San Clemente VI

Monday, December 3, 2007 - Packed up from Half Moon Bay and drove about 7 hours to San Clemente. As I rolled over a hill on I-5 and caught my first glimpse of the vast blue ocean and clear sky I got chills. The weather here is the same as when I was here in September. I headed straight to my trusty ole campsite, at the same spot, with the same view. I wished Ana were here to see it. After setting up camp, I went back to my trusty ole hole in the wall bar - Ole's Tavern. I saw Ray there and he remembered me from the last time I was in town. I chatted with Ray and after he left I ended up meeting a couple other guys I hadn't met before. Chris, a real estate investor who's originally from St. Louis, and Steve, a fantastically hilarious Italian that lives right on the beach. We talked about my travels and exchanged contact info before I left.

I called home and talked with my dad on my walk back to my car a few blocks away when I heard someone yelling my name.. I eventually looked back and saw Chris running down the street trying to let me know I forgot my backpack (with my laptop, chargers, theological journal, etc) back at the bar.

Today I headed to Starbucks and had about a 3 hour conversation with a guy I'd never met before - Henry. He lives in Newport, which he doesn't like too well, but comes to San Clemente periodically to feel better. This guy is an incredible story. He studied environmental science in college and upon graduating worked to basically better the environment. He worked his way up quite a bit within the government and basically was the authoritative decision maker for shutting down businesses that were corrupting the environment. He spoke of an area in Brasil where certain chemicals were being dropped into a main river, and families around the river were birthing children without spines, with 2 heads, extra arms, etc. One signature and he eradicated those businesses. He now owns a company that has been working on a certain software (which he wasn't at liberty to say) for 6 years - he's meeting in 2 weeks with Bill Gates who personally contacted his company, Steve Jobs after this, then was personally invited to the White House. He met with the owner of Halliburton a few weeks ago. Google and Yahoo are also interested in this product. However he attributes none of his success to himself - in fact, he says he never even put much effort into where he is now.. He feels his success has all been given to him from God. He showed me an excel spreadsheet he had of all employees involved with his company - probably about 20 pages worth - and he said not 1 person on that sheet was specifically sought out.. Rather, they were all chance meetings, and every last person there personally believes they were directed to Henry in a divine manner. He said their goal is to end starvation completely in 5 years; he said this isn't a personal ambition but rather something he's simply being directed to do. We exchanged info and he said he had a feeling we'd be working together at some point, in some fashion.

After a few hours he simply said "Well I think we're done here.. Meeting adjourned dude."