Nightmares, problems, and more nightmares ensue...

Well, I wish I could be writing you all some good, exciting, and juicy stories... But this post will actually be a way for me to relieve my frustrations. I will try to stay as calm, collected, and appropriate as possible, but be warned, read on at your own discretion!

To begin, I will fill you in to a little back-history regarding my living situation. Take this as an anecdote from the past.

My roommate, Nicole, is a first grade school teacher, she seems to be a nice woman, fairly down-t0-earth, easygoing, and otherwise chill. I mean we are living in San Francisco. When I met her the first day, things seemed fine and she seemed like a genuine and caring person. One of those types you feel like you can pretty much get along with right off the bat. She is a woman of broad stature, pretty plain and a bit of devious of her name... Anyway, she treated me kindly and helped me out while I was getting to know my way around. She was also very receptive and accepting when I asked her if I would be able to have a visitor come out for some time in July.

As our time together carried on, she became more short and seemingly less friendly. We would still have conversations and what not, but things definitely changed and it became more apparent that they changed after I shared some personal history and stories with her. She was becoming more short with me and more hesitant... Until...

So now we will carry on to almost present day about two weeks ago. My roommate was traveling and I had the house to myself... While this was cozy and a nice thought the reality of the matter turned out to be quite different. She left in quite a disarray and the house, for all intents and purposes resembled something of a New Jersey landfill. Clumps of half-swept dust lay around the floor, dishes scattered about the kitchen - dirty - dirt and garbage debris covering the floors, a kitchen floor that made you afraid to look at it and actually sick if you carried out the task of walking on it's stained and sticky surface. The bathroom was littered with different 'products' and she found the kitchen table the most appropriate place for her 'womanly items.' A sty fit for a pig indeed.

Of course I wouldn't be complaining so much if the following hadn't have happened:

1): A few weeks into my stay with my roommate, she texted me at work indicating she was borrowing the heater to give to a friend... While she didn't ask me if this was okay, I didn't think much of it, until I never received it back... It's not fun waking up to a 58 degree house...

2): On one day of my roommates travels I texted her with a simple request; I asked her if I would be able to purchase an air bed for my room and move my old bed to the basement. I explained that the bed she had for me was unbearable to sleep on anymore. Furthermore what I didn't explain to her out of respect was the fact the bed made the most god-awful moans after the slightest thought of shifting or moving positions... Anyway, She responded saying she didn't want her house dismantled and that I shouldn't be moving the bed to the basement and some other interesting items that just sort of shocked me, especially after paying 750/month to rent the room. Anyhow, I bought an air bed anyway and kept my current bed in my room nice, neat and quaint.

3): Around the same time, my roommate also texted me and noted she may have some problems with Alec who is coming out over the summer. She expressed concerns now that she didn't have before. So this was disconcerting but she reassured me that we would figure everything out and that it was 'no worries.'

4): A few days later, After I left for work and she returned home from her trip, she texted me again asking if I paid the rent. After I proceeded and said that I had, she continued and stated she was no longer comfortable with Alec coming out and that it wouldn't happen. (This is well after she agreed and had no problems, and Alec's airfare and living arrangements were planned). Well this caused some great consternation to be cast over the day and over my head, more specifically. I replied back to my roommate telling her this is quite unacceptable and stating that we had an agreement. She continued saying she didn't care and that I should be responsible for my actions and what not. The whole thing ended in a great deal of turmoil and me feeling overwhelmed and taken advantage of.

I conveyed my concern to her to no avail. She turned into a cold-hearted monster, at least it seemed to me, and she wanted nothing to do with helping me out or even showing the slightest bit of compassion. I explained that I was flying Alec out as a present for his birthday and that I couldn't afford to do anything else as far as a hotel or other arrangements at this point. The only other option seemed to be moving out and finding a more accommodating place.

And to this comment she said that's fine but she wouldn't be refunding my rent (that I had just paid the same day, for a month's period of time, after which she went back on her word)... Pure evilness.

She continued the barrage of evilness... Shortly after these events, the following day, she texted me yelling at me for installing an unauthorized 'wireless' in her house. While I did install a wireless network in her house on Memorial Day weekend, she was completely fine with this and had no problems whatsoever. The wireless was installed because the current wireless she had at her house didn't work well at all and I couldn't use my computer in my bedroom, an obvious problem. She continued to tell me that I did this without permission and that she "didn't know what I was capable of" and a myriad of other things.

