Some Small Random Things

Since my last post, I have a couple small things that I've wanted to write, so I figure I might as well before I forget them.

My mom asked me what books I was reading at the park, so more of you may be interested as well. Most of what I'm reading are books that the company gave me that help my understanding of certain things. Lots of books on the Java programming language, some things about concurrent software design and test-driven design, etc. Separate from those is a book I picked up on the advice from a friend - Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food". I've only read the introduction so far, but basically he goes through and says how our culture and economy (among many things) influences what we eat, but not always in a good way. He boils things down to three basic rules: (1) Eat food, (2) Not too much, (3) Mostly plants. For the first rule, he makes sure to distinguish between food and edible food-like substances like Oreos (which is a MASSIVE detriment to my sweet tooth). The second rule is about trying to eat smaller portions, especially later in the day (i.e. dinner) after which most people are not very active and therefore don't need all the energy. The last rule he hasn't given in much detail yet (again, only the intro so far), but I'm interested to read about it all. I'll be sure to give my thoughts here as well.

As a followup to my previous post, this is just in case you thought I was kidding:

This is what happens when the build breaks - sword fighting on office chairs.

Work today was pretty good. I got a huge list of things to finish within the next week or so, and they actually have deadlines attached to them. It feels good to have some things to really focus in on, so that I show up knowing exactly what I'll be doing. I'm still looking forward to all the work since I'm finally getting into really substantial things (even some coding and scripting!) One very cool thing that happened was that I saw our CEO today. He was just walking through the kitchen during lunch, presumably getting food like everyone else. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a wind breaker. I love that I work at a place where this is not only acceptable, but the norm.

After work, I decided it was time to finally try the manual razor I bought a couple weeks ago. I showered, applied the shaving cream, and dove right in. It was a strange feeling at first, having the skin pulled by the razor. I'm so used to the electric where the hair basically just falls right off. Eventually, I got the hang of it, and was very satisfied with the results. It didn't seem as close of a shave, but that might be because I was being cautious and not pressing down too hard. That also means I made it out alive with no cuts, which would have been a disaster otherwise given my ability to handle things like that. One thing this has is that it feels more comfortable than the electric razor, although that could have been because of the shaving cream and aftershave.

Unfortunately, it may rain tomorrow. I know it's not much to complain about considering every day here prior has practically been perfect. It will just be weird considering the office building doesn't actually have a roof over some of the lounges on the bottom floor. I'll also have to prepare for weather in terms of what I wear, luckily I'm used to crazy weather in New England so I'll be fine. Luckily, tomorrow is also Tuesday, and Tuesday... is waffle day.

Final Weekend of June

It's crazy to think that June is almost over, and along with it about a third of my internship/time in the area. That means I'll just have to keep taking advantage of everything here. July is just around the corner, and along with it the weekend of July 4th, which is on a Monday. Luckily, my job is amazing, so I could probably take the whole day off if I wanted to. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the company does a BBQ or something to celebrate. As of now I don't have any plans, but I'm sure things will shape up as the week progresses. 

Unfortunately, I did not make it out to San Francisco on Friday. Apparently "The Room" is shown on a fairly frequent basis, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of chances to see it before the summer is over. Saturday, I went rock climbing with a bunch of people from work, mostly friends I already knew. We went to a place called Planet Granite which is an indoor facility that has locations all over the area. The one we went to is supposedly the largest in the Bay Area, and it sure looked the part:

Bouldering

For some of these, you start upside-down

I have only been once before as part of my pre-orientation program for college, so for all intents and purposes, I had never done this before. So, I had a lot to learn about everything there was to do, different techniques, etc. It was about $20 for a day pass and to rent equipment. You need special rock climbing shoes that you're not supposed to wear socks with (I made sure they used disinfectant) and they give you a really good grip as you climb. With that, you can go bouldering (2 pictures above) which is basically free climbing that doesn't go too high. The reason for the height limitation is in case you get stuck and need to just fall back. All of the rocks are surrounded by padding for this exact reason. The difficulty ratings go by numbers, with the easiest being V0 and the hardest going to V10 or so. Each path, marked by colored tape, is a finish marking at the top of the rock. You are supposed to start with both hands on the starting rock, and put your feet wherever. Only then are you allowed to separate your hands and start climbing, only placing limbs on rocks marked by the tape for the path you're on. To give you a sense of difficulty, I was able to do a few V0 climbs but only one V1. The difficulty scale is quite steep for these, plus I'm definitely not a great climber (yet).

