I have a real badge now

I gave my first Google tour last week when Luke came to visit! Although I'm still new to the campus myself, it's fun to show off my new workplace. I'm really enjoying the company and culture thus far, so here's a little update on my new job.

Basically I can't tell you anything.

Actually, from a technical/tactical perspective that's entirely true. But I'll try to share some of my experiences with starting a new job and working at Google in particular. One thing I can say is that the learning process is non trivial. I'm currently drinking from the fire hose of tools, infrastructure, and codenames. It's a little overwhelming but at the same time very interesting and motivating. My current goals are to meet someone new every day and to explore the campus and cafes before I get too busy. It's fun to be at the main campus where lots of things are happening, and it's interesting to work for a company that makes headlines on a regular basis for cool new projects.

The commute is kind of long (at least by Boise standards), but we are really enjoying living in San Francisco so it seems worthwhile thus far. I'm currently experimenting with methods to reduce motion sickness while riding the bus during rush hour. The thing that seems to help the most so far is the Sea Band wristbands that I bought for a cruise a few years ago. It's hard to do a controlled experiment when it comes to motion sickness since conditions are hard to repeat. However after several weeks of data, I think the bands are helping. The percentage of days where I walk in the door at 6:30 feeling sick to my stomach has decreased significantly since early February, and often I am able to read or work on my laptop for most of the ride. The other happy part about this solution is that it doesn't involve taking dramamine every day (yuck) and the total cost is about $5 at Walgreens. :)

If you want to hear more about my job, come visit and I'll give you a tour!

Traveling

In the past two months I have flown through all three of the major Bay Area airports (SFO, OAK, SJC). The transportation logistics can be a little tricky, but having multiple options definitely helps with price shopping. As a side note, if you're coming to visit us SFO is definitely the best option, but the others are also feasible (OAK is better than SJC if you want to get to our place via public transit.)

Anyway, two weekends ago I spent several lovely days at Newport Beach, CA with my grandma, aunts, and girl cousins. My family is crazy and wonderful. I also learned something very important on that trip, which is this: I failed to develop hula hoop skills early in life, and evidently it's not something that you "just pick up". :)

The beach was beautiful and the trip was rich with conversations, silliness, water, and sunshine. Thanks to everyone who made this a fun weekend with lots of good food!

Last weekend I joined Mike in Boise for a few days to visit parents and watch the Boise Philharmonic concert. It felt totally normal to be back in Boise, except that I was surprised at the large amount of space between cars that had parallel parked on the street downtown. I guess I'm getting used to living in a city, at least in some small ways.

Now we're back in SF for a while, and it's good to be home just so I can catch up on some sleep.

More pictures to come later.