Sound and Fury

My friend and college roommate Bob works for Google, which is based in Mountain View. I had emailed Bob earlier to see if we could get together for dinner while I was in town. He also offered me lunch at Google, with a link to some beautiful food-porn. How could I turn that down? I couldn't. So we scheduled lunch for Tuesday and dinner for Thursday.

I got up Tuesday morning a bit late - nine am or so. I ate a small bowl of cheerios, and investigated the shower.

I had been warned about the shower. Amy never showers there, as she really only lives at her apartment in theory. Melissa is apparently a fan of cold showers. Both had warned me that the hot water in the shower would burn me. I decided to try it anyway.

The apartment was obviously old. Old enough that the electric range had five discrete setting: "HI 2 3 LO WARM" instead of the usual dial. Yes, 2 was between HI and 3. I still don't know which was higher. But I digress.

I discovered that the hot water was plentiful and reasonable, though it takes its time in heating up. The cold water was a bit weird though. It turned the wrong way - clockwise to increase the cold water flow, and it made strange gurgling noises.

At any rate, I got the water to a reasonable balance, and had an uneventful shower.

Using my cell phone's pitiful Internet connection, I was able to get directions to the Google Plex. I drove there without event. I turned into the lot, and was greeted by a friendly security person. Note that there was no security checkpoint, just a woman in a vest sitting in a lawn chair. At any rate, she directed me to the building I was visiting, and advised me that parking was tight, and I might have to park across the street.

She wasn't kidding. I've worked for a number of different tech companies, and you can always find parking between noon and 1pm. People go out to lunch. But the Google lot was packed. In fact, they actually employ valets to park people in, and then shuffle cars as necessary to retrieve them. The lot was full. So after driving around the Google Plex twice, I found the secondary parking across the street, which appears to be an as-yet unoccupied Google building.

Having parked, I met up with Bob. I signed in at the front desk and printed myself a name tag, proclaiming me a visitor. I also agreed to a non-disclosure agreement. I've never had to sign an NDA for lunch before.

Then Bob gave me the tour. Google's offices are weired. They have free laundry facilities, for one thing. They have a couple of well-appointed gyms (no climbing walls though), a number of kitchen areas, electric scooters that one can check out and zoom about on, a fascinating visualization of search traffic across the globe, the Google Master Plan white board (a flowchart with many fanciful ideas on it - though "Hire Vint Cerf" was on there long before it actually happened), and I think half a dozen cafes.

I spent some time contracting for Intel in high school an college. They have pretty decent food in their cafeterias. But it's nothing like this. I have never seen food this good in a cafeteria setting. I had an Indian catfish curry. It was extremely good. It was approximately as good as the food one gets at an actual Indian restaurant during their lunch buffet.

Another odd thing about Google's food service: it's not contracted out. Normally, someone like Intel will hire someone like Aramark or Mariott to run their cafeteria for them. Google employs chefs.

They were out of metal forks as I was going through the silverware line, so I had to make do with plastic. But it was sturdy biodegradable plastic. Apparently Google has a compost pile. They plan to grow vegetables once it's matured.

Bob was a good employee, and didn't divulge any secrets. He did communicate some interesting tidbits that I did not know, and let me fill in the strategic blanks though. Which was probably more fun.

For example, Google bought DMarc earlier this year. They make the boxes that run most radio stations. You basically queue up play lists on this thing, with slots for live time and ads. And remember: Google, for all it's search-fu, is an advertising company. Radio ads are not a small market. Can Google revolutionize radio ads the way it has web ads? How?

He also wouldn't tell me what's going on in The Dalles. Google is building a facility there - suspiciously close to the Bonneville dam. And no one knows what it's for yet.

So lunch was both tasty and fascinating.

I went back home and lazed about, reading Man in the High Castle by P.K. Dick. Eventually, Amy finished her Spanish final, and was thus done with college. We had pizza and beer to celebrate. It was good.

Amy and Chris managed to convince me to give Halo 2 a shot. As I've experienced in the past, FPS games are not the same without a mouse and keyboard. And your own screen. But it was fun anyway.

That evening was pretty laid back - I think we drank that Troon Rosé and played cards a bit. Then I went to sleep.