Jeff Stuart - Memoirs of a CPUNERD

So many things were the same this Summer, but so many things were different. For example of things that were the same, our apartment still wasn’t finished, just like last summer. This time, there was still the smell of paint in the air, and portions of the place weren’t finished being painted. I again had to go to Home Depot to get two to three-prong converters. Most of the cafes at Google were still there. The food was still great. The gyms were still the same, though the locker rooms were different.

If you didn’t know already, I was working on the Earth Client team. I say client because, if again you didn’t know, the team that works on the user interface is completely different from the team that works on the data side. What I did exactly I can’t say yet, but when it’s released, you’ll know I had a part.

The group of people I worked with this Summer was amazing. We meshed really well, and shared a common view on the way my project should unfold. My boss was actually one of the founders of Keyhole (the original Earth project). It was really cool to hear him talk about all the tricks the team uses to get Earth to be performant and do the things it does.

I got to meet up with a lot of friends from last Summer. Besides my roommates, I got to see Katie, as she was starting full time. Roma, a friend from my time at NVIDIA, was working at a place right next to the Google campus. Speaking of NVIDIA, Mafu was back at NVIDIA, this time as a full timer. And of course, Ciderman, Sean, and Lee were all still at NVIDIA. There were few other people from Google last Summer, but actually not as many as I would have though. Most of the friends I had either didn’t get rehired or chose to stay and do research with their adviser.

As opposed to last Summer, I actually took the time and played squash. I originially was going to play with a new friend from Google, and another Google intern that I didn’t really get to know. Turns out that I was a bit better than both of them, so we only ever played once. However, as Mafu was back in town, we played a few times. Not as often as I would’ve liked, but more than last summer. I also took the opportunity and got worked by a sixteen-year old. I’m not exaggerating about either part. I really did get worked (0-9, 3-9, 2-9), and the kid really was sixteen.

I also managed to get in a ton of tennis. At least two times a week, I was either taking a lesson or playing with a friend. My primary opponent was Roma, though I also played in a doubles tournament with a friend from Google named Jenya. The lessons I took were from a recent Stanford graduate. He was actually on both the squash and tennis team, and he offered lessons for both. I was aiming to take a squash lesson, but it never panned out. The tennis lessons worked really well though. My backhand improved tremendously, and I changed my forehand quite a bit. Of course, that still left my serve.

Speaking of serving, that was the one way that Roma kept beating me. It was odd because I was doing so well against her at first, and then I had a slump. Luckily I broke through though, and didn’t get completely worked over by Roma for the remainder of the summer. My serve also improved enough to help me in the doubles tournament. Jenya managed to always get points off her serve, even though it was pretty slow. Me, I was dragging our team down. As the tournament progressed though, the lessons helped and I finally showed her I didn’t completely suck. We ended up winning our last game, though that only took Jenya half way through the tournament. I’m not sure how she finished out.

Something else the Summer brought was a ton of football action. Euro2008 ate away at least thirty hours of my time, and it caused me to spend $180 on Russia jerseys. I also started taking football lessons from this Ex-Chilean goalie. He played for the national team, and he was also a pro on one of the countries teams. My technique improved slightly, and my defense and fitness went up significantly. Also, thanks to him, I finally felt what it was like to have ridiculously sore abs and hamstrings.

It seems that my number of concerts per Summer is slowly dropping. Though perhaps the quality is increasing. I went to see Type O Negative and Mindless Self Indulgence. Both of which were absolutely awesome. I also saw Projekt Revolution. Linkin Park put on another great show, and some of the other bands were also really good. ASHES dIVIDE was incredible, they sounded amazing. Atreyu I thought was good, but Shakeh didn’t really like them live (she loves their albums). It was cool to see Chris Cornell perform some of the Soundgarden songs and do a few songs with Linkin Park, but he wasn’t my favorite.

Obviously it’s hard to summarize an entire Summer into a few-thousand words. I left out so many experiences like the Boat Cruise and picnic. I didn’t get a chance to talk about so many new people and friends, David, Naren, Garrett, Giselle, Valkyrie Savage (yes, her real name), and tons more. But honestly, who wants to read through a daily list of all the boring crap I did?