Memoirs of a CPUNERD

No! Not with someone else, I mean relish your time-off from work! The lessons from this week taught me that when you really push yourself at work, don’t plan an action-packed weekend! Yes, playing hard is important, but every once in awhile, one needs to simply take some time off from the world and recuperate. Admittedly, I thoroughly enjoyed myself this weekend, but I didn’t get much rest and I know I’m going to be screwed the first few days of next week…
On Monday, I didn’t waste any time getting to programming. I met with Jing about her data formats, then got cracking. I worked most of the day on getting a converter working. There were still a few kinks left in my original code though, so I had to spend the majority of Monday working those out. Daniel had yet to go to Cafe Fourteen, so we went there for lunch. Katie ended up joining us, as did Rachel and Sam. Rachel originally wasn’t planning on joining us, but she changed her mind after no one else wanted to leave the building for lunch. After lunch, I got cracking again on coding. I worked a little more with Jing and got something going for her. I had to bail early though. The democratic debate on CNN, Youchoose, was being aired at Charlie’s at 16:00, so I went there a little early to get a seat. Rachel, Katie, and Sam joined me. Michael came in a little later after he got back from the gym. The debate was really nice. A few of the candidates didn’t get much airtime, but it was still nice to be able to hear from a group of strong candidates. After the debate, I ate dinner and then headed home.

Andrew joined me in the gym on Tuesday morning. He said his shoulders were sore from volleyball on Friday, so I told him to lift with me on Tuesday and I would show him a few exercises that would help him. He unfortunately showed up too late, so he missed the shoulder exercises… oh well. A bunch of us went to Pintxo for lunch. I liked the food, but again, such tiny servings! Luckily they had vegan brownies! I actually got to have a somewhat decadent but non-red dessert from somewhere besides No Name. Jing and I got our stuff talking that afternoon, and I showed my host and manager. Both liked it, but they needed more. After talking with Jing, she said that what she had would be very hard to adapt, so around 17:00, I commenced working on something myself. I, of course, didn’t stay too much longer though, so I didn’t get very far. I went to lunch with Daniel and Falcon, and actually ended up sitting with the recruiter that worked for Daniel and me. It was interesting talking to her about the hiring process and the full gambit that interns run.

I was in a mad rush all day Wednesday to finish some work for my host. Because of that, I just went with Inga to Pintxo, but only for a little bit. For those who know me, what I’m about to say might shock you, but here goes. I ate fish for lunch… It actually wasn’t that bad. It was really salty, but it didn’t taste fishy, so I was fine with it. After lunch, I went straight back to work, basically ignoring all social obligations in the afternoon and just kept working. Around 17:00, I finished my mini-project. It was a good thing I finished when I did, as my brain was completely fried. I showed the program to my host, who seemed impressed. I then spent what little was left of the day working on something small but necessary. I got a rather dissatisfying dinner with Falcon, then headed home to meet Brian. He dropped off Bruce (Kim’s cat), then took off to finish packing his stuff. Over the course of the next few hours (and several episodes of B5, whole ‘nother story), Bruce warmed up to us and stopped running frantically all over the place. As for B5… On Tuesday, I meant to watch several episodes. I stopped halfway through one and went to sleep though, since I was tired. Of course, the last episode I intended to watch for this night was the first in a two parter, so long story short, I ended up not getting to sleep until 23:30. Luckily Falcon let Bruce go in his room.

Shakeh came for dinner on Thursday night. We went to No Name to get food, then ate with Daniel, Inga, and Falcon. We were going to eat with Andrew but he was already sitting with some other friends. After Dinner, Shakeh and I went home and watched a few episodes of Heroes. I forgot how much I really liked this show. I left off at the climax of the first half of the season. Picking up was really easy, and I got into again right away. Unfortunately for me, I had to work the next morning, so we ended at a relatively early time.

Due to the picnic, all of the cafes on campus were opening late, at 10:00. I held out until 10:00, then went to Oasis with Inga. I got back just in time for my 11:00 o’clock meeting. Unfortunately, I still had some last minute work to do, so I skipped out from the meeting early and worked until 14:45. At that time, Shakeh showed up, so Daniel, Michael, Inga, and I joined up with Shakeh and starting walking to the picnic. We met up with Andrew at the volleyball courts, then proceeded to picnic. We got there and waded through the crowds of people to find some shade and open space. The midway was packed, so we didn’t play any games. We found a spot in the shade and sat there for a bit while Andrew went to get food.

