... Almost There ...
Okay, and now for the final installment in this three night marathon of getting everyone up to date with what is going on out in the Valley of the Dells. (Just made that up, although a quick Google search shows me that I am not the first to do that.)
Omissions from "Still Here"
Sarah and I really had a great time driving across the country. I was reminded several times of how much fun it used to be as a kid to go to Kelher's Convenience Store and pick out some candies and snacks. Sarah and I definitely "let ourselves go" a little bit with the human fuel for the road. Sarah went out on a limb and tried Nerds Rope for the first time. If you like Nerds, it has that going for it. If you are looking for a really novel way to eat Nerds, what is wrong with you? We tried a lot of different convenience store fare, including some spiced dried mango. Well, I didn't actually try that because it was clear from Sarah's face that it wasn't very good.
What else? Oh, yeah. We sang. We sang way more than either of us should in front of an audience. However, in the absence of an audience, we did stirring renditions of everything we could think of the words to. As we were passing through O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, I couldn't help but burst out with, "Where the wind comes sweeping 'cross the plains!" This is unfortunate, because I think that is all I really know of that song. I had to just do that on infinite loop. I was also really fond of that part of the Green Acres Theme Song that goes "Land, spreading out so far and wide! Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside." We sang and sang. We couldn't remember how "Low Places" starts, but my iPod leaped to the rescue and we screamed along with much gusto. The best part was probably the two atheists singing, "Go and Tell it on the Mountain." We got a good chuckle at the humorous juxtaposition.
"Still Here" ... Continued
So, when last we left our heroic couple, they had finished dinner at the Afghan restaurant, walked around the pond, seen the oak tree, and spotted building 42 on Google's Campus.
Santa Clara, CA (05/17/07)
After this, we thought it would be a good idea to grab some desert. The Safeway across the street from the corporate housing held many wonderful things like a donut for each of us, an honest to goodness transvestite, and 4 "Grapples. The Grapples are a beautiful example of good marketing. They are basically Washington Reds with a spritz of diluted grape flavoring sprayed on. I mean, I like apples, and I like grape flavoring, so I thought they tasted fine, but it was really not the kind of think I think you should try and base a business on.
Bay Area, CA (05/18/07)
Hmm, I can't remember what we had for lunch when we finally woke up and got out of the apartment on Friday morning, but I can tell you that I was happy to have slept in. We spent the early part of the afternoon at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. That was far more interesting than I had anticipated. We had an excellent tour guide. He was this jolly little man with excellent dramatic infections. I am sure he had memorized most of the things he was going to say on the tour complete with the rehearsed inflections, but he still seemed to be very lively and connected to the tour group.
After the Mystery House, Sarah and I drove up to San Francisco and picked up the keys to my new apartment from the rental agent. We got the keys at about 5:55 and went over to the apartment to look around. I think Sarah liked the place. I had forgotten that it had a claw-foot bathtub. Anyway, Sarah and I were planning on catching a play at 8, so I suggested that we grab a quick bite and start trying to wade our way across town to the theater. We had a couple of great slices of pizza at Fat Slice. It is really good pizza and on the same city block as my apartment.
After the pizza, we drove across town, and after a VERY brief sidetrack the wrong way on a one-way road, we parked and made it to our seats at the Shelton Theatre. The name of the show was Beyond Therapy. It was a pretty funny comedy about the a modern relationship in which two pretty neurotic people are both in therapy with even more neurotic therapists. The couple meets and comedy ensues. The acting was pretty good if not a little bit shallow. The characters were all pretty one-dimensional. The actress playing the leading man's therapist was very good. She was completely committed to the role and made some really good choices for her character.
After the show, we got to have a brief chat with a guy who had been in a friend's wedding earlier that night. I started talking with him because I believed he might have been carrying some sort of deadly vile of poison. But it turned out to be one of these.
SJC (05/19/07)
Saturday was the day we knew would eventually come. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Letting Sarah out of my site was tough after having spent so many continuous hours basking in her presence. I mean, there were rare moments when we were more than 30 feet from each other for a full 8 days, and now she was leaving to be more like 15,011,040 feet from me for more than a month. This is not a fun experience. And so, it was with watery eyes and lumpy throat that a watched her duck out of site through the metal detector.
Here ends the romantic tale of a cross-country adventure with a beautiful woman. At that point, I was all alone, and I had returned my rental car, which means, "Welcome to the world of Mass Transit."
