You, too, can make a difference
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