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 

Life Update

Hey guys, 

Sorry I have not been able to post much lately, I have been more busy then I thought; Not so much work wise, more or so going to the gym and hanging out with new friends and stuff down here. 

But I just wanted to let everyone know that I appreciate you guys following the blog and staying in contact with me... It means a lot =) 

Anyway, this is a random but I just wanted to say that I think at some point in every network junkies life there comes a time when he or she goes on a Mecca to the world of certifications. Well I think my time for this has come lol. I have really been studying hard lately and am really trying my hardest to leave California with a CCNP; or, at the very least, my CCNA. I have also become very interested in VOIP and how it relates to the networking world. 

I know most of you won't care about this, but I had nothing else to talk about and I just wanted to update everybody about what I am interested in. My eventual career hopes are to either be a TAC engineer for Cisco (I would support organizations around the world - that have contracts with Cisco - with their network infrastructure), a network engineer with Google, or a high-level network consultant for various organizations. 

Anyway, that is a life update!

I will talk a little bit now, about what I did fun wise this past week / weekend. 

Last Wednesday, I went with Christine and Dave to the Chili's restaurant and just chilled there for a while. I also signed up for a membership at the Cisco Gym which is amazing (state-of-the-art). 

Thursday was an awesome time, after work and the gym, I got home and Christine's one friend, Nick was over. We all ate dinner and just chilled, her other friend Nikki came over and we just chilled and partyed a bit ;)

Friday, Christine, Nick and myself grabbed some mexican food at La Victoria, and rented Mirrors from BlockBuster and we just chilled at home and watched them. 

Saturday, Christine and I went to La Santana Row, the richest part of town. It was beautiful. Restaurants and shops right out on the street, nice scenery and, busy environment. We met dave at the Valley Fair mall across the street (HUGE MALL) and ate lunch at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen). 

Saturday night we then went to a party. It was Christine's co-workers birthday party, so we went to a cool party of town, Los Gatos, and chilled at this dude's awesome apartment. (Was like an NYC apartment - hella cool). Unfortunately, later that night everyone went out to the bars, and I was unable to partake =(

Sunday, Christine, Dave, and I went grocery shopping and ate at Kirks Steakburger restaurant. It was a decent place. 

Thats basically all that has happened over the past week. Stay tuned and I will be sure to add more pics and vids!

Thanks,

-Nick

Finally, a new post!

Hey guys, sorry here is a new post with some pictures. I will add content and pictures later!

This is my work environment!

Second day at Cisco .ılılı..ılılı.

Sorry guys, not too much to report today, no pics or vids... =( I know, I know...

Anyways, started doing some actual work today, it was a fun experience. Everyone I work with is super nice like I said before. I am anxious to go back tomorrow! Hopefully I can get some more content up here for you guys then!

Anyways, my hours typically range from 9 - 6 (with an hour for lunch) my boss said that basically everyone takes an hour for lunch and Cisco allows for 1/2 hour of breaks. So thats really nice!

As far as work goes today, I was able to almost get full access to all of the Cisco systems. I had to apply (and received) access to the crypto images (IOS Software Images which contain cryptography [3DES, RSA, ...] which are locked down for Governmental reasons because of encryption laws. But tomorrow morning I have to get up early and travel to some different buildings to complete my I-9, W-4 and other stuff. But the remainder of the day was used for getting familiar with the lab, assisting some other interns with network setups, and some basic troubleshooting.

I will try to keep you all updated as much as possible.

First day at Cisco! .|.|.|.

Okay, so today was totally my first day at Cisco and it was rocking awesome =)

I started out waking up around 7:45 and got ready and showered, shaved and did the usual stuff. Dave then came by around 8:20 to give me a ride to my first stop, building 9. I was ready and we left the house around 8:30.

I arrived pretty early, around 8:40 to building 9 (the building I have to go to, to get my security badge and everything) and had to wait in the lobby until around 9:00. By 9, two other people showed up to get badges as well. At 9, we were all invited back to the security office, and at this time I began talking to the one woman who showed up as well. She was a nice woman of Asian decent and we were talking about Cisco and our experiences. By the time we were done getting our badges she had offered to give me a ride to the building I would be working in, building K (Thank god she did, because it was at least 1/4 mile walk to the light rail that would take me there). Any way, she drove me to building K. As I entered the building I talked to the front desk ambassador who phoned my manager to come down and get me.

A few moments later, Scott House, my direct boss showed up and began giving me the tour. He showed me the fellow interns I would be working with (all a great group of students =]) and then gave me a tour of the CALO (Customer Advocacy Lab Operations) Lab. This lab is HUGE. Words cannot describe it, nor can the pictures above describe it, but basically it is 12 or 13 rows deep of computer equipment and each row has 27 racks that can fit up to 40 some devices (that is a lot of equipment!)

