Imbibing the spirit of the Valley

From Tuesday, for the rest of the month of June, I will be based in San Francisco. I am hoping that by stretching the day, it will be business as usual for me in the UK (except for face to face meetings) while I meet with partners, entrepreneurs, VCs, Angels, bloggers and folks at Stanford.
Already, the openness and generosity of spirit of people I hardly know has been very encouraging. Rob Young at First Round Capital has offered me a place to camp; Scott Rafer, Lance Cottril and others have made a number of key introductions and the diary is filling up.
TAG does have a number of investments on the west coast and naturally visiting them and meeting with some of the great co-investors we have there will be enlightening.
The companies based on the West Coat (incl 2 in LA) are: Mashery, Lookery, Spotrunner, 60 Frames,OpenX and Academia.
In addition Zemanta and Dothomes have recently made strong forays into the markets there and are considering establishing presence.
There is much to read about the ecosystem that has been developed in the Valley and many other cities are attempting to emulate that special 'sauce' they apparently have. I figured a month may give me some insights.
[A really interesting book dealing with the PRE-web period which describes the way in which Silicon Valley took over from Route 128 - Boston is Regional Advantage by Annalee Saxenian]