TGIF

On the way to work I stopped by the bike shop and they fixed my handle-bars again. Supposedly they'll not slip this time, but we'll see. They were totally fine coming back from work today, so that's good. I signed up with T-Mobile today. Got a pretty sweet deal too. I went in last week and they didn't have this offer, so I guess I got a sweet deal. 1000 "whenever" minutes for $39.99. This is the same price as my other plan in which I shared 600 minutes or so with my parents. Whee. Still get charged for each text ($0.10 each way), but I don't send that many (52/month break even). I haven't transfered my number yet (since I don't own the other account, my parents do), but hopefully that'll be sorted out this weekend.

Work was so irritating today. There were so many hoops I had to jump through to get the equipment I needed. Blarg.

They had an interesting thing at the end of the day. They gave everyone some beer and had a talk about milestones passed this week. The biggest thing was Google Checkout. I haven't done anything yet, but I encourage you to check it out. Haha! Ha! (Sigh. They made that joke a lot.)

The Game

They took all the interns to a Giants game last night. It seemed like they were having a corporate night, since there were lots of groups, intenrs even, being welcomed on the jumbo-tron. During the middle of the 5th inning, we got a big "Welcome Google Interns" on the jumbo-tron as well. Lots of cheering. Whee.

It took me a full inning to get garlic fries. I didn't even get the beer I wanted. First place I went didn't have them, and only had Miller on tap. I wanted beer, so I tried a different stand. They had them, but didn't have beer either. I managed to find a beer stand, but there was a huge line, and after standing in line twice already I wasn't ready to do it again. Later, when I could wait no longer for a super-pretzel, there were no lines for either the pretzel or the beer. Sigh.

I realized when I got to the game that I had forgotten to get batteries, and since we were getting back around midnight, the bike lights I had bought would probably need them. I was going to get a flash of something, but Safeway didn't have any. Sigh. The bike trip back was quite eventful though. After spending half an hour or so attaching the lights to my bike (way too long), my handle bars decided to losen. Since I have grip-shifting on the bike, I was constantly shifting gears as I tried to adjust the handles. I thought it was just a little bit loose, and was something I could fix at home, so we left work. Turns out I couldn't fix it. I don't know if you've ever biked with really loose handle bars, but it's quite unresponsive. I couldn't really turn. The gas stations nearby when this happened didn't have anything, but I knew WalMart was half a mile away, so I managed to bike there. I thought WalMart would be open 24 hours, but I guess it's the suburbs, not the city. They close at 10pm. Weird. Anyway, there were some people still inside, and they were able to help me tighten the handle bars so I could make it back. Quite nice of them, I must say. I did finally make it back around 12:45. The new bike is so much more comfortable (especially when it's not falling apart).

The President

Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University is retiring this week. He's the guy who made the comment that got distorted and flaunted by the press regarding the differences between men and women in the sciences. Apparently he does a lot more than be misquoted. He was Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, and is apparently a big economist. Anyway, he came to talk at Google today, and my mentor thought it would be cool, so we both went.

The talk was pretty good. He talked a lot about how economics are quite different now. Smith's economy was correct when we were still agrarian, and when we were industrializing, but things are different now. We've moved to a knowledge-based economy. Production now has a large up-front cost, and a very small manufacturing cost. This means the normal supply-demand curve doesn't really apply. Now the initial investment has to be covered by a monopoly on the product so prices can be raised much higher than the manufacturing cost.