In addition to bouldering, there is top roping. This is where one person climbs, while another stays below on the ground and belays them. To belay, you need to get certified when you get there. There's a series of knots to learn along with proper technique, and you can take a class there if you want. If you want to get certified (either for the day or a couple years) you have to do it right when you enter. The reason for this is they don't want you getting a "lesson" from one of your friends and then taking the test. I imagine it has something to do with liability, consider I also had to sign a waver before they let me in.

Each person top roping wears a harness where the rope gets attached in case the person climbing needs to let go. That means that these climbs can go a lot higher. It was a little confusing because top roping has a different difficulty scale, starting around M2 and going to about M12. Instead of lots of rocks marked by tape, these paths have colored rocks to grab hold of so it's a little easier to see where you can go. I started out on a couple M7s and then did a M9 by the end. Once you reach the top, the person below slowly lets you down. That is one of the more fun parts, since you're basically free-falling:

My toughest climb of the day

Look Ma... no hands!

A bunch of the people I went with decided to get monthly memberships as they plan to go at least once a week. That is a little much for me, since I want to do a wide variety of things while I'm here. I'll probably go back at least a couple more times, but not enough to warrant a membership. The nice thing about that place though is that it's also a gym, so there are free weights, treadmills, bikes, etc. Not very many people go there just for that though. There is one final thing you can do at these places, but I'm not exactly sure if there's a name for it.

See the white chalk marks?

In the rocks are tiny cracks that go all the way up. Some people like to scale the rocks just by using those, which seems almost impossible to me. You can also take a class for that, but I think you probably have to already be pretty good at everything else. I wouldn't be surprised if some people we saw there could do it, though. For a while, we were climbing near this guy who seemed pretty good:

Pro

Another thing I'll do next time, since I now have an idea of my skill level, is take my camera up an easier one and take pictures from the top. I was definitely not going to risk dropping it just weeks after I've gotten it. I did get to take some cool pictures from the ground, though.

After all that, a few of use went out and got Chinese food for dinner. We went to an area where there are a LOT of different Chinese places to get food. It almost felt like a tiny Chinatown in the middle of California. There were even shops and bakeries that we explored after. To give you a sense, we were basically the only white people we saw in the place.

At night, I went to a bar called the Rose & Crown with a friend. It is basically modeled after an English pub - the walls are lined with different English Premiere League soccer teams. We had heard good things about the place, so we decided to check it out. They have a fantastic beer selection, so we just sampled different things. We stayed for a couple hours, watched people play darts, met some people, and then called it a night and headed home.

Today I slept in and went to the office to grab some food. It was also a fantastic day outside (hell, the weather here is fantastic every day), so I decided I was going to go to a nearby park, lay outside, and read. A lot of that is pretty unheard of for me. There were a decent number of people there - lots of young families. I overheard one dad with an English accent teaching his son to kick the ball. Later, a baby walked by with her mom because he wanted to look at my bike; apparently he's currently in a "bike phase." As they were walking away, the mom said "Say goodbye, Charles." It took me a moment to realize she was talking to the baby. I mentioned to her that I had the same name, except that my parents only call my Charles when they're upset with me. She said that since they won't be able to do that, they'll have to call him by his middle name in those cases. The baby then wandered over to play soccer with the English family.

