Jerry Brown, ex-governor of California and current mayor of Oakland, was the last speaker. A surprise guest. He was good. Oakland is growing. Our company is growing. Soon there will be people who visit downtown Oakland on the weekends and the local Starbucks, located across the street in the City Center, will one day remain open for business to sell them coffee and clever Starbucks knick knacks they can bring home to their children: "I walked alone in Oakland on a Saturday afternoon and survived to see my children again." The mayor mentioned that we had one fewer murder in Oakland than they had in San Francisco last year. Safer than San Francisco! He didn't mention San Francisco has twice Oakland's population and that the murder rate then worked out to be about twice San Francisco's, but who was counting? I like Brown. Always have. Voted for him.

Two glasses of wine after the meeting, a quick drive home, and I'm feeling just fine, thank you. Two small glasses of wine, but enough for a buzz. The company, now making millions, can afford wine and bottled water after their quarterly meetings, can afford to have a company picnic again during the summers, it was announced. These are good things. I have never been to a company picnic since they'd always seemed more domestic than I'd normally feel comfortable with, wives and kids and hot dogs out at some suburban park somewhere, and I seem to recall that contracters weren't allowed to attend during my first few years as a contractor with the company. Now that I'm an employee I'm out of practice. I have somehow never managed to make a company Christmas party, either, come to think of it, although contractors were allowed to attend the Christmas parties. Perhaps I should find another subject.