This sounds pretty correct to me, but he seems to conclude some things I'm not quite sure about. He says that now we need public funds and government-funded investments into science because the private sector can't cut it. Certain things are better when they're free for everyone to use. His example was someone patenting quantum mechanics. Now, I'm pretty sure that pattent law won't let somone pattent "laws of nature" or stuff of that sort, which is good, but lets put that aside. His point was that this would really ruin things. I asked him about it afterwards and he said that there couldn't be a license-based resolution to the problem. His reason was that people would "want to use Schrodinger's Equation for free". Not sure how that means anything - every consumer wants the good for free. The way the patent system works now is that people can develop things based on patents, but need to get a license once they have a product or start producing. This seems to work find a lot (never mind the other issues with the patent system in the US). Anyway, his real justification seemed to be that the returns either couldn't be seen by the private sector (the public-funded research was just in random areas, so they didn't care about returns - like research for cures to diseases which are isolated to 3rd world countries), or that the cost was to great to incur. I can conceive that he cost for some research is greater than the reward, but that usually isn't known until after the fact. And there are always things that come later which grow on the previous knowledge. Besides, if it does truly end up that the knowledge wasn't worth the cost, why is the knowledge so important in the first place? Long-term thinking is necessary for innovation and research. Most research isn't into blind things of no consequence. There are reasons certain problems are worked on, and a wise investor knows this. Google, for example, knows that most 20% projects won't succeeed, and those that do won't be as successful as the main products, but that doesn't stop them from investing 20% of their personel resources towards them. So he seems to not give enough credit to corporations and wise investors here.

He said there was a study which asked people: "Would you rather have 2006 healthcare and the 1957 standard of living, or 1957 healthcare and the 2006 standard of living?" Apparently most people choose the 2006 healthcare over the 2006 standard of living. He concluded from this that the pharmacutical industry is providing a very important service/"public good" (ugh), and that the should be investing even more resources if this is so important. I'm not sure what to make of this in particular.

Update: I forgot to mention a great joke someone made. When asked about the licensing of quantum mechanics, Summers said it would be awful to have to pay every time you wanted to use Schrodinger's equation. To which the guy replied "Especially since we'd have to both pay and not pay you". The whole room errupted in laughter, but Summers didn't quite get it. Hehe.

The Challenge

Thayer challenged me last week to ride in the one gear and get "massive legs". I don't know if I want massive legs, but I do like stronger, better legs, so I took him up on it. On Friday, and today, I biked to work in 21st gear (the small leg movement to lots of forward movement). Now, some may say that it being downhill to work makes this only a minor accomplishment. I would say that they are correct. So yesterday I biked back from work as well. It was quite a bit harder, I dunno if I'll be doing it again. I bike three times what thayer does... and I have a lot more than one small hill.

Today I returned the crappy bike (which I had for the challenge) to Target and went to the bike shop. I tried a few bikes, but I didn't want to spend more than three hundred if I could avoid it. I ended up getting a "hybrid" bike for around that much. It's got a lot bigger gears, so I can be more efficient going downhill and not spin out, and on flat stretches too. I still doubt I'll ever use the 14 lower gears, but that's okay. Because of the way the frame is constructed, I get a lot more downward thrust with my legs, almost as if I were standing compared to the Target bike. The ride back today was a whole bunch easier. Then again, I am getting stronger and into better shape. Still. I like the new ride.

The Frisco

Friday we had a really cool social barbeque thing in the afternoon at work. It was pretty cool. We had nachos, beer... and jello shots. Hehe. Google is awesome. So yeah, I got to hang out with the interns some more. It was really cool. After the barbeque, I got on the bus and headed to the CalTrain station. Thayer decided to putz around and so I waited there for an hour for him. But it was okay - it was a nice evening, and I had my ipod (and therefore good music) with me.

After about an hour on the train, we reached the end of the line, and emerged somewhere in San Francisco. I had written down directions from both Google Maps and Ben (Hindman), but I decided to go with Google's since it was a nice night, and I wanted to walk. Turns out we started going the wrong way. We started out here, got really lost, and finally found Market and Steuart. I was looking for Market and Turk, so we could get to Polk and finally to Clay. Thayer and I ended up just finding a Metro map and getting to Clay, and just walking a lot. It was pretty cool though. The street didn't have any trash or people on it or anything. As we were ascending the hill, we walked up into the fog. It was pretty cool just walking into a cloud. Especially since it was so hot, it was very relaxing. We walked past this one building which looked really cool. Standing at the base of it looking up, it looked like it went straight up. It wasn't until we passed it today in the daylight, that we realized it came to a point. Pretty sweet how it was designed to look straight from the bottom. It looked really awesome in the fog - even more so since we couldn't see the top. Then there were these fins or wings or something on the side of it. In the fog, it looked like there was a skylight shining at an angle out of one floor. It was pretty cool.