After being in the sun for a while, I came back to the apartment for a swim, only to find the gate was locked. I'm not exactly sure why, but hopefully that changes soon. I spent the last couple hours around the apartment, doing laundry and reviewing pictures. I usually have my laundry done at the office for very cheap, but I wanted to just wash my gym clothes and it was only a dollar. Also, I think I forgot to mention that I got my hair cut at work this past week. Something like every other Tuesday, a service comes to a parking lot near the office in a giant air-conditioned trailer where you can schedule an appointment to get your hair cut. And as with pretty much everything else, the company pays for it.

Looking forward to this week, as I have pretty much every week. Maybe next weekend I'll finally get to check some things off of my list.

This is What Happens When the Build Breaks

I'm currently still at the office. The funny thing is, most people aren't doing actual work. I can't divulge too much about where we are in the development process, but at least for tonight, a lot of people (including myself) are waiting around to see the code actually turn into a usable product. Essentially, we are waiting for the code to compile. For the past couple of hours, the build has been "broken", meaning something has gone wrong in the attempt to create the actual program from the code. That involves some developers scrambling to figure out what happened and fix what is necessary. Most people cannot do too much (and some shouldn't do anything) until the build is fixed. What results from this situation is people hanging out, talking, scooter races, and a re-enactment of this XKCD:

Compiling: "Are you stealing those LCD screens?" "Yeah, but I'm doing it while my code compiles."

For those of you who have never read XKCD, I highly recommend it. It is a webcomic about a variety of subjects published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight eastern on the spot. To understand a majority of the humor, you need to have at least some technical knowledge. There are still plenty of things that go over my head, and in some cases I'll end up looking up references made in the comic. There are even forums where people debate certain subjects in the comics. Randall Munroe, the author, is incredibly smart and talented. He studied physics in college and worked for a research lab part of NASA. He has the amazing ability to take really academic subjects, a lot of which I have even learned about in school, and make them comedic. Something to note is that each comic also has mouse-over text, which can add so much more to the comic.

The beginning of this week has been pretty good. I've been going to classes at the gym fairly frequently. Yesterday I attended my first yoga class, and it was just as difficult (if not more-so) than all the other ones I've taken. It was over an hour long, and I was starving after it was over. I was pretty sore going to sleep that night, but nothing too bad. The instructor said she teaches a class every Sunday for newer students, so I'm thinking I may see what that's about.

My desk at work has also been moved. I've been at my new location (which is really just down the hall) for a couple days, and really like it. It is much easier to coordinate things with the people I work with, since we all now sit around each other. Tonight for dinner they had sushi, but Thursday is also when people go play Frisbee. Apparently if you do not go to dinner right away, you miss out on the sushi. So we went up about 15 minutes before dinner started, and there was already a line of 20 people waiting. It was worth it, though. Everything was delicious, and there was plenty of it since I was basically one of the first people there. It happens the 3rd Thursday of ever month, and I'll definitely be back.

I'm planning on going rock-climbing on Saturday with people from work, and then there is supposedly a free music festival in San Francisco on Sunday, but nobody has been able to find any information about it online. Friday night, I'm considering attending some movie event in San Francisco where people make fun of what is considered one of the worst movies of all time - The Room. This is one of the more hilariously awful scenes:

Supposedly, people get together to watch this just to make fun of it. It's supposed to be quite the event, so I'm considering attending.

Well, it doesn't look like this issue will be fixed in the next hour, so I'm heading back to go to sleep (after wasting some more time online).

(Back to) Normal

(For the record, I started writing this last night but ended up going out so I'm not as late with it as it might seem...)

Everything is starting to feel very natural out here, as if I've been working in the area for a while (or even living here for some time). There is this care-free feeling that everyone seems to exude as they go about their day. I would claim that life moves "slower" out here, but that makes it sound like the pace at which things get done is much less than anywhere else. Quite the opposite, actually - I don't know if I've ever been surrounded by so much productivity with the likes of giant companies in Silicon Valley. This attitude towards life comes across when you're walking around town, seeing everyone take their time in whatever their doing. I think a lot of it comes from crossing the street; I don't know if I'll ever get over the fact that people will NOT cross the street unless they have the walk signal. But it makes my point.

