Memoirs of a CPUNERD

It’s funny, until you actually try something, you never really have the right opinion about it. Well, at least that’s what I thought. Funny enough, after my first experience in the Castro, I don’t really believe that. It was A TON of fun, and it played out almost exactly as I thought it would.

Probably the nicest part about being straight in a gay bar or club is that there is no artificial pressure to do anything but have fun. It was a really refreshing feeling to be out and about and just hanging around with friends, and having no obligations. And the funny part was of course that every guy there got his ass grabbed at least once, whether they’ll admit it or not… you know who you are = )p

Tuesday was the Google Dance! I was pleasantly surprised by how cool it was. I kept thinking all the way up to it that it would be pretty lame and I would just leave after I got a shirt. Turns out I was wrong. There was the usual Google hospitality which included free shirts, booze, and food. Then there was more. The courtyard of the complex was completely rigged with club lighting. There were two karaoke booths, a bunch of couches and pool tables, four Wiis, and much, much more. Then, inside of Charlie’s, there were tons of multi-player racing games and a DJ. Around 20:00, a lot of my friends moved indoors and most of us danced until 21:30, at which point I took off to go home. I dropped Chris off at Ames first, then went back to my place and watched an episode of The Sopranos before going to bed.

A bunch of us went to go see Superbad on Wednesday. The movie was pretty good, and very funny. It was way more adult-friendly than the trailer made it out to be (hard to imagine, I know). However, throughout the entire movie, I kept getting the feeling that I was just slightly older than the target age-group. As it would turn out, the screenplay was written when the writer was just graduating from high school.

Inga, Chris, Falcon, Daniel, Dale, Andrew, and I went up to Malibu on Thursday night for go-karting and miniature golf. The go-karts were a lot of fun. Normal go-karts don’t have anywhere near as much power as these did, so it was great. I was almost the fastest person on the course. I blame the weight difference between me and Dale his win ; )

On Friday night, for Andrew and Michael’s last day, we went out to the Castro. Chris, Inga, Daniel and I drove up ourselves and went to The Metro. The place was nice, and was basically exactly like a chill-bar anywhere else, except guys were hitting on other guys instead of girls. Daniel got offered a drink buy this man who was at least fifty years of age. Daniel accepted though, and ended up talking to the guy for another hour and a half. Michael showed up with more people around 23:10 (they were late getting to BART). We hung out at the bar until a little before midnight, then headed over to the Cafe. Daniel actually stayed a while longer to talk to the guy, meeting up with us around 00:30. We got the place and were immediately confronted with the most packed club I had ever seen. It seemed pretty normal, and by that I mean ninety-five percent guys… Hey, at least this time most of the guys were getting some action while there instead of hanging around waiting for some potential to show up. The club was a lot of fun, especially once the Go-Go dancers came out and Inga seemed very embarrassed. We tried to get her to put a dollar note in one of the dancer’s G-strings, but she wouldn’t. Michael had no qualms though… The dance floor was insanely busy. You couldn’t move one way or the other without hitting someone. We eventually left the place around 1:45, then Michael told us we should all go get pizza. So we went to a drunken pizza place down on Castro. We ended up leaving around 2:45. Michael and his friends took cabs home. Andrew, Dale, and Dave drunkenly stumbled back to Dave’s place in SF, and Chris, Inga, Daniel, and I walked back to my car and headed home. I don’t understand why, but there was traffic at 03:00 on a Saturday morning on the 101. WTF?! I didn’t end up getting into my bed until five minutes to 04:00.

I woke up fairly late on Saturday, I think around 09:30. I went into Google to meet with Chris. We then met the Canadians at the Shoreline theatre and saw War. It wasn’t really that great. Afterwards, I was going to go to dinner, but instead just went home and watched the start of The 25th Hour. I left in the middle though, to go to Redwood City and see Shakeh and her cousins for a bit. After that, I went back down to the South Bay, picked up Chris, then went mini-golfing with him and a guy named Arjin (who it turns out I met at my one of my neighbor’s parties in Davis, small freaking world).

On Sunday, I finished watching The 25th Hour. Rusiniak and I met up in Sunnyvale and played squash for a while. After squash, I went home, showered, and then headed to Google to play ping-pong and do some laundry. After laundry, I went home and watched The Chronicles of Narnia, surfed the net, and then went to bed.

