{"id":897,"date":"2005-05-19T20:23:37","date_gmt":"2005-05-20T04:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/05\/19\/life-in-silicon-valley\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:23:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:23:49","slug":"life-in-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/05\/19\/life-in-silicon-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Life In Silicon Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across a humorous “You Know You’re From Silicon Valley When…” by following a link from Bryn<\/a>. And since I’m not really from<\/em> here, I’m going to go off and find ones for Texas and New York. <\/p>\n

However, if you don’t live here and want to know about the experience, do read below. It accurately reflects my experience since moving here nine months ago.
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\nYou Know You’re From Silicon Valley When…<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nYour combined household income is $140,000 and you can’t afford shoes for the kids.<\/p>\n

You think anything slower than DSL is barbaric, but can’t get it in your neighborhood.<\/p>\n

You know what DSL stands for.<\/p>\n

You and your spouse almost come to blows deciding to hit Peet’s or Starbucks.<\/p>\n

You think that American food includes sushi, naan, pho, pesto and pad thai.<\/p>\n

You met your neighbors once.<\/p>\n

When asked about your commute you answer in time, not distance.<\/p>\n

Even though you work 80 hours per week on a computer, for relaxation you read your email and peruse eBay.<\/p>\n

You have worked at the same job for a year and people call you an ‘old-timer’.<\/p>\n

The T-shirts you value most were for products that never made it to market.<\/p>\n

You can name four different programming languages and you are not a programmer.<\/p>\n

You remember the names of the three closest cheap sushi joints, the location of all the Fry’s in the area and which companies your friends work for that are going public in the next year, but don’t know the name of the mayor.<\/p>\n

Standing in line at Starbucks you wonder why the employees don’t call a head hunter.<\/p>\n

You work 6 miles from your home and spend two hours a day commuting and $40 a week on gas.<\/p>\n

Winter is when your lawn grows too fast and summer is when it dies.<\/p>\n

The median price of a house is $500,000…for 1200 sq. ft. with no yard because it’s a town house<\/p>\n

You live on some of the richest farm land in the world but most of what you eat comes from South America on a boat.<\/p>\n

Your best friend lives across town but you hardly ever see each other because after your commute you’re too pooped to spend another hour driving to their home.<\/p>\n

You have a master’s degree in engineering but half the people in your department either didn’t go to college or have history degrees, except if you have a master’s from Stanford, in which case everyone in your department has a master’s degree from Stanford.<\/p>\n

You cringe when you see people in suits at your office, wondering if someone in management will make you stop wearing bunny slippers.<\/p>\n

You plan your vacation so that you don’t have to drive back from the airport in commute hours.<\/p>\n

You don’t go to sporting events unless you are given tickets by your employer.<\/p>\n

You could sell your home and live like a king in 99% of the rest of the world, but don’t because it would be difficult to move back. <\/p>\n

You have at least three computers at home.<\/p>\n

You own at least one domain on the Internet, probably several.<\/p>\n

You think it’s normal to see chip-design software or relational databases advertised on freeway billboards.<\/p>\n

You know that California isn’t just one big beach.<\/p>\n

You know that not everyone in California surfs.<\/p>\n

You know there’s lots of skiing in California.<\/p>\n

You know your rotating outage block number at home and at work, and listen for them whenever there are rolling blackouts.<\/p>\n

If someone refers to “SunnytogaDeAnzavale Road”, you laugh and know what they’re talking about.<\/p>\n

You take your out-of-town friends to see the techie gadgets at Fry’s. But you don’t let them buy anything.<\/p>\n

You know how to recognize re-sealed returned electronics at Fry’s.<\/p>\n

You don’t ask the staff any questions at Fry’s. You know they hire idiots and pass the savings on to you.<\/p>\n

You watch dot-com boomers go back to the states they came from, and the traffic gets better by the month. But you are home so you’re not moving.<\/p>\n

You own a Sport Utility Vehicle and have never taken it off-road. You wouldn’t know what to do if you tried. Same with all your friends.<\/p>\n

You don’t know how to drive in snow. You’re a road hazard when you visit the mountains.<\/p>\n

You think the horn and middle finger are essential driving tools.<\/p>\n

You think bicycles don’t belong on the road.<\/p>\n

You think any car ahead of you doesn’t belong on the road.<\/p>\n

Your out-of-state friends are impressed at how much money you make… until you tell them how much you pay for housing.<\/p>\n

You know that a “fixer-upper” home could cost a half-million dollars.<\/p>\n

You do a “California stop” at stop signs. And you think it’s only Californians who call them that.<\/p>\n

You aren’t bothered much by earthquakes because you’re ready for them. But the thought of tornadoes and hurricanes terrifies you.<\/p>\n

You clearly remember where you were when the Loma Prieta quake hit.<\/p>\n

You know several funny stories about swimming pools in the quake.<\/p>\n

You can’t recognize a thunderstorm without seeing lightning first.<\/p>\n

You cringe when a Southern Californian refers to highways like “the 101”. It’s just “101”. No “the”.<\/p>\n

You call low clouds “fog” even if they’re hundreds of feet off the ground.<\/p>\n

At least once you have gone to San Francisco for the day wearing shorts and a t-shirt because it was a warm clear day in San Jose. And you froze your little *@#!% off in the fog, drizzle and wind.<\/p>\n

You say you’re from Silicon Valley because no one knows where San Jose is. <\/p>\n

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Silicon Valley.
\n<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

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I came across a humorous “You Know You’re From Silicon Valley When…” by following a link from Bryn. And since I’m not really from here, I’m going to go off and find ones for Texas and New York. However, if you don’t live here and want to know about the experience, do read below. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10857,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/10857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}