This week at work was great. I got to do some really cool things for the project I was assigned to, and felt like I was doing some valuable work. I still never feel like I'm at work though. The hours fly by every day, and even though I'm at the office 12-14 hours a day, I never once look at the clock hoping the time will go by faster. In fact, I often find myself wishing I could spend more time there, especially when there are spontaneous Nerf wars with machines like this:

At this point I forget any specific events that happened at work this week, so I'll just skip to the weekend. On Saturday, I went to the Stanford Shopping Center with a couple friends. We mostly just wandered around. I was in awe of the fact that the mall (like my office building) doesn't have a ceiling when you're walking between places. So the Macy's has a roof and everything, but when you walk out of the store to go somewhere else, you just have sun and sky. That allows them to do some pretty cool things with the architecture. We didn't buy much, except one of my friends spent $150 on ONE shirt. Apparently it fit him just perfectly. It is now referred to as "The Shirt." Most expensive thing I saw was a $2000 jacket (see below).

This is "in" the mall

The jacket he's trying on costs $2000. No joke.

On the way back, we were walking by places and passed a frozen-yogurt shop. It's called Yogurtland, and I'm not aware of any such places in the northeast. Basically you walk in and they give you tiny little cups so you can sample the different flavors (and trust me, you want to sample them). Then you pay by the ounce, $0.33 in this case. You take a GIANT cup and take as much as you want, but they give you big cups so you feel obligated to fill it. Then you can mix and match whatever flavors you want, and however much of them you want. It is really tempting to just stand there and let the whole thing fill up to the top.

Lots of choices

Unbelievable

Went great with the Dutch Chocolate

Exactly as described

Basically Thin Mints in frozen-yogurt form

Words cannot describe...

After filling up your cup with what is probably WAY too much frozen-yogurt, you proceed to the toppings bar. Yes - the toppings are also self service, and are priced at the same weight as the yogurt itself. I could honestly go there just for the toppings. The have everything from Kit-Kats, cookie dough balls, M&Ms, brownie bites, Oreos, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc. I saw some people end up with about a third of their cup as yogurt, and the rest as toppings.

This isn't even all of them...

Sunday I did some more exploring. I found a park only a few blocks away from my apartment, so it's really close biking there. It was relative quiet there on a Sunday afternoon, but I found out why later. It was very serene there, and I will definitely be going back on weekends where there isn't much going on. And because the weather here is basically always perfect, I could go almost whenever I want to.

Sitting out in the sun got pretty warm, so I decided I would go back to the apartment and use the pool for once. Even though it was warm out, I think the pool is heated which is awesome. Not many people seem to use it, or at least I haven't seen any, Then again I'm gone during the entire day, and apparently you're not supposed to swim there after 9pm. I'd like to try and see them enforce that.

Water from the gutter somehow made this cool sand pattern near the pool

Sunday night, the city of Palo Alto sponsored World Music Day by closing down the main road so that local music groups could perform. As best as I could tell (from spending a couple minutes reading the thing on the website), it is basically to celebrate the Summer Solstice. I went with a couple friends and we just walked around. Some of the performers were pretty good - there was a 14-year-old girl that has an amazing voice, and very well could be on one of those shows like "America's Got Talent" or something like that. The best part was that everyone was just walking around the street, which is usually full of cars and traffic. We eventually made our way to a burrito place for dinner, and spent at least the next hour walking around so we would have enough room to go to the frozen-yogurt place. We spent a decent amount of time in the giant Borders browsing. I wound up in the biography section looking at one about Bobby Fischer (the chess master). I'm thinking I may actually start going through some biographies if I have the time.

Later that same evening, one of my roommates came back and we decided to go see Green Lantern. It was a good movie, not great. It was very forgettable, and seemed rushed at points. Then again, I'm no movie critic. And in an unrelated note, Wimbledon started today. I read something in the newspaper this morning (can you believe me and all this reading?!?) that said Federer may have a fighting chance since he was able to get out of a funk after being Djokovic just a few weeks ago. I'll be watching.

