Le premier jour

There aren't words to tell of the wonders I've seen today. I'll give it a shot though.

Many interns started today, and most places were packed. We started the day with boring stuff: signing in, filling out forms, etc. I took the opportunity to find as many comfortable places to sit as possible (lots of really big bean bag chairs, at least one being right next to a bunch of Legos and what looked like a childrens' play area --- that is, until you notice the books on the shelves). After some of that, we had lunch, which was great, of course. The place we ate was basically a big cafeteria like you might find at any university. They had all sorts of food at different stations: Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, plus salad bars, waffle making stations, and other sorts of things. They also have big drink cases with all sorts of drinks, including normal sodas and water, and also really good looking teas and Naked smoothies (SBU people will recognize this). For everyone else, Naked smoothies are typically about $3 ($4 if you are on campus), and taste great. We're also told that they're healthy. At Google, as expected, they're free. Insert wide grin here.

As I was eating lunch, my host found me, said hi and sat down at my table, and pretty quickly got excited about a meeting he had and got our whole table to finish eating quickly and go with him. He gave us a quick but in-depth tour of part of the campus, and brought us to a parking lot where his meeting was, because he had to talk to someone about the solar panels they were working on getting situated above the parking lot. It was getting to be time for our next orientation thing, so we headed back to campus. I grabbed a bike that I found at the edge of the parking lot and rode it back. Sidenote about that: Google bought a bunch of old-ish looking bikes (swept back handlebars, low-riding seat, splash guard, front basket, single fixed gear) in different colors, and now they live all around the Google campus for people to take if they need to get somewhere else on the campus (it's sort of large). You can take one wherever you want, whenever you want, as long as you just leave it lying where you end up (and you're not going, say, home). Anyway, we got back, had a long, drawn out lecture about what we would be doing (or something), and then got to go walk around for a half hour. Most of us found our way into one of the mini-kitchens, where they had all manner of snack food (all of which very healthy-looking), a coffee machine (the kind with single-serving grounds cups that look like creamer containers), plenty of tea (even some bagless tea --- they tie whole leaves together with string, which ends up being the string you hold it with, so it looks like you're dunking a flower), sushi and salads in a refrigerator, and another refrigerator filled completely with stuff like milk, half and half, soy milk, and chai tea mix. We had another meeting just for Engineering interns, which was a bit more interesting but still fairly general.

Finally, I met my host (wait, didn't I do that already? Well, not officially, at least...), and we went to the office where I actually have a desk. It's pretty far away from the rest of the buildings (hooray bikes!). We got up there, and he showed me rooms with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of hardware (that I don't have (or need) access to), and then we went to his office and discussed my project. There is an internal application they have right now, that was his baby from last summer, but it's written in Ruby (which is slow), so my job is to make the same thing, but in C++ (which is fast). I also get the standard "20% time," which I'll probably spend working on one of the ideas I had previously, like some fixes/addons to Gmail (by the way, e-mail me if you have any ideas you want to see implemented because they might be better than what I have in mind).

I got to my cubicle (which is shared with 5 other interns apparently), and played with my computer for a while (huuuuge monitor!), ordered some better input devices, fiddled with the settings in the OS (most of the workstations there run Goobuntu, a (slightly) modified version of Ubuntu), and generally got comfortable with the UI. There is a whole intranet within Google, with all sorts of cool resources and inside-only applications, as well as the latest (bleeding-edge) versions of the already-released pieces of software. One cool thing is that they have very nice URL redirection, so that if you just open up Firefox and type a word that describes what you're looking for, it probably links to the page you want. For example, "http://stuff/" takes you to the page where you can request, you guessed it, stuff (like keyboards, mice, laptops, headphones, etc.).

It was getting a bit late at this point, so I went back to main campus and got more food, and then returned to my cubicle to keep fiddling with stuff. I found one of two micro-kitchens in my building, which has a full espresso machine, so I made a feeble attempt at making cappucino (turns out I'm pretty good at it too!). I also used the bathroom, and made the startling discovery that all the bathrooms are equipped with heated toilet seats, that also have automatic bidets in them. I discovered the first part by sitting down, and the second part by looking to my right, where there was a wireless control box with buttons for "Rear Cleaning," "Front Cleaning," "Dryer," and "Stop," as well as controls for the water and seat temperatures, water pressure, oscillation, and a few other things. I was too afraid to try any of them.

I ended up staying until about 9:30 or 10. I was told, well before that, that it didn't really matter when I arrived or departed each day (unless I missed lots of meetings or failed to produce any output, of course), except for the fact that it was required to go home at some point each night. Darn.

I need to get to bed now so I can go back there early tomorrow morning. =D

P.S. - I have a plastic beer mug that I got at Target. It's the kind with liquid in the side walls that you can freeze to keep your beverage cold. It's making a Mountain Dew Squishie right now, which is delicious.

Carmel has only one 'a.'

In high school, I went to a math competition in Boston, put on by Harvard and MIT. One of my teammates was Frank Fan, who is a current student at Stanford. He came with me today.

