I'm writing this final post from my parent's house (it barely feels like home anymore) in New Jersey. I got back a couple of hours ago, but it still hasn't quite set in that summer is practically over. Words are probably incapable of describing how awesome my summer was (hence why I take lots of pictures), but I'll try to recap anyway.
The remainder of my final week at work was uneventful. I got to help on some cool things, and had no trouble finishing up. The tubing trip was really the highlight of the week. We all had to wake up really early and get to the office around 7am (which is EXTREMELY early for a bunch of software engineers working at a startup that usually roll in around 10am). They had breakfast for us as usual, and then we had ~2 hours of a bus ride to the American River. We got to the river around 10:30am, and the 70-80 or so of us there promptly started adjusting to the cold water temperature.
At first, there was a fair amount of effort on our part to get down the river. The current wasn't too strong where we started, presumably to make it easier for people to get situated in their tubes. After that initial part, the river did the rest of the work. It was one of the most relaxing things I've probably ever done. I did not want to suffer the consequences of being in the sun for 5 hours straight, so my friends and I applies copious amounts of sunscreen before getting in the water, and then again at lunch.
People organized themselves in various flotillas that congregated around floating coolers with drinks and snacks. Our packed lunches floated down the river in giant tubes with the operations people alongside us. There were some tiny rapids along the way, and some people wound up swimming in the river if they weren't careful. Luckily, I never did. To be safe, though, I decided to leave my camera at the apartment, so sorry for the lack of pictures here.
Lunch was fantastic, even if it was packed. I had a pastrami and pepper-jack sandwich with fruit, chips, cookies, and lemonade. We stopped to eat right around the middle of the trip, which was good for everyone to reapply sunscreen. I was determined not to burn since I already did that once this summer and it was painful. Afterwards, we continued along the river, where I was even in front for a little bit.
Eventually we made it back to the busses. Everyone was exhausted and pretty much passed out on the bus. I had a nice surprise waiting for me, though - while tubing, I received a call from Apple about a potential job opportunity. After some followup, I have a phone interview scheduled for later this week. Hopefully all goes well; I'm already getting nervous about it.
Saturday I woke up early to finish packing. I was sad to go and say bye to all my friends. I knew time could fly by, but never this quickly. On the way to the airport, I turned in my badge, bike, and keys. We drove away, and I hope I'm able to make it back there some day in some capacity.
I wasn't flying straight home, though. My flight was going to Seattle where I was visiting a friend from school who had just visited me last weekend. He was interning at Microsoft for the summer, and was going to show me around. He picked me up at the airport that afternoon, and we headed straight for Seattle to do some exploring:
Heading to Pike's Place Market
Space Needle
The original Starbuck Coffee shop
Where we sat to eat delicious peroshkis for lunch
This bridge floats since the water is too deep to build columns
After Seattle, we headed to various surrounding towns covered in Microsoft buildings. We first went to Bellevue, which is actually where the building is that I interviewed at in February. It has a great view of the area, and Bellevue is a pretty nice place overall as well. We then went to a bunch of other buildings, including the one where Calvin works, and it was all amazing. The buildings are all arranged in "campuses," and that's what it really feels like. There are athletic fields, cafeterias, shops, giant parking garages, and so much more that make it feel like it could almost be a college campus:
On Sunday we took a tour of the Boeing factory in Kirkland. You're not allowed to even bring cell phones on the tour, so we left our cameras at home. We regretted it since you can take pictures from the parking lot. The tour was pretty cool, and we go to see the floors of the aircrafts actually being made. It was on a Sunday, though, so there weren't too many people working. The coolest thing we found out was that certain airplanes are manufactured on a "moving-line," which basically means they are constructed as the airplane moves throughout the building (think moving assembly line).
The weekend there was great, and Monday morning I was back at the airport for my 5 hours flight back east. I didn't realize right away that I did not have a confirmed seat - I forgot to check in online. Luckily I realized this before the gate agent showed up, and was the first person in line to ask for a seat. I was pretty scared for a while, so much so that I was too nervous to go find something to eat. The next flight leaving was 12 hours later, and I did not want to be on the red-eye. It all worked out, though, and I got to sit next to a woman flying to Mumbai to teach art at an international school for 2 years, and on my other side was a man who runs his own software company in Boston.
I watched a couple movies on my laptop, but was always eager to get off the plane. My dad met me at baggage claim where we waited for my luggage (for quite a while, actually). We finally made it to the car and drove back, seeing this on the way:
Mt. Rainier during takeoff from Seattle
I'm not really sure what I'll be doing this week. The main purpose for coming to NJ (at least in my mind) was to finally see my whole family, have some downtime before going back to school, take the motorcycle written test, dentist appointments, etc. I'm heading back to Boston on Saturday and going to Six Flags with a couple of my roommates from school.