After the tour of all the technical stuff, Scott showed me the Cafeteria in building J (adjacent to K [obviously]). The caf is very nice and is pretty cheap too!

After all the tours and what not, Scott took me back to building K to the CALO area to get acquainted with my work and the other interns. I was given an IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T61, and a Cisco IP Phone 7970 (Google them!). I also was given my passwords to log into all of my accounts and what not (there are like millions of accounts!) and they did not all come through as nicely as they should have... I am still waiting for my access to subscribe to my free light rail passes...

As the day went on, I wheeled a cart of cisco switches and 2800 series routers (pictured above) to my desk to re-familiarize myself with Cisco IOS (Cisco's operating system [Internetwork Operating System]) and various commands and what not. This went well, and I was able to interconnect three 2800 series routers over a serial T1 link, a switch over a FastEthernet link, and finally a workstation attached to the switch!

I also got some experience going into the lab and looking around at equipment and assisting my friend Jesse out with some of his cases, which brings me to my next point... cases. Basically in the CALO program, we interns exist to assist and help out the Cisco TAC engineers (the people responsible for troubleshooting the large corporations that have contracts with Cisco [Wachovia, American Express, Microsoft, various smaller companies, etc]). The engineers request us, via an online case system, to configure and piece together devices that would replicate the scenario a corporate customer would be using. So in other words, if Wachovia Bank was having an issue with their network, they would call their dedicated TAC engineer at Cisco and tell them the problem. The TAC engineer would then request a CALO intern to setup the scenario in the lab to replicate the scheme in place at Wachovia. The TAC engineer would then use this to assist in solving Wachovias problem!

It was a long day, that's all that needs to be said. I returned home via light rail around 6:30 or so, ate dinner and here I am writing this blog! If you have any questions, please feel free to comment and let me know! I will be adding pictures above!

Thanks for following and stay tuned!

-Nick

Echo Post

Hey guys, this post goes out to all those that are back home that I left :(

If you are reading this, please just Echo (or type) your name in the comments sections. Let me and everyone know you are out there! =)

To comment, just make sure you are logged into your account and click on the title of the post at the top. So for this one just click the title "Echo Post."

Thanks,
-Nick

Sunday Post - T minus 14 hours until Cisco!

So, today I did pretty much nothing! But I will update you all on what I did this weekend.

Frinday night, I went out exploring, as I have posted earlier. But afterwards, on my way back, my roommate notified me that her mom would be coming to stay the night (very unexpected for the both of us!) but that was okay with me!

Anyway, I was just sitting here, doing the usual on my laptop and watching TV, when in walked my roommate and her mom. I greeted her and we started small talk and she seemed to be a very nice and welcoming lady (and indeed she was)! We all sat around, watched a little TV, and talked and then I told them I would be going to be. My roommates mom told me that if I was willing to wake up early they would take me out to breakfast (how nice)!

I woke up on Saturday morning around 9:30 or so grabbed a shower and we left for a nice breakfast at "Cup-and-Saucer" diner. It was small quaint little diner over on the south side of San Jose.

After breakfast, we traveled to the local Target to pick up curtains for my room (because there were no curtains on the windows). The Target was actually attached to the Oakridge mall (a very nice mall that is pretty big - it has a movie theater, a lot of shops, and a fairly large food court). We couldn't find exactly what we were looking for at Target so we decided to run to Wal-Mart and search there.

Sure enough, Wal-Mart came through as always and we were able to find a set of awesome curtains for my room. After our breakfast and shopping escapade, we returned home and just chilled for a while. My roommate later showed me her office on the 5th floor of an office building across the way from our house (very nice office, I must say!)

After we returned home from the office, one of the other CoOps that works for Cisco was talking to me online and told me he was going to the "Great Mall" which is actually fairly close to Cisco, and he asked me if I would like to tag along. I agreed and took the light rail off to the Great Mall Station. I met up with him shortly after 5:30PM or so. We just talked a while and walked around the mall. Let me tell you, this mall is crazy big! It is basically set up as a large circle, with an inner circle, both filled with shops. There is also a very large food court. Anyway, we walked around and talkeda for a while, and then decided to call it quits. I returned home and just relaxed the rest of the night watching TV and just talking with Christine and her mom.

That brings us to Sunday morning - this morning! I slept in pretty late but once I woke up, Christine told me that her landlord would be coming to fix a leak in her sink. She said the landlord was a pretty mean guy and figured I wouldn't want to meet him, so I just stayed in my room for the 15 minutes that he was here. While I was in my room, Christine and her mom discreetly slid a plate of cinnamon buns and a glass of orange juice into my room! It was amazing!! After the landlord left, I just came out and watched some TV for most of the day.

