Wedding Weekend

Currently on the flight back to SFO and just playing around on my computer. I’m learning how to type with my new nails that I had done for the wedding. It’s not going well so far but I think this is going to be a long post so I should be better by the end.

Highlights

- Business class on Air Canada

- Flights to Canada

- The rehearsal party

- The wedding

Firstly, the business class on Air Canada flights are treated extremely well. I’m currently sitting in the first row behind the first class passengers. My foot is technically in first class… but no one is rubbing it yet. Anyways, they are getting a full warm meal tonight, big comfy chairs and nice pillows. It wouldn’t be that bad or much different except I can smell the food here and the soup smells really nice.

The fights on the way to TO were pretty good, a little turbulence on landing but nothing that was that bad. The air in Toronto was thick with humidity and grossness. My Sister was there right away and it was pretty great to see her. Her boyfriend was soon there to pick us all up in the rented PT Cruiser. Pretty funky car, there is a analog clock in the dash… weird. Thursday night was spent at Jake and Amy’s house, chilling and talking with everyone. Cousin Jason, showed up a little late (4 hours) cause of traffic.

Friday was set for the rehearsal and of course the rehearsal party. Mom and Dad showed up about 12ish after Jake and Amy served a great breakfast. …First class is currently being served warm towels … anyway, Amy and I got our nails done and it still feels weird. I actually broke one which is pretty sad, I was going to try to keep them even tho they scare me. Party after went great, everyone got drunk and I learned all new things about my parents and their friends.

The wedding was great, really well done. It did rain as we were getting ready and unfortunately we couldn’t get any pictures outside before the wedding. Wedding went really well, everyone looked great, pictures will follow when I get some from family. (I didn’t have my camera) The party after was awesome, Food was good, speeches went well, and the dancing was awesome. I think we shocked some of Amy’s family. Particularly when we were singing the “wrong” words to MonyMony. Or when Jake was floating around during Home for a Rest. We had a special rendition of Friends in Low Places for the Weber and Riddell children that Julie once again put together. Can’t wait for pictures.

That’s all for now. Think I am going to nap or watch the movie. Can’t wait to check my millions of emails, I’ve been disconnected for too long.

I gave the family some t-shirts

The System Works!

I got my ring back.... Yay...

If you could see me right now you'd know I'm totally dancing!

Random Thoughts

Sometimes I feel like I need to carry a tape recorder with me, particulary in the car. I aways have these ideas about things I should look up and stuff I need to do but they are at the wrong time. Usually if its important I still remember to do them and the thought comes back to me, for the smaller things I just plain forget. I had a lot of these moments today.

For example... I forgot about my laundry that I started at 9:30 in the morning... I finally remember about 1:30 in the afternoon. I'm sure I pissed someone off and my clothes never really did get dry.

So I'm pretty sad and feeling pretty low right now. I think I've lost my ring. Sean gave me two rings for christmas and today the one that goes on my pinky seems to have disappeared. I feel so bad cause I have a feeling that while I was wiping my hands off in the washroom it may have slipped off my finger with the paper towel and into the trash can. Once I discovered that it was missing I retraced all my steps and even looked in the trash cans in the washroom. The ring had very high sentamental value to me and when I finally had to tell Sean about it he looked so crushed. Makes me really sad to think that its gone.

Lots of work to do before the weekend. And I only have tomorrow left.

Suggestions

So it's all most the last weekend in July and that means I have about a month of work and califorina left. It also means I have a big work term report to work on. Work term report is a technical report based on the work I have been doing usually 15 to 25 pages with a good chunk of theory if possible. This of course has to be relavent and something non confidential to Google. So that means mostly methods and no products. So... I need to think this through but I need to find my starting point. I've narrowed it down to two options and if anyone thinks one will work better than the other please let me know.

1. Overview of many types of usability testing methods, some employed at Google, some not. Would include decriptions and some details but nothing with products. Easy to do reasearch hard to do recommendations.

2. In depth review of talk aloud testing. procedures, pros and cons. Focus of many talks at Google, do more research on the topic and be able to present some recommendations.

Hopefully when I go home next weekend I'll spend sometime on the plans writing out a plan.

