My week at the Googleplex

It's over! I'm tired! That's why I'm sitting in my apartment this Friday night. And I have a flight tomorrow morning.

Okay. Post-mortem: Google is pretty cool. We had some talks in which we heard a lot of cool things. Stuff about how huge their datacenters are, stuff about how search works, stuff about how ads works, the exact PageRank algorithm, how to use their source control and build things, etc. That was neat.

Met some cool people. That was neater. Some are nerdy, but some are pretty cool. I'll never see most of these guys again, but some I will, because they're in Seattle too. Awesome.

Also bounced ideas around. That was neatest. The corporate world is not yet dashing my youthful optimism. It is instead reinforcing it! Course, I'm not even working on my main project yet, so we'll see how that goes next week.

I got to hang out with Will and Jing, Scott and Katie, and Andrew W. That was fun! I co-hosted Andrew's radio show, which was hella fun. He's quite a very good DJ. Will and I played Lost Cities (super-simple and still fun! go Rio Grande!) and the Catan card game (not as simple, but fun, maybe because I was winning the whole time), but not Agricola. Oh well.

And have I mentioned how great the food was? Highlights from the Googleplex include:
- No Name Cafe, featuring vegetarian and non-vegetarian food prepared sometimes in an ethnic style
- Pintxo 47, a "small plates" place with healthy, tasty, and appealing-looking small bits of food
- Cafe 150, where all food comes from within 150 miles of Google
- Slice Cafe, serving up smoothies and juices, like a kale, celery, and some other juices blend
- the minikitchens everywhere, each stocked with the sort of drinks that make you want to try them (Tejava and Honest teas, Henry Weinhard's root beer, Naked juices, etc.), espresso machines (made my first shot today!), granola and cereal, and other more real food if you're in a hurry
- the TGIF fun thing, featuring an assortment of pretty good beers, on the level of Stella Artois and Sierra Nevada

Anyway, I'm excited to get back to Seattle, buy a bed and a bike, and start living!