified for me that in the opinion of the flight crew my innocuous attempt at reciprocating small talk with the female crew member was, in fact, the same as announcing to the passengers on the plane that a bomb was on the plane. I politely disagreed. Paul insisted it was the very same. I told Paul that I travel very often, but usually on Southwest. I told him that perhaps I’m just more accustomed to the casual nature of Southwest. He assured me that this is not a matter of differing airline policies and that indeed my small talk was a very serious matter with very serious repercussions. I told Paul I respected his opinion, but disagreed that what I said was at all offensive or anything similar to what he was suggesting (I didn’t want to say bomb aloud as he had). Further, if they had a problem with me on the plane I would prefer they quickly make up there minds because I would rather go home to my family than be on the flight if they had a problem with me. Paul walked away after reiterating someone would be coming to speak with me.

By now I noticed the entire flight crew was glaring at me with venom. Uncomfortable. Many minutes later Paul returned and insisted that I leave my seat and follow him toward the front of the plane. Honestly, I was scared. I thought there was a good chance I was about to be zip cuffed and drug off the plane. Did I mention Paul was big? I complied with Paul’s demand and left my laptop and things at my seat. When I got to the front of the plane I was told to exit the plane. There was a very nice fellow named Pak that awaited me on the jetway. He asked me: “were you serious about what you said?” I told him what I had said: “How do the pilots look? Do they look sober and well rested?” and told him there was absolutely no way anyone could have thought I was accusing the pilots of sleep deprivation or insobriety.

Pak was very polite and I feel like he too seemed to think the whole incident ridiculous. He told me I could re-board the plane. I told him that if there was going to be a problem with me on the plane I would prefer to just leave now and I would simply never fly JetBlue again. He reassured me there would be no problem. I asked that he board first and speak with the flight attendants that were still in a huddle at the front of the plane. He insisted I go first for some odd reason. I boarded and reassured the two female attendants Storm and Angela (I think) that I was just making small talk. Again, they were not very nice. In an attempt to make light of the situation I stated: “I hope this doesn’t negatively impact my ability to be served in flight drinks.”

When we reached altitude and in-flight service began I was still feeling more than a little frazzled. Big Paul asked me for my drink order and I asked for a vodka cranberry. After serving everyone but me Paul finally brought me my beverage. Odd, I thought, but I thanked him politely. However, later when I ordered my second Paul spoke loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear that I was not to be served anything at all, but he had made an exception for the first.

Uhh…throughout this entire experience I was nothing but articulate and polite. Of course, the twenty people within earshot of Paul didn’t know this. As far as they knew I was a belligerent drunk. Awkward. I told Paul that I had told him and Pak on the ground that if they had a problem with me I would rather not fly with them and I wish he would have been upfront about this on the ground. “That is very strange. I have never had a passenger that wanted to get off a plane just because he couldn’t drink” responded Paul, again loudly. I told him it wasn’t about not being able to drink, but rather being treated poorly.

Thanks JetBlue for the horrible experience. You are now on my blacklist with Delta and Northwest.

Update: my connecting JetBlue flight is now delayed by more than hour.

Update: my connecting JetBlue flight was delayed by five hours.