After Andrew got food, we went in to the amphitheatre to watch the San Francisco Cirq(us) and Google Idol. There were a lot of really cool acts by the SFC, the coolest was probably the woman dancing amidst two strands of cloth. There was a rather humorous jester who was also very good at juggling. There also was an act of two performers balancing off of each other. They were good, but I saw Cirq Du Soleis in Reno a few years ago, and the balancing performance I saw there blew away anything the two SFC performers did.

After the SFC finished, Google Idol started. There was some pretty good performers there. At the end, a Google-themed blues-song won. There was an act team called DecaDance that warmed up the crowd, and after the competition, they did a dance to the infamous PB&J song. A video can be found here.

After Google Idol was finished, we met up with Conny and Daniel, then waited for Andrew, Falcon, and Inga to finish their margaritas. In the meantime, Shakeh and I went to check out the rest of the place. We stumbled across the reptile display, and Shakeh couldn’t resist. She had to get a picture taken with the snake.

After the picnic, Shakeh, Andrew, and I made our way to the Shoreline theatres to go see The Simpsons Movie. Coming from a long time Simpsons fan, the movie was great. I liked the story, the freedom granted via PG-13, and certain special appearances. Without spoiling anything, I just wish that Mr. Burns had a bigger role and that the movie was a little longer. But it was definitely worth seeing on opening night.

Saturday was just as action packed as Friday. Once we were up and showered, Shakeh and I went to get something to eat. While operating a coffee machine (that wasn’t cleaned properly! GRRR!), the grounds exploded on my clothes. I tried washing them as best as possible, but it didnt completely work. After getting some food, Shakeh and I headed back home. I watched B5 with Falcon (he tried escaping, but a limited battery life on his laptop drew him back) while Shakeh studied. The three of us went out around noon to get some miscellaneous supplies (I needed a stain-stick now), then to a Hawaiian BBQ place for lunch. After lunch, Shakeh studied some more, then she and I went to see I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry. It was actually really funny, and much better than I thought (as was Jessica Biel…). After the movie, Shakeh and went to Castro Street in Mountain View and walked up and down the place, scouting out a good place to eat. We tried a Thai-Fusion place called 3TA. It was good, but I think I’ll stick with fusion-less Thai for now. After dinner, we walked back up the street until we got to a BofA ATM. We got cash, then we ran off and got gelato!

Sunday was even more jam-packed them Saturday and Friday! I got up a little earlier than Shakeh, so I watched an episode of B5 while she was getting ready. After she was ready, we went to Google. I did laundry while she played the piano. After I was done with my laundry, we gave Ciderman a call, told him to head over, then went back to my place and hung up my laundry. After Ciderman got there, we went to Quizno’s to get some food, then headed to Projekt Revolution at Shoreline. We got there around 14:00, just as Saosin was taking the stage. We watched Saosin play for a little while, biding our time until Mindless Self Indulgence’s (MSI) scheduled time. 15:05 finally came around, and MSI took the stage. They were AWESOME! Almost everyone in the crowd was there to see Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance, so it was very cool to see how MSI managed to get the crowd going regardless. MSI’s set lasted a little under an hour. They played a lot of personal favorites, including Faget, Shut Me Up, Planet of the Apes, and Kill the Rock. Jimmy Urine, MSI’s front man, was also really funny without being too vulgar. Ciderman pointed out something else; besides just being all-around energetic, the entire band seemed to be really enjoying themselves. They were smiling, laughing, jumping around, having fun, and at one point even stage-dived. It was great!