So, we finally made it to Ben's. He and his friend Dan had gone to a Radiohead concert, and we got to his place just a few minutes before he made it back, so timing was pretty good. We wanted to go to a bar, but there wasn't much around him that wasn't a gay club. Literally. We kept walking by this club that had lots of posters of gay things on the outside. That's San Francisco for you, I guess. Anyway, we found this one little diner that was open until 4am, which was pretty nice. Everything else had closed before 11pm. It was pretty lame.

On Saturday we all slept in and made it to the Metreon around 2:30 or so. Chris, Ben and I got into a long techie talk about Blu-Ray. Poor Dan. He isn't techy at all, and had to listen to us blather on about it. We finally stopped and wandered around for a while before seeing a Blu-Ray player, and wanting to see the difference. It wasn't on, but we got talking again. When we looked up Dan was gone. Dan doesn't have a cell phone, and he had a plane to catch, so we thought he would be nearby. We spent the next hour or so looking for him, but to no avail. We finally gave up, and assumed he had made his flight.

After being ditched by Dan, we tried to find The Mission, but it didn't work so well. We gave up and just went down to the Wharf and Pier 39. On the way to the pier we passed this one guy on the street making paintings. I usually just ignore these people, but Ben and Chris stopped, so I went to see what he was doing. He was just putting a bunch of blue spray paint on this sheet of paper. A few incredulous glances at Ben and Chris, and we still weren't leaving, so I waited to see what he was doing. He started splattering white paint on it, so I was even more confused. Then he takes off this bucket that he had put in the middle. Suddenly there was a planet. Okay, maybe there is something to this guy. He started "randomly" spraying more, especially heavy on the bottom. Then he took some magazine pages and starts smearing it. Suddenly there was fog rolling towards the planet. Then he takes a plaster trowel and starts scraping it on the ground. He then carves away a bit in the center, making two lines down the middle of his planet. "What the heck is that for?" A few more swipes later, and he has the Golden Gate Bridge. By this time I'm getting pretty impressed. He sprays a little white on a corner of the planet, and suddenly there's a halo around it, and a sun rising. A little white beneath the bridge and some smear, and there's moonlight on the water. A burst of white and another can, this time sprayed on the inside, and there's a moon. Some white against wood, and there's meteorites streaking across the sky. By this point our jaws are dropping. This is really very impressive. I look at buying the painting, but its $20. He has a bunch of others for only $5, but I don't want to carry it around, so on our way back I pick one up. It's really pretty sweet. I'll show it to you guys when you come over.

After the painter, we walked to Pier 39. I didn't believe it, but they had a "No Thongs (except on feet)" sign. I was a little disappointing. Not that I imagine there being lots of thongs out in the cold, San-Franciscan summer. We really wanted to just sit on the pier and have some beer, so we wanted to find a bar. The closest we found was a really good pizza place on the second level at the end of the pier. The pizza was amazing - chicken, pesto, garlic, and basil, I think is what it was. Delicious. We also had a bottle of Pinot Grigio, which was really good.

After that we walked back (didn't take a cab up the steep hill because none of us cared that much) to Ben's place. We got some beer and sat on the back porch just talking and sipping beer. I wasn't able to really enjoy it, though - I think I just wanted more good wine. But there wasn't anything decent which wasn't really expensive at Whole Foods, and they only had one Riesling, which was more than $20. But whatever. It was still fun just hanging out there and talking. I think this was around the time I had put on Ben's fedora. Apparently I looked kinda like Indiana Jones. But without the whip. We were tempted to get one, but given the fact that our best chance would have been one of the gay sex shops, we decided against it.