Bay Area Transit
Now, before I get my feathers all in a ruffle, I would like to point out that this story is not about mass transit in general. It is really about mass transit in the Bay Area and the unreasonable expectations of Pepper Jobe.
SJC Airport to 1426 Waller St. (48 miles / 3 hours - One Way)
This trip wasn't so bad. There was a free VTA (Valley Transit Authority) bus ride to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, and the train was there within 10 minutes of my arrival. The train ride was efficient, and it didn't take too much fumbling around in SF to figure out that I needed to take the T Line Muni (Municipal Railroad) to Emarcadero Station to transfer to the N Line to get to Waller St. Seriously, I was not unhappy with the efficiency of this trip at all.
The big problem here is why I was taking this trip. I had planned to go get my electricity turned on. PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) had tried to turn on the power earlier that morning, but had not been successful because I hadn't been there to let them through a locked gate. The technician indicated that I should try to reschedule it for later in the day when I could also be there. No knowing how long it was going to take me to get there, I didn't call PG&E to reschedule until I was on the N Line approaching my new apartment. At this point, I was told that it was "too late to set an appointment up today, but they could set something up for Tuesday!" Not wanting to have to try an negotiate that trip again on the second day on the job, I asked them to schedule something for Saturday the 26th. They did.
I got back on the N Line and three short hours later, I had found my way to the VTA Bus Route #59 bus stop at the corner of Lick Mill Rd. and Tasman Dr. I waited there for about 15 minutes before I noticed that bus #59 doesn't run on Saturdays. Ah, ha! Okay, so then I walk down Lick Mill to Montague and over to Agnew. That get's me home around 7:30 at night after having dropped Sarah off at the airport at noon. Oh, well, I didn't have any other plans for Saturday anyway.
Taxi Cab To Work (9 miles | $25 + tip)
Not really feeling confident that I could navigate mass transit successfully on the way to work, I took a taxi cab in on Monday morning. The 9 mile drive costs $25 in a taxi. So, I was determined to either take one of the free Google Shuttles after work, or to at least get close enough on a Google Shuttle to ride mass transit back.
Alas, none of the Google Shuttles really goes anywhere near my corporate housing. Considering that I am probably not the loan new-hire that Google is putting up in the corporate housing, I would say that this is a fundamental oversight in Google's Shuttle Route plan. But, never-fear, I can take the Google Shuttle to a bus stop and then grab the VTA Light Rail system up to Lick Mill Rd. and then grab the #59 bus down to my place. Or so I thought.
Google Campus to Agnew and Montague (9 miles | 3 hours)
The ride home went poorly. I left Google's campus around 6:15PM I got confused about where the local Google bus loop really ran, and I ended up having to walk a couple of blocks to get on the right bus to go to the light rail station. That bus took a long time to arrive, and I ended up at the bus stop for route #59 at about 7:50PM. The #59 bus goes out of service at 7PM on weekdays. At about 8:05 I read that on the schedule. At about 9:15 I had walked home and picked up some dinner. I think I could have walked the whole 9 miles in 3 hours. Yeesh!
As a result of Monday night's frustrations, I grabbed another ~$30 cab ride on Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening, I got a ride home with the patron saint of carpools. She is a perfectly lovely woman who lives very near where I am staying, and is already carpooling with an intern from UNC-CH. I was very happy to be home 12 minutes after we left work Tuesday night. I carpooled to and from work on Wednesday.
Agnew and Montague to Waller St (48 miles | Immense Frustration + $119.75 + tip)
So, on Monday, I had gotten a call saying that my movers were going to be at my apartment with my stuff on Thursday. So, I told my boss that I would be missing work on Thursday to go help the movers.
By the time I went to sleep on Wednesday night, I also knew that the movers would be there between noon and 3PM. I was pretty excited that I would be able to take the #59 bus after having expected to be able to take it on two other occasions, and having found out that it wasn't running. I knew it ran during the working hours, so I was really stoked.