After MSI finished, we headed to the Amphitheatre to secure our seats. We sat down, and plowed through Julien-K, Placebo, HIM, and My Chemical Romance, with a few interludes to get outrageously-priced and greasy, fatty, unhealthy food. Right around 21:15, Linkin Park came on. The last time I saw Linkin Park live was six years ago at the Ozzfest at the Sac-Valley Amphitheatre (I think it’s in Marysville, I don’t remember). They weren’t that good. Besides not being able to get the crowd stirred up (not surprising, they aren’t really an Ozzfest type band), the music came out bad because there is so much electronics in their studio album that simply isn’t reproducible live. This time though, a completely different story. The crowd was very much with them this time, and the music sounded very good. Perhaps my ears have adapted to live music in a more forgiving manner, but regardless, I actually enjoyed the music. Plus, it was very cool to hear forty-thousand people singing along to the music. MSI played a lot of songs. This is kind of obvious since they have roughly one-hundred minutes of songs, and their set lasted eighty-minutes plus a ten-minute encore. They played a few songs from Minutes to Midnight including What I’ve Done, Bleed It Out, No More Sorrow, and two others to which I do not know the names. They played a lot of favorites from Hybrid Theory and Meteora including Points of Authority, Papercut, Numb, Crawling, In The End, a half-unplugged version of Breaking the Habit, Somewhere I Belong, and at least five more. Needless to say, it was an awesome concert. Now if only I didn’t have to be at work so early the next morning…

I noticed something peculiar the other day. Many people, myself included, will tell others that the best way to lose weight is to get off your butt and actually exercise. Lifting weights won’t cut it either, one needs to do cardiovascular exercise to get some calories burning and your heart rate going. Of course, since I can no longer work out five hours a day, I decided instead to take my own advice and actually start doing really cardio work. For some reason though, I still haven’t lost any weight. I figured that it might not come off all at once, but after a month, I should’ve lost at least something. I figured there was only one explanation, my diet. Hence, as of Monday, I decided no more greasy meat or an over-abundance of fruit for breakfast, and no more Google-red items from the menus. I’m sure this means more than I realize, but for now, I’m sticking with it.

On Monday, I made a decision to stop eating red items from the Google cafes, and to try and eat healthy when on my own. So, for breakfast, I got a meat-free, cheese-free omelet, and only a small amount of fruit. For lunch, Rachel, Katie, Paul, Andrew, Nathan, Sam, and I had lunch at American Table. I’ve determined I don’t really like the place. Hopefully I won’t ever go back. Andrew and I were set to play tennis at 18:45 at Rengstorff Park, so we set up to have dinner at 18:00. He was half an hour late though (work-related), so we didn’t get to the park until 19:15. I also ended up eating alone because he was late. We played tennis until 20:00 or so, then I showered off and watched some more B5 (episodes 1×11-1×13).

Rachel had never been to Pintxo, so on Tuesday we ate lunch there. It was really good (like last time), but it wasn’t very filling. I blame that both on the serving sizes and on the fact that all the truly filling dishes are typically red, not green or orange. Oh, and all the desserts were red! Double ARGH! In the afternoon, I spent a decent amount of time guiding Adrienne and Lisa from Reno to Mountain View. They decided to go through San Francisco, so I had to take them the long way down 280. The finally showed up here (after missing several turns) at 18:00. They got their visitor badges, then we went to dinner at Charlie’s and No Name. We ate with Falcon, then i showed them around the place. Adrienne admitted later she had no idea why I wanted to show her around an office, but after the tour she was very excited and definitely digging all of the free stuff. After the tour, I said goodbye, then went home and watched some more B5 (episodes 1×14-1×16).

The first rain of the summer came on Wednesday. Though, I wouldn’t even really call it rain, more of a slight drizzle. For lunch, I went with Inga, Katie, and Rachel to Oasis. I ate an enormous amount of food, but I think most of it was vegetables, because I was still hungry. It’s only been three days and I can already tell that finding beef that is non-red will be impossible. After dinner, I went home and did the usual B5 watching.

The Ozzfest was Thursday, and boy was it ever apparent! Daniel and I went to lunch at No Name, then went to a tech-talk on Linux Telephony at 13:00. The talk was really boring though, so we went upstairs, distracted ourselves for a little while, then went in to the Partners Matter demo at 14:00. We get there a little early, which turned out to be a great idea. A lot of other interns got turned away because the demo was supposed to be for full-timers only. After getting two-shirts (which was non-trivial), I headed back to my building and basked in my triumph where other interns had failed.

