When I first moved to California, I was struck by the serenity of Silicon Valley. It was shortly after the first Gulf War. Just a few months earlier we spent our nights in a make-shift shelter inside our apartment in Israel. The air-raid sirens went off almost every night forcing us to wake up our small kids and quickly fit gas masks over their heads. We all cowered and waited to hear the Iraqi scud missile explode near by.  In comparison, California seemed so quite – almost too quite. Read the rest of this entry »