Saturday, June 23, 2007

On our own

Paul left for France after an eventful day yesterday. We dropped him off at Google, then visited him there at lunch, eating all sorts of yammy food. He worked for a couple of hours and then we picked him up again and took him to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye, knowing that we won't see him for a whole week. But we are trying to be cheerful and fill our days with a fun things to do to distract us.
This morning, on Saturday, we woke up, got dressed and picked berries at the local ranch. I thought it was quite exciting and hoped that Lydia would get into it. She did get into eating blackberries out of the bucket I was picking them in, but it was hard to get her to want to pick herself. More than anything, Lydia wanted to see horses that we passed by as we pulled into the ranch's parking lot. I picked quite a few berries in our little bucket and as I was paying for them, Lydia was eating them with the biggest grin on her face. Some people, seeing her face and clothes smudged with berry juice said that she should be the poster child for this ranch. On our way out, we did go see and even petted the horses. Lydia was yelling "Bye-bye, horsie" almost all the way home.
Before lunch we came out to the playground. As Lydia was running around, I decided to call Paul and see how he enjoyed seeing his friends at Justin's wedding. We talked for a while, then I let Lydia hold the phone. She was really trilled to talk on the phone like a big girl. She even told Paul was she was doing, like "oukide, "boat", which meant that we were outside and she was playing in a boat. It was so fun for me to see her trying to communicate what she was doing. Finally, Paul had to tell her bye-bye and hang up, because she would not give the up the phone.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Google Internship

I started my internship at Google this week, along with over a hundred other new employees, mostly interns. On Thursday I rode my bike there and back, and I intend to do that often so that Larisa will have the car. It took less than a half hour each way.

Google is an interesting place. Orientation the first day reminded me of freshman orientation in college. They told us all the fun clubs we could join, and as I walked out of work that evening there was a group of about 10 people juggling on the lawn. That's something you would expect to see on a college campus. There were balloons and candy on my desk the first day. Lydia is in love with balloons, so I surprised her by bringing them out to the car when they came to pick me up. Then I brought more balloons home that my officemate gave me the next day. Now our apartment is full of them.

The food is great at Google, and it's free. Larisa and I even stopped by last night (Saturday) for dinner. I didn't realize that the policy was to only bring visitors during regular business hours, and once I found out I wasn't about to turn around and head home. We enjoyed a great meal including vegetable curry and fish. Other than that, I haven't had dinner there. But I have had breakfast and lunch every day. Wonderful. I always grab a couple of Naked fruit juice drinks on the way out for the trip home. Larisa and I have felt spoiled drinking those while Lydia begs for them from the back seat. She's a big fan of them as well.

Food and entertainment are never very far away at Google. One day I walked to another building at about 3pm to get some cables for my computer and happened upon an unfamiliar cafe. They had big bowls of guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and chips out as well as delicious mini tacos. I had to stop for a bite. Aside from that I have a massage chair, an exercise bike, and a mini-kitchen with fruit, drinks, and snacks about 30 feet form my desk. Interns also get one free hour-long massage from their in-house masseuses. Every floor of every building seems to have a pool table and a ping-pong table.

On Friday I attended my first weekly TGIF meeting. The two Google founders where there along with the CEO. It was fun. The founders were just in jeans and a T-shirt. They told us some things that are going on in the company, many of which will be announced in the near future, as soon as next week. I'm sure they wouldn't trust the entire company with information any more sensitive than that. After all, they don't give us interns very much access to information on the intranet. The meeting is very casual, even thought the whole company is involved. They even took live questions that were as silly as "can we remove the 'i' in 'iGoogle'?"

I sit at a 30" monitor that runs Ubuntu. Good thing I got a little used to that by installing it at home last summer. I also have a Windows laptop that I can dock at my desk, allowing me to simply push a button and switch between the two computers using the same monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

They are planning to have all of the presidential candidates come to visit Google. Several have already been here, including Clinton and McCain. I hope many others come while I'm here this summer. Also, this Tuesday we will be visited by Ben of Ben and Jerry's, and the current mayor of New York will be coming soon as well.

The amenities available at Google seems endless. I've already mentioned the food, but they also have doctors, dentist, optometrists, masseuses, laundry machines (free), dry cleaning, oil changes, bike repair, as well as an exercise pool, volleyball court, and a field for sports. Oh, and they will reimburse your home internet connection cost, and they provide free shuttles to places like San Fransisco with internet connectivity.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Talking Parrot

I heard Lydia say a complete sentence today.

Lydia: Open it please.
Paul: Wow, she said a complete sentence. Good job.
Lydia: Job.
Larisa: What a little parrot.
Lydia: Parrot.

The other day we noticed that she loves to say big long complete sentences of gibberish that end in a word or two. Ga ga ga ga ga balloon.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Yucky, cookie

Lydia is starting to get smarter and smarter when it comes to sweets. She can spot what she calls "nammies"when she sees it, whether she tried it before or not.
A couple of days ago my friend Deborah and I went on a walk with our kids . We stopped by her husband's office which is located on Stanford campus. Dan showed us a stock room where his department keeps some basic junk food for their students. He offered us some treats. Lydia, who has been sitting contentedly in her stroller munching on her daily allowance of potato sticks saw the sweets. She stood up in her seat, raised her hand with snack up in the air and said "yucky". Then, pointing in our direction she said rather excitedly "cooookie". We laughed so hard. Perfectly good snack turned into yucky stuff the instant the cookie appeared in sight. What can I say, the kid is smart. She did get a cookie mostly for making us laugh.