Posts in Category "personal"

This post is a follow-up to Real-Life Update

Well, it was brief but exhausting. My job search has now come to a close. I interviewed at a large number of companies, got offers from a smaller number, and accepted an offer from Yelp. I'll be starting in June on the Infrastructure team, doing something between software engineering and system administration. Which sounds, you know, awesome.

For the unaware, Yelp is a local search company based out of San Francisco, CA. They've got a pretty large userbase, and lots of views, and, in general, interesting problems to work on. There's already a Mudder there. Plus, it's a really small company. Should be a great atmosphere to work in coming out of Mudd's tight-knit community. And, of course, San Francisco is an awesome city.

I'm about to finish my second-to-last semester of college. That in and of itself is perhaps a somewhat stunning thing to think about. Equally important, of course, is the question of what I'll do once I leave. I've been interviewing with a half-dozen companies, and just got back the other day from a trip up to the Bay Area to do in-person interviews with Yelp and NVIDIA. I'd forgotten how nice the Bay Area was. I stayed in downtown San Francisco, at The Mosser Hotel, and it was, well, really nice. Caltrain is also an awesome commuter rail system.

The …

I spent Saturday at the 50th Newport Folk Festival, and it was excellent. Some of the highlights? Well, let's see… I saw Iron & Wine, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes… the list goes on. Aside from a little bit of sunburn and a lighter wallet thanks to having my chair set up perilously close to the Del's stand, it was awesome.

The festival was held at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI, and started at 11:30 in the morning. We even managed to get there for about 11:30, after waiting only about half an hour for a parking spot. Right off the bat, the festival opened with a legendary name in folk: Ramblin' Jack Elliott. He was fun to listen to (lots of stories, obviously), although not quite as dynamic a musician as some of the others. Other early acts that I took in part of were Tift Meritt and Ben Kweller. Merritt didn't make much of an impression on me, but I rather liked Kweller.

Around lunchtime, I watched Billy Bragg, about whom I have somewhat mixed feelings. He was very… politicized. On the one hand, I agree with him and his songs about why socialized medicine is good and deregulated banking is bad. On the other hand, even a rather staunch social liberal such as myself might want to listen to some music without the prosthelytizing that seems to be part of his music. I also saw a little bit of Tom Morello, who I won't even give a link to. He did not appeal to me.

Well, I'm done with another semester. That finishes off my third year here in Claremont. One to go. Woo.

Well, my job search is over. As of today, I've accepted an offer from Google for a summer internship. I'll be in New York City from June 1^st through August 21^th, working at Google's 9^th Avenue office. I'm not sure where exactly I'll be living (I'm looking to apartments, student housing, etc., but haven't settled on anything yet), but I'll try to keep you, my loyal readers, up to date.

It was a hard decision (I had a few offers, including DreamHost and DirecTV, plus more interviewers interested), but, I mean, it's sort of hard to say …

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Clear blue skies, mid-70's temperature, low smog, completely perfect. So, like any other sane human being, I decided to take a walk. Specifically, I hiked up to the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park, which is a nice little place a few miles north of campus. On the way there, I was really struck by life in California. Here I was, walking along on one of the most beautiful days of the year, and I didn't see more than a half-dozen other pedestrians on the two-and-a-half mile walk up to the park. Of course, I saw several hundred cars, trucks, and SUVs. I saw people driving from their homes on Mills down the street to Vons and back again. It's so weird here – on the one hand, a lot of people seem to be "fitness freaks" and very concerned with "wellness", but on the other hand there's this overbearing car culture…