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.

(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.

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.