I guess there isn't much left to say. I had an amazing summer, one that I will certainly remember fondly for the rest of my life. All I can do now is get ready for senior year, and hope that I'll end up somewhere I enjoy even half as much after graduation. There's plenty of work to do in the meantime, though. Thanks for listening - we know return you to your regularly scheduled internet time wasting activities.
I literally cannot believe I only have a couple days of work left. Friday is the company rafting trip, so I'm not counting that as a work day, even though most people might say it seems like I've been on vacation the entire summer anyway.
Last Friday, my friend Calvin from school came and visited. He is interning at Microsoft outside of Seattle for the summer, and since we're both on the west coast we figured it made sense to visit. To pick him up, I reserved a Zipcar with my new membership. This service allows you to rent cars for about $8/hour and they pay for gas. This was perfect for picking him up at the airport, especially since there is a location just across the street from my office. Most of the cars at hybrids (saves them on the gas costs), but that caused me some trouble since I couldn't tell the car was on at first. To make matters worse, the emergency brake was also enabled, and it took me forever to find it. Eventually, I figured everything out, and headed towards the Oakland airport.
After getting some leftover food at the office, we heading back to my apartment to sleep. We had plans to go to San Francisco on Saturday with another friend from school who I also work with. After we ate lunch, we hoped on the train and then took a bus to the north end of the peninsula. Ghiradelli Square was there, and we wandered around for a bit. Unfortunately, the line for the chocolate shop was ridiculously long, so we decided to head over to Mission Street and find some good food. What we didn't realize when we first got on the bus was that they give you a slip of paper that allows you to transfer busses within the city. They're supposed to only be good once, and expire at a certain time, but we were able to use it all day.
It took us a while to decide, but we ended up at an Indian restaurant where we split a bunch of appetizers and naan. The food was delicious, so much so that we had to refuse dessert (and I LOVE dessert). We walked off some of the food on the way to the bus that was going to take us back to the train station. We got really lucky and got on the train with just about a minute to spare before it left.
Back in Palo Alto, we went back to the office. Some of the employees moved into a new apartment together, and were having a house-warming party that night, and I needed to double check the address. While there, I saw some friends who were getting ready to drive over, and they gave us a lift. Thank goodness they did, since it was further away than I originally thought. We got there around 9pm, and there were already about 10-15 people there. More showed up as the night went on.
I introduced Calvin to a bunch of people there, and we played a card game called Resistance for while. It's like the game Mafia, but much more involved. There was also plenty to drink, and at one point, Calvin and I were having an in-depth discussion with one of the neighbors (a physics PhD) about string theory, dark/anti matter, supersonic split theory, and all sorts of cool things. Things like this can only happen in Silicon Valley, and I will really miss it when I'm gone.
On Sunday, we headed over to Stanford where Calvin knew a friend from high school. His friend is pre-med and doing genetics research over the summer, and plans to get his MD and PhD eventually. He took us around and showed us his apartment and a bunch of the academic buildings, which were surprisingly busy for a Sunday (although maybe not for a place like Stanford). Some of the buildings there are awesome, and the campus as a whole is gorgeous. If I decide to go to grad school, Stanford is definitely on the list.
We headed back to the office where I gave them the grand tour. They were in awe of everything there, and seemed most excited about the massage chair in the game room. We couldn't stay too long, since I had to drive Calvin to the airport for his flight. We'll actually be seeing each other again soon when I got up to visit him this weekend. So far, we've planned a tour of Boeing, in addition to me seeing all sorts of cool things at Microsoft.
I don't have any big plans for the rest of the week, other than figuring out how to get all my stuff home. I shipped a bunch of books home, and my laundry will get returned tomorrow. I'll be gone all day Friday on the rafting trip, and will pray that I don't get sunburned. My flight leaves around 12:30pm pacific time for Seattle, and I return to NJ on Monday night. This summer has probably been the greatest I've ever had, but I'm still looking forward to seeing my friends at school, although not really looking forward to more homework.
My roommates from school arrived in Palo Alto last Thursday late afternoon/early evening. They left Boston the Monday before, and somehow made perfect timing. I was working on a project that required me to be outside, and as I was walking back to the office, they spotted me. I didn't see them at first, though.
