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
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