Today I headed into the SBO office today for my fortnightly visit. I love being with the guys in SBO, being able to relax a little, get distracted by problems I know the answer to, not having to worry too much about the project, it was a great break. We had a team lunch in honor of my birthday tomorrow so I had a spectacular burger from Big Mouth Burgers. They got my order a little wrong but they did serve it rare and I LOVE my meat bleeding so the rest could be forgiven. They also serve the burgers open so you get to choose how much lettuce and tomato go into it! Of course my usual disclaimer about American Cheese applies, although they have Provolone and Jack so a slight step up. I think these burgers rank slightly higher than even the great In'n'Out placing them just below the place CJ took us to last time for best burger in the US (Much as I love Shake Shack, their hot dogs are so good I honestly don't know why you'd go for their burgers).
I played some more disc golf today as well, I was a bit short on time so only played the front 6 holes and not very well at that ending up about 4 over par thanks to some really poor putting. My long game is pretty good by and large, esp when I use a run in my drive to get the extra distance. I can usually place between the trees as well and I think being a lefty helps with most of the holes as they are designed to be tougher for right handed throws that curve the opposite direction.
I got back and Diego and I watched Frankenweenie... it really is as terrible as you'd expect. Give it a miss if you can.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Day 22 - Stalled
Another day filled with frustration as I fail to get the things that I need, done. On the plus side... actually there isn't really much of a plus side. I am totally wiped at this point and I haven't even done anything. Now I am being told that in order to get the things done I need to have conversations with legal, write up documents to submit and then resubmit all the paperwork... and that's before I even get to the actual technical limitations in so far as I have no fucking clue what I am doing.
I ended up taking a walk at lunch and heading up to Crittenden for lunch at Beta C which so far seems to be the only cafe that (in my mind) reflects the cafes of other offices in that it has a selection of food without focusing on one genre or style or having specialty booths. It was nice to have a bit of a breather and some time to myself but honestly, at this point, I am really looking forward to getting home.
I guess this is all a bit of a downer. Things aren't in fact all that bad. I was able to play my first game of NetRunner this evening thanks to Vasily's excellent tuition. I enjoy the game a lot but knowing how much it is going to end up costing, I am glad Graham is the one that will be fitting the bill for this one. I will happily play it with him but I don't especially feel that I am missing out by not picking it up myself.
I finally watched Fritz Lang's M this evening as Diego was out I felt it was ok to put on something that would have been a little tough for him to follow. (Just to be clear, English is Diego's second language and whilst it is ok, he can struggle following fast speech... following fast subtitles without the speech is a bit of a challenge.)
Now back to trying to understand this project...
I ended up taking a walk at lunch and heading up to Crittenden for lunch at Beta C which so far seems to be the only cafe that (in my mind) reflects the cafes of other offices in that it has a selection of food without focusing on one genre or style or having specialty booths. It was nice to have a bit of a breather and some time to myself but honestly, at this point, I am really looking forward to getting home.
I guess this is all a bit of a downer. Things aren't in fact all that bad. I was able to play my first game of NetRunner this evening thanks to Vasily's excellent tuition. I enjoy the game a lot but knowing how much it is going to end up costing, I am glad Graham is the one that will be fitting the bill for this one. I will happily play it with him but I don't especially feel that I am missing out by not picking it up myself.
I finally watched Fritz Lang's M this evening as Diego was out I felt it was ok to put on something that would have been a little tough for him to follow. (Just to be clear, English is Diego's second language and whilst it is ok, he can struggle following fast speech... following fast subtitles without the speech is a bit of a challenge.)
Now back to trying to understand this project...
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Day 21 - Welcome to Stanford
After another great RPG session this morning, Diego and I headed to Stanford. We had originally planned to head into San Jose but the Winchester Mystery House was a little more expensive to visit than we wanted to spend so we went back to Uni.