At 3:30 (6:30 Eastern time) I received a phone call from Zack Karazsia. It was time to resume our weekly SGA Staff Meetings. So this occupied my time until almost 5PM.

Which brings us to now. I am typing this blog post, its 7:20PM and I'm freaking out. I am so nervous about starting at Cisco tomorrow and I am just in a lot of angst and anticipation! I will probably be getting ready for bed soon as I want a fully-rested night of sleep so I can be awesome tomorrow =)

Before I close, I just gotta say everybody has been so incredibly nice. Christine, her mom, her friends; everyone I have met or talked to is fantastic, and it's really nice that they have been so nice to me and so willing to help. So thank you to you guys! =)

Anyway, sorry Chirs, no vlogs for this post, and there is a lot of reading, but you will get through it! To all you other followers, I will have lots of pics and hopefully vids of Cisco tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Interim Post

So, I ran out of time today for a post, but wanted to share this with all of you :)

It's my parents <3 rofl...

Day 2 - Further Explorations

Ok, so let me tell you something. Cisco is preposterously huge! It is just ridiculous. Words cannot do it justice. There are at least 40 some buildings. It takes up both sides of both West Tasman and East Tasman Dr. I was walking for like an hour and I was still on Cisco porperty. It is just crazy. I know I can't possibly describe this in this blog but I encourage you to go to Google Maps and lookup 170 W Tasman Dr, San Jose, CA. You will see nothing but Cisco Buildings!

Anyway, Today was pretty uneventful. My roommate, Christine, took me to lunch at Chipotle, a Mexican Restaurant. She then took me to Cisco - Building 9 - which is where I have to report to my first day to get my security clearances and everything for the campus. After getting back from that, I took a short nap, and then decided to head out on the town and do some more exploring.

I grabbed the light rail to Santa Theresa to check out the south side of the town. It proved to be an interesting trip and I met some very curious people along the way (let's just say they were very diverse). Anyway, I absolutely love the light rail! I don't know why exactly, it is just fun to ride and what not.

Anyways, I will be posting some pictures and videos of the light rail a bit later so you can all see what its like.

Day 1 - The house and the City

Here are some photos to enjoy! The top is of the Cisco Campus (it's a crappy pic) The 2nd is the weather forecast for the South Bay area ;) followed by some pics of the outside area around my house, and then finally the house interior, and the last few pics are of my room!

Good afternoon everyone! thanks for following my blog and my activities over the past few days, It certainly has been an interesting trip so far.

I will start this post off with arriving into San Jose Int'l last night. I finally arrived in around 6:00PM pacific time. As I arrived, I got my luggage, and my roommate picked me up. She then took me out to dinner (on her!) to Sonomo Chicken, a nice little chicken restaurant in the downtown San Jose area. She then introduced me to one of her friends, Dave, who is a really nice guy. We all went grocery shopping. After the shopping, I went home to bed!

---------

Currently, I am in Mountain View, California. I just took the Light Rail Train (more on that later) from my house to here. It was about an hour trip, but it was very cool!

I woke up today around 10:30, 1:30 for most of you. I grabbed a well needed shower, and started taking some pictures of the house. It is pretty nice, same with my room. It's pretty small, but for this area it's awesome.

Right outside my house, is a new residential high rise, that was built by the company my roommate works for (Barry Swenson Builders).

Soon after I woke up and got ready for the day, my roommate and friend Dave, took me to a local deli and we all got sandwiches and ate lunch. After that, I went with Dave, who showed me around the city. He took me past Cisco, over to see Apple in Cupertino, and to some other areas of interest (Saratoga, etc).

As I said, I was travelling by light rail which is actually really neat. It's basically a small train / metro that travles right down the center of the street. There are a bunch of stations where people board and detrain.

Anyway, thats it for now, please feel free to comment on these posts and let me know what you want to see / know and I will try to get pictures!

What a day... and it's not over yet!

****UPDATE**** Later that night!

[I will update posts with pics and videos later as soon as I find a faster connection to the net!]

I FINALLY LANDED!!! right around six O'clock pacific time, my plane finally landed. We boarded around 4:00 mountain time after they said they plane would be just fine to transport us (how reassuring). Anyway, we boarded, and the boarding ticket lady was kind enough to give me a row to myself after she saw I was in the very last seat of the plane. So I boarded, and was tucking my backpack under the seat in front of me when the lady in that seat turned around and yelled "STOP PUNCHING MY DAMN SEAT!" Now I immediately was pissed because of how rude this lady was , I mean all I did was bump her seat with my backpack, but I decided to let it go (best choice I made b/c she turned out to be some crazy lady!). Anyway, as we were readying for taxi, a nice black girl sat in the aisle seat and we started talking about stuff. She was a graduate intern for Johnson & Johnson and was telling me all about San Jose, San Diego, etc. Turns out she was in Philadelphia visiting family!