Thursday morning, I woke up a little later than I had planned to, so I dashed out of my apartment and went down to the #59 bus stop right across from my apartment and started waiting around 9:50AM. I was non-to-happy about my late start. If this trip went the way Saturday's trip had gone, I was going to make it to my new place until just before 1PM, but that would be just have to be OK. It could definitely be alright if the movers weren't right on time. But, where is the bus, shouldn't it have come by by now (10:20)? So, I called the automated VTA bu information line, and found out that the next #59 bus was leaving its starting place south of me at 10:32 and ending its trip at 10:54. That was very frustrating, now I was beginning to think that this wasn't going to work out at all. I sat and waited very impatiently until about 10:50. I called the automated information line again, and actually got to talk to an operator. He informed me that the #59, while it was running, doesn't run its "full" route at non-peak times. Only during the busy commuting hours does it actually come to the stop at which I am waiting. The operator tells me of an alternate route I can take, and it will get me to San Francisco by 3:40PM!!! I'm boned. I call a cab.
The cab driver is very efficient and picks me up at 11:22, and drops me at my new home at 12:15 for the low, low price of $119.75 plus tip. The movers get to my new place around 12:25. They unload the stuff, having inflicted on the the most minor amounts of damage to my furniture. Everything is present and accounted for at 2:45PM, so I hop on my good friend the N Line Muni down to the T Line, to the Caltrain, and head back South. Luckily, I woke up in my seat on the Caltrain having only missed my stop by one station. I hopped on the next North Bound train, took it to the VTA Light Rail station in Mountain View, caught the VTA light rail to the Lick Mill stop, and finally actually got to ride bus #59 back to my apartment complex and was eating dinner by 6:50PM.
The Moral
I am in eternal optimist. I still think that all of this money on taxis and all of this time on Bay Area Transit is not really how life is going to be once I live in San Francisco. I will be catching the Google Shuttle at Cole and Carl (2 blocks from my apartment) and riding it all the way to and from work. I will pretty much be using Muni exclusively in the evenings when I actually need to get anywhere, and life will be peachy. Really, I think that the Relocation company should just say, "Hey, we're putting you in corporate housing 9 miles from work, but you are really going to want the rental car we offer while you live there. Trust us, it is hard to use Mass Transit from that particular spot."
... To Be Continued
Well, it turns out this is not really the last post in this series, sorry. It is well past my bedtime again, so I am going to have to cut it off here. Check back tomorrow for "Being a New-Hire at Google, Inc." and "Is it all that it is cracked up to be?" I am actually glad that I have run out of steam here. I probably need to review the blogging guidelines and also talk with someone on the internal mailing list dedicated to helping Googlers understand what is appropriate and inappropriate for blogging before I accidentally get myself into trouble. Section IV bullet "e." of our code of conduct states, "loose lips sink ships."
Omissions from "Still Here"
Sarah and I really had a great time driving across the country. I was reminded several times of how much fun it used to be as a kid to go to Kelher's Convenience Store and pick out some candies and snacks. Sarah and I definitely "let ourselves go" a little bit with the human fuel for the road. Sarah went out on a limb and tried Nerds Rope for the first time. If you like Nerds, it has that going for it. If you are looking for a really novel way to eat Nerds, what is wrong with you? We tried a lot of different convenience store fare, including some spiced dried mango. Well, I didn't actually try that because it was clear from Sarah's face that it wasn't very good.
What else? Oh, yeah. We sang. We sang way more than either of us should in front of an audience. However, in the absence of an audience, we did stirring renditions of everything we could think of the words to. As we were passing through O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, I couldn't help but burst out with, "Where the wind comes sweeping 'cross the plains!" This is unfortunate, because I think that is all I really know of that song. I had to just do that on infinite loop. I was also really fond of that part of the Green Acres Theme Song that goes "Land, spreading out so far and wide! Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside." We sang and sang. We couldn't remember how "Low Places" starts, but my iPod leaped to the rescue and we screamed along with much gusto. The best part was probably the two atheists singing, "Go and Tell it on the Mountain." We got a good chuckle at the humorous juxtaposition.
"Still Here" ... Continued
So, when last we left our heroic couple, they had finished dinner at the Afghan restaurant, walked around the pond, seen the oak tree, and spotted building 42 on Google's Campus.
Santa Clara, CA (05/17/07)
After this, we thought it would be a good idea to grab some desert. The Safeway across the street from the corporate housing held many wonderful things like a donut for each of us, an honest to goodness transvestite, and 4 "Grapples. The Grapples are a beautiful example of good marketing. They are basically Washington Reds with a spritz of diluted grape flavoring sprayed on. I mean, I like apples, and I like grape flavoring, so I thought they tasted fine, but it was really not the kind of think I think you should try and base a business on.
