My eyes went blank, and I stared off, and the music started. It was raining, and the sun was shining at the same time, and there were these big bay windows, and there was the blue in the sky, and the sun on the trees, and it was drizzling.
The best programmers and internet entrepreneurs are in the Bay Area. Don't kid yourself about that, not even for a second.
Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland, we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day.
We will never win this war until we understand the effect that Guantanamo Bay has had on the overall war effort. And we'll never get the support of the American people if we can't prove to them that these folks that we're dealing with are not common criminals. We're going to keep them - keep you safe from them.
Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.
I'm really into California art from the '60s. I like a lot of Bay Area artists, like Nathan Oliveira and Bruce Conner.
There isn't a more important issue in the world than global warming. Even the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs crisis were a notional threat.
I may have grown cynical from long service, but this is a tendency I do not like, and I sometimes think I'd rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years and listen to it.
They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.
As I detail in my new book: 'Hard Measures, How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,' there are many myths surrounding the detention of a relatively small number of top terrorists at CIA-run 'black sites' from 2002 until they were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.