Wyszdom

Whenever I travel for work, I’m expected to write a trip report. I also like to blog about my trips, so I’m going to be efficient and write my trip report here on my blog.

Last week, I went on a trip for work which included visiting the Google offices in Ann Arbor and Cambridge, teaching fellow Googlers about search, with a focus on SEO. I know that may sound a little silly, but while many people at Google work on web search, not everyone does. The basis for the training is our SEO Starter Guide, which we distribute internally and also share with any webmaster who cares to read it. Our actual presentation was pretty close to this. Traveling and speaking was both exhausting and energizing at the same time. Fortunately, I think our presentations were well-received since the audiences were quite engaged despite the fact that the sessions were longer than most meetings at Google.

Visiting other Google offices (which I had never done before) was pretty cool. In many ways, once you’re inside it’s just like being in Mountain View, which is a good thing. The technical equipment is standard across all offices, and Googlers are Googlers. The only major difference within the walls of Googles offices is that the conference room names have a local flair. As the other offices are smaller, there is less of a variety at lunch time (one café to choose from instead of… well, I’ve lost count in Mountain View), but the food is still good and free. In Boston, they had made-to-order pasta dishes (you choose the ingredients), and the chef recognized us as visitors and checked in with us to make sure we were happy.

Ann Arbor

It was fun to be in a real college town. It looks like the residents have plenty of dining options, and the neighborhoods, while containing the quality of housing typically rented by students, were still nice to walk around. But seriously, Ann Arbor, get some sensors and pedestrian buttons for your traffic lights.

We didn’t have a lot of downtime, but after our first day in the office, we stopped by Zingerman’s Deli. I had Frank & Kathy’s Half-Italian Sub, and Evan had Lisa C.’s Boisterous Brisket, which is Oprah’s favorite.

Because it was move-in week at the University of Michigan, we were unable to reserve hotel rooms for our stay. Instead, we stayed at a bed and breakfast called the Burnt Toast Inn, which was within walking distance of the office.

I had never stayed at a B&B before, and, being someone who sleeps through breakfast to avoid it, was a bit nervous about staying at a type of place which has that meal as 50% of its identity. It turns out that a bed and breakfast is actually pretty nice, and at least in this case, was incredibly affordable. One nice feature of this particular house was that two large dogs (one was a St. Bernard) are permanent residents. I had never seen a St. Bernard in person, and he was pretty fun. He was a “puppy” at just about a year old, and acted like it, gently chewing on the closest hand. The dogs had a comically large water bowl that was even larger than what you’d use for serving a salad family style.

As for breakfast, I tried to set expectations upon arrival that I would likely not be participating, so that way nobody was confused or offended.

I can certainly see why many people would prefer it over a hotel (especially someone looking for a relaxing getaway), but I’m pretty self conscious about disturbing people, so creaky floors and even letting people know in advance whether and when I’ll be eating breakfast isn’t really something I like to deal with. I enjoyed my stay, but it was also a relief to get to the hotel in Boston, which turned out to be “one of Boston’s most stylish nightlife venues,” according to Jessica Gioglio of the Examiner.*

Boston

Even the cabs ride in Boston were done right. To pay, just swipe your credit card and select the tip amount manually or based on percentage. I’m constantly amazed at how hit-or-miss basic features like GPS, credit card processing, and a driver who doesn’t hate you are in the Bay Area.

We stayed at The Liberty Hotel, which used to be the Charles Street Jail.

Here’s a shot of the exterior.

The lobby.

There’s still original brick from the jail on some walls.

Nice desk.

View from the window of Room 427

Their version of a “do not disturb” sign.

The office, located in Cambridge, was a walkable distance from the hotel, so the workday started with a pleasant walk across the Longfellow Bridge with a great view of the Charles River.

The Liberty Hotel turned out to be quite the spot. When I asked my cousin for a dinner recommendation, she suggested Scampo, which has the rare combination of being a nice place and serving food that I like. I had a Caesar salad and spaghetti bolognese. It was a bit pricey (expected at a hotel venue, but it was good.

As we left the restaurant, I could hear that there was still a good amount of activity outside of the restaurant (which on its own was lively), but I assumed that it was just the hotel bar that would soon quiet down. I didn’t walk through the lobby, and headed straight to the elevator.

When I got to my room, I had a voicemail on the fancy touchscreen phone informing me (well, actually Evan, who made the reservations) of the fashion show that would be happening in the lobby that night and offering a different room if I didn’t want to be bothered by the noise. I had heard that there was going to be a fashion show before, and while the personal voicemail seemed a bit odd, I saw no need to move for a quick fashion show in a hotel lobby.

At about 10:00, when I was winding down checking my email and getting ready for bed, I heard, very clearly inside my room, some bumpin’ music. I opened up my door, and the first thing I saw as I headed down the hall towards the balcony was a spotlight operator, shining a light down to the lower level. I looked into the lobby, and saw this:

It’s pretty dark, but I think you can at least get the idea that that lobby was packed, complete with extra bars and a DJ.