Bay Area, CA (05/18/07)
Hmm, I can't remember what we had for lunch when we finally woke up and got out of the apartment on Friday morning, but I can tell you that I was happy to have slept in. We spent the early part of the afternoon at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. That was far more interesting than I had anticipated. We had an excellent tour guide. He was this jolly little man with excellent dramatic infections. I am sure he had memorized most of the things he was going to say on the tour complete with the rehearsed inflections, but he still seemed to be very lively and connected to the tour group.
After the Mystery House, Sarah and I drove up to San Francisco and picked up the keys to my new apartment from the rental agent. We got the keys at about 5:55 and went over to the apartment to look around. I think Sarah liked the place. I had forgotten that it had a claw-foot bathtub. Anyway, Sarah and I were planning on catching a play at 8, so I suggested that we grab a quick bite and start trying to wade our way across town to the theater. We had a couple of great slices of pizza at Fat Slice. It is really good pizza and on the same city block as my apartment.
After the pizza, we drove across town, and after a VERY brief sidetrack the wrong way on a one-way road, we parked and made it to our seats at the Shelton Theatre. The name of the show was Beyond Therapy. It was a pretty funny comedy about the a modern relationship in which two pretty neurotic people are both in therapy with even more neurotic therapists. The couple meets and comedy ensues. The acting was pretty good if not a little bit shallow. The characters were all pretty one-dimensional. The actress playing the leading man's therapist was very good. She was completely committed to the role and made some really good choices for her character.
After the show, we got to have a brief chat with a guy who had been in a friend's wedding earlier that night. I started talking with him because I believed he might have been carrying some sort of deadly vile of poison. But it turned out to be one of these.
SJC (05/19/07)
Saturday was the day we knew would eventually come. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Letting Sarah out of my site was tough after having spent so many continuous hours basking in her presence. I mean, there were rare moments when we were more than 30 feet from each other for a full 8 days, and now she was leaving to be more like 15,011,040 feet from me for more than a month. This is not a fun experience. And so, it was with watery eyes and lumpy throat that a watched her duck out of site through the metal detector.
Here ends the romantic tale of a cross-country adventure with a beautiful woman. At that point, I was all alone, and I had returned my rental car, which means, "Welcome to the world of Mass Transit."
Bay Area Transit
Now, before I get my feathers all in a ruffle, I would like to point out that this story is not about mass transit in general. It is really about mass transit in the Bay Area and the unreasonable expectations of Pepper Jobe.
SJC Airport to 1426 Waller St. (48 miles / 3 hours - One Way)
This trip wasn't so bad. There was a free VTA (Valley Transit Authority) bus ride to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, and the train was there within 10 minutes of my arrival. The train ride was efficient, and it didn't take too much fumbling around in SF to figure out that I needed to take the T Line Muni (Municipal Railroad) to Emarcadero Station to transfer to the N Line to get to Waller St. Seriously, I was not unhappy with the efficiency of this trip at all.
The big problem here is why I was taking this trip. I had planned to go get my electricity turned on. PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) had tried to turn on the power earlier that morning, but had not been successful because I hadn't been there to let them through a locked gate. The technician indicated that I should try to reschedule it for later in the day when I could also be there. No knowing how long it was going to take me to get there, I didn't call PG&E to reschedule until I was on the N Line approaching my new apartment. At this point, I was told that it was "too late to set an appointment up today, but they could set something up for Tuesday!" Not wanting to have to try an negotiate that trip again on the second day on the job, I asked them to schedule something for Saturday the 26th. They did.
I got back on the N Line and three short hours later, I had found my way to the VTA Bus Route #59 bus stop at the corner of Lick Mill Rd. and Tasman Dr. I waited there for about 15 minutes before I noticed that bus #59 doesn't run on Saturdays. Ah, ha! Okay, so then I walk down Lick Mill to Montague and over to Agnew. That get's me home around 7:30 at night after having dropped Sarah off at the airport at noon. Oh, well, I didn't have any other plans for Saturday anyway.
Taxi Cab To Work (9 miles | $25 + tip)
Not really feeling confident that I could navigate mass transit successfully on the way to work, I took a taxi cab in on Monday morning. The 9 mile drive costs $25 in a taxi. So, I was determined to either take one of the free Google Shuttles after work, or to at least get close enough on a Google Shuttle to ride mass transit back.
Alas, none of the Google Shuttles really goes anywhere near my corporate housing. Considering that I am probably not the loan new-hire that Google is putting up in the corporate housing, I would say that this is a fundamental oversight in Google's Shuttle Route plan. But, never-fear, I can take the Google Shuttle to a bus stop and then grab the VTA Light Rail system up to Lick Mill Rd. and then grab the #59 bus down to my place. Or so I thought.