On Sunday we went back to a crape place we had not quite had a chance to eat at for breakfast. We then went back to Ben's place, listened to lots of cool music, and then headed over to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It took us a while to get there, but we eventually found our way in and parked. The tea was really good, and the scenery awesome. It was really sad how the place's been around for over a hundred years, but the last forty, it hasn't been run by the original owners (or their descendants), because of the fucking internment camps. Seriously. What the fuck? Anyway, it looked really cool, and we ended up spending about an hour and a half discussing philosophy and religion on a bridge in the middle of the place. Fucking awesome.

Chris and I grabbed some Taco Bell, and just missed the 7pm train, but we finally made it back around 9:30. I ended up missing my stop, but Garrett was nice enough to find the next one and get me. Thanks a bunch! I really don't understand why Ben and I didn't hang out earlier. I've known him since freshman year, but we didn't start hanging out until this January. Every time we do, we have a great time. I'm just glad we started doing it finally. Ben's an awesome guy - even Chris liked him, and that's saying something.

Wow. Awesome weekend. This summer's going to be really awesome.

The Off-Site

We had the engineering off-site today. It was pretty sweet. They packed up all 1800 or so of us and bussed us all over to Santa Cruz Boardwalk. They gave us free arcade play (Apparently one beer is bad for air-hockey, but really good for skeeball. I averaged 300+ at skeeball, with a top score of 520. I've *never* done that well). I hung out with my roommate, Ross, a bit, then wandered off on my own. I ended up eating with a bunch of interns, and managed to convince them to go off on some rides with me. It was pretty cool. Apparently the big wooden roller-coaster which the boardwalk is famous for is about sixty years old. Funny thing is, it seems to be the same design as Colossus, from Six Flags Magic Mountain, just smaller. I wonder if one was Colossus was modeled on it. So yeah. Hanging out with other interns is cool. I hope to do much more of it. I had so totally forgotten about California girls. I grew up with them, so I guess I didn't notice, but wow. They aren't anywhere but here. It's weird. I do like the look, so I can't be complaining, but I can't believe I didn't notice it when I went to Seattle. I definitely noticed something was different, but I couldn't place it.

Anyway. Tomorrow evening Chris Thayer and I are heading into San Francisco to hang with Ben Hindman. It should be exciting! But I probably won't have a post for a few days, so hang tight!

The Disconnects

I'd like to appologize to all my aim buddies out there. It looks like the internet is pretty lame here and can't hold a connection. I keep getting disconnected, then reconnecting a few seconds later. Pretty lame if you ask me.

I better head out. We have an off-site today - not really sure what that means, but it means no work today! Yay! Socializing! Awesome people! Whee!

Away!

The Difference

So I think I know one of the main differences between el cheapo bike and pricy bikes. The gear shift. I bought a cheap Target bike, hoping I could save myself a few hundred dolalrs this summer. But I've already had the chain fall off three times (not today, but Sunday and Tuesday, once each way). Considering I'm biking at least 11.5 miles each day, I think it's probably best that I invest in a little bit better bike. I was talking to some of the interns, and he said it only costs about $30 to ship a bike. So I think I'll be doing that.

The second day felt much more normal. I got to campus, grabbed some grub, and went to a meeting / presentation. I then had lunch, talked with my host, and started learning things. A am truly amazed. So much to learn, it can be overwhelming. Fortunately, my host understands. Apparently he loves interns and this process.

I got back home at 10pm tonight and took a shower. That's an eleven hour day. It didn't really feel like it, which is good, but I hope it doesn't happent too often. Doing this all the time will make me start hating things. I must say though, it was much more pleasant (though still shower-warranting) to bike back at night. I'd do this all the time, except I don't know when that means I get in in the mornings. I also don't think I'll want to go back to work after dinner. Today my roommate and I had to run some errands. We stopped by the TMobile store. Yeah, I'll be getting a new cell phone soon. I hope to be keeping the same number, so you guys don't need to know. Just don't complain to me when you start racking up minutes because I'm no longer in-network. Not that any of you talk to me enough as it is. Sad.