------------------- instead of two posts -------------------

So this is part two of my Saturday and instead of making another post I thought I would just add on to this one. Let me tell you it is FREAKING HOT here today. I spent a lot of the day in the apartment just not moving it was too hot to even play video games at one point.

So this morning I did a little bit of shopping, and at one point I picked up some nail polish for myself just so I could have something shiny on my nails for the wedding. Well... let me tell you, on a day like today do not put nail polish in the car for over an hour... ... ... It got a little too hot and actually busted the bottle and got all over all my other purchases.

They weren't very impressed when I took it back. But I got my money back anyways.

Current Temps
Windsor: 20
Minneapolis: 80
Mountain View: 87
San Jose: 96

Some Links

Here's two links that I have been meaning to share with everyone:

The Science and Art of User Experience at Google (REALLY cool)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6459171443654125383

Today is World Jump Day (did you feel it?)
http://www.worldjumpday.org

Check out Ok/Cancel's Recent Comic (probably not for everyone)
http://www.ok-cancel.com

Also:
I've been comment spammed.... a lot... Apperently like 20 comments randomly in my website in like 2 minutes. WTF!

Weather....

My brother sent me this.... pretty funny.

The weather has been fantastic here. Actually been a little warm in the past few days but overall its been great. I don't miss the rain or the muggy weather.

Going to be a shock to the system when I go home for Jake's Wedding in 2 weeks.

Looking at my Photos

Weekends are pretty nice... but they are starting to go to fast. Middle of July already is just crazy. I'm not ready to head back to Canada yet. Luckily I still have over a month. Unlike some of the other interns. Mark left us this weekend, but not before a giant party on Friday night. I had to leave early but heard that it ended as all parties should... with someone being sick.

Saturdays are my days to do what I want cause Sean is usually at work. So this week... I went to work for a while. also spent some time at the gym again. Saturday night, Sean and I went on a real date, it was really nice.

Sunday, got the group organized and went to see the Computer History Museum, only took a few pictures there but it was really cool... To bad they were closing as soon as our tour was finished. Then we went to Santana Row and saw the movie Scanner Darkly, which wasn't as good as I was hoping but it was really interesting and pretty depressing. And then we went to Cold Stone, which was perfect.

So, why did I name this looking at my Photos?? Well, I got an email from my old boss saying he needs a picture of me, preferrably doing something Google-ly for a school promotion. Which is cool but I'm not sure I have any of those pictures so that one of my goals for this week. I was looking through my other photo and this one stood out. ....

Mandatory Fun

Today was the official intern scavenger hunt (mandatory.. heheh). I'm really tired from it so this post might not make a lot of sense. anyways. Google rounded up half of their interns and took them to SF for the hunt. It was a pretty fun day, kinda stressful at times and a LOT of walking.

So what it really means is there are many googlers wandering around trying to figure out complex "clues" while trying to get to the next location... on the other side of the city... to take a group picture at the proper location. Also, people doing crazy things to get the bonus pictures. I scratched my arm climbing up the tree.

Some of the other groups wee running... RUNNING which is crazy.

Then... Time was up so we are all STARVING, cause we have been walking around and the such so we expect when we get back to the starting point there would be food.... Nope!... we have to wait till we get back to the googleplex before we can have food... but they do offer energy bars. ? Denying googlers food is like the most evil of all sins I think... almost unforgivable. Then after we got back and finally got food i had work to do... rest of the day not to eventful. ... Oh... on the drive home I saw this kid trying to throw a knife to make it stick in the tree. It was odd.

I have a few pictures of the sights in SF but really there was no time to look around.


Funny Note: there are public toilets at the wharf are basically the opposite of everything that the Google ones are. 1. no toilet seats, so it makes them very hard to be heated. 2. no automatic flush 3. no automatic water in the sink. 4. no place to dry your hands. basically... they are pretty scarry and smell like pee.

Tuesday Update

Wow okay so I haven't updated in a while cause I don't really know what to write about, but today is Tuesday and I have a few extra minutes so I'm going to try and write something.