I brought them into the office and showed them around since I had some time. They seemed in awe of everything available to me, and said it seemed like I was on a paid vacation instead of working (it feels like that at times). They also really appreciated all the free food and drinks after eating nothing but fast food on the road for the last few days. They did have the foresight to pack a cooler with all sorts of drinks. Some of the pictures I saw made the trip seem fun - Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, etc. Still, now they have another couple of days to drive back, and I'm thankful for the fact that I'm flying back. That also saves them about half a days worth of travel as well.
On Thursday night, the company sponsored what they called a "Puzzle Hunt Challenge." Basically it was a scavenger hunt where you had to solve a puzzle to determine where the next clue/puzzle was located. There were only a couple people on my team, so my roommates joined in on the fun. That, and there was free pizza.
We started off okay in terms of the time it took to solve puzzles. The scoring was based on how long it took your team. Each puzzle has a par time, and if you beat the part time, you score points equal to the part time plus however many minutes you beat it by. If it takes you more than the par time, you get the par time as your score. You also had the option to receive clues for the puzzles, but there was an associated penalty. If you took clues, your score became 80% of the par, regardless of how much time it took you. You still had to solve the clue to find out where to go next, though.
They gave us disposable cameras to take pictures with, so if I have time, I'll go through those pictures and post some up here. The Vegas pictures below are probably a little more important, though.
One puzzle in particular that involved Jelly Beans was unbelievably difficult. It took us at least an hour to figure it out (the whole event went for about 5 hours or so). Even after taking the hints, it was not easy. I'm not supposed to explain the solution since they may be using the puzzles at other locations, possibly for recruiting I suppose. In the end, we didn't do too bad. Out of something like 18 teams, we probably came in 8th. I'll get the exact scores at some point.
Afterwards, we didn't waste any time going back to my apartment. We (especially my roommates) needed some sleep before the 9 hour drive to Las Vegas in the morning. We quickly figured out who was sleeping where, and luckily my roommates from the office were very accommodating.
We woke up around 9:30am to get breakfast at the office before leaving. We made every attempt to avoid traffic and get a head start because we had to pick up our 5th and final roommate at the Las Vegas airport later that night. The drive ended up being pretty uneventful. We made a couple stops for food and gas, and checked into our hotel just about an hour before we needed to get to the airport. We were only staying in the Hilton on Friday night since it was well priced and we all got free breakfast the next morning.
After we were all together, we decided to get a head start and go to some casinos off the strip since we would probably be there all day Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, the first place we went to was the worst possible choice we could have made. It's called the "Western" and I knew I wanted to leave there as soon as we went in. Not only did they not have a lot of tables going, but it was full of people throwing their lives away at slot machines. They were like mindless drones throwing money away, and it made me sick. We got out of there and went to another place down the street that we passed earlier that was MUCH better. It still had the despair of slot machine addicts, but it also have $3 blackjack which a few of us played. We also got some food since we realized we hadn't really eaten in a while.
One thing I didn't realize is that as you're gambling in the casino, the waitresses come around to take your drink orders. The casinos basically give you free drinks since they're probably making a ton from the money you're likely loosing. It makes sense, and one of my roommates had told me this would happen, but I was surprised nonetheless.
We weren't there too late (that being about 2am since we were kinda tired), and were eager to finally get some sleep after a long day of traveling. A couple of us got breakfast at the hotel the next morning while the others were still sleeping. It was a basic continental breakfast with cereal, juice, bagels, etc. One roommate needed to find a laundromat so we did that until we needed to check out. The nice thing was that our main hotel for the weekend, the Hard Rock Hotel (HRH), was just across the street. After checking out, we went a got lunch and checked into the HRH.
This is where the weekend really started to take a turn up. We had read online that it is very common to bribe the person at the hotel checking you in to try and get an upgrade. We already had a decent room and were getting a great deal on it, so we figured we might as welt try it. Splitting between 5 of us, we slipped a $20 bill in between the ID and credit card. Sure enough, we end up getting upgraded to a suite that I think is normally something like $350/night.
Yes, there's a flat-screen TV on each side of that divider
Once we settled in, we finally made it to the strip. Vegas is a place unlike anything I would have ever imagined. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I don't think any expectations I would have had would have prepared me for it. To me, it seemed like a giant party 24/7. Casinos and restaurants are open at all hours since people always want to gamble and eat. I have also never seen so many people over the age of 40 stumbling around drunk at the same time.
The Flamingo
The Venetian
The Bellagio
All the neon lights were there of course. Apparently, they are there to disorient you, although I'm not sure how that benefits anyone at all. On Saturday, we decided to get tickets to a David Copperfield show at the MGM Grand. We had seen a billboard, and figured it would be fun. We were almost late, but got there just as the lights went down. He did some amazing things, and some not-so-amazing things. He has also gotten REALLY old, at least compared to the pictures of his face that they put everywhere. I would have been disappointed in the show if we hadn't gotten half-priced tickets.