We had an interesting TGIF on Friday. As you can imagine, there was some discussion about the stock price falling because of missed revenue prediction by The Wall Street Journal. After TGIF, I played ping-pong with Andrew for a while, then played volleyball with some guys. Funny enough, Sergey (as in Brinn) was actually playing as well. It was decent fun, but I got a little sandy and very sweaty, so I had to run home and shower. After the shower, I headed to Castro St. to meet Jeff Wu and Falcon for dinner. We ate at a Thai place called The Bangkok Spoon. It was alright, but I miss Sophia’s…

I had the most relaxing Saturday I had in a long time. I got up at 7:00, out of bed at 7:20, and started watching B5 at 7:30. I didn’t stop watching until 18:30. In that time, I consumed literally no food. I guess my body is finally learning to not tell me it’s hungry when it doesn’t need any full. After I got showered, I headed to Redwood Shores to pick up Shakeh. We headed to Palo Alto to meet up with Lee and Andrew for dinner. Our original plan was to go to Bucca di Bepo, but the place had an hour wait. So instead we went across the street to The Gordon Biersch Brewery. After dinner, Shakeh and I hung out at my place for an hour or so, then I took her back to Redwood Shores.

Sunday was another lazy day. I watched a lot of B5. Around noon, Daniel and I went to Google to do laundry and play ping-pong. Remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Forrest is playing ping-pong against that Chinese guy? Remember how far back they were standing? Daniel and I got into several rallies like that, it was quite cool. After laundry, I went back home and watched a little more B5, then headed to Dave Shreiner’s place for a nice braai. After that, I went back home, watched some more B5 with Falcon, then went to sleep.

So here’s the gist. I went to a Candidates@Google talk this week with a republican (actually he’s a constitutionalist) congressman named Ron Paul. At first I happy to see him talk. I’d never really heard of him, but supposedly he has decent support and some of his ideas seemed interesting. Then he opened his mouth… Most people, as they get older, begin to be very cynical about the world and its people. Therefore, this guy is either senile or naive (or both). He has many republican views (no gun-control, minimalist government, etc.) but he takes them to an extreme. After twenty-five minutes of the talk, I knew I would never vote for him. After thirty-five minutes, I was both proud and frustrated for my country that someone like this not only exists, but made it to prominence. After forty-five minutes, I just left. I’d heard enough to know that I would never want to talk with this person. We disagree on so many things that the only thing we’d be able to do is give each other respectful silence… But you, judge him for yourself. Look through the propaganda and see exactly what it is he stands for. You never know, he could be the republican candidate for 2008, and maybe even president again (doubtful though, I don’t think this country will ever vote in another Texas Republican as president).

I watched two Babylon 5 things on Monday. The first was the movie, In The Beginning. I never actually saw this movie. It was a background-story movie made after the series had started. It was actually done well, and added some depth to the plot that didn’t exist at first. I also watched episode 1×00, The Gathering, which is the pilot for the series. I found it funny that many of the primary characters changed, as well as the make up of the alien races. I didn’t actually get to finish the episode though. It is a double episode and it was time for bed about half-way through.

After work on Tuesday, Andrew and I played tennis at Ames. Andrew is pretty good, and he is giving me some helpful tips. We played for awhile, then played double with Paul and Katie when they showed up. After that was done, we played a few rounds of first-to-five, then played some King of the Court until 21:00, at which time I promptly departed for home. I finished watching The Gathering, then went to sleep.

Brian came to dinner on Wednesday night. Rachel and Andrew joined us. Brian had things to do, so he didn’t stay for long afterwards. When I got home, I watched more B5. Episodes 1×01-1×03 to be precise. I also realized that, with 1) these episodes being forty-three minutes long, 2) each season having twenty-two episodes, 3) there being five seasons, and 4) me having approximately two and a half hours a day after work of spare time, it will take me ten weeks to finish the series if I don’t have a few weekends for marathons.

On Thursday, I finished my “Tour de Cafe Google” with The Lunch Box. While there, Andrew, Michael, Dan, and I noted how nice the Crittendon part of the campus actually is, and how it is incredibly obvious engineers don’t work in the buildings (at least not in abundance). I watched more B5 again (get used to this every night people…), this time episodes 1×04-1×06. I like how the show is advancing already. Even though most episodes are just day-to-day random occurrences on the station, there is an underlying story that is bigger than any one episode, and it is unfolding slowly.

On Friday, I went to see Ron Paul talk. And well… you know how I feel about him now. We had a social TGIF, which consisted of a latin band and lots of food/drinks, but no talking. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately there was no real dinner being served. I ate as much snack food as I could stomach, then headed to Davis. Traffic sucked, I left at 18:10 and got there around 21:00. Once I get there, Shakeh and I got to Sarah Koch’s farewell BBQ, stayed for an hour or so, then went home.

