Swallows drop shadows
In heathery fields as I lie
And watch the river.
Today was Knol's offsite; we decided to go whitewater rafting. A few hours on a river is enough to get to know people. I was really glad for the opportunity to spend time with my team, especially since I work so far away from them.
The river involved some Class III rapids, which isn't, you know, really hardcore, but it was definitely a fun day. Some parts were a challenge. Riding in front was great.
At the stop for lunch, there was a hill unlike any I'd seen in California so far. It was covered in some kind of green and purple grass. No trees. There was a rock at the top that I had to hike up to. Seeing the river (which I guess is the busiest in America for rafting) and the surrounding hills and rocks and trees was really peaceful. :)
So my arms are dead from a full day of rafting today, but the rest of my body is dead from a full weekend of biking in San Francisco. There was a critical mass ride on Friday, and that was a good time. A slew of bikers biking wherever they please through rush hour traffic. Hahaha.
Also Friday was a visit to a jazz club for a band that played lots of awesome tuneage, including a jazzy rendition of "Spanish Castle Magic." Awesome.
Saturday was pretty chill: a visit to the Computer History Museum for a look at Babbage's Difference Engine #2 and a trip to the theater to see Wall-E. So sad.
Sunday? The Gay Pride Parade in SF! Super festive and awesome. Also, the best breakfast ever. Hunger is the best spice, and I was starving. A ride (after many wrong turns) up to Sausalito and a ferry ride back to the city rounded out the day.
And now, I need some sleep. I'll try to edit this post with pictures from the weekend sometime.
6.30.2008
6.23.2008
Big Frickin Weekend
Free-falling to Earth,
Saved by a bright parachute,
My first time. Awesome!
I almost can't believe that I can actually cross skydiving off my list. It was an incredible experience. Seventeen of us interns went for the adventure. It was about $200/person for the whole day (including car rentals, gas, food, etc.), which is nothing for such excitement.
Honestly, the terror was a lot worse in the plane on the way up than it was actually falling. Evan was the first one out of my planeload, and he got the distinct pleasure of sitting next to the open side of the plane as we climbed to 13,000 ft. We each had altimeters on our wrists, and right at 13,000 the plane leveled off and Evan went... away.
My tandem guy (Marcus) scooted me down the bench and in front of the yawning opening at the back of the plane. I saw Evan and his instructor, now just a tiny dot, falling fast. "Dive flow," I thought to myself. I grabbed my harness, did the one-two-three rocking motion ("ready, set, dive!") with Marcus, and I was skydiving! There was so much wind, but I could still hear myself screaming, I think. Mind you: it was screams of joy, not screams of terror! Sooooooo much fun.
At 7,000 feet, Marcus tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked at my wrist. I watched it drop down to 5,5o0 feet, then reached back and pulled the golf ball that released the chute. A satisfying *funf* heralded the opening of the chute, and suddenly we were drifting happily, almost a mile above the countryside.
The canopy was almost as good as the freefall, honestly. Marcus let me steer the parachute for a while, and we spun around in impressively tight corkscrews. I didn't realize how much control there was to be had over falling!
The landing was easy. Marcus did most of it. Instead of landing undignifiedly on my butt, like all the other first-timers, I proudly landed on two feet. :)
After such an adventure, food was necessary. Evan, Taejin, Dean, and I took one of the rental cars that we'd booked for the weekend to Sacramento. I was disappointed with how empty the city was, but I didn't much care after the day's excitements. We had dinner at a delicious Italian place downtown.
All in all, I'm still completely wiped from the weekend. I'm hoping to get a proper night's sleep sometime in the near future, but we'll see whether that happens or not.
Saved by a bright parachute,
My first time. Awesome!
I almost can't believe that I can actually cross skydiving off my list. It was an incredible experience. Seventeen of us interns went for the adventure. It was about $200/person for the whole day (including car rentals, gas, food, etc.), which is nothing for such excitement.
Honestly, the terror was a lot worse in the plane on the way up than it was actually falling. Evan was the first one out of my planeload, and he got the distinct pleasure of sitting next to the open side of the plane as we climbed to 13,000 ft. We each had altimeters on our wrists, and right at 13,000 the plane leveled off and Evan went... away.
My tandem guy (Marcus) scooted me down the bench and in front of the yawning opening at the back of the plane. I saw Evan and his instructor, now just a tiny dot, falling fast. "Dive flow," I thought to myself. I grabbed my harness, did the one-two-three rocking motion ("ready, set, dive!") with Marcus, and I was skydiving! There was so much wind, but I could still hear myself screaming, I think. Mind you: it was screams of joy, not screams of terror! Sooooooo much fun.
