My last week at Google is finally here. It seems like just yesterday I was driving up to the Bay Area in the Porsche loaded to the roof with my stuff. Oh it’s been a great summer, but it’s not over yet!
Week 12 gave me the opportunity to complete more of my project and even expand outward a bit. Friday I added a much needed feature to Autotest which simply was an email notification when an Autotest job completes. Nothing too exciting but it was the change I needed to finish the week strong as my project has really started to dull out. Last Monday we had a dodgeball match which we unfortunately lost. Tuesday I played a grueling match of volleyball followed by a game of dodgeball in which we dominated. I have developed what I believe to be a case of tennis elbow, which must be synonymous with volleyball and dodgeball elbow. Anyway we knew we couldn’t advance out of pool play with our best case 2-2 record, so I decided to change up my strategy to avoid irritating my elbow. I stood in the back basically acting as a target and feeding others the balls. I did throw four times of which I managed to make three kills, so that felt good. I also pulled off two or three catches, thus ending my dodgeball career at Google.
Thursday I again played volleyball at lunch and very strongly believe that Keri Walsh watched me play, or at least that’s what I’m telling people. The four of us who were playing believe we saw Keri Walsh (or her double) walk by the Google beach volleyball court. Despite the lack of eye contact we deduced that at one point she must have glanced over, or at least peripherally noticed us playing while laughing to herself about how much she would dominate us. Keri, please come back and dominate us!
Friday, as I mentioned earlier, kept me occupied with my Autotest frontend patch. Additionally around 2PM, a man we’ll call “scottz” came into the office and asked if anyone was up for whiskey. Well, duh! So him and I both had a dry finger of Knob Creek. I don’t sip dry whiskey very well so I ended up shooting it, then moved on to a Pilsner. Despite the light boozing, my production went way up as I pounded out the rest of the patch. Around 5:30 a little bit of Rock Band took place and at 6:30 Steve and I met up with Molly and Julie at Stanford for the UCSB Stanford Women’s volleyball match. Julie, Molly and I were decked out in our UCSB gear, and all were hoping for a UCSB upset against the #2 ranked Stanford girls, however it unfortunately did not happen. Nonetheless we represented our school by starting the Gaucho cheer: “OLE!, OLE! OLE! OLE!, GUACHOS!, GAUCHOS! (repeat)” Following the game the four of us went to Pizza My Heart and then the Rose and Crown for some darts. I still remain undefeated at darts this summer :)
Saturday morning I talked with Ben who asked about returning the laptop he leant me. Being as awesome as he is, he suggested I pickup a Macbook which he’d reimburse me for. I wasn’t going to argue with that! So that morning in the free time I had before my BBQ I picked up a Macbook and first generation Ipod Touch. The Ipod Touch was free pending a mail in rebate thus, Saturday just started off awesome. When I returned from my Apple store adventure I played with the Macbook until people started arriving for the BBQ, which ended up being quite awesome. For nostalgic purposes these people showed up, in order of appearance: Alison, Evanne, Mira, Bung, Molly, Julie, Steve, Dan, Victor, Glen, Jeremy, Jermey’s gf (sorry forgot name), Kristen, and Adam. I’ll sure feel like an ass if I forgot someone… Anyway throughout the BBQ Steve and I did backflips into the 5’ deep pool. Steve + Dan beat me + Bung in a chicken fight, and the rest basically involved hanging out, chatting and enjoying the food cooked by Al, who I’m renting the room from.
Sunday was another one of those hang out and chill days. I made a quick trip to Frys to pick up 4GB of RAM for lappy2.0. After installing I played around with the Macbook a bit and got caught up on Entourage, Prison Break, Weeds, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Dexter. Today Adam and Kristen came to Google for lunch. I sold the Ipod Touch to a follow Googler for $180, which when the time comes I’ll put this money toward an Android based phone, or maybe a 120GB Ipod classic. Additionally today I fixed up quite a few things, added a few features and was assigned a bug for Autotest. I feel kind of weird working on Autotest when that’s not specifically my project, but I think Google would prefer I be some manor of productive rather than twiddling my thumbs waiting for the next thing to do. Have I mentioned that I don’t work well when I don’t have much to do?
So this is my last week. It’s going to be sad to leave this all behind, but I am eager to officially start my Ph.D.. Other than Wednesday WTF (assuming I write one), the next time you read from me, it’ll be written from Santa Barbara. Adios from the Hills!
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