Shakeh and I watched South Park in the morning on Saturday, then went to the market. On the way, we stopped by the bank, and ran into Sarah, Simone, and Abhi. We went with them to the market and got food and (for some) coffee. While there, we found out that Simone was also leaving! Everyone will be gone! After the market (at which we didn’t eat lunch), we walked with Abhi for a bit, then went to The Village Bakery for lunch. We met up with Rawi at 13:00 to see Transformers. I enjoyed most of the movie, but all in all it was pretty terrible. After the movies, Shakeh and I went to Big 5 so I could purchase a ping-pong paddle. After that, it was so hot that we wanted to get something to cool us down and be somewhere with wonderfully powerful A/C. Shakeh went to Ben & Jerry’s and I went to Jamba Juice. We then went to Borders for a bit. There is a new Lost Chronicles book, Dragon’s of the Highlord Skies. I’m waiting for Amber & Blood still, but I have a feeling that will be awhile. After Borders, we hung out for an hour or so, then went to Fuzio for dinner. We split a Japanese noodle-dish and the firecracker pasta. Both were really good. After dinner, we went to The Marble Slab, then went home.

Shakeh mentioned that she wanted to try Crepeville for breakfast, so on Sunday, that’s exactly what we did. We drove around Davis for awhile after that, listening to Beethoven’s Last Night, then eventually found ourselves at Pedrick’s. We bought a bunch of stuff, most was Shakeh’s = p, then drove home. I dropped Shakeh off, then headed back to Mountain View. Conny, Dan, and I did laundry at Google and played ping-pong. After getting home and putting our laundry away, we went to P. F. Chang’s for dinner in Sunnyvale. Conny and Daniel had never been, so I figured they might enjoy it. They both really liked it. They took awhile to order, but we eventually came to an agreement. Conny got some double-friend noodles (which were most delicious), Daniel got the Sweet & Sour Pork, and I got the Crispy Honey Chicken. All were great, though the chicken was my favorite. After dinner, I just went home and watched episodes 1×07-1×10 of B5, then went to sleep.

All the smoke from fireworks? Seriously, I never realized how much smoke is actually emitted. This year though, we were two miles away from the fireworks (via the sound-distance test). After a few fireworks, we started seeing the cloud. Now admittedly, it looked really cool since the entire smoke area would light up the same color as the current work of fire. I wonder if anyone has done a study to determine how much pollution is caused by fireworks. In a place like Mountain View where the fireworks display lasts only twenty minutes, probably not much. But someplace like Santa Cruz or the beaches of Florida, where the displays go on for two or three hours, it has to be a significant amount. You know what? Screw it. It’s nice to see an instance where this demented country can stop bitching at itself for long enough to just sit back and be entertained and try and remember a time when smart people wanted to make this place something better for everyone, not just something that gives them an easy way to gain public spotlight and money.

Not much happened on Monday. I played tennis on Monday after work. Three other guys showed up, one of whom was actually really good. A few years ago, he held the amateur number thirteen rank in the United States. He gave me some few tips, but just in general hit with me. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, I went home and watched the end of Love Actually with Sara.

On Tuesday, Sara officially departed. I was sad that I didn’t get to see her go (stupid meetings…). Lee came for dinner. He stayed until 20:00, then took off. I went home and watched some more South Park before going to sleep.

Wednesday was, of course, the Fourth of July, the American Independence Day. It was also the mark for the seventh month that Shakeh and I have been dating. I had previously told Shakeh that I planned to stay in Mountain View, which she was fine with. Of course, knowing me, I couldn’t just leave her in Davis all by her lonesome self. So, after doing my usual workout at Google, I jumped in my car and headed to Davis. I got there around 10:30. She was still sleeping! After she got up and ready, we met up and went looking for a place to eat lunch. We wanted to go somewhere nice, since it was technically an anniversary meal. Of course, no restaurants in Davis were open for lunch. So we decided to put off our meal out until the weekend, and wound up going to the first open place we could find, Woodstock’s Pizza. After eating lunch, we went to Ground Zero and I got some new shoes. I headed back to Mountain View after that.