Seriously people, when you have to make a turn to stay on the same street, there’s a problem! Case in point, check out this. Look specifically at how, if one is heading north, one must turn west to stay on Rengstorff. Then, go North just slightly and see how Charleston, without actually crossing the freeway, is on BOTH sides of the freeway! Don’t even get me started on Highway 84 through Fremont…
I discovered through unfortunate circumstances that cold showers absolutely suck. The hot water in gym was busted on Monday, so everyone was forced to tough it out and take cold showers. I’m getting short of breath and chest pains just remember it. I had lunch at the reopening of Cafe 150. Everything had bacon! After lunch, I did a user study but didn’t get a shirt (dab nabbit!), then went back to my cube and worked for a bit. Wyclef Jean did an improptu appearance and performance at Charlie’s. His presence was very humorous, and I even enjoyed the music a bit. He jokingly threatened the sound guy because the sound kept screwing up, then performed some live songs (Gone Till November, If I Were President, and a few more). He even managed to get into a push-up match with some random guy in the audience. It was all really entertaining. After his performance, he talked some more about Haiti and answered some questions from the audience. Someone asked him to rap in Creole, another person was forced by Wyclef to freestyle on the spot. All in all a very entertaining day.

Chris and Katie joined me in the gym on Tuesday morning. They were about twenty minutes later than they said they would be, but oh well. We did some cardio together, then I finished up and took off. For lunch, Falcon and i biked to Crittendon to meet up with some business interns for lunch. As luck would have it, Katie was the only one who showed up. We ate at Pure Ingredients then went into 1400 to check out the gym and 1500 to nab some gummy bears. After work, Sean, Ciderman, and Lee came up for dinner at No Name. We ate with Andrew and Michael, talked for a little while, then left. I gave Reva a ride back to Ames, then talked with her for almost an hour before leaving.

Per Katie’s request, I went to the gym in Crittendon on Wednesday. Chris and Katie met me again, and again they were significantly later than they said they would be. After lifting, Katie and I rode on some weird bikes with computer-generated scenery. We then proceeded to workout on an interesting machine that somewhat simulates a surfboard. After that, the three of us went for a jog around the area. Chris and I finished up, then got breakfast with Rachel at Fourteen. I ended up having lunch with michael, Falcon, and Andrew at Cafe 7, then went back to work for a bit. i went to a talk given by an engineer about how business people can get along with and deal with engineers. Daniel accompanied me, as we both thought it was just going to be a slew of stereotypes getting tossed around left and right. The talk was interesting, but not as funny as we thought it would be. It even gave some business interns the wrong idea about engineers. So much so that they immediately developed an active disdain for us… After the talk, I went back to my building for a meeting, then headed to the shuttles for the boat cruise. The busses got into SF around 1830. After that, we boarded the boat, then grabbed some food in the dining hall. Once dinner was over and the boat had set sail, we went out and around the deck, checking out all the cool sites. The boat went past Alcatraz, Sausolito, into the middle of the bay, and then back to Pier 3 over the course of three hours. We danced for almost two hours during the cruise, then at the end watched a summer intern slideshow. It was all really fun. We didn’t get back to Google until 2300 though, so I got to sleep really late.

Thursday morning Katie and Chris joined me in the gym, and yep, they were late again. After the gym, Chris and I grabbed food at No Name, then got to our desks around 915. We worked for two hours, then boarded the busses for the Engineering Picnic. The picnic rocked! There was (of course) free food and alcohol, and tons of game. Everything from ping-pong to an inflatable gauntlet to human fooz-ball to ultimate. We started with some frisbee, then progressed to ping-pong for awhile. After we were done with that, we got some food and (for others) yummy cocktails. Andrew and I then raced each other at the inflatable gauntlet. I won, but only because Andrew slipped up and hurt his foot. I also had a rather bad dismount. (Tipsy) Michael and Inga then raced each other, but Inga got lost really quick so Michael won with no problems. After that, we just wandered around some more, then eventually settled into the line for henna tattoos and caricatures.

On Firday, I finished up the initial version of a project (finally). I tried to check it in but got blocked on a few fronts. After struggling to fix the problem, I went to my host for some help. That turned out to be a bad idea, as he insisted upon fixing a ton of stuff right there, and thus I had to skip TGIF. After work was over, I gave Chris a ride to Caltrain, then went back to Google to play ping-pong with Daniel. I was originally going to go see Superbad, but I felt like crap so I decided to just go home. Falcon brought Kim, Dan, and Brian over to our place, so we watched some Youtube videos (Planet Unicorn Heyyy!!!), and by the end of that it was late enough that everyone left and I just went to bed.