As we took off, I tried to relax and fall asleep; however, this proved to be an impossible task with the crazy witch in front of me screaming her head off after every bump we hit! She was literally freaking out and causing panic on the plane. Kinda would've been nice to have punched her out! ;-] just kidding.

I could tell I was already getting confused with the timezone differences, as I thought we were to be landing an hour earlier then we did. But I will have some pictures and stuff for later so stay tuned!

****UPDATE**** 3:52PM MST

I am now sitting in the airport, it is 3:45 and our flight was suppose to DEPART at 2:59! We started boarding when all of a sudden the flight attendants said everyone had to get off the plane. They continued with the following statement "Maintenance engineers have alerted us about a scratch on the side of the plane, and after further investigation have told us that because of the depth of the scratch, it will have to be repaired and further investigated."

We are now being told we are on a 4:00 decision, either we will be boarding at 4:00 or we will be getting screwed :-] ...Oh how I love airport travel



Okay, so after getting out of the driveway (crawling on all fours because it was that icy) and getting to the airport, things seemed to be going quite well! I was checked in within a matter of minutes, my grandmother told me she is depositing $200 in my checking account, and my awesome parents were there to see me off. Everything seemed great! That is until I got on the plane and sat on the runway for almost 2 hours doing absolutely nothing!

Apparently, says the pilot, the de-icing trucks were breaking, and the truck that was giving us fuel was having some problems.... that's always nice! On top of all of this, the flight attendant was not the most pleasant and also did not seem to know entirely what she was doing (she was making a pot of coffee, when all of a sudden the coffee started leaking and flooding the area she was in!)

Anyways, at this point I already knew my connecting flight from O'Hare Int'l airport to Denver Int'l would be out of the question.

Sure enough, we landed at Chicago O'Hare Int'l at 10:00AM CST. My connecting flight to Denver was at 10:10AM at the other end of the airport. I ended up talking to customer service, and they booked me on the 11:10 flight to Denver, and the 2:30 flight to San Jose.

So that brings me to where I am now, beautiful Denver, Colorado. Once I was actually able to see the ground upon landing, I realized I already hate this state, it is nothing but brown land and some mountains... Not for me.

Anyway, I have some content I will be uploading, some pics and vids, so stay tuned!
I will also, post once again when I touch down in San Jose; assuming that is today!!!

The trip!

So I woke up at about 4:00AM this morning. Not really tired, even though I guess I should be for the time I got to bed. Anyway, I uploaded a picture of the radar from the Weather Channel so you can see how bad it is outside. I walked outside on my driveway and couldn't even move. There is so much ice that the entire ground is like an ice rink, you can't even move. My dad is frantically trying to salt so we can arrive on time to the airport but it's looking scary.

Checking my iPhone FlightTracker app, it appears as if the airport is running on time, which is good. I will check in when I get to the airport. Expect this post to be updated and edited frequently!

Preparation for Cisco Systems (San Jose, Calif)

Well, I decided to make a blog detailing my experiences on my travel and work experiences at Cisco Systems in San Jose, California.

Currently I am one day out. I will be leaving tomorrow morning at 5AM for Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE). My start already looks grim as there is a winter storm system rapidly moving in on the area which will likely delay my schedule.

Because I am not sure what will be going on with my flight, I downloaded a must have iPhone app for travellers, FlightTrack. This app lets you track flights and automatically see what the status of the flight is. I will upload some photos. (they are above).

I am finalizing everthing right now. I just checked in online and printed my e-tickets. I will be travelling via United Airlines and I will be making two stops to grab connecting flights. The details are below.

1): United Flight 6072 - KABE (Lehigh Valley Int'l) D{6:57AM} --> KORD (Chicago O'Hare Int'l) A{8:20AM} [+1 hour timezone difference GMT - 6 Central Time]

2): United Flight 247 - KORD (Chicago O'Hare Int'l) D{10:00AM} --> KDEN (Denver Int'l) A{11:39AM} [+1 hour timezone difference GMT -7 Mountain Time]

3): United Flight 245 - KDEN (Denver Int'l) D{12:15PM} --> KSJC (San Jose Int'l) A{1:57PM} [+1 hour timezone difference GMT -8 Pacific Time]

Make sure to keep in mind that the flights are really an hour longer because of the timezone difference, so travel time is actually much longer.

Anyway, I am very excited yet also very nervous. This will be the first time I am travelling by myself without having anyone to navigate me through the airports! My new roomate, Christine, will be kind enough to pick me up from the San Jose airport around 2:30 - 2:45 PST. Hopefully that pans out well. I will be uploading photos along the way, so stay tuned!