I got home, called up the guys, and figured out when the BBQ was happening. In the meantime, Tony came over and we watched some Planet Earth. Andrew and his friend arrived, then we took off and headed for the BBQ. We ate some wonderful meat, played soccer and frisbee, then packed up and headed to Google.

We got to Google around 21:00 and started looking for a good vantage point. The original plan was to get on the roof somehow. That plan fell through though, as the recent solar panel installation now meant that all roof access was off-limits. Instead, we walked down to Amphitheatre Parkway and watched from there. The show was good, though fairly short (only twenty minutes). There were a lot of cool fireworks, including the usual cubes, splatters, and multi-phase explosions.

Verena got into town on Thursday. Lee picked her up, then dropped her off for dinner around 18:00. Might I add that I got Verena to eat graham! It wasn’t a graham cracker, but it was graham none the less. Of course, once I told her what it was, she stopped eating it immediately. Luckily for me, that meant I could take photographic evidence. We ate, and then I showed her around the place until 20:00 or so. After that, we went home and Ciderman, Verena, and I watched South Park for a little while until it was bed-time for me.

Despite going to bed at a decent hour, Verena was still tired when I got her up at 07:30. After she was ready, we headed to Google for breakfast. We ate from No Name, then Verena took some more Naked Juice and waited for Lee to come pick her up. Due to the Fourth of July holiday, there was no TGIF (again!). Being as there was no TGIF, there was also no dinner! ARGH! I headed to Redwood City to get Tony. I filled up my car’s tank, got some trail mix, then picked Tony up. We were out of Redwood City by 19:30 and in Davis by 21:00. All three of us (Shakeh was now in the mix) were hungry. Tony suggested Chuy’s, but it was already closed. We ended up going to Sophia’s instead. We got done by 22:00. I dropped Shakeh off, then drove Tony back home.

Saturday morning! That means one thing… You guessed it! The Farmer’s Market, yay!!! I went with Shakeh, we got there around 11:30 and stayed only a small time. We ate some food, then had to hurry to get to the movie theatre in time. We went to see Ratatouille. It was really good. I find it funny how live-action movies are all either sequels, remakes, or adaptions, meanwhile cartoon/CGI movies are original and very entertaining. As you can guess by the previous sentence, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Not to mention the usual Pixar short before hand, which was also very funny and cute.

For dinner, Shakeh and I went to a Greek place called Symposium. It was great! It’s in the strip mall on Eighth street near Pole Line. The outside looks really ghetto, but once we got inside and saw the place, we were immediately impressed. It looks as if the restaurant owners brought Greece back with them. The interior is very well done, with just enough tasteful decorations. And don’t worry, no purple carpets or gold curtain rods ; ) Shakeh and I split some dolma, an entree, and a Greek style pizza. We didn’t get anything for dessert though as we were both very full. After dinner, we drove around a little bit and listened to From the Screen to Your Stereo by New Found Glory, then went to the top of the west parking garage at the university to watch the sunset.

We finally got the chance to go to Bistro 33 for brunch. It was good, though nothing special and slightly overpriced (typical Bistro I guess). After burnch, we took a walk around I street and J street. I picked up Tony around noon, then headed back to Mountain View. I did laundry at Google and played ping pong with Tony whilest my clothes were washing. We got back to my place and watched the first episode of Transformers. After that, Tony, Brian, Kim, Dan, and I went to dinner at Cascal on Castro street. Rachel called right I was leaving and said she had just arrived, so I left from Castro street and headed to SJC to give her a ride home. After I got home, I watched South Park with everyone, then went to bed.

Funny enough, I actually believe it this summer. Last summer, working for NVIDIA was good, but I never was given the opportunity. I made many a surreptitious effort while there, but the code was so obscure and intertwined that it was just impossible. I went about doing what was asked of me, and by the end of the summer, felt like I contributed virtually nothing and was paid to sit and read code instead of make/debug code. But with Google, I hit the ground running. Even after my first week, I’m already able to make a meaningful application that runs on Google’s hardware and software infrastructure. I feel that given fifteen more weeks, I, too, can truly make a difference (even if it is minuscule).

