Monday was quite the adventure. Ever year, the city of Palo Alto sponsors a chili cooking competition, with hundreds of dollars in prizes given out. A couple friends and I decided to head over to the park where it was being held. What I didn't realize is that it was a couple miles away, so the bike ride was a little more than I planned for, but that's okay.
We got to the park to find the crowd was huge. They've been doing this for decades, and a lot of families come out to enjoy the day. It was relatively hot for the area, so the trucks selling ice cream and snow cones did pretty well. There were about 25-30 different groups offering chili for judging. $5 bought you a cup, spoon, and vouchers to try 5 cups of chili from wherever you wanted. You could buy however many $5 packages you wanted. There was also a ballot where you could vote and the person with the most votes would win the "People's Choice Award." There were legitimate judges from the school board, town council, etc. that would do the other prizes.
Overall, the chili was fantastic. I split the thing with my friends, so I only got to try a couple of kinds, but they were all really tasty. Then again, almost anything that anyone cooks for me usually tastes fantastic because I could never do any better. Evan, if you're reading this, I definitely wouldn't mind if chili is put on the menu for next year (yes, my roommates and I at school arrange menus). Some of the lines were ridiculously long, which was usually a sign of how good the chili was. The was at least true until it got to the end of the event, when places started to run out of chili, and then the line moved to wherever there was chili left.
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| I was tempted to join the soccer game. |
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| Lots of people... |
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| LOTS of people. |
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| The chili area. |
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| I wasn't kidding about the long lines |
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| Firefighters make some damn good chili. |
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| Obligatory close-up chili pictures. |
One of the best parts of the day happened when I was standing in line waiting as my friends got chili elsewhere. I saw a kid walk by wearing a Tufts shirt, and asked if he went there. He said he would be starting in the fall, and it reminded me of
a conversation I had with a woman at the gym a couple weeks ago. I think this was the person she mentioned, although I may have been wrong about it being her son. In any event, I introduced myself and told him how much I love Tufts, and that one of my roommates was also on the baseball team. He's also doing the same pre-orientation program that I did. I gave him my email address and said if he ever wants to meet up and talk about stuff, to feel free. Hopefully I'll hear from him at some point.
After all the chili was gone, they had to tally the votes. To pass the time, they had a water-balloon throwing competition in this area in the middle of the park. They also had a band playing the whole time, but it was some local band and I was too busy getting chili to listen to them. The water-balloon stuff was entertaining to watch, though. Lots of kids ran in to play, but there were plenty of "big kids" too. My friends had left at that point, and I wanted to stay and see who won the chili contest.
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| And so it begins... |
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| Some of them were cheating, as you can see. |
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| Some got very far apart, and some continued to cheat. |
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| Eventually they put everyone on a level playing field. |
Eventually, they were ready to announce the winners. The mayor of Palo Alto hosted the ceremony, announcing the winners from the open and corporate divisions. The biggest surprise was this was the first year that most of the winners competed, which is probably good for future years. I think the largest prize they gave away was about $800, which is quite a bit. Then again, all of the people cooking chili did so out of pocket, with only the hopes of increasing business at their shops. Even then, some people were just doing it for fun.
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| The mayor |
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| The judges |
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| The winners |
After riding back to the apartment, a bunch of us got together to take the train into San Francisco for the fireworks. One interesting thing to note about Caltrain is that you're allowed to drink alcohol on the train before 9pm, so we brought a few drinks along with us. I've heard that people have brought whole cases and even mini-kegs onto the train, mostly on the way to a Giants game. The baseball game was earlier in the day though, so we didn't see any of that.
Immediately after getting off the train, you could tell people were heading down to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf where the best views would be. The city was PACKED with people, and we were basically fish swimming in the river with everyone else. We stopped at a bread place my friend had mentioned earlier to grab some food. I brought snacks with me, as I had already spent a decent amount of money on food for the weekend. We took our food to find a spot where we could see the fireworks. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:
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| You must hate yourself if you decided to drive to this. |
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| Kids shooting of Roman Candles. Almost looks like they're playing Harry Potter with wands. |
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| Lots of people |
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| A crocodile made out of bread. |
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| People getting ready to watch fireworks from wherever they could. |
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| Our spot. |
Eventually, the fireworks started right around 9:30pm. We had a decent view, although it was partially blocked by a building (as you'll see in the pictures). What was pretty cool is that they had 2 sets of fireworks going at the same time so that you had a better chance to see them. I learned after the fact that since the state of California is going bankrupt, it wasn't actually the city or state that put on the show, but some private company. Overall the fireworks were okay, nothing to write home about (although I guess that's technically what I'm doing right now).
The ones at the Giants game were far better, but that might have been because we had an awesome view and were really close. In any event, I took some pictures:
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| Smiley Face |
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| Like fireworks in an IMAX theater |
The walk back to the train was insane. People flooded the streets as the police failed to keep people on the sidewalks. I have no idea how many people there were in all, but it was unbelievable. Cars must have been stuck at traffic lights for hours. They would lay on their horns when the lights turned green, but it did nothing to change their situation. People on bicycles would dart and weave through the crowd, but even then they would get stuck. I have no sympathy for people that drove since there is plenty of public transportation in the area to the point where if you really had to drive in, you could park very far away from the peer to avoid this huge hassle.
Eventually, the crowds did thin out as people went their separate ways. We saw cards flying down the streets to make up for the time they lost sitting in traffic. We made it back to the train station just in time for the first train leaving San Francisco, which was luckily an express train. Once we got on board, I saw another friend from work who had also gone into the city with some friends for the fireworks. I decided to sit with them since they had an open seat. One of the people he was with was working at a small startup as a software engineer, and had interned at IBM last summer. The other guy was currently a software intern at Google, and so I asked what he thought about Google+ and all that. It was cool to get info from someone I consider an insider, seeing as how he had early access and every email he received about it explicitly stated that none of the information contained in it was to be released to anyone outside of the company. I still have yet to get on Google+ since I believe they have capped the invites so they don't stress things too quickly.
I still find it very surreal to be in a position where just about every week, I meet someone from a place like Facebook, Google, Apple, and the like. Maybe one day I'll actually be one of those engineers, but I have a LOT of programming to practice if I want to get to that level. Plus, I absolutely love the company I'm at right now, and am more than happy to meet people at other companies and compare experiences. Right now, I think there may only be 1 or 2 things I would ever trade this experience for.
One final note - I know at least some family members are interested in just getting email updates when I make a new post. I've added something to the sidebar for you to do that easily (apparently becoming a "follower" doesn't let you do that). Just type in your email address, click the submit button, enter the verification code, and click the link you get in your email. From then on, when I post something new, you should get an email. I'm about to test it right when I publish this very post. You can also subscribe to the page as an RSS feed if you know how (if you want to know how, Google it).
[UPDATE] Apparently, you just get an email at some point during the day if I post something. So it's not instantaneous (as I just learned), but you'll at least hopefully know within 12-24 hours of a new post.