There were models walking along the balcony, which brought me into an interesting position, because besides the models, the only people who had access to the upper floors were hotel guests and crew members. After standing at the balcony for about a minute, casually observing the scene while wearing my Façonnable shirt, Gap 1969 jeans, and Nike sneakers with Adidas socks, I noticed that two girls were looking up at me. When our eyes met, they waved. If I were in a sitcom, this would inevitably lead to a hilarious scenario where I pretend to be a model and use the misunderstanding to impress the girls. In reality, I just played it cool and strolled back to my room. I eventually fell asleep around 2 AM, when the music was still playing. I was happy to be on the East Coast and didn’t need to get up early the next morning, so I actually didn’t find this event to be annoying.

New Hampshire

Seven weeks ago, we had a new member join our family. Since my family in New Hampshire is only a couple of hours away from Boston, and I had not yet met Marek, I moved my return flight to Sunday and drove up to New Hampshire on Friday.

Marek seems pretty cool, so it will be fun getting to know him. Being raised by a doctor and a teacher, I think he’ll turn out just fine. He’s already pretty good with computers, as he introduced himself to my grandparents (his great-grandparents) in Pennsylvania via video chat with iChat. That was a really cool moment.

I didn’t just catch up with humans in the family. I got to hang out with Xander and Willow.

Xander is super-playful and an expert stretcher.

Willow is more of the “Hey, is it cool if we just hang out on the couch while you pet me?” type.

New Hampshire has always been one of my favorite places to visit, and we had great weather for the entire weekend. I hadn’t been there since just a few weeks before I joined Google, so it felt great to be back. I was relieved to learn that even though I hadn’t waterskied for over three years, I was able to get up after only one false start and have a nice run. To avoid freaking out any of my friends who probably think that I’m incapable of participating in anything resembling an athletic activity, I’ll skip the pictures and video of me, and instead show a snapshot of my uncle’s graceful “dismount,” which was inspired by my aunt and cousin’s technique:

Southwest

It used to be cute whenever Southwest did something different like have casually friendly flight attendants or an open seating policy. But recently, even traveling without my family, the whole open seating thing is just annoying.

Virgin America

Man, I love this airline. I was so comfortable that I didn’t even use the service-wide Wi-Fi, which would be a welcome distraction on any other airline. Virgin, please add Philly service.

* They’re totally not getting a link from me. I was about to reference the particular article when I got a pop-up ad on their site. In 2009. Seriously.

A year ago, I got a plant for my desk at work. It’s called a China Doll, and it looks like this:

From China Doll

I think it’s doing pretty well after a year under my care. I put my 15″ MacBook Pro near it for size comparison. When I was in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago, I spotted a nice-looking tree:

It had an identifying plaque in front of it, and to my surprise I learned that I had been looking at a China Doll!

Have you ever noticed that people often yell a concerned “careful!” (or the “ooh, careful” variation) right at the moment when the advice is no longer helpful? Try slipping and falling* sometime. At some point after you begin to lose your balance, someone will likely tell you to be careful, as if your fall may not be enough convince you that some extra caution is necessary.

Here’s a typical scenario:

[Thwap!]
Victim: Ouch, that hurt! Too bad there nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Helpful stranger: You should be careful.
Victim: Oh, yes, thank you. I certainly will be very careful the next time I’m WALKING.

* Do not try this

A few weeks ago, I spent a week at home in Pennsylvania and it was awesome. For the past three years, whenever I’ve gone home, it’s been for an event, such as a holiday or a graduation, which means lots of running around. That’s fun, but I wanted to spend some time back home without any big plans, so that’s what I did. I got to see my sister on her birthday, visit my grandparents, spend some time with our cats, eat lunch at Dilly’s and dinner in Doylestown, hang out with a vertically gifted friend, hike along the Delaware Canal, and see a bunch of family for a dinner at our house.

They* say that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and that’s true. Like lightning bugs. Such a small thing, but they don’t have them where I live in California. In fact, they don’t even have lightning. Well, while I was home I got to ride through a passing thunderstorm and then 20 minutes later find myself sitting out on a balcony on a beautiful afternoon. And man, Beah is right. Pennsylvania is green. That’s really the first thing I noticed on the drive home from the airport. Big yards full of green grass. When I first stepped out onto our patio, I felt like I was in a rainforest. The humidity certainly helped add to this feeling, but the plants were really doing well this year thanks to the rain.

The nature theme continued when we walked along the Delaware Canal’s towpath, where within about an hour or so we saw a deer, a bunch of turtles hanging out on a log, a big snapping turtle, a blue heron, and some ducks.

Sitting outside at night, I really noticed how much of a luxury the quietness of the country is. I’m so used to hearing my neighbors coming in and out of their apartments, plus the traffic, trains, and planes that I could actually “hear” the silence at home, plus the sound of crickets. Another perk of being away from everyone else is the lack of light pollution. I was sitting out on our patio with my family when I randomly looked up at the sky to see the stars. Just moments after I looked up, I spotted a shooting star. Maybe next year I’ll try to be home during the peak of the Perseids.