I have been on a couple of tours of Universities before, an impromptu one from a teacher and alumni of Cambridge, one around Durham, another at Trinity (Dublin). This was far an away the slickest sales pitch. It was interesting watching a student clearly having to talk through his teeth about the great plan that Stanford offers to help students afford attendance after all $60k/year is a bargain... Having said that there was a lot of interesting facts, many great alumni and stories. I particularly like the Hewlett Teaching Centre that is directly opposite Packard Electrical Engineering building.
The thing about American universities is they have no history, I guess this is true of the US as a whole. The thing is, they pit a lot more thought into how to make stuff look like it has history, make it look like it has been that way for time immemorial. They pay a lot of attention to the wider landscaping, making sure that the wider area is pleasant and usable. Obviously Stanford, Mountain View, Palo Alto are well off areas that can afford this but it is true for Golden Gate Park, Central Park and to a large extent US cities in general. In the UK, and Europe in general it feels a lot more like things will just get built as needed and then we will spend years either tolerating the short falls or trying to find ways to undo what we did to ensure it works. I know a lot of this can be put down to the desire to preserve what we already have and the lack of space available to us but I think it also speaks to a very half-arsed and fundamentally cheap way of doing things.
I have just finished a book on the Salem Witch Trials which was fascinating. I am honestly impressed that a group of women were so effectively able to puppeteer an entire state albeit only for a short time, but even then it seems that they got of without any legal repercussion (even civil suits seemed to get dropped) although a lot of stigma and in most known cases: unhappy endings. They orchestrated the hanging of 20 men and women, the deaths of others in prison and in total the imprisonment of over 200 men and women.
I have been on a couple of tours of Universities before, an impromptu one from a teacher and alumni of Cambridge, one around Durham, another at Trinity (Dublin). This was far an away the slickest sales pitch. It was interesting watching a student clearly having to talk through his teeth about the great plan that Stanford offers to help students afford attendance after all $60k/year is a bargain... Having said that there was a lot of interesting facts, many great alumni and stories. I particularly like the Hewlett Teaching Centre that is directly opposite Packard Electrical Engineering building.
The thing about American universities is they have no history, I guess this is true of the US as a whole. The thing is, they pit a lot more thought into how to make stuff look like it has history, make it look like it has been that way for time immemorial. They pay a lot of attention to the wider landscaping, making sure that the wider area is pleasant and usable. Obviously Stanford, Mountain View, Palo Alto are well off areas that can afford this but it is true for Golden Gate Park, Central Park and to a large extent US cities in general. In the UK, and Europe in general it feels a lot more like things will just get built as needed and then we will spend years either tolerating the short falls or trying to find ways to undo what we did to ensure it works. I know a lot of this can be put down to the desire to preserve what we already have and the lack of space available to us but I think it also speaks to a very half-arsed and fundamentally cheap way of doing things.
I have just finished a book on the Salem Witch Trials which was fascinating. I am honestly impressed that a group of women were so effectively able to puppeteer an entire state albeit only for a short time, but even then it seems that they got of without any legal repercussion (even civil suits seemed to get dropped) although a lot of stigma and in most known cases: unhappy endings. They orchestrated the hanging of 20 men and women, the deaths of others in prison and in total the imprisonment of over 200 men and women.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Day 20 - Monsters University
Today Diego and I headed to the office for lunch after a leisurely morning. We had a wander around some of the other offices that we hadn't been in before even finding a cool new android statue!
We then went to see Monsters University which is awesome although the sound failed for a few minutes during the key heart to heart. But we got free tickets as compensation which I guess we'll use to watch Pacific Rim.
After the movie we went to the Obon festival at Mountain View Buddhist Temple. I lived the food and all the activities but was a little horrified to see them using live goldfish as prizes... I feel like that isn't something that would be tolerated in the UK these days.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Day 19 - Friday is food day
Time for another food update!
Of the 31 Cafes... I have managed to visit 10! So a good start. These are the lowest hanging fruit and I predict that the challenge will come with SFO (I am thinking two lunches on a single day), West Campus (I think this is walkable but may be better to synchronize with a morning / afternoon in this location) & The Quad (This will be the toughest and I think I will have to organize to make a few visits).
