I had arranged to see some of my friends from my software days. We all met at La Bodegita del Medio, on California in Palo Alto. It’s a Cuban restaurant and named after the famed Havana restaurant that Hemingway frequented. The food is good and reminds me of South America. I brought Zeke along for the ride.

I had planned to go to Vin, Vino, Wine to while away a few hours as we waited for the appointed time at 6:30, knowing that some would be late and some would be early. It was closed. So, we had some wine at Cafe Pro Bono and also at this new Mediterranean place. The bread at the latter was pretty good. The wine list was also better then at Pro Bono. I had the quail. Zeke had had a schwarmer wrap earlier.

So, by the time we arrived at the restaurant and had our drinks in hand, a Cuba Libre for Zeke and a ti’punch for me, I wasn’t very hungry. CJ arrived first, naturally. And then Dan Z., who brought his wife, Julia and his baby Natasha, how wonderful it was to see them all. And then Dinger the Bruce aka The Dinger or Dinger. Finally, Jason got there. He had had some fires to fight at work.

We ordered empanadas, very good, and croquettes, not as good, for the table. Everyone ordered food but me and Jason. Zeke got the Tierra y mar. That used to be my favorite when it had the arepa. I wasn’t hungry. I just listened to everyone, soaking up the old Silicon Valley atmosphere. The talk was more of options and patents than databases or code or cloud computing, as always. When they found out that Zeke wanted to be a firemen, it turned out that many of my buddies had connections at different stations. Funny. I never knew that.

It was really great seeing everyone. One of the things that was hammered home was that everyone was now working for big companies, example, TiVo. (As I was writing this, I got another head hunter call. Looks like things are heating up here in S.V.) Bruce had his own hedge fund but basically, everyone else was not in a start up. The Silicon Valley landscape had changed. For the better? Who knows, but the next big company generator hadn’t hit. So, we were back to square one and the software industry has seen the end of an era. I felt out of place both in California and also in the high tech industry. I finally felt how Kim felt all those years when we lived in Silicon Valley. I guess you can’t go home. But you can visit and it was great seeing everyone.

I ended the night smoking a Cohiba Robusto with Jason, which he had graciously provided. It was the perfect end to the evening. Port, cigars and just hanging out by the pool. A light rain had started and that just added to the memories. Just like old times.

Some would say that the era had ended seven years ago. Some would say it ended four years ago. For me it ended yesterday night.

The next big thing is now chocolates. At least for me.