Net Results: That old reliable indicator of Silicon Valley health, the Bread and Circuses Index, is on the up and up, suggesting that a recovery in the tech sector is now verifiably under way.
The what index? you ask. Why, the measurement that reveals people are again visiting the swisher Valley restaurants and ordering the serious bottles of vino, and the indications that a majority of companies are back throwing proper holiday parties, some of them renting out the whole restaurant.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, caviar and foie gras, champagne and truffles are back on plates, bookings are up by an average of 10-20 per cent over last year and, at one venerable Palo Alto eatery, some 80-100 bottles of wine are being sold daily at lunch.
Over at Manresa in Los Gatos, considered one of the best restaurants in the region, the chef-patron revealed that banquets are back in after hard times: "Two years ago, there wasn't a Silicon Valley company that had money for banquets."
Then there's the restaurateur in San Jose who recalls that during the bubble years of 1998-2000, he couldn't get enough bottles of 100-year-old, $3,500 (€2,640) port. Alas, no one ordered any at all last year. He's hopeful the first of 2004 will be uncorked any day now.
As for circuses, some 95 per cent of companies are throwing holiday parties this year, according to one of those employment agencies that measures such things.
Gone are the dreary in-office parties with a plastic cup of wine and some sad holiday fare - this year, companies are taking employees to restaurants and events, often buying out the whole restaurant for the evening. This can easily cost $15,000-$20,000, a spokeswoman told a Valley radio audience.
That fits with what the Valley restaurateurs were saying - holiday bookings are up 250 per cent in the case of one upmarket Palo Alto place.
However, not all tidings are of comfort and joy. Commercial properties are still lying empty - though rents are slowly rising again, even if they are still down over prices a year ago.
Most revealing is that research and development space is especially unwanted, with the typical Valley-style, one- to two-floor, low-slung R&D building having the highest vacancy rate of all commercial property types.
In Santa Clara County, the heart of the Valley, about a fifth of all R&D real estate lies vacant, according to a commercial estate agency that tracks the Bay Area market, BT Commercial Real Estate.
While it's hard to know exactly what that means - fewer new companies? less innovation? more outsourcing abroad? - it doesn't sound very healthy in this R&D-fuelled region. However, some Valley folks say that, in some cases, the buildings are just too old and tired and will probably end up being torn down and replaced with housing - a market that rarely stalls in one of the costliest housing markets in the world.
Just how costly? Well, the median-priced house in the northern end of the Valley is now a gasp-inducing $650,000, while the median price last month for a home in leafy Palo Alto was - are you sitting down? - $1,111,500. Yes, over a million dollars.
Even at today's flattering euro exchange rate, that puts the moaning of Irish homebuyers into perspective - if the Bay Area market can be said to have any perspective at all.
The situation is so bad - and the flight of teachers, firemen, and other median-income professionals out of the area to distant commuter zones, so severe - that four Valley cities have set up innovative programmes to help first-time buyers.
Under the programmes, qualified recipients can receive loans of up to $130,000, on which payments can be deferred, interest free, and for between five and 45 years. In many cases, the city itself is given part of the profit when the house is resold, which goes back into the same programme to help other home buyers.
For the programme, a "moderate income" is considered to be up to $114,000 for a family of four, or $175,000 for a family of eight (figures that would catapult the same families into the top tax-bracket in the Republic). If you are curious about the programme, you can read more at www.myhomegateway.com.
There are a few perks to living in the region, though (besides the weather, the food, and the proximity of the geekily cool Computer History Museum).
The city of Palo Alto has laid fibre-optic cable into some residential neighbourhoods, turning the infamous slow-lane of the "last mile" of telecoms connectivity that runs to individual homes into a racetrack.
And the city of Mountain View has just approved a contract to fit out the entire city with wireless internet coverage that will undercut both DSL and cable broadband offerings in cost, with free service provided at libraries and the city's main outdoor plaza.
The city of Santa Clara already has such a service to parts of the city, at $19.95 monthly.
Happily, a wireless roll-out is fast, taking a few months, not years, and no streets need to be dug up.
Now there's an idea for the Irish Budget pot - why not have State-sponsored wireless access for all?