Winning

I also took the time to change some things on the sidebar. I made a Flickr account and will be uploading all of my pictures there. The only downside is that they limit you to 300MB of uploading per month, which is only like 60 pictures with my fancy camera (and that's even compressed). So you can have a look there, and also take a look at the list of things I hope to do by the end of the summer. I'll be updating that accordingly, but let me know if you have any suggestions for things to do.

A New Kind of Workout

This morning I woke up around 8am to meet my friend from work at the gym. One of the MANY perks we get is a large discount on a gym membership not too far away from the office. We decided we would go before work and see what it has to offer. That way we would have enough time to shower, eat, and start work at close to a regular time.

The gym is located on a little side street, and is very nice. They have a system in place where you just walk in and scan a little tag they've given you to show you're a member. The locker-room is kind of small, though, as the gym isn't really built to have a lot of people in there at one time. I guess I'm used to the YMCA at home or the gym at school where they expect at least hundreds of people at a time. Here, it's more of 6-8 people in the locker room at once. They have plenty of lockers, though, and you can use them all day by just entering a pin number on the keypad - that means not having to keep track of any keys or tokens. There are also a couple of showers with soap, shampoo, towels, etc. It's great to be able to workout, shower, change, and then basically walk down the block for breakfast. Side note: today's breakfast was waffles. They have that every Tuesday morning, so Tuesday is now my favorite day for breakfast. I had a vanilla waffle topped with chocolate chips, bananas, whipped cream, and maple syrup this morning. Probably not the healthiest thing, but I had just worked out for an hour.

And what a workout it was. To make sure we actually pushed ourselves, my friend and I decided we would attend one of the classes that the gym offers. There are 3 different studios: one with a bunch of bikes/elliptical machines, another with free weights and weight machines, and a third open space. The class was in the open room, and was entitled "New Definitions" and we figured it would have some good core workouts, among other things.

I entered the room just around 8:30am when class was scheduled to begin. There were a couple of women there, as well as the instructor. My friend showed up shortly after me, and by the time the class got going, it was the 2 of us, and about 10 women in the range of 40-50 years old. I'm not sure I've ever felt more out of place. And this was the classic type of class these women attend - light free weights, stability ball, yoga matt, and all. It was not a yoga class (although they have that too), but it was approaching the difficulty that I imagine yoga to have.

Any single exercise we did was not too difficult on its own. But there were little things that got added that made it extremely difficult. Bend your leg this way, keep your back arched, don't let your arms fall below 90 degrees, etc. My friend and I struggled to keep up, after thinking this was going to be a cake walk. There were definitely points where various limbs were burning as a result. Even when we backed off to make things a little easier, it took a fair amount of effort to keep up. All the while, these other women seemed to be having little-to-no difficulty with any of it. Maybe 1 or 2 of them was down at our level, but for the most part, they we leagues ahead.

At the end of the session, the trainer commended us for keeping up with the women, which (believe me) was an accomplishment. Afterwards, a couple of them came up and asked us who we were, why we decided to attend, and what we thought of the session. I found out one woman's son is starting at Tufts in the fall and will also be on the baseball team. She said he's really excited, so I said he could email me if he ever wanted to meet and talk about his future as a Jumbo.

Work was pretty standard today. I was assigned to my first major project, and found out I'll be moving desks as a result. I'm not too happy about this since I like being in the open area with a bunch of other interns (we call it the bullpen). But I'm moving to another, smaller open-area that will be better for collaboration within our team. Having my first real assignment means I also have my first major set of deadlines, which is actually good since I now have a better sense of the pace I'll need to work at. I'll be working on this for about the next 5 weeks until it is completed for the following update release. At that point I'll get another project with the possibility of more responsibilities attached to it.

Sorry for the lack of pictures here. I need to get in the habit of taking my camera to work with me. Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow.

The Adventure Begins

I spent the majority of the day on Sunday exploring the surroundings of Palo Alto. It started off with taking my new roommate to the office so that we could have some of the leftovers for lunch. We initially stopped at a really good bagel place on the way, but he reminded me that we could get everything there and more at the office for free, so off we went.