There is more that follows, but not any of it worth mentioning. I am utterly frustrated and appalled by her character and can't understand how an individual makes this transition from a Dr. Jekyll to a Ms. Hyde... Some things are just not understandable, I guess.

So that is the current situation, I feel uneasy and just not at peace staying in this apartment any longer. I am working on getting out as soon as possible and hope to do so by this weekend. I will keep everyone up to date and I am really hoping for the best...

In the mean time, there will be a vacancy somewhere near 36th Ave & Lincoln Way, San Francisco, CA. But I advise all those interested, be wary.

Summer 2010 - Back to California... and Google!

Hi all, It's been over a year I think since I have updated the blog... well overdue! Sorry to all those following for my lack of updates things have just been crazy busy and I certainly didn't mean to trail off at the end of the summer last year.

Anyway, so I'm sure all of my followers (mainly family) are curious as to what I am up to this year. I'll try to fill you in as best as possible.

My flight out to California left at about 6AM on Saturday May, 15 2010. It was a really sad day, considering everyone I had to leave behind... Anyway, as always, I was especially nervous and paranoid about getting on the flight; alas it was fine and everything turned out well...

Total flight time was about nine hours to San Francisco International Airport. I landed, retreived my bags and was off to my new house in the city!

I arrived to my new house (google maps > 36th ave. & lincoln way, san francisco, ca. if you are interested in seeing the location on a map or on street view). My roommates name is Nicole, a first grade school teacher who absolutely loves her job. She strikes me as a nice and welcoming and fairly down to earth.

I had some adjusting issues off the bat, California, this year, is not nearly as alluring to me and seems to be somewhat bittersweet; the city is fun, but I'm too far from everything/one and the weather is absolutely terrible. Not to mention leaving everyone behind was... disheartening to say the least.

As always, my first ventures around San Francisco was to explore the city, or in my case, my neck of the woods. There are some decent restaurants a short stroll down the street from me, and light rail is available to take me anywhere in the city I need to go, at the expense of about an hours worth of time.

My official start at Google was Tuesday, May 18. It was an interesting day, not all too exciting as the day consisted of the normal HR nightmares, filing W-2's, I-9's etc, etc. All stuff I also did last year, so this year's orientation was especially dry. Nonetheless things picked up when I was able to reacquaint with my other intern buddies and got to my office and met my manager and other important folks.

My first week at Goggle was pretty fun, I just played around getting my feet wet and (re)learning the corp infrastructure and operations side of things. It almost felt like I just had an extended vacation from last year.

Subsequent weeks of work proved to be taxing yet very informative, educational and interesting. I am learning a lot (more so than last year). I have been working mainly in Tech Stop 46 (that won't mean much to most of you) which is one of the busier Tech Stops. My primary responsibilities, this year, include providing end-user support and assisting with core infrastructure duties at Google. (Last year I was more focused on developing internal applications and whatnot). Anyway, I am also working on developing a system to roll client backup software out to Mac OSX machines.

Most of you, whom I talked to initially, I believe were under the assumption I would be working in San Bruno at the YouTube office. Unfortunately after some last minute changes, I was moved to my office of yesteryear, Mountain View. While this is fine and dandy (as I enjoy the MTV office) it is also very taxing because it effectively pushed my commute from about 1.5 hours everyday to almost 4 hours everyday! NOT FUN!

Work continued on, at the expense of my sanity, while I seemed to be functioning at less and less of a capacity everyday. At my final point, I discussed with my manager my problems with my commute and he agreed to let me work out of the San Bruno office two days a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) which is a nice little break and switches things up a bit. The YouTube (San Bruno) office is fun, playful, and exciting albeit low key and un-stressful, so it is rather enjoyable.

As far as some of the things I have been doing to keep occupied, most notably, I talk to a certain very special someone pretty much everynight which helps out tremendously and is what is keeping my sanity intact =] I have also been hanging out with the cool interns in MTV including Christian, Robert, Kenny, and Lestat. All great guys who are very fun to work with and hang out with. A few weekends ago, I was with Kenny and we had a great time venturing up Highway one from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and unlike anything I have ever seen before. I have some pictures posted on Facebook, just check out the album. (If you're not friends with me on Facebook, make sure you add me!)