First, we went up into the hills on a fairly windy road (Page Mill), took route 9 South to Big Basin Redwood National Forest, and took a short detour through there. That was fun. Imagine a road with no straight sections for more than 40 feet, that makes turns that travel up to 150 degrees at a time, and is just barely wide enough for two cars to pass without touching mirrors (in most parts). Now stick the biggest trees you've ever seen on all sides. It's okay if you can't imagine it, because I (will soon) have (a few) (badly taken) pictures. Praise to Frank for having a camera. Now remember I'm in a massive Chevy Silverado, that I'm not quite (but quickly getting, out of necessity) used to.

Once we got out of that, we kept driving south on Highway 1 (the not-so-pretty part; don't worry, we'll get there eventually) from Santa Cruz, around Monterey Bay, to Monterey and Carmel. The only thing to note in this section of the road was something we found, called "Pot Stop." Aside from its palindromic nature, it wasn't nearly as cool as the average college student would expect. We got pictures anyway (soon to come).

Monterey was pretty boring. What we saw of it (maybe we missed the cool part?) was yet another boring, touristy fishing village where every damn restaurant has the best clam chowder in a bread bowl that you can find anywhere in this arm of the Milky Way. After being stopped by a hobo that, contrary to what previous experience would indicate, wanted me to play him some music on his guitar, we left quickly.

Continuing further South on Highway 1 (it sounds so epic!), I made an erroneous assumption that, if there is one lane going straight and two going left, and more cars are going left, then there must be more interesting things to the left. We went left. For a long time. Saw some nice scenery, but realized eventually that we were going to Carmel Village, not the fabled Carmel itself, and that Carmel Village was full of great wines (that neither of us could purchase yet). We did get some dry ice at a gas station, before heading back to Highway 1, and again turning South, this time, to Carmel.

We walked around for a good bit there. There are tons of shops in Carmel (but frighteningly few good-looking restaurants). We found a Sharper Image, and had to take a look (to see if it was cooler in California), but it was mostly the same, except for one thing --- I feel the need to emphasize this a bit: Sharper Image sells something called "Trump Steaks." Well, it's more like TRUMP STEAKS the way they package it, but the fact remains that it had an entire poster, table, and TV looping a video of Trump directly selling you his Trump Steaks, for prices up to $999 (it was for a large number of steaks at once, don't worry). For a long time, we couldn't figure out how The Donald thought he was going to make any money; after all, there's a fairly small amount of meat on the guy, and I don't think it was even enough for the $999 package. Eventually, we decided he must have the secret to cloning. Anyway, back to the show --- we only visited one other store of importance, which was a cigar shop. Stupidly, we left without asking what time he closed, thinking we'd come back eventually, but when we did, guess what --- he was closed. We left Carmel.

Driving back up the Monterey Bay coastline (sort of --- the road isn't that close for most of it), it took a long time, but eventually we got to Santa Cruz. We found a decent restaurant (guided by a hunt for steaks, as those Trump Steaks had us pretty hungry) and ate. The best part about Santa Cruz is that we saw a bumper sticker claiming that we should "Keep Santa Cruz Weird," which apparently was the guiding philosophy of the whole town. Man, was it weird. Lots of hippies playing music in the streets. Cool, but sort of uncomfortable to walk by that many people asking for money. We found another cigar shop, but it was closed also, which made us sad.

We left Santa Cruz, and it was starting to get a bit late, so we quickly designed an algorithm to get back to Stanford, and followed it North on Highway 1 past where we had originally met it. This part of the road is very pretty, but it was getting pretty dark by that point. I took a few pictures, but they didn't come out very good. I also got to touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time, which was cool, and I still think I have a few grains of sand stuck to my feet as I type this now. It made me feel a powerful, fundamental need for a guitar and firewood and a tent. Maybe later.

We found the road we needed (Route 84), and followed it back over the mountains. This road wasn't quite as windy as our route South, but it was pretty close for about 7 miles, and it was pitch black at this point. For some reason, I actually ended up having a lot of fun driving along it this time, and in retrospect, I probably went a bit faster than Frank would have preferred. Oh well. We got back to Stanford eventually, played with the dry ice a bit, and I came back here.

I have to get up tomorrow to pay some people and switch cars, and then be at Google by 10. Wish me luck.

Kill Imperialism!

Today I got a bike, and then travelled north around the bay. I visited Berkeley and Sausalito, and drove through San Francisco. I wish I had a camera for the trip. Maybe another time.

Berkeley: Nice looking town, incredibly beautiful (and hilly) campus. I saw a handmade sign on University Ave that said "Kill Imperialism! 104.1," so I tuned in, and it had pretty good music. Unfortunately, the signal doesn't go much farther than the town itself. Parking in Berkeley is awful. The campus, though, was great. I saw some really nice looking trees (again, really wish I had that camera), and some very well maintained buildings. Also, lots of construction.