Google Campus to Agnew and Montague (9 miles | 3 hours)
The ride home went poorly. I left Google's campus around 6:15PM I got confused about where the local Google bus loop really ran, and I ended up having to walk a couple of blocks to get on the right bus to go to the light rail station. That bus took a long time to arrive, and I ended up at the bus stop for route #59 at about 7:50PM. The #59 bus goes out of service at 7PM on weekdays. At about 8:05 I read that on the schedule. At about 9:15 I had walked home and picked up some dinner. I think I could have walked the whole 9 miles in 3 hours. Yeesh!
As a result of Monday night's frustrations, I grabbed another ~$30 cab ride on Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening, I got a ride home with the patron saint of carpools. She is a perfectly lovely woman who lives very near where I am staying, and is already carpooling with an intern from UNC-CH. I was very happy to be home 12 minutes after we left work Tuesday night. I carpooled to and from work on Wednesday.
Agnew and Montague to Waller St (48 miles | Immense Frustration + $119.75 + tip)
So, on Monday, I had gotten a call saying that my movers were going to be at my apartment with my stuff on Thursday. So, I told my boss that I would be missing work on Thursday to go help the movers.
By the time I went to sleep on Wednesday night, I also knew that the movers would be there between noon and 3PM. I was pretty excited that I would be able to take the #59 bus after having expected to be able to take it on two other occasions, and having found out that it wasn't running. I knew it ran during the working hours, so I was really stoked.
Thursday morning, I woke up a little later than I had planned to, so I dashed out of my apartment and went down to the #59 bus stop right across from my apartment and started waiting around 9:50AM. I was non-to-happy about my late start. If this trip went the way Saturday's trip had gone, I was going to make it to my new place until just before 1PM, but that would be just have to be OK. It could definitely be alright if the movers weren't right on time. But, where is the bus, shouldn't it have come by by now (10:20)? So, I called the automated VTA bu information line, and found out that the next #59 bus was leaving its starting place south of me at 10:32 and ending its trip at 10:54. That was very frustrating, now I was beginning to think that this wasn't going to work out at all. I sat and waited very impatiently until about 10:50. I called the automated information line again, and actually got to talk to an operator. He informed me that the #59, while it was running, doesn't run its "full" route at non-peak times. Only during the busy commuting hours does it actually come to the stop at which I am waiting. The operator tells me of an alternate route I can take, and it will get me to San Francisco by 3:40PM!!! I'm boned. I call a cab.
The cab driver is very efficient and picks me up at 11:22, and drops me at my new home at 12:15 for the low, low price of $119.75 plus tip. The movers get to my new place around 12:25. They unload the stuff, having inflicted on the the most minor amounts of damage to my furniture. Everything is present and accounted for at 2:45PM, so I hop on my good friend the N Line Muni down to the T Line, to the Caltrain, and head back South. Luckily, I woke up in my seat on the Caltrain having only missed my stop by one station. I hopped on the next North Bound train, took it to the VTA Light Rail station in Mountain View, caught the VTA light rail to the Lick Mill stop, and finally actually got to ride bus #59 back to my apartment complex and was eating dinner by 6:50PM.
The Moral
I am in eternal optimist. I still think that all of this money on taxis and all of this time on Bay Area Transit is not really how life is going to be once I live in San Francisco. I will be catching the Google Shuttle at Cole and Carl (2 blocks from my apartment) and riding it all the way to and from work. I will pretty much be using Muni exclusively in the evenings when I actually need to get anywhere, and life will be peachy. Really, I think that the Relocation company should just say, "Hey, we're putting you in corporate housing 9 miles from work, but you are really going to want the rental car we offer while you live there. Trust us, it is hard to use Mass Transit from that particular spot."
... To Be Continued
Well, it turns out this is not really the last post in this series, sorry. It is well past my bedtime again, so I am going to have to cut it off here. Check back tomorrow for "Being a New-Hire at Google, Inc." and "Is it all that it is cracked up to be?" I am actually glad that I have run out of steam here. I probably need to review the blogging guidelines and also talk with someone on the internal mailing list dedicated to helping Googlers understand what is appropriate and inappropriate for blogging before I accidentally get myself into trouble. Section IV bullet "e." of our code of conduct states, "loose lips sink ships."