- Atom
- Baadal
- Beta
√ Backyard - In my building and specializing in Barbque (honestly it's a wonder I go anywhere else)
- BETA C
- Big Table Cafe
√ Blaze Cafe - Fresh Pizza is the focus here but it has a few other things and is always very popular
√ Charlie's Cafe - This is the original cafe of Google and it has everything from fantastic Pizza, burgers, burritos to Pho, Sushi & Indian
- Crave Cafe
- Evolution Cafe
√ GO! Cafe - This is a sandwich to order to place. I'm not a big sandwich guy but if Subway was like this, they'd be making a lot of money off of me.
√ Jia Cafe - Authentic East Asian food and REALLY good
- Long Life
- Lunch Box Cafe
√ Masa Cafe - Burritos the size of your head made exactly the way you want.
- Maverick Cafe
√ Moma Cafe - This place is the king of sandwiches, toasted, normal, sliders they are all to be found here. It also has awesome breakfasts with pancakes!
- Nourish Cafe
- Quad Halftime
- Quad Hangout
- Quad Portal
√ root Cafe - A bit of a mix, nothing special but is fairly popular
√ Slice Cafe - Some packaged sandwiches but the reason to come here are the fantastic smoothies
- Steam Cafe
- Stock Market Cafe
- Trux Cafe
- Victoria Deli Cafe
- Yoshka's Cafe (w/e)
- Left Coast Cafe (SFO)
- Warehouse6 Cafe (SFO)
√ YouTube Café (SBO) - The breakfasts are good, sadly the lunches are not!
In other news, I am starting to make painfully slow progress in my project but having a little more success at home thanks to the discovery of a few good films over the last few days (16 Candles and Drive last night as well as Iron Lady the night before) I have also started playing Evoland which I cannot recommend highly enough. This game is fantastic! It is a tounge in cheek RPG that has more geek references than even I can pick up on. Tonight I am going to another outdoor movie showing! This time: Antz. Not my fav movie but I am looking forward to it anyway.
Of the 31 Cafes... I have managed to visit 10! So a good start. These are the lowest hanging fruit and I predict that the challenge will come with SFO (I am thinking two lunches on a single day), West Campus (I think this is walkable but may be better to synchronize with a morning / afternoon in this location) & The Quad (This will be the toughest and I think I will have to organize to make a few visits).
- Atom
- Baadal
- Beta
√ Backyard - In my building and specializing in Barbque (honestly it's a wonder I go anywhere else)
- BETA C
- Big Table Cafe
√ Blaze Cafe - Fresh Pizza is the focus here but it has a few other things and is always very popular
√ Charlie's Cafe - This is the original cafe of Google and it has everything from fantastic Pizza, burgers, burritos to Pho, Sushi & Indian
- Crave Cafe
- Evolution Cafe
√ GO! Cafe - This is a sandwich to order to place. I'm not a big sandwich guy but if Subway was like this, they'd be making a lot of money off of me.
√ Jia Cafe - Authentic East Asian food and REALLY good
- Long Life
- Lunch Box Cafe
√ Masa Cafe - Burritos the size of your head made exactly the way you want.
- Maverick Cafe
√ Moma Cafe - This place is the king of sandwiches, toasted, normal, sliders they are all to be found here. It also has awesome breakfasts with pancakes!
- Nourish Cafe
- Quad Halftime
- Quad Hangout
- Quad Portal
√ root Cafe - A bit of a mix, nothing special but is fairly popular
√ Slice Cafe - Some packaged sandwiches but the reason to come here are the fantastic smoothies
- Steam Cafe
- Stock Market Cafe
- Trux Cafe
- Victoria Deli Cafe
- Yoshka's Cafe (w/e)
- Left Coast Cafe (SFO)
- Warehouse6 Cafe (SFO)
√ YouTube Café (SBO) - The breakfasts are good, sadly the lunches are not!