We weren't there too long before we headed out. This was the first of many days of my hunt for fancy cars in the area. From about 1pm-4:30pm, three of us randomly walked the area in search of any and all vehicles. Long story short - Porsches are a dime a dozen out here. It got to the point where I would see another one and think twice about whether or not it warranted a picture. For the most part, I took all the pictures I could. For the most part, they're pretty nice. I believe the nicest one I've been able to find so far is a silver Tesla Roadster. It's only like the 4th I've ever seen (3 of which were here), so imagine they are not too common.

*drool*

Apparently there is a Tesla dealership just a couple of miles away from where we live. We will attempt to elicit a test drive at some point over the summer. One of my roommates said he tried this with a Ferrari dealership near school. We'll go in with rented suits and pretend that his uncle as an Indian billionaire who is going to buy him whatever he wants for his 18th birthday. After spending some time perusing the options, we'll ask to take the most expensive one out for a spin. I hope we fare better than he did last time when they were "politely" asked to leave. If we're not going to get the test drive, I'd rather get thrown out through the window and make a scene. I can yell and say we're taking our business to the Ferrari dealership down the street.

I'm pretty sure they own a Tesla & Ferrari

We continued exploring, seeing lots of ridiculously sized houses and obnoxiously priced cars parked outside. Lots of people have gates and foliage to prevent people from just walking onto their lawn. That didn't stop me from taking whatever pictures I could. While walking around, we were coming up to what I assumed to be a lemonade stand staffed by a couple of girls that most likely lived in the house. They were probably around 8-9 years old, and they were actually selling snow cones so they could make a trip to LA. I wonder if their mom new about that.

On Sunday night, my roommate got back from the Dispatch concert he went to, and we decided to go see the new X-Men movie. Unfortunately, there aren't really any movie theaters in walking distance, so we drove to Mountain View. The theater was actually right near the Googleplex, so I'll be making a trip out there at some point to take some pictures. It should be very doable with a bike.

Work was great today. I got a lot done, and really started to feel like I have a good feel for what's going on. Every Monday there is a "resync" meeting where all of the team leads talk about what got accomplished last week. They also make all the interns/new hires that started last week introduce themselves to the whole team. Also it seems like a lot of people bring their dogs into work on Monday, so there were a TON of them running around today. I love having them come up for attention. I will drop whatever I'm doing to meet dogs.

 

Tomorrow morning, I'm planning on meeting a couple of friends at the gym for one of the classes they offer. I can't remember the last time I've been to a class at a gym, and it's probably never been a fitness class like this. It starts at 8:30am (not too early) which should give us enough time to get to the office, shower (yes they have personal showers at the office), change, and eat. Hopefully I don't tire out any quicker than usual. I'm hoping this will be a good for my fitness, since all I've really done so far is just refrain from drinking soda. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially when they have Mexican Coca-Cola (Coke with real sugar) at the office. For all I know, I may wind up in a spinning class at some point. Hopefully not...

Work Starts, Giants Walkoff, & The Dish (with Pictures!)

I realize it has been almost a week since my last post. There are a couple reasons for that: (1) I started work on Tuesday and it has taken up a lot of my time while also being a BLAST. More on this below... (2) I decided to finally order a DSLR camera and wanted the opportunity to post pictures in my next update. I went with the Canon EOS Rebel T3 since I think the Canon lens series has more options (plus I can "borrow" some from Jose and Calvin). In any event, prepare for quite a long read as I attempt to cover everything that's happened this week.

Work is unbelievable. The first couple of days, I had to be in by 10am for meetings to complete paperwork, learn about the company, meet people, etc. Everybody is wearing jeans, t-shirts... whatever they want. I have my own desk in an open area where a lot of other interns and some full-time employees sit. I was shown my desk and there is a dual-monitor setup with a bunch of desks and drawers. There's even a place for someone to sit next to me if they're at my desk for whatever reason. I've been given all sorts of apparel that I'll have to ship some of it back to Boston.