At 7,000 feet, Marcus tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked at my wrist. I watched it drop down to 5,5o0 feet, then reached back and pulled the golf ball that released the chute. A satisfying *funf* heralded the opening of the chute, and suddenly we were drifting happily, almost a mile above the countryside.
The canopy was almost as good as the freefall, honestly. Marcus let me steer the parachute for a while, and we spun around in impressively tight corkscrews. I didn't realize how much control there was to be had over falling!
The landing was easy. Marcus did most of it. Instead of landing undignifiedly on my butt, like all the other first-timers, I proudly landed on two feet. :)
After such an adventure, food was necessary. Evan, Taejin, Dean, and I took one of the rental cars that we'd booked for the weekend to Sacramento. I was disappointed with how empty the city was, but I didn't much care after the day's excitements. We had dinner at a delicious Italian place downtown.
All in all, I'm still completely wiped from the weekend. I'm hoping to get a proper night's sleep sometime in the near future, but we'll see whether that happens or not.
6.22.2008
Big Basin, part II
Valkyrie and company hiked around the loop one direction, and the rest of us hiked the same trail the other way. So incredible. There aren't words for it... so I leave you with a few pictures. But you should know that even the photos don't begin to capture the size and impressiveness of this place.
6.21.2008
Hiking!
Dirt, caked into my skin,
A thousand years of redwoods,
Some burnt, most still grand.
Big Basin is only an hour from here, and the scenery there is phenomenal. I can't believe I hadn't visited there before today! Robby set up a hike for all of us through the park. It was awesome. The waterfalls, the trees... just getting back to nature after spending my week staring at a screen was pretty much the best thing ever.
It was strange to see the ravages of the fire, too. Seeing such majestic towers with dark scars like that...
I'm tired, though. 10 miles through hills was intense. We all got super dehydrated, too, because we didn't realize that we would be going on such a big hike.
Post hike, Robby, Doug, Evan, and I managed to get lost. Well, mostly me. We found Santa Clara, though. :P
For Mehul's birthday, we went out for dinner at a delicious Indian place. Mmmmmm....
A thousand years of redwoods,
Some burnt, most still grand.
Big Basin is only an hour from here, and the scenery there is phenomenal. I can't believe I hadn't visited there before today! Robby set up a hike for all of us through the park. It was awesome. The waterfalls, the trees... just getting back to nature after spending my week staring at a screen was pretty much the best thing ever.
It was strange to see the ravages of the fire, too. Seeing such majestic towers with dark scars like that...
I'm tired, though. 10 miles through hills was intense. We all got super dehydrated, too, because we didn't realize that we would be going on such a big hike.
Post hike, Robby, Doug, Evan, and I managed to get lost. Well, mostly me. We found Santa Clara, though. :P
For Mehul's birthday, we went out for dinner at a delicious Indian place. Mmmmmm....
6.19.2008
Glassy-Eyed
Hidden in gardens
Sparkles something amazing.
Google and elsewhere.
I got the special treat of listening to Dale Chihuly at a tech talk today. He showed videos of installations he's done in places like Jerusalem, which is way awesome. I wish that I knew how to blow glass...
The intern lunch was yesterday! It wasn't so much of a success as I'd hoped for, but definitely everyone seemed to have fun, and the Cool People mailing list and calendar got publicized, and I met a couple new interns. The conference bike races were AMAZING. I think the blue bike is a little faster. There's a video of the race someplace around here... Taejin (the other knol intern; he works with the team in Korea, actually) took one, I believe.
Oh! Right! Google Serve! I went to San Bruno Mountain and helped keep control of invasive plants (i.e. I pulled weeds) for an afternoon. That was a lot of fun. Plus I got another t-shirt. I think I'm up to 7 now. And one guy who I was weeding with said that I can have one of his Google shirts, which is amazing. The shirt in question? All it says is "I have root @ Google". Badass.
New interns came on Tuesday to the farm area that I work in. One of them named his host Jimi. As in Hendrix. He has very much potential to be cool. ;)
Anyway, I think that this little deviation from my regularly scheduled work has gone on long enough. There will be more to post after this weekend, for sure.
And happy 21st birthday to both Pat and Mehul this week!
Sparkles something amazing.
Google and elsewhere.
I got the special treat of listening to Dale Chihuly at a tech talk today. He showed videos of installations he's done in places like Jerusalem, which is way awesome. I wish that I knew how to blow glass...
The intern lunch was yesterday! It wasn't so much of a success as I'd hoped for, but definitely everyone seemed to have fun, and the Cool People mailing list and calendar got publicized, and I met a couple new interns. The conference bike races were AMAZING. I think the blue bike is a little faster. There's a video of the race someplace around here... Taejin (the other knol intern; he works with the team in Korea, actually) took one, I believe.