In other news, I am starting to make painfully slow progress in my project but having a little more success at home thanks to the discovery of a few good films over the last few days (16 Candles and Drive last night as well as Iron Lady the night before) I have also started playing Evoland which I cannot recommend highly enough. This game is fantastic! It is a tounge in cheek RPG that has more geek references than even I can pick up on. Tonight I am going to another outdoor movie showing! This time: Antz. Not my fav movie but I am looking forward to it anyway.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Day 18 - Mind... Blown
*Initial Disclaimer* I am being even more insensitive here than usual. This is a highly controversial subject and I am talking exclusively from my own perspective with entirely my own opinions.
So what is it that is so revolutionary that my mind has been truly Blown? Well it was some insight from listening to This American Life. I will prefix this by stating that I have not (as of yet) checked the data sources to confirm the research that this is based on, however assuming that what they are saying holds up...
The net result? I contribute more to society's coffers by smoking, paying the additional taxes and living a shorter life (despite additional health costs) than I would if I lived a clean healthy life and lived a longer, nicotine-free, life.
We all know that I am all about me and so I have decided that I am going to cut back on the smoking and limit it to a very occasional bowl of pipe tobacco for fear that I should do too much to benefit society as a whole!
So what is it that is so revolutionary that my mind has been truly Blown? Well it was some insight from listening to This American Life. I will prefix this by stating that I have not (as of yet) checked the data sources to confirm the research that this is based on, however assuming that what they are saying holds up...
As a smoker - I am a net fiscal benefit on society!I know right? Mind blown! But why is this? Well it turns out that my life is gonna be shorter, so the government doesn't have to pay me nearly as much in pension, elderly care, benefits etc etc. Now I grant you that this may not quite make up for the cost of health care for, you know, my slow agonizingly painful death. BUT this net difference is apparently marginal and the amount of additional Tax I am paying on cigarettes more than makes up for it. (*DISCLAIMER* We will disregard the fact that the vast majority of cigarettes in Duty Free or the US where American Spirit is actually available and stick to the fact that I buy Pipe Tobacco in the UK and give Mr Taxman a chunk of that spend.).
The net result? I contribute more to society's coffers by smoking, paying the additional taxes and living a shorter life (despite additional health costs) than I would if I lived a clean healthy life and lived a longer, nicotine-free, life.
We all know that I am all about me and so I have decided that I am going to cut back on the smoking and limit it to a very occasional bowl of pipe tobacco for fear that I should do too much to benefit society as a whole!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Day 17 - Questions and Answers
I know nobody else is interested in my attempts at weight loss but I figured that I don't really care, I will write about them anyway. Surprisingly I have continued to make reasonable progress while out here. I am down to a little over 80kg from 83kg when I left the UK. I think a big part of this is MyFitnessPal which has given me a much greater insight into how I am eating. Calorie control has always been pretty easy with UP but what MyFitnessPal has really highlighted is how much sugar I eat, or rather how little sugar it takes to go over daily caps (let's say pancakes and syrup is never ok!). My protein and sodium intakes also seem to err on the high side so this is something I need to try and work on. I have meat heavy diet so it is hardly surprising that these are the areas I am overdosing in but the excess sugar was a bit of a surprise as aside from maybe a soda, I really don't have that much. One of the things that MyFitnessPal recommends is drinking 8 cups of water / day (2liters) which I have started doing as a combination of water and green tea/rooibos tea... I can't say I feel much different except I am basically now always thinking about where the bathroom is so I guess it has turned me into Godfrey from Dad's Army :-/
I have finally made a small amount of headway with the project but I still feel like I have lost a lot of ground. Hopefully I can get some results this week that will give me things to look at even if I am struggling on the technical side.
I finally watched Iron Lady tonight and it was spectacular. I had been meaning to watch it for quite a while and although it doesn't go into the details of the issues to the level I had hoped, it is superbly acted and somehow even manages to make her seem somewhat human which is a frankly miraculous feat.
I have finally made a small amount of headway with the project but I still feel like I have lost a lot of ground. Hopefully I can get some results this week that will give me things to look at even if I am struggling on the technical side.
I finally watched Iron Lady tonight and it was spectacular. I had been meaning to watch it for quite a while and although it doesn't go into the details of the issues to the level I had hoped, it is superbly acted and somehow even manages to make her seem somewhat human which is a frankly miraculous feat.
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