Day Seven: Cinco de Mayo
Friday May 6, 2011
So Americans are quite fond of Cinco de Mayo it seems, as much as New Zealanders are fond of St Patrick's Day. The Mexican restaurants around were buzzing with business and certainly the hotel and the caterers at work were in festive mood, with the hotel having a fiesta buffet and the caterers serving some delicious Mexican food - guacamole, tortillas, tacos, nachos, refried beans, red rice, and the best salsa I've ever had. Oh, and for dessert, there were fresh strawberries and fresh pineapple, and flan, which is basically vanilla bean custard. So gooood.
We wanted to try and catch the hotel's festivities but by the time we got back from work, they'd started to pack up, much to our disappointment. So instead, I thought I'd try a margarita royale to celebrate.
It almost killed me.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Posted by Jeremy at 5:59am on Friday May 6, 2011 :: 1 comment :: 
Day Six
Thursday May 5, 2011
Work continues. Not much to say about that, the project is going well at the moment. We are working. Really. Today's lunch was vienna chicken schnitzel, spinach lasagne, roasted sweet potato, and asparagus salad.
Today is Pool Night for Jimmy, so we went to the Burlingame Steelhead Brewery for some drinks and some pool. I had a raspberry cider and a pear cider - both fantastic and flavoursome, although very easy to drink. Fortunately for me, my superior mathematics skills shone through my inebriety with some tricky angle and ricochet shots on the pool table, with Tony and I winning against Mike and Jimmy 2 - 1, and Jimmy and I winning against Mike and Tony 2 - 1 again.
I just got back from dinner at this Thai place down the road. I was thinking of going to Taco Bell tonight, but since tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, I reckon I'll have my fair share of Mexican food yet.
Posted by Jeremy at 6:57am on Thursday May 5, 2011 :: 0 comments ::
Day Five
Wednesday May 4, 2011
We had a late but necessary kickoff meeting for the project today, and we also managed to track down some project documentation, so armed with a bit more direction, I began planning the architecture and identifying key areas for focus. That was pretty much the whole day! Lunch was barbeque chicken, grilled zucchini, roast vegetables and couscous. I'm liking this catered lunch thing very much.
We went to get some Clipper cards to use on the bus and train systems. Clipper's basically a stored value card, much like Snapper. The guy at the counter at Walgreens was extolling its virtues and after finding out we were from New Zealand, began talking about how Clipper's the future and it's awesome and stuff. I wanted to chime in with something about how we don't have such technology and instead use sheep to transport us everywhere.
Dinner was low key, with Tony and I heading to KFC/A&W in search of the fabled Double Down, only to be disappointed and not finding anything of the sort. We did get one of the famous A&W Root Beer Floats, so it wasn't total fail.
I think I am getting sick...
Posted by Jeremy at 5:30am on Wednesday May 4, 2011 :: 1 comment ::
Day Four: First Day at Work
Monday May 2, 2011
We set off for the train station at the relatively sane hour of 9am to catch the southbound Caltrain at half past, or so. Work starts at 10am and it was the only Caltrain that would get us there in time, so we had to make sure we wouldn't miss it.
Most of the time I've spent at the office is setting up my new MacBook Pro - getting software updates, Xcode, SDKs, etc. We haven't really been briefed on the kind of technology they use- whether there's any SVN repository or policies or things like that. I can't even really tell who's a programmer or who's an artist by looking around the room, although really the only indication is who has Xcode open.
They get catered lunches! Today's meal was meatball in mushroom marinara (which I didn't eat), stuffed capscicums ("bell peppers" in America) and brocolli pasta. There was also fresh salad and fresh fruit to compliment the mains. In the kitchen, they've got a shelf full of snacks like nuts and dried fruit and jerky. I love food!
On Fridays, they have a company meeting at 5pm (probably something like Show and Tell) and then they bugger off to the bar for Happy Hour drinks - so they pretty much leave 90 minutes early on Friday evening.
There's about 100 people on the floor, and in this particular room we're in, it's open plan so you can see from one side of the room to the other. I guess the only problem about this place is... everyone uses a Mac.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:05pm on Monday May 2, 2011 :: 2 comments ::
Day Three
Monday May 2, 2011
Another slow start to the day, but who cares! It's the weekend and I'm in a totally different city having a nice holiday (for the time being, I'm really here for work. Really.) We made our way to Valencia Road where they have a pirate shop with all sorts of cool merchandise. I bought a t-shirt that says "Cannons don't kill people. Pirates with cannons kill people".
We headed in the direction of the Castro District after that, but on the way we found the Mission Dolores Park, where hundreds of people had gathered to enjoy a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon. Coincidentally, I also found Tobias wandering around there (Damn world, so small!) so we made plans to communicate further on MSN and meet up some time during the week. We continued our trek to the Castro, dodging dogs and dog poo along the way.
The Castro District was interesting and...quite intense. The place is decorated with rainbow flags and many of the shops have some awesome innuendo - the Sausage Factory restaurant, Moby Dick's bar, Hand Job massage and beauty therapy parlour, to name a few. Of course, there's plenty of gay men and lesbian women walking around as well, and we did see a guy strutting down the street in the nude too. Yeah...
From the Castro, we took the Muni Metro to Forest Hill and walked up to the summit of the Twin Peaks (we got a bit lost but that's okay, we made it in the end and it was totally worth it). The sights are amazing. Panoramic views of the whole city, from the Golden Gate Bridge in the north to the Bay Bridge out east, the Pacific Ocean in the west and Silicon Valley all the way out south. The weather was absolutely perfect for sightseeing and I'm glad we managed to see the city from this angle.
We returned to the Castro and then to the BART station to go back to the hotel where we had a quick meal and some drinks before crashing for the night. Afterall, it is a work night and we're heading to the office tomorrow, so we should look and act professionally!
Posted by Jeremy at 6:19am on Monday May 2, 2011 :: 0 comments ::