The people I work with are incredibly smart and talented. There's tons of people from MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, etc. Some of these kids have interned at Facebook, Apple, Google, and lots of other similar companies. We work on this incredible product used by the finance industry and a bunch of 3-letter government agencies. The company is rapidly expanding, as they're now in their 5th building in only their 6th year of existence. And honestly, it never feels like I'm going to work.

I usually show up around 9:30am, sometimes a little later around 10am. I don't have set hours, so I can come and go as I please, for however long I wish. I go right to the main kitchen where I get my first of 3 hot, cooked meals a day. Throughout the day, there are also plenty of smaller kitchens throughout the building where there are fridges full of drinks, and plenty of snacks. Anything I want to eat/drink, I just write it down on a clipboard and it shows up a couple of days later and they will continue to stock it if other people like it. There are nap rooms, one conveniently located to where my desk is, and there are also showers. They provide laundry service, bring in chiropractors, massage therapists, people to cut your hair. Essentially, someone could live and work in this same place full-time. I was told that if you live in the office for 30+ days, the CEO will actually pay your rent (presumably to get you out of the office), although I doubt that's actually true.

Due to the nature of the company and our work, I've decided not to post any pictures online of the office and everything in there. I had to sign at least a couple NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), so I think it's better to err on the side of caution. Plus I get to make a big deal about how secretive this stuff is and feel really important. If you're really interested in seeing some of the pictures, email me and I can some your way.

My apartment, however, is a different story. I'm a little too lazy to retake pictures of the inside again, so I'll just post new ones of the outside.

We stole the Flamingo from out neighbors who are other interns

The front of the complex

There's an awesome courtyard in the middle

Yes - the pool is open to everyone

On my way to work one day, I decides to also take some pictures of downtown. I've already described it in my first post, so I'll let the pictures do the talking here as well.

Patio area outside of the giant Borders

Apparently you can pay to use this toilet in the middle of the sidewalk

City Hall

Diner where you can spend $200 on a burger and Dom Perignon

There are lot more pictures, but I don't wanna flood the blog. I may make a Picasa account and start linking to albums there in the future, while just posting selective pictures here. Stay tuned...

On Friday night, the company organized an outing to see the San Francisco Giants play against the Cincinnati Reds. Tickets and travel there were free, and we even had a private area with free food, snacks, and drinks. We took CalTrain into the city which is very similar to NJ Transit. A friend from work and I sat next to a guy who had lived in the area since the 1940s, so he was giving us all sorts of info. One of the crazy things he said was that if you are caught on the train without a ticket, it's a $200 fine.

AT&T Park, where the Giants play, is really nice. It overlooks the bay and there are always people in the water hoping to catch some home-runs. The downside is that it gets really windy. As I gave the woman my ticket to get inside, she said "Oh, I see you're visiting form out of town." I said yes, and asked how did she know? "I see you're wearing shorts..." It did get fairly cold, but nothing unbearable.

Free food is always nice

Lots of boats

Giants win it in the bottom of the 9th!

Everyone waiting around for fireworks

Today (Saturday), someone at the office organized a group to hike the Dish. It's basically this gigantic radio telescope with lots of open land around it. There were about 15-20 of us altogether. I got to drive there with someone who was the FIFTH employee at the company, and he showed us where the offices used to be. It's also right next to where Facebook is now - I was taking pictures of the Facebook building and actually got yelled at by a security guard who made me delete them. I still snapped some more after walking away. Mark Zuckerberg may own the rights to a bunch of my information online, but I'll be damned if he tries to exert any kind of control over me in reality.

The previous office building

Eat it, Zuckerberg (I was technically off company property...)

View from the trail

The Dish!

A couple of F-18s flew over us at one point

The hike took about 1.5 hours, and then we drove back to the office. I got to hear all sorts of cool stories about how the company started, what the founders are like, and how we're going to change the world. It also completed 1 of 25 "challenges" that the company gives to interns/new hires to accomplish. Fulfilling 20/25 is supposed to show you have become a true employee. It includes things like this hike, having lunch with the CEO (who works just a floor above me), playing board games after work, and the like. I was able to get 2 in this weekend (the other being the Giants game).