Besides just enjoying being in the area, I also took care of some stuff I’ve been meaning to get to. I packed up a bunch of negatives of family photos to be shipped to ScanCafe (I’ll certainly blog about my experience with them at a later point), and I also got a box of home videos to send to California for a similar project. I didn’t send them all, but I should have enough to keep me busy until the next time I go home.

* The Amish, I think.

I don’t really like talking about music, but I will say this: I like Ronald Jenkees. I was first introduced to his stuff when Boing Boing linked to his YouTube channel. I bought his first album on iTunes shortly after, and since then have been following his progress via YouTube and his blog on his second album.

The second album, Disorganized Fun, was released on July 31st, and I downloaded it a little over a week later when it was released on iTunes. I actually didn’t like it that much the first time I listened to it, but I was sick and not even in the mood to listen to music. When I gave it a second chance a day or so later, I became a fan, and am now coming up on my 10th time enjoying the album.

You can preview the songs on his site or iTunes.

I have a few better blog posts in progress but I just wanted to share a couple of things that happened tonight.

At the grocery store, I saw two people shopping in pajama pants and disapproved. At first I was mad at myself for feeling like a grumpy old man, but then I remembered that both of the pajama wearers were older than me Ai. So, they’re just weird.

Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting with the back of my head against my couch sans cushion, and the back of my head fell asleep. I didn’t even know that was possible.

I’d like to have two children: one boy and one girl. The girl would be named “Uncle” and the boy would be named “Aunt.” Then my grandchildren could talk about Aunt Uncle and Uncle Aunt.

This is why I was not allowed to name our cats.

There’s a new girl at the office and I love her.

Her name is Keep.

She fell asleep while eating lunch today.

I think I first heard about Zubbles in 2006 when I came across a link to an article about them in Popular Science. I have been waiting for them ever since. When I emailed them in April 2006, I was told that a toy company had signed an agreement with C2C Technologies, “the emerging leader in temporary color technology,” and that Zubbles would be released in 2007. That same day, I set a Google Alert for the query [Zubbles].

In January of last year, after 2007 had come and gone with no Zubbles, I contacted the toy company, who told me that they would not be manufacturing Zubbles. I tried contacting somone from Zubbles, and my messages bounced.

In February of this year, I was able to get through to someone who was pleased to announce that his company had recently acquired the rights to Zubbles and would soon be going into production with a “limited spectrum” of colors in the spring.

Finally, on June 24th, Google Reader let me know of a new item in my Google Alert feed for Zubbles. Dennis Williamson, who had been keeping an eye on the Zubbles Store domain, had successfully ordered Zubbles. I placed my order as soon as I could.

Today, after no shipping notice or order status update on their online store, my Zubbles arrived. I opened them up right away, and started blowing blue bubbles in the office. There was some brief concern that they would stain the carpet, but within about 15 minutes the dye had faded from where the bubbles landed. That’s part of the great innovation of these bubbles. The dye doesn’t stain. Inventor Tim Kehoe spent years trying to find such a dye using science, but the label clearly states his final breakthrough: He used magic.

I soon took the Zubbles outside, where it was a bit windy, but the bubbles that made it off of the wand did pretty well. As you can see in the video above, I also had fun with them after work on my balcony. I enjoyed my time in the fresh air, so I think I’m going to start a healthy bubble habit. As in, “Hey, you want to go chat outside? I need a bubble break.” A bottle of regular bubbles is like 60¢ at a party store, so it should be pretty affordable.

While I was waiting for the dye to fade from my shirt (I thought I would shoot a time lapse), I accidentally spilled a bottle of Presto Pink. It looked like a crime scene:

The liquid dripped down to the patio below, so I really hope nobody is living in that apartment right now. I don’t need the cops knocking on my door.

Yes, I’m the creepy guy from upstairs who blows bubbles on his balcony, dumps blood onto your patio, and then takes pictures of it.

Fortunately, the dye did fade after about an hour, so now it just looks like I over-watered my plants. Perhaps I should now actually get some plants to make this more plausible.

As you can see, it looks like my wood floor should be unstained as well.

By the way, the color didn’t fade from my shirt on its own like I thought it would, but after dabbing it with some water it was gone.

Overall, I’m pretty happy that I finally have Zubbles. The dye does collect at the bottom of the bubbles making them a bit bottom-heavy, and you don’t get as many bubbles per blow as you do with normal bubbles, but hey, they’re colorful! Now they just need to release them in more colors. I think it’d be really fun to have all of the Google colors. For now, Zubbles can only be used to mimic the Flickr logo.

Ok, gotta step outside and get my bubbles on.

Sometimes after I’ve prepared some food, I put it on a plate before taking the plate out of the cabinet. I think it’d be fun if life really worked like that. Just open up a door, and there’s your sandwich, ready to go.