Sausalito: When I arrived, the town was packed, presumably for some sort of Memorial Day Weekend celebration. I saw many expensive looking restaurants and clothing stores, and a few decent coffee shops. I followed one road up for a while, and parked to take a walk around. Walking through the main part of the village (along the water) wasn't very interesting, just the restaurants and shops I mentioned, and lots of people. I eventually hiked up one street away from the water, and began to wonder about the mental condition of the first person to decide to build houses there. It's steep. These were 35-45 degree slopes we're talking about, with plenty of nasty curves. I saw one section of the sidewalk, on a street corner, that sloped upwards as it curved around the building, and must have hit at least a 70 degree incline. It did make pretty much every house have a nice view though. Still insane.

Got back on the road, and took 101 to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. On the way, there were more steep slopes and windy turns (and a really cool tunnel), but not nearly so much as in Sausalito proper. The bridge really wasn't that cool. I don't know what everyone is always banging on about.

Route 101 goes through the middle of San Francisco, for whatever reason, which makes for some awful traffic during rush hour. It also means that I got a chance to sit in traffic and look around. Not a very interesting looking place, but I did see a cool looking bar with a huge mural covering the outside wall, in 19th century advertisement fashion. I also saw a drive-thru coffee shop.

Not much else interesting to say. I'm going to drive out to the coast tomorrow (over some mountains) and head south to Santa Cruz, and hopefully make it all the way to Monterey and Caramel. I'm really going to miss that camera.

Also, I tested out the bike. It needs a bit of work (new chain, maybe clean up the wheels a bit), but the good news is, it makes it to Google in under 20 minutes.

Also also, I noticed that Google has a water fountain in the shape of a binary tree.

Planes etc.

So at 6 o'clock this morning, my plane took off and went to Chicago, while I slept (a little bit). At 8 o'clock, a different plane took off and went to San Francisco, while I slept (a lot). They took a long time getting my duffel bag, but that was the biggest hassle I had there.

I took the CalTrain, which is a lot like the LIRR in that it's a commuter train, but is a lot better because it looks cooler and is cleaner (and has a neat second story type thing so that the seats are one wide on each side on the second story, and the middle of the floor is gone, so they can see down to the first floor), to Mt. View. As a sidenote, the part about having a kind of "open" second level is a common theme it seems --- what I've seen of California so far just feels, in general, a lot more open. Lots of breathing room, you might say. Sunny, too, so far.

So I got my apartment and a very big pickup truck (in error --- I'll have a smaller one on Tuesday) that is very difficult to drive and park without running over babies, got some food and Jamba Juice (which is actually really good, but still pretty overpriced), and ate it. Even without cable I still get Stargate Atlantis, which really isn't that big of a deal at all, but I did watch it this once. Watching that got me thinking that I should call the cable company and get that and internet set up, which, skipping the details, I'll have on Tuesday. I will also have a "home" phone number that I'll probably never answer. It begins with 650- and ends with 6-5432, but I don't remember the other two numbers. You could brute-force it (only 100 numbers to search through, and you can trim it down by eliminating numbers like 1 and 9), but you probably wouldn't know if you got it right because I wouldn't be there to answer it. I'll leave it here once I get back (from where, you ask? I haven't gotten to that part of the story yet!).

After the food and Stargate, I went to a Target and got some stuff to make it feel more home-y (like sheets), brought that back, and took a shower. I tried to connect to a nearby wireless network (the only unsecured one was GoogleWiFi), but it was very slow, so I left, and took a drive out to the Googleplex.

When I got there, I followed some signs for the Visitor Lobby past some retro-styled bikes with front baskets and small orange flags (presumably the bikes are standard issue), past some palm trees and cacti, past a very small pool/hot tub, to some Googlers playing volleyball. Someone let me in the building as they were exiting, and I got to see some of the food places, but it was pretty empty and not sunny, so I went back outside. There is cool architecture and landscaping, and a nice looking hill on one side that partially obscures the Shoreline Amphitheatre. Pictures to come if Casio ever sends my camera back.

So because I couldn't get decent wireless in my apartment, and the real internet connection didn't exist yet, I came to this place in "downtown Mt. View," called Neto. It's a small coffee shop/bakery type thing with free WiFi, which is what is enabling me to type this. Now I'm going to go back across the street to a restaurant that looked kind of Greek and very good. Wish me luck.

EDIT: GoogleWiFi is working fine now. Don't know what the problem was earlier today (maybe just unusually high load or a bad spot in the apartment), but as long as it doesn't persist, I'm cancelling Comcast. I also learned that the reason it exists is that Google provides wireless internet access all over Mt. View. Yay Google!

Mission Statement

This blog is for recording my experiences during a 12 week internship at Google in Mountain View, California. It is named after a Led Zeppelin song, for hopefully obvious reasons. Its primary purpose is to reduce the problem of large-scale story-telling to large-scale link-providing.

I hope you enjoy it considerably less than I hope to enjoy the trip itself.