News - Silicon Valley Talk

Always A Trip For The Ages ... Disneyworld

Story by Rich Borell, CEO & Founder Recently, my wife and I decided to take a trip to Orlando, Florida, over the summer. We planned to spend a few days at each attraction: The Walt Disney World, Epcot Center, Universal Studios, Animal Kingdom, Disney Studios and Downtown Disney. We also included a day tour to the Kennedy Space Center. We planned our stay at the Waldorf Astoria for the week. Both the Waldorf and the Hilton Orlando are connected with ..

A Memorable Weekend Trip to Jamestown and Yosemite

By Rich Borell Hello Everyone, I want to share with you a recent long weekend getaway my wife and I took. This road trip took us to the Gold Country, where we enjoyed fascinating historic Jamestown and the most breathtaking views of Yosemite National Park. Our trip started out Friday around noon to beat the Bay Area getaway crowd. We had accommodations for Friday evening, just outside of Jamestown, at the Jackson Rancheria Hotel & Casino. We really wan..

What Happens in Las Vegas

By Rich Borell: Hello Everyone, When we think about weekend getaways from the Bay Area, we may consider Monterey, Santa Cruz, Napa, Lake Tahoe … Ever think about parking the car and flying to Vegas? That’s exactly what my wife and I did recently. Our last trip there was very memorable since we spent New Year’s Eve celebrating with hundreds of thousands of people on the Las Vegas strip. This time we thought how fun to have a long weekend getaway there. O..

Las Vegas: Food, Fun, Music and ?

Hello Everyone, I wanted to share my most recent three-day weekend getaway with you … it was our third trip to sin city Las Vegas this year. I’m not a big fan of 8 hour drives for a long-weekend getaway however my wife loves them. She has every right to … I do the driving and the car has Wi-Fi so she’s happy Googling the entire trip. Our trip was planned several months back to see two of our favorite comedians performing together at the Mirage … David Spa..

Mariah Carey #1 To Infinity Tour

Hello Everyone, On a recent business trip to Las Vegas, I decided this time to stay at Caesars Palace … I wanted to catch a show, however not much was going on this Tuesday night. While checking out Vegas.com ticket site I saw; “Performing all 18 of her timeless No. 1 hits together for the first time, Mariah Carey brings her Vegas-tailored residency to The Colosseum for an extravagant limited-time engagement.” Even though I’m not a big fan of Carey’s, I ..

Palm Springs – Fun In The Desert Sun!

By Rich Borell:Looking to relax? Perhaps a nice getaway and some sun, some fun, some R&R? How about a nice quiet desert resort? Sounded great to us. Just 100 miles east of Los Angeles was our recent long weekend getaway destination … Palm Springs. For this weekend destination we decided to do a road trip. Our journey started out early Friday morning with a quick cup for the road from Starbucks. Our first stop along the way was breakfast at the Harris Ranch..

Steve Martin & Martin Short An Evening You Will Forget The Rest Of Your Life With The Steep Canyon Rangers

A few years ago, my wife and I took a half day off to make the drive to Thunder Valley Resort Casino to see Grand Funk Railroad and Foreigner in concert. We had dinner reservations at their “High Steaks” restaurant. However, traffic was so bad; it took us over 5 hours to make the drive. Of course we had to cancel our dinner reservation and showed up 10 minutes prior to the concert. I said I’d never do that on a Friday again. As they say, never say neve..

Hollywood Vampires Raise The Dead Tour

Nearly forty years later, Alice Cooper revived the name Hollywood Vampires when he hooked up with Joe Perry and Johnny Depp. This warm July summer evening was the perfect setting at the Mountain Winery. Security was extremely tight … more so than any other time I’ve seen it. I imagine with Johnny Depp in the house it had to be.To all of those who appreciate classic rock, the Mountain Winery in Saratoga was certainly the place to be. This concert was high-..

Carrie Underwood The Storyteller Tour Stories In The Round

On Saturday September 10, Carrie Underwood brought her Storyteller Tour to the SAP Center in San Jose. We made the decision to go the day before. At the end of the concert, my wife and I both agreed that Carrie Underwood is one heck of a singer and one heck of a superstar. Underwood opened her show with her hit, “Renegade Runaway”, then moving into “Last Name” and Something’ Bad” followed by “Undo It.” “Good Girl” then her latest hit “Church Bells.” ..

From The Kremlin & KGB to Subtropical Beaches & Ballet

The World’s Largest Nation Hello Everyone, I wanted to share our recent trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg Russia. To sum it up … it was an incredible trip. The people are wonderful and the scenery breathtaking. This was the second time we’ve used European Destinations Travel Agency and they once again came through planning our entire trip. Since we were going to spend quite a bit of time flying we decided to go business class. Leaving from SFO our..

Europe’s Low Country Highlights

Story by Rich Borell, CEO & Founder Hello Everyone, I want to share with you my itinerary from my recent trip to Europe. It was a whirlwind trip traveling to Belgium, Luxembourg, Amsterdam along with Hamburg and Berlin Germany. We booked our trip 6 weeks in advance using European Destinations Travel Agency. They had a very good website to navigate hotel upgrades and get enough info to plan our trip. We also spoke with one of their senior travel agents ..

Scandinavian Splendor & Many Memorable Smiles

By Rich Borell: Greetings Everyone! I want to share with you our recent trip to Scandinavia that included stops in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. This trip actually came together just a few weeks before we left. We had tickets to fly into Copenhagen, then on to Finland. From that point, we were going to take the train and spend most of our time in Russia. We had our Russian Visa and were ready to go. Unfortunately, due to the most recent events, w..

The Magnificent Wild Wild West

By Rich Borell:Hello Everyone, Well, with summer here, my wife and I were giving some thought to our bucket list. Yes, we do have a joint one. It’s to visit 50 countries and 50 states. Happy to say, we’re doing a good job so far, as we’re over half way on both. So, we thought to ourselves, let’s add a few more states to our list. We mapped out a pretty cool trip that I want to share with you in case you desire to see some of this beautiful countryside of o..

Christmas in London … and Paris, too!

Forever Delightful by Rich Borell: Hello Everyone, Ever think about having a jolly holiday in London, England - one of the most beautiful cites during Christmas time? We have … we just did it … and we loved it! Our trip starts Saturday, December 20th. It’s going to be a pretty quick turnaround trip; just a week, which will also include a night in Paris. We’ll be flying out of the Norman Mineta San Jose International Airport. We had already upgraded..

Culture Club: Great 80’s Pop!

Hello Everyone,If you missed Boy George and his Culture Club band at the Mountain Winery this year, then I can honestly, say you missed one heck of a show. Drummer Jon Moss took to the stage to get the evening started at the Mountain Winery. Sitting behind a plexiglass wall on drums he got the crowd on their feet with the Club’s trademark beat of “Church of the Poison Mind” … I don’t think anyone in the venue sat down the entire evening. As the beat got ..

The Cure

The Cure Shoreline Amphitheatre May 26, 2016 It was a long time coming ... in May of this year one of my all-time favorite bands rolled into town ... The Cure. A pretty cool Punk Rock Group called Twilight Sad from Scotland opened for them. They put on a good set. Front man James Graham put on a heck of a performance. That night however was all about The Cure as they came on stage around 8:30 and didn’t finish until almost 11:30. Lead vocalist Robert S..