The people who founded the city of San Francisco must have been insane.

“Hey, where shall we start up a new city, then?”

“How about up here on these really steep, hard to build on hills? In an earthquake zone.”

“Hey, it’s really foggy up here too. Awesome idea. “

This is going to seem a bit off-topic for now but bear with me and I’m sure everything will mesh into a coherent whole eventually. In a few posts’ time. If I remember to write them.

I want to talk briefly about sustainability because it’s one of the motivations behind my “leave the car behind and live in the city” plans. Excuse the apparently irrelevant opening example.

I love San Pellegrino sparkling water. I know, every time I open a bottle of the stuff, that I’m essentially being suckered by slick marketing – chubby, friendly bottles with their sophisticated light blue labels. Neverthless, I have a fondness for the stuff for a couple of reasons.

There’s a flipside to my decision to move to SF, a sacrifice which I don’t absolutely have to make, but probably should.

That sacrifice is my car.

I fell in love with her, and for some reason coined the name “Betsie”, the instant I saw her on the lot almost exactly a week after I landed in San Francisco. I’ve always had a thing for Jeep Wranglers – they just look so effortlessly confident and yet somehow quaint… almost cute.

And given that I’d moved here to experience America, what better way than in an all-American car?

When I first moved to California last January I made a very conscious decision that I was going settle in Sunnyvale, at least for my first year here. To my friends who had experience of the Bay Area, this sounded like absolute madness. “You’re young!” they cried. “You need the social life of the city! Sunnyvale is so boring!”

But boring was exactly what I was looking for.