My 4th and final roommate showed up today. He starts on Tuesday (for some reason they have everyone start on Tuesdays) and seems like a pretty cool guy. He actually has the same exact position as I do, so I filled him in on some stuff and am looking forward to working with him over the summer. It's only 9:30pm on the west coast right now, but I'm content with staying in tonight. Tomorrow I'm planning to explore and find more fancy cars to take pictures of.

Settling In

So I've been in Palo Alto for just about 24 hours at this point. Everything went very smoothly at the San Francisco airport - I always get a kick out of seeing a driver waiting for me with my name on a sign (even thought it's only happened a few times). It makes me feel like I'm a professional business man. We had to wait a few minutes for my luggage, and then it was off to pick up my keys at the office until finally getting to the apartment. It's a pretty cool complex, I would say maybe 50-75 apartments all together, only a couple stories tall. I found my apartment pretty easily, and also discovered I was the first of my roommates to arrive. This gave me the chance to take some pictures and get settled without having to tiptoe around anyone else.

The living room is REALLY nice. They set us up with a decent cable TV package, as well as wifi. There's a couch, a couple other comfy chairs, a coffee table, and a dining room table with some more chairs. Sunday is a day for Law & Order marathons, so naturally that's what you see me watching.

Yes - OREOs were one of my first purchases here

Even though SVU can be intense, it's still Law & Order

Dining Room and door to the balcony

View from the balcony

I spent all of yesterday adjusting to my new surroundings and trying to get through the jetlag. Another perk of being the first person here is that I got to choose my bed. I went with the one that was most comfortable to me, in the bigger room, and near outlets and the nice desk. It's near a window that faces the street, but I've gotten pretty good at sleeping through noisy streets, roommates, etc.

In the morning I watched the finals of the French Open. I was really hoping Federer would make a historic comeback, but I guess Nadal's left bicep is just too much. Once that was done, I headed to downtown. It's literally a straight shot from my apartment to where all the shops are, and only a 5-8 minute walk. There's all sorts of stuff here: Borders, GameStop, Apple Store, CVS, Walgreens, theaters, and more. Both of my banks have branches locally, which is really convenient as well. My first stop was to make sure I new how to get to the office and how long it would take me to get there. The people who organize the apartments said it was about an 18 minute walk, and that was pretty much spot on. I'll have a bike later this week so that will drastically cut down on my "commute."

I wandered around the area for a bit, and then decided to get some basic supplies at CVS and Walgreens. I stocked up on some milk and cereal, and some plastic bowls and utensils. The office has a cafeteria where I can eat whatever I want whenever I want, but over the next couple of days I'm on my own. I also got some cereal bars and the like since I know I'll be hungry when I'm not at the office. I've gotten really used to the apartment in Somerville where there's always a LOT of food since we need to have enough for 5-6 guys. The kitchen started to look a little more full after I put some of my stuff away.

Cereal on top of the fridge makes it feel like home

I also bought my very first manual razor and shaving cream while I was out. Anyone that knows me even somewhat knows I can be lazy when it comes to shaving, but you might not be aware that I've only ever used an electric razor to shave. That process can be a little arduous, so I figured I could try something else. Hopefully I don't have any trouble, although I'm expecting at least 1 or 2 cuts the first few times I try.

Later tonight, I'm planning to meet a friend from school for dinner. He's also out here working for the same company, but on a different product. He started last Wednesday, so I'm sure he'll have some good advice and insights as to how things work at the office. The current plan is for him to stop by here and check out the apartment, then we'll head back downtown somewhere - he was gonna ask around for recommendations on where to go.

I have one final day off tomorrow before starting work on Tuesday morning. I'll get to stay up to date on all the E3 stuff, which will be occurring just about 300 miles away. Too bad it's not open to the public, otherwise that is where I would be.