The nice thing about the hotels in Vegas is that most of them are also casinos. So when we decided we wanted to go back to the hotel, we could also just stay up and gamble since we would already be in the building we needed to go to in order to sleep. And we wouldn't have to worry about driving/getting a taxi either.
One night, we were at a craps table (I actually learned how it works, but didn't like it enough to bet any money). Usually when people roll the dice, they have to hit the back wall. One guy put about $80 on something and lost, but started having a hissy fit since the dice didn't hit the wall. He claimed he was cheated out of a couple thousand dollars the other night for the same thing. Eventually, the pit bosses gave him like $100 in chips to calm him down, which he just proceeded to lose anyway. Apparently, that just made him more upset. He placed $3000 cash on the table on a bet and lost it immediately. Overall, I think he lost around $6000. Talk about hemorrhaging money.
Monday morning, I got up to go to the airport. One of my roommates was flying back to Boston as well, so a third roommate dropped us off at the airport together. My flight was a couple hours after his, but I figured we could keep each other company, and I could start writing this post after he left (which I did). Ironically, we were leaving from the same exact gate so that was really convenient. And of course, there were plenty of slot machines at the airport, but I had absolutely no desire to play - I had lost enough money...
We were both flying JetBlue (which is why we were in the same terminal/gate). The airport had free wifi which helped pass the time as I went through pictures, among other things. At some point, my roommate's flight got delayed, but he finally made it out about a half hour before I did. I had an hour layover in Long Beach before finally getting to San Francisco, and each flight was less than an hour. I was really happy on the flights, having never flown JetBlue before. The have free DirectTV on all the flights with tons of channels. I got to watch SportsCenter, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, and others. It made the time fly by.
Eventually I got to SFO and didn't wait too long for a local bus that goes right back to Palo Alto for only $2. It dropped me off right near the office, so I headed in for some food, to check my email, and see who was around. I didn't stay for too long since I was exhausted and could use a good nights sleep in my own bed.
I was actually looking forward to going back to work. I realized on my way back that I only have 2 weeks left until I leave. Some interns are already leaving this week, and everyone is sad to see them/us go. On Tuesday night, we watched a terrible movie called "The Birdening" that was dubbed with Riff Trax where people basically make fun of the movie the whole time. It was hilarious - do NOT, however, go watch this movie. Without everyone making fun of it, I wouldn't be able to last more than 10 minutes.
Wednesday night, I went to a movie called "LOVE" produced by the band Angles & Airwaves. They spend about 5 years making a movie backed by their new, upcoming album "Love, Part 2." This was being showed for only 1 night in about 500 theaters across California. After the movie, they had a live, 3-song performance, a Q&A with the band, writer, and lead actor, and a premiere of their new music video. Overall, the experience was underwhelming. The movie was a little interesting - it's about an astronaut at the International Space Station who loses contact with mission control for 6 years. He slowly loses his mind, and the movie attempts to explore details regarding human connection and emotion, but wasn't all that impressive. The music video at the end was good, and the Q&A was interesting. There were only about 20 people in the theater altogether, which was a lot less than I was expecting.
Tonight (which is now Thursday 8/11) the company took all the interns out to dinner at a Brazilian BBQ restaurant across the street. This was their way of saying thank you to us before everyone leaves. Brazilian BBQ is great because they just keep bringing steak, and chicken, and lamb, and tons of stuff like a buffet. At the end, we got our intern shirts and a big thank you. I now have a company shirt I can where every day of the week.
This weekend, a friend from school is visiting, but I haven't been good about deciding what we're going to do. My guess is we'll go to San Francisco to try and find amazing food, possibly see the Golden Gate Bridge, etc. I'm going to visit him next weekend after my last week of work.
I could keep going on with things that happened to me recently, but I think it's about time I ended this post. I'll have more to say next week.
It is imperative that I get this post finished in the next 2 days 1 day, since I'm leaving for Las Vegas after that. On to the action!
Thursday night was intern/mentor trampoline dodgeball. Basically, people formed dodgeball teams of interns and their mentors to play against one another in a best of 3, double-elimination style tournament. The winner got bragging rights, which was EVERYTHING to us. Unfortunately, my mentor was out of town, so we put a picture of his face on a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber (no joke) and had him watch from the sidelines. There was even a foam pit you could do flips into, so we brought Bieber with us:
I wasn't joking
It wasn't long before the tournament started. We barely lost our first match, which sent us to the losers bracket. Luckily, I was able to salvage the situation. In game 2 of our second match, I was the only person left against a couple people on the other team. Somehow, I managed to come out alive so that we could win the third game and keep going. It wasn't enough, though, as our stamina wouldn't hold out and we lost for the final time. This was mostly due to the fact that they made matches a single game instead of best-of-2-out-of-3, but we had already played a decent amount, and I was content to each pizza and watch the other matches (which meant I also got to take pictures).