Other than that, things are fine, the housing / roommate situation is not nearly as nice as it was with Christine last year, but I'm managing. My roommate is nice, but not as laid back or chill as Christine was. I'm also getting frustrated with a few things that I won't mention. (If you're interested, talk to me in person). Unfortunately, I didn't realize the house I would be living at is not really located near anything all too exciting. I live in the Outer Sunset district of SF and there is really just nothing to do. Live and learn...

As far as anything else that is going on, there isn't much. Let me know if you have any questions, write on my Facebook wall for clarifications and I will update and post new items as you demand! =]

That's all for now, once again, sorry for the long lapse in postings!

Cheers,

-Nick

Google!

Hey everyone, just updating the blog for you eager readers out there!

It's been a while once again and I know some of you are anxious to hear about Google. Unfortunately, I can't say too much. I'm just not allowed to! I will tell you as much as I can though.

First off, for those of you that I talked to before I started at Google, I most likely told you that I would be fixing computers and working at a so called "help desk." This, is quite simply not the case! I worked at Google's Tech Stop (their name for a helpdesk) for about a week to get some experience on the field, however I have been doing more engineering work for Google.

My official title is an "IT Field Technician." I work for support engineering in the Corporate Engineering department.

As I have transitioned from working in the Tech Stops, I now mainly work out of my office coding and programming internal applications for Google. Right now, I am working on automating some processes within Google. Unfortunately, this is about all I can say.

As far as the rumors about Google go (free food, massages, etc), they are all true! :)

I signed up for a massage on Wednesday and boy was it good - not to mention free!

I now can proudly say I eat three very square meals per day (most of you know I usually never eat breakfast) not to mention a ton of snacks between meals. Google has a 150 feet rule where food is never to be more than 150 feet from any location in a Google building - while this is amazing, it is also quite detrimental!

On top of this, Google has 17 cafeterias, all of which are free. It is just astonishing to be completely honest.

My typical day usually progresses as follows:

* I leave my house at 7:35AM and arrive at the local light rail station.
* I take the light rail to downtown San Jose (across from San Jose State University) where I walk about 10 minutes to the Google Shuttle Bus or GBus (A Mercedez Benz Bus ! that has free Wi-Fi)
*Next, I ride the bus for about an hour and arrive to work around 9:10.
* I then grab a few friends and go get breakfast at the local cafeteria in our building. [breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, frenchtoast, fruit, and a fruit-juice smoothie]
*I then get back to my office around 9:45 which is when I begin my day.
* I work until 12PM which is when I grab lunch with my co-workers. [We usually eat at Charlie's Cafe which has about any kind of food you would ever want (Indian, asian, american, pizza, pasta, desserts, etc)]
* After lunch, I usually stop by the juice bar and grab a wheat grass shot and a smoothie =]
* I then go back to work for the rest of the day
* During the workday I may play a game of ping pong or two to help relieve stress
* Usually around 6PM I will head to the gym till 7
* After the gym I eat dinner
* I then take the shuttle bus home from Google at around 8 and get home a little after 9.

so that's the typical day. I am usually very busy with work though (mainly coding at this point).

It's a fun and great place to work. Like I said, we employees are treated very well. Google is an absolutely amazing place to work at and I enjoy everyday. The work is not always easy but the people and environment more than make up for it.

So there you have it, if you have been wondering, wonder no more!

For those of you following me on Facebook, I will hopefully have some photos up soon! Also, I am working on a Twitter account so sign up and follow me! http://twitter.com/yeagy

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

-Nick

P.S. - For all my east coast buddies (this includes family), I really miss you guys and can't wait to come back and see you all again! =]

Tech Post - Wolfram Alpha

http://www.wolframalpha.com

So, I start playing around with Wolfram Alpha today. It's pretty legit, and pretty scary. I think this can be the next product that takes over the world; at least my world anyway!

Wolfram Alpha, in a sense, is much like Google. A very sophisticated algorithm that computes and performs tasks given some user input. Unlike Google, it is very specific and complex in terms of its computational power towards equations and objective and comparable data. Entering a complex math equation, it is able to produce graphs, derivative formulas, etc. Take a look at the computations produced when entering a sin formula.

http://www54.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2+sin(x)
-

Wolfram Alpha, also allows you to enter places, stock comparisons, and dates.

What has me perplexed is Wolfram's reference to my exact birthday. Coiencidence or not [maybe it grabbed a cookie referencing my birthday or something] its pretty scary. Is this thing going to become self-aware and start taking over the world???

