Google: Week 9

Damn! It’s been 9 weeks so far. Well the fun has continued. Monday through Thursday was pretty standard. I advanced my project more, which I realized I haven’t mentioned much about my project. Well if you’re bored or interested in what I actually do checkout the work I’ve done. The number of results for this search should continue to grow as more of my work is added to the project. Other than the standard work, Monday I attended a talk by Amos Guiora for his book titled Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation which I received a free copy. It’s pretty thin and I don’t get free books to often so I’ll probably read it.

Thursday night I went up to Mira’s house in Berkeley along with Rashida, Evanne, Victor, his friend Glen, Molly, Jessika (Bung) and Dan. We went out to a Berkeley bar around 11 and I took off around 12:30 so that I would be rested for work on Friday. It was great to spend some time with old college friends. Ha! Old! My friends and I joke about how the ridiculous things we did during the last four years are no longer humiliating. Our joking rebuttal is simply, “guys — that happened in college.”

On Friday Rashida and Victor came to Google for lunch. That night I stayed in the Peninsula area as many of my friends were attending the Radiohead concert at Outside Lands. I ended up going out with Art and meeting up with Julie and her friend (I’m terrible with names) at a Palo Alto bar Nolas. We headed to the Rose and Crown and played some two-on-two cricket. Julie’s friend and I won the two games we played, though the second one was very close. I believe a rematch is necessary.

Saturday, in San Francisco tourist fashion, I went on an Alcatraz tour with a friend from high school, Mohammad. Prior to our tour we grabbed some lunch to validate our parking giving us the opportunity to catch up. We haven’t seen each other since our first college spring break so it was a great time. Alcatraz was pretty cool, but would have been much less so if there hadn’t been escape attempts. Following Alcatraz, Mo and I went to a Sushi place and then just chilled at his apartment and watched 12 Monkeys. It was on the in demand free movie list and though I had seen it before, Mo hadn’t so it was the obvious choice.

Sunday morning I headed up to Berkeley to help Bung move into the dorms. She previously attended SBCC and decided to transfer to Berkeley. Compared to the streamlined UCSB move in process that my mom and I experienced, Berkeley’s was ridiculous. We waited in line for approximately 30 minutes to get her room key and then had to make two decent treks with a laundry cart full of stuff up hilly paths from the car to Bung’s dorm. It really wasn’t that bad, as the company was awesome, however I worked up quite a sweat.

I can only imagine what dorm life at Berkeley is like. I remember learning that Berkeley dorms had coed bathrooms back when I was applying for colleges, however I had since forgotten. When I rediscovered this visually I shared it with Mira, which immediately after we decided it would be an awesome idea to team pee, therefore we did. We discussed how having a coed bathroom would be awesome in that it has high potential for shower hookups, but terrible for those mornings, after a solid night of drinking, in which a violent eruption of the bowels is imperative. Despite knowing that the bodily functions of men and women do not differ, I still refuse to realize that a female could have a post-drinking dump anywhere near as brutal as some that I’ve experienced. Unfortunately Berkeley dorm students probably cannot avoid that realization for very long.

Following lunch at the dinning commons I headed back to my summer place. After having gone through my five audio discs few times I decided that I needed to swap in my mp3 cd stereo from the Porsche. Despite this consumerist article and poor yelp reviews I went to a local car audio store to purchase a wiring harness and an antenna connection converter. According to the guy at the stereo store, Verena’s stock stereo “required” a special tool to remove, which I asked if I could borrow one. He informed me that they didn’t lend tools to customers but that he would remove it for $5. Last time I checked most auto stores allow their customers to borrow tools, and in some cases they will help their customers out for free. I definitely was not going to pay $5 for a 10 second job with a $20 tool. Being creative I used a few hex keys to remove the stereo; so much for a “required” tool. I crimped the wire harnesses together and then packed everything neatly back in place. Everything worked beautifully and I can now listen to ~30% more music before having to change a disc.

Spilling over into this week; Monday I made the decision to be a research assistant rather than a teaching assistant fall quarter. There are a few paper deadlines this quarter so it makes more sense to focus more on research than to TA a class. Despite knowing I will have future opportunities to TA a class, I am slightly disappointed that I won’t be in the fall as I had been looking forward to it.

Monday evening I headed to Art’s house where his parents had made a Hawaiian style barbeque. The food was delicious and after dinner Art and I watched For Your Eyes Only. I have been a huge 007 fan since Goldeneye and so it’s always enjoyable to watch one I haven’t seen in awhile.

Finally today I felt like I got a lot done at work after submitting my largest and most useful change list. Additionally I played probably my best volleyball of the summer making a considerable number of blocks, kills, and service aces. I’m still quite lazy defensively though. This evening I attended a Stanford Women’s Volleyball scrimmage which was pretty exciting to watch. Julie came for the last bit as she lives not too far away, so we chatted it up a bit. And that brings me to a close. Have a great week!