The Weekend: Saturday was spend not doing too much. Sean worked all day and then went to see pirates with people from his work, so I went out with some of the other interns. Ended up at Work using the projectors to watch 40 yr old virgin. Which was alright, not really what I was in the mood for, but funny nonetheless. Sunday was spend at the exploratorium in SanFran which ended with the group groping around in the dark at the tactile dome. Well.. Then the electricity went out and we went to find food. Science museum was pretty fun tho, all the flashing lights gave me a headache for a while.

The Work: Monday 3 participants makes for a busy day. I was barely at my desk all day but there was lots of work for me to do so I was happy. Today I have 5 studies to attend and if I could be in two places at the same time it would be 6. However this morning Sean worked early so instead of going home and going back to sleep for a few hours I came into work. And finally went to the Gym (YAY ME). It was pretty cool. I only did half a work out cause I think I should ease back into it. Now I'm kinda dizzy so I have to finish this bottle of Gatorate soon.

My laundry is almost done so I should wrap this up. Lately I've been conflicted about this blog. I have a lot of different people reading it and I've been trying to find the balance to please them all. I don't want to write strictly personal stuff but I can't write about work that much. Any suggestions or comments are welcome.

Does that make me Crazy....

I highly recommend everyone download the song Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. It's the hit of the summer in my books. Plus its been stuck in my head for about a month.

Fouth of July Fireworks... yeah the fireworks were okay (Pictures by Brian) but the best part was meeting a StormTrooper.


Back in reality I had to sign up for my fall classes already. Which is crazy to think about that my summer is almost half over already. (Damn I'm going to have to start writing my report soon). My schedule is okay, but very demanding. (With any luck I won't be stalked with this information)

1. Speech Communication to Inform
2. Database Management Systems
3. Operating Systems Fundamentals
4. Computer Networks
5. Principles of Programming Languages

Umm... Work related news... Let's See... 3 day week, sushi for lunch, Free intern t-shirt. OH, I get to moderate my own study next week, which is too cool! I'm doing remote interviews on people about something. AhZa

Sun is Shining Again.

Currently: Sitting on my balcony, sipping some hazelnut flavoured coffee, wirelessly using my computer. I got to say, its pretty nice here. The sun is out and shining again.

Yesterday we took a road trip to napa valley, which was pretty cool. But at the same time it was a long day. I did a lot of driving and got stuck in two traffic jams which is never fun. Also since I was driving I didn't taste all the wines like everyone else did. Most ended up tasting more than 25 wines. We visited 3 different wineries chosen by Brian this time. If we go again someone else gets to make up the internary which isn't easy I'm sure. The first winery, Domaine Carneros, very nice winery had a small tour and sampled their 6 best wines. They had an amazing rose wine that I liked. The second winery, Buena Vista, was a very old winery I didn't try anything here but it was cool to look around. The final winery we went to, Robert Mondavi, was much more commercial than the rest and next week was having a Air Supply Concert. I'd like to go again and not have to drive, even if I didn't drink a lot its nice to stare at the scenery.

Not doing to much today. Maybe going to find some fireworks tonight, we'll see. I kinda just feel like being lazy today.

Surfing USA

So the group of us went surfing yesterday (I get to be the first one to post about it on Gintern)
Surfing was harder than I expected. And wet suits probably by design don't let you breathe at all. But it was fun. I managed to body surf and knee surf on a few waves I wasn't actually able to get my feet under me but thats okay. The bigger problem was the area was WAY to crowed. Hundreds of people trying to catch the few waves that we had, so if you did get it you had to dodge people or bail.

I got a little bit too much sun yesterday, yes my nose and feet are burnt but thats not what I was refering too. I guess i would call it sun stroke... shaking, vomiting, dizzy, headache. all those good things. Thankfully Vince was heading home early so I was able to hitch a ride and get out of the sun for a while.

Meanwhile back in Ontario: Michelle's party went well I called/got called a few times to talk to everyone. I can't say why but it was ubruptly ended early. Happy Canada Day!

Note: The picture is of some 10 year old kid who can surf a whole lot better than me I don't actually know who it is. Some pictures are currently available on picasa web and will be on kodak when I get to it. enjoy!