If you don't believe me, take a look by going ot the above link (computing sin) and take a look at it's random birthday in the box near the top - right of the screen. There you will see:

--------------------

A few things to try:

• enter any date (e.g. a birth date)
  june 23, 1988

---------------------

Interesting! Can anyone go here and tell me the date it references? Maybe it's just stalking me.

Anyway, this is shaping up to be pretty impressive. While it's no Google, it certainly is worth a look, and as it progresses to beta, and finally production stages, I have high hopes for the product.

I also have a feeling we will be seeing more and more things such as this, 'in the cloud.' (the internet).

Let's see what happens with this!

[UPDATE] - Wow it's been a long time!

Dear Followers:

I am SO sorry to have kept you waiting so long without an update. Life has been incredible[ly busy].

I am no longer at Cisco, instead I have accepted an internship position at Google! Before I go into details, just let it be known that I will truly miss Cisco. It has been the absolute most amazing experience of my life: The work was incredibly beneficial and meaningful; the environment, management and people were great; and the overall environment was amazing. - It was defeintly hard to leave.

I also made so many friends at Cisco -Jesse, Madu, Sean, Peter, Nadia, Chris, Dave, Amandeep, Reetika, etc. (Sorry if I missed anyone) You guys were great, thanks for everything!

-----

Life in San Jose has also been really good! I spent an amazing Easter out here with Christine, and Alley White and her family. They really made me feel like a part of their family and it was great. Thanks so much guys!

I am missing home though! It's pretty tough. I was excited to come out to Silicon Valley to 'skip' the winter, but now that I have actually skipped it, I kind of miss it! Just proves that you don't know what you have till it's gone! Also, there are NEVER EVER ANY THUNDERSTORMS OUT HERE! What's up with that?! I really miss east coast weather as crazy as that sounds.

My awesome friends [Zack, Tyler, and Brian] came out to visit me over their spring break, 2nd week of March. It was a great time. We got to spend time going to Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and a plethora of other things. We had a great time! We got to see some movies, and I know they did a lot of exploring in San Jose while I was at work.

I actually left with my friends to come back to PA and Penn State to campaing for the Penn State Presidential Election. You may or may not know that I was running for President along with Tyler Washburn [Vice President] for the 2009-2010 academic year. Long story short, after a long and deliberated election, we [Tyler and I] were elected as Vice President and President, respectively. Thanks all! We look forward to serving Penn State next year!

Also, my AWESOME MOM came out to visit me! It proved to be a great time. We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm glad she came out and got to spend time with me, and see the area and what I do at work. We had some great times, we went to San Francisco twice, [via the Caltrain] ventured to Santa Cruz, and wound up at some CRAZY expensive steakhouse [~$100/person]!
We had a great time just exploring and relaxing. It honestly was a great time! Thanks so much for coming out, mom! <3

Just recently, some more family came out, My awesome grandmom, my Uncle Dave, and Aunt Jessie. Jessie was in town (SF) for a work related conference so my Uncle and Grandmom came out to make a weekend trip of it. We had a great time. I left work early on the 8th (May) and took the CalTrain to SF where I then arrived at the Hotel room. They had been out Wine tasting most of the day so I waited for them to arrive back. We then had a nice dinner and watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop [lol!]. On Saturday we then went to check out Alcatraz [awesome!] and in the evening we explored Muir Woods [giant redwood forest]. Sadly, they left the next day... Overall we had a great time, thanks guys!

More recently, This past weekend, I helped Alley White move from her apartment to a new apartment on the other side of San Jose. It was a good time, and she invited myself, Christine, and the rest of her family over to her new place to swim on Saturday and Sunday. It was a pretty good time, even considering the fact I got a bit burned.

That is pretty much a quick sum of my life and what has been going on! All except Google! I will leave that to the next post, b/c there is just too much to talk about!

I also wanted to say one thing.... I REALLY miss all my family and friends very badly. I really miss my mom and dad [dad, I haven't seen you in forever! really miss ya!] my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles and cousins. Also, to my friends back home, I miss you guys!!!! I can't tell you how much I miss hanging out; there are no substitutes for you guys!!!
I hope to see all you guys soon! =]

I want to apologize for the delay of this post though, I know you all have been following and waiting for updates, so finally, here it is.