Luckily, when I woke up on Saturday, I was feeling better. I watched some B5 until Matt and Ray showed up at my place. Once they did, we took off to Google to get some supplies. We then met Reva at the Caltrain in Mountain View so I could give her a ticket to Rock the Bells. Once done with that, we took 280 up to SF and proceeded to downtown. We parked at this little lot at Second and Howard, then walked to Third Street and crossed the bridge to get to the parking lot. I’m not going to lie, I paid ninety dollars to see Rage Against The Machine. Everything else was just fluff for me. As it turns out, it really was just fluff. Mos Def, The Roots, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, and Wu-Tang Clan all played before Rage. For the most part, I wasn’t really digging any of it. There were a few Cypress Hill songs that I liked, but that was it. Oh well, Rage rocked, and so did the crowd, so that’s all I cared about. And as it turns out, walking back to the car was about as fun as the rest of the concert. You haven’t seen crazy until you see eighty-thousand people walking up Third Street at 2200, screaming randomly and blocking traffic because there are simply too many people for the sidewalks. And I don’t know why, but everyone and their mother was driving on Saturday night on the 101. It took us an hour and half to get back to Mountain View.

I did two major things on Sunday: 1) I finished B5, and 2) I slept in until 900, which I haven’t done since last summer. I was planning on a bike ride, but due to the doubling of expected duration (the bike ride was supposed to be two hours, but then two hours of driving got added), those plans were cancelled. I ended up playing ping-pong and doing laundry with Daniel, Lee, and Ciderman. In the middle of it all, Lee and I biked to Crittendon and scoured the buildings for gummy bears, but they were all gone. We looked through eight micro-kitchens to no avail. After dropping my laundry off at home, we headed to Shoreline Grille for dinner. We couldn’t find the place though, so instead we just went to Chipotle. Apparently my hunger from the last two days was catching up with me, because I was freaking starving! If someone had put several burritos in front of me, I think I would have ate at least three. After Chipotle, we headed to Google to kill some time, then went to the movie theatres to see Stardust. I highly recommend this movie. The acting was a bit cheesy at times, but it was still funny and very good.

Really! Why?! This is an awesome idea! Can you imagine how nice it would be to be able to live in Sacramento and be able to hop a train to LA and have a total travel time roughly equivalent to that of flying? Wait, I guess that says it right there. Too many politicians have their hands in the airline industry’s pockets, and thus something like this will take forever to massage through the state congress. Triple hamburgers.

Monday sucked for work. More than half of my day was gone to meetings and such, and the meetings were at times that made it impossible for me to get much work done. I had an early lunch at Pure Ingredients with Daniel, Inga, Andrew, and Michael. I then met up with Alden for an hour or so on the patio. After I walked with Alden to his former boss’ office, I went back to even more meetings… yay! I had dinner at 1800 with Alden, Inga, Andrew, and Rachel. Alden came back to my place, and we watched some B5. Thayer showed up for a bit. We had a heck of a time opening a bottle of Riesling that Alden brought with him from Europe.

I had a late lunch on Tuesday, primarily because I didn’t want to take the reins so someone else had to. Around noon, Inga messaged me. We ended up going to Pintxo. The weather was pretty crappy, but since we got there so late, there was no room at any of the tables to eat. Hence, we had to sit outside in the cold and breeze (actually, it turned out to be quite nice). I got at 1800 with the Canucks (except ian). We ate and BS’ed for a few hours, then I went home and finished the fourth season of B5.

On Wednesday, a bunch of us ate at Cafe 7. Michael told us about his late night and his hangover which made us all laugh. I learned some more about Java generics, though just enough to not want to use them.

Shakeh joined us for dinner on Thursday. We ate with Andrew and Inga, then went to watch the Intern Talent Show (Scott tied for first place). We just went home after that.

I had breakfast on Friday with Shakeh and Andrew. After breakfast, I helped out Andrew with some applescript stuff. I worked as much as possible, but had meetings from 1030-1145. I bailed early on my last meeting (it was supposed to go until noon). I ran to the main campus, scarfed down some food at Charlie’s, then took off for LA. The drive was really nice. We stopped three times; once for the heck of it, once for gas, and once more for food at some random place in Santa Barbara. We got into LA around 2130, and Andrew dropped me off in North Hills shortly after that.

