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.
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| Yes, there's a flat-screen TV on each side of that divider |
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| The Flamingo |
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| The Venetian |
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| 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.