CALL ME!

The First Day

So I had my first day at Google today. I almost didn't make it. Apparently you shouldn't trust alarm clocks that come with new residencies. My roommate, Ross, who also had his first day today, woke me up about an hour before we were supposed to be there. Fortunately, I had taken a shower last night (so I'd get hot water, not in case of this), so the only thing I missed was a "proper" breakfast. We left 15 mins later than we had hoped (wanted to leave an hour earlier, just to be safe, since we didn't know where we were going, really). I misguided us a bit, but we did get there on time. Took a while for everything to get going, but the first day was pretty cool. Got to talk to lots of cool interns and meet a lot of people. I'm surprised they had PM interns. Most of the girls (sad) were in this MBA intern program. Apparently there's some stuff we engineers can know, which they can't. Kinda odd. Oh, apparently I'm not allowed to say anything about what I'm actually doing. I didn't realize it was so hush hush. So if I've let something slip before, forget it. I didn't sign the NDA earlier, so it's probably not binding, but it would still suck if I wasn't supposed to say somethign which I did. We *are* supposed to brag about the perks though. Heh.

I didn't quite get to my desk today. My host (whose name I can't say. seriously. wtf. I'll call him Smith or something) didn't show up after the last orientation thing today. We tried to call him, etc, but no answer. I hung around my desk for a while, but I needed him to login, so I didn't get far. I stuck around long enough to accidently release the Welcome baloons to the ceiling and get the attention of the ladies in the cube next door. Oh. And I ate some kisses.

So this looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. The buildings are amazing. I like the architecture. The atmosphere is really open and collaborative. It's really nice. Lots of food. Lots of good people. Those little swimming pool analogs of treadmills. Pretty much everything I'd like in a company. We'll have to see how the work is. But I have a really good feeling about this place. It's going to be tough for Microsoft to compete. Flat management is awesome. Office politics sucks. I should still give MS an intern chance next summer. If I go to grad school, of course. But wow. I love Seattle. But wow.

The Almost-Oops

I almost went into work tomorrow. Apparently all the interns start on Tuesdays. I was never informed of this. I thought my start date was the 19th. It wasn't until my roommates, who are mostly other interns, informed me that everyone starts on Tuesdays, that I called my advisor guy and got him to figure it out for me. Whew. That would have been lame, if I had biked to work, then not been able to do anything.

The Bicycle

Yay for Target. Garrett took me and Ross to Target today so we could get bikes for the ride to work. I was going to get a buke at a bike shop, but this one was so much cheaper - only $80 (Ross paid $52). We'll see how it goes - I can take it back in a few days if it is really unbearable. Google's a little over 6 miles away, and downhill, so getting to work shouldn't be an issue. Getting back I'm worried about. We couldn't fit the bikes in Garrett's car, so we had to bike back. This was from 80% of the distance to Google, and it was a pain in the ass getting back. I guess I'm just really out of shape. Borf. Anyway, now I see what the nicer bikes have better - gear-shifting. There were several times where my bike just wouldn't shift gears. Made it really frustrating, and much more difficult than it should have been. But I saved about $200. Blah. Money.

When we got back, we talked with Flavio for a while. Flavio's from Italy, Ross is from the UK. Pretty cool. They seemed like cool guys, and it'll be nice to have different people around. Man, I love Britishisms. Cheers.

The Drop-Off

I had to get up at 7:30 in the morning today so I could drop off the car. I had some trouble finding Hertz, but I got it there on time, and headed over to the one shopping center I knew of. I didn't have time for breakfast in the morning, so I stopped by Trader Joe's. Wow. I miss Seattle already. The Trader Joe's on Roosevelt has so many bread selections, all fresh. After wandering around the entire store today, I found a tiny little cart stacked with artisan breads. I bought some Focaccia bread and headed over to WalMart. I stopped by Payless to buy some sandles, since it's crazy-hot here. It's dry heat, but still hot (85-90 F). I bought Oblivion at WalMart and spent the rest of the day playing it. Pretty cool. I'm still getting comfortable with how things are done. Took me a long time to realize I could teleport to towns I'd visited instead of walking for miles thorugh the countryside. Gads that was irritating.