Lining up...
Dodgeball!
1-on-1
During the tournament, my friends and I were joking about how awesome of a combination this was. Imagine the genius that thought "Hey, let's take two ridiculously fun activities (trampolines and dodgeball), and combine them!" This is second to maybe only the microprocessor, with peanut butter & jelly at a close 3rd. In any event, it was a really fun night, and next time I'll be sure not to wear jeans.
That Thursday night, my mom finally landed in San Jose. At one point, we were going to try and meet that night, be she was tired from traveling/time difference and we didn't get back until around 9:30pm. So, we decided to wait until Friday instead. That day, I showed her around the office and all the cool things that happen. I think she was most amazed by the fact the people actually ride scooters around the office. We went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant that was really good.
On Saturday, we had tickets to see a semifinal match of the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at Stanford. We stopped by the office to grab lunch before walking over - it was only about a mile away so it didn't make sense to drive over. The singles match was supposed to start at 1pm, but when we got there right on time, we found it had been cancelled. Dominika Cibulkova was forced to withdraw due to an injury, and so Marion Bartoli would automatically qualify for the finals. The crazy part about this was that Bartoli also won her previous match since her opponent had to retire early as well. After we left, we heard one of the guys say that because she also got a first-round bye, she was guaranteed at least $75,000 for just 1 set of tennis at the point.
What they did instead was invite a couple of kids to play tennis with Bartoli. There was a little girl sitting with her family near us, and she ran up to play. She must have been so excited. There was another girl, a little older (maybe 12-13) that was actually pretty good. When she returned, the crowd was "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing," which was insane considering Marion Bartoli was on the other side of the court. I imagine that made her summer.
As a result, they moved the doubles tournament up to 1:30pm, and that was all we got to see. On the bright side, my mom is able to exchange the tickets for another pair to next year's tournament. So, in case I'm still out in Silicon Valley then, she'll have another excuse to visit and watch the tournament. The match we did see was really good. Maria Kirilenko and Victoria Azarenka won, and we actually happened to see them leaving when we went back to Stanford on Sunday.
Maria Kirilenko
Victoria Azarenka
I was really surprised how reluctant they were to sign autographs and take pictures. Maria claimed she was really late for her flight, and Victoria just looked flat-out upset. At the time, we weren't sure whether or not that had actually won the tournament, which might have explained that. But we looked it up and sure enough they had won.
Before heading Back to Stanford on Sunday, we stopped by the HP garage which was just a few blocks away from my apartment. The HP garage is where the first reliable electronic oscillator was invented by Hewlett and Packard. Most people probably don't realize it, but this piece of equipment is one of the most important in modern electronics. Pretty much anything that contains a microprocessor (which is practically everything) runs off of an oscillator. I could go on about it, but I'm sure you would just rather see the pictures:
The garage
After a quick stop there, we headed back to Stanford to explore a bit. We didn't have any particular destination(s) in mind, and just decided to wander. At some point, my mom pointed out where the engineering buildings are, and how they're all named after famous engineers (Hewlett, Packard, Gates, Allen). We decided to zigzag our way over there, just exploring as we went.
This made me realize how different some schools can feel. Stanford is a massive university that is practically it's own town in terms of size. Bicycles are the primary form of transportation, but there are also bus shuttles that run during the year. Also, the fact that it's in California gives it a completely different feel since there are so many wide, open spaces in between buildings. It also allows it to have 1 main campus for all the schools, whereas I'm using to graduate schools beings spread out due to space constraints. It was really awesome to walk around. I am definitely considering it for graduate school, although I'm sure it's one of the most competitive schools to get into, especially for something like computer science.
Bill Gates never went to Stanford - he just donated $6 million for the building
He's famous, studied what I study, and I built his invention!
It was great to have my mom visit and spend the weekend with her. She left on Sunday night to stay at a hotel near the airport for an early-morning flight on Monday. This week at work is awesome as always, but I'm really looking forward to the weekend. My roommates from Boston are planning to arrive around noon on Thursday. I'll be showing them the office and Palo Alto, and then they'll stay over on Thursday night. We'll drive out to Las Vegas on Friday morning, and then I'll fly back here on Monday afternoon. I'll have my camera with me as always.
