by Daniel G. Shafer, Associate Editor

The Monterey Peninsula isn’t the kind of place you “happen through” on your way to somewhere else. Nope, you have to be trying to get here. Being as it is on the coast and finding itself nestled in among hills and water, it is a place unto itself. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who would claim to be living here accidentally.

Except for myself.
I started out my most recent pre-Monterey life as a happy resident of Silicon Valley. My lovely wife, singer-songwriter Carolyn, and I were sailing merrily along, her in semi-retirement, me engaged in my sixth high-tech startup, when Monterey beckoned.

At first, we would come down one weekend each month to help a friend who was trying to figure out how to turn a brilliant service he was providing into a product that he could offer to a broader audience. We’d leave Friday night, sometimes even Saturday morning if things in the Bay Area were particularly hectic, and buzz down to Monterey. We’d get a hotel room, spend Saturday and Sunday working with our friend, then head home Sunday evening in time for a good start on Monday.

But we discovered we really enjoyed our time in Monterey. Soon, we were leaving the Bay Area on Friday afternoon and going home Monday morning. Then we were heading south on Highway 101 on Thursday evenings and staying through Monday evening or even Tuesday morning. Our hotel rooms became so expensive, we rented a small condo in Del Rey Oaks.

One weekend, as we were on the way back to our home in Belmont, Carolyn turned to me and said, “I think we live in Monterey now.” She was right! Somewhere along the way, we had gradually and quite unintentionally slipped into the comfortable slippers of being Monterey residents who commuted three days a week to the Bay Area for work.

Within a short time, we put an end to the charade. Helped along by the Dot Bomb of early 2001, we packed up and moved down here full-time. And we couldn’t be happier. We’ve found the place we want to live until we move on to wherever the Spirit takes us next.

I remember with fond clarity the day I realized I had successfully made the transition from Type A Silicon Valley entrepreneur to Monterey Peninsula denizen. I was driving down Alvarado Street in Old Monterey when the car two cars in front of me stopped dead in the lane. A pedestrian came over to the car and began an earnest conversation with the driver. But here’s the weird part. The car in front of me didn’t blast his horn! “My gosh,” I thought, “what is wrong with these people?” And then it hit me. The laid-back lifestyle of Monterey was in such stark contrast to that of hard-charging Silicon Valley that it was almost a shock to my system.

The funny thing? I didn’t feel tempted to blow my horn, either! Anyone who knew me longer than a few years before I moved here will tell you that was clearly out of character!

As the following weeks passed, I found myself noticing more and more frequently the many ways the Peninsula is different from the Valley… and, in fact, from any of the other dozen or so places I’ve lived in my long and enjoyable life. The lack of weather extremes is a real joy, even though I’ve always been a hot-weather-and-sun kind of guy. Carolyn really loves the cooler, damper, sometimes foggy weather here; I figure it’s her turn to have what she wants and, strangely enough, I’m coming to enjoy it myself.

In coming months, as the Associate Editor of 65° Magazine and the guy who regularly holds down this back page, I’ll continue to share my feelings for this, my newly adopted home. Meanwhile, if you’re out and about and you spot me (as you can see from my mug shot, I’m hard to miss), feel free to drop over and share your own favorite stories about the Peninsula and why it’s such a great place to live.

BY THE WAY… You may be wondering why I named this column "By the Way." I unabashedly stole that line from one of my favorite Hollywood people, Alan Alda. At his daughter’s graduation many years ago, he gave a talk in which he made the point that a lot of the really important stuff we say to one another is preceded by that phrase. He closed that speech by saying, "By the way, I love you," to his daughter.

By the way, this is going to be a lot of fun!°

Dan Shafer
Associate Editor
dan@65mag.com