Garrett convinced me to start playing Perfect Dark Zero with him tonight. We played for a few hours. I am so not comfortable with the controllers. By the end, I felt a lot more confident than I had, but I was still not good. Keyboard and mouse all the way, baby.

The Thayer

I finally made it to Thayer's. I tried to copy Garrett's key, so I went ot WalMart, but they didn't have the proper-sized blanks. Garrett guided me to Home Depot, which I thought was by Chris, but I guess not. After trying to find him, I finally made it over to his place. Then we went looking for Best Buy, but Chris got us lost, and by the time we figured out where we were, it was closed. Oh well, got dinner at Taco Bell and rented Firewall. I haven't eatten at Taco Bell in a long time. The grilled stuft burrito was pretty good, but the double-decker tacos are still my favorite. Bastard at the window didn't give me any hot sauce though. I really like their hot sauce. So many plans have been foiled today.

The Arrival

I made it in. After terrible traffic in San Francisco, which seemed to be caused only by two vehicles stopping randomly in different locations in the middle of the freeway, I finally got to Palo Alto Hills. When I arrived there was no one here but some guy moving his stuff out. Fortunately he let me in, but I can't help but worry about how trusting this guy is. Then again, what's he going to do?

I mentioned my obsession with the mileage counter, right? Well, it would seem that California roads are much more efficient than Oregon roads. Now a lot of you are probably thinking that's just because they're flatter, which they certainly are, but even during the flat sections, I got better mileage than I did in Oregon. It was weird noticing the different efficiencies of the different paving styles and materials, and how much being worn affected it. (I was on cruise-control here, so changing speed wasn't an issue. The computer seemed to know exactly how much gas to put in, as whenever I took over, I became much less efficient.)

Anyway, I've unpacked my stuff and am now heading over to see Thayer while I still have the car.

The Sheep

I got on the road around 9am this morning. I'm passing some grazing sheep now. I've seen lots of grazzing cattle, but no grazing sheep. Odd. I guess they have to graze somewhere.

The Morning After

Wow. Xena is on Oxygen. I guess it was lesbian enough it deserves it. The soap in this place makes me all smelly. I smell like a girl! Oh well - better than smelling bad, I suppose. The shampoo isn't that great either. My hair is all thick and icky now. Sigh.

The Layover

I just got to my hotel. I got a free room upgrade! Now I have a ton of space and even my own kitchen. If only I had gotten here sooner. I didn't get finished packing until 4pm. It took a lot longer than I had thought it would. No chatting up bar chicks now (non-icky ones I would have liked).

I've become obsessed with the mileage guage on the car. I keep trying to make the most efficient use of the gold I'm putting into my tank.

Aww. I missed the beginning of Daily Show. Sad. It looks like it's a good one, too. Oh well. I best get to sleep so I can hit the road early tomorrow morning. But wait! First lunch/dinner. <Breaks out bagels>

The Traffic

So I figured out what the transmission thing was doing. Apparently it can be fully automatic or semi, depending on your choice. The semi is really usefull for driving up and down the hills of Oregon. This car has great handling, but doesn't have a lot of power. It accellerates slowly and a lot of these slopes the car can't go up at all unless I downshift, and even when I do that, it doesn't go up very much.

Now I'm sitting in traffic, trying to get out of Seattle, and really wishing that I had been ready an hour or two earlier. Suck.

The Rental, Part 2

Oh yeah, about that car. Apparently it has a semi-automatic transmission. I don't have a clutch, but I still have to tell it when to shift up or down a gear. The gear shift has the usual PRND, but there are + and - for the Drive gear which I didn't notice at first. These seem to change the gear. I figured this out when I tried to get onto the freeway, but could only go 40 mph. Pulling to the shoulder and putting on emergency lights is a great way to start a trip, isn't it?