I woke up fairly early on Saturday. Gregg and Adrienne were both still sleeping though, so I watched two movies on TV. The first was The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. If you mute the speakers, the movie is actually pretty nice. A bunch of hot women dancing around, and some fairly impressive car stunts. After the movie was over, I tip-toed down the stairs, and sure enough, they were both still sleeping. I went back upstairs and watched The Rock for awhile, until they woke up. After that, we just had a nice, lazy day. We went swimming for a bit (including the dog), then went back in and talked for a few hours while watching tennis. We had dinner together, then talked some more before going to bed.

I got up early again on Sunday and watched some Sportscenter. Once Gregg and Adrienne were up, I went downstairs and had breakfast with them. Andrew showed up half an hour late (so I get to keep “Awailable”). We had a long, boring drive back to the Bay Area. We got in around 1600. I got home, convinced Tony to play ping-pong, then went to Google to do laundry and wait for T-Dawg to show up. After I was done with my laundry, I met up with Lee, Ciderman and Sean on Castro St. in Mountain View. We went to a nice Indian place called Shiva’s. I just got naan and enough daal to kill a horse. Afterwards, we got gelato (of course, how could we not?!).

Anyone who’s ever worked out or participated in sports with me knows how much I sweat. It’s not completely excessive, but it is more than normal. Everyone has their theories as to why. Some people think that it’s just genetic, some people blame it on hyperhidrosis. The thing is, I do remember sweating less or not at all when I weighed less. This leads me to believe that the simplest answer for why I sweat more than others is simply thermoregulation and Bergmann’s Rule. Sigh, time to get my butt back on the exercise bike…

Monday wasn’t all too exciting. I went to Off The Grid with Rachel for lunch, and then to No Name and Charlie’s with Andrew for dinner. My B5 quest continues.

The director of UNICEF gave a talk on Tuesday. It was interesting, though it was readily apparent that she is still a politician and a bureaucrat. After lunch, Andrew came by and grabbed all of my B5 while I went to a Vis talk by a professor from Berkeley. And the best part of the day, right as I was settling into working and hitting my stride, my building had a fire drill. Double Hamburgers.

With Wednesday came the Google Intern Scavenger Hunt. The hunt itself is produced by The Go Game. We did a few fun things, though most of it was just running around frantically between Ghiradelli Square and Pier 39. I had the unfortunate duty of singing to a woman in the middle of the street on bended knee. I’m sure no one (myself included) enjoyed hearing me screech. After we got back, I did a tiny amount of work, then went to dinner.

Thursday marked the annual intern open house. Tony and Ciderman came. It was different from last year. Instead of BBQing there was just sushi for everyone (we skipped out and went to No Name for pasta), and instead of shirts, people got a leather bound journal. Oh, and instead of giving away four DS lites, they gave away a Google branded iPod. The talks weren’t quite as interesting this year either, though they were more in the spirit of “Open House” than the previous year.

Yuan showed up for lunch. Daniel, Falcon, Yuan, and I went to No Name for lunch. After work, I played ping-pong with Andrew, then ate dinner with Bill, Scott, and Jonas. Even though I left after traffic should’ve stopped, it still took more time than usual to get into Davis.

On Saturday morning, Shakeh and I watched Heroes before going to the Farmer’s Market. We didn’t stay long though, as Shakeh was running a bit late and the market was almost closed by the time we got there. We each grabbed something frmo The Hotdogger and a homemade popsicle. We ran from the market (drove, really, but eh…) to the movie theatres just in time to catch a showing of The Bourne Ultimatum. However, Shakeh left her glasses at home so we had to run back and grab them. This actually turned out to be better, since it allowed us to get better seats and not rush so much. After the movies, we went back to my place and relaxed for a little bit, then got ready and went to Soga’s for dinner. After Soga’s, we went back to my place and almost finished all of the first season of Heroes.

On Sunday morning, we finished watching Heroes. After that, we went to Cafee Bernardo for breakfast. Shortly after that, I left and headed back to Mountain View. Daniel and I went to Google to do laundry and play ping pong, but Google was out of detergent! I ran to 7-11 to buy some, then headed back to start our laundry and play. Katie showed close to when we were leaving, so we played a game or two, then headed back to my place. I folded my laundry real quick, then Sean showed up so the three of us left. We went to La Strada in Palo Alto for dinner. It was good, and it wasn’t that expensive. After dinner, we headed up the 101 to San Francisco to see Eddie Izzard! We got a parking spot right across from the place, but Lee hadn’t eaten so we had to walk to Union Square for him to find a place to eat. After he ate, we rummaged around Border’s for a bit, then headed back to the show. Izzard was great! Though he didn’t wear any drag. The theatre was really small too, there couldn’t have been more than a few hundred people in the place.