Oh! Right! Google Serve! I went to San Bruno Mountain and helped keep control of invasive plants (i.e. I pulled weeds) for an afternoon. That was a lot of fun. Plus I got another t-shirt. I think I'm up to 7 now. And one guy who I was weeding with said that I can have one of his Google shirts, which is amazing. The shirt in question? All it says is "I have root @ Google". Badass.
New interns came on Tuesday to the farm area that I work in. One of them named his host Jimi. As in Hendrix. He has very much potential to be cool. ;)
Anyway, I think that this little deviation from my regularly scheduled work has gone on long enough. There will be more to post after this weekend, for sure.
And happy 21st birthday to both Pat and Mehul this week!
6.17.2008
RoboGames and CalTrain adventures
This weekend a few of us went in to SF to attend the RoboGames. It was supposed to be an awesome event with everything from battlebots to random robotics booths. However, the battlebots was the only thing worth watching, and that had long delays in between little pieces of action. There was one good moment, however, when a hundred pound robot was flipped ten feet into the air and out of the ring by a monstrous bot named 'Ziggy'.
The real highlight of this trip: the food. We found an awesome Chinese restaurant in a basement beneath China Town. I ate a plate of Ginger Squid and Scallops - delicious! Unfortunately I don't think anyone remembers the name of the place, nor the random alley and steps that we went down to get there...
On the train ride back to Mountain View we stopped in Palo Alto for dinner, thinking we would catch the next train an hour later. We were all waiting on the platform for the 10:00 train when we saw it pull up --- on the wrong platform. We were all shocked. We didn't know what to do. Was this a special train that liked to tempt fate by riding on a track going the wrong direction? After a few seconds of confusion, everyone on the platform (about thirty people in all) booked it down the tunnel, under the tracks, past the sleeping homeless man and his shopping cart, and up onto the other side... just in time to see the train pull away. One desperate and angry would-be passenger threw his water bottle at the train. Fortunately he missed, but it represented our feelings quite accurately.
So, we did what anyone would do if they were stuck in Palo Alto for an hour and had already eaten dinner: we got ice cream. More specifically we got gelato, which is just ice cream that you have to pay more money for.
So, for the third time that night we were on the Palo Alto platform for the train. We pondered what our best strategy would be so that we wouldn't miss the next train in the same manner. One suggestion was to wait in between the tracks, but that was quickly vetoed. We looked at the schedule and saw that another train was supposed to arrive at approximately the same time going the other direction, so we guessed that our train would not dare arrive on the wrong track again. We guessed correctly. Half the platform cheered when the train arrived, and the other half looked quite confused.
The real highlight of this trip: the food. We found an awesome Chinese restaurant in a basement beneath China Town. I ate a plate of Ginger Squid and Scallops - delicious! Unfortunately I don't think anyone remembers the name of the place, nor the random alley and steps that we went down to get there...
On the train ride back to Mountain View we stopped in Palo Alto for dinner, thinking we would catch the next train an hour later. We were all waiting on the platform for the 10:00 train when we saw it pull up --- on the wrong platform. We were all shocked. We didn't know what to do. Was this a special train that liked to tempt fate by riding on a track going the wrong direction? After a few seconds of confusion, everyone on the platform (about thirty people in all) booked it down the tunnel, under the tracks, past the sleeping homeless man and his shopping cart, and up onto the other side... just in time to see the train pull away. One desperate and angry would-be passenger threw his water bottle at the train. Fortunately he missed, but it represented our feelings quite accurately.
So, we did what anyone would do if they were stuck in Palo Alto for an hour and had already eaten dinner: we got ice cream. More specifically we got gelato, which is just ice cream that you have to pay more money for.
So, for the third time that night we were on the Palo Alto platform for the train. We pondered what our best strategy would be so that we wouldn't miss the next train in the same manner. One suggestion was to wait in between the tracks, but that was quickly vetoed. We looked at the schedule and saw that another train was supposed to arrive at approximately the same time going the other direction, so we guessed that our train would not dare arrive on the wrong track again. We guessed correctly. Half the platform cheered when the train arrived, and the other half looked quite confused.
6.16.2008
Extreme Soreness
Gah! My frickin' legs!
At least I got a nice tan
For compensation.
Right. Too bad that isn't good enough. I spent 5 hours (ish) playing Ultimate this weekend against people from Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo! It was an awesome tournament, to be sure, but I was awfully tired afterwards. Which meant, of course, that I had to go on a 20-25 mile bike ride with Steven and Evan through SF the next day. It was gorgeous! I didn't know that L
ucasArts was based in SF, either, so that was neat to see.
I have to say that biking across the Golden Gate bridge was pretty rewarding, too. Despite the fact that, while going around the columny pillary things, I almost blew off. Ridiculous wind!