The Rental

So I rented a car today. They didn't have any with tape decks or with sattelite radio. I guess it's to burning CDs now. Ugh. I got there an hour late after getting six hours of sleep last night and seeing Andy this morning. Now I have to get these burned and packed up before I leave. I'm alotting two days, but I'd really like to get in to Roseburg early evening. Maybe I'll be able to have time to sit down for a drink and meet some ladies. That would be a good start, right?

The Last Dinner

Laura and I finally got to do our ice-cream run. It kinda commemorates the first time we really spent some time alone together after freshman year. Sophomore year, I had randomly called her up and invited her for a walk. This was when she lived at her place on 47th. We met up in front of the bank on 45th and Brooklyn (I don't remember what it's called), and ended up at the Cold Stone in Fremont. Kind of a long walk, but fun. We were supposed to do it again after finals last quarter, but it didn't really happen. This quarter we tried again, but my last final was on a Friday, and she had her barbequeue to go to. I'm glad we were finally able to do it before I left. A fitting farewell.

Baja Flesh! Lisa and I got to say goodbye over dinner. Yum! Cedars would have been a good last dinner for Seattle (for a while), but would have taken way too long. It was weird, up until now I hadn't really been concerned about leaving. Now, sitting there eatting with Lisa, it hits me. I'm going to be leaving Seattle and my friends. Wow. Haven't done that before. I didn't realize how much I thought of Seattle as home.

I went over to Julia's afterwards and got ot hang with her and the Canadians. "I am Daisy!" Now I'm off to Zach's for a late night. Tomorrow morning I'll get to say goodbye to Andy and Alisa. So many goodbyes. Sad.

The Packing

Wow. I had just finished packing when Evan came over. Really, I was writting down the address and directions as a last-ditch effort to have something to do before he came when he showed up. Good timing. Took a lot longer than I thought it would to pack everything up. I guess I have a lot more than I thought.

Lisa, Evan, Matt, and Patrick came over tonight. Nothing too exciting, but a good chance to say farewell to everyone (for a few months anyway). Again, special thanks to Evan (and his friend Mike) for helping me get everything packed and to my storage unit in Kent. We fought some nasty traffic, and almost didn't find the place. But we got there on time, and got everything loaded up nicely and quickly. Thanks a bunch, it'll be sad never seeing you again (unless I do...). Evan and I get along a lot better than I thought we would. I like Evan, it'll be sad not having him around. Good pickings, Lis.

The Switch

So, after much debate, I have decided to drive down on Thursday instead of Wednesday. This will give me more time to hang out with everyone before I leave.

I dropped off Jo and Brandi at the airport this morning. The traffic was a lot better than I expected going out. We expected it to be bad, so we left early (8am). It wasn't. Even getting back wasn't that bad. Fortunately this leaves me plenty of time to finish up packing before Evan gets out of class and comes to help me pack.

The Big Goodbye

It's been really hectic lately trying to say goodbye to everyone. I've got a lot of people to say goodbye to. Even though it's only for the summer it's still weird saying goodbye. Some of them I'll see again, some of them I won't. I'm leaving Wednesday, which is really soon. I hope I can get everything packed up and stored by then.

The Change

I guess I'm not going to be doing personalized search anymore. Sad. I would have been working with this friend of mine from here too. I guess interns aren't allowed to have access to log files. Something about privacy and security. Oh well. I'm going to be working on this other really cool project now. We're starting it from the ground up this summer, so I'll really be able to show off if it makes it. Awesome.

The Followup

Been talking with this guy from Google for a while now. Seems I'm looking good. Hopefully I'll get to work on this personalized search stuff. Sounds pretty awesome. Some phone interviews and questions, and now I have an offer. Nice. I just hope they can get me the official word before I have to reply to the Microsoft offer I sped up (which, I guess I shouldn't have). I'll keep you guys posted.

The Introduction

I got an email from this guy at Google. Apparently my teachers recommended me to one of the UW graduates working there now. Sweet. I may have a Google internship after all.