I woke up and even though I was fairly hungry, I forced myself to have a small bowl of cereal for breakfast. I showered, and put on one of Ryan's nicest shirts, since none of mine were clean, and so as not to look foolish at Google. Paul got up after a while, and I mentioned to him he would not have enough time to shower if he wanted to go to Google. He seemed to think he would, or maybe he just didn't want to go, but either way, I had to leave without him. Sorry brother.
I biked down to the train station, and hoped on the train with the bike heading south to Mountain View. The ride was nearly an hour on the train, longer than I thought, but I made it just fine. I had to bike another couple miles to the office, and there I was. The same company that had rejected me months ago, stood before me in all its glory. No hard feelings, G.
When Kimmy came out, she had me park my bike out front and she signed me in. We then jumped on the Google bikes that people use as transportation between buildings. She took me to the main cafeteria area where there was maybe 10 ethnicities of gourmet food for free for all employees and visitors. No pictures were allowed inside so I took one after of the outdoor dining area. The food was amazing, and we kept getting more and more.
Every building thereafter, there was something for me to eat, whether it be a smoothie, or snack bar. It was painful to walk after a while. Among the many other ridiculous benefits Google gives its employees, there was a foam pit, a pool, video games (which I never saw), and a ping pong table. Before I left, Kimmy caught me in a candid photo in Ryan's finest in the middle of campus. This attire was actually more the norm than an actual suit, so I didn't look like as much of an ass as I had planned. Sort of par for the course
After spending about 2 hours with Kimmy, we finished the visit with a nice game of ping pong. She was a good host, and apparently had a lax boss, which made for a good visit for me.
I left the campus, and headed back on my train to return to San Francisco. It reminded me of the metro north train I used to take. Tear. I got off, and biked back to Ryan's. Paul called me on the way, and was heading to the Golden Gate Park with the soccer ball. It's a truly massive park a few miles long. When I got back to the apartment, I saw that I received an email about a rideshare into Fresno, a place in the central valley, where I used to live a few summer ago. Good news.
With that I responded, and headed out to meet Paul. We kicked it around in the park for a while, while a little girl's soccer practice was being held.
Once we got bored of that, we headed back to Ryan's. We decided we (and by we I mean Paul) were going to make dinner that night, so we stopped at a grocery store on the way. Paul made his pasta fazool specialty. Everyone loved it again, and it was good to get some pasta in that night, since we were riding again the next day.
We repeated the same olympic process as we had the few nights preceding. We figured we would take advantage when we had a tv. I then burned the stuff from the cds I bought onto my computer so I could leave them with Ryan, and not carry the weight on the bike.
We rested easy excited to get back on the bikes and see Mike and Sean again in Santa Cruz. Should be a good time.
Life was good.
Nice shirt!!!Google sounds impressive but you probably would gain weight if you worked there…free food and all. Thank goodness for the Olympics!
happy trails
Nice hair!!!
Awesome pics!!!
I particularly love the pic of the bike all by itself on the train. Did it pay a fare?