But first, I think Google should make a small difference for me! I went to the gym at Google for the first time, and discovered that there is no decline bench for dumbbells! ARGH! This throws my workout regime for a loop since I really like doing dumbbells, and I really hate asking for spots. Since I don’t have the option of playing sports for three hours a day, I instead chose to start doing interval training on the exercise bike. Well, that didn’t quite work out as I had planned. I got my heart rate up to one-eighty, and then wasn’t able to drop it down until twenty-five minutes later. So… I think I’ll just do cardio from this point forward. Oh, another crappy thing. I had to wait ten minutes for a shower, since the gym only has four of them. I hope it isn’t like this every day, but I think Monday would be the least busy day, not the most. I ate breakfast solo after working out. I got my desk for a few hours, then went to go see Michael Bloomberg talk. Andrew and Rachel also came along. After the talk, I got lunch with Andrew while Rachel waited in line with her business buddies to get a picture with Bloomberg. After lunch, I got back to my desk and did some more work for a few hours. I then went to a status meeting for an internal project. It was in this meeting that I learned something I should’ve learned a long time ago: Keep your mouth shut at all costs. So the story goes like this. Person A says something about an info-vis concept. I know that this person is spewing garbage and is not only wrong, but is completely, one-hundred percent wrong. I correct Person A. Person B makes the same mistake later. I correct person B. Neither person has a problem being corrected, and welcomes the input. Person C asks a question, and I volunteer the answer since no one else seems willing to do the same. At the end of the meeting, Person B volunteers to write a document. Our manager says “You know, you’re very busy, we should have Jeff write it since he seems to understand what’s going on.” Lesson learned, I’m shutting my mouth from now on so as to avoid even more work. Now I have the wonderful responsibility of writing a design document for a horribly complex thing.

The gym was significantly better on Tuesday. All the machines I needed were there. Cardio was a pain though. I got off of the bike and was literally one-hundred percent covered in sweat. Luckily though, I didnt have to wait for shower. The class that was cancelled the previous week I skipped today. It was about writing unit tests, and honestly, my project won’t be unit-testable. Well, it won’t be worth-while to write unit-tests. I went to lunch with Inga, Andrew, and Andrew’s friend Ilya. After lunch I played pool with Ilya while Andrew and Inga tried DDR. For dinner, I think I ate too much. I felt a little sick afterwards. Anyways, Andrew came over to my place and we watched the “Cartmanland” and “The Entity” episodes of South Park. I went through the first full lesson of Rosetta Stone as well.

I went to the No-Name cafe for lunch on Wednesday. I got my food, but then Inga grabbed me and told me to get into a shirt line. As luck would have it, I was able to secure a nice Google shirt, and then I went back and got three ladie’s shirts for my womenz = ) Apparently it’s next to impossible to get more than one male-sized shirt. I went to dinner with Rachel, Jessica, and Katie, and met another guy named Sid. After dinner I went home and did some Rosetta Stone, then went to a hookah bar in Palo Alto with Rachel, Jessica, and their friend Nate.

Funny enough, I really didn’t do anything on Thursday outside of work. I even just grabbed dinner by myself and went home.

Friday was TGIF. I stayed for the whole thinig, but took off before dinner as we were going camping! Yay! We set up the tents, had “pasta” then went to sleep.

I woke up fairly early on Saturday. Shakeh and I went to the ranger station to get firewood, then started a fire. We had a wonderful breakfast of donuts, cold bagels, horrid coffee (that I had none of, of course), and Naked Juice. We chose to go on a nice, five-mile hike. However, it turned into a six-mile hike because our trail was closed off. It was really fun though, and very beautiful. However, the difference in our group’s fitness levels started showing up as we began a large uphill hike. We had to stop every few minutes for people to catch their breath. The hike eventually got over after three hours, and we all went back and started a nice, eight-hour camp-fire. We sat around, ate, told jokes, related stories, and had a generally pleasant time before going to sleep.

On Sunday, we woke up and began packing right away. When we got back to Mountain View, we showered, then I took Shakeh out to Chevy’s for lunch. After Shakeh left, I went to IKEA with Andrew, then did my laundry at Google. Freaking Sebastian got me playing another addictive flash game, the link for which I shall not show so as to avoid you becoming addicted. I went to Conniel’s for a bit, then had to settle for gross fast food for dinner since everything was closed already (Seriously people, it’s only 21:15, you don’t have to shut down your store so freaking early).

For pictures from camping: http://jeff.bleugris.com/photos