first SF post

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Posted by: stak
Posted on: 2006-01-22 03:16:17

ok, so it's been a while since i posted. mostly i was india for my sister's wedding and other relative-visiting activities. i'll post a separate restricted-viewing post on that (probably right after this).

also, i've been kind of sick since i got here to mountain view, so it's put a damper on things generally. other than that, things are going well. orientation at google was long and slightly boring, but informative and useful (giving me time to adjust to the environment). i also met my boss, who's pretty cool, and got my term OKRs (objectives and key results - everybody at google's supposed to have 'em) written.

google seems really really paranoid about security (in terms of inside information leaking out) so i can't really talk about anything work-work-related, but i can talk about work-environment-related stuff. like how there's free food EVERYWHERE. each building has a truckload of mini-kitchens with snacks and fruit and cereal. free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. with really good food, too. i haven't been taking full advantage of it because i wasn't feeling too well, but i will once i get better.. mm.. food.

the distribution of google t-shirts seems more restricted than i imagined. there's a t-shirt cabinet that gets refilled randomly and is emptied by googlers in about 10 minutes after that. there's a webcam on the cabinet, but i have yet to locate the address that the webcam is at (the IP address on the webcam tag doesn't seem to work). still, i hope to get a bunch of t-shirts by the end of the term. (i wonder if i should make that one of my OKRs?)

mountain view in general seems pretty nice. there's like a half-dozen technology companies on every block on the way to work. i walked there the first day (it's about 45 minutes away on foot), and was constantly seeing names of tech firms, some of which i recognized. now i take the (free) caltrain shuttle to/from work, which is like a 10 minute walk to the caltrain station and then a 10-15 shuttle ride to google.

more later..

Posted by Michael Fagan at 2006-01-22 09:17:44

sounds pretty nice. where are you living that makes it 45 min walk?

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Posted by stak at 2006-01-22 11:32:28

1600 villa street 94041. there's a "community" (i.e. apartment complex) called avalon mountain view. 12 softies from my class, plus two '09 softies and a CSer (i think) are all living here, it's pretty cool.

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Posted by Will at 2006-01-27 00:32:26

sounds nice man. i am happy for u man. btw did u get to meet chunkai yet?

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