Please comment, and let me know if you have any questions! Also, please friend me on Facebook to see and keep up with all my photos! There are a lot of them!

Once again thanks to you all, I miss everyone back home!

Best,
-Nick

UPDATE!!!

Hey guys!!! Sorry it's been so long since I last updated the blog!!!
I have been soooo busy.

Anyway, things at Cisco have been going really well, but, it's been very busy and hectic. Anyway, I will try to post some videos and stuff when I get a chance. I invite all of you to check out facebook for the pictures though, they are a lot easier to upload to facebook than they are here.

But this past weekend Christine's friend Stephanie Libby came up from San Diego so we all hung out. On Saturday we went to see a water polo game (SJSU vs Berkley) unfortunately SJSU lost, but it was a good game. Afterwards, we went to "The Mystery Spot" in Santa Cruz. This place was pretty crazy, I think it's one big optical illusion, but basically it makes you think you are leaning crazy much and everything is just really whacky, I can't really describe it, but it was a good time.

Sunday, we decided to go to San Francisco to check it out. We were orginally going to go see Alcatraz, but it didn't work out weather wise. Anyway, we spent most of the day in SF and had a great time. We ate at the Fisherman's Wharf and just walked around. We rode the cable cars and mainly just explored the city.

Other than that, I have mainly been working. I do a lot throughout the day case wise at Cisco, and its a very interesting time. I really enjoy it!

Check out facebook to see some pics!

So you're wondering... What does he do at Cisco...? Well, I will tell you!

Ok...

So everyone has been asking me... "What do you do at Cisco??" Well, I will tell you! 

Ok, so basically Cisco has contrats (be it large or small) with literally thousands of companies across the world... you name a country and Cisco has a contract with at least a few companies within that country. 

Anyway, as we all know, computers and other sophisticated electronics don't work forever. In fact some just never work. Well, my job is to help fix them when they break (from across the world!). 

In other words, let's say we have a fictitious company in Sri Lanka, and all of a sudden this company can no longer get out to the internet... It just stops working. Well this company will call its Cisco TAC Engineer and tell him or her of the problem. The engineer will then create a case and ask the CALO Engineers (me =]) to rebuild a replica of the customer's network, in our local LAB (pictured in the posts below). It is then my duty to find the equipment necessary, and connect all the pieces together and configure them so they can talk with one another. Believe me, It can get quite complex. 

Here is an example case that I received yesterday. It is not entirely too complicated, but you will get the point. (WARNING - This section is for techies only! others will probably get confused and just roll their eyes!)

******

a 7600 with two sup720s or rsp720s  running c7600rsp72043-advipservicesk9-mz.122-33.SRC

      ******

So that's an example case that a client would need a Cisco 7600 series chassis with two supervisor 720 cards installed running c7600rsp72043-advipservicesk9-mz.122-33.SRC << that version of the Cisco IOS operating system. 

Here is another one:

*********

I need an me3400 with Version 12.2(46)SE of code.  Can I get an IXIA port connected to the gi0/1 as well.  Thanks,  Jeff  ********************

So this guys is basically asking for a Cisco MetroEthernet switch (just like a normal switch really) and he needs it connected to an IXIA, which is a traffic generator (it simulates hundres of computers or devices on a network)

So, I would basically recive this case in my case manager and inbox and then go about solving this for the TAC Engineer. Sometimes its really hard to find the parts and they must be borrowed from other departments or what not, but most of the time its just a matter of getting the equipment hooked up and talking to the world. 

Sometimes, it doesn't go so easily though. Yesterday, I was assigned a case, the first one I posted above and the requester asked for two supervisor cards to be intalled (supervisor cards are basically the motherboard of the device). I did this, however, one of the internal components of one of the cards was different than the other, and when you are using two supervisor cards together (for redundancy in this case) they MUST both be EXACTLY the same or the chassis will crash. Well they were different and the chassis kept crashing. Eventually I was able to get it online and operational but it was still a headache!

Anyway, I also help clean the lab and perform maintenance on the devices and racks in the lab, and I also install new equipment and remove old equipment from the lab. It's a great job though, I love it. 

So thats it for this post, hope you learned some, and had some of your questions answered... probably not though =). but I am off to San Francisco tonight with my roommate and Nick. I will hopefully have some pictures and will upload then either tonight or tomorrow...... or later.

Thanks for following,

-Nick