And then there was Ghiradelli square. I got the MOST AMAZING ICE CREAM SUNDAE ever! Scoop of mint dark chocolate chip ice cream + dark hot fudge + scoop of dark chocolate ice cream + more dark hot fudge + whipped cream + nuts + little square of Ghiradelli mint dark chocolate = very happy Valkyrie.
I'm enjoying the sense of camaraderie that's beginning. Randomly on the train Evan, Steven, and I started talking to some guys who happen to be interns at Apple. We even had lunch with them. Gasp. But I think that all the inter-company intern things could be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the currently-nebulous Google-Apple soccer game or CTF game. :D
At least I got a nice tan
For compensation.
Right. Too bad that isn't good enough. I spent 5 hours (ish) playing Ultimate this weekend against people from Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo! It was an awesome tournament, to be sure, but I was awfully tired afterwards. Which meant, of course, that I had to go on a 20-25 mile bike ride with Steven and Evan through SF the next day. It was gorgeous! I didn't know that L
ucasArts was based in SF, either, so that was neat to see.I have to say that biking across the Golden Gate bridge was pretty rewarding, too. Despite the fact that, while going around the columny pillary things, I almost blew off. Ridiculous wind!
And then there was Ghiradelli square. I got the MOST AMAZING ICE CREAM SUNDAE ever! Scoop of mint dark chocolate chip ice cream + dark hot fudge + scoop of dark chocolate ice cream + more dark hot fudge + whipped cream + nuts + little square of Ghiradelli mint dark chocolate = very happy Valkyrie.
I'm enjoying the sense of camaraderie that's beginning. Randomly on the train Evan, Steven, and I started talking to some guys who happen to be interns at Apple. We even had lunch with them. Gasp. But I think that all the inter-company intern things could be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the currently-nebulous Google-Apple soccer game or CTF game. :D
6.14.2008
Pictures Galore
Valkyrie and Sarah have mentioned some of our recent travels ... check out the pictures:
6.13.2008
Another Day in the Life of a Google Intern
I met an important Googler today: Alfred Spector, VP of Research. He used to be the CTO / VP of Research & Software at IBM, and also used to be a professor at CMU (where he founded a company that popularized an important distributed file system -- there are lots of Googlers with CVs like this!) He's Stanford alum, too ;)
Anyway, I was having dinner outside with some other interns and he overheard us talking about the ACM ICPC and came by to introduce himself! We had an interesting talk. Google Research presents a pretty remarkable opportunity: Google has amassed talent that bring to mind Bell Labs half a century ago (in fact, Google already has two Turing Award winners on staff: Vint Cerf, who invented TCP/IP at Stanford, and Ken Thompson, who created Unix at Bell Labs). Google Research Labs could very well be the next PARC, IBM Research, or even Bell Labs. I remarked that, although Google has already touched the lives of millions of people today, it could be Google Research that impacts millions of people's lives for decades to come, just as Bell Labs has with the transistor, the laser, information theory, Unix/C/C++, the solar cell, and so many other contributions!
So there you have it, my first blog post: just another day in the life of a Google intern!
Anyway, I was having dinner outside with some other interns and he overheard us talking about the ACM ICPC and came by to introduce himself! We had an interesting talk. Google Research presents a pretty remarkable opportunity: Google has amassed talent that bring to mind Bell Labs half a century ago (in fact, Google already has two Turing Award winners on staff: Vint Cerf, who invented TCP/IP at Stanford, and Ken Thompson, who created Unix at Bell Labs). Google Research Labs could very well be the next PARC, IBM Research, or even Bell Labs. I remarked that, although Google has already touched the lives of millions of people today, it could be Google Research that impacts millions of people's lives for decades to come, just as Bell Labs has with the transistor, the laser, information theory, Unix/C/C++, the solar cell, and so many other contributions!
So there you have it, my first blog post: just another day in the life of a Google intern!
6.12.2008
Sports Galore
Only thirty-eight?
You make a respectable
team, Neo Edgers.
So today brought an inter-company intern soccer game: Google vs. Neo Edge. I guess Neo Edge has only 38 employees, plus 15 interns. Crazy! It was a fun game. We won 7-2, but they definitely played aggressively, and a couple of their players were awesome.
I can't wait for the GAFY Ultimate Tournament this weekend. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo FTW!! :D
You make a respectable
team, Neo Edgers.
So today brought an inter-company intern soccer game: Google vs. Neo Edge. I guess Neo Edge has only 38 employees, plus 15 interns. Crazy! It was a fun game. We won 7-2, but they definitely played aggressively, and a couple of their players were awesome.
I can't wait for the GAFY Ultimate Tournament this weekend. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo FTW!! :D
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